Patterson, James - Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

No regrets.

The motorcade began to move right on time. It was what the Secret Service called “the formal package motorcade.” There were twenty-eight cars. Six held counterassault teams. One Car, “Intelligence,” held computers to keep contact with surveillance on known threats to the President. I wondered if Jack and Jill had the schedule, even the number of cars.

The motorcade's limos and town cars rode at almost perpendicular angles out of the steep hotel garage. Manhole covers clattered loudly under our tires. The route to the auditorium began on Park Avenue, then jogged west along Forty-seventh Street to Fifth.

I rode with Don Hamerman, two cars behind the President.

Even Hamerman was subdued and distant that morning. Nothing had happened yet. Could Jack and Jill possibly have changed their plan? Was this part of covering their trail? Would they surface when we began to doubt that they would? Would they surprise me and attack the motorcade?

I watched everything out the car window. The morning was an eerie, out-of-body experience. The people lining the street were enthusiastic, clapping and cheering as the motorcade passed by. That was one reason why President Byrnes had decided he couldn't hide in the White House any longer. The people, even New Yorkers, wanted a piece of him. He was a good president so far, a popular one, a courageous one, too.

Who wanted to kill Thomas Byrnes, and why? There were so many potential enemies, but I kept returning to the President's own list. Senator Glass, Vice President Mahoney, a few reactionaries in Congress, powerful men connected to Wall Street. He had said that he was trying to change the system, and the system fiercely resented change.

The system fiercely resented change!

Police sirens wailed and seemed to be everywhere around us.

It was a screaming wall of noise that was just right for the occasion.

My eyes drifted back and forth between the cheering crowds and the quickly moving line of cars, the presidential motorcade.

I was a part of it, and yet I also felt disconnected. I couldn't help thinking of Dallas, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. King. The past tragedies of our country. Our sorrowful history.

I couldn't take my eyes off Stagecoach.

It struck me as almost impossible, as unthinkable, that two of the three major assassinations remained mysterious and unsolved in most people's minds. Two of the three major murder cases of our century had never been satisfactorily cleared.

The VIP garage underneath Madison Square Garden was a concrete bunker, which was painted bright white. There must have been a hundred Secret Service and New York police gathered there to meet us. The Secret Service agents all wore earphones that plugged them into the Service's cellular net.

I watched Thomas and Sally Byrnes slowly get out of their armored car. I watched the President's eyes. He seemed steady and confident and focused. Maybe he knew exactly what he was doing; maybe his way was the only way for this to go.

I was less than a dozen feet away from the President and his wife. Every second they were out in the open seemed an eternity There were too many people there in the parking garage. Any of them could be a killer.

The President and Sally Byrnes were smiling, talking smoothly and easily to important well-wishers from New York. They were both very skilled at this. They understood the tremendously important ceremonial role of the office. The symbolism and the absolute power. That was why they were here. I very much liked their sense of duty and responsibility Nana was wrong about them. I was convinced they were decent people trying to do their best. I understood how difficult their jobs were. I hadn't realized this before I came to the White House.

Nothing must happen to President Byrnes or Sally Byrnes, I thought -- as if an act of will could stop an assassin's bullet, stop terrible things from happening there in the garage or upstairs in the packed Felt Forum.

Any one of these people could be Jack or Jill, I kept thinking as I watched the crowd.

Get the President and his wife out of here. Do it now! Let go, let go.

The Kennedy Center in D.C. The shooting of the law student, Charlotte Kinsey, in a public place, just like this! My mind kept going back to that particular killing.

Something had happened there, something revealing about Jack and Jill. The pattern had been broken! What was the real pattern?

We began to walk upstairs to the jam-packed auditorium.

If Jack and Jill are willing to die, they can succeed here. Easily!

And yet it seemed to me that they planned to get away with this. That was the one pattern of theirs that was consistent. I didn't see how that could happen in the middle of Madison Square Garden -- not if they chose to attack here.

The real Jack and Jill -- the President and the First Lady of the United States had arrived. On time.

A DROP OF SWEATslowly rolled off the tip of my nose.

A tractor-trailer was sitting on my chest.

The thunderous noise coming from inside the concrete-and-steel auditorium added to the escalating confusion and chaos.

It was decibels beyond deafening once we were inside. Nearly ten thousand people had filled the auditorium by the time we arrived.

I moved toward the main auditorium stage with the rest of the security entourage. Secret Service agents, FBI, U.S. marshals, and New York police were posted everywhere around the President.

I searched everywhere for Kevin Hawkins. Hopefully, at his side, Jill.

President Byrnes never let his smile or his step falter as he entered the auditorium. I remembered his words: “A threat by a couple of kooks can't be permitted to disrupt the government of the United States. We can't allow that to happen.”

It was warm in the building, but I was in a cold sweat -- as cold as the winds blowing off the Hudson River. We were less than thirty yards from the massive stage that was filled with celebrities and well-known politicians, including both the governor and the city's popular mayor.

Cameras flashed blinding light everywhere, from every imaginable angle. Awhine of feedback lashed out from one of the stage microphones. I adjusted a five-pointed star on the left lapel of my suit jacket. The star was color-coded for the day. It identified me as part of the Secret Service team. The day's color was green.

For hope?

Jack and Jill had kept all their.promises so far. They could have found a way to get weapons inside. There were at least a thousand handguns, but also rifles and shotguns inside the huge amphitheater. The police and other security guards had them.

Any one of them could be Jack or Jill.

Any one of them certainly could be Kevin Hawkins.

Don Hamerman was at my side, but it was too loud for us to talk in anything approaching normal tones. Occasionally, we leaned close and shouted into each other's ear.

Even then, it was difficult to hear more than an isolated word or phrase.

“He's taking too long to walk to the stage!” Hamerman said. I think that's what he said.

“I know it. Tell me about it,” I shouted back.

“Watch the crowd movement,” he yelled at me. “They'll stampede if they see a gun pulled. President's spending too much time out in the crowd. Is he taunting the killers? What does he think that he has to prove?”

The chief of staff was right, of course. The President seemed to be daring Jack and Jill. Still, we might get lucky with the trap inside the crowded hall.

Suddenly, the crowd did start to stampede! The crowd began to part.

“Kill the son of a bitch! Kill him!” I heard the shouts a row or two ahead. I moved quickly, pushing, clawing my way forward in a hurry.

“Watch it, you bastard !” a woman turned and yelled in my face.