The Firefly

4

Connie stopped on the walk up to the front of her house and tried to decide whether to use the front door or the back. She'd taken the Metro just as soon as the cops told her she could leave the hotel, turning down their offer of breakfast and a ride out to the house. Jake Cullen had shown up as she was leaving and had returned her purse and keys, telling her he'd be out to check on her later in the morning. Warned her to lock herself in and said that the technical people would be calling to check the phone-tap system. Now, as she stood in front of the familiar facade, seeing the bare trees and the sloping, sleeping lawns almost as if for the first time, she wondered if it had been wise to come out here without an escort. Suppose he was already in the house? Waiting for her to unlock the door and step right into his—

Oh for God sakes, she chided herself. It's a Thursday morning in January, and there are cops watching somewhere nearby while you dither like some schoolgirl in a Hitchcock movie. And you want the front door because you don't want to see the back porch just yet. So just do it.

She walked up to the front door and unlocked it, then remembered the security system — was it set? She hadn't set it, but had the cops? No, because they didn't know the code. Right. She stepped through the door and locked it behind her. Then she turned on the hallway light. Everything looked familiar: the stairs rising to the second floor on her left, the living room to the right, the dining room beyond that, toward the back of the house, and the kitchen straight ahead. The furniture in the living room was right side up now, not like she'd left it after her struggle with — She stood there for a moment, her eyes closed, and tried to visualize her attacker. The monster face in the wedge of flashlight at the window. The smell of him — she remembered the cops asking about that. Wet wool. Sweat. Adrenaline, a scent with which she was all too familiar. And something else. She focused. Something medicinal. She held her breath, trying to force the thing into definition.

Ointment.

She opened her eyes. Yes! She'd recognized it. An antiseptic ointment they used at the clinic. That's what it was. They gave it to their patients to put on exposed skin surfaces for six weeks after surgery.

Son of a bitch.

The big Secret Service guy had been right.

This was about the clinic.

She'd have to tell Jake. Or should she tell the government guys? Or should she keep her mouth shut for a change?

She shook off the moment, walked down the hall into the kitchen area, and turned on the light. She put her purse, keys, and coat on the kitchen table. Her purse had been searched, but everything seemed to be there. Just to be sure, she emptied it all out onto the kitchen table and then rearranged everything back the way she'd had it. Even the three-pack of condoms. She could just imagine the cop comments. Three. Damn. Woman's got some great expectations.

The back kitchen door was closed, and beyond that… well, she still wasn't quite ready for that yet. She went into the dining room, where her computer monitor was sitting on the table, disconnected, the glass screen looking like some gaping maw. There was a piece of plywood covering the window. Whatever had come through the window was gone, and the floor had been vacuumed. Someone had been through the piles of paperwork on the table, but it didn't look like anything had been taken. There were smudges of what she assumed was fingerprint powder here and there, but otherwise, the cops had cleaned up after themselves. She could smell stale coffee in the sink, where there were half a dozen coffee mugs stacked. Well, almost cleaned up after themselves.

She made herself go through the pantry area to the back door and look out the window. Everything looked different in the daylight, totally familiar, except for the black stains all over the back porch. And those two horizontal slots in the porch support posts. She thought she could smell Clorox, and sure enough, there were two bottles of it perched next to the back door. Nice try, fellas, she thought, but that stain's never coming out. Or out of my sight. Those boards are going to have to come up.

Poor damn Cat. Poor Lynn. Poor kids. Maybe literally so.

Then the phone rang. She picked up the kitchen extension. "Hello?" she said.

"Is this Ms. Wall?"

She frowned. Who the hell was this? The police? Juke said they would be calling. "Yes, it is," she said. "Who's calling?"

"I am with the Washington police," the voice said. "I have a telephone number for you to call. Are you ready to write it down?"

"Wait a minute," she said automatically, looking for the pad of paper she kept near the phone. It was gone. She slid a blank envelope over, then had to hunt for a pen. The man was speaking with an accent, his W's sounding like V's—"Ms. Vall… Vashington police." She picked up the pen and said to go ahead. He rattled off a phone number and she started to write it down, then stopped, a chill blooming in her stomach. It was the phone number for the clinic.

"You call that number, Ms. Wall," the voice said, dropping now to the whisper she'd heard before. "Or better yet, come down here. Where your friends are. Or bits of them anyway. Only this time, I will take your head right off. Right off! And soon, very soon, Connie Wall."

The dial tone came on and she replaced the handset on the wall mount. She jumped when it rang again, hesitated before answering. She didn't want to hear any more of that shit. But the phone kept ringing, insistent, again and again. She took a deep breath and picked it up but didn't say anything.

"Ms. Wall, this is Sergeant Stafford, District police technical operations. Please don't hang up — we overheard that last phone call, and that was not, I repeat, not us."

"No shit," she said, finding her voice at last.

"Yes, ma'am. But the tap was on. We got a phone number, and we have units en route to the trace point. It's downtown, so you should be in no immediate physical danger. But please lock yourself in, and we'll have a patrol unit out there ASAP. Don't let anyone in unless he's a uniformed police officer, okay?"

She nodded, then realized she hadn't said anything. "Got it," she said. "Should I answer the phone?"

"Yes, ma'am, if you don't mind. I mean I know that's some scary shit that guy's talking, but the more he talks, the better shot we have of nailing him. So, yes, if you don't mind…"

"Okay. I need to go lock up now." And use the damn bathroom, she thought.

"Yes, ma'am. A black-and-white will be out front shortly."

She hung up and then checked all the doors and windows on the ground floor. She got out the instruction booklet for the alarm system and set that. She turned on lights in every ground-floor room, then answered a suddenly urgent call of nature.

The patrol cops showed up ten minutes later, as she was making some coffee. They identified themselves, did a walk-through of the entire house, then the grounds. They came up to the door on the back porch, apparently oblivious of the dark stains all over the floorboards, and told her the place seemed secure but to stay in the house until the detectives called. She offered them some coffee, which they declined. Then she thanked them and locked herself in again. She fixed herself a cup and sat down at the kitchen table. She wondered if she ought to go down to the pound and get a dog.

There were three message slips on Swamp's desk from Hallory's office at Secret Service headquarters when he got to work. He noted the receipt times, which had begun half an hour ago. Gary White was talking on the phone in his cubicle; he waved as Swamp parked his coffee mug, sat down at his desk, and called Hallory. An assistant put him on hold, then came back and said Hallory would call him back in fifteen minutes. Swamp sighed, said he'd be there, and went over to Gary's cubicle.

"That was the District," Gary said. "They have the nurse's phone tapped and they've intercepted a death threat. Guy apparently posing as someone from the police told her he was gonna cut her head off. And soon."

"Lovely," Swamp said. "So he's still here in town?"

"Yeah, or at least he was. Phone booth at Union Station. Maybe he took the train."

"Right. They faxing us a written copy of what they got?"

"Yes, sir. What did Mr. Hallory want?"

"Still waiting to connect," Swamp said. Then he told Gary about his conversation with Lucy VanMetre late last night.

"They're gonna dump it? Really?"

"I think that's what he's — hang on." The office intercom light was blinking on Swamp's desk. The secretary announced a Mr. Hallory on line four. Swamp picked up at Gary's desk. "Morgan," he said.

"Yeah, this is Carlton Hallory, PRU. You keeping banker's hours these days, Mr. Morgan?"

"Pathetic, isn't it," Swamp said.

"Touché," Hallory said. "Lucy says you want to bring the Bureau into your firefly."

"That's correct. I need an evidentiary response team. They're the best in that business. I want them to—"

Hallory interrupted. "No deal, Mr. Morgan. It's a firefly, and I'm calling it that officially as of now. No further assets. We thank you for your investigation. But as of now, PRU does not consider that transcript to be indication and warning of a viable threat to presidential security. That clear enough for you, Mr. Morgan?"

"Clear as a bell, Mr. Hallory."

"And if you want to run it up to the fusion committee, come at the DAD level, because that's the pay grade you'll be up against from our side of the table, okay?"

"Not a problem, Mr. Hallory," Swamp said. "I'll see your DAD and raise you an undersecretary."

"In your dreams, Mr. Morgan. But then, that's what retirement's all about, isn't it, happy dreams on the front porch?"

"Are you going to put this in writing, Mr. Hallory?"

"Do I have to?"

"Well, it would be nice to have, if the Capitol goes boom in about a month."

"I'll bet you'd like that. Yeah, I'll put this in writing. Lucy here will send something over. E-mail good enough, or you need it signed in blood at midnight?"

"Since I definitely think it's going to come back to haunt us, I'd prefer a memo."

The bantering tone went out of Hallory's voice, "CYA forever, huh?"

"I get that way whenever I encounter tunnel vision, Mr. Hallory. This is the same old hidebound attitude I used to run into when I was DAD Intel."

"Was is the operative word, Mr. Morgan. And, you might call it hidebound — I call it focus."

"You can't even admit this is possible? That there's more here than meets the eye, rather than automatically less?"

Hallory sighed. "You're the one with tunnel vision, Mr. Morgan. And since you're outside the main show here, you're becoming a distraction. I don't need distractions right now."

"Then let us work it."

"No, Mr. Morgan, because I know what'll happen. 'Us' means you. Your reputation precedes you. You'll grab this thing like some damned terrier and shake it and shake it until a head comes off, somewhere. Enough. You'll get your memo. Nice doing business with you. Happy trails and all that over there in OSI land."

Swamp put the phone down, shaking his head. "What a mule," he said. He summarized the conversation for Gary, who whistled in surprise.

"He came at you personally?" Gary asked. "Talking about your reputation?"

"There were times," Swamp said with a rueful smile, "when I tended to get up some senior noses. But it was always about business, not my career."

The secretary from the front office came in to deliver a fax folder. It contained the transcript of the threatening phone call to Connie Wall, courtesy of Detective Jake Cullen. They both scanned it, and then Swamp told Gary to read it out loud.

"Sir?"

Swamp went back to his desk, fished around in the stack of papers, and pulled out the copy of the original clinic transcript.

"Read that aloud, slowly."

Gary shrugged and began reading. When he got to the phrase "Head right off… right off!" Swamp repeated it out loud. And the same with "Soon, very soon." Gary stopped reading.

"We've heard this before, Gary," Swamp said. "The phraseology is identical. The guy calling Ms. Wall is the guy in the bomb transcript."

Gary looked at the words again. "I guess that's… possible," he said. "You going to call Hallory back with this?"

"Hell with him. He had his chance. We'll take it from here. But I do want you to follow up on that memo. Hallory will drag his feet on that."

Gary had a frown on his face. "What?" Swamp asked.

"Uh, I'm new here, but if the boss initiating a case calls it off, then, in my experience that's it. I mean, how do we keep working it?"

"Technically, you're right. But OSI can generate a case, too. As soon as Tad McNamara gets back, I'll brief him, and I'm sure he'll let us run with it."

"Even if the Secret Service is dropping it? The guys who asked us to look at it in the first place?"

But Swamp was staring down at the transcript. "You know what? We may not need Bureau assets after all. I think I know this guy's name."

Gary's skeptical expression spoke volumes, but Swamp was shaking his head again. "No, look, I think it's right here. In the original transcript. The five H's: Hitler, Heydrich, Himmler, Hess, all the superstars of the Third Reich. And then the one we didn't recognize — Heismann. I think this guy's name is Heismann. He's hallucinating under the anesthetic about becoming part of the Nazi pantheon."

"Um…"

"Yeah, I know, but it's at least plausible."

Gary politely erased the skeptical expression on his face. "So what do we do next?"

"We run the name Heismann on NCIC. And if that comes up empty, we go to Interpol. We need to listen to the tape of that phone call, see if there's an accent. And I'll call some folks I know across the river, see if the Agency CI folks have anything on a Heismann."

"Fax here says there was an accent—V's becoming W's, and vice versa."

"That's German. So is Heismann."

"And you don't want to take this back to Mr. Hallory?"

"No — you heard the way he was being this morning."

"Actually, I didn't."

Swamp blinked. "Right, you didn't. Suffice it to say, he was sarcastic. Resentful of the fact that I'm even in the picture. Seems to have forgotten they called us, not the other way around."

"Yes, sir, but, with all due respect, if we do get a solid line on this Heismann guy, I think it needs to go back to PRU. Insist they look at it. If it's true, security for the speech before the joint session is a Secret Service responsibility."

Swamp smiled. "You're absolutely correct. But first I want that memo from Hallory, declaring the original transcript a nonissue. If this Heismann thing turns up empty, we're done. If he turns out to be real, then I'll definitely go back to the Service, but probably not to Mr. Hallory."

"And if it solidifies," Gary said, "you've got that memo."

"And?"

"Which would mean you've got Hallory."

Swamp beamed. "You're catching on there, young man. Now, let's run that name through the system. You start with NCIC. I'll take care of the Agency query."

Jäger Heismann stood in the front parlor of the brownstone town house. Actually, he didn't stand as much as lean on the armrest of a truly ugly upholstered chair. Doing the walk-through with the real estate agent had been painful and tiring, especially going up and down those steep stairs. But now it was done and he was officially "in possession." The agent had talked about activating the telephone, but Heismann had demurred. He had no intention of having a telephone in this house.

He looked around at the small room, eyeing the motes of dust revealed by the sunlight streaming through the side windows. The layout was simple: The front doors of the duplex were side by side in the middle of the building, three steps up from the sidewalk, with no front yard. There was a tiny front hall, stairs up to the left, living room to the right. Straight ahead, a short hallway to the kitchen, with the dining room behind the living room. Upstairs were three bedrooms. One, the master, was at the back, over the dining room and kitchen; it had a skylight, bath en suite, and two windows overlooking the backyard and the alley. The other two bedrooms were much smaller and side by side across the front, with a shared bathroom between them.

The other half of the duplex was presumably the mirror image of his. They shared a backyard, divided right down the middle and enclosed across the back and sides by a six-foot-high wooden privacy fence. A two-car garage intruded into both yards an equal distance, and there was an alley behind the back fence. Across the alley was another row of almost identical brick houses and garages. There were small fireplaces in all the major rooms, but the agent had taken great pains to point out that none of them worked except the one in the living room, and it was strictly a gas-log affair. There was a tiny covered back porch, with steps down to the winter-bare yard. All the rooms except the master bedroom were furnished. The master bedroom remained bare floor from wall to wall, ostensibly for use as his sculpting studio.

There was a basement, but it was only partially floored in concrete, the area where the heating, hot water, laundry, and air-conditioning machinery were installed. The rest of the floor was hard-packed dirt, with two tiny windows at street level, one of which had been the coal chute in days gone by. There was a trapdoor to an attic, but Heismann had told the agent he wasn't interested in the attic. If the skylight in the master bedroom did not work out, he might have to get into the attic, but certainly not in his present condition. He moved in front of the chair and gingerly sat down, still wearing his heavy overcoat, homburg, and those oversized sunglasses. Anyone looking in from the street would have seen the makings of a Magritte painting.

Mutaib had been surprisingly calm when Heismann had called him earlier from a pay phone in a Metro station. Interestingly, he'd taken the position that the killing of the police lieutenant would only give legs to the deception plan, and ensured that the government would take the bait seriously, especially once Heismann connected the dots for them. Heismann had given the Arab no inkling of his own injuries, and he had told him to be alert for Interpol queries after today, when he dropped the second piece of the bait into the game. Mutaib had assured him their man was watching. He had also told him that "the package" was in the United States and would clear customs in Baltimore harbor by the end of the week. Delivery of the sculptor's tools and other special equipment Heismann had requested was to be made this afternoon, just before dark. The first marble delivery was scheduled for next Monday, and the "package" itself would be delivered on Tuesday, the seventeenth, right before the downtown area around Capitol Hill was slated to be shut down for the inauguration. Details on the delivery would be sent to him the day before. So far, everything was going smoothly. The security preparations for the target were conveniently being reported publicly in gratifying detail, but nothing they did would have any bearing whatsoever on what Heismann had planned for them.

In the meantime, he had work to do, beginning with a detailed walking reconnaissance of the neighborhood, so that he could plan two, possibly even three escape routes. He had to prepare the house to receive the weapon, especially the roof and the floor of the master bedroom. He had to create a reasonable facsimile of a sculptor's studio in the master bedroom, and for that he would need some tools, building materials, and probably a ladder. And finally, he wanted to get a sense of how often the local police patrolled this specific neighborhood. As much as he wanted to finish the problem with the nurse, that was probably secondary now that the weapon was in the country and the time was drawing near.

He longed to get out of the heavy disguise business — the wigs, the beard, the glasses, and all the bulky clothes. But he needed to stay in character until the neighbors had seen him, learned that he was a reclusive artist, and then forgot about him. His groin still ached, and there were fiery nerves he'd never known about connecting his bruised testicles to points deep within his abdomen. He wondered if a kick to a woman's groin would have the same effect. With any luck, maybe he'd get to find out. He began the deep-breathing technique again, willing the pain to subside.

Bertie called back at just after four o'clock. Swamp took the call on his secure phone. Bertie began with a question. "Did you get any hits on this Heismann in the national database?"

"Negative," Swamp said. "We got some hits, but none of them sounded like our guy. As I told you this morning, I think he's a European national. Possibly German."

"He is indeed, if this is him. I'll send you a secure fax with the details, but we've come up with a possible. Heismann, Jäger. Low-level Stasi operative at the time the Berlin Wall came down. Went back into the Rodina with some of his Soviet masters right after that, then surfaced again in Western Europe as a low-level enforcer for the FSB."

"FSB. Who are they?"

"Russian federal security service. You know, the successor to the KGB. His job was chasing down Russian businessmen turned emigres, the ones who were slipping out of the motherland with real cash money."

"A player?"

"No, not really. One of those guys who dances around the fire but never risks the actual flames. When the Ivans ran out of money, he migrated to the Muslim underground back in Hamburg. They, of course, did have money. Supposedly did more enforcement work, screening out plants and informers, but never doing anything so egregious as to get any of the European CI outfits spun up. Speaks colloquial English."

"How so?"

"Orphan. Taken in by an American air force sergeant at an early age in Frankfurt. Can probably speak English like an American. The Muslim fanatics would really like that angle. Ran away as a teenager to Berlin, drifted east. The Russians and the East Germans would have loved the American connection and his language ability."

"They know where he is?"

"Not at the moment, which is only mildly intriguing. Emphasis on the midlevel aspect of this guy, Swamp — he's no heavy hitter, no Carlos the Jackal. I talked to a German BND source earlier this afternoon. Their BVS directorate has Heismann as a Nazi sympathizer. Longing for the good old days of yesteryear, when Germans were Germans and the world was afraid. Trusted outside man for the Islamic fanatics, but never gonna be the guy who drives the truck bomb into the embassy compound. He reportedly has a stash of Nazi memorabilia somewhere, but even their neo-Nazi CI people say Heismann's a guy who's never done anything significant. A talker, waiting for the one big score."

Swamp thought about the four names. "Sometimes," he said, "those guys are the most dangerous. They conclude one day they have to prove themselves, make their mark. Then they come out of nowhere and do serious damage. Think Lee Harvey Oswald. The OK City bombers. Who'd ever heard of them?"

"Granted. He the guy who did the nurse's boyfriend?"

"We think, which is not to say we have any really impressive evidence. I think he's also the guy in that original transcript." Swamp reviewed what had happened in that case since they last spoke.

" 'Bomb, bomb, bomb,' " Swamp chanted. "I think maybe he's on a mission for somebody with money."

"The State of the Union? Or I guess it's the speech to the joint session this year, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Hell, why not the inauguration?" Bertie said. "I mean, if he's going to make his grandstand play, why not do it right? Get both the old government and the new government in one fell swoop? Talk about a decapitation strike."

"Because the inauguration is probably the most heavily protected event on the planet," Swamp said patiently. "Much too hard. But the speech to the joint session? Just a month later? When maybe the security people have let their guard down a little? Sneaky, but feasible."

"And Hallory and his people at PRU insist this thing's still a firefly?"

"They might not yet know about Heismann, or that we've made a connection here with the original transcript, flimsy as it is."

"We could have the wrong guy, Swamp," Bertie cautioned. "I mean, this guy's a pretty low-level thug to be trying something like what you're suggesting."

"What are you saying?"

"If it's him, then he has to have some serious money behind him," Bertie said. "And we all know who's behind most of the serious money going into attacking America these days."

"And?"

"I'm just suggesting you need to look for some connection between the Arabs and this guy to make your theory more convincing. You gonna let the D.C. cops know you have a name?"

"They've been really cooperative, so yes. Unlike my onetime brethren in the Service."

"Yeah, well, you play that as you will. But keep me in the loop, okay?"

"Will do, Bertie, and thanks again for the lead."

Swamp hung up, called Gary over to his desk, and back-briefed him on what Bertie had revealed. "There should be a secure fax coming through on this. Oh, and any sign of that memo from Hallory?"

"No, sir, but that VanMetre woman called and says she wants a meeting."

"Really. What about? And when?"

"This evening. And she wasn't sharing as to the subject."

"Okay, I'll call her," Swamp said.

"What do we do if we surface this guy Heismann?"

"We turn the whole package over to the Justice Department."

"We wouldn't build the case? Take it to prosecution?"

Swamp shook his head. "Negative. Old Secret Service rule. We want to catch these animals. You always want somebody else to clean them."

Heismann finally felt well enough to get in his van and drive uptown. He'd waited until after the rush-hour traffic had flushed itself out of the city's broad avenues, and then he spent an hour changing his disguise. Now he wore a white wig, wispy white eyebrows, Coke-bottle eyeglasses with a tiny clear central area for normal vision, a dark overcoat and gloves, and a floppy French beret. He carried a cane. And the liquid Taser pack was strapped to his body under that roomy overcoat. He drove the van up Connecticut Avenue, then went right and down into Rock Creek Park on Tilden, then right on Porter and all the way back to Connecticut. There was just enough residual traffic so that his van shouldn't stand out, although it was fully dark by now. He'd been able to catch a glimpse of her house from the top of Tilden, but he had seen no evident police activity. He watched for signs of police surveillance as he drove down into the park and again as he passed the entrance to the nurse's street, Quebec Street. He saw nothing obvious. All right, so they aren't being blatant about it, he thought as he went left this time into Ordway Street and found a parking space in front of an apartment building.

If they did it German-style, there'd be one openly visible surveillance unit and one or more covert units. A police car parked in front of her house, or along the street. Obvious, out there in the open for anyone to see. And then a second unit, probably an unmarked car or perhaps a van, parked in someone's driveway. Definitely not the old television show standby, the telephone company van. Perhaps even some individuals on the ground or in the house itself. It was cold, though, and the Ammies loved their vehicles. He was betting on a second vehicle of some kind. Maybe hidden in the yard, or even that garage. Or in the driveway of one of the adjacent houses.

He paused to think. He'd made the threat. The papers said she had been released on her own recognizance but had been ordered to stay in the city. They would have her under police protection. She was either a suspect in what had happened to the policeman or the next victim — she couldn't be both. If suspect, she'd still be in custody. So now she was bait, ya? Very well. He'd tickled their web with that phone call. If she was still in the house, then it meant they wanted to play.

He'd told Mutaib that the police were running a deception of their own, because he, Heismann, knew precisely under which rock in the park the nurse was buried. Mutaib seemed to believe him, and he even warned Heismann to stay away from what was obviously a trap. Heismann had played that same warning back to him: Mutaib needed to keep his people away from the nurse's house, as well. The Arab had agreed immediately. Heismann smiled in the darkness. Check.

So now he would take a walk. A white-haired old man, complete with three-toed cane, would take a tottering walk down Quebec Street, see what he could see. He made some adjustments to the Taser pack, then switched the charging unit on. He put his Walther in his outside coat pocket, checking it once more to ensure there was a round chambered. He took two Levolor cords rigged with locking clamps out of the bag on the right front seat and put them in the other pocket. If he did this right, he could leave the nurse an unambiguous message. He'd never scare off the police, but he might be able to make the nurse doubt their capacity to protect her. And then she might run. He needed her to run, for two reasons: to give the Ammies somebody to chase besides himself and to get her out from under police protection. If she went far, she was out of the game. If not too far, he might still find her and end the problem once and for all.

Five minutes later, he turned into Quebec Street, on the side opposite the nurse's house. The sidewalks were uneven, heaved up by the roots of huge trees that lined the street. The houses on either side were substantial but old, dating probably from the 1940s or even earlier. There were picket fences, nice lawns, established shrubbery, and wall-to-wall cars parked along the street and in driveways. Every house seemed to have a detached garage, and each house was lighted and clearly occupied. There were streetlights only at street intersections, so most of the light on the street came from the homes themselves.

He took his time, trying to make it look right, not tapping the cane but leaning on it and carefully navigating the humped sections of concrete. He hoped no dogs would come roaring out to devil him, but he had a cure for that, too, a canister of pepper spray embedded in the top handle of the cane. One quick twist and the handle would come out of the cane, ready for business. Back in the old days, in Berlin, it had been a can of something a lot more permanent than pepper spray. But those days were gone forever, unfortunately.

He got to the small bend to the right in Quebec Street before he finally saw the police car. It was parked on his side of the street, and he could just make out two heads outlined against some internal greenish light in the black-and-white cruiser. Probably a computer screen. He stopped behind the bulk of a large tree trunk and watched for a few minutes. He saw the flare of a cigarette lighter, and then a puff of smoke streamed out the window on the passenger side into the cold night air. All right, this one was totally obvious. The question now was, Where was the covert unit? He continued on down the sidewalk; getting closer to the police car. The other unit should be in visual contact with this unit, while still being able to watch the house. He could see the front and right side of the nurse's house now, but her driveway was empty. The stand of cedars was clearly visible, and she had her front porch light on. He stopped again. That porch light would blind anyone in the cedars themselves. So, the second unit — farther up the driveway? But then they would be out of visual contact with this unit. Or they were in one of the nearby driveways.

He looked around while pretending to rest, scanning all the driveways as best he could through the shrubbery. They could also be inside any of these houses. That would be the best spot. No visible vehicle, but in visual contact with the cruiser. Watching him even now. He felt a chill rise along his neck, imagined telescopic crosshairs or even one of those laser dots playing across his back. Was he making a big mistake here? Had he indeed walked right into a trap?

He shook off those thoughts and started walking forward again. The Washington police? Not to worry. He was fifty feet back from the patrol car, and the puffs of smoke were coming regularly out of that window, almost as if the smoker was sending smoke signals. The glow from the computer screen in the front dashboard was more visible now. Definitely two occupants, no more. The one in the driver's seat was slumped lower than the one in the passenger seat. No hats. Windows cracked all around. The emergency light set mounted on the top was glistening with dew. He shifted the cane into his left hand and closed his right hand around the Taser. He slid the arming tab forward, imagining that he felt the boxy little thing begin to quiver with lethal energy.

Twenty feet. No face visible in the left side-view mirror. He could hear a radio muttering inside the car, see the shotgun strapped into its rack. The driver — sleeping? The other one smoking furiously, puff after puff. He could smell it now, the pungent tang of tobacco hanging on the still night air. A lot of hair on the smoker's head — a woman? Oh, he hoped so. That would make it even better. He kept a peripheral sweep going, looking for any signs of a car that didn't fit, but they were all covered in dew. The nearest houses all had blinds or shades.

He finally drew abreast of the police car, looking sideways through the hideous glasses, stooping now, and making his movements more painful-looking. Yes, the driver was napping. A black man, with double chins bulging against his chest. The other one was indeed a woman, also black. She was reading a paperback book by the light of the computer screen. He stopped alongside the car, but incredibly, neither of them noticed him. He withdrew the Taser, held it down alongside his coat pocket, and then banged the cane forcefully on the hood of the car.

The driver's head snapped up as the woman dropped her book, and they both gaped at him.

"Communists?" he asked in his best imitation of a querulous old man's voice. "You watching for the damned Communists?"

The driver, still blinking himself awake, glanced over at his partner, who was relaxing, taking her hand off her service revolver. Heismann tapped on the car again, and the driver lowered his window all the way.

"Say what?" he asked.

"Communists!" Heismann said. "They're everywhere. Everywhere! You stay on guard. They are devils! They're coming, you know. Soon."

The driver glanced again at his partner, who was now trying to control her amusement, first at how badly surprised the driver had been, and now at this bat-blind geezer ranting on about Communists.

"Yes, sir, okay," the driver said. He was a young man under all that flesh, but his uniform was visibly straining its buttons. "We got it covered, sir," he said reassuringly. "You go on home now. We'll catch the bastards."

Heismann straightened up, nodding approval. "Good," he said. "Very good! We cannot be too careful. The Communists are everywhere, you know." He made a great show of looking carefully up and down the street for Communists, glancing around one last time as he did so to see if he could spot the other surveillance unit. But none of the nearby vehicles seemed to be reacting to his small theater. So he bent down again, pointed the Taser behind the driver's neck, and fired once at the woman, sending the needle-thin stream into the side of her throat, which caused her to slam sideways against the right front door, then back against the seat, her head bucking upward and back into the headrest with an audible thump. Before the fat driver could react, Heismann backed away and fired again, hitting him in the left temple, barely missing his own hand with the back spray. The policeman's arms and legs spasmed wildly, his body looking like a puppet whose master has fallen off his stool behind the curtain as he made a gagging sound and slumped sideways against the left front door.

Heismann maintained his position, bent down by the driver's side window, as if he were still talking to the two cops inside, while looking around again slowly, deliberately, half-expecting cops to come boiling out of the bushes or to hear excited yells over the radio. But there was absolutely no reaction. The policewoman seemed to be having trouble breathing. Her jaw was working, although no sounds came out. Heismann reached into the car and hit the master door locks, then opened the rear door behind the driver and got in. Just like in German police cars, the automatic dome light had been disabled.

Keeping the door partially open, he sat down in the backseat behind the driver. There was a wire-mesh screen between the front and back seats, with Plexiglas inserts directly behind where the policemen would normally be sitting. He pulled out the two Levolor cords and then threaded one end of each cord through the center of the screen. He got back out, leaned into the front seat, found the power switch for the computer, and shut it off, darkening the interior of the cruiser. Then he fashioned quick nooses, slipping one over each policeman's head, settling them under their chins and then pulling them tight, but not too tight. Then he slid the locking clamp up the right-hand side of the loop until it held the noose tight enough to dent the flesh of their necks just barely. Then he pushed the other end of the cords back through the screen, got back in the rear seat, and tied them off on the headrest support brackets.

The man was out of it, but the woman was aware of what he was doing, and her eyes widened in fear. That's right, Fraulein copper, he thought, I could strangle the both of you if I wanted to, and you could do absolutely nothing about it. But then there would be much too much commotion. I don't need that just now. One dead policeman is enough. But do not struggle, hein?

Checking once more to make sure no one was coming, he fished out their cuffs, made a chain through the steering wheel, and locked the man's right hand to the woman's left hand, effectively imprisoning them in the car. They had keys, of course, but the Taser's effects would make it very difficult for them to manage even such a simple task as putting a key into a lock. He thought briefly about starting a fire in the car to see if their survival instincts could overcome their paralysis. He smiled to himself. That was something his uncle Karl, a real German, would have done. But he had one more thing to do, and a fire might arouse the neighborhood. Definitely second class Polizei, he thought contemptuously. If there was a second surveillance unit, they were obviously asleep.

He got out and closed the door. He bent down again, pretending to talk to them in case anyone inside a house was watching, then waved good-bye and walked back up the street marginally faster than he had come. A car came down the street but turned into a driveway before reaching him. He walked right on past that house as the people got out of the car. They did not appear to have seen him.

When he reached the dogleg turn in Quebec Street, he turned around. He could still see the top half of the nurse's house. Two windows showed lights upstairs. Bedroom and bathroom, if he remembered correctly. That would do. He stepped off the sidewalk and stood in front of a large SUV, which was in the shadow of a big tree. He waited for a long minute, looking around and listening carefully for signs that someone had discovered the situation in the police cruiser, but the neighborhood remained quiet. He could hear the background hum of traffic up on Connecticut Avenue, and what sounded like the audio from a television set in a nearby house. Good enough, he thought.

He pulled out the Walther and rested it on the driver's side mirror and aimed carefully down the street at the nurse's second-story windows. Bedroom or bathroom? Bathroom. More glass in there. It was a very long shot for a pistol, of course, but all he really wanted to achieve was to hit the house. There was no wind, so he looked around one more time to make sure no one was standing in their doorway looking at him, and then he lined up the bathroom window in his gun sight, elevated the barrel about an inch, and carefully fired two rounds. Then he pocketed the Walther and began walking quickly up Quebec Street toward Connecticut, abandoning all pretense at lame old age, the cane under his arm now like a drill sergeant's baton. He was aware of some front porch lights coming on behind him down in Quebec Street, but he was across Connecticut Avenue at the light in the next minute, then back in his van two minutes after that.

A joke, he told himself as he drove away. The Washington police were just what all his sources said they were: a total joke. And now that nurse would know it, too, once they found the two patrol officers. If he'd had a telephone, he would have been tempted to call her and ask her if she was all right.

They met in the Oyster Bar of the Old Ebbitt Grill on Fifteenth Street, a block from the White House. Swamp, who knew the maître d', had asked for a table for two in the bar for a twenty-minute meeting, with the understanding they'd give up the table whenever the maître d' needed it after that. Lucy, elegant in a gray silk suit, caused a small stir when she came through the restaurant, heading toward the bar at the back of the rapidly filling dining area. Swamp had arrived five minutes earlier and had a glass of wine going. Lucy told the waiter she'd have a vodka rocks with a twist. When the waiter left, she produced a franked government envelope.

"Your memo," she said, passing it to him.

The envelope wasn't sealed, so Swamp opened it and read the action paragraph in the memorandum, Hallory writing in the bureaucratic third person. "It has been decided that the original transcript does not indicate a credible threat to presidential security, and that the Secret Service requires no further action or assistance from the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) on this matter." That was it. The memo was signed out, however, by Lucy VanMetre, by direction. Swamp smiled. By having her sign it, Hallory was protecting himself. If this thing ever coiled back to bite him, Hallory could always say he didn't know anything about the memo and thereby blame Lucy. He looked at her and she smiled back at him, acknowledging the game.

"Thanks for bringing this," he said, pocketing it. "Old habits are hard to break."

"Perfectly understandable," she replied. The waiter brought her drink. "Do you really intend to go to the fusion committee with this problem?"

"If I have to," he said. The room was noisy enough that they could speak privately even in such a public place.

"Then perhaps you have more information than you gave Mr. Hallory this morning?"

He nodded. "Since Hallory refused to get an FBI forensics team into it," he said, "I tapped a few sources from a prior life. In fact, I think I now have a name and a tentative face to put to that transcript."

"Really," she said, her eyebrows rising. Her ice blue eyes were all business. Swamp remembered Bertie's comment about La Mamba, and that Bertie had told him he could trust Lucy to be working her own agenda, even as Hallory's deputy. She had signed the memo. If Swamp had new and more substantial information, she was definitely interested in hearing it.

"Yep," he said. "Still no solid evidence, but we've made a connection between the original transcript and a voice message left on that nurse's answering machine—after the lieutenant got killed. The District cops had her phone tapped, with her permission. We think the guy's a German national."

She sipped some of her drink. "They're using her as bait to try to catch the lieutenant's killer?"

"Yes."

"Do you have any details on this German?"

He nodded. "I can send you a secure fax in the morning. Then you'll have what we have. The next step, of course, is to find him. We'll have an Interpol picture, but of course if he was at that clinic, he's had cosmetic surgery. But at least we're going to take a shot at finding him."

She put her drink down and looked away for a moment. In profile, her face was all lines and angles. Highly defined facial bones. Straight, sculpted nose. Lips full, although not too full. Her hands were elegantly long, with delicately shaped fingers and polished neutral-colored nails. No rings or jewelry of any sort, he noticed. Not even a watch. Her hair was amazing, and he found himself wanting to touch it.

"Has your superior in OSI authorized an investigation?" she asked. "Beyond the first phase?"

"That's Tad McNamara," he said. "And no, not yet." He wondered where she was going with this.

"So, you're sharing information with me. Why? Ah, so you can tell him that you are keeping the Service in the loop, even though Mr. Hallory has, in fact, turned it off. And thereby you maintain control of what happens to it in OSI, yes?"

He tipped his glass at her. Full marks.

She nodded. "That's intelligent," she said. "Would you be willing to interface with me directly? In return for which, I'll do two things: One, I'll make the requisite responses to any queries from your Mr. McNamara. And, two, at the appropriate time, I will approach Mr. Hallory to argue that perhaps further assets should be deployed. Assuming you produce tangible evidence, of course."

"Deal," he said immediately. "And please understand, I'm not so rabid about this that I can't admit I'm wrong. If it crumbles, I'll trash it myself."

"Very good, Mr. Morgan. I was told you were someone with whom one could do business."

By whom? Swamp wondered. "Why is Hallory so hard-over on this issue?" he asked.

"Well, first, he's totally absorbed by the inauguration problem," she said, finishing her drink. "Which, as you might remember, is a security nightmare."

"A target-rich environment, as the Army likes to say."

"Indeed. From our perspective, we want to limit access, while everyone who's anyone in Washington is trying to get in."

He shook his head. "Better thee than me-e," he intoned. "The good news for me is that I've got some time with this one. That speech to the joint session is almost a month away. Not like your problem."

She swirled the ice in her glass for a moment. "I've heard some stories about you, Mr. Morgan," she said, looking away again. "One in particular. About the day you retired from active duty with the Service."

Swamp didn't say anything. Again, he just waited.

"Did that really happen?" she asked. "That your wife went with you to your retirement ceremony and then announced she was leaving you?"

Swamp simply nodded, not trusting himself to speak. No one had ever come right out and said such a thing to his face.

"And then…"

"Yes."

She blinked and didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then she leaned forward. "I don't mean to pull emotional scabs, Mr. Morgan. It's just that some people think Mr. Hallory is a jerk. He's not. Overfaced by his job right now, perhaps, but he's not an incompetent or indifferent boss."

"I remember him when he was an up-and-coming staff officer at headquarters. I don't think he's a jerk."

"Well, you should understand that he truly believes that your zeal on this transcript matter stems at least in part from the fact that you came back to government service because your life was otherwise empty. And that what happened that day has perhaps clouded your judgment."

Well, bully for him, Swamp thought. "In what way, specifically?" he asked.

"In the sense that you might attach disproportionate significance to an issue like this just to stay in the game."

"He send you to tell me this, Ms. VanMetre?"

"No," she said immediately. "No. This meeting was my idea. Just so you know that there's no conspiracy to marginalize you or what you're doing. There's no turf fight here. We're all too busy for that kind of thing."

"All right," he said, anxious to get back on firmer ground. "Glad to hear that. I'll keep you informed, one way or another. Like I said, if it's a firefly, I'll swat it myself."

"All right, good."

"And my emotional gyros are pretty stable these days, Ms. VanMetre. I admit that I don't date or otherwise socialize with anyone. My kids, who are both grown, think that I am responsible for what happened to my wife. She wouldn't have been there if I'd been a better husband, and so forth. So now we don't communicate anymore. In effect, I've lost my entire family."

He paused for a few seconds to let that sink in. "And it's absolutely true," he continued, "that I'm still working because that's all I know how to do, which also happens to be the point Sherry was making that day. But that fact hasn't clouded my judgment."

"That's all?" she asked quietly. Swamp almost didn't hear her.

"What?" he asked.

"That's all? I mean, no affairs, alcoholism, abusive behavior — she left you because you worked too much?"

"That's right," he said. "I was married more to the job than I was to her. Those were her words."

She sighed. "I'm German by ethnic heritage, Mr. Morgan," she said. "A reasonable woman does not divorce a man who works too hard."

She obviously meant that. He smiled, surprisingly relieved. "Well, those are the facts, Ms. VanMetre. I'm not nuts, or no more so than any of us in federal LE. If I'd still had my badge and my gun that day, maybe some things would be different. Maybe not. I'll never know. I don't feel guilty anymore, just sad."

She gazed across the table at him for what seemed a long time. A man could get lost in those blue eyes, he thought, if she ever softened them. "I believe you, Mr. Morgan," she said, finally. "And I hope things get better for you soon."

"So do I," Swamp said, and then he spotted the maître d' pointing a finger at their table. "Our time's up, I'm afraid," he said. "Thanks for meeting me."

She smiled, and for the first time he caught just a glimpse of the woman who might live behind the silvery mask. "Stay in touch, Mr. Morgan," she said as she got up and slipped her coat back on. "And please, I preferred it when you called me Lucy."

He followed her across the dining room area. The maître d' passed them with a young couple and two menus, giving Swamp a conspiratorial man-to-man wink as he went by. As if, Swamp thought wearily. By the time he got his coat and made it to the front door, Lucy was already gone. As he stepped out onto the sidewalk, his cell phone vibrated in his suit pocket.

"Morgan," he said, turning his face out of the cold wind blowing along Fifteenth Street.

"Sir. This is Gary. You need to come back to the office."

Fifteen minutes later, Swamp sat on the edge of his desk while Gary told him about what had happened in Quebec Street earlier that evening.

"He shot at the house?"

"Two rounds. One went through the bathroom window; the other hit the window frame. She was in the bathroom. Some kind of medium-caliber pistol. Too long a range to have been a serious attempt to hit anyone inside."

"That's probably a distinction without a difference to Ms. Wall," Swamp said. "Judas Priest! Where was the covert team?"

"Parked out back by the garage, so they could watch the approaches from the park. That's how he'd come twice before, apparently, but they were beyond line of sight on the overt unit. Never even heard the shots. Didn't know squat until the nurse came running out of the house with her hair on fire, figuratively speaking. Then they found their buddies trussed up like Sunday chickens. Carl said it's a regular Lebanese goat grab out there right now."

Swamp couldn't suppress a grin. "I can believe that. But in a way, this is good news for us. He's still trying for the nurse, which means he's still in town."

He got up and walked around the tiny office, the fumes of Chardonnay and Lucy's subtle perfume still rising in his nose. "And it reinforces my sense that Connie Wall knows more than she's told us."

"About?"

"About some bastard bombing the Capitol."

"Is it possible she knows but doesn't know that she knows?"

"Maybe," Swamp said. "Or it's possible she does know what he looks like but can't surface it."

"She ought to remember some big balls," Gary said. "First, he whacks a cop, just to get him out of his way, and then two nights later, he comes strolling down the street right in front of two surveillance units and disables two more cops. Making it clear he could have killed them, too. All over this nurse."

"He certainly thinks she know something."

Gary perched a hip on the edge of Swamp's desk. "With all this heat, if I had a mission to bomb the Capitol, I'd be laying low. Letting things subside, so I could do the job, whatever it is. Not go throwing gasoline on the fire like this."

"Correct," Swamp said. "So there's a reason for all this. I think we need to go back to interview Ms. Wall. Before her role as bait gets her dead."

"On the other hand, the bait idea worked," Gary said. "He did make a move."

"We might not like his next move," Swamp said. "Hell, I'm ready to go out there tonight."

But Gary was shaking his head. "Carl thought you might say that. He says tomorrow is a much better idea. Let the hornet swarm subside a little."

"As in they're embarrassed. No time for feds to show up. They'd assume we were gloating."

"Yes, sir."

Swamp, disappointed, nodded. Carl was probably right. He wondered if he ought to inform his newfound ally over in PR, but decided against it. Wait until you have the facts, he thought. All the facts. Evidence, even. Admissible evidence, even better. "Okay, tomorrow it is. I'll need to bring McNamara up to speed first thing; then we'll try to get some face time with Ms. Wall. Assuming she doesn't bolt first."

Heismann cleaned the Walther in the kitchen sink and then reassembled it, wiping each component with an oiled rag before fitting it back in place. He replaced the two spent rounds, but not before first emptying the entire clip and oiling the spring. He could just hear the sounds of a television from the duplex next door. It was one of those stupid Ammie shows where the television laughed all by itself, whether what was being said was funny or not. He needed to get a television set, as none had been provided with the furnishings. He didn't want to rely entirely on newspapers for news of the city, especially when he'd been out making some of that news. He would need one on der Tag.

The television switched to a loud automobile advertisement, complete with some brute yelling about zero something. He put the gun down on the table, resisting the temptation to start shooting through the wall until the brute shut up. Time to have a better look at his neighbor, he thought. He turned out his own kitchen light and looked out the window to verify that her kitchen lights were on. Based on the wedge of white light spilling out onto their shared back porch, they were. He went to find the minibinoculars, then put on a jacket and his loden hat. He went out the back door as quietly as he could, down the steps, and walked quietly to the garage at the back of the yard, not looking back until he was at the garage's side door. He could see her through her back kitchen window; she was washing something in the sink. Short dark hair, plain face with a short, pointed nose. Indeterminate age. Late forties, early fifties. Glasses. He couldn't see anything of her figure, but, based on that face, she was probably not overweight.

He stepped into the garage and closed the side door behind him. He had to squeeze past the left front of the van, as the garage had been built a long time ago, when cars were not as wide and high as they were now. There was a tiny dirty window at the yard end of the garage, and he wiped off some grime so he could examine her through the glasses. Yes, late forties. The oyster complexion of an office worker. He could see the television behind her, colors flickering silently now that he was in the garage. He felt the contour of his nose and looked at her face again. Similar enough. He raised the glasses once more and studied that face as an idea solidified in his mind.

With the right wig, and that nose… yes. He lowered the glasses. He was probably much thinner than she was. He'd have to get into her house when she was at work. Check the sizes of her clothes. Find some pictures with her face in them so he could begin the study of her makeup, eyebrows, lip colors. He'd also have to see about relatives, children. But if she was a solitary individual, what he had in mind would work on der Tag. When all was in chaos and there were police scrambling all over the neighborhood. It only had to work for sixty seconds at most, and that within one minute of the attack itself. He wouldn't have much time to fix his own face, but the essentials would take only about thirty seconds, with practice.

He'd have to get her out of the way, of course. Not now, but perhaps the day just before. He raised the glasses again, waiting for her to turn in profile. The nose was the key. He ran his finger along the curving contours of his own brand-new nose, the one Mutaib had said looked like his. And so it did. Never mind that it was a total betrayal of his Aryan heritage. He had wanted a physical change, and he had succeeded beyond his expectations.

She turned to reach for a dish towel. Yes, indeed. This would work. He lowered the glasses and leaned back on the front grille of the minivan as he began to go through the list of things he would need to acquire in the next seven days. Another vehicle, one that could pass for a police unit. A television. A GPS navigation device — he'd need to find a boating-supply store for that. The woman moved away from the kitchen window and then turned off the light and the television. A minute later, her bedroom light came on upstairs. He moved back to the window and raised the glasses again. He could see her shadow moving around the room. There were sheer curtains in place in the window, but the tiny binoculars allowed him to see through them fairly well. She passed into his field of vision briefly, visible from the waist up, wearing what looked like a slip. Full-breasted, with just the beginnings of a belly. Too full? Her bra size would tell him.

She would do for the day in question. Do very nicely.

Seven days. He shivered, both from the cold and the thrill of what was coming.