Jack & Jill

they were doing now, every step, had been anticipated and was necessary for
kamikaze
to work.
    “She’s a Grand Old Flag” began to play from the loudspeakers, and Hawkins clapped along with the others. He was a patriot, after all. No one might believe it after today, but he knew that it was so.
    Kevin Hawkins was one of the last true patriots.

CHAPTER
90

    NO ONE stops an assassin’s bullet.
    There was a fire burning inside my chest I was moving quickly through the crowd—searching for Kevin Hawkins everywhere.
    Every nerve in my body was stretched tight and burning. My right hand rested on the hard butt of my Glock. I kept thinking that any one of these people could be Jack or Jill. The handgun seemed insubstantial in the huge, noisy crowd.
    I had made it to the second row, just to the right of the ten-to twelve-foot-high stage. The light in the hall seemed to be fading, but maybe it was the light inside my head. The light inside my soul?
    The President was just stepping onto the gray metal stairs. He clasped the hand of a well-wisher. The President patted the shoulder of another. He seemed to have forced the idea of danger out of his mind.
    Sally Byrnes climbed the stairs in front of her husband. I could see her features clearly. I held the thought that maybe Jack and Jill could, too. Secret Service agents seemed to take up all the available space around the stage.
    I was there when it finally happened.
I was so close to President Byrnes.
    Jack and Jill struck with a terrible vengeance.
    A bomb went off. The loudest imaginable clap of thunder struck near the stage—maybe even on the stage itself. The explosion was completely unexpected by the bodyguards surrounding the President. It detonated
inside
the defense perimeter.
    Chaos! A bomb instead of gunfire! Even though the auditorium had been swept for bombs just that morning,
I was thinking as I rushed forward. I noticed that my hand was bleeding —probably from the earlier tussle with the nutcase, but maybe from the bomb.
    The worst imaginable sequence of actions began to unfold, and in very fast motion. Pistols and riot-control shotguns were pulled out everywhere in the crowd. No one seemed to know where the bomb had hit yet, or how, or the actual calculations of damage done.
Or what purpose the explosion was meant to serve?
    Everyone dropped to the floor in the first twenty rows and up on the stage.
    Thick black smoke billowed toward the ceiling, the glass roof, and overhanging steel girders.
    The air smelled like human hair burning. People were screaming everywhere. I couldn’t tell how many were hurt. I couldn’t see the President anymore.
    The bomb had detonated close to the stage. Very close to where President Byrnes had been standing, shaking hands and chatting, just a few seconds before. The ringing was still vibrating in my ears.
    I frantically pushed my way toward the stage. There was no way to tell how many people had been injured, or maybe even killed, by the blast. I still couldn’t locate the President or Mrs. Byrnes because of the smoke and the bodies suddenly in frenzied motion. TV cameramen were wading in toward the disaster scene.
    I finally spotted a cluster of Secret Service agents huddled tightly around the President. They had him up on his feet. Thomas Byrnes was alive; he was safe. The agents were starting to move him out of harm’s way. The Secret Service bodyguards acted as a human shield for the President, who didn’t appear to be hurt.
    I had my Glock out, pointed up at the rafters for safety. I shouted, “Police!”
    Several other Secret Service agents and NYPD detectives were doing the same thing. We were identifying ourselves to one another. Trying not to get shot, trying not to shoot anybody else during the terrifying confusion. Several people in the crowd were crying hysterically.
    I kept pushing and pulling my way toward the southwest side exit that the Secret Service had used to bring the President in. The escape route had been established beforehand.
    Beyond the glowing red EXIT sign, a long concrete tunnel led to a special visitors’ parking area on the river side of the building. Bulletproof, armor-plated cars were waiting there.
What else might be waiting?
I wondered. A voice in my head shouted for attention as I moved forward as fast as I could.
Jack and Jill have always been a step ahead of us. They missed him! Why did they miss?
    They don’t make mistakes.
    I was less than a dozen yards from the President