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man,” he breathlessly told the woman at the desk. “I was supposed to meet his train from New York, but I got tied up in traffic—an accident in Virginia—and . . .”
    The woman’s expression said she didn’t know what he expected her to do.
    He went back into the train concourse, where a crowd had gathered in the east end of the station, in front of a tobacco shop. He managed to snake through the gathering until he could see activity next to the shop. Yellow crime-scene tape had been strung to create a wide off-limits area near a set of yellow swinging doors. A large contingent of uniformed and plainclothes police came and went through the doors, leading to what appeared to be a hallway.
    “What’s going on?” Marienthal asked a bystander.
    “Somebody died,” she said.
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Somebody got shot,” said a man standing next to them.
    “Shot?”
    “I heard it,” yet another person said excitedly. “I was right here.”
    “I heard it was an old guy with a cane.”
    A male voice came through a bullhorn: “All right, all right, everybody stand back. There’s nothing to see. Please leave the area.”
    Marienthal’s stomach tightened into a painful knot. He backed away until he was clear of the crowd and walked slowly toward the gate area where Russo would have left the Amtrak train. Although his eyes swept the station in search of the old man, he knew deep in his gut that he wouldn’t see him. “I heard it was an old guy with a cane,” the man in the crowd had said, and his words reverberated through Marienthal’s brain. It had to be Louis, he thought—he knew!
    “Hey, man, they get the guy?” Joe Jenks asked Marienthal from the shoeshine stand.
    “Huh?”
    “The shooter. The guy who gunned down the old dude. They find him?”
    “No, I . . . I don’t know.”
    Marienthal stood by gate A-8 for what seemed a very long time before going to the Main Hall. He stepped outside and watched the police and military vehicles moving in and out of position. An antenna was extended high above the roof of a TV news remote truck with
WTTG—Channel 5
emblazoned on its side. A reporter and cameraman prepared to beam a report back to the station.
    “Any word on the victim’s name?” Marienthal asked, his voice weak.
    The reporter, an attractive young woman holding a microphone and clipboard, turned to him and shook her head.
    “Russo,” Marienthal said automatically. “Louis Russo.”
    The reporter pulled a cell phone from where it was clipped on her belt and said into it, “I’ve got a witness who sounds like he knows the name of the victim. Russo, Louis Russo.” She listened intently for the reply. Once she’d received it, she turned to talk to Marienthal. But he was gone, back inside Union Station and on his way to where Kathryn waited for him in the car.

TEN

    I f it weren’t that a vicious killing had taken place, the multitude of law enforcement officers in Union Station might have been viewed as a fashion show of uniforms. Amtrak’s own police force had been the first on the scene of Louis Russo’s murder. Simultaneously, a call went out to the Washington PD’s First District headquarters, under whose jurisdiction Union Station fell, and men and women from that agency converged quickly on the scene. The Capitol police also responded because of the station’s proximity to Capitol Hill, in the event the shooting had political overtones that might herald an attack on members of Congress. Outside, the park police attempted to maintain order, while officers from Washington’s underground Metro system took up positions at Metro stops close to Union Station. And because of the elevation of the Technicolor terrorist alert system from yellow to orange, heavily armed members of the area’s national guard were being posted to stand grim-faced throughout the station. There were blue, brown, and white shirts; blue, tan, and black pants; a variety of ties; camouflage outfits;