In England he had a new name and a new life as a landscape architect. It was a life that he had worked hard to achieve and revolved around the design and planting of beautiful gardens. For all the sentiment he might have had about returning to his roots and his native land, staying here and moving back into a world of fear and violence was the last thing he wanted. But he had no choice. In her own way Caroline had asked him to find out who was responsible for her death and for the deaths of her son and husband and the reason why.

The thing was, he would have anyway.

He loved her that much.

• PARIS, FRANCE, 9:30 A.M.

President of the United States John Henry Harris walked side by side with French president Jacques Géroux across the manicured grounds of the Elysée Palace, the official residence of the French president. Both men were smiling and chatting amiably on this bright spring day in the French capital. Keeping pace at a discreet distance were plainclothes agents of the United States Secret Service and of the Direction Général de la Sécurité Extérieure, or the DGSE, the French Secret Service. Prominent too was a select contingent of the international media. This was an arranged photo-op following a private breakfast Harris had had with Géroux and was designed to exhibit the cordiality between France and the United States.

Today was President Harris's 369th day in office: exactly one year and four days since, as vice president of the United States, he had assumed office following the sudden death of President Charles Singleton Cabot; 153 days since he had been re-elected president in an extremely close election; 76 days since his inauguration.

As president, the former vice president and senator from California had made it a campaign pledge to lessen the image of the U.S. as a pugnacious, aggressive superpower and make it more a partner in an increasingly complex global marketplace. His mission in Europe was to warm the still-chilly atmosphere created by America's near-unilateral decision to invade Iraq and the long and bloody aftermath following it. His meeting with the French president today was the first in a week-long series of face-to-face engagements with the heads of the European Union before they all met formally at a NATO summit this coming Monday, April 10, in Warsaw where he hoped to announce a newfound unity.

The trouble was, for all the outward signs of openness and the willingness of the heads of state to meet with him, there was the very real sense it wouldn't work. At least not with the two leaders of primary importance: French president Géroux and Anna Amalie Bohlen, the chancellor of Germany, with whom he would meet this evening in Berlin. What to do about it, especially now after his face-to-face closed-door session with Géroux, was something else and something he needed to weigh before discussing it with even his closest advisers. Thinking before talking had long been his habit, and everyone knew it. It was why he knew they would leave him alone on Air Force One when they made the comparatively short hop to Berlin.

Yet now, as he smiled and chatted with President Géroux as they approached a bank of microphones where they would address a larger gaggle of media, his thoughts were not so much on the state of international affairs but on the recent deaths of Congressman Mike Parsons and his son, and the heartbreaking passing of Mike's wife, Caroline.

John Henry Harris and Parsons had grown up within a mile of each other in the dusty California farming town of Salinas. Fourteen years older, and first as a babysitter when he even changed his diapers, and later simply as a pal, Johnny Harris had been a surrogate older brother to Parsons from the time he had been in junior high school until he left for college on the East Coast. Years later he had been best man at Parsons's marriage to Caroline and then helped him in his run for a congressional seat. In return Parsons and Caroline had been hugely supportive of his own senatorial and presidential campaigns in California. And both had been exceedingly kind and supportive of himself and his wife, Lori, during a long and exhausting battle with the brain cancer that took her life just a week before the presidential election. That long personal history made Mike and Caroline Parsons, along with their son, Charlie, about as close to family as people could get and their tragic deaths at such a young age and so hurriedly following each other had staggered him. He had attended the funeral of Mike and Charlie and would have gone to Caroline's memorial service had not this vastly important European trip already been scheduled.

Now, as seemingly a thousand cameras clicked and whirred and he and President Géroux approached the microphones, he could not help but think of the tableau when he had entered Caroline's hospital room that final night to see her illness-ravaged body lying deathly still under the bedcovers and the young man at her bedside looking up at him.

"Please," he'd said softly, "give me a moment alone with her… She's just… died."

The memory of it made him wonder just who this man was. In all the years he had known Mike and Caroline he had never met or even seen him until that moment. Yet he was clearly someone who knew Caroline well enough to be the only person with her when she died and be moved enough to ask the president of the United States for the privacy to be alone with her for a few moments longer.

"Mr. President," French president Géroux guided him to the microphones, "this is Paris on a glorious day in April. Perhaps you have something to say to the people of France."

"Je vous remercie, M. le Président." I do, Mr. President, thank you, Harris said in French, smiling comfortably as was his nature. It had all been rehearsed of course, as was the short speech he would give in French to the Gallic people about the long tradition of reliance, friendship, and trust between their nation and the United States. Still, as he stepped to the microphones, a part of him was thinking of the young man who had been with Caroline when she'd died, and he made a mental note to have someone find out who he was.

• WASHINGTON, D.C., 11:15 A.M.

Nicholas Marten walked slowly through the wood-paneled study of the Parsons' modest home in suburban Maryland trying to do nothing more than look around. Trying not to feel the gaping hole of Caroline's absence, trying not to let himself think that nothing had happened and expect she would walk through the door at any moment.

Her touches were everywhere, especially in the abundance of house plants intermixed with carefully placed brightly colored ceramic knickknacks: a tiny shoe from Italy, a glazed platter from New Mexico, two small pitchers from Holland sitting back to back, a brilliant yellow and green ceramic spoon holder from Spain. The effect was a cheeriness that was clearly Caroline. Yet for all of it, this was unmistakably her husband's room, his home office. His desk was a maze of books and papers. More books were crammed every which way into two large bookcases with the overflow stacked on the floor.

Everywhere were framed photographs: of Mike and Caroline and their son, Charlie, taken at various times over the years; of Caroline's older sister, Katy, who lived in Hawaii and took care of their mother who had Alzheimer's, and who had just been in Washington for Mike and Charlie's funeral and who might or might not be returning for Caroline's memorial service scheduled for tomorrow-he hadn't been in touch with her and so didn't know. There were pictures too of Mike in his professional role as a congressman: with the president, with various members of Congress, with prominent sports and entertainment figures. Many of these people were outspoken liberals, while Mike Parsons, like the president, had been strongly conservative. Marten smiled. Everybody had liked Mike Parsons and which side of the fence you sat on politically meant nothing at all, at least on a personal level. That was, as far as he knew.