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Liar's Market
Taylor Smith


In Hong Kong a beautiful woman is pushed off a balcony to her death. In London a young American is gunned down outside the U.S. embassy. In Washington a senior CIA official vanishes into thin air. Random, unrelated events? Or pieces of the same puzzle?These events are no accidents, it seems, when it is discovered that the woman in Hong Kong had a CIA lover. That the London murder was a case of mistaken identity, and that the intended target was the wife of CIA senior deputy Drum MacNeil, who has since gone missing.To find MacNeil, investigators are taking a close look at his past actions, public and private. And at his restless wife, Carrie, who is doing her best to play the part of the innocent victim, even though it's increasingly clear that Drum's life has been a carefully constructed lie.Carrie MacNeil is about to learn firsthand about the evil of treachery. And in this business there are no fair-trade rules. It's always a liar's market.









Praise for the novels of TAYLOR SMITH


“A former international diplomat and intelligence analyst, Smith uses her experience to good effect in her latest thriller.”

—Library Journal on Deadly Grace

“…a rare thriller that keeps its secrets until the end…while combining suspense and style.”

—Orlando Sentinel on Deadly Grace

“Fifteen rounds of sturdy international espionage-cum-detection…”

—Kirkus Reviews on The Innocents Club

“Smith’s gloriously intricate plot is top-notch, and her writing…is that of a gifted storyteller.” —Publishers Weekly on The Innocents Club “Taylor Smith…John Grisham. It’s a perfectly plausible comparison—though Smith’s a better prose stylist.”

—Publishers Weekly on Random Acts

“The mix of suspense, forensic science, romance and mystery makes this a real page-turner.”

—Orange Coast on Random Acts

“Sharp characterization and a tightly focused time frame…give this intrigue a spellbinding tone of immediacy.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Best of Enemies

“The pace is swift and the action is concentrated…making it a perfect summer read.”

—Orange Coast on The Best of Enemies




Also by TAYLOR SMITH


DEADLY GRACE

THE INNOCENTS CLUB

RANDOM ACTS

THE BEST OF ENEMIES

COMMON PASSIONS

GUILT BY SILENCE




Liar’s Market

Taylor Smith





www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


Three may keep a secret—if two of them be dead.

—Benjamin Franklin




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


My deep thanks for assistance and ongoing support to Lieutenant Brian Bray and Officer Harry M. Saval (Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police), Nick Banks, Lee Roberts, D. P. Lyle, the Fictionaires, Philip Spitzer and last but never least, Amy Moore-Benson.

And as always, Richard, Kate and Anna:

I couldn’t do it without you.


This book is dedicated to the memory of Robert Kost (1936–2003) artist, musician and son of the prairie.


This is a work of fiction. Although certain events mentioned in this novel are actual historical events, the characters I placed there are entirely figments of my imagination, as are their personal experiences. Any resemblance to real individuals is strictly coincidental.




CONTENTS


PROLOGUE (#ud679e106-57a3-5a2f-bf78-b20eed3a5a9b)

CHAPTER ONE (#u17fd0771-b84a-5765-8eb1-534505a10517)

CHAPTER TWO (#ucb4ef02e-91b2-5578-abd1-0d5bfef1d498)

CHAPTER THREE (#u0d2300c2-2a58-55a7-9df7-e4854096430b)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u9375f95d-265f-5fe4-926e-0d897a29dcbd)

CHAPTER FIVE (#udefb3cc7-4164-5feb-b5de-0bf0f3dd505d)

CHAPTER SIX (#ua2da89f7-26d1-50be-ae3f-1531f8c01509)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)




PROLOGUE


Hong Kong

August 27, 2001

Hong Kong radiated heat, sex and treachery in equal measures. Adding money and politics to that flammable mix guaranteed an explosion of murder.

From her twenty-eighth-floor penthouse terrace near the top of Victoria Park Alexandra Kim Lee gazed down on a city skyline that sparkled like diamonds strewn across a blue-black cape of velvet. Dazzling skyscrapers and light-strung yachts and fishing junks in the harbor made a festive display, specially contrived, it seemed, to mark her birthday. Her latest lover was expected any minute, and the plan was to celebrate at Fantin-Latour, Hong Kong’s newest, most exclusive nightclub.

She’d been born in the harbor below exactly thirty-five years ago that night on board a junk that smelled of fish guts, rotting wood and wet rope. It had been the Year of the Dragon, the luckiest and most powerful of signs. And like the mighty dragon, which begins life in the narrow confines of the soupy egg, Alex had emerged from damp, humble beginnings to conquer her world.

Now, she had luxury homes in London, New York and Eleuthera, as well as this sprawling penthouse in the coveted residential sector high above Hong Kong. It wasn’t so long ago that Chinese hadn’t been permitted to live on the Peak, but the timing of Alex’s life was as lucky as her sign. Schooling for young Chinese girls had become mandatory when she was a child, and she’d gone on to win scholarships at the London School of Economics. Afterward, she’d worked as an assistant to one of the leading British bankers in Hong Kong. When rule of the colony had reverted to China, she’d been in a prime position to strike out on her own, acting as go-between for western businesses looking for profit in the emerging modern China with its billion eager consumers.

Alex’s ancestors had been fishermen and noodle makers, but she was on a first-name basis with British lords, American senators and international businessmen, with whom she was often photographed in the U.S. and European press. Her helpful introductions to leaders in the People’s Republic led to lucrative commercial contracts for these influential Westerners. In return, she used her charm, as well as other incentives, to convince them to support trade accords and political treaties to Beijing’s advantage. If those incentives sometimes included a financial donation or the passing of a secret gleaned in pillow talk with an influential friend…well, that was part of the business, too. In return for her efforts, Alexandra Kim Lee received the grateful largesse of Beijing and foreign businessmen alike—very grateful. Bank presidents from Zurich to the Cayman Islands were on her speed dial, and they took her calls personally.

Turning away from the railing and the stunning view of the city below, Alex reached up and lifted her silken black hair off pale, bare shoulders. The sun had set nearly an hour ago, but the air was still muggy and very warm. She lit a few sticks of fragrant sandalwood incense and set them in sand-filled brass dishes around the terrace to discourage those few hardy mosquitoes who might venture up to this altitude. Down in the harbor on a hot summer evening like this, fishermen would be shirtless, skin glistening with sweat as they prepared their nets for the night run. But up here among the Peak’s green spaces, soft breezes carried delicate scents of jasmine, honeysuckle and orange blossom from well-tended terrace gardens.

The air stirred now, cooling Alex’s body, naked under a lucky red silk Versace gown. The gossamer thin dress dipped low in front and back, held at her shoulders by the sheerest of filaments that looked as if they might give way at any second. Like Alex herself, their apparent fragility was deceptive.

If she looked closely enough in the mirror, she could see the beginnings of a few lines around her eyes and mouth, yet it was a common occurrence still to hear the squeal of rubber heels behind her as men stopped dead in their tracks to stare when she passed by. More important than beauty, though, she had brains, and what little was lost in looks was more than gained back in experience, connections and poise. She was probably at the peak of her operational effectiveness right now. She estimated that she had five, maybe eight good years left before the advantages afforded by her appearance began to dim. It was unfair that a woman’s career should be shortened like that. Still, by the time her run was done, Alexandra calculated, she would have earned an extremely comfortable retirement.

Tonight, though, was an occasion to forget about business. Tonight belonged to her.

She peered once more over the filigreed-iron railing. City traffic sounded distant, muted in the steamy night air, but far below in the circular drive, a white limousine was gliding up to the building’s front entrance. The blue-uniformed doorman rushed out to open the limo’s back door, and as the passenger emerged, a hint of a smile touched the edges of Alex’s crimson-painted lips.

When the door chime sounded a few minutes later, her maid emerged from the kitchen to answer it. Alex turned away from the city lights, leaning against the terrace’s wrought-iron railing to face the richly furnished living room. The back of her silk dress draped to the cleft of her buttocks, and when the metal railing touched her bare skin, a shiver ran up her spine as if a shadow had passed over her grave. But then the maid opened the heavy, carved mahogany front door, and in spite of Alex’s momentary chill of apprehension, a musical laugh escaped her lips. He was such a poseur, this one.

Dressed in an impeccable black tuxedo, he stood in the doorway, one elbow propped up against the door-frame, ankles crossed casually, doing his best Cary Grant, sophisticate-about-town imitation. In one arm, he clutched a sterling silver ice bucket with carved jade handles. Two champagne flutes dangled precariously, upside down, their flimsy stems threaded between the fingers of his other hand.

He glanced around in confusion for a second, seeking her out on the deep, tufted sofas and then over by the marble fireplace mantle. Every highly polished surface in the room held dense arrangements of birthday roses and lilies sent by less favored admirers, many of whose invitations she’d turned down in order to spend her special night with him.

When he finally caught sight of her out on the terrace, he grinned and strode across gleaming cherry wood floors. It was Dom Perignon in the silver bucket, she noted, tiny beads of condensation on the black bottle sparkling under the soft overhead lights. The exquisite flutes dangling between his fingers looked like Baccarat crystal.

Behind him, the maid remained at the entrance, staring, her mouth as open as the still yawning door. She was new, not yet accustomed to the kind of men Alexandra entertained. Still, you’d think the fool had never seen a man in a tuxedo before.

“Shut the door,” Alex snapped in Cantonese. “Then go back to the kitchen.”

“Oh, yes, madam! So sorry.” The maid closed the door with a soft click of the latch, then shuffled away on slippered feet.

Alex turned her attention back where it belonged, on this silly, adorable, handsome man, as he leaned down to give her a kiss.

“Happy birthday, darling,” he said.

He was almost a foot taller than she, and trimly built. Still, her small body and his large one fit together very nicely, she thought. He was quite a decent dancer, too. They would make a striking couple out on the floor at Fantin-Latour.

“You look good enough to eat,” he added.

“Yes, please,” she said demurely.

His grin widened. “Bad girl. Later. First, champagne, then dinner. After that, we’ll see what else we can do for you.”

He set the flutes on one of the low, glass patio tables. When he uncorked the bottle and poured the bubbles into the thin crystal, Alex pretended not to see the blue Tiffany box peeking out of his tuxedo jacket pocket. It didn’t do to show too much excitement over such things or men might think you could be bought like some thoroughbred race horse—or worse, Kowloon whore. And Alexandra Kim Lee was certainly not that. She was a businesswoman, first, foremost and always.

He handed her one of the glasses, and the flutes chimed softly as the rims touched. “Many happy returns of the day, Alexandra.”

“Thank you.” She took a sip, savoring the perfect bubbles. Then she glanced over the rail once more. “Your car didn’t wait?”

“I told the driver to park off to the side. Our reservation is for nine o’clock. I hope you don’t mind not rushing right out.”

She leaned back and studied him over the rim of her glass, smiling. “Not at all. The champagne is perfectly chilled, and I was just thinking what a lovely evening it was for enjoying the view.”

“Gorgeous,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at the city or the harbor lights. “It’s so quiet up here. And it’s good to have you all to myself for a bit before we head back down into the heat and madness. It’s an exciting city, Hong Kong, but it can be a little exhausting with all that frenetic bustle down there.”

“Well, then, you should think of this as your refuge. Just you and me, all alone, floating on a cloud.”

“And the maid.”

She waved a delicate, dismissive hand, and her fine, woven gold bracelets sparkled.

He reached for the bottle and topped up their glasses. “Cheers, then. Here’s to refuge in the clouds.”

“Chin-chin,” she said.

He moved beside her and they stood quietly, gazing down on the glistening city. A swath of swirling blue draped the star-dappled sky, a reflection of lights on the warm haze. Alex felt his hand come to rest briefly on her shoulder, then move slowly, sensuously down her back, raising a pleasant thrum on her skin.

“There’s another reason I wanted a little time alone with you,” he said quietly.

“Really?”

“Yes. I wanted to ask you something. Maybe now’s as good a time as any.”

“What did you want to ask me?”

“Well,” he said, withdrawing his hand and looking down at his glass, suddenly boyish and coy. “I’ll tell you in a minute. But before I do, I have a little surprise.”

Aha, she thought, the Tiffany box. “Would it be a birthday surprise by any chance?”

“I think you could call it that.” He took her glass from her hand and set both flutes aside on the low table. Then he lifted her fingers to his lips. “You’re so very lovely, you know that?”

“Thank you. You’re sweet.”

He studied her face for a long moment and then, to her astonishment, he dropped to one knee. Alex’s smile remained fixed, but inside, she felt a frisson of panic. The little blue Tiffany box in his pocket—it was probably the right size to hold a ring case.

Oh, please, don’t tell me he’s going to propose.

They hadn’t even known each other all that long—not that longevity meant anything in cases like this. Last year, Hans Dietermann, chairman of the board of München Deutsche Bank, had proposed to her during their first dinner together, only a few hours after they’d met. Then, as now, it was out of the question.

She touched his shoulders, a queen signaling her knight to rise. “Darling,” she protested gently.

“Shhh, don’t speak. Let me. What I wanted to say…”

She sighed and leaned back against the railing. What a way to ruin a perfectly good birthday.

His fingers slid lightly down the sides of her dress, as if he could find the words he needed written there in silk-stranded Braille. He leaned his head toward her knees, meekly, almost penitently, hands resting on her calves.

“What I wanted to say, my love, is this…”

He paused and exhaled heavily—working up his courage, she thought. Really, it was too tiresome. She wondered if it was too late to accept one of those other birthday dinner invitations. Finally, he found his voice again and looked up at her, a mischievous expression rising on his handsome face—handsome but not irresistible.

“You’ve been talking to people you shouldn’t,” he said, “telling tales out of school, bad girl. It’s made your masters very angry.”

This was not what she’d expected, but she had no more than a split second to even begin to comprehend his meaning before his grip tightened on her legs. He stood abruptly, and in one smooth movement, flipped her backward over the railing.

Shocked breathless, she made not a sound falling the two hundred and eighty-three feet to the pavement below.

He heard a faint thud as she landed, but didn’t bother to look over the railing. What would be the point?

Instead, he dusted off the knees of his tuxedo pants, then picked up his champagne flute and downed the last dregs, slipping the drained glass into his jacket pocket next to the empty blue Tiffany box. He’d seen how her pupils had expanded when she’d spotted that stupid prop. He knew it would distract her.

Withdrawing a handkerchief, he wiped down the stem of her glass, the only part of it he’d touched, as well as the ice bucket and the bottle. Perhaps the initial thought would be that she’d been drinking alone, depressed on her birthday. The notion wouldn’t stand up to five minutes of careful scrutiny, of course, but he didn’t care. He’d be long gone, from the Peak, from Hong Kong, before the police ever got around to putting together a credible theory of what had happened here tonight—if they ever did.

Back inside, he crossed the living room quickly and silently. The place smelled like a bloody funeral parlor, he thought, with all those ostentatious floral arrangements. Appropriate, though, under the circumstances.

He withdrew a Sig-Sauer automatic from the holster at the small of his back, under his tuxedo jacket. The suppressor was in his other pocket, the one not holding the blue box. He screwed it onto the end of the barrel as he backed quietly along the wall, through the formal dining room and toward the kitchen.

He was at the swinging door when he heard the first faint yell of alarm rising from the front drive, twenty-eight floors below. A male voice. It wouldn’t be the doorman, though. His driver would have long since taken him out, dumping the body in the trunk of the limo before leaving to dispose of it. It could be days before it floated to the surface of the harbor.

He gave the silencer one last, tightening twist. The motorcycle on which he himself would make his getaway had been pre-positioned near the servants’ entrance at the back of the building. He calculated that he had as little as four minutes to get to it before the first police cars came up the Peak Road. In the meantime, the civilians on the scene would be preoccupied with that silk-clad mess on the front drive.

Poor thing. She probably wasn’t so gorgeous now.

When he burst through the kitchen door, the maid was sitting on a stool at the center island, a gossip magazine spread out in front of her, a bowl at her chin. Her chopsticks froze in mid-air and her mouth dropped open, grains of rice tumbling from her lips.

He put a single bullet in her forehead. The rice bowl sailed in one direction, the chopsticks in another, as the stool tipped backward. She slumped to the floor, her head wedged between the gleaming stainless steel stove and a maple cabinet.

Taking care to leave no prints, he left quietly through the rear kitchen door. The maid stared blindly after him, her black eyes milking over.




CHAPTER ONE


TOP SECRET

CODE WORD ACCESS ONLY

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

CASE NO. 1786521-02

CODE NAME: ACHILLES

DATE OF INTERVIEW: August 14, 2002

LEAD INTERROGATOR: FBI Special Agent S. V. Andrews

(Special Agent Andrews) Okay, let’s get started. Today is Wednesday, August 14, 2002, and this is interview number two with Mrs. Drummond MacNeil, also known as Carrie MacNeil.

I should note for the record that two witnesses are present: Mr. Frank Tucker, representing the office of the Director of Central Intelligence, and Mr. Mark Huxley, from MI-6, the British foreign intelligence service. They’re being allowed to observe this interview as part of their damage assessment on joint-intelligence operations resulting from the alleged activities of Mrs. MacNeil’s husband. As of right now, Drummond MacNeil, CIA Deputy Director for Operations, is still at large, whereabouts unknown.

Okay, I think we’re ready to begin now. So, for the record, please, state your full name and date of birth.

(Mrs. MacNeil) Didn’t we establish that in the first interview?

We do it every time to keep the tapes properly identified for the transcribers.

Oh. That makes sense, I guess. So, once again then, it’s Carrie Jane MacNeil. Originally Carolyn, but I’ve always been called Carrie. My maiden name was Morgan.

And your date of birth?

May 16, 1973.

So you’re…um…twenty-nine years old, is that right?

Yes. I’ll be thirty on my next birthday. The big three-oh. And don’t I have a lot to be proud of approaching that landmark.

Such as?

I was being sarcastic, Agent Andrews. Obviously, my accomplishments are pretty limited. In fact, all things considered, I’d say I’ve made a real mess of things, wouldn’t you?

In what way?

Take your pick. I’ve pretty much blown everything over the last decade—education, marriage, credibility. Abandoned my personal goals, so no career to speak of. And now, here I am, suspected of treason—and murder, too, if I understand correctly where you were heading when we talked yesterday. Good job, Carrie.

I told you yesterday, Mrs. MacNeil, the Bureau’s official position is that you’re assisting our investigation into your husband’s activities and subsequent disappearance. No one has said you’re a suspect.

Not yet they haven’t. You’ll be sure to tell me when I am, though, won’t you?

You’ll be the first to know. But in the meantime, I want to confirm for the record that your participation in this debriefing is entirely voluntary. Is that right?

You mean, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing?

No, I mean you’re here of your own accord and we both understand that you’re free of leave at any time.

Yes, fine, we both understand that. I can think of plenty of places I’d rather be, mind you. Having a root canal, for example.

No doubt. But getting back to the subject of your accomplishments, what about your son? You’re proud of him, aren’t you?

Oh, God, yes, I am. He’s the best part of my life. All right, fair enough. I’ve messed up the rest of it, but I wouldn’t have Jonah if it weren’t for everything else. Let’s just hope I haven’t completely ruined his life, too.

That has to be a concern, for sure. But depending on the extent of your involvement in your husband’s activities—

There was no involvement! I don’t even know for sure that he was doing anything illegal. It’s you people who keep insisting he sold state secrets and caused the deaths of I don’t know how many people. Even if that’s true, I had no idea anything was wrong until he vanished two days ago.

And you say he’s gone into hiding, but what if you’re wrong? What if he’s been kidnapped? Isn’t it possible he’s innocent? That he’s being held hostage—or worse—by terrorists? And you’re just sitting here, wasting time, asking me questions I don’t know the answers to?

We think it’s highly unlikely he’s been kidnapped, the evidence being what it is.

I’m still waiting to see all this supposed evidence.

All in good time. And if, in fact, it turns out you weren’t involved, you’ll be free to go home and raise your son and try to get past all this. But first, we have some information blanks to fill in and we think you can help.

So, let’s just get back to the task at hand, shall we? State your address and place of employment once again for the record, if you don’t mind.

What if I do?

Do what?

Mind.

Are you saying you won’t cooperate with this investigation?

I’m just—never mind. It doesn’t matter. My address—1221 Elcott Road, McLean, Virginia. At the moment, anyway.

You’re planning to move?

I’m not sure. It’s a little awkward there right now, and I’ve been offered the chance to house-sit for some family friends so…Well, I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do.

Do you own the house in McLean?

No. I think I mentioned yesterday that it belongs jointly to my husband and his mother. Actually, the house was left to Drum when his father died, but with the stipulation that my mother-in-law continue to live in it during her lifetime. Drum left her on the deed as co-owner because he was out of the country so much.

But this information you’ve already verified, I’m sure.

These are routine questions we have to ask. So, lastly, your employment.

None, at the moment. My son just turned six. With him so young and with us living abroad during my husband’s last posting, I wasn’t really able to work. I’m thinking about looking for something part-time in the fall, though, once Jonah’s settled into first grade. Or, I was going to. But now that this has happened…

Sure. Things are up in the air, I can see that. Anyway, Mrs. MacNeil, I want to go back now to a subject we touched on yesterday before we had to wrap up—the murder of Alexandra Kim Lee in Hong Kong last summer.

I told you yesterday, I never met the woman.

But you know who she is.

Anyone who reads the papers or a newsmagazine would have heard of her. Her picture showed up there often enough, even before she died. I gather she was fairly well connected. Her murder was quite a little mystery back in the dog days of last summer. I seem to recall reading articles in Time—or Newsweek. Or both, I’m not sure. Weren’t her maid and butler killed, too?

It wasn’t a butler. It was the doorman of her building. Obviously, the killer wanted to eliminate witnesses.

Right. Anyway…I’m not sure why you keep asking me about her. It’s not like I have anything original to offer.

You say most of what you know is from the papers. But not all, isn’t that right? You have heard of Ms. Lee outside the media coverage of her murder, haven’t you?

(unintelligible)

Pardon?

I said, yes, but it’s still secondhand information. Until two days ago, when all hell broke loose, I only knew of her because of those newspaper stories. How would I have known her personally? She died in Hong Kong, right? At the time, we were living in London.

She had a home in London, too. Did you know that?

Not while we were there I didn’t. I only just found that out.

At the same time you learned your husband knew her?

(unintelligible)

What was that, Mrs. MacNeil? You’ll have to speak up for the microphone.

I said, you really like to rub it in, don’t you?

What do you mean?

The fact that Drum knew this woman—in the biblical sense, I suppose is what you’re implying.

Is that true? Was he having an affair with her?

I have no idea. You’re suggesting he was, apparently, but I have no proof of it.

Do you think it’s possible?

Anything is possible. I would have had no way of knowing. You know what my husband’s position was in London. He was CIA Chief of Station there. He had contact with all kinds of people, but I wasn’t allowed to ask questions about any of it. That’s how that game works, isn’t it? Need to know—isn’t that the operational term? Does your wife need to know about this conversation we’re having right now, Agent Andrews? Are you going to go home tonight and talk it over with her? I’m guessing not. You guys and your precious little spy games and secrets. You just love them.

Mrs. MacNeil, if you and I were sleeping together, I guarantee you, my wife would know it in two minutes flat. She’d see the guilt in my face, for one thing, even before she found lipstick on my collar or whatever.

Ah, well, there’s the problem—you just put your finger on it. You, Agent Andrews, would apparently feel guilty about sleeping with another woman and your wife would pick up on that. Bravo. She’s a lucky woman. Nice to be married to a man you can count on.

Are you saying your husband was unreliable in a general sense? Or just that he didn’t love you? Mrs. MacNeil? Carrie? Would you like some water?

No, I’m fine. I just—I thought—at the time…I knew there were other women. I did. Not because Drum showed any sign of guilt, mind you. Oh, there was a little pro forma remorse, maybe, on a couple of occasions when I tried to confront him about it, but I wouldn’t call it guilt. He didn’t even try all that hard to deny it. He said it was the nature of the job, that it didn’t mean anything.

Not to him, maybe….

Look, you have to understand, Drum’s twenty years older than me. His career and his habits were firmly established long before I came along. Not that I knew that when I married him, mind you. But from the time I found out what he really did for a living, I had to accept that he would be keeping odd hours and meeting people I’d know nothing about—his intelligence contacts, agents, sources—whatever you want to call them. Women in my position—it’s mostly women, although these days, I suppose there are some husbands in the same boat, too—anyway, when you marry into this business, you soon learn not to ask questions.

And Alexandra Kim Lee?

Well, I guess it makes sense she was the kind of source Langley would want to cultivate. The papers said she was bribing western officials on behalf of Beijing.

So that’s what you think your husband was doing? Cultivating a source? Or eliminating a threat?

I told you, I’m not even certain he knew her.

And if there were proof he did?

What kind of proof?

Copies of CIA contact reports on meetings he had with her. Surveillance photographs.

You have those? Do you have them here?

I can’t show you the contact reports. Those are highly classified, obviously. But I do have these pictures I can show you—

Oh, God—then it’s true.

This last one was taken three days before she was murdered…. Carrie? What is it?

The park they’re in here? I recognize it. That statue of the soldier on the horse? Jonah, my son, used to call it the dancing horse statue. It’s across the street from the American International School in London—Bloody hell! Drum took that woman to our son’s school?

According to the surveillance report, they had been at her place in Mayfair that afternoon until your husband had to leave to pick up your son. The Brits had her apartment bugged. Apparently he told her you were at the British Museum—something about a seminar on African sculpture?

It was that day? I remember. I’d been updating the research on my master’s thesis, trying to finish it. The British Museum was having a lecture series on African art that was right up my alley, so Drum agreed I should attend. Our housekeeper was off sick, so he said he’d take care of Jonah after kindergarten. Damn him! Then he goes and takes one of his bimbos to our son’s school? What a bastard! Did he—

What? Introduce her to your son? No. Apparently she left when the school bell rang. Honestly, Carrie? I doubt this woman had much interest in playing stepmom to anyone.

Still—

Anyway, she flew back to Hong Kong the next day and two days after that, she was thrown off a twenty-eighth floor balcony.

And you think Drum had something to do with her murder?

What do you think?

I have no idea.

Do you remember where he was when it happened? Three days after you attended that lecture at the British Museum, it would have been.

Not the foggiest. I mean, I presume he would have been in his office at the embassy, but I can’t be certain. Who can remember every little detail of a week that happened over a year ago?

Well, let me remind you then. His calendar for that week says he left London two days after this to attend a CIA regional meeting in Delhi.

Okay, I remember that, now that you mention it. He did go to India for a few days last summer. There you go, then. That’s where he was.

Except he showed up late to the Delhi meeting. Arrived the day after Alexandra Kim Lee was murdered in Hong Kong. He said one of his connecting flights had been cancelled, but when we retrace his steps, there are thirty-eight hours unaccounted for. We have no idea where he was. He had no shortage of CIA aliases he could have been traveling under, but in checking flight manifests, we can’t find any record of IDs sanctioned by the Agency. Thirty-eight hours, though, would have given him enough time to get from London to Hong Kong, murder Miss Lee, as well as the maid and doorman, then hightail it back to the Delhi meeting.

Sounds like a stretch to me. But even supposing you’re right about all that, are you really surprised? She was bribing western officials, right? That’s what the papers said, anyway. I know the CIA’s not supposed to be assassinating people, but I gather there are exceptions to the rule. Langley could have ordered him to do it.

Oh, he was ordered to do it, all right, but not by the CIA. She was one of their own assets, you see—a double agent and a direct feed into the Chinese leadership. Whatever she did for Beijing was small potatoes compared to the influence she exerted on key Chinese officials and the gold mine of information she funneled back to Langley.

Now, we know from other sources that the Chinese found out she was playing both sides of the street, and so they ordered the hit on her. And how did they find out? Because your husband sold them the information.

You have proof of that?

Let’s just say it looks like your husband has been selling out CIA assets for some time now—and some assets our British allies were sharing with us, too, which is why Mr. Huxley here from MI-6 is being allowed to observe these debriefings. And we’re not just talking about Chinese operations, either.

It’s so hard to believe. I mean, Drum’s no angel, but I find it difficult to credit that he would commit treason, especially given his family’s history of service to the country.

All I know for sure is that I had nothing to do with it. The only thing I’ve been doing for the past few years is trying to make a stable home for my son under circumstances that haven’t always been ideal.

And yet, you do seem to be personally connected to a number of people who subsequently show up murdered.

What do you mean, a number of people? Who else? And while we’re on the subject, let’s not forget that my connection to Alexandra Kim Lee is secondhand, involuntary and after the fact. I don’t know why anyone would think I had reason to want her dead.

She was sleeping with your husband and getting too close for comfort to your child.

Okay, that’s it. I’m out of here.

You should sit down, Carrie.

No. This has gone far enough. I don’t have to listen to this. I agreed to come in and tell you what I know about my husband’s comings and goings. Now, I find myself being accused of God only knows what. You said I could leave anytime. Well, I want to leave now.

That’s not a good idea. You leave now, it looks like you’ve got something to hide.

Like, I murdered this woman in Hong Kong? Are you out of your mind?

All right, all right. Let’s forget about Alexandra Kim Lee for the moment.

Not until it’s clear that I had nothing to do with her death—or anyone else’s, for that matter.

Fine. If we leave her aside, will you sit back down?

No more stupid accusations?

Come on, Carrie, you know we have to ask you these questions if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of what happened to your husband. Let’s just do what we have to do so you can get back to your son, all right.

As long as it’s understood…

Thank you. Now, if you’d take a look at another picture. What about this young woman? Do you recognize her?

Yes.

Where do you know her from?

I didn’t say I knew her. I saw her—once, at the embassy in London. Just before it happened.

Before she was murdered, right? Her name was Karen Ann Hermann, by the way.

I know. I mean, I didn’t know her name at the time—we barely spoke—but I learned it later. She was killed outside the embassy.

This past April 2, in fact. You were there when it happened. And then, right afterward, you skipped town—you and your husband both.

We didn’t skip town! His posting in London was supposed to be up that summer, anyway. We left sooner than planned, that’s all.

How convenient for you.

You’re twisting this—

Let’s just go over that day, Carrie—the day last spring when Karen Ann Hermann, a young American student who’d never hurt anyone in her life, was gunned down in cold blood outside the U.S. Embassy.




CHAPTER TWO


London, England

Tuesday, April 2, 2002

It wasn’t meant to happen that way. No one so young or sweet or blameless should die like that, sprawled bleeding and terrified in a muddy puddle on a dark and rainy London street, far from home, surrounded by gaping strangers watching her life ebb away.

Karen Ann Hermann was only nineteen years old, a pretty young student from Maryland with a slim build, shy brown eyes, and a thick, nut brown braid that ran down her back nearly to her waist. She’d arrived in Britain only the day before, eagerly anticipating the sights—London Bridge, Buckingham Palace and all the other tourist draws ticked off in her dog-eared guidebook. An innocent abroad. She was only meant to spend ten days in England, and then go home to a long, happy, productive life.

Instead, only thirty-six hours after her plane landed at Heathrow, Karen Ann Hermann was cut down in a hail of bullets in rainy Grosvenor Square.

American Embassy, Grosvenor Square

4:15 p.m

A somber overcast sky shrouded the city. Cold dreary rain had been falling all afternoon. The roads and sidewalks were slick and treacherous. Stubby London cabs kept their headlamps lit in order to see and be seen through the dank, gray mist.

But ominous as the day was, city life trudged on and the streets were crowded with pedestrians. From the roof of the fortresslike American Embassy, surveillance cameras peered down on a steady stream of umbrellas that passed through Grosvenor Square like a river of bobbing wet multicolored mushrooms.

Gunnery Sergeant Brian Jenks of the United States Marine Corps stood watch just inside the embassy’s main front doors, stationed in a booth fronted by an inch and a half of bulletproof glass. The receptionist at the window was locally engaged, the wife of one of the junior consular officers. At the moment, she was handing out temporary passport applications to a couple of American tourists who’d been scammed by a team of wallet-lifting pickpockets in the Earl’s Court Underground station.

Sergeant Jenks, known to his men as “Gunny,” was seated just behind and off to one side of her. It was his job to manage the security watch. A bank of closed-circuit monitors before him carried the feed from a dozen or so stationary and panoramic cameras located both inside and outside the chancery. The cameras were only a small component of the hardware mounted on the embassy, a spiny porcupine of a building bristling with antennae, sensors and filters attuned to the slightest noise, vibration, chemical or biological compound that might pose a threat to the building, its occupants, or the secrets it housed. Other equipment sent out a defensive array of silent, invisible beams to foil intrusions of the electronic, acoustic, microwave or infrared variety.

But none of this fancy equipment, the Gunny figured, was worth a damn without equal measures of human vigilance, precaution-taking, and plain old common sense. Overconfidence on technology opened the door to deadly intrusions of the low-tech variety, and when that happened, it was grunts like him and his men who paid the price with their lives. That’s what had gone down in Beirut, Saudi, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and they were probably due for another nasty surprise any day now. If so, it wasn’t going to happen on his watch.

The Gunny was five feet and seven inches of rock-solid muscle. As middle age loomed, it was getting harder to maintain the integrity of that bulldozer frame, but Jenks was proud of his powerful arms and rock-solid abs. “Small but mighty,” he liked to think of himself, as he worked up a sweat every morning on the free weights and Universal set in the basement of Marine House, the nineteenth-century Victorian mansion where the embassy’s twenty-eight-man Marine detachment bunked and where the Gunny and his family occupied a top-floor apartment.

The Gunny’s head was shaved in classic Marine style, high and tight, with a circular patch of blond stubble on top waxed to ramrod attention. It made for a slightly pointed skull that seemed a little too small for his thick neck and broad shoulders, but in this, the Gunny was the perfect Jarhead, a well-oiled machine of raw strength and pure military efficiency—a role model for his men.

In the past, the Marine Guard had worn dress uniforms for embassy duty, but with the heightened security climate now, they manned their stations in battle dress, the better to intimidate. The Gunny’s mottled cammies were starched to within an inch of their lives and pressed into razor-sharp creases. His webbed belt and holster cinched tight on his narrow waist, and his pants were tucked into black combat boots that spit-polish gleamed under the recessed overhead lights. His small forehead was permanently pressed into a corrugated line of worry wrinkles as his sharp eyes scanned the bank of monitors before him.

In the marble-floored lobby on the other side of the bullet-proof glass, hundreds of embassy visitors and staff passed each day through security scanners operated by his men. At the front gates, a guard hut stood inside a zigzagged row of concrete barriers erected to thwart any determined terrorist with an explosive-laden vehicle.

The Gunny’s focus zeroed in now on the monitor display of the guard hut out front, where two young Marines were scrutinizing visitor IDs. A car bearing diplomatic plates had just pulled past the concrete barricade and approached the high, wrought-iron embassy gate.

Parking inside the embassy compound was at a premium. Only the ambassador and selected senior diplomatic staff were permitted to drive or be driven inside, along with a very few high-level visitors, such as other ambassadors and representatives from the Foreign Office. Agents from MI-5 and MI-6, the British security and intelligence agencies, had also been showing up ever more frequently in recent months to liaise with their American counterparts.

The Gunny could almost feel the cold drizzle running down his shirt collar as one of his oilskin-jacketed boys bent low, rifles at the ready, to peer into the window of the chauffeur-driven Mercedes, whose tricolor flags fluttered wetly from staffs mounted on the front fenders. This would be the French ambassador, arriving for a private meeting with the visiting delegation of U.S. senators—late, of course, the Gunny thought, snorting lightly. A reception would follow the ambassadorial meeting, and it was scheduled to kick off shortly.

Trust the goddamn Frogs. If they couldn’t even show up on time for a high level meeting, how the hell could you count on them to do their bit in the war on terrorism?

With his attention focused on the action at the front gate, the sergeant failed to hear the footsteps approaching from behind. “Hey there, Gunny. Who do we have here?”

The Marine, to his credit, didn’t flinch.

When Drummond MacNeil peered over his shoulder at the screen, the Gunny noticed a flush rising on the receptionist’s cheeks. Typical. Most of the women in the embassy seemed to hover near MacNeil at internal office get-togethers or follow him with their eyes whenever he passed in the hall. “Gorgeous,” one girl had called him. Amazing how a mysterious job, six feet of lanky slouch, and a pair of blue eyes could turn some perfectly nice girls into total bimbos.

“Looks like the French ambassador, sir,” the Gunny told him.

“Ah, oui, Monsieur Chevalier de la Haye.” MacNeil’s expression was arch, his accent fruity, but it sounded dead-on to the Gunny’s untrained ear. “Fashionably late and ready to make a dramatic entrance, as always, I see.”

“I guess.”

They watched on the monitor as the young Marine at the gate waved the car through.

“Too bad he didn’t just take a miss altogether,” MacNeil added. “I’m sure our visiting dignitaries could do without this guy and his constant whining.”

“Don’t care for our French allies, sir?”

“Avoid ’em as much as I can. My old man used to say, ‘Count on the French to hide behind your back when the shooting starts and to stick a knife in it as soon as victory’s declared.’”

The Gunny glanced up with interest. “Your father served over there during WWII?” MacNeil’s much-decorated father, General Naughton MacNeil, had been a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the early days of Vietnam, so it made sense that the old man would have seen service in the Big One.

MacNeil nodded. “He was with Patton’s Eighth Army in North Africa, then arrived in Paris in time for the liberation. Not that the French ever thanked him for it. He said they drove him nuts when it came to working together in NATO.”

MacNeil stepped back from the monitor and perched his long, lean frame on the corner of a desk near the door, his gaze shifting to the receptionist as she bent low to withdraw some paper from a bottom drawer of her desk, revealing a hint of cleavage and a lacy patch of pink bra. The girl seemed to feel his eyes on her, because she looked up and her face flushed even deeper. She turned back to the window as MacNeil gave the Gunny a sly wink. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, shoulders slouching as his hands slid into the pockets of soft gray pants that even the Gunny could tell were custom-made and must have cost a fortune.

“Your father was a great military leader, sir.”

“Well, he died with his boots on, anyway. Dropped dead of a heart attack while reviewing the troops. All Army, all the way.”

MacNeil didn’t sound too broken up about it, the Gunny thought. Bad blood between them, maybe?

The younger MacNeil was about as different from the General as it was possible to be. Drummond MacNeil was in his late forties, with a thick head of hair that was considerably longer than the Gunny thought appropriate, even for a civilian. It took constant raking to keep the silvery mop from spilling into the man’s perpetually amused eyes. MacNeil always looked like the whole world was walking around with “KICK ME” signs stuck to their backs while he was the only one in on the big yuck.

The Gunny focused on his monitors so MacNeil wouldn’t see his frown of disapproval. The General, by contrast, had been a towering mountain of a man—not a Marine, of course, but pretty damn tough just the same. Once, on a visit to the Pentagon, Jenks had seen the old man’s portrait hanging in a corridor. Built solid, buzz-cut and stern-looking, General MacNeil had radiated leadership. The Gunny would’ve followed that guy into any field of action he named, and so would just about every Marine he knew.

But the son was another kettle of fish. Had never even served in the military, which must have been a real disappointment to the old man. The Gunny had a son himself, and the kid’s first words, swear to God, were Semper Fi. (Of course, Jenks had coached the baby for months, much to his wife’s disgust, but still…) Now six, Connor practically slept in his miniature size cammies and could hardly wait to join the Corps.

MacNeil the younger hadn’t gone the military route, though. Apparently he’d washed out of West Point and avoided the service altogether after that, trading instead on his rep as a Yale man. The Gunny had heard people in a position to know say Drummond MacNeil had done more partying than studying at the Ivy League school. Only the family’s connections had swung his admission and protected a bare “C” average. After spending most of the seventies swanning around beaches, bars, and no-brainer jobs, MacNeil had apparently used those same connections to land himself a job at Langley.

Still, he must have done something right at the Agency, the Gunny conceded, since he’d ended up with this plum London job and, by all reports, was on the fast track to the top. Go figure. Her Majesty’s official diplomatic list identified MacNeil as a trade counselor, but a select few knew he was actually chief of the CIA’s London station.

“Anyway, sir, did you need anything?” Jenks asked him.

“I just stepped out of the meeting to see this guy in,” MacNeil said, nodding at the monitor as the French ambassador’s car pulled up to the double front doors. “I was also hoping to spot my wife. Has she shown up yet, do you know?”

“I haven’t seen her, sir.”

Now, that’s what wasn’t fair, the Gunny thought. The guy was married to a great girl, his second wife, by all accounts. Carrie MacNeil was young, pretty, and nice as all get-out. The MacNeils’ son, Jonah, was in Connor’s kindergarten class at the American International School, and Carrie was one of the hardest-working parent volunteers there. Their boys always ended up playing together at embassy family functions, like the Fourth of July picnic and the annual Christmas party, where by tradition the biggest Marine in the detachment dressed up as Santa and handed out presents to the diplobrats and assorted other embassy offspring. And when Carrie got herself done up to the nines for some fancy dress function, with her long, reddish hair and those shy, gray-green eyes—well, all the Gunny knew was that he’d had to warn several of his randier guys that wives of senior staff (especially the CIA head of station, for chrissakes) were strictly off-limits.

“She’s supposed to be coming in for this reception and dinner of the ambassador’s,” MacNeil was saying. “Wives were originally invited to both, but then the ambassador’s wife begged off dinner, so now the other wives are uninvited and it’s turned into a working dinner. I tried calling Carrie to let her know, but there’s no answer at the house and she doesn’t seem to have her mobile turned on. What’s the point of having a cell phone, I keep asking her, if you don’t turn it on? That’s why I got her the damn thing.” MacNeil leaned closer to the monitors to scan the surrounding streets. “Jesus! Who can spot anybody under all these umbrellas. Anyway, Gunny,” he added, straightening as the French ambassador swept into the lobby, “I’ve got to get back upstairs. Could you let her know when she comes in that dinner’s off? As long as she’s here, she might as well come up for the reception, though, meet a couple of senators.”

“I’ll pass the message on, sir.”

But the Station Chief was already out the door, embracing the Parisian envoy like a long-lost brother and leading him back into the embassy’s inner sanctum.

The Gunny sighed and turned again to his monitors, studying the feeds from the street outside, wondering which umbrella belonged to Carrie MacNeil, and how she’d feel about finding out she’d been uninvited to the ambassador’s dinner after trekking out in this dismal weather.

Gunnery Sergeant Jenks wasn’t the only one in Grosvenor Square on the lookout that afternoon.

Across from the embassy, a hard-eyed man was parked in a squat London cab with its service lights switched to the “Off Duty” position. The cab was parked out of sight next to a London branch of the Canton-Shanghai Bank. A knit black watch cap was pulled low over his forehead, completely obscuring his hairline, but the thick black stubble on his chin and his heavy moustache suggested a heritage rooted anywhere around the Mediterranean or beyond—which could mean Spain, Italy, Greece, India, or any one of half a dozen Middle Eastern countries. There were so many immigrants in London nowadays that the man’s swarthy appearance was completely unremarkable.

In fact, this man’s ancestors hailed from the Caucuses, but he himself had been born and bred in an east-end London suburb only four miles from where he now sat waiting for his target to appear out of the mist.

National Gallery, Trafalgar Square

4:28 p.m.

The clerk at the youth hostel near St. Paul’s Cathedral had told Karen Ann Hermann and her two girlfriends that morning that heavy rain was predicted to begin in the afternoon and continue for the next couple of days, so the girls had decided to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace first thing, while the weather was still on their side. From there, they’d wandered up to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons, then ducked into the National Gallery across the road as the rain moved in.

It was late afternoon when Karen, sitting on a padded bench near the gallery’s Leonardo etchings, consulted her much-thumbed guide book, her finger tracing a map of central London.

“The American Embassy’s just a few blocks from here,” she told her friends. “I think I could run over there and be back in an hour or so.”

Kristina Finch looked doubtful. “Maybe we should go with you.” The girls had been roommates at the University of Maryland.

“Seems like a waste of time for you guys if you’re going to bother registering,” said Karen.

Caitlin Bercha, the third in the group, had lived across the hall from the other two. “You don’t really have to, you know. That’s just something you do in places where there might be a revolution or something. Not much chance of that here.”

“Yeah, plus we’re only going to be here for ten days,” Kristina added.

Karen hesitated, then exhaled wearily, the much-put-upon sigh of youth everywhere. “I know, but I promised my parents.”

“But it’s pouring out there. You’ll get soaked walking all that way.”

“Why don’t you just tell them you registered?” Kristina suggested brightly.

“Yeah! How are they ever going to know?” Caitlin asked. “Then we can see if we can get some stand-by tickets for the theater tonight. The guy at the youth hostel said they disappear fast, so we should get to the box office early.”

Karen looked from one eager face to the other, sorely tempted. But then her conscience kicked in. She was an only child and her parents worried more than most. She couldn’t lie to them.

“I can’t. I promised. Look, I’ll tell you what. How about if you guys go over and see about the tickets, and I’ll do this embassy thing, and then we’ll meet up at, umm…” Her forefinger slid across her guidebook map. “Leicester Square. That’s in the theater district.”

The two other girls exchanged glances. “I don’t know,” Caitlin said. “Maybe we’d better stick together.”

“No, really, guys, this is a good idea. You go for the tickets and I’ll do this. No point in all of us wasting what little time we have.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

Karen waved away their worries and gathered up her things. “I’ll be fine.” She shrugged into her long tan raincoat, leaving her braid inside and flipping up the collar. From her pocket she withdrew a black knit tam which she pulled onto her head. “Watch for me at Leicester Square—say around six-thirty, just to be on the safe side. I don’t want to leave you guys hanging around in the rain.”

So, the plans were made.

Karen left her friends with a smile on her face, secretly glad for a little quiet time as she stepped out onto the wide, white front steps of the National Gallery and popped open her black travel umbrella. Not that the streets around Trafalgar Square were all that quiet, what with the swish of tires on wet pavement and the roar and honking of rush hour traffic. But the average teenage girl abhors a conversational vacuum, so Karen had been inundated with high-pitched chatter almost non-stop since she and her two friends had met up at Dulles Airport three days earlier to catch their flight for London. At this point, her craving for quiet was almost physical.

Life had given Karen Ann Hermann an unusual appreciation for silence. The only child of parents who were both profoundly deaf, her early childhood had been spent in a world as still and serene as it was warm and loving. Karen had no hearing deficit of her own, but long before a preschool tutor had been brought in to help bring her speech up to par, she’d been signing fluently, and she still moved easily between the hearing and non-hearing worlds. Every summer since the age of thirteen, she’d worked at a camp for hearing-impaired youngsters, first as a volunteer, then as a paid counselor.

Karen’s parents had never been encouraged to cultivate a sense of adventure themselves, but a couple of those kids their daughter worked with, they’d been astonished to discover, had traveled around the world. They skied and scuba dived and parasailed, and got downright snippy if you suggested there was anything surprising in that. Times had definitely changed. The Hermanns had never even been on bicycles for fear they might be struck by an unheard car coming up on them from behind. And though they now ran a small but moderately successful home-based Web site management business, neither had ever traveled beyond a sixty-or-so-mile radius of Washington, D.C.

Karen was already determined to help give the next generation of hearing-impaired kids more opportunities than her parents had had. She was even considering pursuing a doctorate and then teaching at Gallaudet University, the only one in the country dedicated to the needs of deaf students. Now there, the Hermanns thought, was a hot-bed of militancy. Both were Gallaudet graduated, but would a hearing-enabled professor, even one as sign-fluent and accomplished as Karen, be welcomed there these days, when so many students insisted that hearing people couldn’t relate to the issues they faced? They didn’t want their precious daughter targeted by reverse discrimination.

It was a source of constant worry, but they comforted themselves with the realization that Karen’s final career decisions were some way off.

In the meantime, she’d gotten it into her head to do some traveling. Having passed her freshman year at the University of Maryland with flying colors and the start of her summer job still a month off, she’d been eager to join two girlfriends on a spring vacation in England. She was a good kid, an honor roll student who’d never given them a moment of worry. What’s more, she was an adult now, for all intents and purposes, and she’d saved the money for the trip herself from the part-time tutoring she’d done all year. How could her nervous parents forbid her from going, much as they wanted to?

Before they would agree, though, they’d gone onto the Internet to do their homework. The State Department Web site posted travel warnings to Americans traveling abroad, but Britain, they were relieved to see, fell into a low-risk category. Fair enough. The IRA seemed to prefer negotiation to bombs these days, and London was as security-conscious as Washington where other hot-button populations were concerned. If their daughter must go abroad, England was probably as safe a bet as anywhere.

Still, the State Department Web site did advise U.S. travelers to register with the embassy on arrival in a foreign country so that they could be notified in case of emergency. If the advice was rarely heeded in the more popular tourist destinations, the Hermanns didn’t know that.

Afterward, they would bitterly regret extracting the promise that took Karen to the embassy that day. Had they been a little more worldly, they might not have, but Mr. and Mrs. Hermann had never been out of the country themselves.

Thus it was that Karen Ann Hermann came to be outside the American Embassy that dark and rainy London afternoon when all hell broke loose.




CHAPTER THREE


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FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

(continued…)

So when you arrived for the reception that afternoon, Carrie, you didn’t know you wouldn’t be attending the ambassador’s dinner?

No. Apparently Drum had left messages for me on my mobile and at home, but for some reason, I hadn’t gotten either of them. I gather he’d also asked the Gunny to watch out for me—that’s the Gunnery Sergeant, head of the Marine Guard detachment.

Sergeant Jenks, yes. He’s been interviewed on several occasions. We’ve got his full testimony covering that day.

Right. Well then, you know he was on duty in the lobby. He was tied up when I came in, so it was Drum’s secretary who took me upstairs to the reception. She was also the one who told me I wasn’t needed at the dinner.

Would it surprise you to learn there’s no record your husband ever called your cell phone that day?

He said he did. I thought the voice-mail system must have been down.

It was working just fine, according to company records. And although the phone at your apartment did receive one call at about…let’s see…12:27 p.m. GMT—

That’s when he called to tell me I was invited to the reception and dinner.

Right. According to your home-phone records, that was the only incoming call that day.

So, what are you saying?

I’m saying he lied. Your husband’s real purpose was to lure you out that afternoon.

Lure me out?

Yes. That’s why he didn’t bother calling back when the dinner requirement disappeared. He made a special point of going down to the lobby and telling Sergeant Jenks he’d called you to try to cancel, but we think he was just covering his tracks.

You make it sound like he was laying a trap for me. What are you—

Let’s just carry on with that day, Carrie. Did you see anything out of the ordinary when you arrived? Anyone who seemed to be watching you as you went in?

No. Not that I would have noticed, probably. It was a horrible day, pouring rain. I was hunched down under an umbrella and so was everyone else in the street.

Did you take a taxi?

No, it was just a few blocks. I probably should have, but I didn’t realize how hard it was raining. I walked over.

So you weren’t approached by a taxi or anyone else in the street? Didn’t notice that you were being followed?

Not that I recall. I talked briefly to the Marines at the front gate when I got to the embassy. I knew them, of course. And then, the receptionist at the front desk, who called up to say I’d arrived. That’s when Drum’s secretary came down to take me up and told me about the cancellation.

And how did your husband seem when you saw him?

I don’t know. Fine. Normal, I guess.

He didn’t seem surprised that you’d actually made it over? You didn’t notice anything unusual about his reaction?

Not really…unless…I don’t know…

So there was something?

I’m not sure. It was a busy day for him. High profile, you know, with the senators in town and him responsible for their program while they were in London. And it was a tense time for everyone, of course with the heightened security climate since September 11.

But there was something else. What was it?

I’m not sure. It’s hard to put my finger on it.

Try. Tell me about that afternoon, Carrie. What happened when you attended the reception for those visiting politicians?




CHAPTER FOUR


American Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London

5:41 p.m.

Carrie’s facial muscles were beginning to ache from the effort of so much forced smiling. Her feet, perched on impractical three-inch heels, were wet and cold, and as she shifted her weight on the thick pile carpet, she felt water squishing in the toes of her strappy black Manolos. She’d probably ruined her most expensive shoes, wearing them out on such a rainy afternoon, but Drum had told her to “spiff it up” when he’d called unexpectedly and pressed her to put in an appearance at this late afternoon reception and the dinner to follow.

Now, it turned out she wasn’t needed at dinner.

The expendable chair-filler, that’s me, she thought, dodging the frond of one of the tall, potted palms that dotted the perimeter of the long room. She kept finding herself backed into the thing, wedged into a corner by two of the reception’s more garrulous guests, and it felt as if a persistent spider were landing on her bare neck every few minutes. It was beginning to get really irritating.

She took a dangerous sip from her wineglass—dangerous because she was starving and now there wasn’t even the prospect of a good meal to fill her empty stomach. Not that the wine did anything to improve her mood, which was becoming grumpier by the minute, knowing she’d trudged out in the pouring rain for nothing more than a tepid glass of mediocre California Chardonnay and yet another chance to observe the diplomatic version of that ancient male ritual, the pissing contest.

In this environment, it meant feigning to possess more insider access than the other guy—with “feign” being the operative word here, Carrie decided, watching her two companions over the rim of her wineglass. One was an ambitious young Bostonian, who had to be fresh out of college, with that thick, shining mop of Ivy League hair and those darting, nervous eyes that belied a self-promoting line of patter. Carrie had already forgotten his name. David? Douglas…something? He was a junior aide to one of the visiting senators. She was guessing it was his first official trip abroad.

The other was Nigel St. John (pronounced “Sin-jin,” she had to keep reminding herself, like that actor who always insisted that “Ralph” was really “Rafe”—God, but some Brits could be pretentious…). St. John was a minor British Foreign Office functionary who always seemed to latch on to her whenever she was dragooned into attending one of these official cocktails.

Carrie would have been happy to leave the two of them to their own devices, now that she’d done her duty and made introductions and a little small talk, except that Nigel kept clutching her arm and drawing her back into the circle of their conversation every time her gaze drifted over his shoulder in search of some avenue of escape.

The embassy’s top-floor reception area was a large, open room painted a pale antique yellow, with cherry wainscoting and crown moldings imported from the Carolinas and deep blue broadloom woven in the carpet mills of Georgia. Occasional chairs, chests and tables scattered around the room were eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Philadelphia Hepplewhite and Chippendale pieces. An ever-changing array of canvases by contemporary American artists lined the gallery-like walls.

This was where America put its best foot forward in the British capital. Guests were expected to do no less.

The scent of hot seafood canapés and expensive colognes drifted over the assembled crowd of sixty or so guests invited to meet the visiting senators this afternoon. Tinkling glasses provided a high counterpoint to the deep drone of mostly male voice holding forth from every part of the room, punctuated by the occasional eruption of mock-hearty laughter.

As she looked over the room, seeking out her husband, Carrie recognized a number of faces belonging to the usual crowd of Brits and officials from other friendly embassies who regularly showed up at these functions and hosted their own in return. One or two returned Carrie’s glance with acknowledging nods that ranged from merely polite to downright lascivious—the latter from a randy Australian charge who smirked as he checked her out from head to toe and back up again, with pointed pauses at breast level. Carrie was tempted to offer a stiff-fingered salute in return, but that would have been considered poor protocol and, in any case, took more nerve than she possessed.

Instead, she turned away from him, and as she did, she spotted Drum over by the tall, arched windows with Senator Watkins, head of the Senate’s select intelligence committee.

Her husband’s raised eyebrows when Carrie had first walked in the room, followed by a quick smile and nod, told her she’d probably passed muster—maybe even exceeded his expectations. Well, fine. With the exception of an ambassador’s spouse, whose role as chatelaine made her something of a social force to be reckoned with, nobody on the diplomatic circuit paid much attention to a mere “wife of.” After seven years of marriage, the last three spent here in the British capital, she’d long since resigned herself to the fact that her primary job at these affairs was to serve as ornamentation.

She’d worn a green silk wrap dress that Drum said turned her gray-green eyes catlike. Her long, coppery hair was clipped up in a loose twist impaled by a jeweled stick. There hadn’t been time to do much else with it, given the last-minute nature of this command performance. In any case, it had seemed the safest bet to survive the sleety rainstorm she’d had to brave to get over here from their Kensington town house. A few soft tendrils had shaken loose in the bluster.

“Don’t you agree, Carrie?” St. John asked out of the blue.

Carrie shifted her focus back and offered what she hoped was a convincing nod. She’d dropped the thread of the conversation, which seemed at the moment to consist of the usual complaints about the fickle French. Her two companions were so busy upping the ante of their mutual indignation that she knew they sought her input only as a matter of courtesy.

“No doubt,” she said. She had no idea what she’d agreed with, but it didn’t matter. They required only an appreciative audience.

Her gaze shifted back to her husband. She could have tried begging off this reception when he’d called at the last minute like that. She had work of her own to finish, pulling together the bibliography on her master’s thesis, which was almost ready to be shipped back to her advisor at Georgetown, if only she could quit her nervous tinkering. If he thought it was ready to defend, she’d finally complete the program she’d abandoned six years earlier when her son was born. And then…well, first finish the thesis, she told herself. One step at a time.

The lowering clouds outside had added another disincentive to coming out this afternoon, plus the fact that she liked to be home when the embassy van brought Jonah home from kindergarten. In the end, though, she’d done what Drum asked, as she always did. After all, this was an important occasion for him and it wouldn’t kill her to be amiable.

Like all intelligence officials abroad, he operated under cover in a milieu where “Spot the Spook” was the favorite game of bored diplomats. Officials in the know sometimes referred to Drum archly as the post’s “resident intellectual,” but his cover story said he was a commercial counselor. As his wife, Carrie was required to maintain that charade, while at the same time taking special precautions not to compromise his position or station operations. Most of the carefully selected guests to this particular reception, of course, knew what his real function was, but she’d long since learned that the safest path in all situations was to neither confirm nor deny anything.

The delegation of American politicians had arrived in London that morning, their first stop on a whirlwind fact-finding tour in the latest round of the war on terrorism. Drum would be leading them through their briefings with his intelligence contacts in MI-5 and MI-6, as well as the Foreign and Prime Minister’s offices and the Ministry of Defense.

His present companion across the room was the head of the delegation. An overweight, blustering power-house from Arizona, Senator Watkins was obviously in lecture mode at the moment, but Carrie knew there was no need to worry about Drum. He’d lived his entire life among powerful movers and shakers. Not only had his father been a five-star general and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the MacNeil family had been wealthy and influential Virginia landowners, businessmen and community leaders for generations. Drum could hold his own with anyone.

His body language now, as he leaned a shoulder against a leaded glass window frame, told Carrie he was just waiting for the senator to run out of breath. His bespoke Savile Row suit, a soft, dove gray pinstripe, draped his tall, lean body beautifully. His shirt and silk tie were likewise understated but elegant. His silver hair was slightly tousled, as befits a busy man, but it gleamed in the glow of the dropped crystal chandeliers that lit the high-ceilinged reception room.

Carrie knew from old photographs that Drum’s hair had once been nearly blue-black, but he was twenty years her senior and it had already been more salt than pepper when they’d met. They’d married after a whirlwind courtship in East Africa, where she’d been working with the Peace Corps and he’d ostensibly been an embassy aid official. It was only after they were married that he’d confessed his real profession.

Would it have made a difference if she’d known before? Carrie often wondered. Hard to say. She’d been a different person then, and Drum had seemed to exude a self-confident, protective strength sorely needed in that difficult period of her life. She wasn’t that frightened young girl anymore, however.

Still, there was no question that he was still, at forty-nine, a very attractive man, with a high forehead, even features, and intense, cobalt-blue eyes that seemed to mesmerize men and women alike. Watching the hint of a smile playing at the corner of Drum’s lips, Carrie knew that Senator Watkins was about to feel the full force of that determined Southern charm. She almost pitied the man. Before the evening was over, the senator would be spouting the MacNeil view of the world as if it were gospel, and he wouldn’t even know he’d been co-opted.

Through the tall windows behind Drum and the senator, the lights of London were already beginning to twinkle, daylight driven out early by the dark, heavy-laden clouds that had loomed over the city all week. Taking care not to spill her wine, Carrie took a discreet peek at the thin platinum watch on her left wrist. Five-forty-five. Surely this would be winding up soon. The congressmen would want to go back to their hotels and freshen up before the cars came to take them to the residence for the ambassador’s working dinner.

It was hours since she’d grabbed a quick apple in lieu of lunch. She was tempted to lunge when a tray of hors d’oeuvres passed her way, but there was a special corollary to Murphy’s Law that went into effect whenever she found herself at one of these embassy receptions—if she grabbed one of the tempting canapés, it was a sure bet that someone would choose that exact moment to stick out a hand to introduce themselves. And then, there was always the risk of ending up wearing the thing when this dull, alcoholic Brit beside her decided to move in and try to get a little cozier, as he inevitably would if she didn’t escape his clutches soon.

There wasn’t much to eat back at their flat, though. Grocery shopping had been on her list of things to do later that afternoon, before Drum had called and changed her plans. She’d left soup and peanut butter sandwiches for the housekeeper to give Jonah when the van brought him back from his kindergarten class at the American International School, but if Carrie wanted dinner, she was going to have to pick it up on the way home.

She was just debating how soon she could make her escape when she felt an arm slip around her shoulders and turned to find an old friend at her side.

“Tom!” she cried, genuinely delighted. “I didn’t know you were coming!’

She and Tom Bent exchanged kisses on either cheek. “Came to herd the senators,” he said, “though to be honest, it’s a bit like herding cats.” He leaned in closer and whispered in her ear, “I spotted you as soon as I walked in. You look beautiful, Carrie. You also look like you need rescuing, poor thing.”

“Oh, God, yes,” she whispered back, glancing at her two companions, who had abandoned their pontificating long enough to show an interest in the new arrival.

The Bostonian obviously knew him. “Tom! I wondered where you’d disappeared to after the ambassadors’ meeting.” He turned to the Brit beside him. “Nigel, this is Tom Bent, the CIA’s Director of Congressional Liaison. He’s the man who decides which secrets those nasty spooks will share with their political masters. Tom, Nigel St. John from the British Foreign Office.”

“Sin-jin,” the Brit corrected as he held out his hand. “How do you do?”

“I do wetly, thank you,” Bent said, shaking.

“Excuse me?”

“I snuck out for a quick run over to Harrod’s.”

He retrieved his hand and smoothed down his poker straight hair—unnecessarily, since it was perfectly gelled in place, as always. Despite the fact that Tom was Drum’s age, his hair was still nut brown, only his temples running a little to gray, lending just a hint of mature gravitas. Carrie suspected the color was maintained by an artful stylist, since Tom was very careful about his appearance—and, she suspected, a little vain about his thick head of hair.

It didn’t detract in the least from her affection for the man. Unlike most of her husband’s old crowd, Tom had welcomed her warmly right from the start after she and Drum had come home from Africa, and he’d always gone out of his way to be kind. Maybe it was because he, too, had come from humbler roots and “married up,” as Drum’s mother like to say. Whatever the reason, Tom was always a ray of sunshine for Carrie, and never more so than on this gloomy day.

“My wife made me promise to bring her back some Oxford marmalade,” Tom was saying, “orange, extra chunky. Swears only Harrod’s has the real McCoy, so off I went. The senators have such a tight schedule, I didn’t think I’d have another chance if I didn’t do it this afternoon. But Lord, it’s not a fit day for ducks out there!’

He had a pleasant, always-smiling face, with warm, coffee-colored eyes and an air of scrubbed earnestness, his cheeks flushed and glowing. Carrie knew it was mild rosacea and not the weather that put those blooms there. Regardless of the season, Tom always looked like he’d just come back from taking a brisk autumn constitutional in his impeccable Brooks Brothers finery.

Tom and Drum had been friends since their days at Yale, although Carrie had the impression that this hardworking West Virginian, a coal-miner’s son on a full scholarship, had never been the hell-raiser her husband was reputed to have been back then.

“You should have called me,” Carrie said. “I would have picked up whatever you needed.”

“Well, I would have, darlin’, but to be honest, I needed to get away from all this hot air, even if just for an hour.”

“Are you traveling with the delegation?” St. John asked.

“For my sins, alas, I am. Somebody needs to keep an eye on ’em, you see, make sure they don’t alienate our friends and give comfort to our enemies—and don’t you repeat that to your boss, young Daniel,” he added, shaking a finger at the aid to the senator from Massachusetts.

Daniel! Daniel Boone? No…Brown, that’s it, Carrie suddenly remembered.

As she glanced over toward the windows once more, she caught Drum watching them soberly. She gave him the smile he expected, and he cocked an eyebrow. She looped her hand through Tom’s arm.

“Would you excuse us?” she asked the other two.

“You’re abandoning us?” St. John asked plaintively.

“Sorry, Nigel. Duty calls. I think my husband would like to talk to his old friend, Tom, here.”

“Good to meet you, Nigel,” Tom added. “Dan, catch you later.”

“I wish I’d known you were coming,” Carrie said as they detached from the others and drifted across the floor.

“It was a last-minute decision. Things are incredibly hectic back in Washington, what with all the new anti-terrorism legislation on the table and the military situation dicey as it is right now. But the Oval Office wanted somebody along to keep an eye on these cowboys. I got drafted.”

“How’s Lorraine?”

Tom had been married for twenty-five years to the daughter of the Right Reverend Arthur Merriam, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, based at the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, also known as the National Cathedral.

“She’s just fine,” Tom said. “Helping her mother most of the time, running one committee or another.”

“Her mother must be getting on.”

“She’ll be seventy-six in August, but don’t let her hear you suggest she’s elderly. The women in Lorraine’s family live to a ripe old age. Her grandmother lasted to ninety-one and was still playing bridge three times a week. Liked her gin and tonics right up to the end, too.”

“Ah, well, that’s the secret ingredient, I guess.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Must be. God knows, Lorraine and her mother swear by them.” He stopped and turned to Carrie. “How about you and Drum, darlin’? How are things?”

“All right. We’re going home this summer, you know.”

“Yes, I heard. Drum’s being promoted. That’s great.”

“I guess,” Carrie said.

“You’re not pleased about it?”

“I’m happy for him. It’s what he wants. It’s a little tough for Jonah, though. Drum’s hardly around now, and I can only imagine he’ll be even busier once he takes on the Deputy Director’s job. Like you said, these are crazy times. Plus, poor Jonah has to give up the friends he’s made here.”

“And how is my godson? I mustn’t forget, by the way, Lorraine sent along some little goodies for him. I’ve got them in my suitcase back at the hotel.”

Carrie smiled. “I hope you get a chance to come over and see him while you’re here, Tom. He’s a great little guy. He’s just bloomed in kindergarten this year. Absolutely loves school. Our flat is covered with his paintings and drawings.”

“An artist, like his mom. But kindergarten? Already? Seems to me he was just taking his first steps.”

“I know. I can hardly believe it myself. Come September, my baby’s going to be in first grade.”

“Big changes. And what about you, Carrie? Are you okay? It’s not easy, I know, being a diplomatic dependant in a strange city.”

“It’s a great city, though. Impossible to be bored. Mind you, I’m a little tied down by Jonah’s half-day schedule. He’s at school from one to four each afternoon, and I try to help out there whenever they need an extra pair of hands, so it doesn’t leave a lot of time for gallivanting. Still,” she added brightly, “I have been busy this past winter. I re-registered at Georgetown for a remote study program, and I’ve gone back to the thesis I abandoned after Drum and I got married.”

“No kidding. That’s great. How’s it going?”

“Pretty well, I think. I hope. It’s kind of hard to tell. Can’t see the forest for the trees and all that. But I’d already done a good chunk of the first draft, and I had a lot of original research from when I was with the Peace Corps. My advisor seemed to think I’d be able to pull it together.”

“You were running some kind of a gallery out there in Africa, weren’t you?”

She nodded. “We helped local artists set up a cooperative to market their sculptures and paintings to tourists. My thesis dealt with marketing art from the Third World, so I had really good primary source material. It needed to be updated, of course. New trends emerge in seven years. But Oxfam here in London has been promoting developing country art and handicrafts for some time now, and they’ve been really helpful.”

“So you’ve been able to finish?”

“Well, you know what they say, a thesis is never really finished, only abandoned. But I’m working up the courage to send it to my advisor. If he thinks it’s ready for prime time, I should be able to defend it when we get back to D.C.”

“Carrie, that’s great. Drum must be so proud of you.”

“Oh, I guess so…” She glanced over to the window where Drum stood watching them expectantly. “I think we’re being beckoned.”

Drum reached out to her as they approached. Senator Watkins, spotting the movement, broke off in mid-sentence, his face opening up into the guileless smile seen in countless election year posters. Drum drew Carrie close into the circle of his free arm. He was just over six feet tall, so that she tucked neatly into his side, as a good accessory should.

“Sweetheart, I’d like to introduce Senator Paul Watkins. Senator, this is my wife, Carrie. And of course, you know Tom Bent. Tom, we were just about to send out a search party.”

“Well, it’s a wild, wet day out there, but I can safely report that Harrod’s managed to relieve me of a sizeable chunk of change and my marital shopping obligations have been successfully discharged.”

Watkins’s huge, fleshy hand swallowed Carrie’s. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Mrs. MacNeil.” His face was flushed, his bald head perspiring. He nodded at Tom, then turned back to give her a long, appraising once-over before shooting a mischievous wink at Drum. “Aren’t you the lucky man, Mr. MacNeil?”

Tom gave Carrie’s arm a gentle squeeze, and when Carrie risked a glance at him, she saw his eyes roll subtly. She felt better, knowing she had at least one ally here. Tom knew what some people said about her improbable marriage to Drummond MacNeil and he was sympathetic.

And maybe the senator didn’t mean to imply anything, anyway. Maybe she was just overly sensitive—although, in point of fact, she’d actually heard the words “trophy wife” whispered behind her back on more than one occasion. It was one of the hazards of marrying a much older man. Everyone presumed you were the bimbo he’d dumped his long-suffering first wife for. And Drum had, in fact, been married before, but he’d been widowed two years when Carrie had met him in Africa. It didn’t matter. To anyone who didn’t know her, she was just the young airhead who decorated his arm and who’d given him the heir his first wife hadn’t.

Nor did it help now that Drum suddenly took it into his head to kiss her far more warmly than their surroundings warranted, letting his gaze linger on her in the kind of long, wistful glance she’d rarely seen since they’d left Africa—and virtually never in the last couple of years. What was that all about?

Drum turned back to the senator with a sigh and an uncharacteristically silly smile on his face. “You’re right, Senator. I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

Carrie didn’t dare risk glancing over at Tom Bent to see what he made of that.

It was approaching six when the senators finally began to gather up their coats to return to their hotel and freshen up before the ambassador’s dinner. After Tom Bent had herded them all out to their waiting cars, Drum accompanied Carrie down the elevator to the embassy’s main floor and out through the solid steel door that divided the secure area from the public lobby.

As he held up her buff-colored Burberry raincoat for her to slip her arms into, the smoked glass lobby windows rattled under an ominous peal of deep, rolling thunder.

“Are those the shoes you came in?” Drum asked.

Carrie gave her Manolos a rueful glance. “Yes. I’m an idiot. I’ve been sloshing around for the past two hours.”

“Well, make sure you grab a cab. Don’t try to walk in this weather.”

She nodded, tucking her hair inside a dark chocolate-colored beret and slipping her hands into soft brown kid-skin gloves. “Do you know what time you’ll be home?”

“Pretty late, I imagine. Don’t wait up for me.”

“The story of my life,” Carrie said, with no real trace of bitterness.

She was long past questioning his late nights, and complaining was a waste of time. Drum said it was a hazard of his profession. Generally speaking, that was probably true. Generally, but not always. At this point, Carrie had given up trying to reconcile his work with the lingering scents that sometimes accompanied him when he slipped into bed late at night—scents of passion Carrie hadn’t shared and perfume she didn’t own, scents a shower couldn’t quite mask. Lately, he’d been gone more and more, caught up in crisis after crisis as terrorist threats continued to mount. He could make Carrie feel positively un-American for questioning anything he did. She no longer bothered.

She reached up to offer the kind of perfunctory peck on the cheek that was habitual by now, but he held her close, once again giving her a more lingering kiss than a public venue and seven years of marriage normally inspired. His arms stayed around her as he studied her.

“What?” she asked, resisting the urge to squirm out of his grasp.

“Nothing. I just wanted to look at you. You’re really something, you know that?”

She frowned. “Drum, are you all right?”

He smiled and kissed her once more, lightly, then released her. “I’m fine. I’d better get back upstairs and get a little work done before I have to go baby-sit those visiting clowns. I’ll see you at home.”

“Right. See you later.”

Carrie watched him walk back to the heavy steel door, where he slipped his hand under the keypad cover and entered the four-digit security combination. The lock clicked and he wrenched the handle open, pausing briefly to give her a last look and a wave before disappearing back into the secure womb of the building.

Exhaling wearily, she slipped her handbag over her arm and headed for the front doors, but before she’d gone a few steps on the marble tile, a muffled voice called her name. Carrie looked around for the source of the hail and saw a familiar figure waving her over to the reception window.

At this hour, with the embassy closed for the day, the civilian receptionist had left and the Gunny was alone on duty behind the bullet-proof glass. A Marine corporal stood by the front doors, opening them and then re-locking them behind staff leaving the building.

The last public straggler was still at the window with the Gunny. A young woman, she was hunched over at the counter, madly writing on a white file card. Her wet umbrella was propped against the wall, while her coat dripped water on the gold-streaked marble tiles.

“Hey, Gunny,” Carrie said, smiling as she walked gingerly over to the booth, taking care to avoid the death-trap puddles on the slippery floor. “What’s up?”

His voice crackled back at her through the speaker set into the glass. “I heard you were going to be in the building, but I was on the phone when you came in. I been working on the team rosters for the kids’ softball league. Is Jonah gonna go out for Pee Wees?” The Gunny’s son Connor was Jonah’s best buddy and the two boys often slept over at each other’s flats.

“He wants to,” Carrie said, “but you know we’re going home this summer?”

“Yeah. Connor’s really bummed about that.”

She sighed. “That’s the worst thing about this life, isn’t it? The poor kids have to keep making new friends.”

People who married into the business knew what they were getting into, Carrie thought—theoretically, at least. But the kids had no choice in the matter. Drum had been an Army brat himself, but he was philosophical about it. The tough ones survived it just fine, he always said, and the weaklings were going to stumble whether or not they stayed in one place all their lives. Carrie wasn’t sure about that, but she had noticed that relationships in Drum’s life all seemed vaguely disposable. Was it the impermanence of his childhood friendships that made him always seem to be holding something back even now?

The Gunny held up a finger for her to wait while he dealt with the girl at the window. She’d straightened and seemed to have finished what she was writing. Carrie peeked over her shoulder. It looked like a consular registration form.

“All done?” the Gunny asked.

“I think so,” the girl said, sliding the white card into the metal drawer under the triple-paned window that separated her from the Marine.

The Gunny pulled a lever and the drawer slid back to his side of the glass. “Looks good,” he said, picking out the form. “I’ll leave it for the consular section to file tomorrow. They’re all gone for the day now.”

“Thanks a lot for letting me in.” The girl slipped her pen back into the bag slung over her shoulder. “It took me longer to get over here than I thought it would, but I promised my parents I’d do this.”

“No problem. We wouldn’t want you to have to tramp back over here again tomorrow.”

“Is it supposed to rain again?” she asked, buttoning up her tan raincoat.

“That’s what I hear. Welcome to jolly old England.”

“Rats. I guess we’ll have to do some museums.”

The Gunny’s buzzed head gave a nod. “You don’t wanna lose that umbrella. You’ll be needing it.”

Watching the girl tuck a few loose hairs into her knit tam, Carrie felt a sudden plunge in the pit of her stomach. They were about the same height, and although their coloring up close was different, dressed in rain gear as they were, they would be almost indistinguishable from a distance.

It gave Carrie the sort of brief shock she got every time her own reflection surprised her in passing a mirror or window. She’d had an identical twin sister once. When they were small, they were always dressed in matching frilly outfits, to be cooed at and admired in their tandem stroller.

“It made me so proud,” her mother used to say with a sigh. “My two little Strawberry Shortcakes—identical and perfect.”

As if anything less than a matched pair fell somehow short of the mark, Carrie had felt ever since.

Isabel, her twin, had died when they were eighteen—about this girl’s age, by the look of her. But even now, more than a decade later, the pain of losing her other half could still overwhelm her unexpectedly, like the phantom ache of a severed limb.

The girl in the lobby smiled shyly at the Gunny and Carrie in turn. “Well, thanks again. Bye.”

Carrie returned her smile and the Gunny gave a brief salute. As the young corporal at the front door unlocked it to let the girl out, Carrie turned back to the window.

“Anyway, Gunny, on the softball thing, I guess it depends how long the commitment is. We’ll be here till the end of the school year, for sure. I will, anyway. Drum says he may have to head back to Washington earlier. But if it means Jonah can be on a team with Connor, I’d try to hang in as long as possible and let him do that.”

“That should work out okay. We’re going to set up the schedule so the games are all done by the end of June. A lot of people are in the same boat, what with transfers and summer vacations. It makes for a pretty short season, but at least the kids get to play.”

“That would be great.” It was one last thing she could do to help Jonah through the transition they were about to make, Carrie thought—one that might turn out to be even more disruptive than a move from London back to Washington, if she followed through on her growing resolve to make some real changes in her life. “Put Jonah down then. He’ll be so happy when I tell him.”

The Gunny grinned and started to reply, but just then, a sharp bang shattered the hollow stillness of the empty lobby. Three or four more ear-splitting cracks followed in rapid succession. To Carrie’s ears, it sounded like firecrackers exploding outside, but to the two Marines in the lobby, it obviously meant something else altogether.

“Weapons fire!” The Gunny’s sidearm was already out of its holster. “What’s going on out there?” he hollered to the corporal at the door.

The young Marine had his nose to the glass, but he ducked back and pasted himself against the interior marble wall, his eyes huge. “We got a shooter, Gunny! It looks like at least one civilian’s down.”

“Oh, shit!” The Gunny grabbed the phone beside him and started yelling for backup.

Karen Ann Hermann had just left the embassy grounds, rounding the concrete barriers at the perimeter. She was running very late, but at the zebra crossing, she hesitated, confused by the glare of lights on the wet pavement and by the honking cars whizzing by on the rain-slickened road, all of them coming from the wrong direction.

She was getting her bearings, trying to remember the layout of the map in her guidebook in order to plan her route to Leicester Square, when she heard someone call her name. She glanced around. A black London cab slowed as it approached her from the left, its passenger side window down.

How could a cab driver know her name? She must have misheard. Unless maybe he had Kristina and Caitlin with him? Had they decided to come and get her? She ducked low to peek into the back seat of the cab. It looked empty, but the driver was staring at her expectantly.

Had she imagined it, hearing her name called? She must have. There was no way the other girls would have splurged on a taxi, and neither would Karen, rain or no rain. A luxury like that wasn’t in any of their budgets. Theater tickets and souvenirs for her parents were the only big-ticket items she’d bargained on, but a taxi would set her back a bundle.

Head shaking, she waved the driver on, but instead of pulling back out into the line of traffic, the squat little car pulled up closer until it stood directly in front of her.

She shook her head again. “No, thanks anyway! I don’t need—”

Before she could finish the sentence, the inside of the cab exploded in a flash of light. Karen felt a stinging slap to her throat and her head kicked back. A split second later, before she even had time to reach a hand up to feel what had stung her neck, a double smack to the chest sent her flying back as if she’d been kicked by a horse.

It was only as she hit the pavement that her ears finally registered the loud retorts. Her head bounced on the cobblestones, and then she lay on her back, the wind knocked out of her, heavy rain soaking her face and smearing the lights in her eyes. She felt an icy splash on her legs as the taxi sped away.

It was cold on the ground. Her sprawled arms and legs were wet and chilled, but across her chest, she felt a spreading pool of warmth. When she was finally able to catch her breath a little, it came in ragged gasps.

Faces appeared above her, a man and a couple of women, then two soldiers. No, not soldiers. Marines. She’d spoken to the cute one when she’d arrived. He’d been manning the sentry box at the front gate. At first, he’d said she’d have to come back the next day, but when she told him she just wanted to fill out a consular registration form, he’d called and gotten permission for her to go in. On her way out, when she’d stopped to thank him, he’d told her about a club near Piccadilly that he and the other Marines liked to go to. Maybe they could meet up there later?

Karen had promised to ask her friends. Then, she’d headed for the zebra crossing. That was when the cab had pulled up and the driver had called her name.

The Marines were standing over her now, guns drawn, looking nervously from the street and down to her, then back to the street again. She saw their mouths move, but her ears were still ringing from the crack of the thunder that had exploded in her face and she couldn’t hear what they were saying. One of the women was crying.

“I’m okay,” Karen told her. Or tried to, except no sound came out.

She rolled onto her side, her hand reaching for her throat. Her neck felt mushy and wet, like soggy oatmeal, and she was feeling so dizzy she thought she might fall off the earth. But she had to get moving. She was going to be so late. She was supposed to be…somewhere.

Where was she supposed to be?

Tears sprang to her eyes as she tried to remember, cold rain mixing with the warmth running down her cheeks and with that other warmth that covered her front now. Bright lights swam around her. She wasn’t sure where she was anymore. All she really knew was that she wanted to go home. She was tired…so tired.

She curled herself up into a ball, nestling into the cobblestones, her lower arm tucking into her side. Her hand curled up beside her face, the movement instinctive. She had no awareness of her thumb settling instinctively on her chin, nor of her fingers waving laxly.

Feet shuffled around her, and worried faces swam in and out of her line of sight, lips moving soundlessly. She strained to make out their fading features, but none of these was the face she wanted to see. Her thumb was still on her chin, her four fingers waggling limply as she called out in her primal language. To the confused faces, it was probably just random fluttering, but for Karen, it was her first word, rising out of the deepest recesses of her fear and sadness and intense loneliness—Mommy.

She signed it over and over, a silent cry from long ago, a small child calling mutely in the only language her mother could recognize. But this time, there were no comforting arms to take the little girl up and hold her close to let her know she was safe.

Then, Karen Ann Hermann’s eyes closed for the last time, and her fluttering hand fell still on the wet, hard cobblestones, silenced for all time.

The sky wept.




CHAPTER FIVE


BY J. P. TOWLE

Special to the Washington Post

LONDON—Nearly four months after the shooting outside the U.S. Embassy in London that took the life of a young American tourist, questions remained as to the motive of the Pakistan-born taxi driver blamed in the attack.

U.S. and British intelligence officials say there is little doubt Ibn Mussa Ibrahim attacked to protest American foreign policy.

But if so, skeptics ask, why shoot an unarmed civilian? And why was Ibrahim himself later found shot to death and stuffed in the boot of his taxi?

Security cameras outside the embassy captured the attack on video. The tapes show a shadowy, bearded figure behind the wheel of the black London taxi. The cab pulled up at the embassy’s outer gates just before the driver let loose with a spray of automatic gunfire.

The embassy had already closed for the day when 19-year-old Karen Ann Hermann of Oakview, MD, who had just left the building, was caught in the hail of bullets fired from the cab. She died at the scene.

But friends of the 26-year-old cabbie insist he had no interest in politics. Ibrahim immigrated to the U.K. in 1996.

“All he wanted was to earn enough money to bring his fiancée from Peshawar,” said Ibrahim’s roommate, Farid Zacharias. “Al Qaeda? No way. He loved American movies and Burger King.”

An alternate theory is that Ibrahim’s taxi was hijacked before the embassy attack.

“You can’t tell me that’s him in those videos,” Zacharias argued. “It was dark and raining. How can they be sure?”

But security spokesmen say Ibrahim’s were the only fingerprints found in the cab and on the murder weapon, later recovered in London’s High Park.

“We think he was a sleeper, like the Sept. 11 hijackers,” a senior intelligence source said. “Several have been inserted into Western Europe and the U.S. to await assassination orders.”

As to why the cabbie was subsequently killed, it may be because he missed embassy personnel in the April attack.

“Murdering one young tourist probably didn’t pack the political punch his Al Qaeda masters were looking for,” the same high-level source said.


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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

(continued…)

So, Carrie, we were talking about the murder of Karen Ann Hermann.

Right. As I said, I didn’t learn her name until later, but she was there in the lobby when I came out of the reception for the visiting senators. She left the building ahead of me. If I hadn’t gotten held up talking to the Gunny at the front desk, I probably would have been outside, too, when it happened.

You might have even been shot. Has that ever occurred to you?

Of course it has. It’s amazing more people weren’t hurt in that attack. It was really bad luck that she happened to be there the moment that terrorist drove up.

And so Karen Hermann died in your place.

I—what? In my place? Wait a minute, what are you saying? Are you suggesting he had a specific target? And I was it?

What do you think?

That’s not what the papers have been saying, and my husband never mentioned there was any suspicion it could have been something like that. Why would a terrorist target me specifically?

You said yourself you were struck by the similarity in your appearances that evening—yours and Karen Hermann’s.

Strictly superficial similarities.

You said you were taken aback by how much you looked alike.

It was a rainy day. Raincoats and umbrellas tend to be pretty generic. Plus, we both had our hair tucked up under berets, so, yes, we looked a little alike.

Enough that you were struck by it. You said it spooked you for a second.

Yes, but that’s because I’m a twin.

You have a twin? An identical twin?

Yes—or rather, I did have. Isabel died when we were eighteen, along with our parents. When you grow up with an identical twin, though, you never quite lose that sense that there’s supposed to be a mirror image of you out there somewhere. Even now, I get a shock when I accidentally see myself reflected in a store window or something, thinking it’s Izzie. Except, of course, it can’t be. She’s been gone over ten years. Still, I never seem to stop looking for her.

Was it a car accident she and your parents died in?

You must have this somewhere in those thick files of yours.

If so, I haven’t seen it. I mean, we try to be thorough, but unless it’s directly relevant to this investigation, the Bureau hasn’t got resources to waste on trivial details.

It isn’t trivial to me.

No, I’m sure. Sorry. That’s not what I meant. How did they die?

A fire. Our house burned down just after New Year’s in 1993. I was back at school by then. It was during my freshman year at Georgetown.

Your sister didn’t go?

No. She was still living at home with our parents back in San Diego. She didn’t go to college because she—well, she just didn’t go, that’s all. Anyway, the fire broke out in the middle of the night. No one survived.

I’m sorry.

Yes, well, anyway—as I said, after spending the first eighteen years of your life as half of a twosome, something always seems incomplete when you’re alone. That’s why I was momentarily struck by the similarity in Karen’s and my appearance that day at the embassy.

And it never occurred to you that someone else might have been confused by it, as well. The shooter in the cab, for example? And shot the wrong person?

But that would mean—wait a minute, are you serious? Is there any proof at all that man was lying in wait for me?

I’m asking if it might have occurred to you.

Well, the answer is, no, it didn’t. What possible evidence could you have that he was?

Security cameras at the embassy recorded the attack. We’ve analyzed those tapes six ways to Sunday. There’s no audio, but when the cab pulls up in front of Karen, she ducks down and looks inside, like the driver hailed her. And the Marines at the front gate said they heard the driver call out to her just before he opened fire.

He called her by name?

He called out a name. It might have been Karen, the Marines thought. Then again, it could just as easily have been Carrie.

You’re serious, aren’t you?

Dead serious. We even called in a lip-reader to look at the tapes. She confirms the Marines’ story, although she couldn’t be sure, either, exactly what name he called.

My God. You mean…? That poor girl.

Yeah, that poor girl. And her poor family back home. Did you know Karen Hermann’s parents are both deaf?

I think I read that, yes.

Here’s something you probably didn’t read. Her father? He had a stroke three days after her funeral. He’s back home now, but paralyzed, they say. He can’t sign anymore, so even though his wife can still talk to him, he can’t answer. Can you imagine the mom? She lost her only child, and now, on top of the grief of that, she hasn’t even got her husband’s support.

That’s awful. I’m so sorry.

You’re sorry. Yeah, well—anyway—let’s put Karen Hermann back in the file for the moment and move on, shall we? You were saying that you and your family were supposed to stay on in London until the summer. But then, right after this shooting, you left early and came back to D.C.

That’s right. Drum had already been notified that he was being promoted to Operations Deputy at Langley. We’d been delaying our departure so our son could finish out the school year. But after the attack at the embassy, the official threat level was notched up and dependents and non-essential personnel were being shipped out. Drum decided there was no point in sticking around any longer, so we left a couple of weeks later.

And then?

Then, nothing. He started his new job at CIA headquarters. I was tied up with getting us settled after the move.

You went to live with your husband’s mother?

Yes. The MacNeils have a big old family home over in Virginia, right on the Potomac—but you know already that, don’t you? Anyway, it’s just a few miles from Langley, so it was convenient for Drum. His mother has been rattling around in it by herself ever since his father died. She has a daughter, as well—Drum’s sister, Eleanor—but she lives in New York and hardly ever returns to D.C. Anyway, I think I said that Drum inherited the house when his father died. When he was posted back to Langley, neither he nor his mother would hear of us living anywhere else.

How did you feel about that?

It wasn’t the first time. We’d lived there before the posting to London, too—after Africa, when Jonah, our son, was a baby.

I know, but I asked how you felt about it. Not many young wives would want to live with their mothers-in-law.

Well, no, neither did I particularly, to be honest. But we left London so suddenly, I didn’t have time to convince Drum we should be looking for our own place.

So you just went along with what he wanted?

To begin with, yes. You have to understand, I had a lot on my plate. There’s a ton of personal admin that has to be taken care when these transfers come through. With Drum as busy as he was at work, that all fell on me—the shipment of our personal effects, getting what we’d left behind out of storage. Drum’s Jag was in storage, but I had to find a car for myself. I also had Jonah to get settled. Had to try to find a summer day camp that was still accepting registration. There was no way a six-year-old could be expected to hang around the house all summer. He would have been bored silly, and Althea—that’s Drum’s mother—she wasn’t used to having noisy children underfoot, either.

Anyway, bottom line—living there wasn’t ideal, as far as I was concerned, but with our rushed departure from London, it’s what I was handed. I tried to make the best of it.

And your husband? How did he seem when you got back to D.C.?

He was even busier than he’d been in London, just as I suspected he’d be—which was another reason he had no interest in house hunting.

How did he settle in?

It’s been tough for him, the past two or three months.

How so?

Well, being back at headquarters is not like being out in the field. You’re a lot more independent out there. Back here—well, you must know this yourself. The FBI can’t be that different from the rest of the government. There’s a lot of bureaucracy to deal with. Political gamesmanship, that sort of thing. Drum hates all that.

So he wasn’t happy?

He was showing signs of stress, I’d say. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle the deputy’s job, mind you. He was really pleased to have been promoted. It was more like, he was champing at the bit to get to it. He wanted to put his mark on things, he said. Travel out to the posts, get to know all the station chiefs.

And what was stopping him?

As I say, bureaucracy. It seems there was some big organizational review underway—still the fallout from September 11, I gather. You know—trying to decide what the Agency did wrong, coming up with recommendations on what they might do differently in future. When Drum got back from London, the Director asked him to take on the running of that task force for a few weeks. Said it needed a little fire put under it. Drum felt he couldn’t say no, especially when the Director stressed how high profile it was, and how important to the Agency’s future. But Drum was more and more frustrated with every passing week. Said he was spending his days pushing paper around, chairing endless meetings—except not the ones he wanted to be in on.

And which were those?

The ones dealing with day-to-day operations, I suppose.

And so?

So, nothing. What could he do? He had to get the damn job finished, he said. That’s what he was trying to do. All I know is, we hardly ever saw him. Most days, he left home before Jonah was up and came back long after he was in bed. After I’d gone to bed, too, for the most part.

He left at what time in the morning, generally?

About seven. He liked to beat the traffic and be at his desk before seven-thirty.

Always?

Whenever he was in town, yes. As I say, he was almost always gone by the time Jonah came downstairs for breakfast.

So, he had a routine that never varied.

Not really.

And then two days ago, something changed. Right, Carrie?

You know it did. That was the day everything changed.




CHAPTER SIX


Washington, D.C.

August 12, 2002

The buzzing of the cicadas was relentless, maddening, like an electric drill to the brain. Sweltering air hung thick and hazy, even at this early hour, a reminder that the nation’s capital was a Southern city, albeit one over-laid with a more northern ethic of naked ambition. Summer heat and the drone of the insects in the treetops only amplified the sense of urgency that coursed through Washington like a permanent adrenaline feed.

Every cop on the beat knew that in D.C.’s rougher eastern neighborhoods, there would be blood on the pavement before the day was out. It was the same every summer. People couldn’t live day after day, week after week in such close quarters and suffocating humidity without snapping.

But it wasn’t just a problem of the concrete inner city. Even in green, leafy suburbs of neighboring Virginia, tension was rising.

McLean, Virginia

7:32 a.m.

Knowing Drum’s impatience with anything or anyone in his way in the morning, Carrie had gotten in the habit of either waiting to get up until after he’d left for work, or showering and dressing in the front guest room so he could have the master bedroom and bath to himself. On that morning in particular, she was anxious to avoid him. She’d been awake since a little after five and had slipped out of bed as soon as she’d felt him stirring for fear her brittle nerves would betray her.

The previous night, as happened more often than not, she’d been in bed when he got in. But going to bed wasn’t the same as going to sleep, not with her body thrumming in anticipation of what the dawn would bring. Her head, too, had spun with doubts, wondering whether she was doing the right thing. And even if she was, she wondered if she shouldn’t just screw up her courage and tell him about her appointment the next morning—assuming he didn’t already know.

Despite the fact that he was so rarely around, Drum had an unnerving ability to pick up information by osmosis—or maybe it was his mother who served as his inside source here on the home front. Althea’s formidable determination to stay on top of everything that went on under her roof was only one of the drawbacks of living in that house, as far as Carrie was concerned. As far as Drum was concerned, though, the notion of a place of their own had been a non-starter.

“I haven’t got time to look for a house we don’t need, Carrie. MacNeils have been living on Elcott Road for generations, and the house really belongs to me now, anyway. My God, do you have any idea what it’s worth these days? Over an acre of land in an area of million-dollar-plus homes? Surrounded by parkland, and fronting on the Potomac, no less?”

“But I always feel like we’re crowding your mother.”

“That’s ridiculous. The place is way too big for her alone. Anyway, she’d be the first to insist it’s where Jonah belongs. Not to mention how close it is to Langley. Christ! Haven’t I got enough on my plate without adding a long commute every day?”

End of discussion. But if Carrie had been wavering for months about whether or not to take back her life, this one-sided debate had pretty much tipped the scales. When the dust had settled on the move and Jonah was safely enrolled in summer camp, she’d quietly made—then canceled—several appointments with the partner of her former college roommate, who now had a legal practice in Alexandria specializing in family law.

After the third time Carrie had chickened out, Tracy Overturf had met her for lunch, where, to her own horror, Carrie had broken down in tears over her Cobb salad.

“Oh, God, Carrie, this can’t go on,” Tracy said. “Look how unhappy he’s made you.”

“I can’t just blame it on Drum. I let myself go down this road.”

“You met him at a vulnerable time. You’d lost your whole family. If ever someone was looking for a port in a storm, that was you back then. And no wonder.”

“Still, I didn’t have to abdicate my life. Look at you. You’ve had a solid relationship with Alan for years, but that didn’t keep you from starting your own legal practice.”

“I wouldn’t read too much into that. The only reason Heather and I formed Childers and Overturf after we passed the bar is because there were no jobs to be had. And you haven’t seen our offices yet—bankruptcy auction furnishings in three small rooms in a renovated cotton mill. It’s not fancy. I’m warning you. Look, Carrie, I care about you too much to keep it on a professional level where Drum’s concerned, but Heather doesn’t know you like I do, and she’s really good—a pit bull in divorce cases. If you decide you need her, she’ll do a great job for you and make sure you get a fair deal.”

“I don’t need that much. I’m not even sure divorce is the right answer. If it were just me, but there’s Jonah to think about. This could really mess up his life.”

“What about your life? How happily can he grow up with a mother who’s so frustrated? Look, just talk to Heather, all right? Explore your options. Then, whatever you decide to do, at least you’ll be making an informed decision.”

So Carrie had thought about it for a few days, then called and rebooked with Tracy’s partner—just to explore her options, she told herself. Now, she worried Drum would get wind of her plans before she had a chance to figure out what she wanted to do.

She and Jonah had been out at the Pentagon City Mall the previous afternoon, buying new running shoes to replace yet another pair he’d outgrown before he could even wear down the treads. When they got home, Carrie had seen the message light flashing on the answering machine next to the telephone in the kitchen. Her heart had begun to pound when she’d played it back and realized it was Heather Childers’s secretary calling to confirm her appointment for the next morning.

Althea said nothing about having heard the message, but to Carrie’s worried mind, she seemed cool that evening. Her mother-in-law had exchanged only the most cursory of greetings, then taken her dinner up in her room, pleading fatigue. But much later, a light had been burning under her door well past her usual nine-thirty bedtime.

Carrie knew she should wait up and talk to Drum herself, heading her mother-in-law off at the pass. But ever since their return from London, days could pass without their paths crossing between 7:00 a.m. and midnight or without exchanging more than a few words face-to-face.

In the end, Drum had returned home in the wee hours of the morning, long after everyone was asleep. Not even the dreaded Althea had that kind of staying power.

The MacNeil home was a century-old Georgian residence built on a choice promontory overlooking the Potomac River. The family was old Virginia stock, descended from a Scots ancestor who had purchased a large tract of land in the late 1700s from the original Lord Fairfax, for whom the county was named.

An even larger house had once stood on the site, the cornerstone of a sprawling tobacco and lumber plantation. The first time Drum had brought Carrie home, his mother had pulled out an album of old sepiatone photographs to impress his new bride with the history of the clan into which she’d somehow finagled herself. One showed an earlier generation of MacNeils standing before a grandiose Greek Revival mansion, complete with Ionic columns, a full-width front porch, and weeping magnolias lining both sides of a long and stately gravel drive—sort of a Virginia version of Tara.

But after the insult of the Civil War, the plantation had never really recovered its former glory. When the big house had burned down during the economic depression of the 1890s, Drum’s great-grandfather had rebuilt a smaller place on the same site, looking across the river to Maryland and, downstream, to the heights of Georgetown.

At the time of the fire, there’d been whispers that old Elcott MacNeil had torched the place for the insurance money. It was certainly coincidental that a number of irreplaceable items, including those rare old photographs, the family bible, and a few of the better pieces of furniture just happened to be out on loan or away for refurbishing when the fire broke out. Virginia gentlemen, however, do not publicly accuse one another of arson, especially when the gentleman under suspicion is an ardent supporter of the incumbent political party. And old Elcott MacNeil, solvent once more, was certainly in a position to be generous—all the more so when the federal government showed a sudden interest in buying up his tired plantation acreage for parkland and home sites for senior Union officers.

Elcott MacNeil was also one of the chief advocates for the construction of the Great Falls and Old Dominion Railroad. Built at the turn of the last century, the railroad had drawn vacationers from the miasma of Washington summers, as well as year-round residents from among those government officials in the upper levels of a burgeoning federal bureaucracy who preferred to live outside the capital. Of course, railroad access to northern Virginia had only increased the value of the MacNeil acreage, which had been mostly sold off, forming the basis of the family’s wealth ever since.

Over the years, the replacement house had been expanded in architecturally tasteful bits and pieces, becoming the new seat of the dynasty. If the old plantation with its rolling drive was gone, the house and its prime location still marked the MacNeil family as Fairfax County gentry.

Carrie tiptoed past her mother-in-law’s closed door on her way to the guest bathroom. Althea had moved out of the master bedroom when Drum had announced their return from London. Carrie would have been happier if she would have stayed put, but Althea had insisted on moving into her daughter’s old room down the hall. By the time the family arrived back in town, the switch was a fait accompli.

“This house is really Drum’s now, anyway,” she told Carrie as she showed off new burgundy and pink floral bed linens, drapes and matching lampshades she’d bought for the heavy, carved walnut bedroom suite that was now to be theirs.

The walls had been newly painted in a matching shade of dark burgundy that to Carrie’s eye resembled dried blood. With its dark Victorian furnishings and heavy floral draperies, the room, despite its size, felt claustrophobic and funereal. But now that it had been redecorated especially for their arrival, Carrie knew there was no question of touching a thing in it without causing grievous offense to her mother-in-law.

“But there’s no reason for you to give up your bedroom, Althea,” she protested. “Drum and I were fine in the room we had before.”

“Oh, no. He works so hard. He needs his rest, and the master bedroom is so much quieter than the ones at the front of the house. You don’t hear the street noises back there at all.”

The house sat on an acre of land on a riverfront culde-sac which had only five homes on it, all with equally large lots. The small, exclusive neighborhood had been carved out of a parklike wedge of land at the end of Chain Bridge Road, but the way Althea spoke of street noises, Carrie thought, a person might think the house was smack in the middle of Piccadilly Circus.

“We’ve never been bothered by noise,” she told her mother-in-law. “And you always say what a light sleeper you are. Wouldn’t you be better off staying put?”

Althea would not be moved. “No, this is yours now. I’ll be fine in Ellie’s old room. I’m sure I’ll get used to the noise in time.”

And she did seem to be coping admirably, Carrie thought. Despite the racket made by those few well-tuned luxury cars that constituted morning rush hour in this quiet neighborhood, her mother-in-law’s room seemed dark and silent when Carrie passed her door, as it was most mornings at this hour. Althea almost never rose before ten. Carrie was anxious that this day not prove the exception to the rule.

From the guest room window, she peered out over the street, trying to judge what the weather would bring that day. No surprises there. Thick haze filtering the early morning light told her it would be another hot and sticky one.

A semicircular driveway covered in crushed white rock led from the house’s porticoed front door to the edge of Elcott Road. At the curb, bluebottle flies were flitting lazily around the lids of the fifty-gallon trash bins Carrie had wheeled out the night before—a gray one for regular garbage, green for garden waste, and a blue bin for recyclables. Up and down the street, identical tri-colored trios of bins dotted the ends of other well-manicured drives, the only sign that the pristine neighborhood housed real people with normal requirements for food, drink and bathroom products.

Across the road, a green van sat in the driveway of Bernice and Morrie Klein’s house. The old couple had lived opposite the MacNeils for thirty years now, but they were getting on. Carrie had seen them only once or twice since she and Drum and Jonah had returned from London—and not at all in the last few weeks, she suddenly realized. Maybe she should run over and check on them? If their cleaning service was there, though, they must be all right.




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