Max Collins - Target Lancer

Nothing.

“Okay,” I said, getting up and coming around the desk. “Why don’t you drive, then?”

He frowned a little, but politely opened my door for me.

Soon the Secret Service man was behind the wheel of a dark-blue Chevy Impala with me in the passenger seat. No other agent had made the trip with Eben-it was just the two of us. On this cool, overcast day, both in raincoat and hat, we headed a few blocks west to the Northwest Highway, and before long were at Foster Avenue, where the road split; keeping left took you to O’Hare, but Eben headed north onto the Edens Expressway.

He hadn’t said anything since telling me somebody wanted to see me.

We got off the expressway at Lake Street, heading west past ranch-style houses and other nice but not pricey middle-class residences.

Finally he broke the ice. “I was in an interesting meeting this morning.”

“Really. What kind of meeting, Eben?”

“Coordination meeting. They held it in the anteroom of Mayor Daley’s office. Fifth floor of City Hall?”

I knew where Mayor Daley’s office was, but didn’t point that out, just saying, “Ah. You were representing the Secret Service at this meeting?”

Whatever the hell it was about.

He steered with two tight hands. Wouldn’t want that Impala to get away from him like a bucking bronco. “I was there with Special Agent in Charge Martineau. I think the SAIC may have resented my presence, but the White House apparently requested it.”

And he smiled again. Just a little. Eben obviously got a kick out of the boss getting trumped by the Negro’s connections in high places.

I, on the other, was not smiling. The White House?

Eben was saying, “There were three deputy chiefs of police on hand, and Captain Linsky, security liaison between the PD and the SS.”

He meant Secret Service, not Hitler’s elite.

“Your friend Chief Cain was there, Nate, serving in the same capacity as Captain Linksy, but for the sheriff’s department. Lasted a good four hours, the meeting.”

“Did it? Is it a breach of security for you to tell me what the meeting was about?”

Since we’d been discussing it for five minutes.

“Oh. Sorry. Thought I’d covered that. We were mapping out the security plans for the President’s visit Saturday. He’s scheduled to attend the Army-Air Force game at Soldier Field.”

“Yeah, I noticed that on the front page on my way to do the Jumble.”

He ignored that, which was okay-it didn’t really merit anything. “Each deputy chief was assigned an area of responsibility. Patrol Deputy Rochford, the airport. Traffic Deputy Madi, the motorcade route. Captain Linsky, the Conrad Hilton-where the President’s motorcade ends up, and where he and his staff will headquarter for the trip. Chief Cain has the stadium, and various street security functions. The mayor’s special events man, Jack Reilly, was there, too. Extended His Honor’s best wishes for a safe visit.”

We were passing through a section of middle-class businesses, currently gliding by Scott Foresman, the textbook publisher, home of the Dick and Jane primers. See Nate. See Nate ride. See Nate wonder what the fuck was up.

“For a few hours yesterday,” Eben said, eyes on the road, “I was ranking agent in the office. So I was the one who took the call.”

I frowned at him. “What call?”

“From the FBI. Phoning from Washington. The agent on the line said they had information from an informant warning of an attempt to assassinate the President by a four-man team using high-powered rifles.”

“What?”

“The attempt would be made on his way to the Army-Air Force game.”

Eben took a curve and I knocked against my door as Lake Street opened up on the north side into a vast open space-an airfield that pre-dated most of the neighborhood we’d just passed through.

The agent was saying, “The suspects are reportedly right-wing military paramilitary fanatics … armed with rifles with telescopic sights. The assassination itself would likely be attempted at one of the Northwest Highway overpasses.”

“The FBI considers this credible intel?”

“Yes. But I don’t know anything about the informant, except that the agent on the phone mentioned his name is ‘Lee.’”

That college-campus rabble-rouser with Ruby had been named Lee. Coincidence, surely.

“Shortly after the phone call,” Eben continued, “a telex came in, confirming it. A long, detailed telex that went straight to Martineau, who was back in the office by then. I have to admit it surprised me.”

“I would think so. An assassination plot…”

“Well, yes, that does get one’s attention. But, Nate, the FBI seldom cooperates with the Secret Service. We’re rival entities. Yet for some reason, Mr. Hoover seems eager to pass this one along to us.”

That was odd: that aging iguana who ran the FBI would normally relish the opportunity to reap the rewards of the positive publicity saving the President’s life would bring. On the other hand, maybe J. Edgar figured if somebody failed to save the President, let that somebody be the Secret Service.

Eben was shaking his head, rather glumly. “I’m not normally one to pass the buck, but I admit I would prefer this had stayed with the FBI. We’re really understaffed, Nate. Critically understaffed. We have only thirteen men in the Chicago office-many with other assignments. I got pulled off a counterfeiting job, for example. The idea of a group conspiring to do something like this … it blindsides us.”

“Why is that? It’s your job, isn’t it?”

“Well … we frankly are more used to dealing with the cranks who write their crazy letters and make their threatening phone calls. We pull them in, and they’re usually mental cases, perhaps with a cheap handgun and some irrational score to settle. If the President is coming to town, we just keep them locked up till he leaves again.”

The airfield was bordered by a mix of chain-link and solid fencing. A Navy helicopter was on the runway among fighter planes and prop jobs-no jets. A huge old hanger and a control tower loomed.

“Eben, what does any of this have to do with me? And what the hell are we doing at Glenview Naval Air Station?”

The Negro turned onto an access road and headed toward a guard gate.

“You’ll have to ask the man I’ve brought you to see,” he said.

With a faint smile.

Naval Air Station Glenview-NASG, to military types-had begun as a civilian enterprise, the Curtiss-Wright airfield, 450 acres of farmland purchased to build a modern airport outside Chicago’s so-called “smoke belt” of coal-burning industrial plants, railroads, and homes. A grand dedication in October 1929 was followed almost immediately by the stock market crash, from which the facility never recovered.

The Curtiss corporation had given it the old college try, though, like hosting the International Air Races of ’33, an offshoot of the same Century of Progress World’s Fair where Sally Rand had flashed her fans and fanny to fame. I’d supervised the security team for the event, sharing my Pickpocket Detail training with them, as there was a huge crowd attracted by the attending aviation luminaries-the likes of Charles Lindbergh (who I knew well), Jimmy Doolittle, Wiley Post, and Eddie Rickenbacker. Amelia Earhart had to cancel, due to engine trouble in Kansas, but I got to meet her later.

It took the war to make a real go of the airfield, after the Navy purchased the property for a fraction of the $2 million Curtiss-Wright had spent on it in pre-Depression dollars. The massive, famous Hangar One was joined by more hangars, administration buildings, ground schools, barracks, dining halls, and more, as the private airport turned into an in-land training base, taking advantage of Lake Michigan for simulated aircraft carrier landings.