“All right,” he mused aloud under the hubbub of the crowd, jingling the little rocks of uncut diamonds in his pocket. “So she’s a success.” That just proved she was a seasoned propagandist, not a sniper. Only a professional could have pulled this off . . . and she’d charmed the First Lady, to boot. They kept putting their heads together in conversational lulls onstage, sharing some private joke. Let’s see how you’re smiling by the time we hit Los Angeles, thought the marksman. It was the new plan: slip into the cortege of hangers-on shadowing the presidential entourage as it snaked west and insert himself so that he became part of the scenery, unremarkable and unremarked upon. He’d already contacted Pocket Square, made sure his name passed the First Lady’s security without a hiccup. No one would give him a second glance, and he’d have all the time in the world to stay in the background until they came to the City of Angels . . . where President Roosevelt, who had been making a private tour of the nation’s defense plants, was scheduled to arrive for a joint appearance with his wife and Lyudmila Pavlichenko.
That was when the shot would now be fired.
And wouldn’t the First Lady be surprised to see her new friend plummet from the heights, no longer a national heroine but a Soviet John Wilkes Booth. MRS. ROOSEVELT BEFRIENDS HER HUSBAND’S KILLER—that would be a headline worth reading.
The marksman realized, watching the two women leave the stage, that he was looking forward to that with a visceral, spiteful satisfaction. He hadn’t felt much of anything about Lyudmila Pavlichenko when he first watched her disembark at the doors of the White House a few weeks ago, only a mild curiosity as he set about framing her for the assassination of the century.
Now, having been dragged all over the country tailing the Red bitch and already planning his next set of anonymously scrawled Cyrillic threats, he wanted to see her fall.
“MRS. PAVLICHENKO, SO delightful to gaze on your face again!”
At first I didn’t recognize the man—linen suit, slightly pop eyes—but then I felt the damp, fervent fingers wringing mine, and remembered the millionaire I’d met in Baltimore. “Mr. Jonson, here you are . . . all the way from Maryland.”
“I would have greeted you in Detroit,” he said, starry-eyed. “But Mr. Ford’s headquarters have very strict security.”
“Don’t they here?” I couldn’t help asking. The First Lady and I had been invited to visit the Chicago Sharpshooters’ Association; you’d think a firearms club would have more armed guards at the door. “How did you—”
“Oh, I bought a ticket. And I would buy a dozen for a chance to meet with you again. Would you like a handkerchief, it’s very hot—”
“Nyet. Mr. Jonson—”
“William!”
“William, I have been asked to visit with the association chairman.” I extricated my hands from his clammy ones and made my way toward the weapon racks, shaking off journalists piping Mrs. Pavlichenko . . . Mrs. Pavlichenko . . . like a chorus of baby birds. So many of them! I kept trying to put faces to names, but they were simply too numerous to keep straight.
“Smile for the camera, kroshka,” Alexei murmured, managing to get his arm around my shoulder and turn me neatly toward the nearest flashbulb, thumb caressing the back of my neck. I shrugged him away with a warning glance and finally managed to find the head of the Sharpshooters’ Association, waiting not too patiently to have his picture taken with me.
“What do you think of our American weapons, Miz Pavlichenko?” he harrumphed, and I wasn’t surprised to see skeptical glances between the clubmen. Did they think I couldn’t hear the whispers? That girl they’re calling a sniper doesn’t know one end of a rifle from another . . .
“Is this a M1 Garand?” I asked the chairman through Kostia, strolling along the club’s gun racks. “Very similar to the Sveta we use on the eastern front—the diverting propellant gas through the port in the bore to unlock the breech.” I took the self-loading rifle off the rack, gave it a quick inspection, lifted it to my shoulder to sight along its length. “Weaver sights, very nice.”