Jack & Jill

the Peninsula Hotel in the West Fifties. It was ten past six in the morning. The Peninsula was a little more than twenty blocks from Madison Square Garden, where President Byrnes was scheduled to appear at twenty-five past eleven. The
New York Times
was just being delivered into the hotel lobby. He caught the headline: JACK AND JILL KILLERS FEARED IN NEW YORK AS PRESIDENT VISITS. He was impressed. Even the
Times
was on top of things.
    Then Jack saw Jill. Jill was right on time in the lobby.
Always on time.
She was at the Peninsula according to plan.
Always according to plan.
    She had on a silver-and-blue jogging suit, but she didn’t look as if she’d raised a sweat coming up from the Waldorf. He wondered if she had run or walked. Or maybe even caught a Yellow Cab.
    He didn’t acknowledge her in any way. He stepped into a waiting elevator and took it to his floor. Sara would take the next elevator.
    He let himself into his room and waited for her. A single knock on the door. She was on schedule. Less than sixty seconds behind him.
    “I look terrible,” she said. Sara’s first words, it was so typical of her self-effacing tone, her view of herself, her vulnerability.
Sara the poor gimp.
    “No, you don’t,” he reassured her. “You look beautiful, because you
are
beautiful.” She didn’t look her best, though. She was showing the terrible strain of these last hours. Her face was a mask of worry and doubt, too much makeup and mascara and bright red lipstick.
D day.
She’d sprayed her blond hair, and it looked brittle.
    “The Waldorf is hopping already,” she reported to him. “They think an assassination attempt definitely will be made today. They’re ready for it, at least they think they are. Five thousand regular New York police, plus the Secret Service, the FBI. They have an army on hand.”
    “Let them think they’re ready,” Jack said. “We’ll see soon enough, won’t we? Now come here, you,” he smiled. “You don’t look terrible at all. Never happen. You look ravishing, Sara. May I ravage you?”
    “Now?” Sara weakly protested. It was a whisper. So tiny and vulnerable and unsure. But she couldn’t resist his strong, reassuring embrace. She never had been able to, and that was part of the plan as well. Everything had been anticipated, which was why they couldn’t fail.
    He slid out of his running shirt, exposing a glistening-wet chest. All the tufts of his hair were damp with sweat. He pressed up against Sara. She arched her body hard against him. Their pulses were racing.
Jack and Jill. In New York. So close to the end.
    He could feel her heartbeat quickening, like a small hunted animal’s. She couldn’t help it. She was so scared now, legitimately so.
    “Please tell me that we’ll see each other again, even if we won’t. Tell me it isn’t over after today, Sam.”
    “It won’t be over, Monkey Face. I’m as frightened as you are right now. To feel this way is normal, and sane. You’re very sane. We both are.”
    “In a few hours we’ll be on our way out of New York. All of this Jack and Jill will be behind us,” she whispered. “Oh, I do love you, Sam. I love you so much that it’s scary.”
    It was scary. More than Sara could possibly know. More than anybody ought to know,
or ever would.
History wasn’t for the general public—it never had been.
    Slowly and carefully, he slid a Ruger from the rear waistband of his sweatpants. His hands were sweaty. He was holding his breath now. He placed the gun against Sara’s head and fired at a slightly downward angle into her temple. Just one shot.
    A professional execution.
    Without passion.
    Almost without passion.
    The Ruger was silenced. The noise in the hotel room was no more than a tiny, insignificant spit. The harsh impact of the 9mm bullet took her out of his arms. He shivered involuntarily as he looked down on the lifeless body on the hotel rug.
    “Now it’s over,” he said. “The pain of your life is over, all the bitterness and hurt. I’m sorry, Monkey Face.”
    He put the final note in Jill’s right hand. Then he squeezed her fist so that the note crumpled naturally. He held Sara’s hand for the last time.
    And Jill came tumbling after.
He thought of the words in the children’s rhyme.
    But Jack would not fall down.
    The day of ultimate madness had begun.
    Jack and Jill had finally begun.

Part VI

    Nobody Is Safe Anymore—Nobody

CHAPTER
87

    THE THICK DOCUMENT in my hands was entitled
Visit of the