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 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 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