Tragic Death in the White House

By Anthony Wallace

The deviousness of the plot was rather brilliant

                                              Readers` Favorite

 

Tragic Death in the White House is a dramatic thriller that demonstrates a true reverence for the office of the President….engaging story, intriguing plot and a whole host of interesting characters to keep readers on their toes….complex story….exciting.

                                                                                                                     Indies Today

 

A professional assassin manages to kill the President of the USA in the middle of the White House - and gets away unnoticed. 
However, the government decides to showcase the murder as an accident and steals his fame. 
The mafia refuses to give him the promised payout. No one believes he actually killed the President, let alone in the White House.

He's given a deadline: four days to prove his case or else. 

Meanwhile, the government places a $10-million dollars bounty on him using a different case from the past. The mafia, greeded by the bounty, also joins the chase. 

Caught between two fires, the assassin decides to reveal the truth to the public and collect both rewards: the one from the mafia, and the other from the police.

What will it take him to succeed? 
He writes a letter to the late President's wife and sets up his twin brother as the one on the warrant. 

In order to succeed, he has to convince the police that he knows the truth behind the "accident" and that he's captured the "right" assassin. 

While that unfolds, the Vice President is trying to hide the truth from the public in order to save the dignity of the nation and apprehend the assasin. However, certain powerful people are trying to set him up because they don`t want him in the presidential position.

Will the new President and the Assasin succeed in their conflicting efforts? 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony Wallace
• Release date: Sep 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393400912

Anthony Wallace

Anthony F.C. Wallace is a professor of history and anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of many books, including Rockdale, which won the Bancroft Prize in 1978. He lives in Pennsylvania.

Book preview

Chapter 5

Washington D.C.

When you escape the scene of the crime, relax, if you accepted the fact that the manhunt for you won’t affect your sleep – third rule of the assassin on the run.

Rose Wardle wasn’t supposed to be at home. She was supposed to be at work and return in the evening. And that is how it was. Her absence enabled him to take his time and unwind from the built up tension. That feeling, known only to him, of blazing internal fire now had to be smothered and extinguished. He needed perfect calmness. Now he had to free himself from the impression of the completed masterpiece. To stop admiring himself and forget about the hours left behind him. The urge that drove him thus far would present a great threat in the future. The news that he’d wanted to break would be broken by others. He would be left with his own complacency and that was good enough for him.

Will anyone be able to grasp the sheer scale of the committed act? he wondered. After this, all other assassinations would be taken down a few notches, and between those and his there would be a huge, empty gap. His faceless figure would be on a pedestal and on it, it would be written ‘The man who accomplished the impossible’.

While he waited for the bathtub to fill with hot water, he paced to the TV several times, before changing his mind in the last moment with the thoughts there’s time. First, I should relax. He turned his gaze to the shining new computer, which he’d gifted to Rose Wardle, and then he decidedly went to the bathroom.

He took all of his clothes.

He examined his face in the mirror, in front of which his expensive set of toiletries was perfectly ordered – horse hair shaving brush, razor with ivory handle, ivory comb, exclusive aftershave lotion and expensive musk perfume.

Small traces of make-up were still visible on his face.

He’d perfected the make-up craft when he realized that the paranoia of absolute control over places and people caused by the advances and availability of tech inventions could be best countered with identity change. Sinister acts were always committed under the shroud of darkness. That sense of invisibility encouraged the actors. Like an individual in a crowd felt that their identity was concealed by the masses, he also felt more protected and safer when he wasn’t himself.

The hot water brought a moment of release from all thoughts. His mind was enveloped in a sweet wave of blissfulness that slowly sent him into half-sleep.

THE SUN BURNED, BUT not as much as the hot tears that were streaming down his gentle, young face. From the moment he was left alone on the desert sand, up until the car had completely vanished from the horizon, he choked on tears and pain.

This was supposed to be a regular walk into the vastness of the savannah with his father and brother, but everything took a strange turn when the car suddenly drove off. At first, he didn’t know what to make of it, but then he realized that he’d fallen victim to his father’s whims once again. That wasn’t unusual in itself, but this time it was terrifying. Alone, left at the mercy of the wilderness and its inhabitants. If wild cats didn’t devour him, the cannibals would. But that wasn’t the cause of his pain. He was torn from the inside by the feeling of betrayal. His father shouldn’t be messing with him like this. All the cruelty and ruthlessness to which he and his brother were subjected while growing up didn’t break their faith in their father. They may’ve lost their love, but trust still glimmered in their young hearts. And now, cast away on the scorching African sun, with nothing on his person, save scant clothes – shorts and long-sleeved shirt, shoes and knee-high socks – he stared in direction of the dust settling and wondered will he find his brother somewhere along the