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“Somebody told me you used to be a spotter. I want you to be mine.”
“These other FBI guys are far better trained, Matt. I—”
He held up a hand.
“I’m sure they are, but I don’t know them. I know you. You’re old-school like me, Mike. I need someone beside me who knows that quit ain’t ever an option.”
He held out the spotting scope in its case carefully, with both hands.
“Will you do it?” he asked.
I stared at the case, at the terrible look in his blue eyes.
“Of course,” I said as I took the case.
Chapter 81
As the president’s motorcade made its long, slow loop out of JFK miles to the east, the British assassin and his wife burst out of the southeast end of Central Park at a run, caught the green, and crossed Fifth Avenue.
They were layered up in the latest cold weather running clothes: black North Face skullcaps, Capilene shirts and pants, neon-yellow Brooks running jackets that matched their flying ASICS. Coming east in the street down 58th, past midtown’s early morning delivery and garbage trucks, they looked just like they wanted to look. Like another high-flying yuppie couple getting in their essential morning run before work.
They arrived at Madison and crossed it and then hooked a right a block down, onto Park.
The British assassin looked up at the MetLife Building looming now in front of them as they ran toward it. Then he forced himself to stop looking at it, and shook his head.
No thoughts about past failures. No room for that. Not today, of all days.
As they came across 57th Street, they could see the security already amassed around the Waldorf.
They hooked a left, east down 56th, to Lexington, and then crossed that, and then, after another block, crossed Third. Between Third and Second Avenues, they paused for the briefest of moments to scan the dump truck.
They had parked the monster the night before, and it was just as they had left it. Nothing awry.
They exchanged a quick tense glance as they made the corner of Second Avenue. It was almost impossible to consider what they were about to do today. History was literally in the making, and they were the ones making it. All systems were go.
They did their stretches out in front of the Starbucks on Second, noting their progress on their Fitbits like good yuppies. Once inside, she waited at a couch by the window while he arrived with their Venti blacks and the Times. They sat reading for twenty minutes.
He took a breath before he folded the Metro section and placed it on the table. He stood and looked at her.
She looked back then, leaned forward, and grabbed his hand fiercely.
He squeezed back. Then he was back out in the cold, and a taxi was pulling up.
“Yeah?” said the hack as the British assassin sat.
He could see his wife through the window. His heart faltered, then fluttered. A bad feeling came over him. A premonition? Or was it just nerves?
Maybe they didn’t have to. Maybe…
“Yo! Where to?” said the driver.
The Brit looked at his wife again.
“Sixty-Ninth and Second,” he said, and then he closed his eyes and his wife was gone.
Chapter 82
Brian Bennett was in fourth period Latin class when he smelled the french fries.
