The Machiavelli Covenant by Allan Folsom Read Free Book Online Page B

NACH HAUSE, HARRIS GO HOME!, NO MORE BLOOD FOR OIL! —one banner read simply: JOHN, LET'S TALK PLEASE. Other people simply stood and watched as the giant motorcade bearing the leader of the world's lone superpower passed before them.
    "I wonder what I'd think if I were a German standing out there watching us go by," Harris said, watching thecrowds. "What would I want from the United States? What would I think about her intentions?"
    He turned to look at Lowe, one of his best friends and his closest political adviser, a man he had known for years when he first entered the Senate race in California. "What would you think, Jake? What would you think if you were one of them?"
    "I would probably—" Lowe's conversation was abruptly cut short when his BlackBerry alerted him to a voice message from Tom Curran, the president's chief of staff, waiting for them aboard Air Force One at Tegel Airport. "Yes, Tom," he said into his ever-present headset. "What? When? . . . see what more you can find out. We'll be on board in twenty minutes."
    "What is it?" the president said.
    "Caroline Parsons's personal physician, Lorraine Stephenson, was found murdered last night. The police have held back the news for investigative reasons."
    "Murdered?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Good Lord." The president's eyes shifted away and he stared off. "Mike, his son, then Caroline, and now her doctor?" he said, then looked back to Jake Lowe. "All dead, just like that, and over so short a period of time. What's going on?"
    "It's a tragic coincidence, Mr. President."
    "Is it?"
    "What else would it be?"

12

    • BERLIN. HOTEL BOULEVARD, KURFÜRSTENDAMM 12, 11:05 A.M.

    Victor."
    "Yes, Richard. I hear you."
    "Are you at the window?"
    "Yes, Richard."
    "What can you see?"
    "The street. All sorts of people lining it. A big church is across from me. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. At least that was what the porter called it when he showed me into the room. Why, Richard?"
    "I wanted to make certain the hotel didn't give you a different room, that's all."
    "No, they didn't. The room is exactly as I requested. I followed your instructions to the letter." Victor no longer wore the gray suit he had in Washington but instead was dressed in light brown slacks and a dark blue oversized cardigan sweater. He still looked like an everyman, but now his appearance was more academic. A middle-aged professor, perhaps, or a high school teacher. Someone unremarkable who would stand unnoticed in a crowd.
    "I knew you would, Victor. Now listen carefully. The presidential motorcade has turned onto the Kurfürstendamm. In—" Richard paused for the briefest moment, then went on; "forty seconds it will come into sight and pass beneath your window. The president is in the third presidential limousine. He's sitting on your side of thecar, the rear seat next to the left window. You won't be able to see him through the tinted glass but he's there just the same. I want you to tell me how long it takes for the limousine to pass and if you would have time to get a clear shot at that window from where you are."
    "A presidential limousine has bulletproof glass."
    "I know, Victor. Don't worry about it. All I want you to tell me is how long it takes for the limousine to pass and if you would have time to get a clear shot from that angle."
    "Alright."
    President Harris stared out the limousine's window absently watching the crowds his motorcade was passing, his thoughts on his secretary of defense, Terrence Lang-don, in the south of France for a meeting of NATO defense ministers. Langdon was essentially delivering the same message that Secretary of State David Chaplin had a day earlier to his twenty-five NATO counterparts at a working lunch in Brussels: that the U.S. was signaling a new readiness to work more closely with its NATO allies, something the previous administration under President Charles Cabot had all but refused to do.
    In a speech to Congress before he left Washington Harris had promised that