6

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VIKKI KIDD STROLLED toward the nearest rise of a rolling hillside and followed the crowd as it approached the John F. Kennedy Memorial. Another woman silently drew alongside her. She had come from the direction of the Viet Nam Memorial, and like Vikki, mingled with the crowd in a pilgrimage of remembrance.

Neither had been born when the 35th President of the United States was taken out by a marksman hunkered down at the Texas School Book Repository in Dallas. The assassination of any leader is tragic, but the assassination of an American President in relatively modern times is a stain on history, especially when the event was filmed by an amateur photographer in living color. Though grainy and taken from a distance, the video was widely available and clearly showed the moment of impact when JFK was first hit by two bullets before the third and deadly bullet blew apart his skull while his fashion-plate wife sat beside him. She was close enough to him to be hit as well but gratefully wasn’t. The shock of having her husband die in her arms was punishment enough. To escape the carnage, she clawed her way out of the back seat and made it as far as the trunk of the moving convertible before a Secret Service agent came to her rescue. The image was destined to outlive generations and indelibly scar the soul of a nation.

“I thought you might not show up,” Vikki said to the woman. They pretended to be unacquainted with one another, as if their walking beside each other was just a coincidence.

“I didn’t think I would either,” Janey Matheson said.

While paying respects at the gravesite of John Sessions, they had caught sight of each other from afar. Vikki first met the deputy director at a casual political gathering. Since both were divorcees raising teenagers, they had much in common. It became a springboard. They exchanged pleasantries for the most part but also made comment about politically charged news items of the day. In that brief exchange, both had assessed the other as possible conduits for exchanging information. Only a few weeks after their initial encounter, Matheson tracked down the journalist’s phone number. Since then, they had spoken to each sporadically while laying a foundation for further communications.

“What changed your mind?”

“Not sure why,” Janey said. Her mouth had turned down as if swallowing something distasteful. “Okay, I do know why. John wasn’t just a colleague. He was a friend. One of the good guys. He had integrity, you know. Few in this town can say that. I think ... no, I know ... I would have trusted him with my life. I can’t let him go out with just a whimper. I want to shout it out.”

Long lines of public mourners snaked along the walkway that would deliver them to the resting place of President Kennedy and his family. Vikki and Janey walked along with them, just two women of differing heights in a subdued crowd. Janey was a plain-featured woman, her hair parted on the side and falling into two straight plaits to her shoulders. The somber gray suit she chose for an equally somber occasion was utterly unflattering. The skirt stopped just above her knees, emphasizing thick calves and wide thighs. The one-inch heels of her scuffed pumps did nothing for her already short height.

“You were talking to Soderberg,” Vikki said, breaking the silent impasse between them. “How do you know him?”

“In passing.” She was being cagey. “All right, more than just in passing. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I was going for my graduate degree. He was a visiting professor. Almost a hero. In my eyes anyway. He’d been with the State Department for years and survived, something I aspired to. I took his course in foreign relations. What can I say? We hit it off. He was away from home. Long distance marriages are almost never successful. We ended our relationship, if you could call it that, almost as quickly as it began.”

They reached the memorial and paused to reflect. The grave of President Kennedy faced northeast toward the Washington Monument. At moments such as these, when one reflects on the brevity of life, the frailty of man, the fragility of human existence, and the fates of great men, it was natural to take the long view by linking the past and the present with the future. If an acting president could be assassinated in the modern age, no one was safe. The eternal flame Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy requested for her husband’s grave flickered yet. She was buried alongside him, partnered with her husband in death even if not always in life. Two of their children were interred close by, a small white cross marking the location of their still-born daughter and a small headstone indicating the site of a son born prematurely. The president’s brothers also lay nearby, Bobby only fifty feet away, himself the victim of a lone assassin, and Teddy a hundred feet distant. The ashes of John F. Kennedy Junior did not lie with his family since his ashes along with those of his wife were scattered at sea off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

They meandered away from the memorial. After a brief silence, Vikki asked, “You’ve been with HID for how long?”

“You probably know better than me.”

Vikki smiled. “Eleven years. Long enough to know just about everything.”

She hedged. “Not quite everything.”

“For instance, what do you think about the Tobias kidnapping?”

Janey’s eyes slid sideways. Then she laughed, skittish, fearful of someone or something. “You’re so certain it really was a kidnapping?”

“If murdered, the remains of his body would have been found by now. No, they took him.”

She shivered inwardly, holding her breath, shaking off her qualms. “What should I know about Tobias? I’m just in research.” She was being evasive. To speak the truth was to accept the obvious.

“Why he was kidnapped. Where he is. And who’s holding him.”

She thought about it. Thought about putting anything into words that couldn’t be taken back once spoken. Vikki could see it in her eyes. Terror. Terror of the unknown. Terror, even, of the known. “I have my theories.”

“From my information, Tobias set up special operations.”

“And became a victim himself. Ironic, don’t you think?”

“You’re sure of that? Sure of HID’s involvement?”

“I have no direct knowledge. Everyone denies it. Except ....” Her voice trailed off.

“Except Tobias knew something. Had to know something. True? Or not true?”

“It’s what he didn’t know.”

“Okay,” Vikki said, taking the bait. “What didn’t he know?”

“His phone was tapped.”

“You have direct knowledge?”

“None. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Vikki paused to consider. “Who set up Coyote?”

“Was he set up?” Matheson was being evasive again. Throughout their conversation, she repeatedly glanced over her shoulder, scrutinized strangers, focused on anyone acting suspiciously, made sure no one was eavesdropping. She was probably scared of her own shadow. Given the company she kept, she should be.

“Sessions must have known something. Did he mention anything?”

She hesitated before saying, “I believe he spoke with someone earlier in the evening, someone who gave him a heads-up about the article.” Without saying it, Janey was referring to herself.

“Has this person told the authorities?” Vikki asked.

“What good would it do?” Janey compressed her lips, rationalizing, and then shook her head, more to cast off lingering doubts than to deny involvement. “He didn’t confide in me. I only know he and Brandon were on the outs. It was an all-out war. About what, I couldn’t say. I’m the last to know anything. But I’ll tell you this. I worked closely with John. His death came as a shock. He’s the last person who would have killed himself. Even if he reached rock bottom ... for what reasons I wouldn’t know ... he would have chosen a cleaner way. Even if it sounds histrionic or self-serving or whatever, I want ... no, I need ... answers. When Milly was killed, I cried. God knows how I cried. For Milly. And for Jack. It was one of those horrible things that happen to other people, not to us. Everyone wrote off Jack. I didn’t. I’m not that naïve. Or stupid. I was almost ... almost, mind you ... prepared to accept it, railing against the gods as I did. But when we found out Harry disappeared, too, and on the same night ....” Shaking her head, she paused for a moment. Glanced down at the pathway beneath their feet. Swept her eyes out toward the unspoiled battle array of dead soldiers, there lingering. And finally turned toward Vikki. “I don’t believe in coincidences. I was suspicious. More than suspicious. Because everybody else seemed to accept what happened, I took the coward’s way out and didn’t say anything. I should have then. But when John―” Once again, she shook her head, her face pale and drawn. “I gave him a heads-up about the article that night. If it hadn’t been for me―” She shook her head.

“It would have happened anyway.”

It took a while for her to regain her composure, her body quaking, her eyes moist. She shivered away her despair. “I was terrified before. Now I’m pissed off. I’ve been doing what I can. Working behind the scenes. I want to expose whoever put out the order. Because whoever he or she is, is a traitor.” She shrugged away her shivers. “I’m putting myself at risk. But hell, aren’t we all? If this could happen to John, it could happen to any of us. For me, though, this is personal. Damned personal.”

Instinctively, she grabbed Vikki’s hand and squeezed it, telling her without words that she didn’t feel quite so damnably alone. Afterwards she lifted her head and walked away, looking neither left nor right but focusing her vision straight toward the horizon, head held high.