As he hurled questions at his captive, Dunne silently cursed his own damn luck. The first African American to head the Secret Service unit at the White House; the first Secret Service man to lose a President in over three decades. No matter what, no matter what he got the assassin to say now, Dunne’s life was set forever: the man in charge on that day. Remember how you used to see this chunky black guy next to the President all the time? He had that weird gray patch on the side of his head. That was the guy who screwed up. No one was supposed to be able to waltz into the White House and on live around-the-world television plug the President of the United States. The three assassination attempts they had stopped this past year and kept secret—who would ever talk about those? Not even he would.

And the question: Why? This man in front of him, cuffed and restrained thirty feet below the ground in the high-security White House crisis center, would not say.

“We’re going to find out your name. We’re going to find out every damn thing about your pathetic life. We’re going to interview every blue-assed grade-school teacher who ever had to look at your miserable mug. We’ll find everything.”

He sat stone-faced. He knew all the routines. He knew none would work. He had been trained. And these guys couldn’t use the most persuasive tactics. He could teach them.

“Waiting for a lawyer?”

Waiting, yes. His leg twitched, his foot tingled, as if it were going numb.

The other agents sat in the room watching Dunne. A vein on the side of his head throbbed. This was his only chance. He could not put the bullets back into the gun. He could only explain.

An agent entered the room.

“The Bureau is here,” he whispered to Dunne.

“Give me more time.”

“Can’t.”

Dunne looked at the assassin. The man in the overalls was in his mid-thirties. He had a strong build. A tooth was chipped. His hair was closely cropped, his face oddly shaped, angular. He sat stiffly. He was disciplined. Dunne could tell this fellow was silently talking to himself. Telling himself something over and over.

“Damnit, say something. Don’t you want the whole damn world to know why you did this?”

For the first time, the killer gazed directly at Dunne, not through him.

“No,” he said.

“Sir … ,” the agent said to Dunne.

That’s it. The pooch was screwed. Dunne waved his arms and nodded to the other agents in the room. They moved to undo the restraints and pulled the suspect out of the chair. The door opened and several men entered.

“Nothing?” one asked Dunne.

Dunne did not reply.

“Maybe we’ll do a little better.”