he would not make this extensive trip to meet European leaders and "come up empty," and no matter the disappointments in Paris and Berlin, he still had the same resolve. He wanted now to concentrate on the next leg of his trip: Rome and dinner tonight with Italian president Mario Tonti, a man whose position he knew was largely ceremonial but whose job it was to unify factions within Italian politics, which made him a strategically important ally.
Harris considered Italy a friend and both the presidentand prime minister, Aldo Visconti, men he could rely on. But he also knew Tonti would know the meetings in Paris and Berlin had not achieved the results Harris had wanted. It was a failing that would add an element of awkwardness to their meeting because Italy was very much a part of the European Union, and the European Union's long-range goal was to become the United States of Europe and that was something that always had to be taken into consideration no matter the public deportment of its individual members. So how he would present himself to Tonti, what he would say and how he would say it should have been foremost in his mind. But it wasn't. Lay it to jet lag, to his failures yesterday and today, or to his own personal emotions, the thing foremost on his mind was what had happened to the Parsons family and so quickly afterward, the murder of Caroline Parsons's physician, Lorraine Stephenson. Abruptly he turned to Jake Lowe.
"The fellow who was in Caroline Parsons's hospital room when she died. What did we find out about him?"
Harris could see the crowds lining the street in front of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
"Don't know. It wasn't a priority," Lowe punched some code into his BlackBerry then waited for the information to come up as text.
The president looked to his left and saw they were passing crowds in front of the Hotel Boulevard.
"His name is Nicholas Marten," Lowe read from the text. "He's an American expat living in Manchester, England, and working for a small landscape architectural firm there, Fitzsimmons and Justice." Lowe stopped and read something in silence, then looked to the president. "For some reason Mrs. Parsons signed a notarized lettergiving him private access to her personal files and those of her husband."
"Both of them?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't have an answer."
"See if you can come up with one. This whole thing is increasingly disturbing."
Victor turned from his perch in the hotel room window. "Richard?"
"Yes, Victor."
"The motorcade has passed. It took seven seconds. I saw the limousine window clearly. I would have had a clean shot for three seconds, maybe four."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Richard."
"Enough time for a kill shot?"
"With the right ammunition, yes."
"Thank you, Victor."
13
• WASHINGTON, D.C., 7:10 A.M.
Nicholas Marten had turned the television to the local news channel the moment he got out of bed nearly thirty minutes earlier, hoping to hear something about Dr. Stephenson's "murder." But so far there had been nothing. It made him more curious than ever why the police were still holding the information back, and amazed thatsome aggressive reporter hadn't discovered the story and broken it.
He'd left the volume up, taken a quick shower, and begun to shave. Among the trivia, traffic, and weather reports he learned that the man shot down by a sniper at Union Station the day before had been a Colombian national in the country legally as a baseball player for the Trenton Thunder, a minor league team affiliated with the New York Yankees. An unnamed source revealed that investigators had recovered the murder weapon from a rented office in the National Postal Museum just across the street from the station. Purportedly it was an M14, a standard U.S. armed forces training rifle, manufactured in the hundreds of thousands by any number of firearms companies.
It seemed like a rather peculiar murder—a minor league ballplayer "assassinated"—but no more than that and
Harris considered Italy a friend and both the presidentand prime minister, Aldo Visconti, men he could rely on. But he also knew Tonti would know the meetings in Paris and Berlin had not achieved the results Harris had wanted. It was a failing that would add an element of awkwardness to their meeting because Italy was very much a part of the European Union, and the European Union's long-range goal was to become the United States of Europe and that was something that always had to be taken into consideration no matter the public deportment of its individual members. So how he would present himself to Tonti, what he would say and how he would say it should have been foremost in his mind. But it wasn't. Lay it to jet lag, to his failures yesterday and today, or to his own personal emotions, the thing foremost on his mind was what had happened to the Parsons family and so quickly afterward, the murder of Caroline Parsons's physician, Lorraine Stephenson. Abruptly he turned to Jake Lowe.
"The fellow who was in Caroline Parsons's hospital room when she died. What did we find out about him?"
Harris could see the crowds lining the street in front of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
"Don't know. It wasn't a priority," Lowe punched some code into his BlackBerry then waited for the information to come up as text.
The president looked to his left and saw they were passing crowds in front of the Hotel Boulevard.
"His name is Nicholas Marten," Lowe read from the text. "He's an American expat living in Manchester, England, and working for a small landscape architectural firm there, Fitzsimmons and Justice." Lowe stopped and read something in silence, then looked to the president. "For some reason Mrs. Parsons signed a notarized lettergiving him private access to her personal files and those of her husband."
"Both of them?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't have an answer."
"See if you can come up with one. This whole thing is increasingly disturbing."
Victor turned from his perch in the hotel room window. "Richard?"
"Yes, Victor."
"The motorcade has passed. It took seven seconds. I saw the limousine window clearly. I would have had a clean shot for three seconds, maybe four."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Richard."
"Enough time for a kill shot?"
"With the right ammunition, yes."
"Thank you, Victor."
13
• WASHINGTON, D.C., 7:10 A.M.
Nicholas Marten had turned the television to the local news channel the moment he got out of bed nearly thirty minutes earlier, hoping to hear something about Dr. Stephenson's "murder." But so far there had been nothing. It made him more curious than ever why the police were still holding the information back, and amazed thatsome aggressive reporter hadn't discovered the story and broken it.
He'd left the volume up, taken a quick shower, and begun to shave. Among the trivia, traffic, and weather reports he learned that the man shot down by a sniper at Union Station the day before had been a Colombian national in the country legally as a baseball player for the Trenton Thunder, a minor league team affiliated with the New York Yankees. An unnamed source revealed that investigators had recovered the murder weapon from a rented office in the National Postal Museum just across the street from the station. Purportedly it was an M14, a standard U.S. armed forces training rifle, manufactured in the hundreds of thousands by any number of firearms companies.
It seemed like a rather peculiar murder—a minor league ballplayer "assassinated"—but no more than that and
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