The Art of War

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next day I popped into the director’s suite and met the four secretaries and two executive assistants. The secretaries were women in their fifties who had worked their way up the food chain to the head honcho’s office. I assumed there were pay raises involved. They were nice ladies, and way too old for me. The executive assistants, however, were a different matter. At least the female one was. She looked to be in her late twenties. Her name was Anastasia Roberts. She was black, shapely and brilliant. I liked the way her agency ID dangled between her breasts, which were just the right size and shape. She was tall, with the top of her head coming up to my chin. I didn’t see a wedding ring.

The guy, Max Hurley, was also on the right side of thirty, about five foot eight and whippet thin, with cordlike muscles. He had a head of hair that stood straight out and scraggly facial hair that he didn’t shave but once a week, if that. I figured him for a long-distance runner. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring either, but these days, many married people didn’t.

I had heard about the EAs, and now I was meeting them. These folks were geniuses the Company recruited from Ivy League colleges and elsewhere in government. They were going to be superstars in a few years, so they started in the director’s office to learn the ropes fast and went on from there. Folks not quite as intellectually gifted called them geeks, and I suppose they were.

Anastasia Roberts gave me a hard look, shook the offered hand and said, “I’ve heard of you.”

“I won the Company camping award last year.”

“That must have been it,” she said coolly.

Hurley chimed in. “Admiral Grafton said you are going to be working with us,” he said, scrutinizing me.

“He told me that, too.”

“Welcome aboard.”

I assumed that was nautical humor. I smiled to show I was just one of the guys. “So how long have you been with the Company?”

“Eight months,” Roberts said.

“A year,” Hurley replied.

“Where did you work before you came here?” I asked, aiming at both of them.

Hurley answered first. “This is the first job I have ever had. The Company recruited me as I was finishing my doctorate.”

“Dr. Hurley. Cool.” I glanced at Roberts.

“I was over at the White House,” she said. “I’d had enough and floated my résumé, and the Company hired me.”

“And what did you do over there?”

“Political staffer. Memos and such.”

“We have paper to push, too.”

“And you?” she said.

“I’ve been here a while. Mainly tech support.”

“I’ve heard that you worked with the admiral before.”

“Occasionally.” I changed the subject, to where they lived, how did they like DC and so on.

We were still chatting a few minutes later when Jennifer, the desk person, sent me in to see Grafton.

I installed a program on his computer, iPad and cell phone so he could see the video from the cameras we planted that afternoon in his condo. We sat and watched for a few minutes.

“Too bad about Maxwell,” I said, trying to jostle him.

“Hmm,” he murmured.

“Willie made an observation I thought cogent. He said these cameras won’t stop buckshot.”

Jake Grafton swiveled his gaze to me. “There’s a killer out there,” he admitted.

“He’s pretty damned good at his business, too,” I observed.

“What do you suggest?”

“Bodyguards around the clock. Don’t cross the street without looking both ways.”

“Go see Joe Waddell in Security. He’ll have two armed men in a van a block or so from my building around the clock. Give them the address for the feed and the password.”

“I’ll stop in and see him before I go home tonight.”

Grafton made a noise and turned back to the monitors. Callie was in the kitchen on the phone.

“I didn’t think you wanted just everyone listening to you and Mrs. Grafton, so video is all you get.”

He didn’t say anything. Just flicked from camera to camera.

“Retirement might also be an option. Your wife doesn’t want you dead.”

“Stay with the FBI liaison officer tomorrow,” he said. “Then brief me tomorrow evening.”

“Aye aye, sir,” I said, and immediately regretted it. I was already starting to sound like Hurley. I closed the door behind me.

When I got home about seven o’clock I got a dinner from the freezer — meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn — took it out of the box and punched holes in the top with a fork, then stuck it in the microwave. As it nuked, I turned on my laptop and went to the Grafton feed. Watching the video, I thought about Tomazic, Reinicke and Maxwell. Accidents normally come one at a time, randomly, I’ve noticed. Three big intel dudes dead in a week were two too many. Maybe I was getting paranoid. I told myself that Grafton probably had it already figured out and just hadn’t bothered to tell me about it. Or anyone else, I suspected. Damn him anyway.

I called Willie. “You been watching this Grafton feed?”

“Yeah. Writin’ the times down. This hourly rate is goin’ to work up to a nice chunk of change. Might even finance a trip to Vegas whenever Uncle Sugar shits me a check.”

“You going to watch it this evening?”

“Hell no. I got a date. She’s fixin’ dinner. Gonna try to get laid.”

“Good luck.”

Finally the microwave beeped and stopped humming. I ate my gourmet repast on the countertop while the video from Grafton’s condo and building played on my laptop. Washed the grub down with beer. Sooner or later, I told myself, I was going to have to get a life.

I had finished the frozen dinner and was working on my second beer when Callie answered the phone in the kitchen.

I wondered if Joe Waddell had those two guys in the van on station yet.

I got busy with my phone and set it up so that I could get the Grafton feed on it. Then I took a shower and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. My pistol and shoulder holster were lying on the bed. The gun was an old Walther in .380 that I picked up cheap a few years back at a gun store. I looked at it with disgust. Compared to a 12-gauge shotgun, it was a peashooter. What I needed was full-body armor. I donned the holster and put the pistol in it.

Jake Grafton drove to Tysons Corner, then wound his way into a building complex. The seal of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was on the guarded entrance. He showed his CIA building pass to the uniformed federal security officer on duty and was admitted to the parking lot.

This bureaucracy had been created after 9/11 because of political necessity. Prior to that, the director of the CIA had served as the national intelligence director. But the politicians had to do something after the 9/11 terrorist strikes, so a new agency was created — one that now had about 1,750 federal employees, another layer of bureaucracy to push the raw intel through before it got to the decision makers. Grafton thought it a wonder the U.S. government knew anything at all. But perhaps someone somewhere slept better knowing all these bureaucrats were on the job, except of course for weekends, vacations, federal holidays, sick days, snow days, office parties and all the rest of it.

He went into the building, showed his CIA pass again, walked through a metal detector and was escorted upstairs to the assistant director’s office.

The assistant director was a serving navy vice admiral, three stars, named Arlen Curry. He rose from the desk flanked by flags when Jake entered. The escort left and shut the door behind him.

“Sorry about Reinicke,” Jake said. “And Maxwell.”

Curry, in uniform, motioned Jake to a chair and took one himself three feet away, situated at a ninety-degree angle. Curry crossed his legs.

“Who’s going to be named acting DNI?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know. No one at the White House has said squat to me.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “You know that they named me acting director of my agency, so we’ll be working together.”

“The White House called me on that. Sal Molina. Congratulations. If you want them.”

“I don’t. What I want to know is why Mario Tomazic died.”

“I don’t think Tomazic drowned all by himself,” Arlen Curry said, biting off his words. “I don’t think the explosion that killed Reinicke was an accident. Maxwell and his bodyguards and limo driver certainly didn’t commit suicide with number-four buckshot.”

“Number fours, eh?”

Jake Grafton leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees.

“Want a drink?” Curry asked, and stood. “By God, I do.”

“Sure. Whatever you have.”

“What I have is bourbon. No ice.” He pulled a bottle from his lower right desk drawer and produced two glasses, which looked reasonably clean. He poured a healthy shot in each and handed Jake one. Then Curry returned to the chair he had vacated. Both men sipped in silence.

Jake let it lie. They talked about the international situation, about the current ins and outs of the intel business, but Curry had nothing to say that Jake didn’t already know. After a few more minutes, Grafton thanked Curry for his time and extended his hand.

Curry stared at the door after Grafton left. Then he looked at his watch and found he had a few minutes before the next meeting. He got busy with the stuff in the in-basket.

I found the surveillance van a block from Grafton’s building in Roslyn, around the corner, parked in an alley. It had the name of a local plumber painted on both sides and was dirty and scruffy; still, the antennae on the roof gave it away. If I could find it, so could a bad actor bent on murder. That was something to think about. I drove slowly through the neighborhood, looking. A mom-and-pop pizza shop across the street, a coffee shop, a dry cleaner, a little sit-down Mexican restaurant … and a large, six-story parking garage. Beehives of condos rose in every direction. Down the hill a block or so was an entrance to the Metro. A nice urban neighborhood on a hill overlooking the Potomac, with a subway stop. If you wanted to live in close, yet not in the District, this Virginia neighborhood was about as good as it got.

Only a few minutes after nine. People were still on the street, which was lined with parked cars. Cars flowed past on a regular basis. The windows of the condos were all lit up. People were inside reading, watching television, socializing, relaxing after a day at the office. Last night when Maxwell walked out of the National Press Club, that street looked benign, too. But it wasn’t. There was a killer on the loose. Or more than one. That fact gave this street a sinister tone tonight.

A car pulled out of a parking place at the curb, so I pulled in. Killed the headlights and engine and sat watching the screen of the cell phone. Mrs. Grafton had the boob tube on, but she was making something in the kitchen.

After a half hour sitting there contemplating the state of the universe and watching people on the sidewalk and in cars, I locked the car and walked across the street to the pizza joint for a beer.

When Jake Grafton was behind the wheel of his car he checked his watch. Ten after 10 P.M. He checked the list of contacts on his cell phone and called the chief of naval operations, Admiral Carter McKiernan. He called him on his private home number.

“Yes.”

“Jake Grafton, Admiral. I’d like to stop around in about thirty minutes and see you.”

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow, Jake?”

“I’m up to my eyeballs, Admiral. I’d like it to be tonight, and off the record.”

“I’m not in bed yet. Come on over. You know where I live?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll tell the gate guards to admit you.”

“About half an hour, sir.”

“Right.”

The CNO lived in a mansion on government property at the old Washington Naval Yard. At this time of night, traffic into the district from Silver Spring was light. McKiernan was a naval aviator and had actually been the air wing operations officer aboard United States when Jake was the air wing commander. He had been a lieutenant commander then, selected early for commander. God, Jake thought, that was a long time ago. McKiernan had been selected for nuclear power school, and had gone on the usual career path to executive officer of a carrier, commanding officer of a supply ship, then commanding officer of a carrier. From there he had been promoted to rear admiral and had worked his way up the ladder. He was bright, loved the navy and knew how to lead. Jake had followed his career from a distance and had been pleased with each and every promotion.

Grafton wondered if Cart McKiernan would be candid.

I watched people on the sidewalks and in passing cars and trucks from the window of the pizza joint across the street from Grafton’s condominium building in Roslyn. The place was well lit and cheerful and smelled of wonderful comfort food. One guy worked the counter and phone; through the pass-out window I could see two more making pizzas in the kitchen. There were three couples and one guy with two kids in there munching pie when I arrived, laughing and whispering and relaxing after a day at desks somewhere. Other people came in from time to time, replacing the folks leaving, or to get a takeout pizza they ordered by phone. That phone. It was at the far end of the counter and never stopped ringing. I made myself at home on a counter stool where I could watch the street.

I was sipping a beer when I saw the homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of junk come slowly up the sidewalk from the direction of the Metro stop. He turned into the alley between Grafton’s condo hive and the one just down the hill. Going to mine the Dumpster behind the building, probably, or homestead a place to sleep.

I signaled for the bartender, who came over wiping his hands on a white towel. “How long would it take you to make me a pizza to go?”

“About twelve minutes or so.”

“Do you have one already made up you could stick in a box?”

“What kind?”

“Whatever you have ready to go.”

“I’ll see.” He was back a minute later. “Yeah, we got one we can warm up in about two minutes. Sausage, pepperoni and olives.”

“Fine.”

The derelict came out of the alley between the buildings, crossed in front of Grafton’s building and went down the alley to the loading dock and Dumpster behind it.

I watched him on the video on my cell phone.

When the pizza came, I paid for it and the beer and left a tip. “Thanks,” I said, and hit the door.

I crossed the street. My jacket was unzipped so I could get to the gun under my shoulder easily, if need be. I tried to whistle as I walked down the alley. My lips were too dry and I had to lick them. I got some noise out, but if there was a tune there I don’t know what it was.

The derelict was half in and half out of the Dumpster. He was bent over the lid of it with his upper body inside and his feet out.

I waited until he straightened up and could see me.

“Hey, dude. Can you eat a pizza?”

He eyed me and the pizza box. “Yeah.”

He climbed down. He had a couple of days’ worth of stubble, and his clothes looked dirty enough. I looked at his hands and neck. Fairly clean. Through the years and various adventures, I have noticed that men who never bathe take on a rich, ripe odor, not too bad. That’s after they quit stinking. I was downwind of the derelict, and I couldn’t smell that odor. Nor was he stinking.

He was about five feet nine inches tall, and compact. He looked fit, not skinny and starving like an alcoholic or drug addict. He had even features and brown eyes, a tad too close together, wide cheekbones and a chin that should have been a trifle smaller if he was ever going to get a job posing for magazine ads or strutting in front of a television or movie camera. Maybe he didn’t have those ambitions.

I glanced at his hands as I handed him the box containing the pizza, said, “Eat it in good health,” and started to turn away.

“Was you gonna throw it away?”

“Yeah,” I lied. “Got it for my kid, who just called and said he was staying at a friend’s house tonight. Not a pizza person myself.”

“Thanks,” he said, and opened the box.

I turned my back and walked around the corner of the building and up the incline to the street.

Fish watched Carmellini until he disappeared around the building. He wiped his hands on his trousers and helped himself to a piece of pizza from the box. Still warm. As he munched he looked around at the building, the four cars parked in this area, the Dumpster. He stood thinking about the four FBI dudes last night.

Man, shooting them had been fun!

He shook his head at his own stupidity. Shooting people is just a job, he told himself. You get to liking it too much and they’re going to get you, sooner rather than later.

He tore another bit off the pizza, popped it into his mouth and chewed, savoring the tomato-and-cheese taste as his eyes roamed across the rear of the building.

That guy … a good Samaritan, or a security guard?

Not that it mattered. He’ll never see me again, Fish thought, and tore off another piece of pizza.

Cart McKiernan still had every hair he had been born with, Jake Grafton thought, although it was salt-and-pepper now, not jet black. His eyes still smiled when his lips did. Square jaw, good teeth — he looked like the admiral from Central Casting. “Send me an admiral for my movie.” They would send McKiernan.

Tonight he was in sweats. He had a towel around his neck. “Was on the treadmill,” he apologized as he led Jake into the kitchen. “Want a beer or drink or something?”

“Got a Diet Coke in the fridge?”

“Sure.”

McKiernan filled a glass at the tap with water for himself and led his guest into the den. High ceilings, at least ten feet, Jake noticed. A packed bookshelf. Comfortable furniture. Naval paintings from the days of sail on the walls. Seeing Jake look at them, McKiernan explained. “They’re on loan from the National Gallery.”

“Nice.”

“What’s on your mind, Jake?”

“As you probably know, Admiral—”

“Cart. Always Cart to you.”

“Yessir. Cart. The president appointed me acting director of the agency after Mario Tomazic drowned—”

“I read about it. Congratulations.”

“I’m not sure congrats are in order. I feel like the guy getting strapped into the hot seat for the big jolt. In any event, I’m trying to get up to speed. Found a file in Tomazic’s office that said the Chinese have hacked into the navy’s database and are reading ship deployment schedules and the like.”

“Yeah, I know about it.”

“Can we talk here, in your den?”

“It’s swept every week. They did it yesterday, as a matter of fact. I think we’re okay.”

“Without going into it too deeply, I can tell you NSA is also into their computers. The Fort Meade folks tell me they are sharing summaries with you and your intel staff. The reason I came tonight — I would like your private, confidential, not-for-publication assessment of Chinese naval intentions.”

Cart McKiernan wiped his face again with the towel and took a healthy drink of water. “The picture isn’t good, Jake. The Chinese are building massive amphibious capabilities and pumping up their naval assets. I think they’re capable right now of winning a short naval war with Japan and Taiwan, and invading Taiwan. The staff thinks they also have designs on the southern Ryukyu and Senkaku Islands. That would give them the seabed between those islands and the mainland. Needless to say, geologists think the oil deposits there are probably as large as those in the Gulf of Mexico.”

“What about the United States?”

“They have already stated publicly that their nuclear ballistic missile subs could strike American West Coast cities, killing up to twelve million Americans. Those are their figures.”

“Jesus.”

“I don’t think he’s going to help us with this,” the admiral said drily. “What we have is the U.S. Navy. And that’s about it.”

Jake Grafton took a deep breath, then said, “It boils down to their assessment of what our reaction would be if they reacted to a ‘provocation’ by Japan or Taiwan. If they think we won’t aid our allies, or can’t aid our allies, we’re screwed.”

“The White House says we will stand by our allies,” Cart McKiernan said flatly.

“Right.”

“We have treaties.”

“Treaties are only paper when the shooting starts.” Jake Grafton worked on his Diet Coke. “How about the Middle East, Syria and Israel and Iran and all of that?” he asked.

McKiernan scratched his nose. “What can I say? American foreign policy has been a disaster. Militants killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya. Nothing happened. The president was going to bomb Syria, then he decided to leave it up to Congress. He made a deal with Iran, which didn’t abide by their agreements. American credibility has gone into the ceramic convenience. Every holy warrior, tyrant and raghead wannabe has read the writing on the wall. America will do nothing. Yet when the shit really hits the fan and the public and Congress go berserk, the White House will call the United States Navy. Which has had its budget slashed and so forth.”

Jake Grafton sat trying to digest it. Finally he said, “What’s in your naval database that the Chinese might be interested in?”

The change of subject didn’t cause McKiernan to miss a beat. “Submarine and carrier operations, for one,” he said promptly. “When they stage one of their little propaganda productions in the Far East, you can bet they’ve read our ship schedule and know what we can do to respond and what we can’t.”

McKiernen made a gesture of frustration. “And if the Chinese are into our stuff, Russia probably is. Maybe al Qaeda. Iran. North Korea. God only knows. The only people who don’t know our operational plans are our own people. We never tell our sailors anything, so they feel like they’re being jerked around without reason.”

“So you assume the navy’s computer systems are all compromised.”

“Yep. Everybody but Americans knows that all the Atlantic Fleet carrier task groups have been ordered to Norfolk on December twenty-second.”

Grafton stared at the CNO. He certainly didn’t know that.

“We did it before when the president and Congress got into a budget squabble,” McKiernan continued. “The debt limit will have to be raised again by year’s end.”

“Doesn’t anyone remember Pearl Harbor?”

Cart McKiernan leaned forward. “The United States Navy is following orders. The orders came straight from the White House.”

Grafton’s thoughts tumbled around. “Who at the White House?”

“Man, the National Command Authority. That’s the president. I’m just a sailor. I take orders and I give orders. I suspect the president wants those five carriers in port over Christmas so he can argue that without a higher debt ceiling from Congress we can’t afford to operate the navy, but no one on Pennsylvania Avenue has told me that. And, oracle that I am, I guarantee you they won’t say it. Ever. Still, I suspect that’s the reason they did it last time. And they won. Congress caved.”

“Can’t you finesse them?”

“How? If I don’t obey orders, they’ll fire me and get someone who will. You and I both know that.”

“If anything happens to those five carriers, there will be rejoicing in Beijing.”

“Tell me about it. And in Tehran and Damascus and Moscow and Benghazi and Pyongyang and a dozen other capitals around the globe.”

“I know you’re going to take every precaution.”

McKiernan nodded. “Every precaution anyone in the navy can dream up. All of them. Helicopters overhead day and night. Two attack subs submerged in Hampton Roads and two just outside the entrance to the bay. SEALs in the water around the ships. Armed fighters aloft. Boats containing sailors armed with Browning fifties patrolling twenty-four/seven. That area will be a quarantine zone for boats and a prohibited area for airplanes. We’ll shoot down any airplane that comes within ten miles of those ships. We did all that the last time, and nothing happened, knock on wood. Still, I’m going to sweat bullets until we get those task groups back to sea.”

Jake slapped his thighs and stood. “Thanks, Cart, for the briefing. The agency will do everything we can to keep you informed.”

“I know you will, Jake. I was going to call Mario, but after he drowned I figured you were probably up to your ass in alligators. You’ve saved me some sweat.”

They said their good-byes, and Admiral Cart McKiernan escorted Jake to the front door and locked it behind him. Grafton looked at his watch. It was a half hour until midnight.

He got in his car and pointed it toward Roslyn.

I was sitting in my car when I saw Grafton’s blue Honda Accord come up the street and turn into the parking garage. We didn’t put cameras in the garage — I didn’t even know if Grafton had an assigned parking space or just took whatever was available — but I planned to put Willie on it first thing in the morning. I had been eyeing that garage all evening. It was a perfect sniper’s perch.

I sat there in the car holding my breath until Grafton came out of the garage and walked across the street to his building. He used a keypad on the front door, opened it and went in.

I followed his progress to the elevator and, when he reached his floor, down the empty hallway to his front door. He walked as if he were tired, I thought, but at nearly midnight, I would have been surprised if he weren’t. He used the key and went in.

When the door to his pad was closed behind him, I started my car and headed home.

The next morning at seven I called Jake Grafton at home. I figured he was up and getting ready to go to Langley. He said he didn’t have an assigned parking place in the garage. Nobody did. He was curt, no doubt from not enough sleep. Then I called Willie Varner. I figured it would take a day to install cameras and rig up a battery-operated Wi-Fi and booster transmitter on the roof. I went to Langley, got the stuff and took it over to Willie.

“Two days,” Willie said, surveying the stuff.

“Get busy, dude.”

“Go spy something, Carmellini.”

Back at Langley, I headed for the Liaison Office. The Company liaises with everybody, Congress, every federal agency, police departments …

Zoe Kerry was waiting for me. “Where have you been?” she demanded.

“It’s a secret. If I told you, I’d—”

“Let’s go.” She marched out of the office, and I trailed along behind her.

She had an agency sedan, a relatively new one that rode nice. I was thinking some more about trading cars when she asked, “Was that bullshit about waiting for a court date?”

“I’ll prove my innocence. You’ll see.”

“Bullshit.”

“It takes practice to be a good liar, so I work at it. I rarely tell the truth if a lie will serve.”

“Gimme a break.”

“That was the truth, by the way.”

“Just keep your mouth shut today. Okay? Don’t get in my way.”

“I’ll be a fly on the wall.”

There was a conference about Mario Tomazic’s death in the Hoover Building. Lots of conferences this day in that building, I supposed, since the FBI director, Maxwell, had just got spectacularly murdered. Yet if they were in a frenzy, it didn’t show much. The special agent in charge of the Tomazic investigation, a woman named Betty Lehman, chaired our meeting. It consisted of reports about various lines of inquiry and a spirited back-and-forth about how many agents should be put on what.

When Lehman thought she had it all, she said, “People, so far you haven’t given me any evidence that Tomazic’s death was anything but an accident. There is a very real limit on how many assets, for how long, we can devote to this unless someone somewhere gets something that points to murder. Something. Anything.”

From the Hoover Building we went over to look at what was left of Reinicke’s apartment building. Kerry’s phone rang repeatedly, and she did a lot of listening. We found a place to park, then walked four blocks to the building. It was a mess. Looked as if a bomb had gone off in one corner, seven or eight stories up. The entire exterior walls of two apartments were gone, along with windows and glass and all the furniture from the small balconies. The exterior was extensively fire-blackened. Lots of windows missing. Crews of men were nailing up plywood, probably to preserve the scene for investigators.

Kerry led me to an unmarked van parked near the building. Right beside it were two vans from the fire department. Police cars were scattered around, and we had to step over some flaked-out fire hoses. Debris all over the parking lot. Some of the cars still there had been damaged by falling objects.

Inside the van we met the FBI guy, who was seated across a small metal desk from a senior fire guy, who wore a uniform. Kerry and I had to stand. She introduced me to both men.

“What is the CIA doing here?” the FBI guy asked, looking at me. I had to break my promise to Kerry.

“Liaisoning,” I said.

“That is what Ms. Kerry is doing. She’ll tell you everything we want passed along.”

“I can go outside, if you like, then pump her after we leave.”

“Fucking spooks,” he grumped. “Like we have secrets. Listen all you want.”

So I stayed. I got his name so I could put him on my Christmas card list.

“Definitely a gas explosion,” the fire official said. “What triggered it, we don’t know. We hope to find out within a couple of days.”

They yammered some more, talked about how the gas lines were routed, about the building’s maintenance records, emergency repairs and so on. No one offered us coffee.

When Kerry’s cell phone began ringing again, she glanced at the number and went outside to answer it. I followed her. I wandered away a bit so as not to be seen eavesdropping, but I listened hard. Stuff about the investigation into Tomazic’s enemies. Apparently he had stepped on some toes on the way up in the army. I knew he also had a strained relationship with a son who had had serious drug problems in the past. Part of the conversation, I gathered, was a follow-up on the son’s whereabouts and current drug usage. I kinda doubted that a doper could manage to drown someone without being seen by neighbors, but what the hey. The experts were looking under every pebble.

As we walked back toward the car, Kerry asked what I thought.

“If Tomazic was murdered,” I said, “it was by a pro. No one saw anyone, there are no traces of anyone’s presence, except that piece of plastic under the boat, and no weapon was used. It would have had to be a swimmer with scuba gear.”

“Yes. And Reinicke?”

“Not enough information. Gas lines occasionally leak, and houses and apartments occasionally blow up when they do. Usually the occupants smell the stuff, though. Wonder why none of the survivors said they smelled gas?”

“Maybe some of the victims smelled it but didn’t have time to get out.”

“If this one was murder, too, the people doing it are very good. If they are the same ones.”

“Lots of ifs,” she said.

“If it was murder, the killer or killers are callous bastards. Seven dead, three badly burned.”

She gave me a hard look. “Yes,” she agreed.

We ate lunch at a McDonald’s. She tried to pump me a little, and I didn’t give her much. I told her how many years I had been with the agency, that I was from California originally and lived in an apartment house in Virginia.

I asked her a few questions, equally innocuous. She opened up a bit. She was from Ohio, went to Ohio State, had been in the FBI for ten years.

“So those shootings…”

“I don’t want to talk about them.”

“I understand.”

Zoe worked on her salad a bit, then said, “Killing someone, even an asshole who is trying to kill you … It’s like playing God.”

I nodded sympathetically. Her delivery had changed, both the tone and the way she delivered her words. I finished my first Quarter Pounder, took a sip of coffee, then unwrapped the second burger while I eyed her. The muscles in the side of her neck were tighter. Her eyes were fixed on me, as if she were trying consciously not to lose eye contact.

“Post-traumatic stress, they said. I thought about quitting the agency, but they talked me into giving it a while. Took me off major crime investigations. Sent me over to your outfit. Said maybe time would help.”

“Is it?”

“I don’t know.” Zoe Kerry thought about that for a while. “I don’t know if I can face another dangerous situation. I just don’t know.”

That was the high point of the day. We stopped by the Hoover Building again, visited the lab and looked at the piece of diver’s faceplate, if that was what it was, chatted up the scientists, then rode back to Langley.

As she parked the car I picked up her clutch purse, then handed it to her as she got out. She went somewhere, presumably to the Liaison Office, and I rode elevators and strolled corridors to the director’s suite. Grafton had someone in there. They left after ten minutes, and Jennifer Suslowski admitted me to the stronghold.

“Thought I’d better report in person.”

“Okay. What does the FBI think?”

“God only knows. But I had a little tête-à-tête with Zoe Kerry over lunch. She says she doesn’t know if she can face another dangerous situation.”

“Okay.”

“She was lying. All the tells were there. It was fiction. PTS my ass. That broad could pull the trigger on anybody and wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep over it.”

Jake Grafton ran his hand through his hair.

“And she had a shooter in her purse. I picked it up. Makeup doesn’t weigh that much.”

“She’s a sworn officer. They probably require her to be armed.”

“Yeah. PTS. Light duty.”

He picked up the phone and asked Jennifer to call the assistant director of the FBI, Harry Estep, whom Jake had worked with on several prior occasions.

While we were waiting, he said, “You got a gun at home?”

“Sure.”

“Wear it.”

The phone rang. Grafton got to it. “Sorry to hear about Maxwell, Harry … I know you’re busy as hell … I’m sending a man over tomorrow morning, Tommy Carmellini. He will want to see one of your personnel files.”

A pause.

“Zoe Kerry.”

Another pause.

“I know all that. I want him to read her file. Everything. Supposedly she was in a couple of shootouts. Performance evals, psychologist’s evals, all of it.”

After another pause he said, “Thanks, Harry. See you at the White House tomorrow at ten. You’re coming to that soiree, right?”

He listened a bit more, then said good-bye and hung up.

“Ask for Alice Berg in the director’s office,” Grafton told me. “We’re violating the privacy laws and personnel policies. Don’t take anything or copy anything. Just look.”

“Yes, sir.”

He picked up the phone. “Jennifer, send an e-mail to Alice Berg in the FBI director’s office. Tell her Tommy Carmellini will be armed tomorrow when visiting, and at all other times when he enters the building.”

There was a pause; then he cradled the instrument and looked at me.

“Thanks, Tommy.”

“Don’t mention it, boss.”

He ran out of words right there and sat staring at a paperweight, an A-6 Intruder hold-back bolt. I got out of my chair and closed the door behind me.

I drove over to Roslyn to see how Willie was doing on the surveillance system in the parking garage. Almost done. We took a break for dinner at the pizza joint. I had my phone on the table and studied the feed from the Graftons’ building while we waited for the pizza and sipped beer. “I watched it four hours today,” Willie said. “About a hundred bucks’ worth, before taxes.”

When I had had enough I pocketed the phone. After we finished eating, Willie didn’t reach for his check. I remarked on that.

“Hey, man,” he said, deadpan, “you got a big expense account and a wallet full of fake credit cards. Stick it to Uncle Sam.”

“Yeah.”

“This is pretty good pizza.”

“Health food.”

“I had the all-meat for lunch. I paid for that.”

I paid both our tabs, left him there and headed home.