“You certainly can’t say the people of Texas haven’t shown you a warm welcome, Mr. President,” Mrs. Connally said.
As he continued grinning and waving at the crowd, the President nodded at her. Why was the car moving so damn slow?
Some men’s wives you took the time to learn their names. The Governor’s wife would always be Mrs. Connally.
Jackie’s head exploded. Her blood showered the inside of the limo. Mrs. Connally screamed. The Governor grabbed his throat. The car stopped.
Before he could yell at Bill to step on the gas, a bullet tore into his right shoulder. His back hurt too much at the moment to feel that pain.
Clint Hill leapt into the limo. He pushed the President down to the floor. His back hurt even more. He thought he felt a bullet hit his human shield.
“Move! Move! Move!” Clint shouted at Bill. The car stood still.
With his face buried in the carpet, President Kennedy assessed his situation. His adrenal glands had never worked. He had no fight or flight. When things got tough, his mind left his body and worked things out.
More shots rang out across whatever they called this part of Dallas. Rifle shots. Not firecracker pistol shots. They were fish in this particular barrel.
Still not as bad as the South Pacific. He survived that. How did he survive that? He couldn’t remember.
He was in the middle of a coup. If the coup was to succeed, he needed to die. Those rifles will keep pumping bullets into this car unless Bill stepped on the fucking gas. My kingdom for a fucking horse, he mumbled into the limo carpet.
Clint was still shouting at the driver. Roy riding shotgun was silent. Probably hit.
Bill might be frozen in fear or he might be in on it.
“Bill, listen to me,” the President said. “Whatever they threatened you with I will make go away.”
Nothing.
Then his head hit the still screaming Mrs. Connally as the limo accelerated. He was out of the killbox but far from safe.
Every cop car that should have been protecting the motorcade was in the hospital parking lot. Bill tapped the bumper of one of them as the Lincoln screeched to a halt. He laid a patch of Firestone rubber on the asphalt.
The President had to push his human shield off him to get up. His back screamed. He felt the pain shoot right into his balls.
“Clint? Clint? Stay with us.”
Mrs. Connally was still screaming. He couldn’t force himself to turn and look at Jackie. He knew she was dead. He knew it wasn’t going to be an open casket. He wasn’t yet sure it wasn’t going to be a double funeral.
Clint Hill mumbled. Something about “those fuckers”
Which fuckers? The President thought. I got a long list and it’s getting longer by the second.
Two pairs of arms grabbed Clint out of the limo. Before two more men could grab him, Jack Kennedy held his hand up. The agents froze.
“Bill, hand me your weapon. ”
Without question, the driver handed him his .357 Magnum.
“You ever fired this, Bill?”
“Only in training exercises. ”
“Six shots, or seven with this one?”
“You got seven, Mr. President. ”
President Kennedy stood up in the back of the bloody limo.
“If I need more than one, I’m fucked.”
He turned and faced the cops, the secret service agents, and the photographers. The most iconic news photo of all the 20th century was captured.
“That was brilliant, Jack,” Bobby said.
The President nodded on the other end of the line. His shoulder was on fire. They took the bullet out without anesthesia. The President wouldn’t have survived if they put him under.
He was in a secure area of the Love Field terminal. Was it secure for him or for the bad guys? He wasn’t sure.
“They had already reported you dead, Cronkite even cried when he said it…”
“What about Chet Huntley?” Jack asked.
“Stoic. Stone cold. Matter of fact. If the Soviets dropped a nuke on DC, he would report it like a tornado in Kansas. ”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to put him to that test in the next few days,” Jack said. “Give me our sitrep.”
Bobby was the family’s designated asshole. The bad cop to his good cop. Since their dad’s stroke, he was also the family consigliere. He was the only guy he could trust at the moment.
Bobby had been rounding up suspects at the top level of government, military, and the mob. According to a preset plan. Arrest first. Let them sit. Figure it out later.
“Most of them were lighting up their ‘It’s a boy’ cigars so we caught them off guard. ”
“Hoover?”
“We’re leaving him free per your longstanding orders. He definitely knew what they were planning and we have wiretaps of him meeting with most of them a few days ago. We can use him to sell any story we choose. ”
“Dulles?”
“Get this,” Bobby said. “He actually pissed his pants when my guys showed him the picture of you standing in the back of the limo. One minute, he’s a kingmaker installing his new puppet. Next, he’s John Wilkes Booth, only the gun jammed.”
“About that puppet,” Jack said.
“He’s right there with you. Not sure how you want to handle him. Also, Nixon is there.”
“What’s Dick doing mixed up in this?” The President said.
“If I believed in coincidences,” Bobby said.
“But you don’t. Dick’s guilty of a lot. You and I are guilty of even more. But this isn’t how he would do it. Couldn’t hurt to pick him up.”
“Already done,” Bobby said. “He and Lyndon are being held right there in the terminal. We didn’t want any local cops involved. ”
“Good. I don’t trust these Texas cops wearing cowboy hats and acting like John Wayne. They’re all Lyndon’s men. Damn foreign country, here.
Give me a good honest crooked Irish Boston cop. Our Grandpa bought their granddads and they stayed bought.”
“What’s our next move, Jack?”
“What would Dad do if anyone going after him laid a finger on Mom?”
The President had the Braniff Airlines first class executive lounge to himself. Braniff was a CIA front before the CIA existed. Enemy territory within Enemy territory. He was in the belly of the beast.
He spun the Secret Service standard issue. 357 Magnum by the trigger guard on his index finger. Maybe not the safest move. But he had never played things safe.
A knock on the door. Half a dozen agents surrounded the former and current Vice Presidents. If the failed coup wanted to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, this was the last chance. He was offering himself up on a platter.
He closed his eyes.
Nothing.
The President nodded at the agents. They were loyal. At least they were now. The agents left the VIPs alone.
“Have a seat, gentlemen. Can I offer you a drink? The hostesses in these lounges put the sky waitresses to shame.”
Nixon flushed. He had always been a lightweight with alcohol and even more of a light weight with the ladies.
Lyndon had already plowed his way through most of the Braniff hostesses. His drinking problem was enough to surprise even an Irishman.
“Mr. President,” Nixon spoke, “let me just say how deeply shocked and saddened both Pat and I are at the tragic loss of Mrs. Kennedy and Governor Connally as well as the attempt on your own life. ”
The President nodded. He had known Dick Nixon since they were both freshmen congressmen. He never liked Nixon, but he never hated him.
Nixon had that terrible gift of looking guilty of a crime he never got the pleasure to commit.
He probably knew about the coup. He might have signaled tacit approval. But no more.
Lyndon, on the other hand. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. His dad had always said your real enemies are always in your own party.
Johnson had his own sister killed. Several others as well. He was the most treacherous vice president since Aaron Burr. Today’s turkey shoot was nothing to a man like him.
The smart play here was to let his vice president flail around as the walls closed around him. Bobby already scheduled a planted story about some good Ole boy corruption that would end Lyndon.
But that was business. He might not fault Lyndon for trying to win a battlefield promotion. But the cocksucker still had to answer for his wife’s murder.
He picked up the revolver. When he pointed it at his vice president, LBJ’s eyes grew as big as his ears. He pulled the trigger and shot him in the left eye.
Agents swarmed back in. Guns drawn. They saw The President with the gun in his hand. Nixon’s mouth was wide open but he couldn’t speak.
Jack Kennedy walked past his old rival. He leaned down and put his hand on his shoulder.
“This will make a great story for your grandkids one day.”
