XIII: The Conspiracy is a 2008 Franco-Canadian television film in two parts, based on the eponymous graphic novel series by Belgian authors Jean Van Hamme and William Vance, about an amnesiac protagonist who seeks to discover his concealed past. The film served as a pilot for XIII: The Series, which aired on television in 2011. The film was directed by Duane Clark, stars Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff, and was produced by Prodigy Pictures and Cipango Films. It was first broadcast in France in October 2008 by Canal+; followed by NBC in the USA in February 2009; by Nine in Australia (as The Conspiracy) in November 2009; and by Five in the United Kingdom in December 2009 (where it was shown as a single feature instead of in two parts). Plot The first female president of the United States, Sally Sheridan, (Mimi Kuzyk) is killed by a sniper during her speech at Veterans Day. Her assassin narrowly escapes after a shoot out involving a shadowy figure named La Mangouste (Val Kilmer) or "The Mongoose". Three months later in West Virginia, an elderly couple discover a young man (Stephen Dorff) who lies wounded above on a tree in a parachute. He cannot remember his past and the only clue to his identity is a numerical tattoo on his chest, "XIII", the Roman numeral for 13. Meanwhile, in the White House, a joint intelligence task force led by Colonel Amos (Greg Bryk) is frantically conducting the search for the President's killer. With the presidential elections just weeks away, a confirmed suspect could swing the vote for the incumbent administration. Regaining his health, XIII searches for more information about the imprint on his body using the couple's home computer. This leads to his location being picked up by the NSA and in no time at all a squad of elite special forces swarm the couple's house in Cape Fear, killing them both. XIII takes out the soldiers one by one. While on the run in New York, he befriends Sam (Caterina Murino), a photo shop owner who helps identify for him a woman in a photo he carries. Here he attempts to access a memory card found on his person in the hopes of discovering his identity and unknowingly initiates its tracking program. As a result, rogue Secret Service agents track him down at the woman's abandoned apartment, but he fights them off