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 31. Window of Opportunity
Jack Adams, the Secret Service agent charged with assassinating President George W. Bush and being held for psychiatric evaluation, is telling about how the window of opportunity for assassination opened after the Vice President's fatal heart attack and a gunman's attack on the Supreme Court.
The chaos that ensued that day was as intense as any I've ever seen in Diadem. There were actually people lined up in the lobby to weigh in with Trailblazer about what to do next. Most of them, of course, wanted to make sure that their favorite was on his short list for any Supreme Court replacements that might have to be made. What the other Pinschers and I were most interested in was how the hell someone got inside the Supreme Court with a pistol.
Of course the answer was the most obvious one of all, the one everyone in security is always trying to pretend isn't a possibility: plastic. The assailant, a wild anti-abortion member of a church in east Texas made his way to Washington with all the plastic parts of a pistol camouflaged in a toy box with other pieces of plastic that were part of a robot that had to be assembled. He told the woman he sat next to on the plane from Houston the day before that he was going to his nephew's birthday party in the Virginia suburbs of D.C. and he had brought a special gift. He even carried the box right onto the airplane. This was exactly the kind of PR nightmare the administration dreaded. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent on Homeland Security and a veritable hick from the sticks manages to foil it not only on a commercial jetliner, but at the doors of the highest court in the land, by wrapping it as a Christmas present and stuffing it into a Walmart bag. Once again the 'innocent little children' are a cloak for brutality.
Chaos was now rampant all over town, at least if you believed the media. Still, the veterans of Washington politics were keeping an eye on Trailblazer's nomination of Condoleeza Rice for vice president, which was still being floated on Capitol Hill and around statehouses in the 'red states' to see if it would fly before he put his reputation on the line with another top level nomination. His appointment of Roberts to the Chief Justice slot after Rehnquist's death went amazingly well, even garnering support across the aisle. But his nomination of Miers to replace O'Connor threw the conservatives for a tailspin and it was beginning to look like it would seriously 'lame duck' him for the remainder of his term.
He had been looking to have someone like Roberts again, a nominee who would sail onto the Supreme Court bench relatively smoothly and allow him to focus on other issues. But he liked Miers; she was a friend and he thought people should trust his judgment, accept his choice. That didn't happen.
When it came to the Vice Presidential nomination, things were easier. Rice was understandably more than willing to be the first African American as well as the first woman to serve as vice president, and Trailblazer had won his argument with the RNC, who originally argued for either Orrin Hatch or Giuliani. They had no intention of losing in 2008. Also, polls showed Rice to be a winner. She had turned things around in the international community during her tenure as Secretary of State. Even the North Koreans were listening to her. Of course, Rice had enlisted the help of Bill Richardson, who had worked with the Koreans in the Clinton administration. The Koreans trusted him.
Trailblazer had argued—repeating what Laura had said as early as the night we all rode back from the hospital after Cheney's coronary—that appointing Hatch would leave an empty senate seat that could conceivably be lost to Democrats in the next election and Giuliani was too much of a loose canon. Rice was the woman of the hour and it looked like she would be a shoo-in from all preliminary polls. That gave me approximately three weeks to make up my mind, lay a plan of action and carry it out, as it was expected that she would be sworn in by early February.
Krandall Kraus has published six books, including the Lambda Literary Award winner It's Never About What It's About, co-authored with his partner Paul Borja. He is the recipient of the 2006 Christopher Isherwood Fellowship in Fiction; his first novel, The President's Son, was a bestseller. A former consultant to the Office of the Vice President, his political thrillers are filled with White House insider details.
