“May I borrow your binoculars?” I asked the nearest man, and then dismay froze me to the deck as he turned.
“Little Mila,” said Alexei Pavlichenko, looking down at me with that amused flick of his mouth. “Look at you.”
The Soviet Delegation:
Day 1
August 27, 1942
Washington, D.C.
Chapter 10
The marksman sat on a grassy verge overlooking the Lincoln Memorial, fanning himself with his hat. His employer was late, but Washington types liked to play such games, to remind you how important they were. The marksman tipped his face to the sun, covertly observing the trickle of visitors trailing in and out of the huge marble edifice. It was early, but a handful of tourists were already coming out to beat the summer heat: a family clutching brochures, some vacationing parents dragging sullen teenagers, a couple wandering hand in hand to look up at the giant contemplative marble figure inside.
A shadow fell across the marksman’s hands. “Did we have to meet here of all places?” a peevish voice demanded.
The marksman replaced his hat, smiling. “What, overlooking a monument to another president who was assassinated?”
“Keep your voice down.” The new arrival was middle-aged, balding, packed into an expensive suit with a faint pinstripe and a blue pocket square.
“No one’s listening.” It was why the marksman preferred to do this sort of thing outside. In the middle of a broad expanse of grass, not a soul in earshot, surrounded as they were by the bustle of a busy city, no one would pay attention to the idle chatter of two men lounging on a warm morning. “Sit down.”
Pocket Square spread out a handkerchief to protect his suit from the grass, sitting with bad grace. The marksman didn’t know his name, or the name of the men behind him who’d selected him as the go-between. The marksman didn’t care, either. It wasn’t his business who his customers were or what drove them to pay for death. As long as they paid promptly and kept their mouths shut, none of the rest mattered. “Well?” Pocket Square demanded.
“I’ll know more after the White House breakfast in an hour, but the girl and the rest of the delegation are already scheduled for a press conference this evening,” said the marksman. “My name is on the list of attending press?”
“Yes, but my employers don’t see any reason for you to attend.”
“I need to establish myself on the fringes of this delegation as a security-vetted and innocuous part of the scenery, so I can cozy up with someone who can get me access to the girl when the time comes.” It wasn’t the usual way he worked—normally the marksman put more distance between himself and his targets, worked through layers of anonymous informants—but with a presidential target in his sights, he wanted as few people and complications built into the plan as possible. Perhaps superstitiously, he wanted his own eyes on everything. “I’ll need a list of the attending delegation members—not her fellow students, they’ll be in the spotlight, but the little people.”
“You’ll get it.” Pocket Square mopped his face. The day was already heating up, but even if it had been cold, the marksman suspected he’d be sweating. Some people just didn’t have the nerves for assassination. “When are you going to—do it?”
“September fifth. The last day of the conference.”
“But you can guarantee success?” Pocket Square pressed.
“No.” Death was never guaranteed. “Failing the desired outcome, I can guarantee embarrassment, public outrage against the President and his Soviet guests. I was given to understand this would be an acceptable secondary outcome.”
“For some of my bosses,” Pocket Square muttered.
“The America Firsters will be pleased enough, and so will the anti-Soviets.” The marksman smiled at the other man’s startled expression. It wasn’t hard to figure out who, in this carnivorous capital city, would want Franklin Delano Roosevelt dead. Even popular presidents had enemies, and FDR was no exception: American fascists who loathed President Jewsevelt; bitter political rivals in Congress; isolationist tycoons who opposed war with Germany; Communist-hating millionaires so rabidly anti-Marxist that even beating Hitler wasn’t worth allying with Stalin—not to mention righteous idealists who saw any third-term president as a tyrant in the making. Who knew what occasion or event had brought enough seething men together, what match had lit the wick as they aired their grievances, what events had stoked the flames until someone was brave enough to whisper the word assassination . . . but it had happened, and the marksman’s telephone had duly rung with an offer.