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McDonald returned Kelsi’s smile.
    She said, still smiling, “I’ve got my sources, too, you know.” She giggled.
    The Secret Service agent didn’t seem to know what to make of the playful banter between his assigned “body” and the law student with the fantastic body . He just watched and listened. That’s what he was paid to do. But, boy, did he have stories he wished he could tell. He used to work for Bill Clinton.
     
    Jeffrey Oates bumped into several more pedestrians in his haste to arrive at the Hilton in time to catch Peter McDonald. Fortunately for everyone involved, the scene with the Georgetown student didn’t repeat itself; no one else was knocked to the pavement, and Oates’s pistol remained securely in his pocket.
    Oates turned the corner onto California Street. He hustled to the end of the block. The Hilton was in plain view across the street on Connecticut Avenue. He surveyed the area. He suddenly realized that he had forgotten the most important part of his plan: how he was going to get a shot off without someone seeing him do it. As anyone who had been to the nation’s capital could attest, there weren’t many moments during the day when no one else was on the sidewalk. That was especially the case around the capital’s luxury hotels.
    Oates knew he had to take a chance, though. He had overheard Senator Burton say on the phone recently that she had lost faith in her top aide’s ability to finish sensitive assignments. And that meant that Oates’s opportunity to one day become White House chief of staff in a Burton administration was out the window, too—unless, of course, he could show the senator that the Charlottesville screw-up had been an isolated incident.
    Oates spotted a mailbox directly in front of the hotel’s taxi stand. Cabs were lined up like yellow chicks behind their mother, but the drivers themselves were standing underneath the hotel’s canopy smoking cigarettes and trying to keep out of the rain.
    Oates reached into his pocket to make sure the gun was still there. It was. A young mother pushing a jogging stroller dashed before his eyes. Thank God he hadn’t pulled out the gun, he said to himself. Thank God he hadn’t fired the gun.
    The young mother smiled as she went jogging on her way.
    Oates returned her smile. He double- and triple-checked Connecticut Avenue to make sure that no one else was about to flash before him. The coast was clear. Finally, the coast was clear.
    Peter McDonald stepped onto the sidewalk. An attractive young woman who Oates recognized as McDonald’s research assistant was at the professor’s side. The Secret Service agent assigned to McDonald was two paces behind them.
    Oates pulled the pistol from his pocket. He cupped it between his palm and forearm. He checked again to make sure that no one was about to jump into his line of fire. He took a deep breath, wiped the raindrops from his brow with the back of his hand, and raised the pistol to eye level. He pulled the trigger. The recoil caused him to stumble back a step. He regained his balance in time to see that this time he hadn’t missed: Professor Peter McDonald, the president’s nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States, collapsed to the pavement like a pile of bricks at a city-run construction site.

CHAPTER 16
     
     
    John Gilstrap penned a best-selling novel a decade or so ago called Nathan’s Run that was essentially nothing but one long chase scene. The novel wasn’t literature, and the author wasn’t a new Charles Dickens, but the book had an engaging, plucky hero and a breakneck pace.
    Jeffrey Oates felt like a much older version of twelve-year-old Nathan Bailey as he coughed and wheezed his way through the tangled streets of the nation’s capital. The cold rain had begun to fall harder, which was actually a good thing for Oates because it meant that fewer people were in his way than there ordinarily would have been.
    Several people seemed curious about why Oates was