reached over the girls to shake President Hobbs’s hand. Hobbs smiled at the man, who wore a cleric’s collar and tinted glasses.
President Hobbs released the blond man’s hand, moved toward the next person, and then suddenly fell backward into his bodyguard. The blond man’s smile turned puzzled and then alarmed before the screen froze.
“I didn’t see a gun,” Chief Justice Watts said.
“Swing us around,” I said. “Let’s see him from the front.” Rawlins gave his computer an order. The media swept back in time and went around again before zooming in on the blond man reaching for the president’s hand. We watched the same events unfold: the handshake, the release, President Hobbs stumbling.
“I still don’t see it,” the chief justice said.
“I think I did,” I said. “Take us in super-slo-mo. Watch his right hand, his loose shirt cuff, and the belly of his coat sleeve right after the president ends the handshake.”
They all leaned forward as Rawlins rewound the footage and stayed on President Hobbs, still smiling as he released the blond man’s hand. When their fingers had drifted ten, maybe twelve inches apart, the minister arched his hand backward as if to wave. The belly of his sleeve billowed. The cuff distorted.
A split second later, President Hobbs staggered back into his Secret Service agents. Rawlins froze the image.
“No one heard a gunshot,” Director Sanford said.
“Because there was no gun,” I said. “No conventional one, at least. Can we see him shoot the secretary of defense?”
Rawlins said, “I didn’t look.”
He stayed with the suspect as he moved with the crowd past the fallen president. Then the shooter shifted his hips toward the stage and raised his left hand toward Harold Murphy.
The footage got a little jerky, but you saw the blond man’s hand arching again, and the secretary of defense going down.
“What’s he doing with his hand?” President Larkin said.
“I think he’s triggering an air gun of some sort,” I said.
Sanford looked up from his phone. “Which explains the pieces of bullet they took out of President Hobbs twenty minutes ago.”
The FBI director forwarded an image to Rawlins, who put it on the screen: a photograph of dark gray pieces lying in a steel pan.
“It will have to be analyzed, but I’ll bet that’s graphite or carbon,” I said. “His weapons were probably made out of polymers that are undetectable by current methods.”
Rawlins typed again. The screen filled with a clear shot of the blond man in the tinted glasses.
He said, “I’d get this picture in the hands of all law enforcement at that arena and everywhere else in the country.”
“Wait,” I said, studying the picture. “He’s posing as a cleric, presumably. Who says he really has blond hair and wears glasses?”
Rawlins smiled. “I’m barely a half a step ahead of you, Dr. Cross.”
CHAPTER
65
BREE AND SAMPSON were still working outside the main entrance to the DC arena, interviewing kids, parents, and guardians, when Bree’s phone buzzed.
After she had finished talking to a young girl from the Philippines, she got out her phone and found a text from Alex. He’d sent a link labeled Hobbs’s shooter.
She clicked on it, saw the blond minister, and remembered Leonard, the guy found beaten in the basement. He’d said he was hit by a blond man.
But how did that work? Did the blond have time to shoot Hobbs and the secretary of defense and then go down to club the maintenance man?
Or were there two assassins, both dressed similarly? One in the basement cutting the lights, one upstairs trying to kill a president?
Her phone buzzed; another link from Alex: Shooter in left profile.
She clicked it, saw the same blond minister reaching out his right hand toward President Hobbs. The next link showed his right profile, but it was blurry. Bree tried to blow it up, but the resolution got too grainy.
The fourth link showed him from behind, arm stretched out toward Hobbs.
The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth images came in with a note that read Shooter with disguise digitally removed courtesy of K. K. Rawlins.
She thumbed the first new image. The blond hair and glasses were gone, leaving the man bald and blurry about the eyes. The two profile pictures were of interest, but it wasn’t until she opened the eighth link that she really paused.
With the blond hair gone, as she looked at the shooter from behind, she could see something odd about his right ear. She zoomed in on it and felt her stomach drop.
It was a hearing aid. No doubt.
Feeling confused, then