CHAPTER 1

JUST ANOTHER DAYAT THE OFFICE

I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade....And I to my pledged word am true,I shall not fail that rendezvous.ALAN SEEGER, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death"

MARCH 30, 1981

It had been almost forty-two years since I saw that B movie atthe Tower Theater, and I was a Secret Service agent assignedto protect the actor in that movie, who was now playing therole of a lifetime: the president of the United States. For thepast eighteen years I'd worked my way through the ranksin the Service—investigating stolen checks, standing post,working shifts, doing advances—and now I was lead agentfor the special detail that protected the president.

When I was younger, I was fascinated by the poem "I Havea Rendezvous with Death," by Alan Seeger. I had even memorizedit decades ago and have returned to it often. The poemmakes the encounter with Death seem as calm and natural aswatching the trees return to life, "when Spring comes backwith rustling shade and apple-blossoms fill the air."

Death is talked about not in cold, impersonal descriptionsbut in warm terms such as "rendezvous" and in personalimages of Death taking the poet's hand. For the poet, deathis not an encounter to be feared but an appointment to bekept. God is in it. Hope is in it. And so is courage.

There was another man enchanted by this poem. WhenJohn F. Kennedy returned from his honeymoon in October1953, he read "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" to hisyoung wife, Jacqueline, telling her it was his favorite poem.After that, she memorized the poem, often reciting it to himprivately. Her soft voice and unhurried accent seemed tocalm him, giving him the resolve he needed to face the futurehe felt awaited him.

In 1963, Jacqueline taught the poem to Caroline, theirfive-year-old daughter. On October 5, 1963, when the now—PresidentKennedy was meeting with his National SecurityCouncil in the Rose Garden, his young daughter slipped intothe meeting and sidled next to him. She tugged at him to gethim to notice her. The president dismissed her, but in a wayonly a young daughter can, she kept trying to get his attention.The president turned to her, smiling. Caroline lookedinto his eyes and recited the poem. She recited it flawlessly,with perfect diction. When she finished, no one spoke. Itseemed not simply a sweet moment but a sacred one. A senseof reverence permeated the silence, touching everyone.

Seven weeks later, this little girl's father made his rendezvouswith Death at the disputed barricade of Dealey Plazain Dallas, Texas.

A day that has haunted the memory of every American.And every Secret Service agent.

Now, almost eighteen years after that rendezvous, I wasan agent, tasked with protecting the president. I was part ofthe barricade between him and Death. And my sole purposewas to make sure this was the one appointment he wouldnot keep.

* * *

March 30, 1981, started for me in the predawn chill, whereI jogged around our neighborhood in North Potomac,Maryland. A small, sequestered suburb northwest of DC,it had been carved out of a forest near the Potomac River.The subdivisions had bucolic names like Travilah Meadows,Quail Run, and Mills Farm, and they lived up to theirnames, forming a quiet respite from the bustling streets ofthe nation's capital.

It was a spring day, not blue and fair but gray and overcastas I drove into DC. And although the first meadow flowershad appeared in some well-manicured parts of the city, themore than three thousand cherry trees there had not yet blossomedto fill the air with their delicate scent.

The first thing I did when I arrived for work that morningwas to sign in for target practice at the gun range inthe basement of the old post office building. I was dressedfor work in a plain, blue-gray, blend-in-with-the-crowd suitand tie, my gun holstered beneath my unbuttoned coat. As Ifaced downrange, I spread my feet to square with my shoulders.I relaxed my arms, shaking my hands at my sides toloosen them.

As an agent, I'd had it drilled into me that the one thingI could never do was freeze. In a crisis, an agent doesn't havetime to think. Reactions need to be instinctive. So much as ablink or a balk, and I would be a dead man. Or worse—thepresident would be a dead man.

With a sudden, jarring sound, the target turned from beinga thin piece of paper to a man with a pistol. Immediately Iflipped open my coat with my right hand, grabbed the buttof my gun with my left, and fired two shots that drilled thepaper assassin.

My gun was a stubby Smith & Wesson Model 19, with asix-round chamber that could be changed out in three to fourseconds. The impact on the hand was brutal, but the impacton the target was even more so. The .38-caliber bullets burstfrom the two-and-a-half-inch barrel at a speed of 1,110 feetper second. If the bullet didn't kill you, the blow from thebullet would knock you off balance—if not off your feet.With the Service using hollow points, though, if the bulletdid hit you, it would likely be lethal.

When you are protecting the most important leader inthe world,...