Liberty

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The second Corrigan unit arrived in Washington on a Wednesday morning — days late — mounted in an unmarked white van similar to the first one. Jake put it on the street. He rode around in the van himself to familiarize himself with the problems and the results that could be expected. The first evening he had the driver go by Hains Point. The area registered hot on this unit, too.

The following day he went home early — seven in the evening — to find Jack Yocke visiting over a drink with Amy and Callie.

At Jake’s suggestion, Callie had invited the reporter for dinner. This time he didn’t bring his girlfriend, Jake noted, and he asked Callie about it when the two were alone in the kitchen. “Did you suggest Jack come alone?”

“No,” she said. “I invited him to dinner and said he could bring his attorney if he wished. He showed up alone.”

Dinner went well, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and peas, Jake’s favorite. He complimented Callie three times before he finished his second helping. Amy chattered with Yocke — she liked him and he wasn’t intimidated by her youth, so that went well. When dinner was finished Amy asked Callie’s help with a translation, so Jake and the reporter cleared the dishes.

Alone in the kitchen with the dishwasher humming, Jack Yocke said, “I’m sorta curious about what you’re up to these days. I haven’t found a soul who will even drop a hint.”

Jake Grafton smiled. “It’s classified.”

“Funny thing, your name did come up in a conversation I had with a White House source. This person is very high up, perhaps said a wee bit more than he should. He did suggest what you are doing.”

“Must be nice, having sources like that. They can make a journalist’s career, I suppose, maybe even get him nominated for a Pulitzer.”

“He was talking about abuse of power.”

“Such as?”

“Illegal searches, illegal wiretaps, illegal surveillance, violation of the privacy laws and government regulations on the use of personal information, things like that.”

“Serious accusations,” Jake murmured, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He held out the pot for Yocke, who snagged a cup from the cupboard and held it out. Jake poured. They got milk from the refrigerator and whitened up the brew.

“A story like that would have to be verified very carefully before I could run it. I’d need to get verifiable facts from at least two impeccable sources, maybe three or four if my editors insist.”

“A scandal like that would really embarrass the administration, I suppose.”

“That it would. If the people at the top knew about it. If they didn’t, there are rogues somewhere that need to be weeded out. Regardless, if there is activity like that going on, the scandal would wreck careers, perhaps lead to prosecutions. The public takes these things seriously.”

“I suppose when people tell you dirt on other people, you wonder about their motivation.”

“Of course. People tattle for a million reasons, most of them not very nice. On the other hand, if the press waited for saints to bare their souls, newspapers wouldn’t have much news in them. Police must listen to snitches, and so do we.”

“I suppose.”

“News is where you find it.”

“Lanham ever talked out of school before?”

Yocke took another sip of coffee while the dishwasher sang and he decided how to handle that remark.

“What if I say yes?”

“Bring your coffee and let’s take a ride. Your car is downstairs on the street, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Where are we going?”

“To look at the republic.”

Jake told Callie that he and Yocke were going for a ride, and Yocke thanked her for the meal. Callie, wise as ever, didn’t ask where they were going or when Jake would return.

When Yocke had the car in motion Jake produced a cassette from his shirt pocket and examined the controls on Yocke’s dashboard.

“You want to play that?” Yocke asked.

“Please. You do it.” He passed the cassette to the reporter and latched his seat belt. Yocke popped the thing in the receptacle on the dashboard and pushed the buttons.

They were waiting at a stoplight when Lanham’s voice came over the speaker, then Yocke’s. The light changed, and Yocke fed gas. He listened to the recorded telephone conversation in silence. When the conversation was over the tape continued to run. Jake pushed the eject button and snagged the cassette. He returned it to his pocket.

“Where’d you get that?” the reporter asked.

Jake merely looked thoughtful. He finished his coffee, put the cup on the floor between his feet so it wouldn’t roll around.

“Is my telephone tapped?”

“Not.”

“Lanham’s?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. The way they explained it to me, each human voice is distinct — not as distinct as fingerprints, but close — and a computer can be programmed to pick out that voice in any conversation from any telephone calls going through the switching equipment being monitored. Then it records that conversation.”

“I see.”

“Tens of thousands of calls, hundreds of thousands, go through the switching equipment, and computers sample them for voices they are looking for, or words, phrases, whatever. When a computer gets a hit, bingo. Be impossible for a human to do, but computers can do hundreds of calls at the same time — they’re that fast. Unfortunately, the computer doesn’t start recording until it identifies the voice. Presumably you answered the telephone and the computer didn’t recognize your voice. It recognized Lanham’s, though, and started recording as soon as the positive match was complete.”

“Why Lanham?”

Jake just shook his head.

“So what are you going to do with the cassette?”

Grafton shrugged. “I just did it.”

“You going to send it over to the White House?”

“I know what you’re thinking. I hear the president gets real pissy about leaks. Regards the leaker as disloyal and all that. This wouldn’t be good for Lanham, but no, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to put it in my desk drawer and lock the drawer.”

“That sounds like a threat, Admiral.”

“Maybe I should be more explicit. In the unlikely event anything classified that Lanham might have discussed with you gets in the newspaper, then I’ll reevaluate.”

“Surely you aren’t the administration’s plumber.”

“Plumber?”

“The guy who looks for leaks.”

“I’m looking for a traitor.”

“Are leakers traitors?”

“They could be, I guess, but not in this case. Lay off, Jack. Don’t go near Lanham. I don’t know what is going on over at the White House, and I don’t want to get into the middle of it. I’m a sailor with a classified job. If the president and Sal Molina can’t handle Lanham, they’re out of their league and unfit for their jobs.”

Yocke snorted. “The guy who is out of his league is Lanham. That poor schnook thinks he’s got a handle on this shit.”

Jake Grafton shrugged.

“So you know Lanham is leaking. Is he telling the truth? Abuse of power is a serious charge.”

“Let’s go to the Lincoln Memorial,” Jake suggested. “That’s my favorite place in Washington. I feel like a visit.”

Yocke glanced at his watch, then made the next left turn, which took them in the proper direction. At ten in the evening they had no trouble finding a parking place. With the car locked, they set off afoot for the Memorial.

As usual, the marble temple was well lit, with uniformed park rangers and several dozen tourists, who were busy snapping photos of the statue of Lincoln, each other, and the view of the Washington Monument from the main entrance. The flashes of light and warm voices echoing in the building made it seem more like a high school gymnasium than a memorial.

After wandering through the place with Yocke tagging along, Jake Grafton found a vacant spot on the front steps away from the tourists and seated himself. In front of him the white, spotlighted obelisk of the Washington Monument reached upward into the black sky.

“When Lincoln was president the nation tried to rip itself apart,” Jake said. “Various people argued in good faith that under the constitution the president lacked the power to violate the laws. No one is above the law. In effect, the argument went, the president and the government had to obey the laws even if the republic fell. Lincoln looked at the issue a little differently. He argued that the duly elected, lawful government had the inherent power to do whatever was necessary to save itself. He jailed people without charges or trials, suspended the writ of habeus corpus so judges couldn’t let them out, shut down newspapers, declared blockades of American ports, admitted states into the union without going through the constitutional or statutory hoops, issued bonds to finance the war without statutory authority … You know all this, of course.”

“I remember my history,” Yocke said dryly.

“Some people called him a dictator. King Lincoln.”

“And he saved the union.”

“He saved the constitutional government, this system of checks and balances. He forced the American people to solve their problems in the Capitol building, not on the battlefield. Oh, I know, a lot of the people we elect to Congress are shits of the first water. Saints don’t get into politics. The politicians wrestle with the issues. They argue, rant, and compromise — which is what they are supposed to do. Some issues they duck, none is resolved for all time. Then they go home to face the voters. That’s our system, and it’s a damned good one. That is the system that Lincoln said he had the inherent power to defend. I guarantee you, every American is better off today than he or she would have been if the republic had been torn in half because Lincoln obeyed the statutes.”

“We’re not in a civil war.”

“We’re in a war against people who wish to destroy America. The best way to do it is to attack the government’s ability to protect its citizens. That is the most basic function of government. Any government that can’t accomplish that feat forfeits its legitimacy. Our enemies won’t attack with a conventional armed force because they don’t have one. But it’s war nonetheless, war to the very last man, war to the knife, the knife to the hilt.”

“If the government becomes a dictatorship to save itself,” Yocke argued, “then it is no longer the government most Americans want to live under.”

“Precisely. That was Lincoln’s dilemma and it’s ours.”

“If you are arguing that the government has a right to do whatever it wants in secret, you lose. Lincoln acted publicly. That’s the difference. Nobody gave the president or you or anyone else a mandate to break the law.”

Jake Grafton considered his answer before he spoke. “When I was a very young man I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey the orders of the officers appointed over me. That is precisely what I am doing. Just that and nothing more.” He pointed down the Mall at the unseen Capitol. “If we lose this war, that building down there will become a ruin like the forum in Rome or the Parthenon in Athens.”

“Perhaps a better system will come along.”

“Bullshit. Every decision that government makes — all of them — involves a balancing of competing interests. City and county councils do it, state legislatures do it, Congress does it. Taxes, budgets, schools, roads, welfare, social legislation, criminal codes, the environment — everything is a compromise balancing the push-pull of competing interests. Humans have tried every other conceivable arrangement to get these decisions made — tribal chiefs, warlords, kings, dictators, oligarchies … our system is democracy, and nothing better has been discovered. It’s inefficient and messy as hell, but if democracy goes, the world is headed for a new dark age.

“I don’t know about you, but those fallible humans in the Capitol building are the only people on the planet that I trust with my liberty, within the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution. I want them there playing politics, which is twisting arms, trading votes, lying to the voters and themselves and each other and weighing the various shades of gray. I want the president in the White House trying to herd the cats. I want the Supreme Court watching them. I want the press watching everybody. I want that for me, my daughter, her kids, and all the Americans yet to come.”

Yocke looked skeptical. “People trying to save the world have a damn poor record. The danger is you’ll destroy what you’re trying to protect.”

Jake sighed. “I don’t know why I’m sitting here arguing with a man of words. You’re right, absolutely right. What I promise you is this — everything the government does now will someday come out. Every secret will ultimately be revealed. When that day comes the citizens of the republic will decide if the threat warranted the reaction, if power was abused or the law perverted. What we must do is have faith in our elected officials and the patience to wait.”

“For a man of action, you talk mighty slick,” Jack Yocke said. “I hope to God you know what you are doing.”

“So do I, Jack.”

That night after Yocke dropped the admiral back at his building, Jake and Callie had a private moment, of which there had been few this spring.

“What’s going on, Jake?”

“Someone told Yocke something I don’t want him to follow up on or print.”

“Did he agree to cooperate?”

“Not in so many words, but I think so.”

He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m so tired. I’m going to hit the hay.”

“You haven’t been getting enough sleep.”

“We’re running out of time, Callie. I don’t know what to do about it. We need a break, and, goddammit, I can’t buy or steal one.”

On the morning of the sixth day at the Homestead Tommy Carmellini decided to face fiscal reality. He called Jake Grafton and got him on the first ring.

“How is the FBI coming on getting Anna set up in a new identity?”

“They are working on it, they tell me,” the admiral said. “Everything going okay?”

“Haven’t shot anybody yet.” Carmellini explained about the money.

“We’ll pay you the usual travel per diem,” Jake said. “Don’t go to your place or mine — they might be watched. You could use my place at the beach, but there’s the same problem.”

“Uh-huh. What are we doing about that asshole in Egypt?”

“Working on that. It’ll take a while for the fruit to ripen.”

“Terrific.”

“Stay in touch.”

At the front desk, Carmellini asked to see the tab, did some quick mental arithmetic, and swallowed hard. Time to drift. He and Anna checked out, loaded his old Mercedes, and headed for Virginia Beach.

They were doing a lot of talking these days. As the miles rolled by she told him of growing up in Russia, of her parents and the stories they told of Stalin and the great terror, told him about school, about working in Switzerland and Cairo.

Tommy Carmellini told Anna the truth about himself. She was the first and only woman to whom he had ever admitted his fondness for sneaking into places where he wasn’t supposed to be, his addiction to the challenge of stealing and fencing the loot and planning the jobs, what he thought about his job and Jake Grafton and the other people who ruled his life — he told her all of it, except for the classified stuff. He steered clear of that, and when he couldn’t, he evaded politely. She seemed to understand.

That evening they signed into a small efficiency on the north end of the beach. The season had yet to start — the spring wind still had a nip to it and the water was cold — so the price on the condo was right and the beach was relatively empty.

Tommy Carmellini and Anna Modin strolled the sand and felt the chilly wind in their hair and the sand between their toes and watched the seabirds looking for food in the surf runout. Now and then they passed someone jogging with a dog.

On the horizon Carmellini saw ships, probably headed into or out of the Chesapeake, the mouth of which was just a few miles north. The sight of the occasional ship made Carmellini think about nuclear weapons; the thought made him shiver. He wondered if Grafton had found them yet. Obviously that was something they couldn’t talk about over a cell phone, nor did Tommy have a need to know.

Was Anna SVR?

She denied it. Was her denial truth or lie?

When he stopped walking she snuggled against him with an arm around his waist and pressed her head against his chest. He could smell the salt in her hair, feel the strands against his cheek, feel the sensuous warmth and firmness of her body.

SVR or not, he loved her.

He had her now, but for how long?

Irritated, he tried to push that thought away. He had lived his entire life from day to day, refusing to worry what tomorrow might bring, and now he found himself concerned about the future. Love does that to you, he decided. It’s insidious. Next I’ll be thinking about marriage, a little cracker-box house on a postage-stamp lot in a Virginia suburb, furniture on credit, vacation schedules, dreading out-of-town trips, sweating the daily commute …

Ye gods! Was that where life led? To stop-and-go traffic on the eternal voyage to and from the endless suburbs? Was that what happened when you really, honestly and truly, fell madly and hopelessly in love?

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

“I love you, too, Tommy Carmellini,” she said, and tightened the pressure of her arm around his waist.

All things considered, sharing a tract house in the suburbs with Anna Modin wouldn’t be half bad, he thought.

Around the table were seated a scientist from Sandia Labs, three electrical engineers, two physicists, and a vice president of Baltimore Electric with a Ph.D., enough brainpower, Jake Grafton reflected, to launch another Manhattan Project. Leavening this scientific brainpower were Jake Grafton, history major, and Sal Molina, political operator and career insider.

The brains had impeccable security clearances and long histories of consulting with the CIA on technical and scientific matters. They could be relied upon to keep their mouths firmly shut about what they learned here, if anyone could. Jake Grafton thought the secret too hot; it would come out soon. Someone would talk. Perhaps Butch Lanham, perhaps someone at Corrigan Engineering, someone …

They were running out of time. He could feel it leaking away, and with every passing day he became more and more irritable. He was having anxiety nightmares when he tried to sleep — being chased and unable to escape. The monsters were right behind him.

He tried to forget the monsters and pay attention to what was being said.

After an hour, the Ph.D. vice president from the power company said, “Let’s do it. Cut the antenna lead and sever the power connections to these weapons. Then they can sit there until doomsday.”

A poor choice of words. Every face in the room registered that fact.

“Is that safe?” Sal Molina asked again. Safety was his mantra. He wanted oaths signed in blood from every one of these people that the weapons would not detonate when the power supply was interrupted.

“Of course it’s safe,” one of the brains shot back. “We’ve been all over that. Power interruptions are rare but inevitable. If those weapons were going to explode when the load was lost, they would already have done so long ago.”

“What if each weapon contains a battery to maintain power when the net is down? The battery might last for a while after the power is permanently severed, then detonate the weapon before it loses its ability to do so. Is that a possibility?”

The weapons people didn’t think much of that scenario. Grid power could be permanently lost for any one of a number of perfectly ordinary, legitimate reasons. It would be in no one’s interest to have the city vaporized a few days later.

The president’s man was obviously uncomfortable. He also feels the sands of time running through the glass, Jake thought. He watched Molina make an obvious effort to maintain his legendary cool. When he thought he had his face back on, he turned to Jake.

“What do you think, Admiral?”

“Let’s do it. Cut the power and antenna leads, then we’ll dig them up when the EPA makes us.”

The scientists made polite noises at that attempt at humor. Sal Molina signaled that the meeting was over. As the brains filed out he stayed seated at the table and signaled for Jake to remain.

When the two men were alone, before Molina could speak, Jake said, “Tarkington called from Boston two hours ago. There’s one there, too. It went into the fill for that new cross-harbor tunnel they’re digging through the city. It’s wired up to a nearby office building.”

“For the love of Christ! How in the name of God can people do this crap under our very noses?”

“This isn’t the time to swarm all over those contractors asking questions. We’ll sic the FBI on them when we think we’ve found all the bombs and disabled them.”

Molina eyed Grafton without enthusiasm. “Where are the Corrigan detectors? All I’ve heard are promises.”

“Corrigan’s way behind. We’ve got exactly two. From what I hear we’re lucky to have them. Corrigan intended to farm out the manufacturing. When he found that wasn’t going to fly he had his engineers start hand-building the things. I don’t know what he’s telling the president—”

“Blowing smoke up his ass,” Molina said sourly.

“—His engineers tell me they are doing everything they can, and we’ll get the detectors as soon as they’re ready. And not before.”

Molina made a rude noise. “No detectors! Buried bombs! The president is going to ask how many of these sons of bitches we’re walking around on. What’s your guess?”

Jake shook his head from side to side. “Don’t want to guess.”

“Looks like we outsmarted ourselves on Star Wars, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Jake Grafton. “It does.”

Watching Harley Bennett find the bomb buried in the fill for the new cross-harbor tunnel in Boston convinced Sonny Tran that he was operating in the dark. The four Russian bombs purchased by the Sword of Islam were due to arrive in the United States on ships the day after tomorrow … and yet there was a nuclear weapon buried in every major East Coast city the team had visited, Washington, New York, and Boston.

Right now he thought it probable there were bombs in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles … perhaps Miami, Atlanta, and Seattle, maybe even St. Louis or Kansas City. Dallas, certainly, Houston …

Did Corrigan know about the buried weapons when he sold the government the detectors? If he knew they were there, why did he fund the Sword of Islam’s purchase?

Or was finding them pure serendipity, the kind that would make Corrigan America’s most beloved industrialist and entice a grateful Congress to give him a medal?

Sonny concluded that it would be impossible to determine the true course of events from the facts he had, so he stopped trying. The important thing was the bomb that Nguyen went to Florida to steal.

Sonny wished he knew what the FBI knew about the cells waiting to receive the things. He needed an entry to Grafton’s inner circle, and he hadn’t been able to find one: Here he sat, driving a van through Boston.

Everything hinged on Nguyen. If he were good enough, they had a chance. If he weren’t …

Sonny took a deep breath and sifted through the situation again.

His pager went off. He removed it from his belt and looked. Karl Luck.

Nguyen Duc Tran was sitting in the last booth in the back of the bar, watching the door, when he saw Red Citrix come in. There were only five other customers in the place — three stringy men in dirty jeans and T-shirts, and two equally worn women. They were all nursing beers at the bar, smoking, and talking desultorily, while a professional basketball game played on the television behind the bar. Red ignored the sitters, nodded at the bartender, walked back to Nguyen’s booth, and took a seat.

“Hey,” Red said.

“Hey.”

“What’ll it be?” the bartender called.

“Gimme a Bud,” Red said loudly. His thinning hair was white, his skin ruddy and splotchy. His hands had a slight tremor, as if he had been seriously ill in the not-too-distant past.

“I didn’t think you’d really show up,” Red said softly to Nguyen.

“Hey, I put it together. There’s money to be made.”

“The fucking feds are looking under every rock for terrorists. Shit, I check under my bed every night to see if I’ve got an FBI dude under there. A lot of guys are taking a vacation until things cool down.”

“There’s money to be made,” Nguyen Duc Tran said again. He lit a cigarette.

Red Citrix worked for a freight forwarder. He was the man with the manifests who brought containers through customs, paid the duty, and sent the steel boxes on their way. Nguyen had done business with him twice before. Each time he had paid Citrix $10,000 cash to redirect a container. The containers were laden with European manufactured goods, which he stole and fenced, but he had led Citrix to believe they contained illegal narcotics. A thief was no one special, but in south Florida, dope dealers were serious people. Crossing one was extremely perilous to your health.

“Don’t want to tell you your business,” Red Citrix said now, “but since I like you, I want to give you a friendly warning. There’s some heavy people that will get damned pissed if they find out you’re doing business in their territory.”

“How they gonna find out?”

“Well, I dunno.” Red Citrix fell silent while the bartender placed the tall draft on the table and walked back toward the bar.

“We’re businessmen,” Nguyen said lightly, exhaling smoke. “You and I have done business before and probably will again. My associates know the arrangements.” He shrugged. “People have tried to fuck with us before. Hey, man, you know how it is — gotta protect your business or you won’t have one.”

Nguyen thought it a safe bet that Red would sell him out the minute he thought he could profit by doing so and get away with it. He wanted to ensure that thought never crossed the man’s mind.

“I never fucked over anybody,” Red declared fiercely, and sipped his beer. “That’s why I’m still alive. This is a goddamn tough place down here, don’t you forget it.”

“There’s a gym bag on the floor. The money’s in it.”

“Okay.”

“Pick up the bag, take it to the men’s and count it. I want you happy as a pig in shit when I walk out of here.”

Red took a long pull on his beer, then picked up the gym bag and headed down the hallway. Four minutes passed before he returned. He was smiling. He tossed the gym bag back on the floor and took another healthy swig of beer, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “It’s all there,” he said, and grinned.

“Lot of money,” Nguyen said, his face deadpan. “Tell me how things are going down there at the port.”

Red Citrix crossed his arms on the table and began. “Feds crawlin’ all over, and that’s a fact. They’re using Geiger counters, waving them friggin’ wands everywhere. They even search ships at random before they enter the bay. Every ship is searched in the harbor before it can come into the piers. Customs and Coast Guard everywhere.” He continued for five minutes, talking personalities and numbers, what was searched and what ignored. Nguyen let him talk.

When the man ran down, Nguyen put one arm on the table and said, “I thought Geiger counters were for finding uranium and stuff?”

“Yeah. They’re looking for bombs, we figger. Won’t admit a damn thing, but with those Geiger counters, it’s sorta gotta be that. They ain’t looking for dope — don’t even have dope-sniffing dogs — I know all those dogs by sight. These are new dogs, bomb-sniffers I think. Unless you guys advertise or something you’ll not have any trouble.”

“Pray that I don’t,” Nguyen Duc Tran said very distinctly. “You and I got a deal. This is business.”

“Don’t get all sweaty,” Red said, squinting through the cigarette smoke at the man across the table. “Like I said, the port is crawling with feds — Customs, FBI, Coast Guard, even army guys — all looking for bombs and weapons and such-like. This is a bad time. They may pop your box. I got zero control of that. They do, it’s down the shitter and that’s that. They can’t touch me and they can’t touch you. We’re clean. Life goes on. Tomorrow’s a new day. You can’t live with that, keep your fuckin’ dough.”

“Don’t cross me, Red.”

“Hey, I’m honest. That’s why people do business with me. I’ve been helping guys get stuff into the country for damn near ten years now. Occasionally Customs pops a box — that’s your risk, not mine. I do what you pay me for. I’m going to be right here six months from now, next year, the year after. I ain’t goin’ no place’cause I got no place else to go.”

Nguyen produced an envelope from a pocket and pushed it across the table. In it was a sheet of paper with the container number, the shipper, consignee, and the address to which he wanted it shipped. He had cut the numbers and words from a newspaper and taped them to the paper. He had worn gloves when he did it.

Red Citrix opened the envelope, took out the paper, and glanced at it. “What’s in the box?”

“Office furniture.”

“For Corrigan Engineering?”

“Right.”

“Okay,” Red said, and pocketed the paper. He pushed the envelope across to Nguyen, who pocketed it.

“We need to talk about this love thing,” Tommy Carmellini said to Anna Modin as they walked hand in hand upon a deserted beach in the rain. A raw wind whipped at their legs and windbreakers, not too chilly, as gray clouds scudded swiftly overhead on their way out to sea. Even the seabirds were struggling today; when they weren’t probing the wet sand for food, they stood with their heads pointed into the wind.

The couple had found the windbreakers on sale this morning in a beachwear store, and were now trying them out. She adjusted the hood of hers so that she could see him yet still keep the stinging raindrops from her face. A strand of dark wet hair was visible on her cheek. “The spy thing is bothering you, isn’t it?”

“Ah, that’s no big deal,” he scoffed. After a glance at her expression, he admitted, “Yes, it’s bothering me a little.”

“I thought it might be. You are thinking, She said she didn’t work for the SVR, but was she telling the truth or lying? And there is no way to know. To really know. Is there?”

“No,” he admitted.

“It’s one of those things you must take on faith. If it matters to you.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, it matters.”

“Why?”

“It just does.”

“Can you articulate the reason?”

He thought as he walked. “Love’s one of the important things in life, and there are others. I’m an American. It isn’t cool to say it, but I love my country. I haven’t always obeyed every jot and comma in the statute books, but I care about these people. White, black, brown, yellow, it doesn’t matter, they’re my people. We’re all in this American thing together. That sounds sorta cornball, but that’s the way it is.”

“So there are things in your life more important than love?”

“As important,” he admitted. “I suppose that’s a fair statement. If you were a spy stealing secrets or servicing a network or corrupting folks, yeah, it would matter.”

She wrapped her arm around his waist and matched her steps with his. “I feel the same way,” she said. “I am a Russian woman. I do not work for the SVR. I never have. I work with — and for — a man who is fighting evil. There is a lot of it in this world to fight. You already know his name, which is a precious secret — Janos Ilin.

“Ilin is indeed an officer in the SVR, a very high one as a matter of fact, but he does not serve that organization, which is a criminal conspiracy, by the way, that under its old name functioned primarily to keep the Communist Party in power. The bureaucracy lives on today in Russia with many of the same people, and it continues as it always has to function as the strong right arm of the ruling oligarchy. The aristocrats have foresworn communist ideology, they say. No more garbage about labor heroes or the new socialist man. Little else has changed. Kings and dictators and small oligarchies have ruled Russia as far back as we have written records. Always there have been secret police to control the masses, to manipulate them, to confound and destroy organized opposition, to maintain the social and power structure.

“Ilin has no budget, no gadgets, no bosses, no one to answer to except his own conscience, and I am his army. Me — Anna Modin. There are probably others — I do not know about them nor do I wish to. A fact or name I do not know I can never betray, even inadvertently. I have met only one of Ilin’s soldiers, Nooreem Habib, and I saw the men who killed her. She gave her life in the fight against evil. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you would. That is one reason I love you. You are the first man I have ever gotten to know who would understand. Most men want a woman’s body for sex and her social standing to boost theirs. They want her to applaud as they wield power and thereby acquire money. That is the way it is in Russia and Europe and Egypt. Is it like that here?”

“A lot of women think so,” he admitted.

She nodded. “Although you have stolen, money is not the god you serve.”

“I suppose not,” Tommy Carmellini muttered. “I certainly don’t have much of it.”

“Nor power.”

He shook his head, even though she was looking at the sand and couldn’t see the response.

“You enjoy sex, yet almost any woman could provide that, and you don’t seem to have a harem.”

Carmellini cleared his throat. In the service of truth, perhaps he should admit that getting laid once or twice a week was pretty darn high on his priority list. He had had his share of bedmates and girlfriends through the years; he enjoyed feminine companionship. The truth of the matter was that he liked women, liked everything about them, including their bodies. He started to tell her that but she had motored on.

“You seem to have a good sense of who you are,” she continued. “You aren’t dogmatic or a braggart; you listen — many men don’t — and you are genuinely interested in other people. I like you a lot, Tommy Carmellini. And I love you. There is a difference, you know.”

He didn’t want to go there. After a few more steps he stopped and turned to face her. “Was all that intended to inform me why you won’t marry me?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask, then I wouldn’t have to say no.”

She had tears leaking from her eyes. That was when he realized that he knew the truth — she wasn’t a spy.

He kissed her gently on the lips, both eyes, and the tip of her nose, then wrapped an arm around her shoulder and led her on as the rain pelted their bare legs and feet. Their feet left little impression on the hard sand.