Authors: Gerald Petievich
He'd developed this method of carrying the gun when he and the other agents on the White House Secret Service Detail were required to follow President Jimmy Carter on his daily jogs. After a couple of trials with other materials, Powers determined that one thin layer of Saran Wrap kept the gun dry but didn't interfere with firing. To be sure, he'd tested the plastic-wrapped piece by firing more than a hundred rounds with it at the Secret Service firing range in Beltsville, Maryland.
Though the weapon was annoying during exercise and caused a slight abrasion where it rubbed against his waist, he carried it because he knew the odds were that in Washington, DC, crime capital of the world, some armed robber would eventually, some day when he least expected it, accost him while he was jogging. If so, Powers would surprise him with the .38 and blow his head off.
After a long shower, Powers broke starch on a fresh white shirt. After pulling on his trousers and sturdy wing-tipped shoes, Powers weighted his belt with his work equipment: revolver, handcuffs, a Motorola HL-20 radio receiver-transmitter keyed to the White House frequency, a small tear-gas canister, and a leather case containing an identification pin providing access to Location Rain City, a secret underground bomb shelter near the Pentagon where the President would be spirited to safety by the White House Detail in the event of nuclear war.
He shrugged on his conservative blue suit jacket, then checked the contents of his Secret Service-issue metal briefcase containing the other items he was required to have in his possession at all times when on duty: his official passport, two pistol speed-loaders, a small flashlight, a book of government transportation requests good for flights on any airline in the world, an extra set of handcuffs, air force aviator sunglasses, and an extra pair of wing-tip shoes with the rubber nonslip soles required by Secret Service regulation. He checked to see that all faucets and appliances were off in the apartment and then headed downstairs to catch the Metro.
At the East Gate to the White House, Powers held up his Secret Service identification card to Betty Manning, the Secret Service Uniformed Division officer manning the guard booth. She had freckles, red hair drawn back tightly, and a white Secret Service uniform shirt tailored to accentuate her full figure. Once during a presidential visit to Japan, he'd slept with her.
Rather than examining his ID card closely, she just smiled. "I thought you were gonna call me last weekend."
"Sorry, I got tied up," he said, moving quickly past.
She extended her middle index finger and held it to the glass as he hurried through a doorway covered by a blue awning and into the White House basement.
Powers strolled down a wide marble walkway past the White House barbershop and the Travel Logistics Office, stopping at the nicely decorated navy mess facility, the White House's restaurant.
He glanced both ways in the hall. There were no Secret Service supervisors in sight, so he went inside. Though, per the Secret Service White House operations manual, agents of the White House Detail were forbidden to use the mess with the White House staffers, general officers, and politicos, Powers had been eating there for years. After enjoying a breakfast of eggs and pancakes served to him by Ramon Valiente, a gray-haired Filipino mess steward whom he discreetly tipped to ensure being seated at a reserved table in the corner away from the door, Powers paid his bill and continued down the hall. Just past the White House photographer's office he stopped at a door marked W-16: the Secret Service White House command post. He used his own key in the lock.
Inside, a bank of black-and-white video screens lined the walls, focused on the on-duty Secret Service agents at their respective White House guard posts: mostly young, agile-looking men in Hong Kong suits similar to the one Powers was wearing, standing in hallways and corridors and in front of White House doors and windows-even on the roof-ready to defend the White House from an air attack with Redeye and Stinger hand-held surface-to-air-missiles.
On the other side of the room, fellow members of the oncoming day shift checked the duty board for messages, inspected revolvers, and inserted molded radio earpieces connected by a thin wire to the radios on their belts.
Special Agent John Alphonse Capizzi, a slack-jawed olive-complexioned New Yorker with a pencil-thin mustache, was fastening his shoulder holster. His dark striped suit and styled ebony hair gave him the appearance of a Wall Street broker, or perhaps a dissipated Italian diplomat. The youthful Capizzi, a varsity-league ass kisser and diligent student of the Secret Service promotion system (the "rabbi system"), which eschewed written or oral promotion tests for supervisory caprice, was, everyone on the detail said, destined to be Director someday.
Ken Landry, a tall broad-shouldered African American, was sitting in a high-backed chair in front of a cluttered radio console busily making notes. A decorated Marine Corps veteran, Landry was the only agent assigned to the White House Detail longer than Powers (three months and thirteen days on the seniority list). Recently promoted to be shift leader, Landry had avoided the myriad cabals and alliances within the Secret Service bureaucracy because he recognized that, as a black man, he would suffer for being ambitious if such a coalition backfired. Instead, he had simply outlasted the White House Detail hotshots and, through seniority, moved slowly up the promotion ladder. At forty-nine, Landry still held the record for push-ups and chin-ups in the monthly Secret Service physical agility tests.
Powers liked and trusted him.
"Ken, since there's no travel on the schedule, how about putting me on the four-to-twelve shift for the next couple of weeks?" Powers said, keeping his voice down so others couldn't hear. "I have some things to take care of during the day."
Landry looked around to see that no one else was listening. "My man," he said, without looking up from his paperwork, "may I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Are women all you ever think about?"
"What do you mean?"
"You've heard about the trip to California next week and you're trying to rearrange your schedule around pussy."
"If there's a problem-"
"Do you ever think about anything else? Like baseball. Do you ever think about baseball?" He looked up and winked. "Enjoy the beach, my man."
"Appreciate it. "
Landry tore a page off his note pad and stood up to face the group of agents. "Listen up! The man will be staying in the House all day. He'll be having lunch in the Blue Room with Congressman Lyman from Pennsylvania, who happens to be on the Appropriations Committee. So if you're standing post when they walk by, look sharp; Lyman can cut the Secret Service budget. We're working on Whisky frequency today."
He referred to his notes.
"Be advised that last night at twenty-three hundred hours a lunatic named Myron Foxbettor, fifty-one years old, approached the East Gate carrying a garden hoe and a box of Tide, which he was pouring over his head. He made verbal threats against the President and was committed to the psychiatric evaluation ward at St. Elizabeth Hospital.... An hour later one Richard Gastineau, thirty-three years old, also approached the gate. Gastineau, who was costumed like Charlie Chaplin, said he'd been hired to throw a lemon pie in the President's face. This whipdick was also committed to St. Elizabeth's. A search of his car revealed a lemon meringue pie, which is now being analyzed by Technical Security Division. That's all I have. Any questions?"
"Is it true we're going to Santa Monica next week?" Capizzi asked.
"There's no travel scheduled at this point. So those of you who are thinking about asking me to change your shifts in order to get beach time on the Coast can just forget it. Gentlemen, I spent five years on this detail before I dared ask my shift leader for so much as a sick day, much less a change to another shift. So a word to the wise should be sufficient." With a straight face, Landry glanced at his wristwatch. "It's about that time. Let's make the push."
There was some good-natured grumbling, and the agents filed out the door to man the interior guard posts. While the Secret Service Uniformed Division was responsible for manning the exterior posts, those visible from Pennsylvania Avenue and to visitors on the White House tour, the on-duty shift of plainclothes special agents was responsible for the close-in posts. In the Secret Service manual for protective operations this system of guard posts was referred to as "the concentric theory of security," a meaningless term coined by the Director, Rexford J. Fogarty.
Powers took the stairs to the East Wing two at a time. Because of seniority, he relieved the agent standing outside the Oval Office.
For the rest of the day, at half-hour intervals, Powers and the other special agents on duty would move, in succession, from one guard post to another throughout the White House: from the door of the Cabinet Room, to the door of the Oval Office, to the door leading to the President's study, and so on. Standing at these posts with arms either crossed on his chest or casually behind him or at his sides, shifting his weight now and then and balancing alternately on the balls of his feet to avoid fatigue, he would watch young White House staffers, Congressmen and Senators, generals, admirals, cabinet members, and members of the Vice President's youthful staff rush in and out of various offices carrying papers and speaking fiercely in hushed tones.
White House staffers said little to Powers and the other on-duty Secret Service agents during the course of the average day. Powers had accepted his place in the hierarchy long ago: inside the White House, he was simply an observer, a symbol of security in a place already protected by spiked fences, electronic barriers, outside guard posts, and every type of alarm imaginable. Looking like gun-carrying cigar store Indians, he and his colleagues would come to life only in the event that someone already admitted through the elaborate screen of security tried to harm the President.
And Powers knew this was very unlikely.
In fact, the only action he'd seen while pushing post inside the White House was the time an insane army private, Leroy Mildebank, had stolen a helicopter from Fort Meade, Maryland, and tried to land it in the White House Rose Garden. Once it was established that the chopper was unauthorized, every special agent within range, including Powers, had emptied revolvers and Uzi submachine guns at it. Private Mildebank, uninjured because the military craft was bullet-resistant, had calmly turned off the chopper blades and surrendered outside the Oval Office.
Nevertheless, even though Powers kept vigilant because it was his job, he hated pushing post in the White House itself because, though his job was certainly necessary, it was monotonous. The only human contact he'd have all day, except for other special agents, was when some power-hungry politician or admiral asked him, with restrained condescension, where to find the nearest rest room.
When the President traveled, there was plenty of excitement. Powers had been one of the agents who wrestled the gun from John Hinckley's hands moments after Hinckley shot President Reagan. He had also been standing two feet from President Ford when Sara Jane Moore opened fire. A bullet had whizzed so close to his face that the recurring memory, like the nightmares he'd experienced after returning from Vietnam, still occasionally woke him in the middle of the night.
Powers had just taken his post at the door of the Oval Office when there was the sound of static in his earpiece. He adjusted the squelch, to hear Landry inform him via radio that Chief of Staff David Morgan was headed for the Oval Office to see the President. Soon Morgan stepped off the nearby elevator. Fiftyish and with a receding hairline, the most visible member of the White House staff wore a pinstriped suit with a tight-fitting vest. Perpetually squinting because he was too vain to wear eyeglasses, he moved deliberately, ever conscious of maintaining an assured demeanor.
Powers nodded. Rather than ignoring him completely and entering the Oval Office, Morgan stopped.
"Good morning, Jack."
"Good morning, sir." And since you've taken the time to speak, you must be going to ask a favor.
"Jack, would you be good enough to check with your command post to find out if Dick Eggleston has arrived yet?"
"The President is alone, sir."
"I'm aware of that, Jack. I want to know if Eggleston has arrived."
"I'm not allowed to use my radio net for anything other than Secret Service official business," Powers said in the impersonal but nonthreatening tone he'd developed over the years for dealing with power freaks, as he called them. Powers believed Morgan just wanted to kill time because he was early for the meeting and to remind Powers of Morgan's dominant position in the pecking order-something power freaks like to do.