Page 157 of The 9th Man

“What did it feel like?” Daniels asked. “To have killed the president of the United States through pure carelessness. You had no business being in that car that day. You were a late addition. Daddy make it possible? Called in a favor? Being in a presidential motorcade protection detail is a big deal. Great career booster. But what did you do? Stayed out the night before, drinking. Got little sleep. Woke up hung over and decided to wing it. But when the shots were fired all you did was stumble forward and pull the trigger. The only good thing was nobody heard or noticed. And you would have gotten away with it but for David Eckstein’s film.”

“Which proves nothing.”

“Except that the barrel of your weapon was pointed straight toward Kennedy at the moment his head was blown off.”

76

LUKE WAS PRESSING HARD. HE HAD TO. NO CHOICE. LIKEMalone always said, you got to jostle the barrel to see what spills out.

He turned his attention back to Jillian. “What else do you get out of this, besides money?”

“Talley’s job.”

“I figured as much.”

“It pays well. Much more than I was making. I consider the whole thing a win-win.”

“Why pick me? You’re bound to have other people you know. Somebody else you could have used.”

“And miss the fun of watching you figure all this out? No way. I knew you worked with the Magellan Billet. Mr. Rowland said that would be perfect, considering how your boss feels about him. And we needed someone on board who could help us jump through a few hoops. He managed to learn that you were in London. So close. If you’d been farther away, our little show would have been delayed until you arrived. As it was, you got there quick. Coming to my rescue.”

“I knew Stephanie Nelle hated me, and with good reason,” Rowland said. “I recently tried hard to have her and the Magellan Billet eliminated. It was a certainty that once she realized I was involved, she’d do whatever she had to do. And she did. Predictability is a definite liability in her business.”

“I assume I was not supposed to survive?”

She nodded. “I could have taken you out right after I shot Talley, but I’d already sensed you knew something you weren’t telling me. Something Eckstein may have told you right before he died. I saw how intense you and he were. We needed to find out what. And now we know.”

“You really are a psychopath,” he said.

“Just an enterprising woman taking advantage of all her opportunities. I am curious, though, what tipped you off, besides Eckstein’s bullet hole and my eagerness with Talley?”

“It was a combination of things. It started early. Why would anyone have geotagged my rental car in Belgium? After I thought about it, the whole thing seemed a bit much, considering they didn’t know who I was. Or, maybe they did? Of course, you were the one who told them everything. Where we were, where we were headed, but the tracker was a nice touch. Added an element of confusion.”

“I instructed Persik to do it,” Rowland said.

“Which diverted attention away from me,” Jillian added.

“It wasn’t until we got to Ray Simmons’s house that my radar went to high alert,” he said. “He had a lot of books on the assassination. Yet Benji had none. Then there was the diagram you found in the lamp. Just a little too convenient. Your idea?”

“Believe it or not, that’s where Benji actually hid his stuff. There was more there, which I destroyed, leaving only the one innocuous diagram as bait. I went to that storage facility in Luxembourg weeks ago. The rifle case was already there. Empty. Benji told me that he’d bought an old AR-15 a few years ago, which was sent to Simmons in Louisiana. He kept the case. So Mr. Rowland bought another old AR-15, which I planted there with no serial numbers.”

“More bait?” he asked. “For me?”

“Not entirely,” she said. “We needed something for Persik and Talley to be after too. On the off chance they might find the storage unit we made sure there was a rifle. That homemade alarm system was all Benji. But with him gone it was useless. How would you put it? A good bird dog likes the scent?” She tossed him a smirk. “That storage unit was filled with stuff relating to the assassination. Books, papers, all kinds of stuff. I destroyed all of it, and I purged the house clean. We didn’t actually want you to figure things out so quickly.”

“So you could use me to find Eckstein?” he asked.

“That was the plan. The lockbox was Benji’s and the receipt for the storage unit real. I added the piece of paper with the Googlewhack email address. All made up to justify my calling you. There is no Kronos. I came up with the email address after seeing the ones Benji and Simmons used. We just made everything consistent.”

“I chose the name Kronos,” Rowland said. “The Titan lord of the universe. The god of time, harvest, fate, and justice.”

“That was another thing,” he said. “The Googlewhack. And what Marcia Pooler said to me.Almost like it doesn’t exist.That got me thinking too. Maybe it didn’t.”

“Mr. Daniels,” Rowland said. “What happened that day in Dallas was a terrible accident. Nothing more.”

“So what did happen?” Luke asked. “Since you two played me like a fiddle, at least tell me the story.”

Rowland did not immediately answer, but he could see the old man was definitely considering some old memories. Sixty-plus years he’d held all this inside him. Even for an amoral asshole that takes a toll.