Wildcard. Rachel Lee
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her, he reached for the remote and switched on the TV and VCR again. He hit Rewind, and a bewildering array of images flashed before her eyes. Apparently this was one of the security tapes, in full living color.
Suddenly a picture froze on the screen.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“Jerry Connally and Grant embracing.”
“And where’s the agent?”
“Left rear.”
“Right.” He skipped ahead. “And now?”
“Grant’s coming down the steps from the stage with Jerry.”
“Right. And the agent is still on the stage.” Tom jumped forward again. “Still not following them.” Forward again. “He’s still on the stage. If I remember correctly, the other agents in the room stayed where they were, too. Except for the guy in front of the podium.”
Another picture showed that agent turning in the direction Grant and Jerry had gone. The next showed him take a step in that direction. The agent on the podium never moved a muscle.
“Now,” said Tom, “call me crazy, but I want to know why that agent on the stage never moved. You know the protocol for protection teams in a crowd, Miriam. A moving box, with the principal in the middle.”
“The crowd had been vetted, Tom.”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
He switched tapes to one with film of the lobby outside the ballroom. Grant and Jerry appeared in the doorway, stepping out into the crowd. The Secret Service agent was holding the door, eyes on Lawrence.
“It looks innocent enough to me,” Miriam said. “Do me a favor and don’t replay the shooting.”
“I won’t. But it’s not innocent. The agent is looking at Lawrence, see?” He pointed. “They’re trained not to look at the principal but at the crowd.”
“Lawrence is passing him, Tom. It’s a glance. He’s a human being. I’m sorry. I just don’t think there’s enough here to hang the security detail out to dry.”
After a few more minutes of discussion that went nowhere, Miriam went to bed. Tom replayed the news video that Jerry had sent. Only one of the news crews had been in the lobby…giving the world the unforgettable images that were still being broadcast.
Nothing.
Finally, to give his head a chance to clear, he picked up his files and drove back to D.C., where he could work on the Dixon conundrum without disturbing Miriam.
Like any good agent, he’d found an irregularity, and he was determined to run it to ground. So far he had only a probably illegal loan from a major bank to a slightly off-the-edge sheep rancher in Idaho who funded a private militia group that so far seemed to consist of five men and their dogs.
Which wasn’t a hell of a threat to the security of the United States. After Waco and Ruby Ridge, the FBI wasn’t about to ride in with guns blazing over six wackos with some semiautomatic weapons.
But the money…a quarter of a million dollars… That was too much to ignore. And for a while it silenced a small girl’s cry of betrayal.
It was the links. And he’d long ago learned that few links in life were purely accidental. Like attracted like. Harrison Rice had attracted Edward Morgan, whose sister had attracted a military cadet named Wesley Dixon—a man who by all accounts was destined for stars on his shoulders until he went…nuts?
Not nuts. If he was nuts, his wife would have left him and his brother-in-law wouldn’t have risked giving him a shady loan. Ergo, Wes Dixon wasn’t nuts, and nothing about him and his apparently crazy turn in life had caused a break between him and the powerful establishment he’d once belonged to.
That had Tom’s nose twitching like mad. If Dixon still had an in with the power elite, then he must in some way be useful to them. The question was, was he still on the A-list, or had he been demoted?
That was surprisingly easy to learn, thanks to all the security put in place since September 11, 2001. It didn’t take much effort to get his computer to spit out the records of all Dixon’s air travel in the last two years.
It was a pretty picture. It seemed he regularly traveled to New York and Boston, and once to D.C. His wife often traveled with him, but not always. He maintained connections.
Tom sighed and rubbed his eyes, not wanting to admit that he was getting too tired to think clearly. Admitting that would mean going back to his room to sleep, a guest room in Miriam’s house, a room with not one thing to identify it as his own space, even temporarily. Even in the bathroom, his toothbrush and razor were packed away in a travel kit. He was a man far from ready to move on with life, and far too close to his past.
So he got another cup of coffee from the machine, forced himself to drink it, then closed his eyes for a few moments as he tipped back in his chair.
Links. They were there. And for a quarter of a million, they meant something.
He returned his attention to the computer. By now the FBI had the names of all the agents assigned to Grant Lawrence’s protection. And while they had probably only taken statements, since the Secret Service was virtually above reproof, one FBI agent, semi-suspended or not, was going to do some background checking.
It was another link, possibly accidental, but his nose was twitching like mad.
After all, those guys were trained never to look at the principal.
Actium, Greece
31 B.C.E.
Osarseph stood beside his queen and watched the Roman ships doing battle in the clear blue waters below. This was not what he, or his queen, had wanted to see.
Marc Antony, the handsome Roman general whose heart she had won, was watching with a knitted brow, leaning over to an aide, who relayed instructions to a signalman, who in turn stood on the cliff to wave flags in encoded sequence. It was a vain attempt to control what had spun badly out of control.
Since the murder of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra had steered a dangerous course through Roman politics. Ten years had passed since she had arrived in Tarsus and invited the young general to dinner. Since then, she and Antony had increasingly cast their lot together. That much, at least, had gone as Osarseph had planned.
Antony had all but guaranteed that, once he disposed of Octavian, Cleopatra would retain control over Egypt as a sovereign ally of Rome. Indeed, more than once he had hinted at permitting the Ptolemaic Dynasty to rule the eastern half of the empire, while Rome governed the west. With no other power sufficient to challenge her, and the throne of Egypt both secured and enhanced, Cleopatra would be uniquely positioned to permit Osarseph and the Guardians to bring mankind forward into a new age of Light.
Osarseph had no such hopes for Octavian. A hardline Roman to his core, Octavian, if allowed to rule, would enforce Roman law—and, worse, Roman religion—throughout his reach. The prophesies had warned of a religion that would rise from Rome to dominate the world. Though by no means a superstitious man, Osarseph could feel in his bones the tingling of those prophecies emerging on this warm autumn morning.
Antony had hoped for a land battle, his army against Octavian’s. Antony was the better general, and his nineteen legions were better trained and more experienced than Octavian’s largely home-guard force. Weeks before, he had sent his twelve thousand cavalry on a raid to cut off Octavian’s water supply and force his army into battle. The raid had come to naught, and the campaign had ground to a stalemate.
A stalemate that had favored Octavian’s lies, for now Antony’s own troops were hearing rumors of a Roman general who had abandoned Rome for Egypt and a queen-sorceress who held him in thrall. Day by day, desertion and disease bled Antony’s once-proud legions. Finally he had been left with no choice but to meet Octavian in a sea battle. That battle was now proving why it had been Antony’s last resort. His fleet was simply no match