Something Has Happened in the Motorcade

A fascinating, detailed account of how John Daniels, a young college graduate and expert marksman, is recruited for Operation Mongoose against Fidel Castro in 1963 and is eventually turned to play the key role in the assassination of President John Kennedy. Years later, a tragically remorseful Daniels sees history repeating itself with the Presidential campaign of Bobby Kennedy, and tries desperately to stop those forces as they coalesce again to stop RFK.
Daniels was a senior English major at an eastern university and an amateur marksman. He was also fluent in Spanish. In the spring of 1963, shortly before graduation, he is contacted by an individual identifying himself as Edward Smith, who claims to work for an intelligence branch of the United States government and has, it seems, supporting credentials.
An effective talker with a commanding presence, Smith recruits the young man on a mission ostensibly aimed at eliminating Fidel Castro. He offers Daniels $60,000 for a few months work and appeals to his sense of patriotism, highlighting the threat presented by the Cuban Communist regime. Daniels, with no job offers and a sense of adventure, eventually signs on and is trained at a desert facility using Soviet sniper rifles, presumably for insertion into Cuba.
In early fall, Smith meets with Daniels and attempts to change targets to President John Kennedy. Smith is well prepared with documentation and material to convince his recruit that Kennedy is leading the country on a course of nuclear destruction. He has details on the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the nuclear missiles under Cuban control aimed at the landing beaches, the deceptive and incomplete missile withdrawal from Cuba, faulty Jupiter ICBMs, and other matters. Perhaps in a manner similar to Pattie Hearst or even the Manson family, Smith is eventually successful in turning his charge. The young man, alone with no other resources or compatriots, becomes convinced the entire U.S. intelligence community is behind his efforts. The remuneration is also upped to $150,000, and half deposited in an offshore account.
Daniels and Smith travel to Dallas in early November, linking up with Lee Harvey Oswald, also recruited by Smith. The trio work out a strategy of coordinated fire as soon as the Presidential motorcade route is published. The most chilling scene describes in detail the author’s fatal shot utilizing a Tokarev 7.62 Soviet sniper rifle with four power scope and a single hollow point round.
Emotionally unprepared for the gravity of his actions, Daniels begins to unravel shortly afterward and the novel poignantly describes his tortured efforts toward redemption in the ensuing months and years. When Bobby Kennedy enters the 1968 Presidential race, a horrified Daniels realizes he must act to stop the same forces from reforming again to stop RFK. The novel races to a thrilling climax in Los Angeles.
The eerie similarities between the two assassinations are pieces of a ghastly jigsaw puzzle that Daniels desperately tries to fit together and construct the fatal picture they portray.