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college, if I remember.”
    “So, he could just drop his shoulder, charge ahead, tackle the guy. Take him down.”
    “I suppose.”
    “Yet his left foot is angled away—toward the door, wouldn’t you say?”
    “Could be . . .”
    “And his left shoulder?”
    Sloan, studying the screen, said nothing.
    Reeder said, “It should be lowered , right? But it’s not —it’s open, his arm flung to his left, like his foot . . . toward the fire exit.”
    The FBI agent said nothing.
    Reeder put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Venter wasn’t going to play hero, Gabe. He saw an opening and was going to take it, to try to save his ass.”
    “Maybe. But even so, how does that change anything? Or maybe you’d just like to see a conservative icon painted a coward.”
    “Gabe, Venter getting wrongly tagged a hero is hardly the biggest issue here.”
    Back at his desk, Reeder started the video in slow motion. “Watch how your ‘robber’ takes his time. This isn’t a panicked reaction to an unruly stickup victim. The killer abandons his attention on Blount. The kid, had he wanted to, could have picked up something off the table, a knife, a fork, hell, his glass, anything , and attacked the killer at this point . . . but the shooter doesn’t give Blount a second thought. He turns, sets his feet, takes his time, then . . .”
    They both watched as the pistol fired in slow motion, Venter engulfed in a pink cloud and going down.
    “. . . and then,” Sloan said in a hushed voice that implied he could hardly believe he was saying it, “executes Judge Henry Venter.”
    Reeder nodded. “ Now you’ve ‘watched’ the video, Gabe. Now you’re not overlooking the obvious.”
    Sloan turned to his host. “Are you, Peep?”
    “You mean that, for the first time in American history somebody has assassinated a Supreme Court justice? No, Gabe. No, I noticed that, all right.”

“If Columbus had an advisory committee, he would probably still be at the dock.”
Arthur J. Goldberg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 1962–1965, United States Secretary of Labor, United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
Section 21, Lot S-35, Grid M-20.5, Arlington National Cemetery.

FOUR
    Every flag in DC was flying at half-mast this morning, and the one outside the trapezoidal building with its severe lines and many windows was no exception—the J. Edgar Hoover Building, headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
    In his lightweight light gray suit with a powder-blue dress shirt and a dark blue tie, Reeder might have been just another agent reporting in. But this was reluctant duty: Only after Gabe Sloan had done much arm-twisting last night had Reeder agreed to meet with him now, for a session with the Bureau’s Assistant Director, Margery Fisk.
    Meeting Sloan just inside, Reeder accepted the visitor’s badge from his friend, clipped it on his breast pocket, and said, “If you think the FBI is gonna add me to this task force, you’re ready for premature retirement.”
    Sloan waved that off. He was in the Brooks Brothers pinstripe again—or maybe he was still in it. “Just tag along and behave yourself, Peep. I’ll take the lead.”
    They walked toward the security station.
    Reeder said, “I’m only putting up with this because you’re Amy’s godfather.”
    “Here I thought it was because you’re a patriot. Did you catch the President’s speech this morning?”
    “Heard it on the car radio.”
    Sloan grunted a laugh. “You’d think Venter was his goddamn daddy.”
    Reeder grunted one back. “And you’d also think Venter was the greatest American hero since John Wayne played Davy Crockett. Busy morning so far?”
    As they went through security, Sloan said, “You have no idea.”
    “I’d bet your buddies on the Bureau just can’t wait to see me come around.”
    “Well, Patti might.”
    “Who’s Patti?”
    “My partner. You remember. I told you about her.”
    “Oh yeah . . . the