The Inside Ring. Mike Lawson

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       10

      The FBI briefing consisted of a single agent equipped with a spiral-bound notebook, and DeMarco could see that Banks was disappointed. The retired general had obviously been expecting a Pentagon PowerPoint presentation with multicolored charts showing maps, shooting angles, and enlarged copies of lab reports.

      The agent, one Gregory Prudom, was a man of medium height with regular features. His hair was short and brown. His blue suit, white shirt, and red-and-gold striped tie were bureaucratic camouflage. He was so nondescript that his own mother couldn’t have picked him out of a lineup. At the same time, he had the air of a man who would hold the line if commanded, never giving an inch until directed to retreat. A titanium cookie cutter down at Quantico stamped out men like Agent Prudom.

      Prudom started the briefing by glancing at DeMarco and saying, ‘General Banks, I was told to extend to you the courtesy of a progress report but I was of the understanding you would be alone. May I ask who this gentleman is?’

      ‘Courtesy, my eye,’ Banks said. ‘I run Homeland Security. I have a need to know.’

      ‘You do, sir, but does this gentleman?’

      ‘Yeah. He’s one of my assistants.’

      Turning to DeMarco, Prudom said, ‘May I see some identification, sir?’ DeMarco smiled at Prudom but didn’t reach for his wallet. This son of a bitch didn’t look like anybody’s assistant, Prudom was thinking; he looked like guys he’d brought up on racketeering charges.

      ‘You don’t need to see his ID, Mr Prudom,’ Banks said. ‘You’ll take my word that he’s properly cleared and with a need to know. Now get on with it.’

      Prudom sat a second pondering his options, looking Banks directly in the eye. He wasn’t intimidated; he was just trying to figure out if bucking Banks was in the Bureau’s best interest.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ he said at last, and opened his notebook. He flipped to a page with a few notes scribbled on it and said, ‘We finally figured out how Edwards pulled it off.’

      ‘That’s great,’ Banks said, but DeMarco thought he looked nervous.

      ‘The day the President was shot,’ Prudom said, ‘the agents never saw the shooter; they weren’t even sure where he fired from.’

      ‘Then what the hell were they shooting at?’ Banks asked.

      ‘The bluff above the river,’ Prudom said. ‘It was the only place that provided any cover so they saturated it with bullets in an attempt to keep the shooter from firing again. They were unsuccessful, as you know, because the shooter fired a third shot after the agents opened fire, killing Agent James, the agent who was lying on top of the President.

      ‘After the third shot, the shooting stopped but no one could get up to the bluff right away to go after the assassin. The remaining Secret Service agents had to get the President into the helicopter so he could be evacuated to the nearest hospital, and two of the three agents accompanied the President in the helicopter. The third agent stayed at the site and—’

      ‘Who was the agent that stayed?’ Banks asked.

      Prudom consulted his notes again. ‘Agent Preston. Anyway, as soon as the helicopter lifted off, the agent, Preston, called the agents guarding the five-mile perimeter around the cabin and told them to start moving in toward the shooting site. After that Preston went up the bluff by himself to go after the shooter. It took him half an hour to climb to the top and by the time he got there the shooter was gone. Or so he thought.’

      ‘What’s that m—’ Banks started to say but Prudom raised a finger silencing him.

      ‘Our forensic people arrived on scene four hours after the shooting but they couldn’t find a thing: no brass, no footprints, no areas where the grass had been trampled down. Everyone figured Edwards had to have fired from the bluff, it was the only thing that made sense, but the Secret Service was adamant they would have spotted the guy. They said they’d patrolled the bluff right up until it was time for the President to leave, and the helicopter that was taking the President back to Washington had been hovering above the bluff until just prior to the President’s departure. Everybody figured Edwards must have done one helluva camouflage job not to be seen on top of that bluff before the shooting, either that or he was the fuckin’ Invisible Man. Excuse me, sir,’ Prudom added for his blue language.

      ‘Go on,’ Banks said.

      ‘From the beginning,’ Prudom said, ‘one of the guys in our lab said the shooting angles didn’t make sense. He did a bunch of computer simulations, and kept saying that in order for the angles to make sense, the shooter would have to have been about three feet below the top of the bluff. Everybody blew the tech off, figuring his calculations were screwed up. Yesterday this tech got permission to fly down to Georgia, and he finds a hole in the side of the bluff, three feet below the top.

      ‘You see,’ Prudom said, excited now, ‘Edwards had burrowed this hole – it was about six feet long and three feet in diameter – into the side of the bluff sometime before the President arrived at Chattooga River. He camouflaged the opening so you couldn’t see it unless you were about two inches away, looking straight at it.’

      ‘Jesus,’ Banks said.

      ‘Yeah,’ Prudom said, abandoning any attempt at formality, ‘this bastard lowered himself over the side of the bluff, probably suspended from a rope, and dug a damn shooting blind into the side of a hill. Based on the timing of the President’s trip, the arrival of the Secret Service’s advance team at Chattooga River to secure the area, and patrols performed СКАЧАТЬ