he watched as she tossed her books haphazardly into the rear seat and sped off in her battered
Corolla, throwing him a cheerful wave along the way. Although she couldn’t have known it, her
prophecy was fulfilled when the telephone rang just before eight. Ryan hesitated and kept his
fingertips on the receiver for several seconds before lifting it to his ear.
It was still dark the following morning as Ryan streaked north on I-95 in his dark blue BMW
645Ci. He had scribbled a short note punctuated with an apology and left it on the kitchen table,
but guessed that Katie would still be furious when she finally got back from Orono. Although
the concern skirted the edge of his mind for a while, it was soon replaced by the pleasure of the
car’s performance and the scenic beauty of the surrounding countryside.
As the first rays of the sun filtered through the passing forest, dense tree cover overhead rained
dying leaves of brilliant red and yellow onto the roof of his vehicle and the approaching road.
The trip seemed to pass faster than he had expected, and it wasn’t long before he pulled into the
daily parking lot at Bangor International Airport, the heavy sedan easily navigating the numerous
speed bumps leading into the garage. It was just past 7:30 when he collected his electronic ticket
from a pretty blond attendant at the United Airlines counter, who managed to flash him an
alluring smile despite the early hour. By 8:45 he was on the next flight to Washington, D.C.
About the same time he landed at Dulles International, Katie Donovan was rocketing recklessly
up the narrow driveway bordered with pines to the house on Cape Elizabeth. She was in a
dangerous mood, having spent the morning arguing with her faculty-appointed advisor over the
course her dissertation was taking. As a second-year PhD candidate in applied mathematics, she
had already spent so many years in school that the thought of leaving it all behind to start her
career was becoming an increasingly attractive idea. The argument had degenerated into a
shouting match; she had definitely burned some bridges there, but took solace in the fact that
she would be spending the rest of the afternoon with Ryan.
Opening the front door, Katie announced her arrival with a flourish, but there was no answer.
The sound of her heels clicking against the polished hardwood floors echoed throughout the
house as she walked through the empty rooms. In the kitchen, she looked around in puzzlement
before noticing the sheet of paper on the table.
The note was apologetic, but Katie still found herself growing angrier each time she read it.
How could he just take off without even saying good-bye? Over the past six months she had
opened herself to him, shared so much, and in return he had revealed almost nothing of his past,
except that he had briefly worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. It had taken a
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considerable degree of craftiness and charm to get that much out of him.
She picked up a framed photograph of the two of them standing on a pier at Kittery Point,
Ryan’s arm loose around her waist. She admired his dark Irish good looks, lean physique, and
easy smile, then caught herself and slammed the picture down on the antique wooden cabinet,
leaving a small mark in the lacquered surface. Tears welled in her eyes, and she wiped them away
angrily as she stormed out of the house. Feeling suddenly childish, it occurred to her that he
would probably be disappointed if he could see her now. She felt a rush of shame, which quickly
turned to anger again as she drove away even faster than she had arrived, which was very fast
indeed.
CHAPTER 2
WASHINGTON, D.C.
To avoid the challenge of getting into Langley while listed as a visitor, Ryan had agreed to meet
the person he spoke with on the telephone “off campus,” so to speak. He waited in a brightly lit
café just off the George Washington Parkway, seated in a far corner of the room facing the
door. The atmosphere was pleasant on a Friday afternoon, young professionals and college
students busy making plans for the weekend, exchanging small talk and gossip, casting flirtatious
glances across the crowded room. Many of these glances were aimed in Ryan’s direction, but he
didn’t notice; sitting alone in the bustling atmosphere of the café, he could not help but feel old
and out of place.
After almost twenty minutes had passed, a cold gust of air swept through the room as the door
was pulled open. The man who entered was so unremarkable in dress, height, and build that he
immediately blended into the background. That kind of practiced anonymity was to be
expected, though, as Jonathan Harper had nearly twenty years of field experience to draw from.
He had begun his career as a young analyst working the Soviet desk, but it wasn’t long before the
bland-featured, exceptionally intelligent young man had found his way into the Operations
Directorate. By the mid-1980s he was running agents behind the Iron Curtain and making
arrangements for those few defectors whose positions within the Committee for State Security
made them valuable assets to the CIA. Now, at the pinnacle of his career, Harper had the
number-three spot at Langley as the deputy director of operations. He lifted his hand slightly to
acknowledge Ryan’s presence as the younger man stood up, coffee cup in hand, to follow
Harper back out into the cold.
“You look well, my friend. College life seems to agree with you,” Harper remarked as the two
men strolled slowly along in the direction of the Mall. The sky was a pale gray, and the bite of
the air seemed to promise an early snowfall. Ryan glanced to his left and guessed that the words
were meant sincerely. Sometimes it was difficult to tell as Harper’s face never seemed to give
anything away. With his hair carefully parted on the right, his conservative but expensive style of
dress, and a solemn expression that seemed to be permanently etched into his features, Jonathan
Harper, as Kealey had always thought, looked more like an aging minister or banker than an
intelligence officer.
“I can’t say I’m unhappy.”
Harper took a moment to digest those words. It was the same way with Ryan every time.
“Got a lot of time on your hands, though, I’ll bet.”
Kealey hesitated. “I try to keep busy. I’m teaching now, and I met someone. It’s not a bad life,
John.” He turned his penetrating gray eyes onto Harper’s. “What I have now is worth having…
it’s good, secure.”
They strolled along silently for a while. Jonathan didn’t find the words convincing. He knew
about the twenty-four-year-old student Ryan was seeing, and he knew about the tenuous teaching
position at the university. Slinking by in some backwater, feigning interest in the mundane.
Waiting for time to erode away the memories of what he had seen, and maybe what he had
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done… If asked, Harper would have said that Ryan was worth more than that. He did not
imagine that the younger man wouldn’t know he was being checked up on. Kealey wanted to be
convinced; otherwise, he wouldn’t even have bothered making the trip.
“You’ve seen it all over the news, I imagine. It’s just fucking unbelievable. A hit on three cars in
broad daylight, and we have nothing. Except, of course, for six dead civilians, one a pregnant
woman, and seventeen injured. The media’s all over this, and so the president is all over us.
Evidently he was pretty close to the senator.” Harper shivered as a brisk wind swept through the
bright orange leaves of the trees overhead. “This guy took out Levy’s entire detail, Ryan. I’m not
talking about people who barely managed to squeak by on the Civil Service Exam. They weren’t
riding out desk duty for the pension, either. They were professional protection officers rotating
off the presidential detail, for Christ’s sake.”
“I heard on the news that one survived. A woman.”
“Yeah, her name is Megan Lawrence. Seven-year veteran. That’s a sad story — she’s got a
six-year-old kid, and she’s not expected to pull through. Fuck it.” Harper whipped his empty
Starbucks container toward an overflowing trash receptacle. It bounced off the top and hit the
ground, where the wind promptly pushed it back onto the sidewalk. A female jogger dressed in
colorful attire approached, her blond ponytail bouncing in accordance with her footfalls. She
shot Harper a dirty look as she passed them by.
“Levy was on his way back to Alexandria; he and his wife had a place on Gentry Row. The route
was checked out by the detail and given approval, but it was one of five possible choices, and
selected at random less than a half hour before they left the Russell Building. So we have a list of
people that had access to that information, and it’s short. The Bureau is taking a hard look at
each and every one of them. From what I gather, they already went to McLaughlin on the D.C.
Circuit for the wiretaps. We should know more in a day or two, if they’re willing to participate in
the new spirit of cooperation.”
“Why was a senator receiving Secret Service protection anyway? I thought that came down to the
Capitol Hill Police.”
Harper hesitated meaningfully before answering. “I can show you why. We have a tape — more
than one. I think, actually, that you might know the person who did this.”
With this revelation, it was as though time suddenly stopped for the younger man. Cold fingers
inched their way up from the base of his spine, threatening to seize his throat in a terrible grip.
He was lost for a moment, until just as quickly the feeling passed and he felt Harper’s reassuring
hand on his shoulder.
“Watch the tapes, Ryan. Watch the tapes and tell me what you think. That’s all.”
The two men walked slowly back in the direction of the café, Harper awarding himself silent
accolades. Kealey was lost in another, more terrifying world altogether.
CHAPTER 3
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Although the nation’s capital is home to many prestigious medical facilities, including University
Hospital in Georgetown, the only adult burn unit in the metropolitan area is located in the
Washington Hospital Center on Irving Street. Within forty-five minutes of the rocket attack all
but three of the victims had been routed either directly or indirectly to this center, including
Megan Lawrence, the only Secret Service agent to survive the initial devastation.
Naomi Kharmai wearily climbed the worn stone steps that were in constant contradiction to the
modern building they adorned. She had spent the morning at Washington General speaking with
bystanders who hadn’t seen or heard anything that could be of real use to her, or more
importantly, to her immediate supervisor. The clouds had made an appearance earlier in the day,
and the sky was a white sheet overhead. The warmth of the pale sun on her back lifted her spirits
slightly as she walked through the main entrance past the intense scrutiny of a security guard.
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Her interest extended to what she could learn, but no further. She was not burdened by the sight
or knowledge of the terrible injuries that so many of the witnesses had suffered; rather, it was the
lack of progress finding information that was such a crushing disappointment to her.
Taking the elevator up to the fifth floor, Naomi asked to see Megan Lawrence. After bluffing or
outright lying through a series of questions and filling out the appropriate paperwork, she was
finally escorted to Lawrence’s room by an exhausted young resident.
“Her injuries are very severe,” he confided in a low voice, although there was no one within sight
to overhear. “She sustained multiple fractures to the skull when her head hit the pavement, but
somehow she was only slightly concussed. That’s the least of it. She suffered extensive
third-degree burns over thirty percent of her body, penetrating down to the hypodermis. Most
of the burns are on her chest and arms, upper legs. There wasn’t much pain at first… Her nerve
endings were seared, but she started to feel it on Monday. We’ve had her on a morphine drip for
two days.”
“Will she live?”
The resident shook his head slowly and looked away. “The chemicals inside that rocket produce
effects almost identical to those of white phosphorus,” he said. Kharmai was familiar with the
statistics relating to that particular substance, but did not volunteer this information. “She’s
demonstrating the initial symptoms of osteomyelitis of the jaw, a very rare condition associated
primarily with exposure to highly toxic chemicals. The triethylaluminum that was released on the
street oxidizes when exposed to air, and the particles continue to burn even after they are
embedded in epithelial tissue, so you can imagine how painful these injuries are. The chemicals
have also caused irreparable damage to her liver and kidneys, and frankly, she’s just too far
down on the donor list for it to make a difference.”
Naomi thought that if she had truly been related to Lawrence as she had claimed on the forms,
the resident’s blunt analysis of the woman’s condition would have sent her into hysterics. Her
fears were confirmed when she pointedly flashed her credentials to the Secret Service agent
seated in front of Megan’s door, and the doctor did not seem surprised. How did he know who
I was? she asked herself angrily. She fervently hoped that news of this visit would not be leaked
to the press, but knew that it would probably be a matter of public record within the hour. The
interview with Lawrence was the most important of the day, though, and she could not rush
through it just to avoid reporters. Before she entered the room, the young resident pulled her
back gently.
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t know if you’ve had experience with this kind of thing or not, but what
you do when you walk in there means a lot. She’ll look to your expression to gauge her own
appearance, her own condition. She’s aware of the prognosis — but she doesn’t need to be
reminded of it every time someone walks in.”
Naomi gave a terse nod and pulled away from the doctor abruptly.
As the agent followed her through the door to keep an eye on the proceedings, she could not
keep the sickened expression from her face. The woman on the bed was hardly recognizable as a
human being, her body and face scorched by burns so deep that they appeared quite dry and
dark red. The lingering smell of garlic pervaded the air, which Naomi knew was the result of the
