Target of Opportunity

At Boston’s John F. Kennedy Library, Alek Hidell kills a Secret Service agent, takes his uniform, and fires at the presidential motorcade. His shot kills Special Agent Crandall, who is serving as a decoy for the unnamed President; an RX-marked casing is left at the rooftop firing position. Separately, Bud Coggins enters the Ruby virtual-reality game believing it is an immersive simulation. Bricker’s later confession says Coggins was manipulated into killing Hidell, a former actor who played Lee Harvey Oswald, came to believe he was Oswald, and changed his name to Alek James Hidell; Coggins is then shot dead by Secret Service agents while still believing he has won the game.

Remo has quit CURE but travels to Sam Beasley World to find the escaped animator Uncle Sam Beasley, who remains at large. Harold W. Smith and the Secret Service investigate the Boston attack and later White House incidents. A violent Socks replica and a Gila Gingold replica cause security crises; the real Socks appears separately, and the real Gingold visits the hospitalized double and protests. Orville Rollo Fletcher, recruited as a physical and voice double for broadcaster Thrush Limburger, is said in Bricker’s confession to have received an animal-cell brain graft activated by inhaled steroids. Disguised as Santa, he charges the White House East Gate in elephant-like behavior and is killed by Secret Service countersnipers; the real Limburger is separately seen on television.

The actual President and First Lady board a replica Marine One; Remo and Chiun extract them before it explodes, after which the authentic helicopter arrives. The President and Smith stage a public report of his death to flush out the conspirators, and the Vice President is brought to the White House and told to maintain the ruse. Pepsie Dobbins reports unverified claims, falsely announces the President’s death, and accuses the Secret Service and a shadowy “Smith” of conspiring. The disguised filmmaker Hardy Bricker is ultimately revealed as Director X and the plot’s organizer. He confesses that he built a docudrama from a network of unwitting participants, using fabricated clues and manipulated doubles to frame CURE and the medical community, while hoping to promote health-care reform and revive his film career.

Remo and Chiun rescue Pepsie; Chiun alters her memory of the encounter. Remo then forces Bricker to ram his own index finger into his skull, and Bricker is later found dead at the eternal flame. Smith watches the confession on CNN. CURE’s immediate threat is suppressed, Uncle Sam Beasley remains at large, and Remo asks Smith to begin looking for his parents as they leave the White House.