Shall We Tell the President? by Jeffrey Archer

a low profile and withdraw from the Japanese
Olympic trials. His coach tried to get him to change his mind, but without
success. To Tony, Xan remained a goddamn Jap, though
he grudgingly admitted to himself he knew no other man who could fire ten shots
into a three-inch square at eight hundred yards. The size of Florentyna Kane’s forehead.
    The Nip sat staring at him, motionless. Xan’s appearance helped him in his work. No one expected
that the slight frame, only about five-feet-two and a hundred and ten pounds,
was that of a superlative marksman. Most people still associated marksmanship
with hulking cowboys and lantern-jawed Caucasians. If you had been told this
man was a ruthless killer, you would have assumed he worked with his hands,
with a garrotte or nunchaki , or even with poison.
Among the three, Xan was the only one who carried apersonal grudge. As a child he had
seen his parents butchered by the Americans in Vietnam . They had spoken warmly of
the Yanks and had supported them until the bullets tore into their bodies. They
had left him for dead. A target almost too small to hit. From that moment he
had vowed in silent torment to avenge his loss. He escaped to Japan and there, for two years after the fall of Saigon , he had lain low getting a job in a
Chinese restaurant, and participating in the US Government Program for
Vietnamese refugees. Then he had gone with the offer of practical assistance to
some of his old contacts in the Vietnamese intelligence community. With the US presence so scaled down in Asia ,
and the Communists needing fewer killers, and more lawyers, they had been sorry
but they had no work for him. So Xan had begun
freelancing in Japan .
In 1981, he obtained Japanese citizenship, a passport, and started his new
career.
    Unlike Tony, Xan did not resent the others he was working with. He simply didn’t think about
them. He had been hired, willingly, to perform a professional task, a task for
which he would be well paid and that would at last avenge, at least in part,
the outraged bodies of his parents. The others had limited roles to play in
support of his operation. Provided they played them with a minimum of foolish
error, he would perform his part flawlessly, and within a few days, he would be
back in the Orient. Bangkok or Manila ,
perhaps, Singapore . Xan hadn’t decided yet. When this one was over, he
would need - and would be able to afford- a long rest.
    The third man in the room, Ralph Matson,
was perhaps the most dangerous of the three. Six-feet-two tall and broad, with
a big nose and heavy chin, he was the most dangerous because he was highly
intelligent. After five years as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, he found an easy way out after Hoover’s death; loyalty to the
Chief and all that garbage. By then, he had learned enough to take advantage of
everything the Bureau had taught him about criminology. He had started with a
little blackmail, men who had not wanted their FBI records made public, but now
he had moved on to bigger things. He trusted no man - the Bureau had also
taught him that - certainly not the stupid wop, who under pressure might drive
backward rather than lot ward, or the silent slant-eyed yellow hit man.
    Still nobody spoke.
    The door swung open. Three heads turned,
three heads that were used to danger and did not care for surprises; they
relaxed again immediately when they sawthe
two men enter.
    The younger of the two was smoking. He took
the seat at the head of the table as befits a chairman; the other man sat down
next to Matson, keeping the Chairman on his right. They nodded acknowledgment,
no more. The younger man, Peter Nicholson on his voter-registration card, Pyotr Nicolaivich by birth
certificate, looked for all the world like the reputable head of a successful
cosmetics company. His suit revealed that he went to Chester Barrie. His shoes
were Loeb’s. His tie Ted Lapidus . His criminal record
revealed nothing. That was why he