Eagles fly, p.22
Eagles Fly, page 22
“Information, what city please?” a pleasing woman’s voice said.
“Washington,” Kelsey said. “I need the number for the Secret Service.”
“That is the Treasury Department, sir,” the operator said without hesitation, and she gave him the night operator’s number at the Treasury Department.
Marion came out of the bathroom as he dialed the number, and the Treasury Department operator came on the line.
“United States Treasury Department, may I help you?”
“I need to speak with someone in the Secret Service,” Kelsey said, his voice shaky.
“That number is nine-six-four eight-three-five-one, sir. You may direct-dial it.”
“Thanks,” Kelsey mumbled, and he pressed the button down. When he got the dial tone again, he started to dial, but a muffled gasp from Marion caused him to snap around.
She stood in front of the television set, her eyes wide, her color white, and her entire body shaking.
He looked from her to the television set and his heart skipped a beat. On the screen was an artist’s rendering of a scene outside the Oval Office of the White House. A man was hustling another man, obviously Engstrom, back into the office, while another large man was crouched next to what obviously was the body of President Barnes.
Kelsey slowly put the telephone back on its cradle, got up from where he had been sitting on the edge of the bed, went to the television, and turned the sound up. A somber-toned announcer was speaking.
“ … rifle belonging to August Kelsey, president of Kelsey Electronics, Ltd., was found on the roof of the Corcoran Gallery of Art.”
The sketch flashed off and was replaced with another hastily drawn diagram of the view of the White House seen through a telescope from the roof of the art gallery.
“The night guard at the gallery, Robert Bjorkland, was found dead at his desk. The assassin apparently killed the guard, went up the back stairs of the building around ten-thirty-five P.M., and from there assassinated the President as he stood talking with Vice President Stewart Engstrom outside the Oval Office.”
Kelsey looked at Marion, who held her hands over her mouth, stifling her sobs.
He turned back to the television, and this time the shock nearly made his legs collapse under him. His photograph, one taken several years ago, filled the television screen, as the announcer continued.
“Before the FBI cut off further communications with the Kelsey residence, August Kelsey told CBS that his son, this man, Dr. Richard Kelsey, of the Kelsey Institute in Chicago, murdered the Kelsey chauffeur and stole a handgun as well as the high-powered rifle and ammunition that was used to assassinate the President. This happened about ten o’clock in the evening.
“The elder Kelsey managed to tell our reporter that his son had been under a heavy strain recently, and for the past several days had spoken of a plot against Vice President Engstrom as well as President Barnes.
“Unconfirmed reports indicate that Dr. Kelsey, driving a blue Ford van with Illinois license plates, was indeed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art at the same time the night security guard was murdered … apparently to gain access to the building’s roof.”
“It’s happening,” Kelsey said, awed. “It’s actually happening.”
27
It was three o’clock in the morning, and word had just been received by the Speaker of the House that President Barnes had been officially pronounced dead.
The aging, white-haired representative from Arkansas had taken the call in the President’s press secretary’s office down the corridor from the Roosevelt Room, where everyone had been hastily assembled.
There was very little talk in the large room that was just across from the Oval Office, but when the speaker returned, all eyes turned toward him, and a hush fell over everyone.
He walked up to Engstrom, who stood at a podium taken from the press briefing room earlier, and in a loud, very clear voice that nevertheless was cracked with emotion, said: “Mr. President, it is my sad and very painful duty to inform you that the fortieth President of the United States, Philip P. Barnes, was officially pronounced dead by a medical team at Bethesda Naval Hospital at two twenty-four A.M. Under the Presidential Succession Act, the powers, duties, and responsibilities of the President fall on your shoulders. And may God guide your actions.”
There was an awed silence in the room that was filled with two dozen reporters, including three television crews, many of President Barnes’ staff and cabinet members, two of the Joint Chiefs, and the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who stepped forward, a Bible in his hand.
The speaker shook hands with Engstrom, then moved aside for the Chief Justice.
“Mr. President, are you ready to take the oath of office?” the man asked.
“Yes, I am,” Engstrom said. He was still dazed from the events of the past few hours. But beneath that, deeper in his mind, nearer the levels of his subconscious, were a torrent of mixed emotions: fear of the awesome responsibility he was about to take on himself; shock that some madman had assassinated the best President this nation had seen in the past four decades; and oddly, just a wisp of triumph.
The Chief Justice handed the Bible to the speaker, who held it out for Engstrom, who placed his left hand on it and raised his right.
Flashbulbs flicked through the room, and the television video cameras came on as the Chief Justice spoke.
“Repeat after me,” he said, and after a pause he began the oath. “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States …”
Engstrom repeated the first part of the oath, the feeling of triumph building inside of him, but not yet overriding the solemnity of the occasion.
The Chief Justice continued: “ … and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.”
Although the last four words of the oath of office were not set down in the Constitution, they were a tradition that had begun with George Washington. Every President except for Hoover had continued the tradition, as did Engstrom this morning.
When it was done, the Chief Justice lowered his right hand and shook Engstrom’s. “Congratulations, Mr. President, and may I share the sentiment with you that you make your awesome decisions in the coming months from good counsel and your own conscience with God’s help.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice,” President Engstrom said, and then he turned to the assembled gathering, coughed once, and self-consciously pulled at his open collar. There had been no time to change out of his tuxedo, and somehow his bow tie had gotten lost in the shuffle.
“I will hold a briefing for the ladies and gentlemen of the various news media in the press room at two o’clock this afternoon, which will give me a little time to catch up with some of what I’m going to need to know. Thank you.”
President Barnes’ appointments secretary, Robert Pleasance, tears in his eyes, came up to Engstrom and suggested that he meet immediately with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of the CIA for his briefings, after which, at the President’s discretion, he could meet individually with President Barnes’ cabinet members.
“I know you have been through a terrible ordeal tonight, Mr. President, but I feel this is absolutely necessary.”
Engstrom nodded.
“Afterward there will be time for you to get some sleep. I imagine you’re exhausted.”
Engstrom cut him off. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve been getting along on a lot less sleep lately.” He thought a moment. “Despite the inconvenience it may cause, I’ll want to meet with President Barnes’ staff, including you, after the cabinet meeting. I think one at a time will be best. I’ll let you arrange it.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” the appointments secretary said, obviously impressed with Engstrom’s instant organization.
“Also, I want to see the chief of protocol as soon as I’m finished with those items to discuss the proper articles of national mourning and President Barnes’ funeral arrangements.”
Engstrom started to turn away, but then thought of something else. “The President’s wife and family, where are they now?”
“Upstairs, Mr. President, in the Oval Sitting Room. They just arrived.”
“I’m going there now. Have the military and the CIA wait for me in the Oval Office,” Engstrom said, and he turned on his heel, left the Roosevelt Room, and strode down the corridor to the elevator, Secret Service men seemingly everywhere.
Upstairs he crossed Center Hall, knocked once on the Oval Sitting Room door, and went inside to offer his condolences to President Barnes’ family. It was his intention to bunk in the Blair House behind the White House for as long as the family wanted to remain here. Although he could not accurately remember his feelings of grief at the death of his wife almost two years ago, he knew that it had been a terrible blow to him from which it had taken many months to recover. The first few days especially were a traumatic time, and he wanted to put President Barnes’ wife and children through as little strain as possible.
One thing was certain, though, and it was a feeling that was growing stronger and stronger in his mind: His administration would be run differently from Barnes’. Barnes had been a great President, but he had never really had a strong grasp of foreign policy. International goodwill and cooperation were the key concepts toward a goal of peace; harmony between nations and worldwide unity would be his bywords.
28
“Stewart Wordsworth Engstrom became the forty-first President of the United States in a brief swearing-in ceremony just moments ago in the Roosevelt Room across the corridor from the Oval Office,” the television announcer said as the picture flashed away from the White House back to the studio in New York.
Kelsey and Marion sat side by side on the end of the bed, where they watched the news bulletins and the ceremony in stunned disbelief, neither of them trusting themselves to speak.
“In a brief announcement following the administration of the oath of office by Chief Justice Warren Burger, President Engstrom informed the press corps that he would hold his first news conference at two o’clock this afternoon, eastern standard time.”
Beyond the first mention of Kelsey’s name, which they had caught a few minutes after they had entered their motel room, nothing else had been said about him, although the details of the assassination that had been made available to the television networks had been rehashed at least a dozen times in the hours they had been watching the screen in the darkened room.
“President Barnes had been kept technically alive for the first three hours after his transportation to Bethesda Naval Hospital, but at two twenty-four A.M. the team of specialists who had been laboring to save his life announced that the President was dead.
“The brief announcement said that as of two twenty-four A.M. eastern standard time, no evidence of brain wave activity could be detected from electrodes placed on the President’s skull.
“President Barnes was the first President to be assassinated since John F. Kennedy was killed November twenty-second, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, and the first President to be murdered while on White House grounds.”
Kelsey suddenly got up and went to the window that faced the highway, pushed back one edge of the heavy drapes, and looked out. The motel vacancy sign illuminated the edge of the parking lot, its red light spilling out onto the empty highway.
Most of the country was sleeping at this moment, and yet in Washington and elsewhere, men were awake, beginning the search for him. The FBI, certainly, and the Secret Service would be taking up the search. But even more significantly, his father’s men would be looking for him.
He turned that thought over in his mind, his back toward Marion, who still sat on the edge of the bed. He could feel her eyes on him.
The FBI or the Secret Service would listen to him. If he turned himself in and could be protected long enough, they could check his story and would find the inconsistencies. Sooner or later they would force Engstrom to submit to a physical examination, and the plot would be uncovered.
But the key was to be protected long enough for all of that to happen.
If his father’s men got to them first, they would be as good as dead. His father’s people could not afford to leave him alive. At this very moment the organization would be fanning out across the countryside in ever-widening circles from Washington.
“Kill them on sight,” the orders would be.
The papers would report the incident in the morning editions, comparing their deaths to Lee Harvey Oswald’s death at the hands of Jack Ruby.
Investigations would be ordered, another Warren Commission would be convened, and the conspiracy theories would blossom and race across the country as they had after 1963.
But like that time, nothing would come of it. The commission would report that Dr. Richard Kelsey, working alone, had assassinated President Barnes. Unbalanced, would be the cause given. He cracked under the strain of his work.
He turned away from the window and looked at Marion. And then what would happen? What was happening in the White House at this very moment with Locke, whoever he really was, as the President of the United States?
The Army officer with the black attaché case containing the war authorization codes would be sitting outside the door of a man who was in reality in the employ of a group of desperate, ruthless men. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency would be briefing an imposter on the innermost secrets of the nation. President Barnes’ cabinet members, in a scramble to save their own positions, would be giving the new President their best counsel, trying to befriend the man, their eyes blinded by the power of the office.
The man sits in the Oval Office; he must be the President of the United States. Thinking otherwise is insanity.
“What are we going to do, Richard?” Marion asked.
Pursuit. Someone should have come after them by now. They had no car, nor had they taken one of his father’s from the driveway.
It had to be obvious in which direction they had gone on foot. Within minutes after they had left the house, the sirens had sounded close. At that point his father should have been telling the authorities about the woods behind the house, and beyond that, the university’s maintenance garages.
Someone should have checked with the university and discovered that a pickup truck was missing. The description and license number should have been radioed in all directions, and roadblocks should have been set up.
But none of that had happened. And something else was forcing its way into his consciousness. Something the newsman on television had said earlier.
Before the FBI had cut off communications with his father, he had told newsmen that his son had spoken about a plot against the President and vice president. He had told them that his son had killed his chauffeur. And that his son had taken a handgun from his private secretary and the elephant gun and shells from his collection.
Someone had found the rifle on the roof of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, where the assassin had also killed the night security guard. The assassin was Dr. Richard Kelsey.
He tried to think.
The assassin was Dr. Richard Kelsey. Unconfirmed reports placed him at the art gallery. Driving a blue Ford van with Illinois plates.
That was it! A blue Ford van. The FBI would have issued an all-points bulletin for a blue Ford van, not a University of Maryland pickup truck.
Which meant his father had deliberately misled the FBI so that his own people could get to his son first.
He leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window, one hand on the edge of the drape he had pushed aside.
Something was wrong with that thinking, too. It was too loose. Too many things would have to be left to chance.
This was a big country. The only hope of catching Kelsey would be an all-points bulletin with his photograph and a description of the vehicle he was driving. He could have gone in any direction. It would take an army of people looking for him.
But his father had deliberately misled the authorities into believing that he was driving a Ford van. Why?
There was little doubt in Kelsey’s mind that the real assassin had indeed been driving the van with Illinois plates. And it is not beyond his father’s powers to have the van registered in his son’s name.
But where was the real assassin and the van at this instant?
For a moment he let his mind drift around his image of his father, and automatically a wave of love for the old man washed through him.
He had always thought he knew his father pretty well. But last night he had learned differently. How well did his father know him? Enough to know that his son, when in trouble, would run for familiar territory—the Midwest: Chicago, Lake Geneva, Minneapolis?
He straightened up and turned once again toward Marion, letting the heavy drape fall back across the window, but not moving from where he stood in the shadow.
The FBI was looking for him; there was no doubt of that in his mind. They had his photograph, and they had been told by his father that he had taken the rifle that had killed the President. Nor would he be able to convince the FBI any differently, because Wilson Grant, the head of the Bureau’s special investigative branch, was evidently either a friend of his father’s or a member of his father’s organization.
The FBI was out.
The Secret Service worked hand in hand with the FBI, and their first loyalty was to the President. President Engstrom. The imposter. They would never believe Kelsey.
Both services would be looking for him. But their search would be hampered by the fact they believed he was driving a blue Ford van, which would probably be found within the next few hours in any direction other than west. The real assassin would have abandoned the van in New York or Baltimore. Probably not far from an airport or a train station or a bus depot. And the search would intensify in that direction.
