The Devils Teardrop

staring up at the sky with glazed eyes. Kennedy saw the top of his head was missing.
    “Oh, Jesus!”
    Claire gave a gasp as a stream of the man’s blood cascaded down the stairs and pooled inches from her face.
    The agent said “Ahnnnnnn” once more, blew a slick bubble from his mouth. Kennedy took the man’s hand. It quivered slightly. Then it was still.
    Kennedy stood up. He looked past the podium, which Lanier, his aide and another congressman were hiding behind. The Mall was dim—there were no lights on because of the fireworks—but in the headlights from theemergency vehicles Kennedy had a view of the chaos. He was looking for the silhouette of the Digger.
    “What the hell’re you doing in my city?” he whispered. Then his voice rose to a shout, “What the hell are you doing here?”
    “Jerry, get down!” Claire pleaded.
    But he stayed where he was, scanned the field, trying to find the dark form of the killer once more.
    Where was he? Where?
    Then he saw a man in the shadows, walking fast along a row of cherry trees not far from Constitution Avenue.
    He was making for the crowds farther east on the Mall.
    Kennedy stood and pried the pistol from the dead agent’s hand.
    “Oh, Jerry, no,” Claire said. “No! Call on your phone.”
    “There’s no time.”
    “No . . .” She was crying softly.
    He paused, turned to her. Touched her cheek with his left hand and kissed her forehead the way he always did before they shut the light out and went to sleep. Then he leapt over the huddling lumps of a young politico couple and sprinted over the grass.
    He thought: I’m going to have a fucking heart attack, I’m going to have a heart attack and die . . . But he didn’t slow down.
    The familiar sights of the city were around him: The white Washington Monument, the stark cherry trees, the tower of the Smithsonian, the gray neo-Gothic buildings of the museums, the tourist buses . . .
    Kennedy gasped and ran, gasped and ran.
    The Digger was a hundred feet away from him. Then ninety feet . . .
    Eighty feet.
    Kennedy watched the killer move closer to the crowd. He pulled a black machine gun from under his coat.
    There was a shot from the trees to Kennedy’s left. Then another and two more.
    Yes! Kennedy thought. They’ve seen him!
    But suddenly a tuft of grass beside Kennedy flew into the air and another bullet snapped over his head.
    Jesus! They were shooting at him. They’d seen a man with a gun running toward the crowds and assumed he was the killer.
    “No, no!” He crouched then pointed toward the Digger. “It’s him!”
    The killer was in the tree line, moving around to the side of the crowd. In just a minute he’d be only fifty feet from them and could kill hundreds with a single burst from the gun.
    Hell with it. Let’s just hope the cops’re bad shots. Kennedy began to sprint forward again.
    There was one more shot in his direction but then someone must have identified him. Shouts over the bullhorn ordered the officers to cease fire.
    “Get back!” Kennedy was shouting to the crowd.
    But there was nowhere for them to go. They were packed together like cattle. Thousands. Some staring at the fireworks, some looking around, uneasy and confused.
    Kennedy steered toward the trees, his chest on fire, speeding toward the place where he’d last seen the Digger.
    I’m dying, he thought. He pictured himself on the ground, retching in agony as his heart shut down.
    And besides, what on earth am I doing? What kind ofidiocy is this? The last time he’d fired a gun had been at summer camp with his son—thirty years ago. He’d fired three shots and missed the target completely, to the boy’s shame.
    Running, running . . .
    Closer to the tree line, closer to the Digger.
    Agents had seen where he was headed and must have assumed that he was after the killer. A rough line of a dozen men and women in tactical police gear were jogging toward him.
    The Digger stepped out of the bushes, pointing the machine gun toward the crowd. He nodded to himself.
    Kennedy stopped running, lifted Ardell’s pistol and aimed it toward the killer. He wasn’t even sure what to aim at, how the sights on the heavy gun worked. Whether he should aim high or low. But Kennedy was a strong man and he held the gun very steadily in his hand. He remembered how he and his eldest son stood side by side at camp, listening to the camp counselor: “Squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it.” The boys giggling at the