Idly, Nick listened to the security network, Channel 21 on his radio unit, as Phil Mueller held the whole thing together from a Secret Service communications center on the roof of the Municipal Auditorium, which was just off the site of the speech.

“Ah, this is Airport, we have Flashlight on the ground and taxiing toward the hangar.”

“Reading you, Airport, this is Base Six.”

Nick recognized Mueller’s authoritarian voice over the radio; he knew that Howdy Duty would be standing right next to him, really there more for public relations, to keep the Bureau’s profile high, than for any meaningful security reasons. Nick tried to generate some feeling for Utey, pro or con. But he couldn’t get himself to hate the guy, even after Tulsa all those years ago. Hate just wasn’t in Nick, not a bit of it.

“All teams in place, we are waiting momentarily for Flashlight to disembark.”

“Thank you, Airport, please confirm when Flashlight is out of plane and motorcade is proceeding.”

“Reading you and roger that, Base Six.”

“Uh, people, Game time coming up, I want to run a last security check, make sure everybody’s on station. So by the numbers, I want you to check in and give me a sitrep.”

One by one the security units checked in, a torrent of radiospeak and bored, commanding voices crackling and soupy over the distorting radio network – all of them, because Mueller was a stickler. That was three helicopter teams, over fifty men spread around on rooftops, maybe seventy-five police units at various intersections on and nearby the motorcade route, all the high-powered lookout posts in the immediate vicinity of the site, and of course the hot dogs of the Presidential Security Detail, many of whom had come ahead and were already in position on site.

When it came time for Nick, he was on the ball.

“Ah, Base Six, this is Bureau Four, I’m on station on St. Ann, ah, all activity normal, I’ve got nothing on rooftops or any visible window activity.”

“Affirmative, Bureau Four, keep your eyes open, Nick,” said Mueller.

The touch of personal recognition pleased Nick, not that it meant a damned thing.

“Four out,” he said, and went back to eyeballing whatever was around him, which was not much. He squirmed uncomfortably, because the Smith 1076 was held in the Bureau’s de rigueur high hip carry in a pancake holster above his right buttock, and though the pistol was flat, unlike a revolver, it still bit into him. Many agents secretly kept their pistols in glove compartments when they drove around, but it was Nick’s law to always play by every rule, and so he just let the thing gnaw on him under his suitcoat.

As he sat there, Nick phased out the rest of security check-ins, and tried to reassemble his thoughts on the Eduardo Lanzman case, because he wanted to really get cracking on it as soon as Flashlight was out of town. The report from Salvador, just in, had been a disappointment: the Salvadoran National Police had no Lanzman on their rolls, and who up here could prove different? And Nick also had the Bureau research people trying to find something out about this RamDyne outfit he’d picked up on from Till and he thought that -

But then the message came rumbling across the net, “Ah, Base Four, Flashlight has debarked and the motorcade is about to commence.”

“All right, people, let’s look sharp,” said Base Six. “Game time.”

“Ah, Base Four, Flashlight has debarked and the motorcade is about to commence,” Bob heard over the radio. Then, “All right, people, let’s look sharp. Game time.”

“Bob, that’s it, the show’s begun.” It was Payne nearby.

“Okay,” Bob said, “got you clean and simple and am all set.” But he wished he had a rifle and in fact felt like a simpleton without one.

He was a good four hundred yards from the president’s speech in the fourth-floor room of an old house on St. Ann, but he didn’t look toward the park; he looked back, toward and over the French Quarter. Seated at a table, he stared through a Leupold 36× spotting scope that he had carefully aimed at the church steeple still another thousand yards out. It was the steeple from which he’d predicted the shot would come. Payne and a New Orleans uniformed cop named Timmons were with him, Payne on the radio, Timmons just more or less there.

He heard the security people on their network.

“Ah, Base Six, this is Alpha One, we are progressing down U.S. Ten at approximately forty-five miles per hour, our ETA is approximately 1130 hours, do you read?”

“Have you, affirmative,” said Base Six. “Units Ten and Twelve, be advised Flashlight and friends are moving through your area shortly.”

“We have it under advisement, Base Six, everything looking fine here, over and out.”

Bob thought it was like a big air-mobile operation in the ’Nam, an orchestration of elements all moving in perfect syncopation and held together by some command hotshot on the radio network, as the various units through whose sector Flashlight moved called in their reports.

“Ah, Base Six, this is Ginger Dragon Two, we have all quiet in our secure zone at present,” he heard Payne speak into the phone.

“That’s a roger, Ginger Dragon Two, we’re reading you, our apprehension teams are on instant standby.”

“Anything yet?” Timmons now asked him. He was a large, dour man, whose belly pressed outward against his uniform; he seemed nervous.

Bob’s eye was in the scope. Though the target was so much farther out, he could see three ramshackle arched openings under the crown of the steeple, each louvered closed, each dirty and untouched.

“It’s the middle window,” Payne now said calmly.

“I know what window it is,” Bob said. Why were these guys talking so much? “I have no movement.”

“Maybe he’s not there yet,” said Timmons.

“Oh, he’s there. It’s too close to time. He’s there.”

If he’s anywhere, Bob thought, he’s there. He’s sitting very still now and though we can’t see him, he’s drawing himself together for the shot. He’s probably taken as close as can be constructed to this shot a thousand or so times, maybe ten thousand times. I know I would if I were in his shoes. But he’s a little nervous; he’ll want to be alone and he’ll want it quiet. If there are others in the room with him, then they’re just sitting there, not making any noise, letting him accumulate his strength.

According to Colonel Davis, a very skilled FBI embassy penetration team had discreetly planted light-sensitive sensors in the belfry, and the sensors had recorded data to suggest that every night between four and five A.M. a working party of five men entered the room and made preparations. Bob assumed they were soundproofing the walls and building a shooting platform to get the proper angle into the president’s site fourteen hundred far yards away. At the precise moment, three or four of the louvers would be removed; he’d scope and shoot and the team would replace the louvers. The window of vulnerability was maybe ten seconds.

“Ginger Dragon Six, we are beginning our apprehension maneuver.”

“Keep it discreet, apprehension teams.” Bob recognized Colonel Davis, who was running this operation, the one concealed within the larger drama of the president’s arrival and security.

“Fuckin’ A,” said Payne, “they getting ready to nab the sucker.”

Bob looked at his watch; it was only 1115 hours now, still an hour from the shooting event.

“Man, I hope your Federal team has got it together. This is a very nervous cat, he’s got spotters himself making sure he hasn’t been blown.”

“These are the very best guys,” Payne said. “These guys have been training for this one a long time. Lots and lots of dues gonna get paid off today, I can tell you. It’s payback time.”

Something melodramatic and movielike in Payne today irritated Bob.

“Ginger Dragon Two, you have the best angle on the target, you have anything to announce?”