The Assassin - W E B Griffin, ebook
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//-->Author: W.E.B GriffinTitle: Badge of Honor Series - 05: The AssassinOriginal year of publication: May 1993ISBN: 0-515-11113-9Badge of Honor Series (Philadelphia Police)Book I, Men in BlueBook II, Special OperationsBook III, The VictimBook IV, The WitnessBook V, The AssassinBook VI, The MurderersBook VII, The InvestigatorsBook VIII, Final JusticeFor Sergeant Zebulon V. CaseyInternal Affairs DivisionRetiredPolice Department, the City of Philadelphia.He knows why.Badge of Honor SeriesBook 5The AssassinONEMarion Claude Wheatley, who was thirty-three years of age, stood just under six feet tall, weighed 165pounds, and was just starting to lose his hair, had no idea why God wanted to kill the Vice Pres-ident ofthe United States, any more than he did why God had se-lected him to carry out His will in this regard,together with the promise that if he did so, he would be made an angel, and would live forever in thepresence of the Lord, experiencing the peace that passeth all understanding.He had, of course, thought a good deal about it. After all, he had a good education (BA, Swarthmore,cum laude; MBA, Pennsylva-nia) and as a market analyst (petrochemicals) for First Pennsylva-nia Bank& Trust, his brain had been trained to first determine the facts and then to draw reasonable inferencesfrom them.The first fact was that God was all powerful, which Marion ac-cepted without question. But that raisedthe question why didn't God, figuratively speaking, of course, just snap his fingers and cause the VicePresident to disappear? Or blow up, which is how the Lord had told him He wished the Vice Presidentto die?Since He had the power to disintegrate the Vice President with-out any mortal assistance, but hadchosen instead to make Marion the instrument of His will, the only conclusion that could be reasonablydrawn was that the Lord had his reasons, which naturally he had not elected to share with a simplemortal.Perhaps, Marion reasoned, later, after he had proven himself worthy by unquestioningly carrying out theLord's will, the Lord might graciously tell him why He had chosen the course of action He had.And if that happened, Marion reasoned, it would seem to follow that God might even tell him how theVice President of the United States had offended the Lord Most High.There were a thousand ways the Vice President might have caused offense. He was of course apolitician, and one did not need divine insight to understand how much evil they caused each and everyday.Marion suspected that whatever the Vice President's offense, it was a case of either one really terriblething, in the eyes of God, or a series of relatively minor offenses against the Lord's will, the cu-mulativeeffect of which equaled one really terrible sin.When the Lord had spoken with Marion, the subject of repen-tance and forgiveness vis-Ã -vis the VicePresident had never even come up. Marion, of course, would not have had the presumption to raise thequestion himself, but certainly, if God wanted the Vice President to repent, to straighten up and fly right,so to speak, it would seem logical to expect that He would have said something along those lines. It wasthus reasonable to assume that whatever the Vice President had done to offend the Lord wasunforgivable.But this was not, Marion had decided while having lunch at the Reading Terminal Market, the same thingas saying that the Vice President could not, or should not, make an effort to get himself right with theLord. If the Lord was merciful, as Marion devoutly believed Him to be, He just might change His mind ifthe Vice President, figuratively or literally, went to Him on his knees and begged forgiveness.It was even possible, if unlikely, Marion had concluded, that the Vice President was unaware of how, orto what degree, he had of-fended the Lord. But if that was the case, it would certainly be a Christian actof compassion, of Christian love, for Marion to let the Vice President know that he was in trouble withthe Lord.The question then became how to do so in such a way that he would not draw attention to himself.Obviously, he could not call the Vice President on the telephone. There would be several layers ofpeople in place to protect the Vice President from every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wanted to talk tohim.The only way to do it, Marion concluded, was to write him a let-ter. And that was not quite as simple asit sounded. He would have to be careful to make sure the Secret Service, who protected the VicePresident, did not find out who he was. Since the Secret Ser-vice would have no way of knowing that hewas not some kind of nut, rather than working at the specific direction of the Lord, if they found out hehad mailed the Vice President a letter telling him that he was about to be blown up, they would come andarrest him.Going to prison, or a lunatic asylum, was a price Marion was willing to pay for doing the Lord's work,but onlyafter he had done it. If he was in prison, obviously, he could not blow the Vice President up.And from what Marion had seen on television, and read in books, the Secret Service was very skilled inwhat they did. They would obviously make a great effort to locate him, once the Vice President showedthem the letter. He was going to have to strive for anonymity.On the way back to the office from the Reading Terminal, he went to the Post Office Annex and boughttwo stamped envelopes. Then he went into one of the discount stores on Market Street and bought a thinpad of typing paper.He often worked late, so no one was suspicious when he stayed in his office after everyone else hadgone home. When he was ab-solutely sure that there was no one in the office but him, he went to thetyping pool and sat down at the first typist's desk. He opened the top drawer and found two sparedisposable ribbons.He took the plastic cover off the typewriter, then opened it, and removed the ribbon on the machine,carefully placing it on the desktop. Then he put in a new ribbon. He addressed the envelope:The Hon. Vice President of the United StatesSenate Office BuildingWashington, D.C.And then he took the envelope out and tore a sheet of paper from the typing paper pad and rolled thatinto the typewriter. He sat there drumming his fingers on the desk for a moment as he made up his mindhow to say what he wanted to say. Then he started to type. He was a good typist, and when he wasfinished, there wasn't even one strikeover, and Marion was pleased.Dear Mr. Vice President:You have offended the Lord, and He has de-cided, using me as His instrument, to disintegrate you usinghigh explosives.It is never too late to ask God's forgiveness, and I respectfully suggest that you make your peace withGod as soon as possible.Yours in Our Lord,A Christian.Marion carefully folded the letter in thirds, slipped it into the en-velope, and then licked the flap andsealed it. He put it into his breast pocket.Then he removed the ribbon from the typewriter, put the old one back in, and closed the typewriter andcovered it with its plastic cover.He tore off the section of ribbon that had the impressions of the typewriter keys on it and put it into thesecond stamped envelope he had purchased against the contingency that he would make an error. Hecarried the envelope, the pad of typing paper, and the rib-bon he had used and then removed from thetypewriter back into his office. He turned on his shredder and fed first the envelope with the used ribboninside into it, and then, half a dozen sheets at a time, the typing paper. Next came the cardboard backingand cover sheet of the typing paper pad. The only thing left was the almost in-tact unused plastictypewriter ribbon. It was too thick to get into the mouth of the shredder, and moreover, he suspectedthat even if it had fit into it, it probably would have jammed the mechanism.He took the sterling silver Waterman's ballpoint pen that had been the firm's gift to him at Christmas from
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