By Krandall Kraus
This 44-part series began running in WCT Nov. 8. Readers can read all the installments to date at www.windycitymediagroup.com .
From the journal of John 'Jack' Quincy Adams, Chief Secret Service Special Agent in Charge, The White House. Code Name: One.
Part 3. Fate Steps In
Jack Adams, the Secret Service agent assigned to the president and known in the Service as One, has been charged with assassinating George W. Bush. He is being held for psychiatric evaluation at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He is telling the psychiatrist, Dr. Haber, about how in 1980 he went from being a regular Secret Service agent to being assigned to the Vice President.
When Jack graduated from high school, his father, fearing Jack was going to be drafted and sent to Vietnam, pulled some strings and got Jack accepted into the Secret Service. Even then he kept his hope that Laura Welch, the girl he loved while growing up in Midland, Texas, would one day love him back. But eventually, when Jack realized Laura was never going to love him the way he loved her, he married another woman.
He and his wife Vera, and their infant twins Abigail ( Abbie ) and Quincy, were living in Houston when George H. W. Bush, running for Vice President on Ronald Reagan's ticket, came to town to do some campaigning. That day Jack got a call that would change his life.
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'It was a couple days before the Fourth of July 1980, and Houston was hot and humid. The office got word that there would be some campaigning going on in town that week by Bush and Company. Mr. Reagan was giving a speech in California and then would spend the day on his ranch. Bush, code named Sheepskin, would be raising money at a fancy barbecue in the ritzy Post Oak section of Houston, his own neighborhood. I was given 'countdown' status, as was every other agent, which meant we either had to be in the office as part of the communications network or on the street doing security checks. We wouldn't know our actual posts until the morning of the fourth.
About 5 a.m. on July 4, I got a call telling me I was going to be standing in for Jim Sullivan, one of Bush's 'circle of fire', agents who walk the lines with him and form his protective circle wherever he goes. I'd never had a duty that choice so I was excited, but nervous.
The day was routine: a speech at a banker's luncheon, private meetings at Tenneco and First Republic, another speech late in the day at St. Thomas University. Around five o'clock Sheepskin went home to freshen up and pick up his wife before we headed for his barbecue/fundraiser.
The first thing I noticed when we got to the party was that everyone was dressed in clothes from Sakowitz and Neiman-Marcus. The most casual pair of pants in the crowd was some designer jeans. One fellow wore a Countess Mara tie—made out of feathers—and before the day was over, he had spilled both martini and barbecue sauce on it and was taking some heat about if from his platinum-haired wife. It was not the kind of cook-out I ever attended and had I been an invited guest I would have turned around and hit the pavement after one look at this bunch.
As we moved around the patio I tried to case the place, pinpointing points of egress and entrance, overhangs, neighbors' rooftops where lines of fire might be clear shots, and doors that opened from the house onto the back yard. The food was set up buffet style on a row of tables adjacent to the high wooden fence that separated this house from the neighbors'. The caterers were going back and forth from the side of the house, where the kitchen door was.
I didn't like that because it meant people kept appearing suddenly from the corner of the house carrying things and wearing aprons, which were always a good place to hide weapons. I concentrated on keeping one eye on Sheepskin's conversation partners and the other on that corner of the house. Because of that, I quickly sensed something out of place, something I didn't like.
A fresh batch of potato salad was being brought out just as Sheepskin said, 'Well, how about some of this delicious-looking food. I've been out yakking all day and I've worked up a real appetite.' He then moved away from the men he had been talking to and headed to the buffet table, which was about six feet from where he was standing. As if on cue, four of the catering staff took up positions behind the table in order to serve him. Just at that time a fifth caterer, someone from the kitchen wearing an apron, came around the corner with a bowl of potato salad.
That's when two things struck me. First, the guy with the salad was the only white person on the catering staff, and second, instead of bringing the salad to the table from the serving side, he came around to the front and set it down from the side where guests were helping themselves to food. The catering company owner called out, 'Richard, not from there,' just as Sheepskin stepped in to help himself to some salad.
As the caterer stepped toward Richard, I moved between him and Sheepskin. That's when the guy reached beneath his apron, withdrew a six-inch boning knife, and began slashing the air wildly in my direction.
Follow this 44-part serialized book in Windy City Times for the next several months. See www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com for past columns.
