“I understand. Do we have any idea who the men are?”

Sheldon shook his head. “The tape is being examined by our experts now. The camcorder is one of those new models with a high-powered zoom lens, which has very high resolution. Our lab will do the initial work on the tape, but I gather that they don’t have the capability for the sort of analysis we might require. That’s one of the reasons I want you handling the investigation.”

“My father-in-law?”

Sheldon nodded. “Theodore Clayton’s electronics company is one of the few at the forefront of this technology which isn’t based in Japan. His help would be invaluable, and the request might be better coming from a family member, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure it would,” Howard agreed. He knew exactly how much Theodore Clayton would appreciate a call for help from his son-in-law.

“I want you to act as FBI liaison with the local investigators, and to organise the analysis of the tape. Any questions?”

“You said it has to be soon. Why do you think that?”

“Whoever is behind this already has his assassins in place, and obviously has a specific venue in mind. The longer they wait, the greater the risk of the whole operation falling apart. I doubt if they’re planning more than a few months ahead. It may be only a matter of weeks or days.”

“What about targets? Do we issue a warning to the President’s security people?”

Sheldon sat back in his leather chair, his palms face down on his desk like a pianist about to begin a concerto. “I’m sending a memo to the Secret Service’s Intelligence Division in Washington, of course, but at this stage I don’t want to go overboard. As yet we don’t know for certain who the target is, and I don’t want to be caught crying wolf. As soon as we know for sure who the target is we’ll throw a cordon around him, but not until then. And there’s no point in issuing a general warning – that would scare too many people needlessly and we’d run the risk of the snipers going to ground. No, Cole, you tell me for sure that it’s the President and we’ll sound the alarm.”

Sheldon paused for a few seconds as if he was having second thoughts. He tapped his fingers on the desktop. “But I think it would be a good idea if you got hold of the President’s itinerary and see if there are any situations where snipers could get at him.”

Howard left Sheldon’s office with the tape and file. He wasn’t looking forward to asking his father-in-law for help.