Chapter 108: Absurd Gift
The moment Jörg took the pistol, three men in overcoats burst through the crowd.
Their black coats flew open, exposing three Thompson submachine guns loaded to the brim.
"Get down!"
The warning came from the presidential driver, loud enough to shake the street.
But he was a step too late.
Muzzles erupted in blinding bursts of flame.
The sort of weapons gangsters used in alleyway gunfights now became blades meant for regicide.
Firearms did not care whether the man in front of them was noble or common. Their purpose had always been the same, to kill.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A torrent of bullets roared through the night like a dragon made of fire. Glass shattered in every direction. The cracking of windows, the thunder of gunfire, and the screams of panicked pedestrians fused into one hideous symphony.
And all of it was playing out on one of Washington's busiest streets.
The driver, still in his seat, was instantly torn apart. By the time the first burst ended, his body had already become a blood soaked ruin full of bullet holes.
Beside him, Chicard had still been leaning toward the window, talking about Germany's future military strength. He never even had time to understand what was happening. A spray of bullets punched through his skull and splashed red and yellow across Coolidge's face.
Warm blood and brain matter splattered over his cheek.
For Coolidge, a civilian president who had hardly ever held a gun in earnest, the scene was no different from hell itself. The shock froze his mind so thoroughly that he even forgot to duck.
He sat there blankly for a heartbeat.
Only when a searing pain exploded in his chest and thigh did instinct return.
He rolled down from the seat in a panic, narrowly escaping the second burst that tore through the cabin. The impeccably dressed gentleman from the banquet was now sprawled beneath the seat like a butchered animal, his face covered in blood and flesh to the point that no one could have told whether he was living or dead.
Inside the car, the seats had been ripped open by gunfire. Feathers and stuffing floated everywhere like filthy snow.
The three attackers saw movement and immediately pressed forward.
Because Coolidge's face was drenched in blood, they had no idea they had struck the wrong target. Believing the man still alive inside was their objective, they discarded their empty weapons and switched to revolvers, intending to finish him off at point blank range.
Then a shot rang out from the opposite side.
Bang!
The leader's neck burst open.
Blood sprayed out in a bright arc like a fountain.
Four bodyguards had already thrown themselves out of the Imperial Eagle. Using the open car doors as cover, they returned fire with pistols while advancing toward the presidential vehicle to confirm the President's condition.
Farther down the street, policemen who had heard the gunfire were racing toward the scene.
The bearded veteran and the tall, gaunt one had no intention of leaving alive.
They ignored the rising police whistles and half crouched behind the shattered front end of the Imperial Eagle.
"Sean, I'll go," the bearded man barked. "Cover me."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, he rolled forward across the pavement, spraying suppressive fire as he rushed the right rear side of the car.
The tall, gaunt man used the driver's side door as cover and leaned out to provide support.
At that exact instant, he found himself staring straight at a bodyguard advancing on the left.
Both men fired together.
Bang!
The veteran's bullet punched through the bodyguard's shoulder.
The bodyguard's bullet punched straight through the veteran's brain.
His long, skeletal frame collapsed like a scarecrow with its strings cut, blood spreading beneath him across the road.
He had once been a war veteran, yes, but years of drinking and irregular living had long since dulled his body. Against security men who trained year after year to kill faster than hesitation, he was already an old blade.
The wounded bodyguard barely had time to register that he was still alive.
A shot came from the right.
The bearded man, having seen his last companion fall, raised his revolver and killed the bodyguard with a single bullet before he could take another step.
But that one second delay, bought with the man's life, was enough.
As the bearded veteran leaned in toward the presidential car, intending to deliver the final shot to the man collapsed inside, the three remaining bodyguards had already drawn a clear sightline.
Three pistols fired almost as one.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The bullets tore through the air and hit him in the heart, the hand, and the skull. His body twitched twice on the road, then went still forever.
Inside the presidential car at the rear of the convoy, Jörg watched the entire bloody performance unfold in silence.
There was no surprise on his face.
Only calm.
The gunfire gradually faded.
Senna, who had only now fully understood what had happened, stared through the windshield in stunned disbelief as policemen and security men dragged the blood soaked Coolidge out of the wrecked car.
"The President... the President was attacked?"
Then, almost immediately, another thought flashed through her mind.
The request for a gun.
The strange seat change.
The quiet vigilance.
A bold, almost blasphemous idea rose in her heart.
No.
Impossible.
Her superior had been with her all these days. He could not have arranged an assassination, nor did he have any reason to arrange one.
Then how had he known?
Senna did not know.
And what she knew even less was that, in that instant, the emotion in her eyes had unconsciously shifted from respect to awe, the awe one felt toward something unknown and terrifyingly far beyond ordinary understanding.
Seeing that no one around them was paying any attention to their car, she asked in a trembling voice,
"Mr. von Roman... are we still going to that rib restaurant?"
Jörg lowered the pistol and rolled the window down slightly, letting in the cold night air filled with blood and cordite.
"No," he said calmly. "Not anymore."
Then, after a brief pause, he added, "To be honest, I still prefer our food. Let's go."
He took out his diplomatic pass and showed it to the officer moving from vehicle to vehicle. The man saw the insignia, stiffened, and waved them through at once.
The car pulled away from the chaos and disappeared into the Washington night.
On the other side of the city, in a luxury apartment, Dawes had not received an invitation to the dinner.
That did nothing to improve his mood.
Standing by the window with a glass of whiskey in hand, he cursed toward the night view like a man scolding an enemy he could not yet see.
"Damn you, Calvin! So what if you're the President? Without me giving the campaign speeches, without me cleaning up strike after strike and one mess after another, how exactly were you supposed to sit in that chair?"
He knocked back the liquor in one swallow, then slammed the glass down hard enough to rattle the table.
"Now that public opinion is on my side, now that the papers are praising the Vice President, you start acting like a madman! You invite those jazz musicians, those black performers, to your precious banquet, but not the man who helped put you in the White House!"
He jabbed a finger toward the darkness as though Coolidge were standing there in person.
"So what, the Vice President who built your road to power is worth less than a band? You're afraid, aren't you? Afraid I'd use the banquet to bring Jörg onto my side. Afraid I'd take this diplomatic achievement and turn it into my own."
The alcohol loosened his temper even further.
"Well, I will take it! I built half of this damned success anyway!"
After venting himself at the city skyline, he turned and shouted toward the door.
"Muses! Muses!"
His longtime aide pushed the door open at once. "Mr. Vice President, do you have instructions?"
"Yes," Dawes snapped. "The President hosted a dinner, didn't he? Then send invitations in my name. Not just in Washington, in every state. If he won't invite me, I'll host my own banquet!"
Muses had served him long enough to know when his superior was speaking in anger rather than reason. He did not rush to obey. Instead, he tried the safer route.
"With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, I think maintaining good relations with the President would be wiser. Your cooperation used to be extremely pleasant. A rupture now would not be good for the Republican Party, nor for America..."
Before he could finish, someone knocked hurriedly on the outer door.
Muses frowned, went to open it, and froze.
The White House chief of staff, still in her nightclothes and without makeup, stood outside breathing hard from urgency.
She did not even look at him.
She pushed straight into the study and said to Dawes, "Mr. Vice President, come with me to the hospital immediately."
Dawes blinked, still half drunk. "Hospital?"
Her next words shattered the haze in his head more thoroughly than a bucket of ice water.
"The Commander of the National Guard is already on the way. Bring a Bible."
She looked directly at him.
"And prepare to take office."
.....
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