The hedges to the east; the trees and shrubs to the west. I hesitated.
“Lyudmila!” Eleanor sailed up to me, cheeks flushed with the night’s chill. “Would you like more punch, or—”
I cut her off, something I’d never done before. “Get him inside,” I said, pointing to the seated figure of her husband on the portico. “Inside, now—” and without waiting for a reply, I arrowed off toward the western side of the White House lawn. A white-aproned server stood at the edge of the grass with a tray, and among the glasses I saw a small paring knife for peeling lemon twists or taking the foil off wine bottles. I plucked the little blade off the tray and kept going, past the startled server and straight into the thicket of trees. I wasn’t thinking, not in words. I was following something so deep I couldn’t name it, or maybe I could. Maybe I already had, to Captain Sergienko when he asked if skills like mine were instinctive and I’d scoffed that it was simply training.
Well. Dozens of months of practice, hundreds of hours of training, thousands of shots fired under a blood moon on the other side of the world had all joined voices, singing a song down deep inside my veins.
And my feet followed it.
Notes by the First Lady
She gave an order. I find myself obeying it. Is it because the tone of absolute authority issuing commands will get feet moving whether they intend to or not?
Perhaps it is simply that when a woman with the name Lady Death looks suddenly and fearsomely alert, mortals formed of mere flesh and blood know it is time to run.
I hurry up the steps toward the South Portico, heart hammering, and I cannot help but think of that crisp night in Miami when a shot was fired at my husband’s heart as he stood making a speech from his open car. That night. This one. Franklin’s unspoken fears over the last few months—yes, he has been afraid. Of what? Of this?
I reach the top of the steps, and my husband looks toward me. His careworn face, etched with pain and humor, so alive. I call out quietly but urgently: “My dear, you are needed inside—” and then I turn to the nearest Secret Service officer.
I don’t know what your diamond eye saw, Lyudmila, but do not miss.
Chapter 32
His luck was back; the marksman could feel it. His Packard was waiting for a quick, discreet getaway; it had already been vetted on the way in, and he thought he could manage to exit in the chaos after the shot. If not, people inside were already prepared with cover stories to smooth his way. He could hear the tick of the clock inside him, counting down toward the squeeze of the trigger.
Perhaps ten more minutes. The girl sniper would arrive, puzzled, directed by her husband: I’ll tell her that her precious partner is here to speak with her; she runs like a bitch in heat when he calls. A fast, silent arm-bar from behind to choke her out without overt bruising, then the long-range shot toward the South Portico, where the President and the First Lady were both standing, heads bent close in some discussion. The marksman had already prepared his weapon: a Mosin-Nagant with PE sights, the same type Lady Death would have used on the front. He’d put in thousands of practice rounds on it—a good weapon, workmanlike, unfussy. The moment the President fell, the marksman would fire another shot, this one through Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s unconscious mouth, and leave the rifle behind in her hand: an assassination-suicide. The newspapers would eat it up. Reaching for the rifle with gloved hands, he smiled as he loaded five rounds. He should only need two.
He didn’t know why he looked up. It was too soon for her to be here yet, and not so much as a rustle of leaves or whisper of twigs had sounded against his ears. But some unknown trip wire twanged in his silent depths, far below the level of clocks or plans or even thought, and his head whipped around.
There she was: Lady Death gliding across the shadowed grass in rippling lynx fur, the glitter of his diamonds at her throat like stardust. Bleached silver in the faint moonlight, but her eyes pitch-black. They didn’t widen in shock or take in his face in stunned disbelief. She knew. She already knew.