The President's Killers Read Free Page A

and broke away from the woman.
    “C’mon,” he said, pumping Denny’s hand. “Let’s go out to my car.” 
    Outside, the dark clouds looked ominous and the June air was heavy. A few rain drops were beginning to fall.
    Lott led him to a red Lumina parked at a meter on the narrow street in front of the building.
    He drove them down Broad Street, past Newark’s gold-domed City Hall and a long strip of cheap clothing and shoe stores, fast-food joints, pawn shops, and African hair-braiding salons.
    “I was nuts about baseball when I was a kid,” Lott said. “I would’ve loved to play in the pros the way you did. Used to catch. Not bad, but I couldn’t hit a curve to save my ass. What happened to your arm?”
    “Tore my right flexor pronator. I could barely raise my hand to shave.”
    “So you quit shaving, eh?”
    Lott laughed. He was much friendlier than he had been during the interview. He was even interested in Denny’s love life.
    “What’s the girlfriend’s name?”
    “Michelle. Michelle Walker.”
    “Living together?”
    “She’s got a place in Summit. I’m in Millburn.”
    The street was clogged with cars and buses, but the sidewalks were almost empty. The rain was coming down harder now, and the street vendors’ carts, loaded with cheap neckties or purses and wigs, were covered with clear plastic sheets.
    Lott adjusted the windshield wipers.
    “Where we going?” Denny said.
    “We’ve got a great opportunity for you, kid.”
     
    He turned off Broad onto a narrow, red-brick street, then pulled into a parking area in front of an old warehouse. Behind them was a deserted train station.
    “This is my office.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “This is where I hang my hat.”
    Denny glanced at the cars on either side of them. “This what they mean by a corner office?”
    Lott laughed. He removed from his breast pocket what appeared to be a black wallet. Inside was a silver badge. He handed the leather case to Denny. Across the middle of the badge were the letters S-I-G. At the bottom, in smaller letters: N-S-C.
    “I’m with SIG.”
    The name meant nothing to Denny.
    “Special Intelligence Group,” Lott said. “With the NSC.”
    It still meant nothing.
    “National Security Council,” Lott said. “Ever read a long time ago about Ollie North and all that crap about Iran-Contra?”
    Denny remembered the term Iran-Contra but that was about all.
    “Executive Order 12333,” Lott said. “Harry Truman. It gives the White House the authority to use the National Security Council for things the CIA or FBI normally do. Sometimes they figure we can do the job better. Our boss reports to the head of the NSC.”
    Denny was impressed.
    Lott looked at him. “We think you might be a good fit.”
    “I thought we were talking about a sales job.”
    Lott grinned. “We were stringing you along, kid. We’re Government. Very low-profile. We got to be. You’ll never get rich with us. But we’re a pretty damned elite outfit. And they take good care of us. Lots of perks. I’ve been all over this miserable world.”
    Denny didn’t know what to make of it. It wasn’t something he’d ever considered. Government agencies didn’t pay all that much. On the other hand, his brother had been a cop in Irvington for four years. And the stories Rob told had always fascinated him.
    “Interested?”

SIX
    High-powered Government agency. Lots of travel. Probably better pay than he was making mixing drinks at O’Brien’s. It was tempting.
    “Here’s what we’ll do,” Lott said. “We start you out as a contract employee, on a part-time basis. Special assignments, whatever comes along. You do that for six months. Then after that, if you’re happy and we’re happy, we make it full-time. When you’re part-time, we pay you four-thousand a month plus expenses. Once you’re a career guy, the pay gets a lot better.”
    It wasn’t at all what he’d had in mind.
    “We’d start you out with surveillance stuff,” Lott