When the bullet his subtle senses expected did not come, Remo knelt and peered up through the high branches.
Up on the roof of the Treasury Building, something moved.
Remo whipped off his sunglasses, making sure his face was turned away from the cameras, so he could see more clearly. Sunglasses were a hindrance to someone whose eyes took the natural sunlight and used it to full advantage for seeing.
Up on the Treasury Building roof, the unmistakable silhouette of a man with a scoped rifle skulked. It had been the sniper laying the cross hairs of his scope on his back that had tripped Remo's assassin's reflexes.
"Damn," said Remo, looking toward Pennsylvania Avenue. He could flash across East Executive Ave. and ascend the classical Greek Treasury facade in less than ninety seconds. But not with the press crawling all over the place. All those cameras couldn't help but track him, no matter how fast he moved.
Then a White House car came slithering out of the parking garage, and Remo ran to intercept it. All White House vehicles were equipped with running boards and wide rear bumpers for the convenience of Secret Service agents. Without breaking stride, Remo ran parallel to the left running board and hopped aboard. His weight didn't even compress the suspension springs.
Remo rode the big black vehicle through the White House gate and onto Pennsylvania Avenue. No one questioned him, but the press, seeing a Secret Service agent clinging to the vehicle, jumped to a hasty conclusion. They thought the President was slipping out of the White House.
They gave chase. As the car turned onto Madison Place, Remo casually stepped off and made for the Treasury Building. He looked back once. Not a single camera was tracking him, he saw.
"Two birds with one stone," he said.
Grinning tightly, he went up the broad staircase of the Treasury Building and kept going. The façade carried him up to the roof, and not the other way around. Some of it was momentum, some the steely strength of his fingers and toes. All of it was Sinanju.
On the roof Remo fixed his target and moved on him with the stealth of a ghost.
The sniper was wearing a blue-black windbreaker and crouched low. From time to time he swept the White House with his rifle, sighting through the scope as if scoping out a bit.
Remo slipped up on him and took his skull in one hand and the rifle barrel in the other. He brought them together, and they made a hollow thunking before the sniper started rolling on the roof, holding his head in his hands.
Remo examined the rifle. It was no Mannlicher-Carcano, but a modern Beretta. Holding the stock in one hand and the barrel in the other, Remo flexed his wrists in opposite directions.
The rifle made a grunk of a sound and shattered like painted glass.
"Time for straight talk, pal," Remo told the man on the roof.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Secret Service. The jig's up."
"You idiot, I'm Secret Service, too!"
"Nice try. But I don't buy it."
"Check my wallet if you don't believe me."
Remo set one foot on the man's chest, emptying his lungs of air with two quick pumping motions of his leg. The man made a bellows sound, then turned green and glassy eyed.
Remo pulled the wallet, and it fell open, revealing a gold Secret Service badge.
"What the hell were you doing up here with a rifle?" Remo demanded, removing his foot from the man's chest and tossing the wallet on his breastbone.
"I'm a countersniper, damn it. You should know that."
"I'm new at this."
Remo hauled the Secret Service agent to his feet.
"The director thought it would be a good idea to place a man up here in case there was more trouble. I can take out any subject trespassing the White House grounds from up here."
"Makes sense." Remo grunted. "Countersniper, huh?"
"That's right. What are you?"
"Me," said Remo. "I guess you could say I'm a counterassassin. "
"Never heard that designation."
Remo grunted. "It's new. I'm the prototype. Sorry about the rifle."
The Secret Service countersniper looked down at his disintegrated weapon and blurted, "What'd you do to it?"
"I countered it," said Remo.
When the agent looked up, he saw that he was alone on the roof.
Ten minutes later Remo was back in the White House grounds, whistling "Deck the Halls." He felt good about himself again. He just hoped the feeling would last.
Chapter 25
In her office at ANC News Washington headquarters, Pepsie Dobbins was reviewing video of the past twenty-four hours of the network's Presidential coverage.
There was a lot of it. Virtually every step of the President's travels from the White House to the JFK Library in Boston was covered in excruciatingly boring detail. And that was only ANC footage.
The reason was simple. Ever since Dallas, the networks were determined to capture the next Presidential assassination on tape or film. One confiscable Zapruder film was enough. So whenever the President traveled, the press filmed every mile and rest stop. It was called "the body watch."
Thus, Pepsie had a virtually unbroken chain of film up until the chaos at the JFK Library, after which the press had become the frightened tail of a very desperate comet, and all footage after that consisted of white-faced reporters asking breathless questions of off-camera anchors and vice versa.
A full morning of reviewing footage revealed nothing significant.
"So why does the Director want footage?" she muttered to herself.
Buck Featherstone poked his head into the office and whispered, "There's some guy named Smith here wanting to see those tapes you're looking at."
"Did you say Smith?"
"I did."
"Did he say who he was with?"
"He flashed a Secret Service badge."