The Firefly

9

Heismann sat down on a park bench for a moment before walking the final few blocks to the Botanic Garden Conservatory. He was at the Capitol end of the Mall, wearing some of the same disguise elements he'd used the night he'd Tasered the patrol officers, only not looking quite so old. No cane this time, and graying hair under the homburg, instead of white. Two blocks away were the empty reflecting pools between the Mall and the Conservatory, drained now due to the frigid January weather. There were a few others out for midday walks, but not many. The wind blew steadily out of the northwest, and the rime on the puddles was not melting, even in the bright sunlight.

He carried a rectangular leather briefcase, in which the GPS unit was taped to the bottom. He also had a Washington Post and a deli sandwich in a white bag. His goal was to get as close to the Capitol grounds as the security arrangements allowed, walk to the northwest corner of the circular walks on the Capitol lawns, and take a reading. He'd obtained a current tourist map of the federal monuments area, which he'd taped to the wall in the master bedroom. He'd drawn a straight line on it between his town house and the west portico of the Capitol. Extending that line in the northwest direction bisected the corner of the lawns. The straight line gave him his firing azimuth in relation to true north. What he was trying to calculate was the actual range, which, in turn, would determine the elevation angle for firing. Ideally, he would walk up to the west portico steps and take a reading, but the entire western lawn area had been blocked off with barriers, and there were visible police patrols all around the Capitol grounds.

Which meant he would have to triangulate the problem. He'd take a reading at the northwest corner, then walk east on Constitution Avenue, which was still open to public access, and take another reading when the west facade of the Capitol lined up on a north-south axis. Then he would walk all the way around the Capitol, going behind the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress buildings, and do the same thing on the south side of the Capitol grounds. Draw a line between those two points, and where that line intersected the firing azimuth would be the target coordinates. He had a handheld calculator, which would give him the firing range once he entered the target coordinates and those for his townhouse. He would then check this solution against what Mutaib sent him.

He opened the briefcase, checked to make sure the GPS unit was turned on and in sync with its satellites, and then took out his newspaper and sandwich. Over the next fifteen minutes, he saw two police units making a continuous car patrol along the streets that boxed the Capitol complex: First Street, SW, First Street, SE, Constitution Avenue, and Independence Avenue. The police cars were simply driving in a big revolution around and around the Capitol square. He looked hard for video cameras, but he couldn't see any in his immediate vicinity, although he knew there had to be some up nearer the Conservatory. Anticipating that he would not be able to stop on the street, open the briefcase, and take GPS readings in full view of the security forces, he'd broken a pencil into two pieces. He'd taped the eraser end to the button that commanded the GPS unit to enter a way point. He'd cut a small hole in the narrow top of the briefcase, under the handle, and jammed the other end of the pencil into that hole. Now when he wanted to enter a way point, he simply had to push on the pencil at the top to make contact, once for each entry. If anyone stopped him and asked to inspect the briefcase, he might be in trouble, although there was space for him to push the pencil all the way through into the briefcase if he had to. This little excursion was dangerous. But he wasn't willing to depend entirely on the Arab for the most crucial bit of targeting information.

He finished the sandwich and then pretended to read his paper for another ten minutes. No one seemed the least bit interested in him, although he could barely make out the blur of faces in the patrol cars two blocks away. Time to go. He stuffed the newspaper sections loosely into the briefcase, placing them on top of the taped-down GPS unit, put the sandwich wrappings on top of that, made sure the pencil stub was in position, and closed it up.

The first two way points went in without a hitch. He stopped for just a second to push on the pencil, heard the tiny beep from inside the case, and then continued walking. A passing police car slowed momentarily as he stood on the corner of Constitution and First Street, NE, but then it made a right turn and headed down in front of the Capitol. He actually nodded at the policewoman, who was looking at him, and she smiled and nodded back. He crossed First Street and then walked two more blocks east before turning south to get behind the Supreme Court and Library of Congress buildings. He knew he had a decision to make: That woman had seen him on the corner. If she saw him again down on Independence, would she and her partner stop? Search him? Should he wait a half hour, then continue his circle of the Capitol? Or perhaps come back in two or three hours to get the bottom half of the coordinates. By that time, they might have ended their tour of duty. But no, the marble delivery was scheduled for today. He had to finish it now and get back.

He continued walking, pulling his coat tighter as he finally turned west onto Independence Avenue and faced into the wind. There were more barriers down here on this side, and a collection of telephone company trucks with jib cranes mounted on the back were parked on the little street between the two House office buildings. Four police cars were parked together behind the line of trucks, and he could see a knot of cops huddling against the back of one of the trucks. He walked a little faster now, head down into the wind, his homburg pulled low over his forehead, while he kept an eye out for police cars. He'd spotted half a dozen security cameras mounted on telephone poles.

As he drew abreast of his line, one-third of the way along the Rayburn House Office Building, he saw a police car approaching from the west on the other side of Independence Avenue, cruising slowly. Same one, or the second one? He dared not look at them. He came up on his line and pushed the pencil, not stopping this time, and then stepped up the pace a little as he went down the sidewalk toward the Mall. But that passing police car had flipped on its blue lights and was making a deliberate U-turn in the middle of Independence, scattering traffic. He swore but kept walking, pretending to be oblivious as he pushed the pencil all the way through to the inside, evoking several beeps from the GPS unit. He had the Walther in his waistband, but he couldn't use it here, not with all these police. The cruiser drew abreast of him along the curb, pointed the wrong way in traffic, and stopped. He kept walking, and the car started up again while the driver rolled down his window.

"Excuse me, sir?" the driver called.

Mouth dry, Heismann stopped and cupped his hand behind his ear, but he did not approach the car. The driver put the car in park and started to get out, as did his partner. His heart sank: It was the same woman who'd nodded at him on the other side of the Capitol. She had to wait for passing cars before opening her door.

"Sir, may I ask what you're doing down here this afternoon?"

Heismann made a snap decision and answered in heavily accented English. "A valk, mein Herr," he said in his best old-man voice. "The office, much too hot, ya?"

"Kinda cold for a walk, isn't it?" the driver asked. He was young, his uniform didn't fit very well at all, and he didn't have his coat on. A probationer perhaps? The woman officer was standing behind the unit, in a position to react if Heismann did something unexpected. A veteran's move.

"In Chermany, dis is eine nice spring day, Herr Offizier" Heismann said, still smiling. He pointed up toward the Capitol. "Dis is vhere zey vill make ze new president, ya?"

"Uh, yes, sir, it is. What you got in the briefcase?"

"Ein Zeitung. Ze newspaper only." He partially opened the briefcase to show them, clutching at the sandwich wrappings and newspaper sections, which immediately began to ruffle in the wind. He could feel the small lump of the GPS unit beneath his gloved hand. He saw the woman put her hand on the butt of her service revolver when he opened the case, but then she relaxed. The sandwich wrapping slipped out of his fingers and blew into the street. He clucked in dismay and then closed the briefcase to prevent any more litter from escaping.

"ID," the woman prompted in a bored voice from behind the car.

"Oh, yeah," the rookie said. "Sir, could we see some ID, please?"

"Ya, ya," Heismann said quickly. He put the briefcase down on the sidewalk, extracted his Hodler passport, and stepped over to the curb to hand it to the young policeman. The cop looked it over, then got out his notebook and wrote down the name and the number of the passport before handing it back.

"Ist verboten?" Heismann asked, gesturing to include the street. "One cannot valk hier?"

"Not yet, but pretty soon, sir," said the rookie, putting away his notebook. He was shivering in the icy wind, his white shirt offering no protection. The woman sauntered back to her side of the car, waited for more traffic to pass, and got back in.

"Well, you have a nice day, sir," the rookie said. "Enjoy your stay here in Washington."

Heismann bobbed his head deferentially and then picked up the briefcase as the cop car made another U-turn, turned off its blue strobe lights, and resumed what had to be the most boring patrol in the city.

Heismann drew a very deep breath and started walking again. A nice day, he thought. I will show you a nice day. Soon, very soon. He had planned to turn south when he got to the Mall proper, to slant back toward his town house. But now he decided to keep walking west, out onto the Mall, until he was completely out of sight of all the police surrounding Capitol Hill. He could take the Metro back to Eastern Market. No more nice walks at noon.

So, the city police now had his name and passport number. There would be a report, of course, but probably one of many as the city police clamped down the Capitol Hill area. He'd had the impression that the woman officer had made the stop more in order to train the younger officer than because she was truly suspicious of the old man and his briefcase. And this disguise had helped. If he'd come out with no disguise at all, one of their tactical squads would have had him on the ground the first time he walked in front of a video camera. The question now was, What would they do about the report? One report among many, yet another foreigner gawking at the Capitol. Surely there were thousands of such people. Had a briefcase, but there was nothing in it but his newspaper and his lunch bag. A nonevent, to use the Ammie vernacular.

But still… He had used the name Hodler to purchase the vehicle. Interpol had reported the name Hodler to the federal police. And now there was a Hodler walking around the Capitol. Was there any one central organization collating all these reports? There was one department that was supposed to be doing that, but Mutaib had assured him that it was absorbed in sorting out the important things, such as budgets, committee prerogatives, parking and office space.

Still…

He frowned, pulled his coat tighter around him, and walked faster. Perhaps a complication, but not fatal. And he had his targeting data.

Swamp had talked to twenty-seven realtors by the time Mary called and said that Mr. McNamara had just come from a meeting and wanted to see him. Uh-oh, Swamp thought. He told her he'd be right down, and then he walked over to Gary's cubicle. It was 2:30.

"McNamara wants to see me. Here's the list. I guess you can make some calls, if you feel like it. Most people were quite cooperative, but they all wanted some time to take a look through their records. I took the liberty of giving them your extension."

"No problem," Gary said.

Swamp went down to McNamara's office.

"I'll get right to it," McNamara said with a pained expression.

"Let me guess: Somebody senior told you to send my ass back to West Virginia."

"Good guess," McNamara said. "Really good guess. I think it was all the phone calls you made around town that did it for Hallory, and then for the director."

"Theirs or ours?"

"I think both, actually." He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. "You might say that I wasn't invited to say much of anything." He opened his eyes. "But it kinda pissed me off anyway."

Swamp shook his head in resignation. "I thought the whole point of this Homeland Security Department was to beat down this kind of turf shit."

"It's Washington, Swamp. Turf battles are never going to go away, because if anyone ever took a really hard look, they'd realize we don't need half the people we have working in government. That's why the bureaucracy's like that gazillion-ton supertanker — each new administration tries to put the rudder over, but nothing happens for two years."

"Okay, so what's the deal?"

"They want you gone. Deactivated. Decalled instead of recalled. But like I said, the whole time I was coming back to the office, I was thinking, This pisses me off, and I want to go up our chain of command. In the meantime, I think you should just fold your tents and steal away into the desert night for a little while."

"In what capacity?"

"For starters, just leave town for twenty-four hours. Because I know I'm going to get some calls tomorrow, and they're gonna say, 'Is he gone?' And I want to be able to say, 'West Virginia.'"

"And then?"

McNamara leaned forward, lowering his voice. "And then I want you to do what you do best: Close this thing. Because, on balance, I think you're right. I think there's something going on, and I think that's our frigging job, even if it looks like a firefly."

"Our job is OSI. Special Investigations. Intelligence."

"Well then, let's fucking generate some intelligence, shall we? You go off the grid. Go find out what this crap's all about. Cozy up to some of the spiders on your old web, but do it on a personal basis. Hell, Swamp, you know how to do this."

Swamp nodded. "Yes, I do. And I appreciate the hell out of what you're saying, and doing. But I don't want to get you across the breakers with agency directors."

McNamara smiled, his eyes gleaming. "We're all here for a second run, Swamp Morgan. You and me. Only this time, we should at least try to do it right. I'd like nothing better than to hand both of those directors and Mr. Hallory a plate of shit, but preferably before somebody throws that plate of shit at the president. You go get some evidence. I'll back you up as long as I can."

Swamp stood up. He hesitated, suddenly overcome by an emotion he couldn't name. "I think anything I say right now would be mawkish," he began.

"Then get your ass out of here so I can make them think you're fired."

Swamp grinned. "Can I use Gary as my line into the building?"

"Does he understand he could get burned? He is Secret Service, after all."

"I think so. He should know how this goes. But I'll warn him."

"Yeah, do that. But right now, get out of Dodge."

Swamp got back to his cube and called Gary over. He told him what was going down, then asked Gary to requisition a weapon for him. "I'm going to leave town, as instructed," he said. "But not for long. I'll call in, see what those realtors come up with, if anything."

"I'll finish the list. And you're going where?"

"For public consumption? I'm going home, as ordered. For a day anyway. Then I might go up to see if I can talk to Ms. Wall, assuming she's still with us."

"And that would not be for public consumption."

"Right. Everything to do with this little firefly is now off the books. Especially where PRU is concerned. I want to protect McNamara, as well as you. I'll get that weapon from you tomorrow."

Swamp's phone rang. He'd almost decided not to pick it up, but then he saw the caller ID number in the phone's display window. Jake Cullen.

"Morgan," he said.

"Not so loud, please," Cullen said. His voice sounded a bit raspy.

"Successful wake?"

"Oh man. Irish whiskey. Don't ever mess with Irish whiskey. So where are we with this thing?"

"It's complicated," Swamp said. "How you feel about a little road trip?"

An hour and a half later, they were gunning it out the Dulles-access toll road, right on the bow wave of the serious afternoon commuter traffic. Jake Cullen had met Swamp at the Ballston station with his overnight bag, then walked the three blocks over to the gas station to pick up the Land Rover. There'd been no sign of tails when Swamp left the office, nor at his apartment building. Apparently, they'd been called off, or a more sophisticated team was working him. Swamp had briefed the detective on what had transpired since they'd gone to the Royal Kingdom Bank. Jake whistled in surprise when he heard about the business with Lucy at the restaurant and the subsequent fallout.

"Our people are getting some of the same vibes," he said. "Secret Service going medium apeshit with this lockdown operation. You know about the cell phones — how they're gonna kill all the transmitting towers in the city for this deal? On both sides of the river?"

"Yeah, she told me," Swamp said. "Good day to stay home and watch it on TV."

"Stay home my ass," Jake said. "Every swingin' dick on the force below the rank of lieutenant's going into the bag for street duty. You watch — it'll snow."

Swamp reached the Route 7 bypass around Leesburg and turned west. "My plan is to go straight up to Garrison Gap. See if we can talk to Connie Wall."

"Last time I called, they weren't that encouraging about big conversations."

"I couldn't get any real status," Swamp said. "The sheriff may still have the shields up. I think we have to go there."

"So, are you suspended or what?"

"I think that's what my boss is trying to convey to the higher-ups. They didn't tell him to suspend me. Just to make me 'go away.' They check back tonight or tomorrow morning, I'll be gone."

Jake shook his head. "You guys in the G take some shit entirely too seriously."

"Tell me about it." Swamp laughed. "But hell, they may yet be right. If Connie Wall fails on us, and the realtors all turn up empty, I'm probably done."

Jake had his notebook out. Swamp hadn't realized the detective had been taking notes as he explained the situation. Cullen started reading from his notes. "Guy named Hodler buys a black Suburban with cash money from a Saudi bank. The papers go back to said Saudi bank. Same guy learns where Wall is going. A cop on the road spots a black Suburban traveling behind Connie Wall. That night, she gets knifed in Garrison Gap. You saw a black Suburban leaving Garrison Gap the morning after she was knifed. Interpol says Hodler is an alias for Heismann, which is a name mentioned in a transcript where some guy's talking about blowing shit up next month. A transcript we get from the remains of a burned-out medical clinic, where Connie Wall worked. Where all hands got dead in nonlinear circumstances." He looked up. "Lots and lots of coincidences?"

"I know," Swamp said, shaking his head. "I pitched all this to the Secret Service, in the person of Ms. VanMetre. She responds by having agents throw down on me — and put me under surveillance. Let's see what Connie Wall can do for us."

They got up to Garrison Gap around 7:00 p.m. The ICU supervisor gave them a five-minute window, but not before first making them wash their hands and faces, don gauze face masks and latex gloves, and then pull scrub tops over their shirts. "She's deep into the postop-infection window," he told them. "Don't touch her or even get that close."

"Is she conscious?"

"Sometimes," the doc said, already turning his attention to a set of orders a nurse had just brought him. "But not very." He read the orders, signed them, and hustled out of the ICU. A waiting nurse took them down to the curtained bed.

Connie looked severely diminished behind the stainless-steel frames of the ICU bed. Her face was as white as a death mask. The nurse did a quick scan of monitoring instruments and tubes, then stepped back, but she did not leave.

"Connie," Jake called, bending closer to the bed. He called her name again, and her eyelids fluttered, then opened. The nurse stepped forward, wet Connie's lips with a Q-Tip, and gave her one tiny sip of water from a stainless-steel bottle, then another.

"Connie, it's Jake Cullen. And Special Agent Morgan, Secret Service."

The nurse's eyes grew larger when she heard that, but Connie was just staring at both of them. Swamp was trying to think of how to ask her a question, when he saw her eyes cross and then one eyelid droop shut.

"Shit," he muttered, glancing over at Jake, who sighed. The nurse had an "I told you so" look on her face. She glanced pointedly down at her watch. Connie's other eye closed and she made a noise in her throat.

"What?" Jake asked, leaning forward again, but Swamp thought this was hopeless. Poor damned woman. He didn't think she was going to make it. He signaled Jake with his head that they should back out. They had only reached the curtain when they heard Connie gasp out a single word behind them: "Him!"

They turned around and went back. Connie's eyes were still shut, but there were lines on her forehead now, as if she was concentrating. Lines and a fine sheen of sweat.

" 'Him,' Connie? Him who?" Jake asked.

"Him," she said again, a whisper this time. "Not… a… woman."

"Him," Swamp repeated. "You mean the guy who got Ballard did this? The guy who tried to kill you down in D.C.?"

The nurse looked positively alarmed now, and the monitors were coming alive. "That's enough," she said, motioning for them to move back.

Swamp and Jake straightened up and moved back. Connie's eyes were still closed, but there was a ghost of a smile on her face.

"Okay, Connie, we got it," Jake called. "You rest. Get better. We got it, okay? We got it."

They backed out of the room and walked down to the ICU station. The first nurse had stayed with Connie. There were two other nurses there and a new doctor. Jake showed his badge and police ID. "Listen to me," he said in a voice that made them all pay attention. "She's to have no visitors other than Special Agent Morgan here and me. And if anybody asks, you must—must— say that she's as good as dead. On life support, but the prognosis is grave beyond telling. Can you guys do that?"

Semishocked nods all around.

"Okay. Please write that down in your pass-down logs. She's safe — and you're safe — as long as she's a dying woman. Here's my card. Anybody here on staff has questions, they can call me."

More worried nods. Swamp suddenly wondered if this was going to boomerang somehow. "And thank you for keeping her alive," he added with a smile, trying to pour a little oil on the waters. Then they left the ICU and went back out to the parking lot. They got into the Rover and Jake fished out a pack of cigarettes while Swamp got the engine and the heater running. He opened Jake's window so he could blow out a hefty column of smoke into the pristine mountain air.

"So he dresses up as a woman, gets close to her, goes into the can with her, and then knifes her," Jake said. "Just like that."

"And dresses up good enough to fool Connie Wall, and she's a nurse, for Chrissakes."

"Yeah. This is spooky. But it makes more sense. There were wits who saw a woman in that hallway. One even said he saw a woman going into the men's room, remember?"

"Yeah."

"And I never could see some foreigner being able to just call Rent-a-Hitter and get something going that fast."

"But it means we're looking for a goddamned chameleon," Swamp said. "Some guy who's had plastic surgery and who can transform himself into a woman well enough to fool a surgical nurse? This is getting to be a bitch."

"Did you see her face?" Jake said. "I don't think she's gonna make it." He blew another draft of blue smoke out the window and then tossed the glowing butt into the remains of a snowbank in the parking lot.

"Well, maybe," Swamp said. "But she fought to tell us that. She'd been saving it up. Got it out. She's a scrapper."

Jake was shaking his head as Swamp backed out of their parking space. "You really think the Saudis are getting behind another nine eleven? Right there in Washington?"

"Remember who flew the planes on nine eleven?" Swamp said, pulling into traffic on the main drag. "That said, there are Saudis and there are Saudis. I've had some valuable help from that part of the world over the past few years."

"Still," Jake said.

"And those guys on nine eleven weren't exactly members of the royal family. And changing Euros to dollars isn't a crime. I've been reaching all along on that element."

"But the vehicle's papers going back to the bank like that — makes my ass wonder."

"I'm pulling a separate string on that," Swamp said. He told Jake about his queries to realtors in the city.

"You get a hit on that question, I'll personally take in a SWAT team," Jake growled. Then his cell phone rang.

"Detective Cullen," he answered. Swamp kept driving as Jake listened. Two blocks down the road, Jake put his hand over the phone's mouthpiece and told Swamp to pull over. He said, "Yes, sir" into the phone three times, snapped it shut, and swore.

"Now what?" Swamp asked.

"Apparently, my little speech to the ICU crew got the hospital all spun up," Jake said. "They called District headquarters, demanding we move her out of there and back down to D.C., where we can protect her."

"Shit, I was afraid of this. Can she be moved?"

"They say yes, and that was my boss's boss. He said since I started this little shit storm, would I be so kind as to 'manage' it."

"In those exact words?" Swamp asked with a grin.

"Not exactly. I guess we have to go back."

"We?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll ride down in the meat wagon with her. You go on home to Harpers Ferry. Have a drink for me. Hell, have two."

Heismann surveyed the collection of gleaming white marble blocks lining three walls of the master bedroom. The delivery had come right at three o'clock that afternoon and consisted of five pieces all together. Four of them were three feet high and one foot square, sitting on two-foot square wooden pallets with steel bands on four sides. There was one larger piece, five and a half feet high and eighteen inches on a side. It sat right out in the middle of the empty room now, centered on the plywood stack. There was also a flat crate, made of heavy cardboard and reinforced with wooden battens. The crate measured three feet on a side and was marked TOOLS. It was leaning up against the wall by the bedroom window.

He'd had the deliverymen place the bulk of the marble blocks along the walls to minimize the stress on the floor's center. He'd turned off the heat in the house an hour before the delivery, opened the windows, and had met the deliverymen dressed in jeans, winter boots, a bulky turtleneck sweater, a knit watch cap that covered most of his head, and those oversized square glasses. The cold house accomplished two things: It allowed him to cover himself up and it expedited the delivery crew, who wanted nothing more than to unload the marble, haul it upstairs, and get the hell out of there. The truck had come and gone by the time he heard his neighbor climbing the steps to her front door.

He stood in the middle of the room, next to the taller piece of marble, and read the delivery manifest in the failing light of late afternoon. He was pretty sure Mutaib had changed the delivery sequence, and these papers would tell him. Each piece of marble was listed, along with its provenance, metric dimensions, and weight. The largest piece, the one out in the middle of the room, had one additional dimension, expressed in centimeters; this looked like a typo on the line of regular dimensions. Ten centimeters. That was it.

Then he went over to the flat crate, and, using a large kitchen knife, opened one end of the outer cardboard box. He slid out a flat package of sculptor's tools — hammers, chisels, other steel cutting tools, and a plastic bag filled with small wooden wedges. He found a measuring tape delineated in metric units in the package and put one end right in the center of the top face of the marble piece. Draping the tape down one side, he measured off the distance in centimeters and then made a mark with a pencil on the side of the block. He repeated this measurement on the remaining three sides of the block.

He dumped the tool package out on the floor. Taking a hammer and a pointed steel chisel, he returned to the block in the center and began tapping the point on the marks he'd made earlier. When he got to the third side, his tapping bore results: Bits of white plaster fell out onto the floor. Plaster, not marble. Moving the chisel up the side of the block about two inches, he tapped again and produced more plaster. He nodded to himself again and put the tools away. When the time came, he would tap an entire vertical line of plaster-filled holes out of the side, then use the wedges to split the block from end to end. But he'd found out what he needed to know: The weapon had arrived.

Just to make sure, he put the tools to one side and looked into the box. He pulled out a smaller cardboard box, opened one end, and saw the cell phone. He set that down and felt around in the cushioning material. His fingers encountered a steel plate, which felt as if it was about eighteen inches on a side. Only the edge of the plate was visible, but it was clearly almost an inch thick. He nodded and closed the flaps of the cardboard box.

Connie Wall awakened in the dimly lighted hospital room. She took a couple of deep breaths and realized there was no more oxygen tube parked in front of her nose. She actually felt better for the first time since… since that night. She could hear the typical sounds of a busy hospital ward in the corridor outside, sounds she recognized from years of trudging through similar corridors. This place felt different, sounded different, and then she remembered she'd been transported, a long ambulance ride down toward Washington, although she'd gone back to sleep during the trip. And Jake Cullen had been in the back with her, holding her hand. Wearing latex gloves. He'd tried to explain what was going on, but she hadn't really cared. They'd given her a good-bye dose of something wonderful intravenously and she'd concentrated instead on the warmth of his hand.

Now she tested her toes and fingers, and everything still responded. Her back felt as if it were padded with an infant's crib mattress, and there was a new IV patch on her right hand. The one on her left hand was gone, but the back of her left hand was sore and felt inflamed. She remembered the old expression, When the IV stick hurts more than what they did to you, you're healing.

But she was better. Her lungs weren't half-full of narcofog anymore, and she felt the first pangs of actual hunger. Tough way to lose a couple of pounds, she thought. Keeping her right hand immobile, she moved her left and patted various parts of her body to see if everything was still there. She felt a monitoring patch above her left breast and heard the regular beep from a machine above her head. She moved her head, provoking a sudden lancing headache, so she found the call button and hit it. A nurse appeared in less than a minute, and Connie asked where she was.

"GWU Medical Center," the nurse replied. She was quite young, but she did an automatic scan of the IV stand and the monitors. "They brought you in from West Virginia about four hours ago."

"What time is it?"

"Midnight. Shift just changed. You were a nurse?"

"Still am, I think," Connie said with a crooked smile. It hurt her cracked lips.

The young nurse put her hand to her mouth in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—."

Connie shook her head gently. Not a wonderful idea, she discovered. "Can I have some water, and maybe some saltines?" she asked. "I have a headache and I think I'm hungry."

"Oh, sure," the girl said brightly. "But let me ask you — do you drink coffee?"

"Yes, sure."

"That headache may be caffeine withdrawal, you know? How about maybe a Coke with those saltines?"

"Great idea," Connie said, realizing the girl was probably right.

"And there's a cop outside. He asked to be notified when you woke up."

"Sergeant Cullen?"

"Uh, no. I think his name is Butts, or something like that." She suppressed a quick grin. "He's in uniform. He just came on."

"What's my prog?" Connie asked.

"Upgraded to satisfactory about two hours ago," the nurse recited. "They've taken you off the heavy-duty pain meds and switched you to Vicodin. No sign of infection, knock on wood. Vitals seem stable. We're hydrating with that IV, and they'll bring in a pain pump in the morning. Do you remember what happened?"

"Vividly," Connie said. Her eyelids suddenly felt heavy. "But I'm actually feeling better. Although it's hard to talk. Mouth's dry."

"I'll get you some shaved ice and a little Coke syrup."

"And the crackers. Don't forget the crackers."

"The crackers," the nurse said, "Right." But Connie was already back asleep.

The nurse went to tell the cop that Connie Wall had surfaced for a few minutes but had gone back down again. But she said the patient did confirm that she remembered what happened. The officer thanked her and popped a cell phone to put a call in to Detective Sergeant Cullen at his home number.

At midnight, Heismann made a trial run through the holes he had cut into the common walls between the town-houses. He was dressed in a dark sweatsuit, sneakers, black leather gloves, and a black stretch-nylon hood that looked like a ski mask. He crawled silently through the boxes and reached the closet's hallway door, where he stopped to listen for a few minutes. He opened the door and stepped out into the darkened hallway. Both the bathroom door and her bedroom door were shut. The only illumination came from a streetlight out in front of the house; it shined up the stairwell from the windows in the front room. He took some tentative steps out into the upstairs hallway to see if the floorboards creaked, but the rug apparently absorbed the pressure of his feet. He slid his feet as quietly as he could along the edge of the rug until he reached her bedroom door. He could hear her snoring.

Should he take care of her now? He put a gloved hand on the bedroom's door handle and began to twist it to the right. Once he had the bolt retracted, he pushed very gently, but the door did not move. What is this? he wondered. He tried to sense what was holding the door shut, but he couldn't tell. Had he missed something here? A dead bolt, perhaps? He released the door handle and ran his hand up the side panel of the door, feeling for screws or other fasteners, but there was nothing. Maybe it wasn't a real dead bolt, just one of those bolt and hasp arrangements. He slid over to the bathroom door and tried that one, and it opened. But the door connecting the master bath with her bedroom also refused to open. She was still snoring away in there, so at least she was a sound sleeper. And there was no damned little dog to yap out an alarm, thank God.

So, come back tomorrow in the daylight and see what the hell was locking the doors. If it was a real dead bolt, he must find a key. People usually kept spare keys around for those things. If a bolt and hasp, he'd back out all but two of the screws on the hasp. Then when he needed to get in Thursday night, he'd crash right through it. By the time she realized he was in the room, she'd be dead. He backed out of the bathroom and closed the hallway door. Then he went back through his secret passage.

Nothing beats personal reconnaissance, he thought. But you should have noticed those locks, he chided himself. He stopped for a moment in his own darkened hallway. First the damned nurse taking forever. Then the Hodler name surprise from Interpol. Then being stopped on the street. Hodler again. Now this business with the locks. Omens? He felt a twinge of fear. He knew that he was no mastermind. He'd come from nothing, and the Stasi would never have given him a second look if he hadn't been able to pass for an American teenager back before the Wall came down and the Cold War was lost. That was a long time ago. Now he considered himself to be a competent, if somewhat mechanical, criminal, yes, but this entire business was a huge departure from his usual jobs. It was also a main chance for a second life. The money. The totally new body and face. Only the Arabs could have funded something like this, and, as they were constantly reminding him, it was war, not crime this time. A new kind of war, to be sure, but war. And in war, the Americans will never see someone like you coming, he told himself. They're totally focused on people who look like us. You will be next to invisible.

Exactly.