From the Heart

to the side and gesture back at the abbey. I want a slow pan; then come back on me at the finish.”
    “Gotcha.” Bob waited until his lighting man had rechecked his meter. “Okay?”
    Liv took the mike, then nodded. She ran through it once. Dissatisfied, she ran through it a second time. A faint breeze tugged at her hair as she spoke of the ceremony that was to come. Thoroughly, as though she had not worked the timing to the second, she talked of the abbey’s history. When the camera came back to her, she looked into the lens with direct, serious eyes.
    “This is Olivia Carmichael reporting from Westminster Abbey, London.”
    “Well?” Bob shifted his weight to his hip.
    “It’s a wrap.” She checked her watch. “All right. We go to Downing Street. There’re two hours before the ceremonies start. That should give us enough time for a quick stand-up and a few man-on-the-streets. We’ll want another briefing with Thorpe before we feed what we have back to the station.”
     
    Thorpe had time for three cups of coffee while he waited for the president. His brief meeting with Donaldson had disclosed only that the president had spent a comfortable evening and had arisen early. But Thorpe was not satisfied.
    Outside, the limo waited with secret service hovering discreetly in the background. Thorpe drew on a cigarette, standing coatless, heedless of the chill spring morning. His cameraman whistled tunelessly while the rest of the crew held a mumbled conversation. Thorpe didn’t pay attention. He was watching the secret service. They were quite obviously on the alert.
    The moment the president stepped outside, things came to life. Thorpe heard the whirl of the camera going on. He had the mike in his hand. Almost without thought, he filed what the first lady was wearing. There would be those who would demand an exact account.
    “Mr. President.”
    The president stopped by the door to the limo and turned to Thorpe. A brief nod kept the guards at arm’s length. “T.C.,” he said solemnly. “A sad day for England, and for the world.”
    “Yes, Mr. President. Do you feel Prime Minister Summerfield’s death will have an effect on your foreign policy?”
    “Eric Summerfield’s death will be felt keenly by all men of peace.”
    A roundabout way to say nothing, Thorpe thought without rancor. It was the name of the game. He also knew protocol. He wouldn’t be allowed hard-line questions on the morning of the funeral. “Mr. President,” he added, changing tactics, “have you any personal memories of the prime minister?”
    If he was surprised by the altered tone, he continuedsmoothly. “He could walk for miles.” The president smiled. “I discovered that at Camp David. Eric Summerfield liked to think on his feet.”
    With that, the president slipped into the limo beside his wife. Still vaguely dissatisfied, Thorpe waited for his press car.
    His commentary, and the film of the funeral procession, would be broadcast via satellite. Thorpe set up less than a block away from Westminster Abbey, where the service would be conducted. His coverage promised to be a long, involved dissertation on what dignitaries had come to pay their respects, and in what order they arrived.
    Thorpe announced the sighting of the royal family’s limo, then others, sprinkling in tidbits of Summerfield’s career and personal life. The streets were jammed with people, yet the background noise was minimal. When they spoke, onlookers spoke in hushed tones, as if they were inside the abbey.
    He glimpsed Liv once, but there was no time for a personal encounter. As he talked into the mike, she was in the corner of his eye, the corner of his mind. His body tensed a split second before it happened.
    A car broke through the police barricade and headed, at high speed, for the heart of the funeral procession. There was the sudden, shocking sound of gunfire. People who had lined the streets to watch scattered in a melee of fear and confusion. Cameramen raced for a better shot at the scene. Mike in hand, Liv dashed forward, reporting on the run. Thorpe was there ahead of her.
    The procession was at a standstill. Bullets ripped holes in the tires of the speeding car, sending it skidding, careening out of control. The windshield cracked in a spider web of lines as the car swerved, held on course, then swerved again. It rammed into the curb and came to an abrupt halt.
    Four men leaped out, rifles blazing. Bullets flew indiscriminately—toward the