“But there is something I want every American to hear now,” she said. “The most important question any candidate is asked: ‘Why do you want to be president?’ I want to be president because my upbringing, my education in school, at university and law school, my work as an intelligence officer and my leadership as the director of Central Intelligence, my time in the White House, and my very close relationship with my president and my contributions to his policy decisions—all these have given me a unique set of qualifications, and I want to put those to work, as I have always done, in the service of my country. I want to heal old wounds and break new ground. I want to conduct the necessary and constant rebuilding of our nation while forging ahead in new domestic and foreign policy. And if elected, I want to do what Will Lee has done—leave my successor with a better country than when I started.”

Much applause.

“I ask of my countrymen more than their votes for me, I ask them to give me a Congress that is committed to our ideals as a nation and that will be ready to work hard every day for our people. If my countrymen will do that, then Dick Collins and I, with the support of a hardworking Congress, will give them an even better America!”

Kate stepped back from the microphone and waved to Dick Collins, who was in the wings, to come onstage. They embraced, then clasped hands and waved as the band began to play and the crowd cheered themselves to hoarseness.

—

UP IN STONE’S skybox he and his guests poured champagne, toasted the new nominees, then sat down to dinner while the crowd below began to drift toward the exits.

Chapter 36

In the predawn hours of the morning of the following day, Harry Gregg left his pickup truck in a parking lot adjacent to Santa Monica Airport and made the short hike down the road past Atlantic Aviation. He saw no one, and no one saw him.

He found a place where the chain-link fence surrounding the airport was concealed from the road by tall bushes, and scrambled between them to reach the fence. He took a set of short-handled bolt cutters from his backpack and made a three-foot horizontal cut of the fence near where the chain link disappeared into the ground, then another vertical cut alongside a fence pole. He peeled back the fence and let himself in, then pressed the chain link back into place. He stood quietly for a couple of minutes, listening for vehicles or footsteps. The airport was closed overnight, so there was no aircraft noise. Satisfied that he was alone, he walked over to the taxiway and began to move along the line of airplanes parked there. He saw two Citation Mustangs before he came to the one with the correct tail number.