AFTER SPENDING SOME time with the President, crafting a statement mostly full of mush—the key phrases being the President confessing to a relationship that “was not appropriate,” which he hopes will satisfy the press for at least a day, along with a nearly sincere apology to his “dear wife” and “the American people”—Parker Hoyt leaves the grounds of the White House and takes a walk by himself to the south, to Pershing Park, overlooked by the crowd of ignorant tourists, most of whom would probably have trouble naming the President’s predecessor. He takes a bench near the fountain and the large pool that is used as a skating rink in the winter. There’s a slight breeze, and most of the passersby are bundled up from the apparent cold, though Parker doesn’t feel it. Growing up in Cleveland on the bitter shores of Lake Erie, you quickly learn what cold really feels like.
A short, dark-skinned woman with fine black hair, brown eyes, and wearing a Navy pea coat and jeans comes over and sits down on the bench next to him. Parker eyes the tourists one more time. If one out of a hundred could tell him who Pershing was or what he accomplished, he’d be surprised.
Parker says to the woman next to him, “The Marine Corps says your confirmed kill was forty-two.”
“Sixty-three,” the woman answers in a strong voice. Marsha Gray, former USMC, now a contract worker for Global Strategic Solutions, and right on time.
“Why the difference?”
Her hands are in her coat pocket. “The Corps has pretty strict rules when it comes to confirming sniper kills. You need secondary confirmation. Most guys, that’s not a problem, because you have a spotter working for you—he can confirm a hit. But I worked alone. That means it took after-action intelligence reports or drone footage to confirm what I did.”
“Odd thing to work alone.”
“I worked in odd places,” she says. “My family background gives me the skin color to blend in. I wear a chador or something similar, most men leave me alone. Under the chador, though, I had a nice special-model Remington X600 sniper rifle. I could break it down so I could sling it over my shoulder—nobody could spot it. I’d find the high ground, reassemble the gear, find and terminate the target, and by the time the blood stopped flowing, I was walking along the street like a nice, quiet covered woman, submissive to the nearest smelly bearded man and God.”
“Good for you.”
Marsha says, “What’s the job?”
Parker says, “What do you think of our President?”
She shrugs. “No better, no worse, I guess. Though his little man sure has gotten him into trouble. Why do you ask?”
Parker thinks about how to phrase it, and decides just to let it go. “President Tucker…he gets stuff done. Not earth-shattering, or headline-making, but he gets stuff done. For the first time in a long time, we’ve got a President who isn’t involved in a vicious fight with the other party or even with the news media. It took decades for us to get into the mess we’re in, and it’s going to take decades to climb out, but at least this guy is turning things around. He’s made a good start.”
Marsha doesn’t look impressed. He goes on. “I grew up in Cleveland. Joke city of the Great Lakes. My dad, and his dad, and my great-grandfather, they had opportunities in the mills and foundries. Places to go. Good jobs that allowed them to buy a house, leave something for the kids, maybe get a vacation cabin for the summer. Families like that, they weren’t entrepreneurs—they weren’t thinking of new Internet apps, stuff like that. So they were abandoned, forgotten. This President…he’s remembered them. And he’s remembered my family. That’s why I work for him, and that’s why I’m dedicated to his safety and success. His opponent…he thinks if we all grew kale, held hands together and sang Kumbaya, then we’d be ushered into a new world of light and happiness. I can’t allow him to win. It would be an epic disaster.”
Marsha says, “Nice sales pitch. What’s the job?”
He says, “You grew up poor in Wyoming, didn’t you? Orphaned daughter of a Basque sheep farmer, up there in the mountains. Your parents died in a truck accident during a blizzard. You joined the Corps to get out of there, make a living. It must have been pretty rough out there in Wyoming before you left.”
She says, “You had a big lake. We had mountains. You had it better.”
Parker says, “The First Lady is gone. The Secret Service doesn’t know where she is.”
“Good for her,” Marsha says. “You see the knockers on that other gal? I’d be missing from my husband too if I found out he’d been stepping out with her.”
“There’s more to it than just that,” Parker says. “Something screwy is going on with her sudden absence. She might be missing, might have left on her own. I’m not going to allow her to sabotage the President’s second term, so we’re keeping the search for her secret. I’ll give you information about the Secret Service’s investigation, and I want you to shadow them…and if the situation requires, terminate.”
Marsha crosses her legs. “How will I know when the situation requires it?”
“I’ll be in constant contact. You’ll know.”
A group of chattering schoolchildren go by, two female schoolteachers desperately trying to corral them away from the pool. Parker says, “You okay with that?”
Marsha says, “Just to be clear…just her or do what’s necessary?”
“Pretend you’re out in the field, no way to contact anybody else. Do what has to be done.”
Another slight shrug. “Not a problem.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve never liked her anyway,” Marsha says. “Not a problem.”
“Good,” Parker says. “I need you to start right away.”
“Fine,” she says.
“Great,” he says. He rattles off a series of digits. “That’s my direct line at the White House. Give me a call in thirty minutes and I’ll give you what I know, and we’ll proceed from there.”
“Deal,” she says.
Marsha gets up, and Parker says, “Ask you one more question?”
“You’re not on the clock yet, so yeah, ask away.”
“Who’s Pershing? You know, the guy this park was named after.”
For the first time since he had met this killer, she smiles. “What is this, a joke? General John Joseph ‘Black Jack’ Pershing. Head of the American Expeditionary Force during the First World War. Chased Pancho Villa through Mexico earlier but never caught him. You need anything else?”
“No,” Parker says. “Go along, and don’t be late calling.”
Marsha says, “I won’t,” and she walks away, and like snipers everywhere, she quickly blends in with the crowds and trees and disappears.
Parker takes that as a very good sign.