He felt the vibration of the Treo phone in his pocket and grabbed it.

“Hello?”

“Two o’clock works for me. Does it work for you?”

“Two o’clock works.” Gazich pressed the end button, breathed a sigh of relief, and put the phone away.

He kept meandering his way up the street, taking his time, window-shopping as he went. A few minutes later he heard the quick blast of a police siren being flicked on and then off. He looked up the street and watched as one of the DC Metro Police motorcycles eased out into traffic and blocked the northbound lane on Wisconsin Avenue. Gazich flexed his hands several times and asked himself how much closer he dared get. The motorcade would be along shortly. There was a good-sized tree of some sort a little less than a block away. It was about four feet across. Even though the full force of the blast would be directed away from him, there would still be flying debris and a concussion wave that could kill him if he didn’t get cover.

Gazich reached the tree and pulled out the Treo phone. He fished out the small stylus and used it to tap the web browser icon on the screen. A few seconds later he was logged onto the site. He punched in the password and looked up at the motorcycle cop standing in the middle of the street. All that was left to do was hit the send button and the blast would be nearly instantaneous. The cop would be dead for certain, and quite possibly the people in the first several cars he had stopped. There were also shops and apartments directly across the street. There was a chance the limo would block the brunt of the blast, but it was unlikely. A five-hundred-pound shaped charge of Semtex was just as likely to hurl the limousine across the street and send the vehicle directly through the building.

Gazich tried to remember the phrase the American generals used when one of their two-thousand-pound bombs missed its mark and flattened the home of one of his countrymen. The first police car reached the corner and turned toward Gazich, its lights and sirens going. Pedestrians stopped to watch the impressive sight as the motorcade moved from the side street onto Wisconsin Avenue.

The phrase came to him and as the first limousine reached the corner, he smiled and said…“Collateral damage.”

THE TRUTH WAS, her people could do this in their sleep. That was how well trained they were. The candidates stepped out onto the veranda of the mansion and waited for the former Cabinet officials, intel gurus, and generals to join them for one last photo op. Rivera stayed close, but out of the picture. Her entire detail was shifting now. They were a protective bubble that floated with the candidates as they moved. There was one counter sniper team on the top floor. They’d been up there since before sunrise, scanning the windows of the houses across the street, getting the general lay of the land, noting the range of certain targets and identifying the most likely spots for a shooter to set up.

Rivera’s head was on a swivel, her dark sunglasses concealing her dark eyes. She was like a radar sweeping the sky for an incoming raider, except her job was much more difficult. The press was penned in behind some ropes, snapping away, recording tape, and shouting questions. Rivera paid almost no attention to what they were asking. On a subliminal level she was listening to their tone as her eyes scanned everything. Never hovering on any one person for more than a second or two. Most agents did this naturally. A few had to be taught. The ones who didn’t catch on were weeded out. The job was nothing if not instinctual.

Their concern was the nut bag. Their fear was the professional. The nut bag they could detect. They were the ones with the wild eyes, dirty fingernails, and unkempt hair. Occasionally they were women, but mostly they were men. Fidgety, nervous men who paced back and forth. They were for the most part mentally ill, which made them sympathetic, but no less lethal. The professional was an entirely different matter. The lone man who was cool enough to act completely normal right up until the moment he pulled out a gun and blew her candidate’s brains all over the sidewalk. That was why she stayed close.

Today was no big deal. She knew all the faces in the press gallery. They were the only people close enough to do anything, and she had two agents watching them, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. The only other possibility was a shooter from one of the houses across the street, but the odds of them getting an accurate shot off before the counter sniper boys drilled them in the head was negligible. All she had to do was get them down the steps and into the limo and she could relax. The Naval Observatory was only a few blocks away. This was a gravy run compared to the rest of the campaign. No rope lines with hundreds of unscreened people touching the candidates. No banquet hall where she had to escort them through a kitchen with knives everywhere and temperamental chefs sulking over ruined meals. Everything today was controlled.

Rivera saw Garret gesture to the campaign’s press secretary. The woman stepped in front of the cameras and thanked them for coming. Alexander and Ross had done this so many times they no longer needed to be given direction. Both men started down the stairs for the waiting limo. The rear passenger side door was already opened and an agent was standing next to it. Rivera fell in behind the two men and stayed close as they went down the steps. Alexander got in first, followed by Ross and then Garret. Rivera closed the door and looked to her left to check the status of Alexander’s wife. She was sliding into the backseat. Special Agent Cash turned to look at Rivera. It was impossible to tell what his eyes were doing behind his sunglasses, but from the tension in his jaw line it was apparent that he was still in a foul mood. Cash shook his head and then disappeared into the backseat. Rivera didn’t give it a second thought. Egos, feelings, and friendships needed to be put on hold for two more weeks and then they could all get drunk and tell each other off.

Rivera climbed in the front seat, closed the heavy door, and looked at the driver. “Let’s roll, Tim.”

The driver pulled the gearshift into drive and took his foot off the brake. The heavy limousine began to roll along the narrow cobblestone drive. Both vehicles pulled up to the open gate and they turned the emergency lights in the grilles on. The other vehicles were waiting on the street. The limousines eased into the open slots and then Rivera gave the word to pull out. Her eyes kept scanning as they moved. They were as safe as babies in this rolling tank, but habits were hard to break. The old cobblestone street was rough and they were jostled around as they accelerated. They reached Wisconsin Avenue, where traffic was stopped in both directions for five blocks. The limo slowed for the right-hand turn and then accelerated, the twelve-piston 500-hp Detroit engine roaring as they gained speed.

Rivera was looking at the faces of the pedestrians who had stopped to watch the motorcade. All of this was very normal. They referred to it as stopping and gawking. Up ahead, barely half a block down a man caught her eye. He was partially shielded by a tree and holding something. Even though the man was wearing a red baseball hat and sunglasses, she could sense intensity in the way he was watching the motorcade. Suddenly, almost as if he was trying to hide from someone, he disappeared behind the tree. Before Rivera could give it another thought, there was a thunderous explosion, the limousine started to rise in the air, and then everything went black.