“Let’s go,” McGreer said to end the meeting. “We will have years to mourn. We have only hours to act.”

Addis left without talking to anyone else. He wanted to avoid questions about the First Lady’s request. He returned to his office, sat down at his desk, and shoved all the land deal papers into an accordion file. And he cried for the first time that day.

5 - Rosslyn, Virginia June 21

5

Rosslyn, Virginia June 21

The scene played over and over. There were no ambiguities. Dozens of cameras had captured the truth. Julia Lancette sat at her desk, switching channels. With the obligatory warnings, news broadcasters introduced those three seconds again and again. There were different angles, but they all showed the same. She felt sick. She also felt sad, knowing that eventually—and likely soon—the nation would become inured to this image.

She had to concentrate. She had a professional interest in the variety of shots—and she hated that. Which one best showed his face? She had seen profiles, three-quarters, and a jerky head-on. One shot for an instant showed him after a reporter had pulled off the beard. But then he was smothered by a mob of journalists and Secret Service agents. One cameraman had captured his dazed look as he was hauled out of the room. Everything was on tape. She would do a second-by-second analysis and select the clearest pictures.

She already had what she needed most—the mug shots taken by the Secret Service in the bunker. She had fed a digital set of those images into the computer and had tried to run the DUO-SHOTS program. But a glitch had occurred, and she sent for a computer jock. Not until he arrived and tended to the problem would she have the alternative identity pictures. With a beard. Without a beard. With a mustache. Without. Twenty pounds heavier. Fifteen pounds lighter. Five years ago. Ten years ago. Large glasses. Small ones. And so on. She was putting together a file.

The phone rang.

“I didn’t want to bother you earlier, dear. Thought you’d be swamped.”

She looked at the empty desks in her office.

“We are, mother,” she said. “It’s very busy here.”

“Isn’t it terrible?” She was crying.

“Yes, it is.”

“Your father won’t talk, and he hated him.”

“I know.”

She flipped through the photographs of the scars—rough lines forming capital letters. How much had it hurt? she wondered.

“Are you okay?”

“Work is a good diversion.”

“What do they have you doing?”

“Just standard background research. You know, the usual.”

“I should let you go.”

“Thanks, I’ll call you later.”

She turned off the television and picked up the sports section. An hour passed, and the buzzer sounded. She checked the surveillance screen: white male, age twenty-four, just shy of six feet, 140 pounds, scruffy beard. She reviewed the photograph on record and let him in.