TRAITOR [042-011-4.5]

By: RALPH PETERS

Category: fiction thrillers

Synopsis:

"I do not imagine that a one-man crusade disguised as a thriller can
change much," says Ralph Peters, career soldier turned bestselling
author, in an afterward to Traitor . Maybe not, but everybody on the
Beltway who deals with (or votes on) defense budget issues should read
this beautifully crafted story about a man of principle trying against
all odds to do the right thing. Lieutenant Colonel John Reynolds is
"one of a legion of staff officers sweating blood to keep an
underfunded Army alive."  The army is faced with even more savage
budget cuts if a project called NGFB (Next Generation Fighter Bomber)
gets the approval that its corporate sponsor, Macon-Bolt Industries,
seeks.  Two of Reynolds's old Army buddies--a general and a former
officer turned lobbyist for Macon-Bolt--die suddenly and suspiciously.
But it's not until his own live-in ladyfriend, singer Tish O'Malley, is
killed by a car bomb that Reynolds begins to realize his own life has
somehow become linked with the fate of NGFB. There are some superb
scenes of action and many worthy opponents, especially a totally
believable military madman called Roscoe "Punchy" Hunt who destroys
works of art for dramatic effect.  But the real villain in Traitor is a
giant military-industrial-political complex determined to suck up as
much public money as it can.  People like Reynolds and Peters can only
nip at its heels.  The author has also expressed his strong opinions in
the acclaimed nonfiction book Fighting for the Future: Will America
Triumph?


TRAITOR

OTHER BOOKS BY RALPH PETERS

Fiction twilight of heroes the perfect soldier flames OF heaven the war
 in 2020 red-army bravo romeo the devil's garden

Nonfiction fighting FOR THE future

TRAITOR

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents 
either are the product of the author's imagination or are used 
fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, 
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and
 beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

The views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not 
reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, 
Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

AVON BOOKS, INC.

1350 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10019

Copyright 1999 by Ralph Peters Interior design by Kellan Peck ISBN:
0-380-97641-2

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S.
Copyright Law.  For information address Avon Books, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data: Peters, Ralph, 
1952Traitor : a novel / Ralph Peters.--1st ed.  p. em.  I. Title. 
PS3566.E7559T73 1999 98-46862 813'.54--dc21 CIP

First Avon Books Printing: April 1999

AVON TRADEMARK REG.  U.S. PAT.  OFF.  AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA

REGISTRADA,

Printed in the U.S.A.

FIRST EDITION

QPM 10 987654321

To my brother, Bruce Robert Peters, who always knew Holmes had a dark 
side; and to Henry Nowak, "Mr.  Noir." In the Gospel of Luke, soldiers
approached John the Baptist, asking:  "And we, what shall we do?"  And
he said to them, "Rob no one by  violence or by false accusation, and
be content with your wages."

Money changes everything.

--Populist philosopher Cyndi Lauper, amplifying Tom Gray's 
reinterpretation of the works of Karl Marx I marched back up to the
grave after the crowd faded.  Washington in  July. Uniform clawing at
my skin.  Arlington is efficient.  A  mini-excavator had already
arrived to fill in the hole.  A workman with  graying hair and
weightlifter biceps stooped near the folding chairs,  picking up the
casings from the salute.  He sensed me and straightened  his back.

"Done come back for another look.  Colonel?"

I nodded.  A poor-man's colonel, with silver oak leaves.  "Who this 
gentleman be, don't mind my axing?"  His face gleamed.

"General Farnsworth.  Mickey Farnsworth."

"Good man?"

"The best."  The laborer showed a broken line of teeth.  "We going to 
take good care of him for you.  Don't you worry, now."  "You can keep 
on working.  I don't mind."  But I would have minded.  The metal box 
lay still at the bottom of the hole, kissed with dirt.

"No, sir.  We don't do like that.  We don't never start till everybody 
gone.  It the rule."  A black bird settled on a green branch, sun 
oiling its feathers. "You just takes your time," the workman went on. 
"I always be glad when somebody come back.  People don't come back no 
more.  See what I'm saying?  I mean, your wives, maybe.  Maybe they 
does.  For a while.  But everybody get forgot about equal."  Mary 
Farnsworth at the graveside, struggling to maintain a dignity worthy of
her husband.  She stood up straight, and the ceremony was long, and I 
was afraid she might faint in the heat.  I started in her direction
when it was all over, but the generals who had lost a rival for 
promotion flocked around her, cooing sympathy.  I could not get past 
their aides.  "He was a great man," I told the workman.  "A hero. 
Nobody expected him to go like this."

"Heart trouble?"  I almost laughed.  "His heart would've been the last 
thing to go."  Farnsworth had been in better shape than a lieutenant 
fresh out of Ranger School.  And it had been a big heart, too.  I 
disciplined my voice.  "Hit-and-run. He was jogging."  I looked up and 
the sun narrowed my eyes.  We had all thought Farnsworth would be the 
next Colin Powell, and now he was senselessly dead.  The workman 
smeared the sweat over his forehead and sighed.  Looking down through
the trees, across the river.  Into the marble city.  "We all dust in 
the eyes of the Lord."  He gestured with a big arm, sweeping over the 
white lines of markers, the dead in their thousands.  "This place here 
just like Heaven, Colonel.  Everybody equal.  No man's stone bigger 
than his brother's.  Every man get fair treatment.  See what I'm 
saying?"  He looked at me again.  "But people don't come back. 
Everybody just be forgot.  That's the way of the world." "I'll come
back."

The workman smiled.  "I be happy to see it."

I smiled, too, for a moment.  "You don't believe me."  He shrugged. 
"No offense, now.  I mean, maybe you come back here for a while.  Then 
you forgets.  That how it supposed to be.  It all right.  He still be 
your friend up in Heaven.  Hear every word you say.  Hear you right 
now."

"We shall not see his like again."  The workman nodded slowly.  With 
immeasurable gentleness.  "Now, that's pretty."  He turned and the sun 
gripped him.  One of his eyes looked as though milk had been poured 
over it.  It was the sort of thing you notice right away.  If you're 
awake.  Suddenly, I felt disgusted.  With myself and with the world.  I
felt I was missing big things all around me.  But I had no idea what 
those things might be.  I felt stupid and angry.  "Listen here now.
Colonel, sir.  You ever needs anything round here, you just axe for old
 Rickie York.  Anything at all.  Hear?"

"Thanks."  "You just takes your time now."  He shuffled toward the 
shade.  "And God bless you."  There was no more time.  I had to go back
to work.  Then pick up Tish's present before the shop closed.  And 
waste time meeting an old friend who was not a friend anymore, because 
I did not have what it took to say, "Fuck off, Em.  You never even 
return my phone calls.  I'm going home to wish my girl a happy 
birthday."  I felt I should do something else for General Farnsworth. 
But the human repertoire is limited.  The heat was terrible and my eyes
had begun to ache.  I looked down into the grave and said, "I'll come 
back."

The Ivy Club is two blocks from the White House and the suits that go 
in and out fit perfectly at the shoulders but not at the waist. 
Instead  of a doorman, the club has a human catcher's mitt.  He looked
at my  uniform as though I had wandered over from the delivery
entrance.

"I'm here to meet Emerson Carroll."  "Of course, sir.  Mr.  Carroll 
expects you in our bar.  Do you know your way around the club, sir? 
The  bar is on the second level."  Worn-down Persians on the floor. 
Museum  woodwork.  Smell of steamed vegetables and wax.  It was Tuesday
evening  and the club was nearly empty.  Em sat alone in the bar,
smoking a  cigar over whiskey.  He had been a terrible sight at the
burial  ceremony, and even in this softer light, his face looked
ruined.  I  don't know whether I had been more surprised by the speed
of his physical decline or by the fact that he had bothered to turn up
at  Farnsworth's graveside.  Emerson Carroll was a second-tier player 
edging toward first-tier status.  He was big stuff in this town.  Dead 
generals were of no use to anybody.

"You look like Cornelius Vanderbilt," I said.  Em did not get up.  He
smiled without showing his teeth, and I could smell the whiskey.  One 
of the fundamental rules of social biology is that hard liquor is 
especially tough on golden boys.  He swept his fingers back over his 
ashen hair, briefly tightening the skin on his forehead.  He did not 
offer me his hand.  "John, I do not believe for a moment that you have 
the slightest idea how Cornelius Vanderbilt actually looked.  Sit 
down."  He had a legacy accent from a New England China-trade family. 
As a lieutenant, he had been daring and fun, full of wicked stories
about the Kennedy kids.  He had joined the Army to piss off his father,
but the novelty had faded after a single tour of duty.  For all that, 
he had possessed a gift for soldiering, for leading.  And he tossed 
it.

At first, we kept in touch.  But the com ms broke down over the years. 
I saw his name in the papers.  Sometimes in the political gossip, 
otherwise in the business columns.  By the time I was assigned to 
Washington, Emerson Carroll was Grand Poobah for Government Relations 
at Macon-Bolt Industries, the largest defense contractor in the world. 
He was also a player on every defense panel and foreign relations 
committee on the Potomac.  He invited me to one party.  The men talked 
to the Congressmen they were buying and the women whispered about the 
Congressmen who were buying them.  I failed to measure up.  Now here we
were.  A shaken fat man at a funeral, Em had begged me to come.  He 
seemed to have regained his composure in the meantime.  Maybe it was 
the booze.

"} thought you had to be dead to join this place."  Em shrugged.  "It 
helps.  But it's not a requirement."  He noticed me looking at the 
cigar.  "Like one?"

"I still don't smoke."

"Cigars don't count."

"It all counts."  His mouth was as narrow as a knife scar.  "Ever the 
puritan. Although not in all things, as I recall.  You'd do fine in 
this administration, actually.  The President has marvelous negative 
capability."  He stubbed the cigar into the ashtray.  "Montecristo. 
Never the same if you relight them. Drink?"

I ordered a beer.  Em tapped his glass for another whiskey.  He settled
back in his chair and stared at me.  "Well," he said finally, "you're 
looking well, John.  All that clean living.  Still run every day?" 
"What's on your mind, Em?  Or do burials just make you nostalgic?" 
"Don't be a shit," Em said finally.  "I still consider you a friend, 
John.  If a neglected one.  Town does that to people, you know.  Get 
all caught up in this government business.  Incredi biy inefficient, 
the way we run this country.  Never enough time for the important
things."  He considered his ruined cigar.  "Got it.  So what do you 
want?"  I had a special grudge against Em these days.  I was one of the
legion of staff officers sweating blood to keep an underfunded Army 
alive, while Em's corporation was about to sell the Department of 
Defense an airplane that even the official estimates said would cost us
two hundred billion over the next ten years--which meant three hundred
billion, minimum.  The Next-Generation Fighter-Bomber was going to do 
everything perfectly.  It would be the most capable, survivable, and 
lethal aircraft in history.  Except for the fact that we did not need 
it and could not afford it, the NGFB looked like a great deal for 
America.  Corporate welfare as an art form.  We had soldiers and their 
families on food stamps, living in pits.  We didn't have training 
dollars and our medical care had collapsed to the Spanish-American War 
level.  The threats on the international horizon were thugs with old 
Kalashnikovs and mass murderers with Elvis haircuts and peekaboo 
terrorists.  There was no mission in sight for Em's 
three-hundred-billion-dollar airplane.  If one popped up unexpectedly, 
we already had enough techno-junk to do the job.  We were short of the 
dull stuff that mattered.  Like infantrymen and trucks.  The NGFB was 
going to break the defense budget.  But Congress was going to fund it. 
Bugger the troops.  You could feel the vote coming.  Just in case 
Senator Schweinefleisch got nervous, Macon-Bolt Industries was running 
full-page ads in the big dailies telling the country what a bargain the
NGFB would be for the national defense and for mankind.  It was going 
to keep America's sons and daughters alive.  The Army and Marines would
not even need to deploy.  The NGFB would bomb the global village with 
voodoo precision.  The "public service" ads were a business expense
that would be charged back to the taxpayers by way of the NGFB's 
funding.  It was the ultimate self-licking ice-cream cone.  Macon-Bolt 
also happened to be the nation's biggest campaign contributor.  To both
parties.  And to every PAC with a downtown address.  For insurance,
the  corporation's CEO, Bob Nechestny, had loaded his boardroom with
retired  generals and admirals who showed up once a year to earn their
half a  mil.  They slimed through the Pentagon in not-quite-right
suits, just  dropping by to say hi to their former subordinates. The
Mexicans had  their style of corruption, we had ours.  Em shifted in
his chair.  "All  right.  Look.  I'm sorry.  I've been a bastard.  The
original thankless friend.  But I do have some questions I'd like to
ask you, John.  Things  ... I can't ask just anybody."  He looked at me
with an intensity that  brought back memories of better times.  "I'm
asking for your help.  At  least for the loan of an ear.  I'm asking in
an unaccustomed spirit of  humility.  You may be the only person left I
can trust."  I knew Em was  a con and I put my guard right back up. I
wondered how many questions  he had.  I kept flashing on Tish and the
birthday present in the trunk  of my car and on sex.  A snort of
mortality always makes me want sex.  "I can't do an all-night bullshit
session, Em.  I've got something scheduled."  Em waved that away. 
"Won't take long.  Give me half an  hour."  He shifted and straightened
his tie.  Suddenly, he looked like  he was having a bad time on the
witness stand.  "John .. . do you know  anything about the blast at
that French aircraft research site  yesterday?" "The bombing?"

"Was it a bombing?"  I shrugged and drank.  The beer tasted good, but I
 could get a beer anywhere.  "So the newspapers seem to think."

"I'm not interested in what the newspapers think.  Don't give me that."
Voice cold now.  Impatient.  Very much the corporate muckety-muck.  Em
was not steady on course tonight.  "Come on, Em.  You want classified 
information?  From me?  I don't owe you anything, and I don't break the
rules."  "I'm cleared.  For Christ's sake, John.  I have clearances
for  programs you don't even know exist.  Defense industry has--" "No
way,  pal.  Call one of your four-star butt boys.  Anyway, France isn't
my  turf.  I don't work current intel anymore.  I'm just trying to make
sure we've still got an Army left when you're done grabbing the
money." "Just tell me what people are saying around the Building. 
What's the scuttlebutt?"  Then I got it.  Or thought I did.  "That's
cold, Em.  Pretty goddamned grim.  That lab was your competition,
right?  The  French aircraft industry."  I laughed.  "You blow it up
yourselves?  Or  just have a streak of good luck?"  Em didn't rise to
it.  He leaned  closer with his wrecked face.  I imagined a different
sort of life for  him then, not all successes and corporate perks.
"Please, John.  I  need you to come through for me on this.  It's more
important than you  can imagine.  Very sensitive stuff.  Can't you give
me any insight?" The answer was no.  I had seen the footage on CNN,
read the Post in the  morning, and scanned the Early Bird.  A
high-security aircraft research  facility outside Toulouse had been
flattened by a bomb.  Midmorning,  for maximum employee attendance. 
Hundreds dead, including some high  rollers.  Oklahoma City, with red
wine for lunch.  But I had not read  any intel traffic on it.  "All
I've got is the POAC stuff," I told him.  "Wisdom from the locker room.
Same line you're hearing from the media.  Algerians.  FIS crowd. 
Bombs for Allah.  The frogs have their hands  full.  The Empire Strikes
Back."  "

Em finished his whiskey and briefly held up a finger in the direction 
of the bar.  "Want another?"  I shook my head.  I was not going to play
happy hour at the 0-Club with him.  "Keep me posted on this one. 
Anything you hear.  Will you do that, John?  It's more important than I
can tell you right now."  "I didn't think the French were serious 
competition for you boys."  "They're not.  Can't even build the designs
 they steal.  Country's nothing but a museum."

"So why the interest?"

"It's not about competition."

"What is it about?"  "I can't tell you."  A bitter look passed over 
Em's face. "And you don't want to know."  He reached for his wallet. 
The effort popped sweat onto his forehead.  "Here."  He handed me a 
card.  "This number's unlisted. Use it."  "Em, you've just moved from 
treating an old friend like shit to treating him like a dumb shit.  Why
should I help you out on this?  Or on anything?  So Macon-Bolt can 
extort an extra twenty or thirty billion from the taxpayer?  I don't do
Washington intrigue.  And I don't trust you."  The bartender hovered 
again.  Em smiled.  "It really is good to see you," he told me.  "Like 
old times.  You always had that charming crusader streak."  Which is 
why, he seemed to say, you're still only a lieutenant colonel in the 
Army.  "Okay," I said.  "My turn.  Just to satisfy my curiosity.  What 
brought you to the Farnsworth show?  I figured a major general would be
flying way below your radar coverage."  "For Christ's sake, John.
Farnsworth and I go way back."  His eyes switched to the direct-fire 
mode.  "All three of us do.  You and I both owed the guy.  Any other 
battalion XO in the Army would've court-martialed our asses.  You 
would've never even made captain and the DIS boys would've yanked my 
clearance forever."

"You don't exactly ooze gratitude these days."  Em looked genuinely 
surprised. "John .. . Farnsworth and I were friends.  Well .  maybe 
not what you'd call friends.  We didn't take the blood oath of the 
Templars.  But I've seen quite a lot of him these past months."  That 
answer did not track.  I had not worked directly for Farnsworth in the 
Pentagon, but our projects overlapped and we saw each other often.  He 
and Mary regularly invited me to their home for dinner.  At least until
Tish entered the picture.  Mary did not approve of Tish.  But the
general had never said a word about seeing Em again.  Em's corporation 
was the Dark Side, out to reduce the Army to a ceremonial battalion so 
the Department of Defense could buy more solid gold toys with wings.

"He never told me that he'd seen you."  Em did not meet my eyes.
"Special-project sort of thing.  You weren't read on."

"Don't give me that secret-handshake crap."  He raised his face. 
Drawing himself up from a well of thought.  "Look, I don't know why he 
didn't say anything. Don't let it hurt your feelings.  I know he 
thought the world of you.  He was proud of you.  But the project stuff 
was for real.  In fact, that's already more than I should've told you."
"It doesn't track."  I looked away from him and stared into the
windows  of the building across the street.  The last office workers
were  stuffing their briefcases.  "John?"  Em said after a pause. 
"Please. Just close that particular folder.  There's something else I
need to  ask you. It's .. . something even more important."  He looked
ten  years older than he should have.  Maybe fifteen.  He played with
his  empty glass.

"John ... do you believe in redemption?"

"What?"

"Redemption."

"As in God and repentance and forgiveness?"  "Not exactly.  I mean,
yes.  But in the here and now.  Do you think we can atone for the
things  we've done wrong?"

"What kind of things?"

"Bad things."  His hands were shaking.  When he saw me looking, he 
folded them together.  But the flesh still trembled.

"Jesus Christ, Em."  I thought he was going to break down on the spot. 
But the air changed again.  He sat up.  And smiled.  A smile carved 
into the face of a corpse.  He nodded toward the entrance to the bar. 
A young woman in a blue dress had stopped at the head of the stairs. 
Framing herself in the doorway so we could admire her.  The dress was 
slight--a breeze would have dissolved it--and her legs looked as long 
as a politician's list of excuses.  She carried a wispy briefcase.  Her
features were the precise sort that make you suspect old families of 
selectively killing their infants to improve the breed.  Hair blond,
worn short.  No jewelry.  Not the kind of girl whose labels stick up at
the back of her neck.  She extended her pose for a few seconds before 
starting toward us. Theater, with plausible denial.  Em stood up.  I 
followed his example.  Without losing his smile, he whispered, "She's 
getting ready to leave me.  You get to know the signs."

All I could think was: That girl doesn't need Em.  "Corry, I'd like you
to meet John Reynolds, my old Army buddy.  John, Corry Nevers."  She 
turned out to be shorter than the impression she created.  She gave me 
her hand.  It was dry and cool.  "Emerson's told me ever so much about 
you."

"Cony's on Senator Faust's staff.  She's absolutely in charge of 
defense policy on the Hill."  I glanced at my watch.  Thinking of Tish.
More anxious than ever to leave.  "Why don't you two just sit down and
get acquainted," Em said.  "You always appreciated good wine, John. 
Corry's a wine drinker, too.  I'll go search out something a bit better
than the bar blend."  And he left me with her.  As soon as he cleared 
the doorway, she leaned in, breath vanilla, and said, "You don't look 
old enough to be Emerson's Army buddy."  It was one of those times when
you want to say something clever and fail to say anything at all.  She
leaned closer.  "I suppose he's going on about his redemption thing 
again."  She showed perfect white teeth the way another woman might 
have flashed thigh. "He's turning into such a bore."

One of the best things in life is a lover who is genuinely glad to see 
you walk in.  Tish gave me a real kiss and the zipper line on her jeans
 plowed into my crotch.

"Happy birthday to me," she said.

"Happy birthday, Tish."

"I was afraid you wouldn't get home before I had to go."  I could smell
the dinner she had made to celebrate her own birthday.  "Sorry.  I had
to stop by and see a friend.  Serious stuff."  We had not been
together  long enough for things to be spoiled.  "Oh?  Who?"  Asked
with that  innocence she had preserved through some miracle.  Despite
her choice  of occupations and the tattoo on her shoulder. She hugged
me again.  "Sometimes I just want to squeeze you."

"Emerson Carroll.  Doubt I ever mentioned him.  Not really a friend 
anymore. Ancient history.  We used to get into trouble together."  Tish
laughed.  "I can't imagine you ever getting into trouble.  Mr. 
Perfect."

"We were all young once."

Tish put on a ridiculously serious look.  "You're still young."  The 
ten years' difference in our ages was a sensitive point with her.  Tish
did not care, but her friends were shits.  About a lot of things. 
"Well, old Em isn't.  He's got one foot in the grave.  Drinker.  Big 
success at all the wrong things.  You wouldn't approve."  "I like your 
friends."  Which was true.  Tish liked everybody. And I wished more of 
my friends liked her.  The guys leered, while their wives closed ranks 
against Tish's age, and her chopped red hair, and the cat leanness of 
her.  And the music.  "Listen, cowgirl.  I want you to just turn around
and face away from the door.  And stay there.  No peeking.  I've got
to  get something out of the car."  She turned around as smartly as a 
recruit, then stood with a knee cocked and one hip higher than the 
other.  I wanted to carry her upstairs. I went out to the car and got 
her present.  When I came back in she was still standing at ease.

"Okay.  Turn around."  Tish had been playing the guitar since she was a
kid in Indiana and she would have known this was a Gibson and the 
approximate model just from the shape of the case.  But she was still 
going to get a surprise when she lifted the lid.

"John," she said.  Her eyes went hyper-alive.

"Well, check it out.  And happy birthday."  She undid the latches like 
a kid tearing off wrapping paper.  Then she knelt before the opened 
guitar coffin, a Buddhist in front of an altar.  She did not even touch
 the instrument.

"John ... is that .. . ?"

"An original.  For the most original woman I know."  She touched it 
then. Stroking the neck.  Ebony fingerboard, mother-of-pearl insets. 
It was an old Les Paul Gibson, the rocker's equivalent of a 
Stradivarius.  Finally, she lifted it out of the case.  A Les Paul is 
awkward to hold unless you've got it strapped over your shoulder.  Tish
just clutched it against her ribs and breasts.  Without even trying to
shape a chord.  Then she began to cry.  "Nobody's ever been so good to
 me," she said.  "Not in all my life.  Nobody."

We lay in bed with the dinner downstairs waiting.  Whatever might have 
been incomprehensible to others about the John and Tish Show, there 
were plenty of good things on the program.  The twilight came in the 
window and her white flesh shone.

"I wish I didn't have to play tonight," she said.

"Me, too."

"I've got to get going."

"Right."  She rolled closer and I held her.  My nose touching the 
little line of earrings.

"Thank you," she said.

"Taking it with you tonight?"  "I didn't mean about the guitar.  Thanks
for being you.  But thanks for the guitar, too.  It's wonderful. 
You're  from Fairy Tale City."

"I'm anxious to hear you play it."  She roiled her skin against me. 
Cool, a little wet.  The ear retreated and hair rushed my mouth.  "I'll
play it for you first.  I'm not going to take it tonight.  I have to 
get used to it."  She nipped onto her back and dropped her head into 
the pillow.  "It's scary, you know that?"

"What's scary?"

"The guitar.  It probably cost more than my car."  It had cost a lot 
more than her car, which had more rust than paint.  Tish raised the 
issue in a voice that had no greed in it, only wonder.  She had lived a
musician's vow-of-poverty life for a decade.  Credit cards maxed out 
until they were voided.  She was not much of a cook, but she meant well
and she was a mistress of kitchen economies.  Her Telecaster and amp 
had been her primary possessions.  When I met her, she lived in one 
clean room.  "If you're thinking about your car," I told her, "it means
it's broken down again."

I could feel her blushing.  "Can I borrow your car?  Just one more 
time?  To make the gig.  I'll be careful."  "You know you can borrow
the  car."  I rose onto an elbow, admiring the dark lines and
palenesses, not  wanting her to go anywhere. "You have time to eat
something before you  go?"  She rolled toward me and shadows moved
against shadows.  "I'll  get a sandwich at the club.  It's free for the
band.  There's another  way I'd rather spend my time."  There were
plenty of things that did  not match up in our relationship.  At the
Pentagon, I worked the kind  of hours that unions had fought against at
the turn of the century.  Tish played evenings, or did late shows like
tonight.  Her friends, who  had missed the integrity of the sixties but
not the prejudices,  wondered what Tish saw in a fascist baby-killer. 
My friends were  convinced they knew exactly what I went for in Tish. 
We blew them all  off and stole every moment we could between the end
of my workday and  the beginning of hers.  We lived for the weekend
afternoons.  We met in  one of those Georgetown book-and-music stores
where the clerks dress in  black and spend their lives waiting for a
break in their "real" occupation.  It was after work and I was in
uniform, picking up my fourth copy of Marianne Faithfull's

Broken English.  It was The Recording Nobody Ever Returned.  I noticed 
Tish. Couldn't miss her.  Picking through the discs with that red hair 
and a cast-off undertaker's suit that was the thrift shop's answer to 
Armani.  But it took me only a few seconds to file her under 
What-doyoudowiththebody-in the-morning? She was the one who got things 
started.  "Excuse me," she said.  "You might not like that one."  I 
looked at her as though she had slapped me.  "I mean," she said, "like 
.. . you don't look ... I mean, have you ever heard that?  It's uh .
colorful.  I mean, I just wanted to be .. ."  A Gen X girl scout, 
helping me across the musical street.  "I bought my first copy of it on
LP," I said.  "In Germany.  In 1979."  "I'm sorry.  I wasn't trying to
be rude.  I mean .. ."  With an emotional sunburn on her face, Tish 
pushed a flame of hair behind her ear and stared at me.  Waiting for 
punishment.  When I got her full face and read the eyes, there was a 
vulnerability to her that made me soften my voice.  "You a Marianne 
Faithfull fan?"  I asked her.  "Are you kidding?  She's a god.  That's
her all-time greatest.  It's one of the best albums ever.  If I could 
just make one recording like that" We had coffee where they knew her 
and she asked me to come hear her band.  The music was good enough, but
not great.  Tish played with passion that veered into frustration, as 
if she could not move the music from her soul to her fingers without 
losing the best of it.  I told her I had enjoyed myself.  And it was 
true.  I had enjoyed watching her.  She had the look, if not the gift. 
I pegged her as one of those minor talents damned to appreciate
greatness without possessing it. I liked the feel of the air around
her.  I admired her earnestness

and loved the mick hair.  In the beginning, I also got off on spiting 
her friends.  Who imagined me grinding innocents between my jaws.  She,
in her patchy naivete, wore a little black dress that showed the blue 
guitar tattoo on her shoulder to Mary Farnsworth's dinner guests.  Then
she compounded her sin with a heartfelt comment about Newt Gingrich. 
Nobody bothered to learn that she also did volunteer work with 
inner-city kids and loved nineteenth-century English novels, accepting 
each word with the avidity of a child.  We taped every BBC miniseries 
so we could watch them together.  At night she held me as if I were the
only man in the world.  "Got to go," my birthday girl said at last, 
kissing me once and rising.  "Wake me when you get home."  She showered
 and went out with her hair wet.

I listened to her footsteps on the pavement, then I listened to the 
city sounds.  Bus grunting to a stop on the corner, dropout moms 
laughing with each other as they strolled home to Indian country.  The 
urban surf of cars.  Sirens. A boom box proclaiming doomed identity. 
The air-conditioning unit kicked back in.  Capitol Hill, America's 
ground zero.  I pulled on my shorts in the darkness and went 
downstairs.  Tish had made vegetarian lasagna for her birthday dinner
and I fetched my plate from the setting she had arranged on the kitchen
 table.

There was a note under the plate.  It said:

This isn 't my real birthday anymore.  My life started over the day I 
met you.

It struck me that I should have gone to hear her play on her birthday. 
But my mornings started early, and we had worked out our patterns.  I 
went to the important Saturday night gigs.  And Tish understood.  But I
sat there over her make-this-last-until-payday lasagna and felt as 
though I had failed her.  I put my food down the garbage disposal so 
she would think I had eaten it, and went back to bed.  More city 
sounds.  A domestic scene in the yard of a house two doors down that 
had been turned into rental units.  An automobile alarm.  Faint jazz 
from a neighbor.  I could not stop thinking about Farnsworth.  And 
about Em.  I could smell Tish on the sheets, and missed the feel of 
her.  The best nights of my life were those when she was not working. 
Yet I could not imagine a long-term future with her.  I lay there 
awake, sensing great things moving beyond my range of vision.  Except 
for the hour with Tish, it had been a very bad day.  When I did crash, 
I crashed hard.  I have no idea how long the doorbell had been ringing 
before it registered on me.  I jerked up.  Tish had a habit of
forgetting her keys.  Or her wallet.  Or the be-on-time watch I had 
given her at Christmas.  I found my shorts again and pounded 
downstairs, yelling, / "Coming." I yanked open the door and found 
myself an arm's length from Em's girl.  She stood in the cast of the 
hall light, still perfect, wearing the same tease-the-peasants blue 
dress.  But her eyes had changed.

"Em's dead," she said.  "They killed him.  Help me." Hysteria comes in
almost as many varieties as love.  I had seen it in  men lightly
wounded, and in refugees with dead families and burning  houses behind
them, in mobs and in mosques.  Hysteria was part of the  scenery in the
post-Cold War Army.  In Corry Nevers, hysteria took one  of its quieter
forms.  She trembled, inhumanly taut, and could not  answer a question
until the third time it had been asked.  Then she  cascaded words.  She
and Em had gone over to Lespinasse for dinner.  For high rollers only,
the restaurant was just off Sixteenth Street,  well within the downtown
safety zone centered on the White House.  But  as they walked back to
Em's car, two men stepped out of a doorway. They had guns and said they
wanted wallets.  They shot Em several times  and ran, empty-handed,
leaving Corry screaming on the sidewalk.  In  another triumph for the
mayor's imperial guard, the cops took her in  and yelled at her for a
couple of hours just in case she was the  killer.

She was so spooked that she begged me to let her come upstairs while I 
got dressed.  Whenever I made an unexpected move, she quivered like a 
hammered board.  I sat her down in the kitchen and made tea, which she 
did not drink.

I wished I had been a bit nicer to Em the evening before.  Corry did 
not meet my eyes.  The tightness in her threatened an explosion.  "I 
can't believe it," she muttered again.  "I still can't believe it.  I 
should've--" "Nothing you could've done.  Listen .. . just tell me 
something, okay?  Why did you come to me?"

"What?"

"How did you even know where I live?"  She stirred the tea she had not 
drunk. Gripping the spoon so hard her fingers mottled.

"What brought you to me, Corry?"  Surprise molded her face.  "Em 
trusted you.  He talked about you.  A great deal.  More and more often.
He told me ... he said I could count on you.  If there were any 
problems."  Her facial muscles hit trouble.  "I thought he was crazy." 
Tears.  It occurred to me that these were the first I had seen.  "I 
mean, he couldn't have known what was going to happen." Her wet eyes 
searched.  "Could he?"  One bad day was spilling into another.  I had
been hard on Em and I did not like myself very much.  And I did not 
much like Corry Nevers.  Maybe it was jealousy.  Even now, she had a 
classic feel Tish would never possess.  Tish turned heads.  Corry 
Nevers changed lives.  "I'm afraid to go home," she said.  "I know it's
wrong.  But I feel like they'll be waiting for me.  That they might 
know where I live.  I'm the only witness."  Random-victim thugs did not
work like that.  Dully, I asked her, "Were they wearing masks or
anything?  You get a good look at them?"  The words did not penetrate. 
I was ready to ask again when I heard familiar footsteps on the 
sidewalk. Tish let herself in and hurried into the kitchen.  With all
the lights  on, she must have assumed I had stayed up to greet her. 
When she saw  Corry, she really saw her.

"And who," Tish asked, "is this?"

"I 'll drive her home," Tish said.  "You need to sleep."  I had gone 
upstairs to get my wallet with my driver's license.  Tish followed me, 
in a heavy metal mood.  "Tish .. . she's scared.  She'd probably feel 
safer if I took her."  Tish rolled her eyes operatically, but settled 
them back on me.  "Scared?  I guarantee you, that girl hasn't been 
scared since the day she was born.  God, you're so blind sometimes."

I smiled.  "Keep your voice down, okay?"

Tish leaned over the bed.  "I know what she's up to."  "For Christ's 
sake, Tish. Her boyfriend just got gunned down in the street.  She 
watched the man die.  She might be just a little spooked."  Tish 
punched her fists into her hips.  "Yeah? Well, how come the first 
thing she does is take a taxi to the house of some guy she just met?  I
 mean, she's efficient.  I'll say that for her."

"She explained that."

"I'll bet she did."

"If you want to come along for the ride .. ."  "Why can't I drive her 
home?  Just what would be so terrible about that?"  Tish shook her 
head.  "I swear to God, John.  Maybe you've been all around the world, 
but sometimes you don't understand a thing."

"Got to go."  Tish changed the climate.  "Wait.  Please.  Yeah, okay. 
I'm jealous. Who wouldn't be?"  Celtic eyes programmed for suffering. 
"I mean ... I can't wait to get home.  I'm just thinking about it all 
night, you know?  And I walk in.  And there's my guy all snuggly with 
Miss Ritz-Carlton .. ."

"Tish, I have no interest ..."  "John, you don't know what you have an 
interest in.  That first night .. . you didn't think you were 
interested in me, either."

"Tish .. . it's almost four in the morning."  She crossed her arms. 
"Exactly.  If you went to bed right now, you could sleep for a little 
over an hour.  And I guarantee you, she and your buddy were shacked up 
in far Northwest.  Five bucks says there's a river view.  You'd never 
get back in time."  The truth was that I ached to sleep.  Too much had 
happened too quickly.  I could not quite grasp the world around me. 
And  Tish was dead on: Em's place was way up in Northwest.  Long drive
from  Capitol Hill, even in off hours.  "Don't just drop her off.  Go
in with  her, make sure she feels safe.  She really is scared."  "I'll
hold her little hand," Tish said.  All my career, I had been trained
to pay  attention to my instincts.  Now, when it counted, I ignored
them.  All  I said was, "Call me if anything seems out of whack, okay?"
Tish gave  me a pitying look.  "John, I swear.  You really do need
somebody to  protect you from the big bad world." Corry Nevers accepted
the change  in chauffeurs without comment, but I sensed that she did
not like it  much.  She had used the time Tish and I spent arguing to
reconstruct  herself into the kind of woman who walks out of a K Street
elevator and  looks right through any man who doesn't make a couple of
hundred thousand a year.  On the way out the door, she took me by the
hand.  The eyes that had been indigo an hour before had faded back to 
ice-water blue.

"Thank you," she said.  "You've been wonderfully understanding.  Em was
right about you."  She held on to my hand just long enough to really 
piss Tish off.  By the time I got back into bed, I had less than an 
hour before it was time to hit the shower and pull on a uniform again. 
I flopped on my belly and went out hard.  I thought it was the alarm 
clock.  But it was the phone.  By the time I figured it out, I had 
knocked the clock onto the floor and nearly took out a lamp.

"Hello?"  It was Tish.  Her tone woke me the rest of the way.  Then I 
registered the screaming in the background.

"John," Tish said.  "You've got to get over here.  Hurry."

"Where are you?  What's the matter?"  Tish was shouting now, but not 
into the phone.  "What's the goddamned address?  Tell me the goddamned 
address."  "Tish. It's all right.  I've got Em's address.  Calm down. 
What happened?"  Tish sobered her voice.  But I got the deep fear in 
it.  "John, just hurry.  You need to see this."

"What is it?  You called the police?  What--" "I can't call the 
police," Tish said, but the words did not sink in.  All I registered 
was her panic.  "I need you."

"Tish, you've got my car."

"Call a cab.  Anything.  Please."

"Buddy," the detective told me, "you're trying my patience."  He had 
badged me and introduced himself as Detective Lieutenant Dickey.  His 
name almost made me like him for a fraction of a sliver of a 
millisecond.  "I can almost buy the blondie running to you for career 
counseling after her boyfriend gets popped." He wiped the back of his 
hand across his chin.  "People do stupid things under stress.  And I 
can figure out how the downstairs neighbor hears more than he needs to 
and stumbles in on this and winds up giving blood."  He looked around
the bedroom where he had isolated me for questioning.  Like all of the 
rooms in Em's apartment, it had been destroyed.  Walls knocked in, 
hardwood floors torn up.  Quite a job for one night.  "I can even 
understand," the detective continued, "why your old lady drives blondie
home.  Oh, I got that, all right." He pulled his chair closer to mine.
"But what I still don't get is why she calls you before she calls the 
police."  He made a seen-it-all face.  "In this town, mister, you call 
the cops when you got a problem.  You don't call the Army.  So how 
about inviting me into the information age and telling me where you fit
in here?"  I would have told him where I fit in, if I had known.  I
thought I was sitting in a chair.  Just as I had thought I was just 
having a drink with an old friend the night before.  In the reality I 
had not yet figured out, I was tumbling down one flight of stairs after
another.  As for calling the D.C. cops, the detective had a weak grip 
on reality.  The locals were as scared of the police as they were of 
the criminals.  "I've told you everything I can think of," I said. 
"You said yourself people under stress make bad judgment calls.  Tish 
probably figured I'd know what to do."  The detective looked at me as 
though he had caught me with a gun in my hand and I was trying to 
convince him it was a flower.  "Buddy," he said, "your girlfriend does 
not strike me as the helpless type."  Em's lost world lay all around 
me.  Antiques smashed, pillows slashed.  Drawers emptied onto the
floor.  I did not see anything that might have belonged to Corry.  They
could  not have been together long. Another plainclothesman half
knocked and came in.

carrying papers.  Dickey looked at him, and the plainclothesman smiled.
"Interesting crew.  Lieutenant.  Check out the redhead's record."

Tish never said anything to me about a police record.  The detective 
took the papers and made a performance out of looking at them.  He 
clucked and shook his head, smiling a little smile that made me want to
knock him out of his chair.  I wanted to know about Tish, and he knew 
it.  "Well, Colonel.  Looks like you're a model citizen.  Not even a 
speeding ticket.  So how'd you get mixed up with Miss O'Malley?  I take
 it ... you do know about Miss O'Malley's record?"

"I know all I need to know about her," I lied.  "And you don't care 
that she pleaded guilty to cocaine possession?  That she hasn't been 
off probation a year?  Tell you the truth, she should've done time, 
considering the amount."  He smiled again.  "But she's a looker, I 
guess.  If you go for that long, lean type. Figure she knew what she 
had to do.  Got a "Suspicion Of Receiving Stolen Goods' in there, too. 
But you would've known all about that."  Tish had buzzed me in the 
front door.  When I came in, she was sitting in a broken chair, staring
at the body.  Corry Nevers had bunched herself in the corner.  All 
screamed out, sobbing and shaking.  I called the cops immediately, too 
thick to wonder why the intruders had left the phone working.  Tish 
dropped her tough-girl act and I held her until the police arrived. 
She  kept her back turned to the body and trembled.

There was nothing I could do for Corry.  I let her sob.  I've seen 
corpses.  Not as many as some other soldiers with a couple of decades 
of paper in their 201 files, but more than most Cold War commandos.  I 
can recognize a strong hand and a clean kill.  One slash across the 
throat had nearly taken the old man's head off.

Lot of blood in a human being.  The cops straightened out Corry long 
enough to learn that the dead man was the downstairs neighbor.  Poor 
bugger probably heard noises he could not explain, and he was from a 
generation that did not ignore a neighbor's troubles.  I looked at the 
detective and said, "If you need to keep me here, I'd like to call in 
to work and let them know I'm not A.W.O.L.." Dickey put his hands on 
his knees.  As if to rise.  But he did not get up. "Buddy," he said, 
"you got a connection to two murders.  And you got a girlfriend with a 
sheet.  But I don't want you to worry about that.  I want you to just 
go and put on a nice clean uniform and protect us all from the Russians
or the Serbians or the fucking Canadians or whoever's coming this 
week."  He shoved a hand back over scraps of hair.  "You can go." 
"What about Ms.  O'Malley? She hasn't done anything."  The detective 
laughed.  "How about interfering with the scene of a crime?  Maybe even
an obstruction of justice count, if I write it up smart.  We even got
a  "Failure To Notify' ordinance here in the District."  He waved a
hand.  Swatting a fly.  "Get her out of here.  And keep her off the
powder, okay?"

"And Ms.  Nevers?  What happens to her?"  The detective judged me 
again.  "Thinking about trading up?"

"She's all alone."  He grinned.  "A woman like that's only alone if she
wants to be."  I moved to leave.  But Detective Dickey was not done 
saying goodbye.  "Hey, soldier boy.  You probably think I'm the shits. 
Useless fucking D.C. cop, right? Well, how about you try to keep this 
town clean with no budget and nobody gives a damn."  He gave me a smile
of hatred.  "You guys with your million-dollar toilet seats."  They 
were holding Tish in the entranceway.  As I walked out, two fat men in 
white were loading a body bag onto a stretcher while a cop ate an Egg 
McMuffin.

"You never told me you had a police record," I said.  The morning 
traffic crept along Massachusetts.  Tish put her face down into her 
hands.  "Please.  Could we talk about it later?"  The Volvo idling in 
front of me had a bumper sticker that said, "My child is an honor 
student at Barksdale PreSchool."

"Yeah," I said, shifting up into second.  "Later."

Tish was crying.  "You want me to get out?"

We hit another light.

"I don't know what I want," I told her honestly.  She touched my 
forearm, then quickly removed her hand.  As if she had scorched it.  I 
kept my eyes on the traffic.  But I got the peripheral of her lowered 
head.  Hung by the seat belt. "It wasn't my coke," she said.  "And the 
stereo stuff.  I was seeing a guy who turned out to be a bastard.  He 
was using my place as a stash.  I didn't know about the dope.  Or that 
his gear was stolen.  I swear to God.  I didn't know, John.  He kept 
the coke in a locked suitcase.  He was dealing out of my place when I 
was at gigs.  I didn't know, I didn't know."  Her body shook.  "I'm so
stupid.  He screwed me over so bad."  Her hand stirred, lifted, 
retreated.  Horns blared when a car did not respond instantaneously to 
a changed light.

"You lied to me," I said.

"I didn't lie."

"Silence is lying."  She wept bitterly.  "I didn't want to lose you.  I
 was afraid.  Can't you understand?"

It was my turn to be silent.

"Didn't you .. . didn't you ever fall for the wrong person?"  Tish
asked.  "Didn't you ever make a mistake?  Not even once?"  A
smacked-in  Dodge cut me off and I hit the brakes.  "Maybe I did," I
told her.

When I got into work, the guys were gathered around the television in 
our conference room.  "How can that motherfucker say that?"  Scottie 
had just come back from Bosnia, where he had lost two soldiers to a 
land mine because the Army could not afford decent mine detectors.  The
SecDef was on C-SPAN, testifying before the Senate Armed Services 
Committee.  Except for Scottie's outburst, the room was morbidly quiet.
"..  . no doubt in the minds of the experts.  Senator.  Our military 
needs that aircraft.  And by maintaining the projected purchase 
quantity, we can maximize per-unit afford ability It's going to cost 
us, but the services are prepared to sacrifice.  In terms of the
American lives it's going to save on tomorrow's battlefields, the
Next-Generation Fighter-Bomber is a bargain."  Colonel Maurey switched 
off the set.  The boss, a full colonel, silver eagles and a brush cut. 
"All right.  Back to work.  Let's just try to keep the world together 
until the wonder plane comes on line."  It was heartbreaking to hear 
the SecDef tell such a big lie.  Every one of us knew we did not need 
that airplane and that it would break the defense budget.  When you got
them alone, even the Air Force and Navy pilots would admit it.  But 
they wanted it anyway, enraptured by the technology. Invisible to 
radar, intercontinental reach, max payload, protective suite right out 
of Star Wars.  The Navy would get a carrier variant.  The generals and
admirals were like middle-aged guys who buy Porsches when they really 
need family vans.

I followed Colonel Maurey into his office and gave him the highlights 
of the past twenty-four hours.  He was the kind of man who could have 
had good suits and a corner office.  Instead, he wore a polyester 
uniform and manned a battered desk in a windowless cubbyhole.  He 
leaned back in his chair and said, "How much time do you need?"  "Sir, 
I'd like to take leave through the end of the week.  Go to my buddy's 
funeral.  Visit Mary Farnsworth, see if there's anything I can do.
Think a little."

"What's on your work calendar?"  "We're clean on the suspenses.  Future
Conflict NIE's on track.  Nick can cover the attache reception for me.
I was going to catch the shuttle down to TRADOC on Friday, but that
was  just for hand-holding."  "E-mail me the leave form."  He put his
hands  behind his head. "Sounds like you're having some run of bad
luck,  John.  Be a little careful, okay?"

"Yes, sir."  "So how was Farnsworth's ceremony?  I got held up in the 
Watch."  I shrugged.  "Chief came.  Secretary didn't.  Standard mix of 
regret and crocodile tears.  Less than he deserved."  "Farnsworth .. . 
will be missed," Maurey said. From his mouth, those four words carried 
more punch than a full-page obit in the Post.  "Call me if you need 
anything." "If you need anything at all," I told Mary Farnsworth,
"just call me.  Please." She looked at me gently.  As though I were the
one in need of  comfort.  Mary was a member of what Southerners call
"The Other  Aristocracy," and she had a fineness that would have shamed
a queen.  She was the only person I knew who poured coffee from silver
for every  visitor.

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, John.  But there's nothing, I'm 
afraid."  At that point, anyone else would have fallen back into tears.
Not Mary.  She sat erectly and spoke with the same precision with
which  she transferred a lump of sugar to her cup.  Maintaining the
calm that  had always been such a contrast to the hurricane she
married.  I sipped  my coffee and scanned the room, half expecting to
find things changed.  But everything was exactly as I remembered it. 
Antiques from Mary's  family, their wood so dark it was almost black. 
And Farnsworth's  "Buffalo Soldiers" print above the fireplace, bad art
well meant, tolerated by Mary.  Farnsworth had been born in 1947 in a
shack not  twenty miles from the mansion Mary's family had built during
Reconstruction, when corruption briefly crossed the color line.  His 
father had worked a mule, while her mother rode Arabians.  Farnsworth 
had been a big man, a West Point defensive lineman, and Mary had a 
deceptive look of fragility.  Their married life had been a long smile,
yet they had no children.  Only the younger officers whose careers
Farnsworth had guided.  Mary laughed.  "John, you have always been so
transparent, even to Mickey.  He knew you thought that old print of his
was just awful up there.  I believe he thought you and I were in 
league."  Before I could respond, she said, "And how is Tish?"

From Mary, this was an olive branch the size of a redwood.

"She's fine."  "I have been unkind to her.  My behavior has been small 
and unforgivable."  Her eyes convinced me that brown was the color of 
mercy.  "I suppose Mickey and I have been living in a fool's paradise, 
surrounded all our adult lives by the military.  I suppose we lost 
touch a bit."  She sighed.  "Young people these days just seem to 
approach life so differently."  Warm, immaculate Mary.  "Do you think 
Tish will ever forgive me?"

"She means well."  "Don't apologize.  I haven't even made an effort to 
get to know her.  And she's your girl.  Our John's girl."  "She's 
different.  It's only that .. ."  The truth was that I did not want to 
talk about Tish just now.  "Oh, John."  And now she came close to 
tears.  "It's just that .. . Mickey and I we were trying to plan your 
life, too.  I thought I knew exactly what kind of girl you needed to 
marry.  Just like Mickey planning your career.  I wanted you to marry 
the perfect wife.  And I set myself up as the arbiter of perfection." 
She touched one eye with a milk-coffee finger.  "We meant well, 
John."

"I'm not married yet."  Mary mastered herself, correcting her posture
ever so slightly.  She changed the subject with her typical grace. 
"You  must be the tenth caller today.  And I dread to think of the
evening.  But you are the only one whom I believe wanted to come.  I
thank you  for that, John."  I almost said that her husband had been a
second  father to me.  Instead, I just asked:

"Made any plans?  Or is it too soon?"  Mary turned her head to the 
side.  She was still a beautiful woman and I can only imagine the 
impression she had made on a young lieutenant home for his first leave.
A stopover in Baton Rouge, enroute to Vietnam.  "I don't know.  It's 
all so sudden, it's .. ."  She disciplined herself again.  "More 
coffee, John?  I think I might like to teach again.  In the city. 
Mickey would admire that."  "Mary, I have to ask you something.  Did Em
Carroll ever come over to the house?  Recently, I mean."  Mary's face 
was open. "Oh, yes.  More and more often.  I was so glad he and Mickey 
had gotten over those hard feelings."

"They were friends again?"

"Thick as thieves.  And those boys were up to something, let me tell 
you.  They'd just go off into Mickey's study for hours.  It started 
last winter.  We hadn't seen Emerson for ages."  I sensed her doing her
social navigating.  "I asked Mickey to invite him to one of our 
dinners.  When you would've been there.  For old time's sake.  But 
Mickey said no.  Some sort of little boys' secret.  Their little club. 
I did wonder why you weren't included.  You all used to be so close." 
"Mary ... do you have any idea what they were up to?  It could be
important."  I could see by her expression that she did not know. 
"They seemed to have some sort of project they were working on 
together.  But Mickey never talked about it to me.  We rarely talked 
business."  "Do you know which one of them got in touch with the other 
first?"  Mary thought for a moment.  "I truly couldn't say.  Not with 
certainty.  I have this feeling that it was Em.  That Em was the one 
who called Mickey.  But I can't be sure."

"Did Em .. . seem happy to you?"  "Em has never seemed happy to me. 
He's not that sort of man."

"But how did he seem?  The same?  Changed?"  Mary gave me her eyes 
straight on. "You mean the drinking?  Of course, you can tell that 
just looking at him.  But he didn't drink excessively when he came by. 
Mickey would not have tolerated it."  "Did he say anything about work? 
Did he seem unhappy--"

"John, whatever is this about?"  I did not know what it was about.  I 
was searching.  With one of those hangovers you get from lack of sleep.
I almost told her about Em, but could not shoot the words at her yet. 
I  had my finger on the trigger, though.

Mary broke the silence.  "Is something wrong?  Is Em in some kind of
trouble?  That boy was always in one tub of hot water or another. 
Why,  I remember when you--" "Mary, Em's dead.  He was shot down in the
 street last night.  It was in the morning paper."

"That can't be," Mary said.  "It's--"

"Mary, I'm sorry.  I should've waited to tell you."

"I can't believe it."

"I'm sorry."

"Right after ..."  I ached to talk about it.  To say.  Yeah, hell of a
coincidence.  The stink was already spreading.  Even I could smell it, 
and I'm slow.  The doorbell rang.  Mary closed her eyes for a moment 
before rising.  It was their minister.  I excused myself, absorbed in 
my own riddles, even though I could tell that Mary did not want me to 
go.

"Call me," she said.  "Let me know about Em's funeral."

I did not have the sense to tell her to be careful.

I called Rob Burns--Robert Mayhew Burns--and made an appointment to 
talk.  He was gracious, if baffled by my impatience.  He could not see 
me until six.  So I drove to kill time.  I did not want to go home. 
Not  even to change.  I was not ready to face Tish.  Rain swept up from
the  Chesapeake.  Summer in the District. Rain comes down, steam goes
up.  I had to turn on the air full blast to keep the windows clear. 
Finally,  I pulled into one of those scenic-view lots along the
Virginia side of  the river and sat.  Even in the rain, there were
joggers out from the  Pentagon.  I let the windows cloud.  Rob Burns
belonged to one of those dug-in D.C. families whose members never run
for office.  They take law  degrees,

or maybe a Poli-Sci doctorate, and enter government under the wing of a
mentor. The family had produced four cabinet members in a hundred 
years.  Rob was a few years younger than I was and had already done two
years as an Assistant Secretary of Defense before the administration 
changed.  I had dated his sister--no, his sister had dated me--for a 
couple of months.  Until I realized she was just checking a block, 
sleeping with a soldier the way some people sleep with a person of 
another race, just to find out what it's like.  She rode in the hunts 
out in western Loudoh and Fauquier counties and did not regard me as 
her intellectual or social equal.  She was probably right on both 
counts, but she could not make me like it.  I hit it off with Rob, 
though.  Now he was sitting in a think tank on Eighteenth Street, 
waiting for the electorate to turn again.  I drove back into town 
against traffic.  With the suburban set brutal in the outbound lanes. 
My uniform soaked with sweat.  When I cranked up the air, it just got
uglier.  Radio on.  Dow up.  A jetliner down.  First Lady on the edge 
of indictment.  A terminal liberal deplored the SecDef's Hill 
appearance, asking if all the money we were spending on weapons systems
would not be better spent on education and jobs training.  He whined, 
but made sense.

I was beginning to feel like a traitor to my kind.  I went up 
Fourteenth and cut left.  Secretaries dashed through the rain.  The 
homeless milled, oblivious.  Men in suits held briefcases over their 
heads or clashed umbrellas.  A taxi had broken down in the middle of 
Connecticut.  Nine bucks to park the car.  The Army still had a 
no-umbrellas regulation we would not change until the Marines blinked 
first, so I jogged through the downpour.  By the time I reached the
lobby of Rob's building, my uniform was clinging to me like an 
old-fashioned bathing suit.  When the elevator door opened on Rob's 
floor, the defense attache from the French embassy was standing there 
waiting to go down.  We had met at a couple of the town's countless 
receptions, but he gave no sign of recognizing me.  Maybe it was my 
drowned-rat look.  Or maybe not.  We pushed past each other. The 
receptionist was heading out, but she let me pass.  Rob's personal
secretary laid down her papers and pretended I was worth knowing.  Rob 
waved me in.  He sat behind his desk, on the phone, surrounded by 
signed photos of everybody who had mattered over the past fifteen 
years.  He motioned for me to have a seat.

I stood.  Dripping.  "Yeah, Trent," he told the receiver, "I know.  But
he's got you outmaneuvered on this.  Look at the polls.  I think you 
should cut your losses.  Right.  That's absolutley right.  Sorry I 
can't be more encouraging. Right.  See you Friday."  Rob slapped the 
phone down and looked up.  "Hard to make the Hill understand that a 
majority doesn't mean what it used to.  It's like herding cats."  He 
leaned toward the door.  "Joanne, I won't need you anymore today, 
thanks.  Leave the coffee on."  Sitting back again, he said, "For
Christ's sake, have a seat."

"I'm soaking."

"Chairs are replaceable.  Friends aren't."

"Thanks for seeing me."  "Any time, any time.  Even if I didn't like 
you, John, I'd make it a point to be seen with you just to piss off my 
sister."

"How's she doing?"  "Vicky always reminds me of Bob McNamara.  Walking 
proof of the banality of evil.  What's on your mind?"

"Saw de La Were on his way out."  Rob's family ties were to London, not
Paris. His private attitude toward the French was very American, and 
he was always glad to share it with friends: "Poor buggers have been
in a funk ever since Pamela Harriman died.  "Nobody understands them." 
De La Vere's on the warpath about the fate  of the Eurofighter and the
possibility that Macon-Bolt's going to  corner the expanded-NATO
aircraft market.  Bob Nechestny's turning into  the king of the world
while Dassault and Aerospatiale go down the  crapper.  You see that
picture of Nechestny doing the handshake thing  with Havel, by the way?
When NATO's new girls get dressed, they're  going to wear Macon-Bolt
exclusively.  Expansion's serious dollars, and  the frogs can't
compete.  And that bombing at their research lab seems  to have been
quite a blow.  Shook de La Were, you could really tell.  Poor sap
wanted to know who / thought might have done it.  Their Intel  ops must
be on the skids, too.  Pathetic.  Don't deserve their  actresses, that
what's-her-name..  .."  "Rob ... I'd like to ask you  something.  Just
between you and me."  "Ask.  You want some coffee?  It's probably
stale."  I shook my head. "You knew Emerson Carroll,  right?"  He
frowned.  "All too well.  Terrible business.  Hard on the  family. 
Only son."  He ran his fingers down the back side of his tie,  freeing
it from the tuck at his waist.  "Knew Em for ages.  Since Sidwell
Friends.  When Em's father was down here.  Early Nixon period.  Looking
back, I'm not sure my father didn't have an excessive interest  in poor
Em's mother."  His eyes looked at memories.  "You know how it  goes. 
Dinner parties, tennis, the usual suspects.  Em's father  resigned
rather suddenly, if you recall.  Took the family home to the  north
pole.  Or Harvard, anyway."  "Give me your frank assessment.  Of  Em. 
Please."  Rob calculated.  "You knew him?"  "Long time ago.  We  were
lieutenants together."  He sat back.  "Christ, I never even knew  he'd
been in the Army.  Hard to picture."  He cocked his head as if  lining
up a shot at billiards.  "You want the for-real?  Okay.  But it  stays
in this office, John."  He looked at my wet shirt.  "I suppose I 
didn't share the conventional view of Em.  He was supposed to be a 
corner, but I saw him as already on the way out.  Time was when a man 
could be a drinker in this town, but not anymore.  And Em could be 
surprisingly clumsy.  Heavy-handed, just when he thought he was being 
clever.  The way he cornered Senator Faust into hiring his girlfriend, 
for instance.  You can't pull that kind of shit anymore.  At least not 
often.  People remember, the bills come due."  He smiled.  "Girl looks
the part, though.  I'll say that for her.  Freezer blonde, carved legs.
Ever meet her?"  I felt so bad I was ready to get up and go.  But 
somebody turned on the batteries in my brain.  "Rob, you know everybody
 and everything in this city ..."

"You sound like a Congressman who wants something."  "Tell me about 
Macon-Bolt Industries.  What's the view from inside the Beltway?"  He 
swiveled in his chair. The rain changed direction and smacked his 
window.  I could smell my uniform drying.  "No secrets there.  Bob 
Nechestny's turning into the eminence grise of his generation.  Think 
those Indonesians had access?  Bob walks into the White House whenever 
he wants.  Or into any office on the Hill.  That is one CEO who really 
brings home the bacon for the shareholders.  For which he is
recompensed.  And, not coincidentally, Macon-Bolt happens to be the 
biggest campaign contributor in this country.  Hard money, soft money. 
Bob Nechestny could fix anything short of a Supreme Court decision--and
I'm not at all sure he couldn't do that, if he really wanted to."  Rob
smiled.  "So .. . you and the rest of the United States Army just 
pissed about that airplane deal?  Or is this personal?"

"Maybe both."

He shook his head.  "Well, my advice is to accept the inevitable.  You 
can't beat Bob Nechestny and Macon-Bolt.  No point in even trying."

"The NGFB is going to gut the Army budget."  Rob laughed.  "And 
everybody else's budget, too.  Somebody whispered in my ear that even 
the Air Force brass are having second thoughts.  Allowing for cost 
overruns, they're looking at an Air Force that'll consist of that 
airplane and not much else a decade from now."

"Think they'll do anything about it?  Is there--" "Not in your 
lifetime.  Come on, John.  You know how it works.  The generals and 
admirals support Nechestny, and when they retire, Macon-Bolt hires 
them.  Biggest scam in the country."  He glanced at his watch.  "John, 
it really is good to see you.  But I have got to go.  Breaking bread 
with a few senators from the other camp tonight.  I think we're going 
to get a tax cut this year after all."  I stood up.  "Thanks."  I think
I felt even worse than I looked.  "Pull the outer door shut behind
you, would you?"  Rob said.  "Problem with street people crapping in
the  foyer.  And, John?  Do yourself a favor.  Don't fool around with 
Macon-Bolt.  It's a losing proposition."

"See you at Em's funeral?"  He made a "yes" face.  "I'll probably fly 
up.  The mother really is a sweetie.  But, John .. . you're going to be
surprised how few people show.  If you go.  It'll be an education for 
you.  This is a hard town." Outside the building, a man with a storm 
of dirty hair sat under a blanket, singing hymns and cursing.  The rain
had faded to swamp air.  I guess thinking slowed me down, because Rob 
caught up to me in less than a block.  "Forgot to ask you," he said, 
falling into formation at my side.  "Who's going to replace Farnsworth 
on the Futures panel?"

"No idea."  "Well, give me a ring if you hear anything, all right? 
You're my inside line.  And, John .. . the views I expressed upstairs? 
Just between us, right?"

I stopped and faced him.  "No disrespect," he said.  "It's just that 
... I was being extremely frank.  Damn it, John, there's just something
about you that makes you seem trustworthy.  But in this town .. ." 
"It's my lack of imagination," I told him.  "Don't worry about it."  He
stood there looking at me. "Of course not.  I'm sorry," he said.  "But
let me give you some advice.  From one friend to another."  He 
expressed everything with the lower half of his face, nothing with his 
eyes.  He, too, would be a cabinet member one day.  "Don't trust
anybody." I still did not trust myself to go home and deal with Tish. 
I got a  takeout burger and ate in the PX parking lot at Fort Myer. 
The rain  came in the passenger's window, but I did not bother to close
it.  I  had two problems: Tish, and then all the other business. 
Farnsworth  and Em.  I thought about Tish first. And last.  And in
between.  I  knew I should hand her walking papers.  But I was not sure
I could give  her up.  I had a problem with trust.  A problem the size
of Texas.  Maybe it comes with my line of work.  Betrayal is humanity's
number two pastime, and I had spent a couple of decades watching
foreign murderers  dressed in ragtag uniforms go at it.  I could think
of plenty of  reasons why Tish would not have wanted to tell me about
the cop  business in her past.  No matter what the real story might be.
But she  should have told me.  My work depended on my security
clearance.  She  knew the rules.  Not even a joint allowed in my house.
 A cocaine bust  rated a mention.

If she had been quiet about her police record, there were plenty of 
other things she might have kept to herself.  I did not want to think 
about those things.  But I did.  Through it all, I could not stop 
thinking about making love to her.  And being with her.  The rain 
struck and steamed.  I forced myself to focus on Farnsworth and Em. 
And Em's airplane.  These days, conspiracy theories were everywhere. 
In the streets, the press, the water supply.  You started out wondering
if the mechanics at the garage were cheating you and ended up
convinced  that JFK had been murdered by Elvis.  Yet, in my career, I
had not seen  one scrap of evidence of a conspiracy.  Not in our
government.  Not anywhere around it.  Unless it was a conspiracy of
mediocrity.  And I  could not imagine why anyone tied in with
Macon-Bolt Industries would  need to conspire. The NGFB was as good as
sold.  Initial funding had  already been approved and the big money
would start with the next  defense budget.  Nothing was going to change
it, and cloak-and-dagger  nonsense could only hurt.  There had been
some bad coincidences.  But,  in the Army, you saw those all the time. 
Fate waited until you were  down to kick you hard.  Maybe there was
some big death-dealing conspiracy out there.  With Buck Rogers aircraft
and hundreds of  billions of dollars in the kitty.  Or maybe my buddies
had hit a run of  bad luck.  The truth was that Em's death still was
not real to me.  Maybe Farnsworth's death wasn't real to me, either. 
Maybe I was just  going through the motions.  The old bugger on that
apartment floor had  been cardboard.  All my thoughts led back to Tish.
She was real.  And  I hated it.  I waited until I knew she had left for
her gig, then went  home.  The place was drenched with her.  The droopy
curtains, the smell of the kitchen.  Every shadow.  A decomposing copy
of Far from the  Madding Crowd ambushed me by the phone.  Walking in
that door was like  getting punched.  There was a message on the
answering machine from  Corry Nevers.  I erased it and went upstairs. 
The Les Paul lay  centered on the bed in its little coffin of a case.
With a note:  "Please take it back for a refund.  I don't deserve it. 
Tish."  I didn't know what anybody deserved anymore. I was not ready
to have a rational discussion with Tish, but I had to  see her. Her
band was playing a gay club off Dupont Circle.  Straights  were allowed
in if they paid a cover.  The military was in the middle  of a witch
hunt about sex.  No court-martial panel would believe an  officer went
to a gay bar unless he was looking for a blow job, so I  went upstairs,
where it was dark and I could see the stage without  being seen.  The
balcony action was grim.  A kid who looked like Audrey  Hepburn with
facial hair asked if he could sit down, but he went away  when I shook
my head.  Tish never got it quite right.  She had a little talent.  She
was good in repose, on the quiet numbers.  She was meant  to be a
cabaret singer.  But she wanted to flail and wail.  She played  her
scarred guitar as if choking an enemy.  Red hair whipped and clung  to
her cheeks, and her sweat flew like breaking glass.  She had her 
leather pants on, despite the heat, and she looked like trouble. 
Unless  you looked hard.  Then she looked afraid.  To me, she looked
beautiful.  I felt sick down in my guts watching her.  Wondering what
she was  really all about.  And if it was over.  I was afraid I could
not trust her to tell me the price of a quart of milk.  I had been
around enough  to know that such feelings can pass.  Faith comes back. 
Mouthful of  kisses, and people sucker themselves.  I was not sure I
wanted that.  I  was afraid of her in a way I had never feared fists or
guns.

I left as the set ended.  I did not want to meet her in the club, did 
not want anybody in the band to spot me and report to her.  I walked 
the streets for a while.  With Connecticut Avenue full of people who 
had been unpopular in high school and who had found one another in the 
city.  Drivers hunting parking spots clogged the back streets.  Lamps 
lit townhouse windows.  Back on the circle, a heavy girl sobbed in 
front of an espresso bar.  I went home.  There was a message from my 
boss, asking if I was okay.  I left a return message at his work
number: all quiet on the western front.  CNN told me we had just 
renewed China's most-favored-nation status, and a White House spokesman
told the country that a big-haired woman was lying about the
President.  The spokesman did his job wonderfully, without actually
using the word  "lying."  Somebody from another planet might have
believed him.  I  moved the Les Paul off the bed and trashed the note
from Tish.  I lay  down in my clothes.  Just for a minute.  And conked
out.  Tish woke me  with her body.  We didn't talk.  We made love as if
we wanted to hurt  each other.  Then we held one another with arms like
shackles.  I smelled her hair and wished the world were a different
place.  I woke  up again in darkness.  Sensing something wrong.  Tish
was not in the  bed.  I listened, and I heard her.  She was sitting on
the edge of the  bathtub, crying.  The raw way children cry.  A
night-light lit her like  a candle.  She knew I was standing there, but
she did not look at me.  She covered her face with her hands.  She was
naked and shivering in  the heat.  Finally, she said:

"I just want to die.  I love you so much.  I just want to die."

"It's all right," I said.  On time delay.  Lying.  She shook her head
and wept.  "It's never going to be all right.  I've ruined everything.
 You'll never believe me.  I wreck every fucking thing I touch."

I put my hand on her shoulder and she quivered.  As if I had hit her. 
Then she jumped up and clung to me.  "Oh, God, I love you," she said. 
"You're the best thing that ever happened to me.  Please don't make me 
go."

"Tish .. ."  "I love you so much."  The words broke up.  A bad radio 
transmission. "I love you, too," I said.  I hope I meant it.  I think 
I meant it.  In that moment.  She cried on.  "You don't understand.  I 
love you all the way.  I love you like everything there is in love. 
All  of it.  I love you.  I want to have babies and everything."  I
tried to  pick her up.  But somehow I wasn't strong enough. Underfed
Tish.  She  weighed more than a continent now.  "And I can't," she
said. "I'll  never have babies.  I've done stupid things.  Stupid,
stupid things.  I'm so fucking stupid.  Oh, God.  Forgive me.  Please. 
Forgive me."  In the books we read now, people do not ask forgiveness. 
Everything is  permitted except that. If the actions of another wound
us, it is we  who are inadequate.  Freedom is all.  Maybe it would be
better if life  really were like those books, if I had not felt what I
had felt toward  Tish.  Sitting in my car in the rain, I had imagined a
scene like this.  Wanting it.  I could not find any more words for her.
There was so  much fear in me, and it was all twisted up with love and
desire.  Tish  clutched me until I gathered the strength to pick her up
and carry her  to bed.  I turned my back and she laced me in her
arms.

In the morning, Corry Nevers called while Tish was in the shower.  She 
asked me if we could get together to talk.  I told her I wished her 
luck, but did not see what we had in common to talk about.

"I'm afraid," she said.

"Don't be."

She began to sob.  "It's horrible."

"You'll get through it."  "You don't understand.  It's something else. 
They won't let me go to the funeral"

"What?"  "Em's parents.  They closed the funeral.  "Only immediate 
family."  Nobody else can attend.  I called and asked.  They won't let 
me come.  His mother never liked me."  I had regarded the funeral as an
unwelcome duty and I was ashamed at the way Corry's news made me feel.
Pathetic, the things that relieve us. Getting off the hook is one of 
the basic human pleasures.  I sucked a few more details out of her and 
eased her off the phone by promising she could call me if she ran into 
real trouble.  Tish came out damp and smiling.  We did not talk, but 
treated each other with exaggerated consideration.  I was not going 
back to work.  I had the leave days to burn.  And the sun was out
again.  Tish and I walked over to Eastern Market for breakfast, then 
headed down to the Mall in the morning's last coolness.  It was our 
private holiday.  Hill staffers hurried past us in suits that stood off
from their shirt collars.  The women marched in solid colors and 
running shoes.  We held hands.  I had decided that my fantasy about 
some great conspiracy involving Em and Farnsworth and Macon-Bolt was 
just that.  I was not going to make any calls or poke any more
anthills.  Let the dead sleep in their graves.  Maybe Tish and I 
wouldn't last forever.  But we were going to make the most of the time 
we had.  To hell with the rest of the universe.  Below the Capitol, 
charter buses bled tourists in souvenir T-shirts.  The tourists managed
to be noisy and reverent at the same time.  Most of them were 
overweight.

"I want an ice cream' Tish said.  "You just had breakfast."  But I got 
her a Dove Bar.  Walking along in her cutoffs, she had a grace that she
never managed onstage.  Runway legs.  The freckles she hated were 
coming out under her eyes.

"I want you to keep the guitar," I said.

She didn't answer.

"It's a separate thing," I told her.  "I want you to have it."  She 
stopped and kissed me.  Wet.  In front of two Japanese tourists.  It 
was a good day.  We walked to all the monuments and did not see anybody
we knew.  We grazed through a new exhibition at the Freer and ate 
poisonous hot dogs from a vendor.  We went home in the heat and drank 
beer and made love.  Tish had a rehearsal scheduled for late afternoon,
and she had to go.  She took another shower.  And threw herself back 
down on the bed beside me.

"I feel like such a shit," she said.

"You are a shit."

"No.  I mean .. . it's something else."

My insides tightened.  "My car still isn't fixed.  Can I please just 
borrow your car one more time?  I'll get mine to the garage tomorrow 
morning.  I promise." "Take it," I said.  "I'm not going anywhere.  I 
figure I'll just stroll over to the market, buy some salmon steaks, and
make dinner for anybody who's interested."  Tish rolled over and made 
noises to which I would have responded differently with another half 
hour's recuperation.  "I love you for your cooking," she said.  "I'll 
be home early."

"Drive carefully, huh?"  I watched her dress, afraid I could never give
her up. She asked where I had parked the car and I told her down the 
block.  I listened to her leaving and tried as hard as I could to
postpone thought.  I ached to build a fortress for two.  Where nothing
or nobody would ever be able to touch us.  When the car blew up, the 
windows shook but did not shatter.

"Give me a break, huh?"  Lieutenant Dickey said.  "I don't buy the 
crybaby shit, soldier boy."  Explosives have their eccentricities.  The
blast had blown my car into the middle of the street, tossing the
doors  into nearby yards.  Yet when I got to it, the black mummy that
had been  Tish was still visible in the flames. Seat belts work.  The
cops had  been chewing on me for a long time.  I don't know how long
exactly, but  it was already dark beyond the windows of the police
station.  Dickey  was the only one who had not given up.  "Come on," he
said. "Make it  easy on everybody.  You tell the truth, you might not
even do any time. You can go to court in your soldier suit with all
your medals and tell everybody how sorry you are.  Now tell me the
truth.  It's all a drug  thing. Right?  You and your little redheaded
coke freak.  You been  moving dope. Wholesaling it to the dumb brothers
out in the hood.  Right?"  He made a "Gotcha" face.  "So what is it? 
You didn't pay the  man on time?  Or we got a turf battle on our hands?
Maybe we got a  whole bunch of soldier boys in on this?  Setting up
their retirement  jobs.  Showing the gangstas how to run a real
operation. Military  precision and all that crap.  Planning, Mind if I
smoke, soldier boy?" He lit a cigarette with a plastic lighter.  "You
give me the names,  dates.  I'll do everything I can for you."  I
looked at him.  There was  no rage in me, and no fear.  Just emptiness.
Dickey filled the little  room with smoke.  "Come on, pal. Let's make
a deal, huh?  Or do we  want a lawyer after all?"

"I don't need a lawyer," I said.  "I haven't done anything wrong."  The
detective got up and patrolled the dirty linoleum.  It might have been
an interrogation room in Syria instead of Washington.  Everything was 
crude and half broken.  I heard voices of disorder beyond the closed 
door.  "Listen up, hero.  I don't know what kind of game you think 
you're playing.  But you're tied to three murders now."

"Four," I said.

He looked at me.  Mouth open like an asthmatic flounder.  "Last 
weekend," I said. "A general named Farnsworth was hit by a car.  Over 
in Virginia."  "I don't do Virginia," the detective said.  "Talk to me 
about the District."  "Everybody thought it was an accident.  I think 
it was murder."

"Just get back to the business we got in front of us."  "I'm not sure 
what the tie-in is," I said.  "But I--" Suddenly, I did not want to 
tell this man anything.  He wasn't the Law.  Just a bully dying of 
cholesterol.  "Charge me, or release me," I said.  "Isn't that how it 
goes?"  He snorted.  "What?  You been watching cop shows or something?"
He spread his arms and planted his fists on the table.  Leaning toward
me.  "You better step out of your dream world and start thinking hard.
That was your car that went up.  Now .  maybe whoever did the wiring 
job had some inside information that your girlfriend was going to take 
it for a drive, but two and two says they were after you, soldier boy. 
If you're not nice to me, I just might release you.  And it's starting 
to look like a cold, cruel world out there.  What are you going to do 
if I boot your ass out of here?  Where you going to go?"  He smiled. 
But I was miles ahead of him.  "I figure whoever did the car job isn't 
done.  The good news is that they are in a position to save the 
government the cost of your trial and subsequent incarceration.  Now ..
. who tried to blow you up?  Tell me about the drugs. Start at the 
beginning."

"No drugs."

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

"Who did it?"

"I don't know."  He folded his arms and stood above me.  Every time I 
was ready to shoot back, Tish came to haunt me.  I saw her now.  Split 
screen.  Tish beside me, red hair on the white pillow.  And the black 
thing in the flames.

My eyes let me down again.  "What?"  the detective said.  "I'm supposed
to pity your ass or something?  Did we lose our lover girl?  The great
love of our life?" He tossed his cigarette butt on the floor.  "Give 
me a fucking break.  Hey .. . maybe you'd like me to call you a public 
defender.  Then you'll do time for sure."

"Charge me.  Or release me."  He leaned over the table again.  "Pal. 
Buddy. Soldier boy.  You don't seem to get it.  Serious crime, serious 
time.  I could toss you in the can for seventy-two hours just for your 
attitude.  Hey, but maybe you'd like that?  What's that fairy-tale bar 
you said you went to?"  He made a disgusted face.  "You like your bread
buttered on both sides, maybe? What's the goddamned Army coming to, 
huh?  "Don't ask, don't tell," right?"  I looked up at him.  "You're 
wrong about everything," I said calmly.  "You couldn't be more wrong. 
If I knew who set the bomb, I would have told you the minute I saw 
you."  "Because you love me personally?  Or because you love cops in
general?"

"Because I loved Tish O'Malley."  He laughed.  "Nobody loved Tish 
O'Malley.  Her own family didn't love her.  Or maybe her stepfather 
loved her a little too much, if you can believe the sheriff out there. 
She was a hard case, buddy. White trash with stars in her eyes.  And 
coke up her nose.  Hey, you know what's good?  Know what she studied 
out at Cornhole Community College?  Pharmacy.  Ain't that something?  A
girl with a plan.  Maybe franchise her own chain of meth labs."  "I 
didn't know she'd been to college."  I was instantly sorry I had said
it.  "It wasn't a lasting relationship.  Your sweetheart didn't have 
lasting relationships.  Hey, you two didn't talk much, did you?  What 
else you want to know about her?"

"I know all I want to know," I lied.  His smile knotted.  "} got 
another idea. Maybe she double-crossed you.  Yeah.  Wouldn't that be 
just like her?  Her and her retro-scene smack-pack friends.  She 
double-crossed you on the dope, and you found out.  And you took her 
out."  He brought his face down close to mine.  It was not a pleasant 
view.  "So what happens now?  You planning to move in with that little 
blondie?  What's her name?  Caddy Mercedes?"  He backed away.  "Well,
let me give you some advice.  Man to man.  It won't last.  She's going 
to marry one of those rich fucks from Great Falls.  You're the kind of 
food she leaves on the plate."  "Think you'll ever get around to 
working on the murder of Tish O'Malley?"  I asked.  He pinched my cheek
as if I were a baby.  "Gotta love those soldier boys.  They're cool 
customers.  I guess you kind of sense that I don't like you.  And 
you're wondering why.  Well, let me tell you.  I don't like you
smart-ass fucks who come into this city and shit all over it and then 
go crying that the jigaboos can't govern themselves.  You think you're 
above the law."  He reached for another cigarette and lit it with the 
rhythm of old habit.  "This city doesn't have a fucking chance.  And I 
love this city, you know that?  I was born and raised here.  And I hate
 people like you who come around fucking with it."

"You're still wrong."

"Oh, yeah?  About what this time?"

"Everything.  You've got a perfect score."  He drank smoke and said, 
"That so? Well, you're either an innocent man and so naive it hurts me 
to think about it. Or you are one vicious shit who deserves an Academy 
Award.  Either way, you're a fucking loser."  He smoked and stared 
through me.  Then he said, "Know what?  I'm going to turn your ass 
loose.  Because I want to see what happens out there."

I made it two blocks from the police station, then sat down on the 
stoop of an old house that had been turned into offices.  And I cried. 
After a while, I sensed somebody standing in front of me.  Layers of 
clothing, despite the heat, and a Santa Claus sack over his shoulder. 
A  knitted cap over cascades of hair. His beard made his head enormous.
With the darkness and filth, I could not tell his race.  "She leave 
you, man?  She make you go?  Women so hard sometimes."

I didn't have any money, so he moved on.  I walked.  A police cruiser 
slowed beside me.  I thought they had come to take me in again.  But it
was only that after-midnight curiosity.  Trying to think about Tish
was  like staring at the sun.  I could only think around her.  And I
kept  thinking about that goddamned guitar.  She had taken her
Telecaster to  the rehearsal that never happened, and the left-behind
Les Paul had  become a sort of orphan in my very unclear mind. Quirky
Tish.  I had  given her a James Salter novel I reread every couple of
years.  Yapping  at her about how it captured the complexity of the
human heart and the  interplay of male-female relationships.  She read
half of it.  Then she gave it back.  Telling me, "I don't want to read
about how people are,  John.  I know how people are."

I really did love her now.  Now that it was safe.  I wanted to know who
killed her.  While trying to kill me.  I wanted to know who it was and
I wanted them to suffer tortures I had not yet invented.  You could 
read Tish two ways.  As a hustler with a little talent for music and a 
lot of talent for sex.  Or as somebody who had played her best game 
with a bad hand.  When she played music, for better or worse, Tish gave
it all she could.  And I was determined to believe that she had given 
me all she could in the love department.  The positive spin, in 
Washington talk.  The detective had done that for me.  If Farnsworth's 
death or Em's had been unreal to me, then the loss of Tish was
unimaginable.  I could not believe I would never feel her beside me 
again.  A block short of my house, a car nosed in beside me.  A white 
guy leaned out to ask directions.  Born slow, I bent to help.  And 
darkness got me. Tough guys, with that leanness you see in officers
from the par as  They weren't big.  But they were hard.  The kid didn't
speak English  worth a damn, but the fortyish guy spoke it without the
least sign of  brain-strain.  I had not paid attention in high school,
so when the  boys talked frog, the only words I could make out were
merde and mart.  The kid had bar fighter's hands.  Jerry Lewis with
Gold's Gym biceps.  His inability to ask questions directly pissed him
off.  The older one  had the narrow face and close graying hair of the
men who lose their wives to bad-asses in French films.  But this
character was a bad-ass  himself. Reptile in a polo shirt.  He bent
down toward the chair and  knuckle-punched me in the stomach again. 
"Why kill them?"  he asked  again.  "You made fools of us. Wasn't that
enough?  Why did you have  to kill them?"  I gasped for air.  As soon
as I could stitch words  together, I said, "Why'd you kill Tish?  Fuck
you." Hoping I sounded  angry and not too afraid.

We had been through the Q&A before.  Twice.  Cuckold backed off, 
disgusted.  More French.  The only word I understood was amateur. 
Cuckold folded his arms and looked down at me.  In the bare white room.
The only furniture was the heavy wooden chair in which I sat strapped.
The chair was a specialty number.  And there was a big aluminum 
suitcase.  Sometimes Jerry sat on it and stared at me while he smoked a
cigarette.  The French smoke all the time because it's their last 
competitive skill.  "My partner," Cuckold said, "does not believe you 
are very receptive to education."  I tried to shrug, but the leather 
straps held me tight.  The chair had a wooden seat and two big slats up
the back.  It was not ergonomically correct.  More French.  Merde 
again.  Existentialism making a comeback.  Cuckold said, "My partner is
convinced your American educational system is made of shit.  Have you 
studied logic?  Or dialectics?  Is the university so inadequate?  Or is
my assessment correct?  Do you think we are so stupid you can lie to 
us?"  For punctuation, he nailed me in the stomach again. He was very 
good.  I felt it right up against my spine.  By punching me in the gut 
over and over again, they had given away one important thing.  They did
not want to mark me.  I figured that meant they were not going to kill
me, either.  I was still looking at the world as a black or white, 
either-or proposition. Cuckold walked away and sat down on the floor 
with his back against the wall. The guy had watched a lot of Belmondo 
in his formative years.  Back on the street, they had not given me time
to throw a single punch.  I woke up in a car trunk with a hood over my
head.  I did not have a clue where I was when they yanked me out and 
walked me over gravel.  Then I banged against a doorway and bounced 
along a corridor.  They slammed me down in the guest chair.  A door
shut.  Straps went on and the hood came off.

Jerry tossed Cuckold a cigarette.  Followed by his lighter.  "Let's 
review.  First of all, your lover.  Our regrets.  We had nothing to do 
with this .. . event.  We had no interest in her.  Allow me to say that
she looked like an amiable woman." He smoked and his eyes narrowed in 
his narrow face.  "Whether you are stupid or just playing the fool, you
must see that whoever set the car bomb was after you.  Not
Mademoiselle  O'Malley."  He made a gesture with his fingers.  As
though rubbing snot  away from the tips.  "You must see that your own
people have decided to  kill you.  You know too much.  Fortunately, you
are also disposable. Like your whole fucking culture."  I almost told
him one more time that  I had no idea what he was rambling on about,
but it seemed pointless.  The French had been jerking off like this for
most of the twentieth  century.  Reality did not impress them.  "So
what do we have?"  Cuckold  went on.  "We have an American lieutenant
colonel condemned to death.  For doing his country's dirty work."  He
flipped his butt and it  bounced off the tip of my shoe.  "John
Reynolds, you are being a fool.  We are your only friends.  No.  Allow
me to say it with more honesty.  We could be your friends, if you
helped us.  You would have the gratitude of the government of
France--which still counts for  something, you know.  And you would be
performing an act of justice."  He rolled into a crouch. Balancing on
the balls of his feet.  "What  are you going to do?  You know they're
going to kill you."  "I don't  even know who 'they' are, for God's
sake."  I had developed a wheezing  speech pattern.  As if my stomach
had crowded up into my lungs to hide.  "You've got this all wrong."  My
hosts spoke French again.  The younger  one got angry.  Whole lot of
non.  One thing that did not track was the relationship between
authority and age.  Jerry was still at the body

piercing age.  But he was perfectly willing to give Cuckold a hard 
time. Different organizations, I figured.  Cuckold turned back to me. 
"Okay.  We will simplify things.  "Lay the cards on the table," as your
people like to say.  Of course we spy on you.  And you spy on us. 
Everybody spies on everybody.  But there are rules.  Sometimes we fuck 
with you.  Just like you fuck with us.  But no French agent has killed 
an American agent.  Or even an American citizen, I don't think."  He 
made a pout and waved his hands.  "Maybe we've had little problems in
Africa, 'maybe sometimes things got out of hand down there.  But that 
comes from dealing with the noires, right?  You Americans should 
understand that, I think." He held out an upturned palm and bounced an 
invisible ball.  "But here?  No.  In France?  No.  Everybody 
understands the rules."  He strode over to me and broke one of his own 
rules.  He cupped my chin in his hand, pressing his fingers and thumb 
into my cheeks.  It was the first time either of them had touched my 
head since I got thumped cold on the street.  Unless you count lifting 
the sack off my head upon arrival at Club Med.  He brought his face 
close to mine, a human hatchet, and his eyes managed to be angry and 
dead at the same time.  He stank of smoke.  "You bastards broke the 
rules.  And I want you to tell me why."  He let me go and stepped away,
a boxer between rounds.  Jerry said something brief and sharp, but
this  time Cuckold ignored him.  He came to me again.  Smoke close.
Hate  close.  "Wasn't it enough?  That you have made fools of us, 'the
stupid French'?  Why blow up the laboratory?  Are you that fucking
insecure?  Or that vicious?"  His face shook in front of me.  "You won.
And you  still had to kill everybody .. ."  I'm slow.  If there was a
mental PT  test, I'd wind up in remedial training.  I still did not
realize all  that he was telling me.  Of course, he didn't realize it,
either.  All  that would come later.  Jerry stood up and pissed against
the far wall.  It offended Cuckold.  He probably figured it matched the
American  stereotype of the French male a bit too well.  "There was no 
justification for killing all those people," Cuckold went on.  Backing 
off. His voice had quieted.  "None.  You had your laugh.  You cost us 
plenty."  He nodded toward Jerry.  "Now .. . my partner and his people 
believe you set the whole thing up, that you fed us the plans with the 
end already in mind.  Knowing we'd still have to gather the best 
technicians in France to work the thing out. So you could kill them in 
one neat strike."  Single-syllable laugh.  "And blame it on the 
Algerians."  He looked down into darkness, ready to drag me in after
him.  "I shouldn't tell you this.  It's a breach of discipline.  But I 
think you need to develop a ... a perspective on your situation.  My 
partner's wife, she was in that building."  He looked down at me.  "So 
far, they have identified one of her feet."  None of this made sense to
me.  But I did realize that, for the first time, I really did know too
much.  Thanks to Cuckold himself.  "Personally, I still don't think 
American intelligence is that good," he continued.  "I respect your
industry.  And your technical intelligence means, of course.  But your
agents are children."  His chin dimpled as he judged me again.  "I 
think my colleagues are wrong.  I do not believe you planned all this 
to wipe out our top people.  I think it started out as something of a 
schoolboy prank.  But then you saw an opportunity.  And you moved."  He
put his hands on his hips.  It made him look thinner, smaller. 
"Colonel Reynolds--John--I believe you know exactly who placed that 
bomb.  You know the Americans who did it.  And you know the filthy
fucking collaborators in France.  You know who, and how, and why. 
Hey--wake up."

He delivered the hardest punch yet.  "Oh, God," I said.  Although I'm 
not sure my speech was clear enough for even God to understand.

"Come on, fuck face Cuckold said.  "Talk to me."

My muscles quivered.  All the way up to my neck.  "Listen."  I said. 
"Please.  Just .. . listen for a minute.  I swear to God I don't know 
what this is all about.  I don't know anything about bombs, or plans, 
or anybody laughing.  All I know ... is that three people I knew are 
dead.  And one stranger.  Maybe two of them knew something about an 
airplane.  One did for sure.  But 7 had nothing to do with this.  Tish 
had nothing to do with this.  I don't know anything about the
laboratory bombing.  Just what was on the news.  You've got the wrong 
person."  He surprised me.  The control vanished.  He went into a fury 
and punched me so hard he lost his aim and started working on my ribs. 
He nearly knocked the chair over.  Jerry had to come over and pull him 
away.  My eyes opened in flickers and tears broke down my cheeks. 
Nothing to do about it.  I hurt.  I would have killed them both if I 
could have.  Jerry had his arms around Cuckold, who was sobbing.
Unreal.  I tasted acid and blood at the back of my throat.  Finally, 
Jerry came over to me.  Shift change, I figured.  But he just put his 
hands on my shoulders and stared at me.  "I understand .. . how he say 
to you.  He tell you .. ."  He spoke slowly, with the words coming 
painfully.  "He tell you my wife, she is ... she morte, non'?"  He gave
me a CharlesMansongoestoParis smile and tapped his forehead.  "A lie. 
Not my wife.  Non.  The wife from him.  Tres jeune, tres belle.
Comprenez?  Maybe he kills you."  Cuckold would not turn and look at 
me.  I wondered if he had killed Tish.  In miscalculated personal 
revenge.

Jerry sauntered back to the suitcase.  Instead of sitting down on it, 
he undid the latches.  Inside, small mechanical devices lay embedded in
gray foam.  He lifted out a device that looked like a power drill with
a suction cup on the end, then fitted it against an object the size of
a pack of cigarettes. Satisfied, he separated the items again and 
brought the drill toward me.  He snapped out something in French and 
Cuckold looked back over his shoulder.  Face ravaged.  "Last chance," 
Cuckold said.  "Tell us what you know."  I was afraid now.  I had been 
afraid all night, but that had been only a little fear compared to
this.  I did not like the look of the tool in Jerry's paw.  The new 
fear came big and pulsing.  "Honest to Christ, I don't know what's 
going on.  You know more than I do."  Cuckold stood in profile, 
slender, showing me his cleaver of a face.  Sweating tears.  "My 
colleague's machine leaves no marks.  It's very good. But it was not 
designed by the best people.  They were not like the people you killed.
So sometimes there is nerve damage.  Maybe you will be lucky."  Jerry
moved behind the chair and I found out why the slats parted in the 
middle.  He pressed the device against my spine.  The world exploded. 
I've been hurt a good bit--sports injuries, Army mistakes--but I had 
never encountered pain like this.  I had never even imagined that such 
pain could exist.  Time stopped.  I could not see.  I flipped like a 
fish in the chair and screamed.  Maybe seconds, maybe minutes later, I 
realized that the device was not touching me anymore. And the big pain 
was gone.  But the shock was like the worst hangover on earth.

"Please ..."  I said.  "Please .. ."  Just to underscore the point. 
Jerry dosed me again.  This time, the whole world screamed.  My muscles
raged against the straps.  I would have given anything in the world to
 make that pain stop, done anything.

When my vision came back.  Cuckold was squatting in front of me.

"Talk," he said.  I tried to talk and gagged.  It took me a long time 
to form thoughts, words.  "Em .  Emerson Carroll knew something.  I 
don't know what.  He asked me about the bombing, if I'd seen any 
reports."  I gulped air.  "Nothing.  I didn't see anything.  Hear 
anything.  Locker-room gossip.  Everybody thought the Algerians" 
"Shithead," Cuckold said.  Jerry taught me about pain again.  I do not
know for certain what my body did.  Maybe I only thought I was fighting
the straps.  Maybe I held perfectly still.  I don't know.  There was 
only the pain and it was endless.  Years later.  Cuckold asked me, "Are
you ready to talk now?" "Farnsworth.  Major General Farnsworth. 
Futures guy.  Some connection to Em.  To Emerson Carroll.  Old friends.
All knew each other.  But they didn't include me. Em was troubled, 
upset.  I don't know."  Suddenly, I found the strength to shout. "I 
don't know, I don't know, I don't know ..."  They gave me the pain 
again. For years and years and years.  Nothing I could do would make 
it stop.

"Tish," I cried.  I remember that.  Because the pain had already 
stopped, but my body had not realized it.  There was just enough 
untried brain left to listen to myself.

"Don't be a hero," Cuckold said.  "Talk."  Only the leather straps held
me together now.  I did not know anything else.  I could not even make
up lies.  I could only gasp, far short of speech.  The machine touched
me again.  For an eternity of pain.  I believed I was dying.  Because
I  could not imagine such pain without death at the end of it. I
blacked out.  I think it was only for a matter of seconds,

but I'll never know for sure.  When I opened my eyes again, Cuckold was
examining me up close.  He looked bewildered.  "Shit," he said when he 
saw the life in my eyes, "you really don't know."

"You can get up."  Cuckold's voice.  He reached back over the seat of 
the car and helped me right myself.  Then he pulled off the hood. 
During the pain game, I had soiled myself.  Dignity was a memory.  They
had to be tough just to stay in the car with me.  Heading up 395. 
Sparse traffic.  Predawn.  Ahead, lights outlined the roofs of the 
high-rises on Skyline.  I knew exactly where I was. But it was unreal, 
too.  "Listen to me," Cuckold said.  "Try to understand.  The people 
who blew up our laboratory.  These are the same people who killed your
lover.  Who tried to kill you.  They killed your friends."  His face 
shone in the highway light.  "No matter what you think ... no matter 
what you want .. . we are on the same side now."  He was asking for too
much brainpower.  I did not think my nervous system would ever work 
again.  "They will try to kill you.  They will not give up.  Perhaps we
can help you, I don't know.  Frankly, you are not so important now. 
But  I would help you if I could.  If I can.  All this killing .. ." 
He  turned away and looked at the highway.  "..  . this is madness."

"Will I be all right?"

He looked at me quizzically.

"The thing you used.  Is it permanent?  The .. . way I feel?"  He 
shrugged.  "I think you will be okay.  Probably.  Sleep it off."

"It doesn't ... I can't make sense .. ."

"Sleep.  Think about it tomorrow.  If you are still alive."

As we crossed into the District, he gave me a spiel about working 
together.  For some vague common good.  He promised he would be in 
touch, but did not offer me any means to contact him.  He apologized 
for what they had done to me, sounding almost sincere.  "We have to 
drop you here," he said.  Jerry had pulled in along a sidewalk in 
Indian country.  But it was quiet now.  Even dopers go to sleep
eventually.  "We cannot take the chance.  They may be waiting for you. 
And, by the way ... do not attempt to run to your counterintelligence 
people.  You have no marks on your body.  No traces.  There is no 
evidence for what you would say. And they will only kill you for your 
knowledge."  He leaned farther back over the seat.  "And we would not 
be friends anymore.  We are the only friends you have left, John."  It 
was all a dream.  I was just floating through it. Remembering the 
pain.  Tish, all the rest, had disappeared.  Numb, dumb me.

"Get out," Cuckold said.  "You need help?"  I got myself out.  Most of
the way.  Then he grabbed my wrist, holding me partway inside the car.
 I saw the lower half of his face as the lips moved.

"Bonne chance."

Yellow tape crisscrossed the front yard.  "Police Line--Do Not Cross." 
It had sagged toward the ground and I stepped over it.  Lifting my leg 
hurt.  Then I turned again and reached down.  Bending hurt.  I ripped 
the tape free and balled it up.  I figured Dickey had left it there 
just to screw with me.  At least the cops had locked up after 
themselves.  I let myself in.  You could feel the dawn coming up.  The 
day was getting off to a good start.  With sirens in the distance.

I ached to sleep.  The cops had trashed the place.  Looking for 
evidence.  Or maybe Dickey was just making a point.  I took a plastic 
garbage bag up to the bathroom, stripped, and put my clothes in it. 
Then I got under the shower.  I could not straighten my back.  I 
crouched there until the water turned cold.  I had not begun to soap 
myself.  I hate cold water, but I could not move.  Finally, I cleaned 
myself.  Shaking.  After I dried off, I pissed blood.  That gets your
attention.  I stumbled toward the bed.  Odd, how the brain works.  When
it works. Despite the bad-party wreckage of the bedroom, I realized 
something was missing.

Someone had ripped off the Les Paul I bought Tish.

D.C. cops.

I curled up like an infant and smelled Tish on the sheets.  It was full
daylight when the banging on the front door woke me.  Obviously, the 
doorbell had not been man enough to do the job.  The banging kept up, 
real Don Giovanni stuff. Body aching, I clumsied around the floor 
until I found a pair of jeans the cops had flipped out of the closet. 
A  coffin of heavy air moved with me.  I blundered downstairs,
shirtless  and barefoot.  Stiff, fragile, and beat.  I had to hunt
through the  kitchen until I found the key where I had left it on a
shelf.

My visitor pounded away.

I also picked up the largest knife I could find.  I did not believe 
anybody was going to try to kill me like this.  Not by daylight. 
Banging on my front door. But a reasonable amount of caution seemed to 
be in order.

When I looked through the peephole, I saw Corry Nevers.  She was about 
to hammer the door again when I opened it.  Stronger than she appeared.
Health-club type. After looking me up and down, she cat-smiled and 
said, "Aren't you ever dressed?"  Then she pointed that little marble 
nose toward the knife in my hand. "I'm not that dangerous." "What do
you want?"

"Don't be hard."  A parting of the lips, a widening of the smile. 
Enough to make brokers and bankers swoon.  "Please."  I am not a rude 
man by nature.  But when your girlfriend has just been killed and it 
looks like sombody is out to kill you, when you've just been tortured, 
you're pissing blood, and the cops recently held a frat party in your 
home, your social skills deteriorate.  "What time is it?"  I said.  I 
felt like I had slept about fifteen minutes.  She glanced at her watch.
Carrier tank job.  "Quarter after twelve.  Did I wake you or
something?"

"Late night."

"The police?"

That got my attention.  "It was in the Post," she said.  "About your 
girlfriend. I just wanted to say I'm sorry.  She seemed .. . nice."

"She wasn't nice.  She was glorious.  But not nice."

She stood there in the heat.  Perspiration by Tiffany's.  "That's a 
lovely thing to say about a woman.  "Glorious."  " Her smile withered. 
"I don't think anybody would say anything that nice about me.  If I 
died."  I let her come in.  Mr. Wisdom.  She barely got inside the 
door when the trashing registered.  "Courtesy of the D.C. Police 
Department," I told her.  "They're convinced I'm some kind of narco." 
Uncertainty in that silver voice now.  "Can they .. . are they allowed
to do that?"  "This isn't Chevy Chase, sweetheart.  Now, what do you 
want?"  I had misjudged her.  The way I had misjudged everything else 
in my short-term memory account.  She began to cry.  "I'm alone.  Can't
you understand?  I'm scared.  I don't know what to do.  I tried to go 
back to work.  I thought it would help.  But I'm a basket case.  I keep
thinking .. ."  She hid her eyes with her hand.  A fly that had 
followed her inside circled her blond hair.  She waved it away and I
saw smears under her lashes.  "What do you want?  All I wanted was to 
talk to somebody."  Sobbing now.  "I read the paper.  I read about your
girl .. . about your car ... I thought we were the same now."  Even 
crying, she looked like an ad in a five-buck fashion mag.  Misery chic.
I stood there in my jeans, dumb-handed, with my guts hurting so bad I 
just wanted to go back to bed and curl up.  I almost touched her.  The 
comfort thing.  But something stopped me.  I had an inexplicable sense 
that she and Tish were enemies, that betrayal followed Corry Nevers 
like a shadow.  When I thought of Tish, I remembered something else.  I
had not done one of the fundamental things a human being in my
position  was obliged to do.

"Go in the kitchen.  Find a chair.  Sit down.  Wait for me."  I did not
exactly bound up the stairs, which gave me plenty of time to wonder 
whether the cops had taken Tish's papers.  What few she had.  I needed
her address book.  An item the investigators certainly should have 
taken, if they really believed Tish was involved in criminal activity. 
The police had ripped through Tish's things.  Guitar picks prickled 
underfoot.  Dickens lay on top of Charlotte Bronte.  But the cops 
seemed to have been interested mostly in her underpants, which covered 
the floor like little signal flags.  They had grabbed her guitar, but 
they had not bothered about the address book.  It was a ragged little 
thing.  I had always resisted the urge to page through it.  Now I had
an  excuse.  I knew her mother's current name was Bennet and that she
had moved to Michigan.  Tish had not volunteered anything more, and I
had  not asked. You did not have to know her long to realize she had
not  left a lot behind when she got on the bus out of town.

I dialed the number.  Hoping nobody would answer.  Hoping her mother 
would be at work in the middle of the day.  I knew I had to do this, 
but I did not want to.

Someone picked up on the fourth ring.

"Yeah?"  TV in the background.

"Mrs.  Bennet?"

"Yeah."

"Ma'am, are you the mother of Patricia O'Malley?"  "You a cop or 
something?  That little tramp in trouble again?"

"No, ma'am.  I'm .. . Tish and I were .. ."  "You one of her 
boyfriends?  Listen, buddy, I don't know where she is.  I got no idea. 
She don't tell me."

I could smell alcohol through the phone line.  "Hey, you," her mother 
went on. "When you catch up with her.  You tell her something for me, 
all right?  You tell her she's an ungrateful little bitch, all right? 
Tell her just what I said. Hundred dollars a goddamned month.  You 
call that gratitude?  After all I done for her?  She thinks she's a 
goddamned Catholic saint for sending her mother a hundred bucks a 
goddamned month.  I'll tell--"

A male voice took over the line.

"Fuck off, buddy," he said.

When I went back downstairs, Corry was cleaning up.  The blessing of 
coffee filled the air.  "Did you know you have seven messages on your 
answering machine?"  she asked.  No, I didn't know.  And I was not 
ready to listen to them. I sat in a chair she had righted.  It even 
hurt to sit down. "Can I make you something to eat?"  "Sit down," I
told her.  I did not  think I would ever be able to eat again.  "So you
went back to work?"  Maybe it was the

Victorian novels in my bedroom, but I felt like the girl should be in 
mourning for Em.  She did not sit down.  She raised the halves of a 
broken plate, as if in wonder.  "I thought it would take my mind off 
things.  But I'm not worth much."

"You really like your job?"  She did not understand the question. 
"It's great. Senator Faust is terrific to work for.  I'm learning a 
tremendous amount.  And you meet people."  Abruptly, she put down the 
broken china and leaned against the dishwasher.  "But today I just 
couldn't ... I don't know.  It was a dumb idea.  Going in.  It didn't 
work.  I guess it was even disrespectful.  In a way.  To Em."  A 
wistful smile.  Maybe real, maybe practiced in front of a mirror. 
"Does that sound old-fashioned?"  I wondered if she was sleeping with
the  senator and almost asked.  He was tall, still had his hair, and
played  well on the talk shows.  Big money, lot of power.  This girl's
kind of  guy.  Em was just a rung on a ladder, and Corry was born to
take the  elevator.  "Corry, would you please just sit down?  Don't put
anything  else away.  Just sit down and tell me what this is all about.
Please."  I touched my stomach muscles and found them unfriendly.  "If
you'll  pardon the lack of self-esteem, I don't think of myself as your
type of  guy.  You must have friends.  Plenty of them.  I don't
understand why  you're here."  She did as she had been told and sat
down.  A duchess  taken prisoner by the workers and peasants.

"I'm afraid," she said.

"You don't look afraid."  She hit me with those killer blue eyes.  "I'm
 afraid to look afraid."

"Bullshit line.  What are you afraid of?"

"I don't know.  If I knew, maybe I wouldn't be so afraid."

"Has anybody contacted you?  Bothered you?"

She shook her head.  The beautiful-hair commercial.  In slow motion. 
She was Manhattan, not Washington.  "Nobody.  The police haven't even 
called back."

"They're busy.  So what are you afraid of?"  "What are you afraid of? 
Don't I have as much reason to be afraid as you?"

"Who says I'm afraid?"

"Do you always answer the door with a butcher's knife?" "It's a
frontier neighborhood."

"I think you're afraid of me.  And I can't figure out why."  I tried to
meet her eyes with the level of self-confidence to which she had been 
born.  "Handle with care.  The girl has a black belt in male 
psychology.  And she does not like answering questions."

"Ask.  Ask anything."

"Were you going to leave Em?"

"Em tell you that?"

"That's not an answer."  She looked at the floor, and her voice lost 
its confidence.  "I couldn't wait to leave him."

"Why?"  "He hit me.  He was a drunk.  He stank.  Is that what you want 
to hear about your old friend?"

"Em wouldn't hit a woman."  "He hit me.  When he was afraid.  He'd get 
drunk.  And hit me."  Her eyes stabbed in my direction.  "I've never 
known a man who wouldn't hit a woman.  When he was desperate."

"What was he afraid of?  Why was he desperate?"

"It was lots of things."

"Name one."

"He was afraid I'd leave him."

"But you didn't."

"I couldn't afford to."

"Stocks have a bad year?  Uncle run off with the trust fund?"

Her eyebrows climbed.  "Who do you think I am?"

"Who are you?"  "I'd like to hear it from you.  Is that what the 
hostility's about?  Who do you think I am, John?"  I looked her up and 
down without embarrassment.  "Cordelia Nevers.  Rich girl playing at 
government.  Waiting to marry richer guy.  Fund-raiser cocktail-party 
wife by birthright."  She laughed. It was unnerving.  Her laughter 
reminded me of the way Tish laughed at me when I deserved it.  "It's 
Corrine.  Not Cordelia.  The last name was Neverosky.  My grandfather 
shortened it because Hunkies couldn't get a job outside of the mines. 
My mother and father had a contest to see who could drink themselves to
death first.  Dad won.  I went to Penn State on a help-the-girls 
scholarship and worked summers in the last knitting mill in North 
America.  Because I have fast hands.  I could make more that way than I
could on some internship with an ass-grabber.  I came to Washington 
because I wanted to change things.  But mostly I wanted to change 
myself.  I moved in with Em two days after I met him.  Because he was 
charming when he drank just the right amount, and he had all the things
I thought I wanted, and on our second date he introduced me to the 
Secretary of the Treasury.  In the back of a restaurant where the tips 
are bigger than the paychecks back home.  He got me my job.  And fucked
me like a bully, and slapped me when the sex didn't work.  Sometimes 
he'd disappear.  Hours, days.  But I didn't have much money, and I had 
my first real leg-up job, and I was afraid of Em and all he could do in
this town."  She looked at me with a fierceness that reminded me of 
Tish slashing off a guitar solo.  But Corry Nevers sat perfectly still.
 "Happy now?"

No.  I was not happy.  I think that, more than anything else,

I hated the parallels with Tish's life.  And the smarter choices, the
comparative success, of Corrine Neverosky.  The phone rang.  I was 
grateful to the caller in advance.  Walking the long seven or eight 
feet across the kitchen, I wondered if I would ever get anything 
right.

"Hello?"  "John?  John, is that you?"  I recognized Mary Farnsworth's 
voice.  But I had never heard her voice like this.  "John, can you come
over here?  Please? Could you come now?  Somebody's been in the house 
.. ."

"I've got to go," I told Corry.

"What's the matter?"

"A friend's got a problem."

"Is it part of--" "Corry, please.  Save it.  I'm sorry I've been such a
dick. But, one, you're better off knowing less, not more.  Two, I 
don't know much myself.  Three, hanging around with me is probably the 
un safest act you could commit."  I put my paws in the pockets of my 
jeans and my abdomen went neon with pain.

"I'll come with you."

"Bad idea."

"Maybe I could help."

"No.  I told you.  I'm not safe to be around."

"I don't care.  Maybe we're safer together."  "And maybe we're a bonus 
target whenever we're within bursting radius of each other."

"What does that mean?"

"You'd better go back to work."  "I don't want to go back to work.  I 
can't concentrate.  I can't think about anything except--"

Impulse struck.  I picked up the phone.

"Information for what city?"

"Washington, D.C. Police Department.  Homicide."

"Please hold for the number."  I redialed and told them I wanted to 
speak to Detective Dickey.  The woman on the desk said he was busy.  I 
told her I was a suspect in a murder case.  She said: "Well, he still 
busy.  But I axe him if he want to talk to you."

Dickey came on the phone.  "Who is this?"

"America's Army."

"Yeah?  What you got, soldier boy?  I'm eating lunch."  "Remember I 
told you about the other murder?  The general I think was murdered? 
Over in Virginia?"  "Out of my jurisdiction.  Hey, how come you haven't
been returning my calls?"  "His wife just phoned me.  Somebody's been 
in her house.  Maybe the same crew that tore up Emerson Carroll's 
apartment."  "You a detective now?  Everybody's a fucking detective. 
Goddamned television."  "Her name's Mary Farnsworth.  She's at
five-two-one-one--" "I told you.  Virginia's out of my jurisdiction. 
What're you trying to do, get me to blow the case on some technicality?
Dream on."

"Don't you care about this?"  "You got a lawyer putting you up to all 
this crap? Hey, why don't you just come over here and write out a 
confession."  "Just tell me one thing.  Just one thing, okay?  I 
understand why your crew tore up my place.  Maybe I understand it on a 
couple of levels.  But did you know one of your boys stole a very 
expensive guitar from my bedroom?"  "Don't call them 'boys."  They're 
sensitive about the term.  And nobody tore up your little drug den. 
And  I guarantee you, nobody stole no goddamned guitar.  And listen. 
While you're on the phone.  Hyacinth needs the name of your insurance
company  so she can finish up her report on the car.  What's more, I
told you  about claiming the body.  You're a non-relative and you'll
have to--"

I hung up.  Corry smiled at me as though I were a fool.  "I wish you'd 
let me help you."  I turned away.  This was just wasting time.  I had 
to get dressed and go.  Mary Farnsworth needed me.  I had climbed 
halfway up the steps to the second floor when I realized I had 
overlooked an important practical matter.  I bent down over the railing
 and hurt and called, "Corry?"

In a moment, she was standing at the foot of the stairs.

"Are you all right?"  she asked.

"Did you drive over here?"

She smiled ravishingly.  "Need a lift?" "The police don't believe me,"
Mary Farnsworth said.  "They insist I'm  merely distraught."  She was
the only woman I had ever known who could  not only use the word
"distraught," but sound natural doing it.  We  stood in her living
room. Nothing broken, nothing even out of place to  a visitor's eye.  I
had tried to leave Corry out in her car, but Mary  would not have it. 
Too hot, she insisted, and too rude.  A flawless  hostess, even in
distress.  It was clear that Em had never brought  Corry to the house. 
She was a stranger to Mary, who was trying to figure out our
relationship.  Mary had no idea about Tish, must not  have read the
papers or watched the local news.  It was jarring.  As  though Tish
were still alive in a world that excluded me.

"What made you think somebody was in the house?"  Mary looked wronged. 
"I don't think, John.  I know."  Then she softened.  "I've always been 
able to tell a thing like that.  It runs in my family.  We .. . have a 
sense for presences."

"Were there any signs?  Anything missing?"

She shook her head.  Slowly.  "Nothing stolen.  But they were in 
Mickey's study.  I know it, John.  Things were ever so slightly out of 
place.  As though the cleaning woman had gone through it.  I believe 
they went through the rest of the house as well.  But I'm certain about
the study.  Mickey's desk chair had been moved.  You know how precise 
Mickey was about things.  So dress-right-dress.  That chair was moved. 
And then there was the call from the Pentagon."

"What call?"  She looked weary.  Her hair was only ninety-nine percent 
perfect. If my own life had not upended over the past few days, I 
would have been on the side of the police.  I still was not convinced. 
The crew who had been searching homes had not been quite this neat 
elsewhere.  "Somebody wanted me out of this house.  A major called.  He
said he was a major.  Brady.  Terribly officious.  I swear, I wanted
to  slap him right over the phone.  He told me I needed to come by to
sign  for the personal effects they had cleared out of Mickey's office.
He said I had to identify each item."  She grazed two fingertips along
her  temple. "It did seem a bit brutal.  But the Army has changed so
much  over the years, and I supposed that was how they do business now.
So I  drove in.  But the room number he gave me belonged to some sort
of Air  Force recreational services staff.  Nobody knew anything about
a Major  Brady.  So I went upstairs to Mickey's office.  They were not
expecting  me."  She smiled at a remembrance.  "The survival assistance
officer  had gathered Mickey's things himself.  He was going to bring
them to  me.  There was no need to sign anything."

"You told all this to the police?"  "They wouldn't listen.  As soon as 
I said that nothing seemed to be missing, they lost interest."  She 
glanced at Corry, then turned back to me.  "I'm so sorry.  I haven't 
even prepared coffee.  Would you like to sit down for a bit?" "Mary,
for God's sake, we don't need coffee."

"I'd love a cup," Cony said.  Mary applied a smile that her mother had 
taught her and said, "Do please sit down.  Your family name was Nevers?
I believe there are quite a few Nevers downriver in New Orleans.  Old 
stock, terribly proud of the French connection.  They never recovered 
from being sold to the Americans."

"My family's from the north," Corry said.

"I could tell," Mary said.  She smiled beautifully.  I wished Corry 
would just disappear.  I had selfish designs on Mary.  I wanted to talk
to her.  About Tish. To tell her what had happened.  I needed to talk 
to somebody, and Mary was the only clean soul within range.  Mary went 
out to the kitchen.  Corry would not meet my eyes.  She studied the 
room as if appraising the furniture for auction. After a minute, I 
followed Mary.  Mary jumped when I came in.  She stood at the counter, 
measuring coffee, and I had made her spill a loaded spoon.  I did not
have a chance to speak.  She turned on me, whispering in anger.  "John,
I don't like that girl.  And I'm ashamed of you.  If you and Tish are 
having a little spat, I want you to apologize to her.  You just stop on
the way home and buy your Tish flowers.  A lot of flowers.  And I 
expect the two of you for dinner next Friday.  At seven-thirty."

"Mary, I have to tell you something."  She put her hands on her hips, 
which was something I had never seen Mary Farnsworth do.  It was a 
gesture from her ancestors, from the slave shacks, a mustering of 
strength for a fight.  Her nostrils pulsed.  "I swear, John, men just 
make me so mad.  And you, of all people!  I thought you were a 
gentleman.  And I had always judged you to have a faithful heart.  Why,
if you were just the tiniest bit smaller, I'd put you over my knee and
 spank you."

I helped her with the coffee and said nothing of consequence.

Coffee steamed from Mary's silver.  But Mary served it over invisible 
ice.  She had gone as rigidly formal as if we were line dancing at the 
court of Louis XIV.  Corry either was oblivious to Mary's attitude or 
didn't care.

Talk died.  We drank.  Finally, Corry said, "You have such lovely 
antiques.  It must be your hobby, Mrs.  Farnsworth."  "They're family 
pieces," Mary told her. "John, be a dear and pour Miss Nevers more 
coffee."  I did exactly as I had been told, then said, "Mary .. . you 
said you thought whoever was in the house moved a chair?  By the 
general's desk?"

"Yes, John."

"Could I have a look?  Would you show me?"  "Certainly."  She stood up.
"Do stay here and relax.  Miss Nevers."  I followed Mary across the 
hall and into the room General Farnsworth had used as his office, 
library, counseling chamber, and poker den.  A sea captain's desk took 
up nearly half the room.  It had been built without pillars of drawers 
so it could double as a table.  A PC occupied half of the desktop. 
Military history books sandbagged the walls and floor.  The souvenirs 
of long service--plaques and plates and banners, diplomas and signed 
photographs of heroes, a cadet saber and shako--made a private museum. 
Mary had permitted a certain immaculate clutter in this one room of her
house.  The general had acquired habits that looked like discipline, 
but Mary was the family drill sergeant.  The room appeared to be just 
as Farnsworth had left it, but there was such a density to it that I 
would not have been able to tell if anything had been moved.

Mary shut the French doors behind us.  "She is insufferable, John."

"Mary, there's nothing between us.  She just--" Mary Farnsworth looked 
at me with frozen brown eyes.  "Maybe you don't think there's anything 
going on.  But that's not what that girl thinks."  I looked at the desk
chair.  Corry had a peculiar magic.  I had never known anyone who 
inspired such instant dislike.  At any rate, I wanted Mary to knock it 
off.  Her talk about Tish had dumped me in an emotional slaughterhouse.
I needed to tell her what had happened, but I did not have the spirit 
for it.

Instead, I asked, "How was the chair moved?"  Mary grew businesslike. 
"Whenever he finished using the computer, Mickey would tuck his chair 
back under the writing part of his desk.  He just liked it that way. 
It  was how he ordered his world."

The chair was centered under the computer.

"Okay if I turn it on?  Just kind of check things out?"  "Go right 
ahead."  She drew closer to me.  "What do you think .. ."  But I was 
not listening now.  I punched the button to turn on the monitor, then 
reached down to flip on the brains.  Wondering if I needed a password. 
A password would not have helped.  The power lights came on.  But the 
screen never filled.  I poked keys, but nothing happened.

"Where did he keep his disks?"

"Right there on the shelf.  By the--"

No disks.  Empty space.

"Oh, my God," Mary said.

It was real again.  I got down on my knees.  "I'm going to have a look 
inside this sucker.  Okay?" "Anything .. ."

"I might break it."

"Go on.  It doesn't matter."  I switched off the machine, then yanked 
the plug. The computer was an older model, boxy, but lighter than it 
looked.  I laid it flat on the carpet.  No tools required.  The screws 
fell away and the top flipped off.  The hard drive was gone.  "Is 
something wrong?"  Mary asked.  "Should I call the police again?"  I 
stared at the gutted machine, all questions and no answers.  Then I 
snapped the cover back down and put the box back in its place. "Mary, 
listen to me.  I don't think you should call the police.  I think you
should forget we ever touched the computer.  Forget the missing disks.
Something's going on, and you need to stay out of it."  She cast those 
brown eyes down at me.  "And Mickey was involved?  In whatever you're 
talking about?" "Please.  Just forget about everything."  I could read 
her mind: If my husband was in it, and if it cost him his life, I'm 
damned well going to get into it. "Mary, could you just go visit your 
family?  Or some friends?  Any place far away from here?"

"I'm not about to--" "Listen to me.  This is dangerous.  And you can't 
help.  Your husband didn't want you in on this.  He didn't even want me
in.  But I'm in, and you're not, and I'm begging you in his name to
get  on a plane and go."

Mary didn't like it.  She did not like it one bit.

"Mickey never had time for cowards," she said.  "This isn't about 
cowardice. It's about survival.  You'd hurt, not help."  She thought 
that over.  Wanting more information.  "Who else knows about this, 
John?"

I looked up at her.  Just beyond the line of her skirt, I saw Corry. 
Standing at the French doors.

Mary finally promised me she would get on a plane that evening.  Corry 
and I left.  I expected a storm of questions, but Corry just drove. 
"You can drop me at one of the rent-a-car lots down on Jeff Davis." 
She looked at me from behind her sunglasses.  The super babe She 
belonged in a German convertible.  Or a white Jag.  But she drove a 
little Jap number.  The kind of car a woman on the make could excuse as
practical for an urban lifestyle.  Corry had made a series of smart 
choices in her life.  Just as Tish had made a long line of dumb ones.
Corry Nevers would not have gotten a tattoo in a thousand years.  And 
one earring hanging on each ear was plenty.

I still liked Tish better.

"You can borrow my car," Corry said. "Thanks.  I was born to rent." 
She glanced over at me.  Little Miss  Ray Bans.  You imagined wind in
her hair even with the windows shut and  the air on.

"Mrs.  Farnsworth didn't like me very much."

"She's upset."  "I felt like she hated me."  She locked her face toward
the highway.  Jewelry-ad profile.  "She didn't know about your 
girlfriend, about what happened?  Did she?"

"No.  She's a media dropout."

"And she thought you were two-timing?"

I smiled, despite myself.  "That's an old-fashioned expression."

"Time stood still where I grew up."

"Yeah.  That's what she thought."  "And that woman liked your 
girlfriend?  I mean, no offense, but I can't imagine--"

"Fuck off, Corry."

"I didn't mean it like it sounded."

"Bullshit."

"Well, I'm sorry."  I still wanted to cry like a kid when I thought 
about Tish. I had really humilitated her about the blue-guitar tattoo. 
In mean, little ways.  The shit we lay on people.  And live to 
regret.

"Truce?"  Corry said.  Soft-voiced.

"Whatever."

"Want me to turn on the radio?"

"Suit yourself."

She switched on NPR low.  "So ... I don't get it," she said.

"You don't get what?"

"Her place wasn't all torn up.  The way Em's was."  "They knew where to
look. They knew what they wanted."  Corry shook her head.  "Maybe. 
But you know what I think?  I think it could be two separate players. 
Looking for the same thing. Maybe they're in competition."

"And what exactly are they looking for?"  She tipped her sunglasses
higher on her nose.  "Whatever it is, you can enter it into a 
computer."  "What if ..."  I said, "..  . what if it's all the same 
bunch?  Only they've been getting too much attention.  A burst of 
killings.  The press.  The cops. Everything spinning out of control. 
Maybe whoever's behind them told them to put on their table manners."

"So what do you think they're after?"  Corry asked.  "Haven't a clue," 
I lied. The pain in my belly and back had long since convinced me it 
had something to do with Em's airplane.  "How about you?"  "I don't 
know .. . but it must have been something Em had access to.  And this 
general guy.  I just can't figure out where you fit in."

"Same as you," I said.  "Guilt by association."

A cop car blasted by us on the berm.  Up ahead, traffic had slowed. 
"Take the next exit," I said.  "There's a back way to get onto Jeff 
Davis."

"You really could just borrow my car."  "Listen."  I reached over to 
crank up the radio.  Martha Raddatz, voice sober-sexy, reporting from 
the Pentagon.  There had been a massive explosion at an aircraft 
research facility outside Atlanta. Fires still burning.  One hundred 
and fourteen bodies had been recovered, but over a hundred more workers
remained unaccounted for.  The casualties included civilian scientists
as well as military advisers from the United States Air Force and
Navy.  The lab was rumored to have been a prime site for work on the
classified avionics for the Next-Generation Fighter-Bomber

"Goddamned frogs," I said.  "What's going on?"  Corry said, all the 
cool out of her voice.  I suppose my reaction was contagious.  "Does 
this have something to do with us?"

"Bastards," I said.  She turned onto the exit ramp.  "Please tell me 
what's going on."  I looked at that gorgeous face.  Easy to admire, 
hard to like.  I wondered how much longer she would be alive.  Hoping 
only that things had escalated to a point where we didn't matter 
anymore, that we might be forgotten.

"It's a shooting war now," I told her.

Maybe Mary Farnsworth didn't like her, and maybe I couldn't let myself 
like her, either.  But the realization had begun to penetrate even my 
bunker of a skull that Corry Nevers had genuine fears of her own.  When
she dropped me off at rent-a-car alley, she acted afraid of the dark. 
At five on a summer afternoon.  Just before she drove off, I agreed she
 could come over later.

She had a way of getting what she wanted.  The economy was booming.  I 
had to march to three rental outfits before I found one that had a car 
available.  I got a Ford that was falling apart.  At a crummy day rate.
Merging into the after-work crawl over the bridge, I searched the
radio  for additional details on the bombing.  At the bottom of the
hour, the  death toll had risen by twelve.  I stopped at a market to
buy food I  did not want and walked the aisles like a prisoner in the
exercise  yard.  After that, I could not avoid going home any longer. 
Home was  Tish.  And Tish was dead.  Everything she had ever touched in
the house  was an emotional atomic bomb.  I boiled water for pasta and
played the  recordings on my answering machine.  Several calls from
reporters.  I  did not copy down the names and numbers.  One call from
my boss. Another from Army legal affairs.  It was Friday evening and I
figured  there was no point trying to return the calls.  I could see
them in  person Monday morning.

A call from Dickey that had been overtaken by events.  A message from a
member of Tish's band, asking her if she was dead or if it was
somebody  else in the papers.  And a creamy voice suggesting I change
my  long-distance company.  I dumped in the pasta and got out the phone
book.  "F" for funeral homes.  I ate first and had a glass of wine
from  an opened bottle, then called the number on the ad that seemed
the most  gringo.  When I described what had happened to Tish, the
voice on the  other end cautioned me that it would be hard to make her
look exactly  the way I remembered her.

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear," I told him.  "She's cinders.  No 
open casket. No viewing.  No wake.  I just want to bury her."

"Have you consulted the rest of the family on that?"  "I'm all the 
family she's got.  I want a cemetery south of the river.  Someplace 
clean.  And pretty."

"And you'll be wanting spaces for how many, sir?"

I thought about that longer than I really needed to.

"One."

"You might want to consider the savings--" "One.  Listen, do they still
make wooden caskets?  Not cheap ones.  Nice ones."  "Oh, indeed they 
do, sir.  We have an absolutely gorgeous eternal bed in mahogany.  And 
a top-of-the-line imported rosewood model."

"Can I have a look at them?"  "Why, of course.  Certainly, sir.  That's
what we're here for.  And you did specify an interment the day after 
tomorrow?"  I wanted to scream at him, "Just fucking bury her, all 
right?"  Instead, I said, "Yes.  And I'd be grateful if you could find 
a Catholic priest.  The deceased wasn't a member of a local 
congregation."

"And flowers?"  I thought again, hating the need to think about any of 
this. "Roses.  A lot of them.  Yellow roses."  I had given Tish roses
several times.  But it was only the first bouquet, the yellow ones, 
that had made her cry.  I went upstairs and worked through Tish's 
address book.  There were not as many names as I had expected.  Mostly 
clubs and other musicians. Little drawings of faces by the entries. 
With smiles or scowls.  I rated a big smile.  The sight wrecked me for 
half an hour.  I phoned the names I recognized first.  Each call was 
like lashing myself with a whip.  Some of her friends wanted practical 
details I did not yet have, or needed consolation I could not give. 
Others, clumsily polite, just wanted to get off the phone.  One bastard
told me, sympathetically, that with Tish it had been only a matter of 
time.  "I never bought that straight act of hers," he said.  "You could
feel the hunger, you know?"  When I was done, I just sat with my head 
in my hands.  Until the phone rang.  The caller identified himself as 
Karl Aalstrom.  Big voice.  Selling something.  "I'll bet you don't 
remember me," he said.  "The basic course.  Out at Huachuca.  Remember 
old Aley Aalstrom?  We had some times, Johnny boy."  We had not had 
times, but I did remember him now.  Second Lieutenant Karl Aalstrom. 
He and a ring of other students had been caught cheating.  The intel 
school should have booted them, but they were just lieutenants and the 
chain of command was trying to keep the attrition rate down.  So they 
slapped their wrists and gave them extra training.  Later on, I heard 
that Aalstrom was caught falsifying TDY vouchers and did not even make 
captain.

"Yeah.  I remember.  What's up?"  "Oh, just checking in.  Old times and
all.  Think maybe we could get together for some chow?  Or a beer, 
anyway?  On me, Johnny boy.  Life is good.  I'm living large."

"It's a bad time."

"Just a few minutes."

"I'll have to take a raincheck."  He breathed like an asthmatic.  Or a 
sex caller.  "John?  I'm afraid I can't take "No' for an answer.  You 
see, I work for some people who need to communicate with you.  They 
brought me in from the West Coast so we could sit down and talk.  They 
called me because they found out you and I go a long way back."

"We don't go a long way back.  What's this all about?"

"John, we don't really want to talk about this over the phone, all 
right?  Why don't we just meet somewhere--" "I don't have time.  And 
I'm not interested."  I didn't hang up, though.  And it was a good 
thing, in the end.  "Johnny boy. Listen to me.  One old friend to 
another.  You want to make this meeting."

"Give me one good reason."  "I understand you like guitars," he said. 
"How about a mint-condition Les Paul Gibson?"

Corry showed up at the door just as I was leaving.  She didn't care
where I was going.  She wanted to come along.  "No.  I'm meeting a 
ghost from the past.  Wait here, if you want."  She could not think of 
an argument fast enough. Or maybe she read the determination in my 
voice and figured the fight would not be worth the ammunition.  She 
accepted my offer.  I told her to stay upstairs and not to answer the 
door or the phone.  She nodded.  Eyes gone elsewhere.  It was dusk.  I 
got down on my knees to check the car's underbelly.  Then I checked
under the hood.  Nothing that I could see.  The neighbor kids thought I
was a hoot.  The adults crossed the street to avoid me.  The traffic 
had faded.  I sailed south with the windows down.  Checking the 
rearview mirror.  If anybody was following me, I couldn't spot them. 
All quiet on the Potomac.  I pulled off at Shirlington.  Aalstrom knew 
the D.C. area.  He had specified a linkup in a microbrewery cafe that 
was loud and anonymous.  GS-7s through11s, with their ties loosened. 
Young women in their first business suits.  Waitresses with jogger's 
legs and too much education to be efficient.  I wondered if I would
recognize Aalstrom.  It didn't really matter, since he was obviously 
going to recognize me.

I beat him to the powwow tent.  I took over a stool that gave me an 
intermittent view of the door and disappointed the bartender by 
ordering a Diet Coke.  A few of the women looked at me as if I were in 
the running but not leading the pack. Aalstrom strutted in, big and 
blond, with too little hair worn too long.  The dark shirt and linen 
sport coat were upscale Tijuana.  He carried a good-looking briefcase, 
though.  New York shuttle meets Brentwood.  The hostess intercepted
him.  He pushed up too close to her.  He saw me, waved, and took the 
girl with the menus hostage until he had me in a booth in a corner.  He
handled the briefcase with care.  "Jesus Christ," he said, slapping
his  hands together, "it's good to see you, Johnny boy.  God Almighty,
I  wish I still had your physique.  Army keeps you hopping, I guess. 
Me,  I got to get back on an exercise program."  He tapped the swell of
his  stomach.  "Got to get rid of the old heart-attack sack.  Jeez,
though,  you hardly look a day older than you did out at Fort
We-gotya."  He  looked beat and old.  Em's car-lot cousin.  I tried to
remember if Em  had been any closer to him than I had been.  I didn't
think so. But Em  had always had his secrets.

"So what's up, Aley?  What's this Les Paul Gibson crap?"  He looked 
genuinely disappointed.  "Don't you want to order first?  You're my 
guest, Johnny boy.  Live large."

"Talk to me."  "They do killer burgers here--you know that?  I stop by 
every time I'm in town.  Can't get a decent burger in L.A. anymore. 
Fucking broccoli patties.  Tofu hot dogs.  Where's it going to end?" 
He  dropped his smile and his menu.  "So what're you fucking around
with  all this for, Johnny?  It's not your brief.  Why bring down all
this  pain on yourself?"  "I'm an unreconstructed Protestant.  We like
pain.  Why don't we start at the beginning?" Aalstrom rolled his eyes
and gave me the polar-bear salute.

Palms held high.  "Beginning?  Who knows how it all began?  The here 
and now is what matters, Johnny boy.  And the future.  You should think
about your future." The waitress slapped down a basket of soft 
pretzels and mustard dip.

"Get you guys something to drink?"  "Black-and-tan, angel," Aalstrom 
said.  He appraised the girl as she scribbled.  "I bet you're really a 
model.  You a model?"  "I'm an economist," the waitress told him.  I 
ordered a draft and she moved on.  "So let's talk," Aley said.  "Just 
like old times.  Now, I represent some people.  Business interests. 
Serious players, Johnny boy.  Now .. . the people I represent are the 
only rational actors in this whole circus.  They want to put a stop to 
all this violence.  They're disgusted by it.  And they're prepared to 
pay."

"They want to pay me to stop the violence?"  His face said I was 
letting him down big-time.  "Johnny boy, do not give me unnecessary 
grief, all right?  I'm trying to reach out to you.  You know what I'm 
saying."

"I don't have any idea what you're saying."  The waitress put down our 
drinks. There was too much foam on the beers.  "Take your dinner 
orders, guys?"  "Later," Aalstrom told her.  "My friend isn't hungry." 
When she moved on, he said, "Hey, I'll bet she's been fucked so many 
times her brains are fried.  College does it to them, you know?"  He 
shared his eyes with me again.  Leaning in so that the edge of the 
table creased his gut.  "How much money will it take?  Lay your cards
on the table."

"Money for what?"

"Get real.  Talk to me."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Aley."  Another big shake of 
the head. "You really are the dumbest joker on earth if you don't take 
this money and run.  So okay.  I'll open the bidding.  How about five 
million?  That's still a nice piece of change.  Deposited offshore--no 
Freddy Fuck-Around stuff.  You like the Caymans?  Bermuda?  How about 
Panama?  Name the bank.  Shit, we can even put it in Canada for you. 
Make it look like you inherited half of Ontario.  Treasury boys'll 
never find it.  Hosers can't run financial institutions.  Nothing but
Mexicans with college degrees.  Chinese are going to own the place in a
couple of years.  Hey, we'll even create an investment history for
you.  How about it? Five mil sound good?  Beats Army pay."

"Five million sounds great.  What do I have to do for it?"  "Johnny, 
would you stop this?  You are alienating a true friend."  My turn to 
lean across the table. So close I could see the veins webbing his 
nose.  "Just tell me straight out what you want."  To his credit, 
Aalstrom did not turn away.  Suddenly, he looked a lot harder. 
"Johnny," he said, "I see you've never been in a courtroom.  Or you are
playing it very fucking dumb when you should be playing it cool."  He
backed his big head away.  As if drawing a deep breath.  Then he moved 
in again. "They want the disks.  Every fucking one of them.  Every 
copy you might have made trying to be clever.  No more bullshit."

"I don't have any disks."  He wanted to grab me.  To hit me.  Maybe 
this was his shot at the big time.  "Fuck you, Johnny.  Just fuck you. 
Everybody knows you got the disks.  Who else is going to have them? 
You  tell me, huh?"  He could barely hold himself on his side of the
table.  Big hands clenched and unclenched just inches from me. 
"They're all  fucking dead, Johnny boy.  All the little shits who
thought they were  players.  Dead, dead, dead."  He brought his eyes
closer.  Life had not  been good to him.  "Dead is forever, pal.  Stay
alive.  And help an old friend out while you're at it."

"I don't have any disks.  I don't know what I'm involved in.  If I am, 
in fact, involved in something.  Which is starting to seem like a safe 
bet."  I surprised him.  I leaned closer and grabbed his wrists and 
forced them down on the table before he knew what was happening.  I got
the tips of my thumbs right on the nerves and went deep.  "But let me 
tell you something, Mr.  Les Paul Gibson telephone bullshit.  If you 
... or any of the scum who sent you here ... if you had anything .. . 
anything to do with the death of Tish O'Malley, I guarantee you I will 
live long enough to make you pay for it."  I hit his nerves hard, right
where you can grind them against the wrist joint.  It's a good skill. 
Em had taught it to me a long time before.  Laughing down in Mexico. 
His father had hired a private martial arts instructor for him when he 
was a kid.  Aalstrom nearly lost it.  Doing a sit-down jig.  Trying not
 to shout.  Tears crowded in his eyes.

I let him go, took out a five, and dropped it on the table.

"Should cover the beer."  "Please," he said, working his wrists. 
"Don't go yet. I have something for you."

"I'm waiting."  He looked at me.  A big wounded bear.  "John .. . I'm 
begging you. Deal with me.  Let me have the disks.  It'd be good for 
both of us."  I tried to make my voice level and real.  "Aley, I'm 
telling you the truth.  I don't have any disks.  Except for the ones 
that go with my PC.  You can have those, if you want.  They're not very
exciting."  I puffed beer-stained air.  "I just seem to have stumbled 
into all this.  And I wish I could stumble back out."  I turned my head
slowly from side to side, not quite looking at him.  The sight of him 
was painful.  How people lose in life.  "But I do not have these disks 
you're talking about.  And I've already been hurt about as bad as 
anybody could do it.  So tell your crowd to look somewhere else." 
Aalstrom wasn't living large anymore.  He looked smashed in.  "John," 
he said at last, "I wouldn't tell anybody else what you just said. 
About not having the disks.  Especially if it's true.  Right about now,
the possibility that you're holding those disks is all that's keeping 
you alive."

"Shit."

"What's that supposed to mean?"  "Just what it says.  Goddamn it.  You 
kill my girl, try to bribe me, and threaten to kill me, too.  And you 
want to make nice."

"Maybe .. . you should try to find those disks."  "Aley, you're big on
old-times-sake.  How about doing me a favor?  Just tell me what this is
all about.  What's on these magic disks that I don't have?"  He
lowered  his face. Looking at the spoiled menu.  "Can't do it, pal. 
Got to  keep on the right side of Jesus."

"Shit."  Aalstrom sighed.  "You're a great disappointment to me, 
Johnny.  But I guess you figured that out."  He roused himself and 
reached for his briefcase. "Tell you what.  Let me lay down my last 
card."  He took out a manila envelope with a bulge.  "Got something for
 you.  You like movies?"

"Drama?  Or comedy?"  "You're going to like this one.  Little video. 
Just for you. It's an exclusive."  He extended the envelope. 
"Somebody'll be in touch."

"What is it?"  "Just watch it.  Go home and watch it.  It'll put things
 in perspective."

I took the envelope.  And got up to go.  Aalstrom smiled again.  "Bet 
you a fifty I screw that waitress tonight."

I was sorry I wasn't a betting man. I did the security thing and
parked a couple of blocks away, then took  an indirect route home.  The
darkness had weight.  Heat grabbed skin  and would not let go.  In the
park, the brothers were drinking and  getting Friday-night loud. Most
folks out on the street after dark  just have to keep an eye out for
muggers.  I was waiting to get shot.  Or kidnapped again.  Or to turn
onto my block and find my house blown  up.  Corry had turned up the air
and the cold smacked me when I stepped  in the front door.  Stereo
cranked.  Marianne Faithfull.  Broken  English.  Changed into cutoffs
and an old Key West T-shirt, she still  looked Ralph Lauren.  Smiling
to greet me.  She had not stayed upstairs as agreed.  "Turn that down,"
I said.  "No.  Turn it off.  Or put  something else on."  She pouted
and bent over my stereo.  Lean tanned  legs.  Her shirt climbed her
back.

The music stopped.  She straightened.

"Was that your girlfriend's?  I'm sorry .. ."  "Why Marianne 
Faithfull?"  My voice sounded paranoid even to me.  She looked baffled.
"No special reason.  I just hadn't heard it in a while.  It used to be
one of my favorites.  In college."  She held the disc case in her
hand.  Judging the cool-unto-death look of the cover. "To tell you the 
truth, I was a little disappointed.  She seems so ... obvious. I guess 
my tastes are maturing.  Did I do something wrong?"

"Forget it."  She smiled again.  "So how was your visit with your 
friend?  Can I make you some coffee?  Oh, the phone kept ringing.  Four
times, I think.  I let the answering machine get it.  The way you 
said."  I walked into the kitchen. Realizing belatedly that Corry had 
put my place back together.  With remarkable skill and speed.  As if 
she had known where everything belonged.  When I left, the wires had 
been ripped off the back of the stereo and the CD player had been on 
the floor.  I was glad it still worked.  I put the envelope with the 
video down on the counter and played the messages.  My boss, voice hot.
Call me, John. I looked at my watch and decided to wait.  There were a
couple of grunts from Dickey.  Get with me, soldier boy.  We need to 
talk.  The funeral director had two cemetery plots he wanted me to look
at.  And a persistent reporter named Ricks from The Wall Street
Journal  had left his number again.  Corry put on Chet Baker.  She sat
on the  floor with her back against a small suitcase, legs dolled out. 
Looking  up at me as though our relationship was deeper than it was
ever going  to get.  I just said:

"Thanks for the cleanup work."  "I appreciate you letting me stay here.
I mean ... for letting me sleep here.  It makes me feel a lot
safer."

I did not remember agreeing to anything of the kind.  And there had not
been a suitcase in her hand when she hit the door earlier.  But I was 
too beat to argue.  She could stay if she wanted.  My sofa had carried 
heavier bones.  I wanted to be alone.  But I didn't, either.  I offered
to get her some linens, but she had already found what she needed. 
The upstairs was still a wreck.  But she had done a good deed on the
first  floor.

The video would have to wait.  That was private business.  What were 
they going to show me?  Test flights of the NGFB?  Sweeping fake bad 
guys from the sky?  Were they going to appeal to my patriotism?  Or 
demonstrate some imaginative instruments of torture?

It could wait until morning.

"I'm turning in," I said.

"Is the music too loud?"

I shrugged.  "It's fine."  "I just love Chet Baker," she said as I 
climbed the stairs.  "Why do musicians always get mixed up with drugs?"
The sheets still smelled like Tish.  Like Tish and me.  But the scent 
was getting fainter.  I wondered how long I could go without washing 
them.  Then the wondering stopped, sudden as a head-on collision.  I 
woke to warmth and slow movement and night.  I had been way down and it
took me a while to swim back to the surface.  I did not come up 
swinging.  That was either a good thing or a bad one, depending on your
perspective.  Corry Nevers hugged me from behind.  Still wearing her 
T-shirt.  But nothing else.  "I was afraid," she whispered.  "I'm 
afraid all the time now."  I pulled away.  The bright city darkness 
worked in through the blinds and I saw her.

"This isn't part of the package," I said.  "Get out of here."

She wasn't ready for that and started to cry.  I sat up on the edge of 
the bed, thinking that I needed to start wearing pajamas.  My body was 
a scum traitor pig.  Corry trailed her fingertips down my back.  I 
jerked away again.  Then I stood up.  Embarrassed.  Even in the dark. 
"You and me live on different planets," I told her.  "Tish hasn't been 
dead forty-eight hours."  My anger was not quite sane.  Certainly not 
proportional.  "Poor old Em didn't have any idea, did he?"  She was 
really crying now.  "I thought we ... I thought we could just .. . 
comfort each other.  That--" "Fucking stuff it.  Knock it off, Corry. 
I don't know what you're up to, but leave me out of it."  I wanted to 
throw something.  Break things.  Of course I wanted her.  And there she
was.  On sheets still scented with Tish.  As if Corry were trying to 
erase my memories, to bury the scent with her own.  For a truly mean 
instant, I considered getting back into bed.  What did it matter, at 
this point?  Corry got up.  I thought she was going to retreat 
downstairs.  Instead, she fastened herself to me.  With my body proving
the feminists right: Men are swine.  I broke her hold and grasped her
by the upper arms.  Forcing distance between us.

She was beautiful in the darkness.  Wickedness adorned her.  "You want 
me," she said.  "I know you do.  Please.  I'm so lonely." "No."

She was gone when I got up, but she had left her suitcase.  And half a 
pot of coffee.  Hard woman to shake.  At any other time in my life, I 
would not have tried.  I brought in the paper and worked through the 
front-pager about the lab bombing down in Georgia, slamming myself with
caffeine.  Big trouble down in the Peach State.  The United States had
 gone to war over less.

I knew too much, and I did not really seem to know anything, and I did 
not know where to go.  This was way off the Army's reservation.  The 
cops were no help.  I was not going to go to the French, that was for 
damned sure.  And anybody who would hire Aley Aalstrom to make their 
tough sales for them did not have much market appeal.  The coffee 
charged through me.  I was still pissing blood.  But it did not look 
quite so bad.  I decided that the smartest thing I could do would be to
check in at Walter Reed and let the docs earn their specialty pay.
Knowing that I would not do it.  I could not even steel myself to 
return the phone calls from the night before.  I remembered the video. 
I could not recall where I had put it and did not find it immediately. 
I panicked, cursing Corry, imagining she had stolen it.

The envelope was sitting in plain view.  Where I had left it.  The cops
seemed to have had a thing about wires.  They had pulled them all out.
Corry had not gotten around to reconnecting the VCR.  I worked as fast
as I could, back stiff and unforgiving.  I was just capable enough to 
match red with red, white with white, and yellow with yellow.  Then I 
had to find the remote.  Finally, I got the video in and eased down on 
the carpet in front of the tube.  Nothing.  I could hear the tape 
running.  But there was no picture.  Or sound.  I checked the
connections.  Then I tested the television.  It worked fine by itself. 
I dug out the instruction booklet.  In the end, I shook the VCR hard 
and did everything but smash my foot down on it.  It hissed.  And gave 
a few little grunts.  But it refused to show the video.

Life was not smooth.  I got dressed, body a catalog of aches.  I tried 
to think of friends who might be home, then decided that the last 
thing

I

needed to do was to get another non-player involved.  Taking the tape 
with me, I locked up and headed for the rental car.  No bombs in 
evidence.  A fat kid tried to sell me melted chocolate.  I could 
understand only half of what she said. "Help keep youth off the 
streets," I think.  Another D.C. hustle.  I told her maybe next time. 
And got in the car.  Talk radio loved the Georgia bombing.  The right 
blamed the left and the left blamed the right.  A White House spokesman
declared that the FBI was investigating a possible Iranian connection,
but added that the President cautioned all Americans to respect the
contributions of our citizens of Iranian descent.  Given the guy's 
recent difficulties, "contributions" was a poor choice of words.  The 
bottom line was that none of the talking heads had a clue.  I went to a
discount appliance store in the near burbs.  Where things are cheaper 
than at the PX.  A young man with a ring through his lower lip asked if
he could help me.  "I need a VCR.  Plain vanilla.  And I want to use
my  own tape to test it."  "Right."  He judged me.  "You want to go
Korean,  man.  The Jap stuff is money for nothing.  Four heads?"

"I just want it to work."  "Right."  Walking me down the aisles.  All 
the TVs were showing The Godfather.  Part II.  Only in Hollywood could 
Al Pacino pass for a tough guy.  "Trust me.  This right here is, like, 
the best deal in the store.  And it just happens to be on special. 
This  must be your lucky--"

"It hooked up?"  "I was just going to switch it over."  He bent toward 
a junction box.  "Slip in your vid, man.  You're going to love this 
machine."

I did as he told me.  I could not wait.  A born fool.  Tish appeared on
twenty or thirty screens.  No sound.  But she was sitting in a room
raw  as a barracks, hunched over the

Les Paul Gibson I had given her for her birthday.  Holding the guitar 
like a martyr clutching a cross.  And wearing the same clothes she had 
worn the last time she walked out of my door.  Our door.  Oblivious to 
the hidden camera, she looked worn and cried-out and utterly beautiful.
 "Serious babe," the clerk said.  "She your daughter or something?"

I bought the VCR.  I would have bought ten of them.  All I wanted to do
was to go home and watch the clip of Tish over and over again.  But I 
did not go home.  I needed to take inventory.  I went to Arlington 
Cemetery.  I parked in the visitor lot and marched up through the 
crowds.  Tourists in shorts on their way to see JFK's grave.  Then snap
the poor troopie sweating his rocks off in front of the Tomb of the 
Unknown Soldier.  I cut left and climbed through the heat.  The grass
crunched.  Farnsworth lay on the high ground.  In winter, you would be 
able to see all of the city's monuments across the river, but leaves 
blocked part of the view now.  The flowers had been removed and the 
grave sodded.  I wanted to be alone, but I had hoped faintly that the 
gravedigger--or whatever the politically correct term is for a boneyard
worker these days--would be around. I had liked him.  A lot better 
than I liked myself at the moment.  But the only life in evidence was a
bird picking at the grass.  I sat under a tree.  Probably violating
six  different rules.  And watched the general's grave as if I expected
him  to speak first.  A jet wrenched the sky, coming down into
National. "Christ, sir," I said, "you should've brought me in.  If you
could  trust Em, you could've trusted me.  Now here I am, in the middle
of all  this shit, dumb as a rock.  And somebody's got my girl." The
bird hopped and poked.  A fly probed my defenses.  "So who's  zooming
who?"  I asked him.  "Where do I start?  Give me a hint, huh?"  I felt
as though a smarter man would have pieced the story together  days
before.  The French were scum.  But that did not fall into the 
surprise category.  By their own admission, they had stolen the plans 
for the NGFB.  It looked like we had bombed them in retaliation, 
whoever "we" were.  It shocked me.  Because I believed it was true. And
it was a massive, terrible thing.  I could not conceive of any 
industrial secrets that were worth it.  I did not want to believe my 
kind were capable of such an action.  I suppose Tish was right--I 
really didn't have any idea how the world worked.  So we bombed the 
French.  Then the French bombed us back.  The French had to have done 
the Georgia number.  Still, that surprised me, too.  I would not have 
believed they had it in them anymore.  Sinking a Greenpeace rowboat was
one thing.  But whacking a couple of hundred American scientists
leavened with military officers was something else.  There was 
obviously a lot more to the NGFB than the full-page ads and the Senate 
testimony let on.  Some black program within a black program. 
Something about the French--about my own personal Jules and Jim--clawed
at me.  They had not said a word about any disks. Even though 
everybody else on this side of the Atlantic seemed to be after them. 
But there was another thing, too.  Cuckold had yipped and yapped about 
us making fools of them.  Even before the bombing.  I wondered what 
that was all about.  A tourist couple poked down a lower row of graves.
Lost.  Or hunting for a relative.  The woman bobbed along the 
headstones as if keeping count.  The man looked at the grass, then at 
the sky.  He wore a white sun hat with the brim down and I could feel 
him sweat from a hundred meters away.

I brushed off my pet fly.  Em's guilt trip.  I figured he knew a lot 
more about us bombing the frogs than he had been willing to tell me. 
And he knew the big secret about that airplane that was worth killing 
for.  Em could be cynical, but, to his credit, this time around it had 
been too much.  That triggered his redemption thing.  And it meant that
Macon-Bolt had a connection to the bombing of the French lab.  At
least  enough of a tie for Em to find out about it.  And repent.  It
was a new  level of cutthroat capitalism.  Em turned to Farnsworth
because the  general was the only man left he could trust who had any
clout at all.  The two of them probably figured they could do a good
deed, for God and country.  Expose the criminals.  But the criminals
had better intel.  And an operational capability the Hardy Boys had
underestimated.  Who,  exactly, were the killers?  Why were they
playing with bombs?  They  certainly weren't amateurs. This was a
heavyweight bout.  What was on  the disks I had never seen that made
them worth killing for?  My mind  kept flipping the channel back to
black capabilities.  Maybe there was  some phenomenal wonder-weapon
component to the NGFB.  Something so  revolutionary we did not want its
existence known.  Even by an ally.  To  the extent the frogs were
allies.  Why kill the general and Em, but settle for just grabbing Tish
and muscling me?  Why rip up the floorboards in one place, but not in
another?  At least I could sketch  the chain of logic that put me in
the game.  They would have been  watching Em.  And he was dumb enough
to ask me to share a drink, and I  was dumb enough to take him up on
it.  They ran my ID wide and deep and  hit on my old ties to Em and
Farnsworth. They tore up Em's apartment,  but left the phone working
because they had it tapped.  Tish called me.  I went over.  So they
figured Em had done a battle han doff of the  disks to me.  Or that I
knew where they were and grabbed them before the cops came.  Now I was
in the cesspool, with Tish a hostage, and no  idea how to get her
back.

If Tish was alive, who had gone charcoal in my car?

And where did Corry Nevers fit in?  Corry was a size-six moment of 
truth.  If I had met her back when my relationship with Tish had been 
on cruise control, I probably would have taken the detour and got away 
without paying the toll. Pathetic, what you realize about yourself.  It
was easier being faithful to Tish when I thought she was dead, or now 
that she was a prisoner of the video lifestyle, than it would have been
on any old day when we were happy.  I had never really taken Tish 
seriously.  I always kept some distance between us.  Yet I had never 
loved anybody the way I loved her.  I did not know exactly what that
meant, but I was afraid it was not good news.  Tish seemed born for 
trouble. Which is probably a good third of why I fell for her.  I had 
always thought of myself as a big, bold risk-taker.  But I was a coward
when it counted.  It's rot to say that anything good comes out of a 
mess like this.  But it's useful to get a clear look at yourself. 
Buying somebody an expensive guitar is easy.  The truth is that 
whenever I felt Tish drawing me too close, an invisible bitch from the 
Officers' Wives Club whispered in my ear that she was damaged goods.
Now all I wanted to do was to go home, hook up the new VCR, and watch 
the film of her over and over again.  She was alive.  And if I ever got
 her back, I was not going to blow it.

The only good piece of advice I had gotten from anybody had come from 
Aley Aalstrom.  When he told me that even if I did not have the disks, 
I had better act as though I did.  That was as plain as the business 
end of a gun now.  I seemed to own that one solid fact: The disks were 
my shot at getting Tish back alive.  And at staying alive myself.  Who 
had them?  Where were they?  Where did I start looking?

I stood up, miserable with sweat.  "I never learned anything," I told
Farnsworth.  "I wish you were here to help me.  A lot of people are 
dead now."  I scribbled a mental note to call Mary and make sure she 
had gotten on the plane as promised.  Then I headed back into the 
city.

As soon as I put the VCR box down by the television, the doorbell 
rang. It was the Cuckold of Paris.  He did not get one word out.  I
grabbed  him by the shirt collar and yanked him inside, kicking the
door shut  behind us.  I hit him so fast he could not get his arms up
to block.  He went down right there in the hallway.  But he was tough. 
Instead of  going out or running up the white flag, he scissored me
with his legs.  So hard he almost broke my ankle.  We grappled on an
old throw rug.  Too close to hit hard enough to make a difference.  I
was bigger, but  he had a mean streak and more martial arts behind him.
He used his legs and feet.  The scumbag smelled like he did not use
deodorant.  "Goddamned Eurotrash," I said.  Or grunted.  I broke free
just long  enough to hit him in the gut with all my weight behind it. 
Recalling  the way he had hit me.  He was thin. My fist almost made it
to the  floor.  It stressed him long enough for me to give him a jab to
the  snout, then deliver a big one with my knuckles going in between
his  jawbone and cheekbone.  I could count teeth under the meat.

"You .. . fuck ..."  I was not at my most articulate.  But I threw in 
plenty about vengeance for Georgia and what I was going to do to him if
he had Tish. Not a lot of clarity of thought or complete sentences. 
But this was the first time I had gotten to blow off steam.  When 
you've been everybody's punching bag for a while, it's great to get a 
turn in the gloves.

"Didn't ... do ... it ..."  he said.  "We ... no ..."  Then he kicked 
me hard. Just missing the combat zone.  It threw me off balance. 
Before I knew it, the little bastard was on top of me.  Pounding away. 
Trying to get at my face.  I rolled both of us backward.  Cuckold 
flailed like a hostage in a trunk.

"We .. . didn't ... do ... it ..."  he said.  We were trying to hurt 
each other. Hitting hard.  But it was funny.  Neither of us wanted to 
do irreversible damage. Nobody went for the eyes, which is where you 
head if you're serious.  We both knew how to kill somebody.  This was 
just guy stuff.  I threw him.  He crashed against the stereo stand. 
Which pissed me off again.  I went in swinging, but I was still on my 
knees.  You can't get leverage that way.  He threw a handful of CDs 
into my face.  Then he punched me low in the belly.

It hurt.  He jumped to his feet and aimed a kick at my face.  I moved 
just in time, more luck than skill, and got my hands on his thigh. 
Then  the little shit was on his back again, and it was my turn to
kick.  Even  banged up, he was fast. He rolled and threw a blind kick
backward that  caught my hip.  In the couple of seconds I spent
reeling, he scrambled  back to his feet.  I grabbed him again. Before
he could get his  footing.  And threw him against a chair.  He tumbled
into the  upholstery.  This time I landed on his guts with one of my
knees.  It  felt indescribably satisfying.  It's amazing that grown men
don't do  this more frequently.

The fight went out of him.  But I wasn't done.  "Why'd you do it?"  I
yelled.  "Why the hell did you do it?"  He was a rag.  His hands did 
not even close into fists anymore.  His head rolled.  I put one in 
between his eyes so hard it hurt my hand.  The bridge of his nose 
collapsed like chicken bones in a dog's jaws.  The sonofabitch shot 
blood onto my chair.  Somebody had been pounding on the door for a 
while.  Maybe his partner.  I didn't know.  Hardly cared.  I was deep 
into the fight, which had been going on for maybe a minute.  I intended
to finish Cuckold before dealing with anything else.  The rest of the
world could bugger off.  I heard Dickey's growl:

"Open up.  Police."

"So who's this?"  Dickey asked.  "Your drug partner?  What do we got? 
Falling-out among thieves?"  He turned to one of the uniforms.  "Keep 
them separated, all right?"  Pointing a thick finger at Cuckold.  "Get 
that piece of shit out of here.  Now.  Take him down to the station." 
Cuckold had struggled to his feet. Fighting to make sense of the 
world.  His eyes would not settle.  But he stepped away from the 
approaching cop.  "I'm a diplomat," he said.  "I have immunity.  I am 
from the Embassy of France."  Dickey put his thumbs in his belt loops.
"Yeah?  You paid all your parking tickets?"

"You cannot arrest me.  I have diplomatic immunity."  "Got an ID, Mr. 
Ambassador? Wayne, check Pierre's pockets, huh?"  Dickey swiveled his 
big head back toward me.  "Okay.  My Saturday's fucked and my patience 
is gone.  Who is he?"  "He's French.  He's a spy.  And a thug.  He's 
tied in with that bombing down in Georgia. The research lab that went 
up."

Dickey snorted.  "Not my jurisdiction.  What was he doing on my beat?" 
Actually, I wasn't sure.  I had no idea why Cuckold had shown up at my 
door.  This was all too slow for Dickey.  "Billy, take Pierre La 
Puck-face down to the station. Check if he's got dip.  Make nice until 
we find out.  But take prints.  And he doesn't walk until we find out 
if anybody else wants him."  He spit out something invisible and gave 
me The Face.  "You're pretty good at beating up little guys, soldier 
boy.  Ever do any debt collecting for your old lady's drug crowd? 
Looks  like Lucky Pierre landed at least one, though.  Make that two."
"This  guy was involved in a terrorist act against the United States.
Diplomatic immunity doesn't count in a situation like this.  You need 
to contact the FBI."  "Right.  Would you like me to call J. Edgar 
directly, or should I go through Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.?  We'll find out 
if he's Yassir Arafat or not.  In the meantime, you and me got some 
talking to do.  Oh, by the way, you're under arrest.  Wipe the 
goddamned blood off your lip while I read you your rights."

"What's the charge?"

Dickey ignored me.  Doing his spiel.  As the cops led the Frenchman 
out, he whispered, "Do not tell them anything."  I don't know whether
he meant it or just said it in front of Dickey to screw me.  Then 
Dickey and I were alone.  The detective finished his recitation.

"What's the charge?"  I asked him.

He smirked.  "What do you think?"  "Come on.  If you were any kind of 
cop you'd know I haven't done anything.  Unless pounding that little 
shit's face in counts."

Dickey looked up at me.  I could tell he did not like the physical 
arrangement. He much preferred me sitting down.

""Conspiracy to traffic in illegal drugs."

"That's bullshit.  You know it's bullshit.  You have to know."  He 
smiled.  "Yeah? Well, I guess we'll see.  Conspiracy's a great 
statute, you know that?  Separates your Habeas right from your Corpus. 
I think of it as the super punk provision." He smiled.  "I just want 
to hear what you have to say after a weekend in the slammer with your 
fellow residents of the District of Columbia."  I closed my eyes.  Held
up my hand.  "Wait.  Look.  Just tell me what you really want from me.
Give it to me straight."  Dickey turned toward a side wall.  Shaking 
his head. Exaggerating it.  "What I want from you?  Maybe I just want 
to have lunch, huh? My fucking treat.  I want you to talk to me, pal. 
Tell me something I don't know.  Help me clear up two murders, maybe 
three.  Or what's your latest count?" "Tell you what.  I'll do better 
than talk.  I'm going to show you something."

You-can't-con-me eyes.  "Show me what?"

"I just need two minutes to hook up the video."  Dickey laughed.  It 
sounded like falling bricks hitting the sidewalk.  "What you got?  Hot 
tapes of your girlfriend or something?"

I looked at him.  "That's exactly what I've got."  His mouth opened. 
But before he spoke, the doorbell rang again.  "You're a popular guy," 
Dickey said.  "Open it.  Invite them in."  He drew his gun from beneath
his jacket with a smoothness I would not have expected.  He stepped 
back, just an inch out of the line of fire from the door.  It was 
Corry.  Dressed for success.  With a bouquet of flowers.

"I'm so sorry about last night," she said quickly.  "I was a selfish 
bitch." Then her eyes moved off me and widened.  I did not have to 
turn around to know that Dickey had moved into the open.  With his gun.
I forgot that Corry and Dickey had already crossed paths in the 
wreckage of Em's apartment.  I was forgetting a lot of things.  I just 
said:

"It's all right.  He's a cop."  Corry stood in a wash of sunlight, just
 enough sweat on her forehead to make her human.

Her eyes were not good.  She looked ready to run for it.  "Come right 
in, Ms. Nevers," Dickey said.  "You're just in time for the matinee. 
Isn't that right, soldier boy?"  When I turned around.  Dickey gave me 
a look of absolute disgust.

Showing Corry the video had not been part of the plan.  But my plans 
did not seem to count for much at the moment.  Dickey put his gun away,
 Corry laid down the flowers and her purse, and I hooked up the new

VCR.

We stood in front of the television.  Seeing the image of Tish again 
hit me in the stomach harder than the Frenchman had ever done.  The 
clip was not long, not over a minute.  But I had time to replay a lot 
of memories.  When the screen went black.  Dickey turned to me and 
said, "So?  What's the revelation?"

I hit the rewind button.  I wanted to see it again.

"It means she's alive," I said.  Dickey lifted an eyebrow.  "That a 
fact?  Buddy, all I see is a tape that for all I know is a year old. 
You got to show me some leg."  "It wasn't Tish in that car."  I felt 
like a child who cannot make his parents see the obvious.  "Can't you 
... do DNA testing or something?  On the body?"

Dickey barked out a laugh.  "He wants DNA testing!  Soldier boy, we 
don't even have spare tires for our cruisers.  I copy my fucking 
reports at Kinko's.  And the mayor ain't the one picking up the tab." 
He gave another, lesser bark.  Yet for all his barstool bullshit, I 
could sense just the slightest change in him. "So tell me about this 
tape of yours."  "The guitar she's playing--let me run it again."  I 
hit Play.  "Look at the guitar.  I just gave it to her.  For her
birthday.  I just picked it up last Tuesday.  I have a dated receipt." 
I looked up from the image, desperate to see a change in Dickey's 
expression.  "I never made any videos of her with it.  I don't even own
a video camera.  She never took it out of this house, either.  And the
clothes.  That's what she had on when she walked out of here the last 
time."  I felt I should be able to convince him through the sheer 
intensity of the truth.  "Remember when I called and bitched about your
guys stealing the guitar?  That's the one.  Whoever grabbed her came
back here for the guitar.  They knew everything.  Everything about us. 
Every detail.  They knew the guitar would convince me that they had
her,  that she's still alive."

"You're talking trash.  I don't see proof of anything."  "Please. 
Listen to me. She's not dead.  Tish is alive.  I can't explain the 
car.  I don't know what happened.  I don't know who was in it.  I don't
have any idea who's got her.  But she's alive."  I wanted to grab him.
"Don't you want to find her?"  I wondered what Dickey's game might be.
Even a D.C. cop could not be this stupid, this unwilling to consider 
the evidence.  I stared at him, crazy for some way to convince him. 
Or,  as a minimum, to buy time.  I could not afford to go to jail, with
Tish  out there waiting for me to unscrew things.  Dickey did not say
anything right away.  I took that as a good sign at last.  But 
something else occurred to me while I waited for him to decide Tish's 
fate and mine.  There was a third person in the room with us.  And 
Corry Nevers had not said a word.

"All right," Dickey said.  "Give me the tape."

"What?"  "I said give me the goddamned tape."  He shook his head.  "I 
must be nuts."

"What are you talking about?"  He looked at me as though he found me
inexpressibly stupid.  "I'm not going to bust you.  Not yet.  But I got
paper on you.  And I can drop it anytime I want.  Remember that.  Now 
give me the tape."

"Why do you need the tape?"  My intelligence dropped another rung in 
his eyes. "It's evidence, for Christ's sake."

"Can I at least make a copy?"  "Uh-huh.  Sure.  And then we go to court
and some fuck in a thousand-dollar suit gets up and says, "Your Honor,
this evidence has been tampered with."  Right.  Sure, I'm going to let
 you make a copy."

"Please.  It means a lot to me."  Dickey chugged the snot back in his 
nose.  "The tape?  Or the slammer?  This is not a trick question."  I 
gave him the tape.  I felt like I was handing over Tish herself.  He 
wiped his forehead.  Sweating in the air-conditioned room.  "Now," he 
said.  "Speak slowly and clearly, and tell me how this tape came into 
your possession."  On the backbeat, I told him, "It was in an envelope.
On the doorstep.  This morning."  He thought for a moment. Then 
snorted again.  "Trusting souls.  Must be out-of-towners.  So ... 
you're telling me this French bozo has something to do with it?"

"I don't know.  Maybe.  I don't know who has her.  I want to know." 
Then I remembered.  "But I'd bet a month's pay he's tied into that 
laboratory bombing."

"Not my jurisdiction.  So what did you mean, he's a spy?"

"He's got a partner.  The other night--" A fist whacked the front door 
and a cop voice called for Dickey.  The detective answered and he and a
patrolman mumbled cop codes and street numbers to each other.  After a
moment, Dickey strode back to me.  He had a repertoire of disgusted 
faces that should have been cataloged by the Smithsonian.  "You and me 
are going to have to talk.  But right now I got a twenty-year-old some 
hero used for extended target practice plus her six-year-old daughter 
with a bullet through her neck.  Life in a wheelchair.  If the kid's 
lucky.  And you're probably wondering why I got such bad manners.
Accompany me to the door.  Colonel, sir."  In the doorframe, he grabbed
me by the upper arm and yanked me outside.  He was much stronger than
I  would have guessed.  "You fuck me," he said, "and you're going to
jail  till you look like Santa Claus."  He turned his wrecked eyes up
to meet  mine.  "And just for the record, I liked your old girlfriend
better.  Dumb fucking cop that I am."

Corry stood by the television.  Posed.  Perfect.  I remembered the 
exact feel of her rubbing against me in the night.  She pushed her hair
back over her ears. One side, then the other.  Chin held low.  Lips 
opening like a wound.

"You lied to him," she said.  "You had that tape last night."

"So turn me in."  She smiled.  The lip maneuvers were much too complex 
for a woman her age. "No way," she said.  "We're in this together. 
We're partners."  She glanced around the room.  "You can't seem to keep
things  tidy.  By the way, I don't remember seeing a vase for flowers."
"There's one down in the basement.  If I were you, I'd be out of here 
at a run."  "I don't see how either one of us can go back," she said 
blithely.  "I am glad your girlfriend's all right.  Who do you think
has her?"

"I wish I knew."

"Does your eye hurt?"

"Is it black?"  "It looks like it's going to be.  A little.  What was 
the fight about?"

"It was a cultural thing."  She stood there in her summer suit. 
Proper.  Real Senate Caucus stuff.  No matter how I tried, I could not 
stop remembering.  Her flesh luminous in the darkness.  And the feel of
her curls against my thigh. Corry walked to the front door, opened it,
looked out, and came back.  "They're gone," she said.  She glanced at 
her watch.  "I have to get back to the office. The senator wants me to 
take notes for him at a hearing.  Can you believe Congress is working 
right through the weekend?  In July?"  Her eyes were harder than her 
voice.  "This is not what I want to do for the rest of my life."

"I thought you loved your work."  "I've had worse jobs.  Sometimes it's
 good.  But I can imagine a better life, too."

"Corry .. . we're getting this all wrong."  She smiled, refusing my 
doubts.  "I think we make a good team.  Even if you still don't like 
me."

"I thought you were scared."

"I am."

"Then why--" "You know why.  And I'm not ashamed of what I feel.  So 
don't be a pig about it."

"I'm in love with Tish."

"I'll take that chance."

"I'm going to get her back."

"I'll help you."

"You don't believe I love her."  Corry looked away.  "I don't believe 
you'll love her forever."

"I don't trust you."  She smiled.  "Don't worry.  I won't embarrass you
 again. I'll wait."

I shook my head.  "You don't know me, John.  You don't know me at all."
She picked up her purse and stepped close to me.  "Do you have a 
gun?"

"This is D.C. Only the criminals have guns."  She reached into her bag 
and lifted out an old film noir thirty-eight.

"Here," she said.  "Take it.  I don't want you to get hurt."

Corry walked out.  I just stood there in my living room, gun in hand, a
statue memorializing village idiots everywhere.  The phone rang.  I 
figured it was my boss.  I got ready for the anger.  Wondering where I 
should start the explanation.

It was Aley Aalstrom.

"Johnny, how you doing?  Is this weather, or what?"

"What is it?"

"Hey, you alone?"

I looked down at the pistol.  "Yeah.  I'm alone."  "Good.  Great.  We 
can talk.  You seen any good videos lately?"

"Maybe."

Aley chuckled.  "Want to tell me about it?"

"What do I have to do?"  "Johnny boy .. . you know what you have to do.
There was never any question about it.  Get Republican.  Respect 
property rights. Return those disks to their rightful owners."

"I need time."  I could picture Aley on the other end.  Big jaw with 
the bag of fat under it.  Shifting from side to side.  "Hey, John. 
Buddy.  The good fairy just handed me a note for you.  Want me to read 
it?"

I did not answer.  " "Dear John'--hey, is that classic, or what?--"Dear
John. Miss you.  I desperately need you to prove your love.  Or I'm 
going away forever. Signed .."  What about that?  No signature.  Guess 
she ran out of time.  Bet she's one sweet piece of horseflesh, Johnny 
boy.  Bet you wouldn't want to lose her." I heard the weight of his 
breath against the mouthpiece.  "So what do you think?"

"Fuck you, Aley."  "That's right.  Shoot the messenger.  You know, 
you're a goddamned inspiration to me.  Some people think you've already
moved on.  That you're jumping that little blondie who keeps landing
on  your branch.  But I been sticking up for you.  I tell them, "No
way.  Our John's the last of the big-time romantics.  Faithful to the
end.  She could rub it right over his lips and all he'd do is recite
the  Lord's Prayer.  Lead me not into temptation," huh?"  He chuckled. 
"You're great, Johnny boy.  You know that?  You got star potential.
Gary fucking Cooper.  People believe in you.  Hey, you think your 
redhead's ever been gang-fucked?"  He hung up.  I held the phone 
against my ear until the line went shrill, then held it a while longer.
The gun in my hand felt like fate. Mail smacked the hallway floor.  An
instant later, the flap clapped  shut.  I put the revolver in the
drawer with the tea towels.  My  Atlantic, Tish's Rolling Stone.  A
missing-children flyer.  The phone  bill, counterbalanced by a promise
that Publisher's Clearinghouse was  going to give me a trillion
dollars.  No death threats or ransom  notes.

The phone rang again.  I thought it might be Aalstrom calling back and 
answered accordingly.  "Switch off the attack mode," Colonel Maurey 
told me.  "Go into receive."

"Yes, sir."

"When I tell you to call me back, you call me back.  Got that?"

"Yes, sir."  "I want to know just what in the hell you're up to, John. 
But that's going to have to wait.  General Gabrielli wants to talk to 
you.  We've been trying to get through to you since yesterday 
morning."

"Sir, I'll march upstairs first thing Monday morning.  Sackcloth and 
ashes." "Monday morning won't cut it.  Write this down."  He gave me a 
phone number. "That's his aide's pager.  Call immediately.  The guy's 
hot."

"Know what it's about?"

"Colonels don't ask three-stars for explanations."

"Yes, sir."  I had briefed Gabrielli a few times.  The Army's 
procurement czar. General Buy-it.  He was typical for his rank. 
Laminated with humility, vain to the bone.  His staffers claimed to 
like him but spoke disloyally after the second sentence.  He had led a 
brigade in the desert under a slow, careful corps commander and had 
managed to keep his tanks perfectly on line.  Pentagon gossip said he 
was plugged in across the river.

I feared the coming conversation.  I dialed the aide's pager and got a 
swift callback from a cell phone.  The aide introduced himself as Major
Ripley, the tone of his voice making it clear that, due to his 
position, he outranked all but a few lieutenant colonels.  Yet he did 
not fail to say "sir."

"I understand General Gabrielli wants to see me."  The aide responded 
in a muffled voice.  "Sir, the general's putting right now.  Can you 
hold?"

"Isn't it a little hot for golf?"

"Golf is the general's passion."

"He winning or losing today?"

"General Gabrielli never loses."

"Is General Ripley your father, by any chance?"

"Yes, sir."  It figured.  You saw a lot of generals' kids go through 
the Pentagon as senior captains and junior majors.  Punching that 
ticket.  The system was so closed and smooth it made the Mafia look 
sloppy.

"Colonel Reynolds," the aide said.  "Hold for just a moment, sir."  I 
listened to voices, indistinct words, white noise.  Ripley came back on
the link.  "Sir, the general will be at his home on Fort McNair at 
eighteen hundred.  He'll be expecting you.  You are not required to be 
in uniform."  The uniform business, at least, was a blessing.  Given 
the weather.  The world's finest Army clothed its officers in 
polyester, the miracle fiber.  Hot in the summer, cold in the winter. 
Probably because, back during the first confusions of the sexual
revolution, a Chief of Staff's wife told him she wasn't pressing any 
more of his goddamned trousers.  I straightened a bit of the mess 
Cuckold and I had made, then took another shower.  The water stung my 
lip.  Which was swollen, with a nice crack in it.  Lilac mark just off 
my left eye.  On the positive side, my urine had faded to pink.  I 
stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the door.  My 
body was black-and-blue and bent.  When life was normal, I worked out 
hard.  Staying in good shape was one of the things of which I was
proud, a fundamental duty.  Now I looked like Grandpa after he wrestled
the bear.  I pulled on a polo shirt and khakis.  On the way out, I
rang  the funeral home and told the answering machine that the customer
had  risen from the dead. I popped onto the freeway at the Sixth Street
ramp, blending with the lazybones Saturday traffic.  Heat blurred over
the city.  I got off before the bridges and followed a tourist bus
down  toward the waterfront restaurants.  At McNair, the MP on the gate
checked my ID.  Fort McNair sits on the best piece of real estate in
the  District, a sanctuary thrusting out where the Anacostia River
empties into the Potomac.  At the tip of the little peninsula, the
National War  College occupies a magnificent, wasteful building that
goes back to the  days of Teddy Roosevelt.  But the fort's serious
occupants are the  generals in the row of old brick homes that look out
on the river.  The  view is a developer's dream. Gabrielli's nameplate
had been fixed on a  two-story that would have passed as a mansion a
generation before.  Now  most of the single family homes in suburbia
were as big or bigger.  But  the Route 7 crowd did not have a water
view.  The aide let me in and  guided me through a couple of rooms
furnished with the frilly crap  bored wives buy on bus trips to factory
outlets.  The air-conditioning  gave the place a basement smell. 
Gabrielli waited in a study that  caught some of the river light, still
in his golf clothes.  Orange polo shirt with a V of salt stains on the
chest.  Green-and-white plaid  slacks. General officers should never be
allowed to dress themselves  off duty. Gabrielli was a big man.  Taller
than I was.  His greeting  sounded as though he was clearing his
throat.  His hand was wet, with  strong fingers but a pulpy palm.  "Sit
down, sit down.  Want a Coke?  Dan, get Lieutenant Colonel Reynolds a
Coke, would you?  And call the  Army and Navy Club.  Leave a message
for Punchy Hunt.  Tell him Gail  and I might be a few minutes late." 
Gabrielli sat with his back to the  westering sun.  It dropped shadows
on his face.  He did an appraisal. "Lieutenant Colonel John Reynolds. 
I appreciate you taking the time  out of your weekend.  You appear to
be a very busy man.  Your boss  couldn't track you down for love or
money."  He smiled just a little.  "Poor Maurey was really jumping."

"Sir, I was on leave."  He waved that away.  "Water under the bridge. 
Now, John, you've always struck me as a talented soldier.  Good 
briefer.  Self-assured. Knowledgeable.  Had a battalion command 
yet?"

"No, sir.  I'm a FAO.  I'm not on the command track."

"Well, you never know.  Things happen.  Understand you have a pretty 
good record?"  I made the mush face required in response.  The aide put
down a glass with ice and a can of Coke, and left again.  I let the 
drink stand.  "You strike me as the sort of officer who really loves 
the Army.  Who really found a home in it.  Not just passing through."

"The Army's been good to me, sir."  "Love your country, too, I'll bet. 
Not just words.  Real commitment."  I shrugged, and nodded.  The truth 
was that my country seemed far away at the moment.  His jaw lifted like
a dozer blade.  "It's a great country.  Greatest in human history. 
And  the Army .. . well, the Army's been good to all of us.  Damned
good."  He canted his head and a shadow slipped over his face like a
veil.  "Have to be realistic, though.  In times like these.  An officer
can  have a spectacular record--spectacular--and still find himself
passed  over for promotion.  It's gotten unpredictable.  I've seen it
with my West Point classmates.  Even on my own staff.  Army's getting
smaller.  Not everybody survives the cuts.  I'm sure you've seen plenty
of your  friends and colleagues go down."  He sighed.  It sounded like
a snore.  "We just can't hold the line anymore.  Hill doesn't
understand us.  White House hates us.  Except when it's time for a
photo op.  And the  American people are ungrateful.  They've already
forgotten how  different the world looked just a few years ago.  We did
our part--and  we're still doing it.  But ... a career .. . well, it's
just not the  secure thing it once was.  A man has to have Plan B."  He
leaned  forward, as if to straighten a badge or ribbon on my invisible
uniform.  "What's your Plan B, John?" I had semi-formed thoughts. 
Possibilities.  But they had

receded over the past few days.  My concerns had been more immediate. 
Gabrielli sat back again.  "You remember General Hunt?  Punchy Hunt?" 
I had never met Roscoe "Punchy" Hunt.  But I had heard plenty about 
him.  Snake-eater.  Jungle junkie.  No spot too hopeless.  As a young 
officer, he had supposedly bitten away the throat of a North Vietnamese
captain who tried to jump him.  While shooting down the man's comrades
with his forty-five.  Sometimes you heard, six dead Vietnamese, 
sometimes seven.  Another story had him strangling a CIA man he pegged 
as a sellout in El Sal.  He was the kind of soldier who had a 
classified personnel file that leaked legends.  A few years back, he 
had retired, abruptly, as a three-star, with honors piled up in front 
of him and whispers behind his back.

"I've heard about him, sir.  But our paths never crossed."  "Know what 
he's up to in his retirement?"  He gave me a little space in which I 
was not expected to fit an answer.  "Punchy put his own team together. 
Drawn from the best of the best.  Officers recently retired.  A few 
NCOs he knew personally.  Some talented special ops boys who decided to
hang up their uniforms a little early.  Just to work for Punchy.  He 
calls them The Hunt Club."  Oh, there's some incorporated name.  All 
alphabet soup.  But The Hunt Club' is the draw.  Now, I don't want to
start talking business and naming names, but old Punchy's got himself a
charter from one of our largest defense corporations--real
patriots--to  do the sort of things active-duty officers are unable to
do these days.  Special foreign liaison missions.  Investigative
scouting.  Negotiations  at the sub-media level. Media management, for
that matter.  His people  are doing a tremendous amount of good for
this country--and you never  hear a word about it.  And, I might add,
they are very well compensated  financially.  Old Punchy always took
care of his subordinates.  Really  good care."  He smiled without
showing teeth.  "Think of it as payback  for all those cold nights on
the German border or wrestling rattlers out of your fart sack down at
Hood.  Might be something that would  interest you. If you were looking
for a job."  He bent his torso  forward, passing into a deeper shadow
thrown by a rolltop desk.  "You  see, John .. . the country might
forget us.  The people out there don't  care about anything but money
and transient pleasures.  No values, no  sense of honor.  I mean, just
look at them." He gestured toward the  city's heart.  "No pride in the
important things. Slovenly,  unscrupulous, selfish little people."  He
brushed his nose with a knuckle.  "But we still have friends.  Friends
we can count on.  In  defense industry.  They need us.  Just as we need
them.  We won the  Cold War together. Crushed the Russian economy.  We
could have fought the bastards, had it been necessary to do so.  Now we
need to do  everything we can to keep our guard up. With the Chinese on
the  horizon."  He raised a heavy eyebrow in the darkness of his face. 
"Russians, too.  You never know.  They could come back.  They are a
people drenched in evil."  "Sir .. . the Russians are going to be flat 
on their backs for half a century.  And the Chinese--" He held up a
big hand.  Directing the conversational traffic.  "John, I  don't want
us to get bogged down in a philosophical discussion.  I have  other
commitments.  Although I would be delighted to discuss these  issues
with you in depth at a later date."  He slanted his head at a  boxer's
angle.  The late sun burned his skin and lit the stubble along  his
jaw.  "Now .. . this business in the newspapers.  Plus all the 
innuendo.  Not good for the Army, John.  Not good at all.  Officer's 
car bombed.  Police involved.  A woman dead.  A woman of ...
questionable compatability with the Army family.  And I've heard 
rumors-nothing definite, let me be clear about that--that you've gotten
yourself mixed up in matters even more .. . troubling."  His big head 
swayed like a cobra rising from a basket.  "Serious stuff, John.  Sort 
of business that could ruin a promising career.  Or worse.  The Uniform
 Code of Military Justice can be ferocious."

"Sir--" "Don't interrupt me.  I'm trying to help you."  He shifted in 
his chair and brown shadows climbed toward his eyes.  "I made a 
decision to keep the lawyers off your back.  In light of your past 
record.  I intervened personally on your behalf.  The Army doesn't need
another scandal, John.  Can't afford it right now."  I saw his eyes. 
Glowing in amber, the only part of his face not in darkness.  "Do you 
want to hurt the Army?  When we're fighting for our lives on this 
goddamned budget thing?  Do you want to crap on your friends and 
comrades and everything you've ever stood for?"

"Sir .. . what .. ."  "I'm not asking you to do anything contrary to 
your conscience.  Do not misunderstand me.  I just want you to do the 
right thing. Support this country's defense."  He grunted.  "Don't 
goddamned betray it."

"Sir, what is it you want me to do?"  He looked at me and straightened 
himself in his chair.  Torso rising into the light.  I thought of the 
cobra again.  But there was anger now, too.  A lot of it.  His 
expression, even his posture, conveyed passion.  Well beyond the normal
range.  John Brown dressed for eighteen holes.  "You know what you
have  to do," he said.  "That's all I have to say. Colonel Reynolds. 
The  choice is yours.  Take care of your country--and your own
future--or  take us down the road to ruin."

"Sir, if this is about those disks, I've got to--" He leapt out of his 
chair. As if a phantom Frenchman had hit him with the tool they used 
on me.  "I don't know what you're talking about.  I don't know any of 
the details.  This was just a counseling session.  For your own good. 
We're concerned about you.  Now, if you'll excuse me .. ."  He banged 
out of the room.  In seconds, the aide reappeared to take out the 
trash.  He looked at me pityingly.  "Christ," he said. "Whatever he 
wanted, you should've just done it."  I didn't look at him.  I stole
one last view of the river from a general's mansion.  The sun had 
turned the brown water into gold fields strewn with diamonds.

"General Gabrielli always wins," the aide reminded me.

Man does not live by fear alone.  I drove back to the Hill and turned 
onto Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast.  There was a little Greek place 
where Tish and I had acquired a regular table.  Although I knew it was 
foolish, I intended to have more than one glass of wine with dinner. 
Had I been on the Titanic, the divers would have found my skeleton in 
the champagne cellar.  Gabrielli had shaken me badly.  The door had 
shut on my last refuge.  At the back of my mind, I had always counted 
on the Army being there for me.  But Gabrielli was the Army. And he 
was going to make sure he was someplace else when I shot the red star
cluster.  I grabbed a parking spot down from the restaurant.  The 
evening simmered.  The few human beings on the sidewalks looked like 
they had no place else to go.  I locked the car and took a deep breath 
of city.  As I turned, I saw the Peugeot.  Brown, rat-bitten job, it 
sounded like a garbage disposal.  The car pulled in at an angle, 
corralling me between its passenger side and my own car. Cuckold 
jumped out of the backseat.  With a gob of white gauze and tape over
his nose.  And a 9mm pistol held low.  "Get in," he said.  His voice 
sounded as though he had pinched his nostrils shut.  "Or we will kill 
you here."

He made way for me to get into the backseat and nudged me once with the
gun barrel.  Jerry was behind the wheel, drumming his thumbs and 
checking the mirrors.  Cigarette organic to his lower lip.  Cuckold 
jumped in beside me.  Jerry put the pedal to the floor and the car 
gargled down Pennsylvania Avenue. Heading away from civilization.  "You
really do have diplomatic immunity," I said.  "So .. . do you work  for
de La Were, or does he work for you?"  Cuckold parked his 9mm  against
his leg.  "That was stupid.  Very stupid.  What you have done  today. 
You are a fool.  And your police are shit.  I wanted to help  you."

"Everybody wants to help me."  Jerry turned up by the combat Safeway, 
then cut right again.  Working the back streets.  In a couple of 
minutes we were in a part of town you did not want to be in after dark.
Jerry was either trying to lose a tail or making wrong turns.  We 
pulled in across the street from a cemetery.  I knew the area from my 
early-morning runs.  When the gang bangers were getting their beauty 
sleep.  "Get out," Cuckold told me.  "Look happy.  Walk between us into
 the cemetery."

"Sounds happy to me."  When we got out, the folks cooling off on their 
porches stared at us as if we had arrived from Mars.  A little girl in 
cornrows let her jumping rope go slack.  An old man shook his head. 
Cuckold had his pistol in his pocket, but he wasn't fooling anybody on 
this street.

"I hope you both brought weapons," I said.

"Shut up.  Go inside.  Follow the path."  Cuckold had called me an 
amateur the night we met.  But I was not even playing.  Cuckold and 
Jerry, on the other hand, were supposed to be pros.  And they had 
gotten it hopelessly wrong.  I pegged the cemetery as a dead drop they 
used with agents.  When everybody else was doing it over the  Internet.
The headstones were old and vandalized.  A noseless,

stub-winged angel presided over a litter of malt-liquor bottles and a
pink condom.  Jerry led the way behind a mausoleum and we tripped over
a  pair of terminal dopers sprawled against the granite.  They did not 
even lift their eyes when our shoes struck them.

We turned away to find another spot.  A service building stood at the 
end of a line of graves.  Cuckold said, "Over there.  Sit down."  I sat
down on a low stone bench.  With Cuckold standing over me and Jerry 
squatting as though he had grown up in Indochina.  I had questions for 
les freres myself.  But I wanted to hear what they had to say first. 
"Listen now," Cuckold told me.  "France did not do this thing.  We did 
not put the bomb in your laboratory."

"Right."  "It is the truth.  You must listen.  We cannot fight.  There 
is no time." He held his hands out in front of him, palms up, fingers 
clutching air.  "We are not the bombers.  It was a great surprise to 
us.  We would not be so obvious.  It would not be so soon."  He looked 
at the dying sky.  "We want to ... stop the people who hurt us.  Not 
just to make a body count.  That's the American way.  Not ours."

"And I'm just another gringo dumb dick "No.  Oh, perhaps you are a 
fool.  But you can still help us.  And help yourself.  How can I make 
you understand that we have not done this bombing?"

"If you didn't, who did?"  On a low ridge, a line of figures in baggy 
shorts blacked against the sunset in a medieval dance of death. 
Cuckold looked at me with that earnestness that makes the French so 
comical.  "We do not know.  We do not understand it.  My partner 
believes it was the same people who made the bombing in our facility. 
Perhaps it's true.  I am uncertain."

"Just for the sake of cafe conversation, who would these people be? 
Who  did both of the bombings?"  Sirens in the background.  Maybe one
of the  locals had called the cops when they marked the big bulge too
far to  the side in Cuckold's slacks.  But I doubted it.  "We don't
know,"  Cuckold said.  "It is a great mystery.  We don't know why your
people  attacked us.  And now you have made an attack against your own 
laboratory."  "You believe Americans did both jobs?  That we blew up 
our own people?  Come on."  He looked dumbfounded by my naivete.  "Who
else?  Nothing else makes sense.  Only we do not know which 
Americans."

"I thought Europeans always blamed the CIA."  The bandages on his nose 
rumpled. "The CIA is not so brave now.  Too much bureaucracy.  Everyone
watches them.  And we are French, not Europeans."  A shot popped in
the  distance, followed by two more.  Cuckold jumped.  But Jerry did
not.  "Listen to me," Cuckold said, stepping closer.  The air had
thickened  with shadows and he wanted to see my face.  They had picked
a truly dumb spot for the meeting, unless they planned to leave me
here.  But  that did not feel like the case.  These boys were
desperate, but they  wanted results, not more trouble.

I still believed they had bombed our lab.  A piercing voice from the 
background cried, "Shit, bitch.  Do it now."  Jerry and Cuckold 
conferred in French.  I could not get any of it.  Little black flies 
found us.  Cuckold and I swiped at them. Jerry ignored the bites. 
Maybe Gabrielli had done me a favor.  By giving me a reality check.  I 
had long regarded the Army as the last refuge of virtue, but at least 
one shining three-star had shit on his shoes.  Lot of thinking to do
later.

I certainly did not like these cowboys.  But I had reduced my life to 
one clear goal now: Get Tish back alive.  I knew two things.  First, 
for all their dramatics and pistol-waving, Balzac and Dumas were not 
interested in hurting me.  At least for the moment.  Second, they 
really needed my help.  Cuckold stepped back toward me, wiping out an 
old crack vial.  More efficient packaging had made the vials all but 
disappear.  A couple of years back, they had been all over the 
sidewalks during my morning jogs.  They crunched like roaches.  "My
partner," Cuckold began again, "he says he does not know how you can 
think of yourself as a man.  He says it is obvious.  The people who 
have made the bombings are also the ones who have killed your lover. 
But you do not care.  You let them kill her and see no requirement for 
vengeance.  He would not want you near his sister."

"Does she shave her legs?"  It's easy to be flip once you realize you 
don't have to be afraid.  I was far more spooked by the neighborhood 
than by Belmondo and Delon.  "Do you feel nothing for her?"  Cuckold 
asked.  "Nothing for the loss of such an amiable woman?  Have you 
already accepted this blond woman as the replacement?  And Americans 
call the French cynical."

I made a decision.

"You're reading yesterday's papers, pal."

"What does that mean?"  "You haven't heard the news.  She's alive. 
You're not in the loop.  You need to hire a good consultant."  Cuckold 
looked at Jerry.  And oozed out some French.  Then he snapped back to 
me.

"Who is alive?"

"Tish O'Malley.  My girl."  They really were not in the loop. 
Depardieu could not have done surprise so convincingly.  Cuckold fired 
off more French.

Jerry caught the surprise epidemic and moved closer to me.  Aching to
speak for himself.  "You should have paid more attention in school," I
told him. "How do you know this?"  Cuckold demanded.  "What are you 
saying?  Everyone knows she has died.  It is in the newspapers."  "You 
trust the media?"  I shook my head exaggeratedly.  "Come over here. 
Take notes, if you want.  She's alive.  I've got a videotape.  Or had 
one.  She was unmistakably alive on that tape, and the tape was 
unmistakably made after the car bomb jacked up my insurance rates."  I
looked at him.  "A man named Aalstrom handed it to me in a burger joint
last night.  Karl Aalstrom.  A-a-l-s-t-r-o-m.  Claims he's out of
L.A."  but I don't really know where he's bunking these days.  He's
been  running errands for some tough hombres.  Maybe the people who
bombed  your lab.  So why don't you go find out?  Now let's get on our
horses  and ride out of here before the scalping party arrives." 
Cuckold  looked down at me.  With darkness rolling over us, it really
was time  to go.  Pistols or not.  Around here, pistols were for the
fourteen-and-under crowd.  The real bangers carried AKs or better. 
"You're lying," he said.  "You have created this story to confuse us." 
"Right.  But I'm supposed to believe you didn't toss the firecracker 
down in Georgia?  You're begging for information, and here I am giving 
it to you.  And you don't believe me?"

"Describe this man.  This Aalstrom."  "Medium height.  Forty-two waist 
stuffed into size thirty-eight slacks.  Figure it out in metric.  Too 
much sun and too much bad living on his face.  Forty, but looks fifty. 
Thinning blond hair. Dresses like Eurotrash.  You'll love it.  Probably
wears sunglasses to bed.  If you've been tapping my phone,  you've got
his voice."

"We are not listening to your telephone."

"Then you missed your shot.  Somebody is."

"If you lie, it helps nobody."  "I couldn't make Aalstrom up.  His 
nickname's Aley, by the way.  You can't miss him.  He's every European 
intellectual's image of American manhood."

"Where do we find him?"  I smiled.  We were having a contest for dummy 
of the year.  "If I knew, I'd put you on his ass this minute.  He has 
it coming.  But don't worry.  You'll find him, unless you flunked the 
basic course.  He's so stupid he's using his own name."

"Maybe we will find him."  "Listen to me .. . and no bullshit. 
Aalstrom's a small timer But he's working for big boys.  He's a 
garbage collector in a fancy neighborhood.  If you can roll him up, I 
suspect he'll be extremely informative."  I looked at Jerry.  "I'm 
being straight with you guys.  All I ask in return is this.  Any 
information on Tish O'Malley, you help me out.  I'm not sure how much I
really care about what you've done or haven't done, at this point.  I 
just want Tish back.  Alive.  And undamaged.  Deal?"  Cuckold shrugged.
"We have no interest in the girl.  If we find her, you can have her. 
If  she truly is alive."  "And any information about her.  You share
with  me, and I'll keep on sharing with you.  But no more freebies."

More French.  The background noise had risen like the water level in a 
pool.  Bad voices and ripples of sounds you did not want to 
investigate.

"Boys, we really ought to get out of here," I said.  Cuckold squatted 
down a few inches from my face.  "All right.  We will make the deal. 
Now, there is something else.

There are rumors about computer disks.  Perhaps you know about these, 
too?"

"No idea.  What's on them?"  Cuckold's nose patch held an echo of 
light.  But his eyes were black.  "Perhaps the information is
important.  There are no details." He glanced up at the dark shape of
his  partner.  "But I will make you an offer on trust.  If these disks 
present themselves to you--I think you will know what they are--in such
a case, the government of France would help you.  In return for the 
disks.  We would provide you with money.  So that you and your lover
could begin life again.  Someplace discreet."  "Sorry.  I don't know 
anything about your disks.  But .. . just for the record .  how much 
are you offering?" Cuckold fingered his chin.  Reading the braille of 
his stubble.  "Let us say .. . one hundred thousand U.S. dollars?  It 
could provide you with a new beginning"

France really was on the mat.

"Can we go now?"  I asked.  We went.  The cemetery was an all-purpose 
community center after dark.  Party zone.  Love nest.  Target range.  I
walked fast and made Bocuse and Escoffier keep up.  Somebody had 
brought in a boom box.  It rapped pure hatred.  I figured the owner 
must be a tough customer if he could bring his electronics in here and 
not expect to get stripped.  Near the gate, I felt sure we were going 
to face a lineup of gangstas, but the shadows turned out to be kids. 
They might have taken on one of us, but not three.

"Man, you got a dollar?"  one of the smaller kids asked me.  "Shit," an
older boy laughed, "he ain't give you no dollar, motherfucker."  On
the  street, the coming of darkness had driven the porch sitters
inside.  The  blinds were down.  On a lamplit corner, a punk did
jive-and-slap with a  couple of his road dogs.  I felt better when we
were in the car.  The  Peugeot would not start.  Jerry cranked it
several times, then punched  it, then got out and checked under the
hood.  After a minute's wait.  Cuckold climbed out after him.  Martin
and Lewis.  I made it three.

Whole lot of merde.  "Boys," I said, "I recommend you lock it back up 
and we walk fast for that bridge down there.  Don't worry about the 
car.  These kids have their pride."  Cuckold looked at me pathetically.
"But I have signed for this car.  From the embassy." I parked my
rental close to the house.  Illegally.  Aiming for speed.  Scared.  And
feeling plenty stupid.  I had wanted to ask Cuckold what  he had meant
about us making fools of the French even before the  bombing of their
research lab.  It had become a mental itch.  Yet I had  gone brain-dead
when I had the chance to put the question.  I needed  sleep.  R&R.  A
way out of a problem I still could not define.  Corry  sat on my front
steps.  You could do that on my block, when you were  not mixed up with
bombers, kidnappers, and murderers.  She looked like  a kid sitting
there.  Until she stood up.  "I was worried about you,"  she told me.
She had her 900number voice on.

"Let's take it inside."  I undid the locks as quickly as I could.

"Is somebody after you again?"  I ignored the question and shut the 
door behind us, hoping there were no hidden surprises behind the 
refrigerator.  I

started up the stairs, then doubled back.  I went into the kitchen and 
opened the towel drawer.  "Here," I said, forcing the thirty-eight into
her hand.  "I must've been nuts to let you drop this on me.  Where the
hell did you come up with that thing, anyway?  You borrow it from the 
mayor?"

She raised her eyes to mine.  "It was Em's."

That stopped me.  "Em wasn't a pistol-packer."  "He was scared.  I told
you.  I didn't know what it was all about.  I was afraid he was going 
to kill himself." She paused.  "Or me."  Inching closer.  "Everything 
had gotten so bad between us. I hid it."  My eyebrows just about 
touched the ceiling.  "You hid it?  Right.  And naturally, little Corry
did such a good job that the demolition crew that took Em's place
apart  couldn't find it.  Come on, Corry."  She squared her shoulders.
"I  didn't hide it in the apartment.  I hid it at work."

"You hid it in a Senate office?"

"Wasn't that a good place?"

"You couldn't have gotten it past the guards."

"The X-ray machines are for the tourists.  I have a pass."  I shook my 
head. "Corry .. . my dad warned me about girls who play with 
firearms."  "Oh, get off it, John.  You don't know what it was like. 
You've got this fluffed-up romantic picture of Em.  Well, he was a 
prick's prick.  And he drank like a Russian.  Half the time, he was 
bouncing off the walls.  Or bouncing me off the walls.  And I was a 
money slut for staying with him.  Send me to the penitentiary."  "I 
don't want to hear anything else about Em.  You know, he was buried 
today."  "How many sympathy bouquets did you send?  You think I'm this
black widow or something.  Well, how about this

senario?  I'm scared.  I'm really scared, big Mr.  Soldier.  And I know
more about Em's funeral than you do.  He was buried at ten o'clock
this  morning.  Whittier Cemetery.  Old Massachusetts families only. 
The  Right Reverend Francis Barlow presiding."  She twisted up her
small  mouth.  "They knew Em.  They weren't about to be embarrassed by
a low  turnout.  So they preempted it.  Told the world to screw off. 
"The  Carrolls do not require the sympathy of the masses."  Ever met
his  family, John?  They treated me like pond scum because my dad
wasn't in  the social register.  They were terrified he was going to
marry me."

"Was he?"

"No."

"Yeah?"  "He asked me.  I told him no.  I knew I couldn't take a whole 
lifetime of Em."  Her face fell into bitterness.  The real thing.  "Try
hanging with an alkie sometime.  You can't even use the bathroom for 
half an hour after they've been in there."  "Save it for your 
autobiography.  I've got to go."  I started up the stairs again.

She followed me.  Gun in hand.

"Where are you going?  What's going on?"  I charged into my bedroom. 
With Tish's panties and books still scattered on the floor.  I got out 
a suitcase the cops had tossed around and began loading the 
necessities.

"Where are you going?"  "Careful with the gun, all right?  I don't know
where I'm going.  I just need to get out of here.  Too much traffic. 
I  need to think.  Sort some of this out."

"Let me come.  I can help."  "Corry .. . military briefers always 
prepare three courses of action for the boss to choose from."  I picked
up a clump of socks from the floor.  "First, the one you want the boss
to pick.  The second option is one you can live with, but that is 
clearly not as good as the first.  The third one is so stupid, you know
the boss wouldn't pick it in a thousand years."  It was hard to tell 
brown socks from black in the crummy light.  I threw them all in. 
"Taking you with me would be course-of-action number three."

"Please.  You don't understand how afraid I am."  "You didn't look 
afraid sitting on my steps.  You don't smell afraid, sister.  And I 
don't see anybody after your ass.  Except the usual suspects, of which 
there are thousands in this town.  Tens of thousands."  I settled for 
three crumpled pairs of jockey shorts.  I did not know if I would be 
gone one night or weeks.  I was due back in the office Monday morning. 
But I was not optimistic about the future.  And I knew I would do
whatever it took to find Tish.  "Corry, I suspect that the only thing
you have to be afraid of is proximity to me."

"I'm afraid by myself."  "Call Senator Faust.  Bet he'll put you up. 
And put that gun down.  Guns are serious medicine."  "I can't call him.
I mean, I don't want to call him.  I can't call him."  I hit the 
bathroom, emptying shelves into an old canvas shaving kit.  "I thought 
Faust was on the most-eligible list?  Big ladies' man?  It's your shot 
at the brass ring, baby."  She sat down on the bed. Which had not been 
made in a very long time.  She skated the gun across the mattress and 
lowered her face into her hands.

"I've been trying to explain.  You never give me a chance."  I stopped.
"Okay. Last chance.  What's this all about, Corry?  I frankly don't 
see this as your preferred option for a Saturday night."  She looked 
up.  With the intensity of a woman in love.  Maybe fear and love do the
 same thing to you.

"Somebody came to the office today.  To see the senator.

That never happens on Saturday.  He doesn't permit it.  Not even when 
they stay in session."

"White House intern?"  "Please, John.  I'm sorry about last night.  I'm
glad your girlfriend's still alive.  But I'm not expendable, either. 
I'm a person, a human being.  Just like you.  And her."  The color 
bloomed in those wet blues.  "This guy.  He was just ... so out of 
place.  Maybe Las Vegas.  But definitely not Washington, D.C. He and 
Faust were in there for, it must've been an hour.  It didn't make any 
sense to me.  Faust is just so ... fastidious about people."  She
raised her face to the light.  "The guy stopped by my desk and 
introduced himself on the way out.  Mr.  Angstrom or something.  He 
said he knew you, John. He said it in a way that meant he knew a lot 
of other things, too.  It scared me.  I mean, it really scared me.  I 
wanted to ask the senator about him, but he took off like a rabbit. 
Right after this Angstrom guy.  He nearly knocked me down on his way 
out the door."  Her stare nailed me.  "Who was the guy, John? What 
does he want from us?"

I looked down at her.  And at her gun.

"Your suitcase still downstairs?"  I asked her.

We headed out 66 and stopped at a fast-food joint in Manassas.  The 
burgers of Bull Run.  Corry talked with food in her mouth.  Something 
Tish had never done. It was as if she had forgotten who she was for a 
moment.  "So you think Senator Faust is mixed up in all this?"  she 
asked.  Touching away a fleck of mayo on her upper lip.  For a woman 
who looked like an aerobics instructor, Corry had a serious appetite 
for junk food.  "I mean, that guy looked like somebody's problem.  Your
friend."  "Why not?  Everybody else seems to be wired in.  And Aley
Aalstrom is not and never was my friend."  I bit, chewed, swallowed, 
and asked, "The senator's been a big supporter of the NGFB, hasn't he? 
Mr.  We Need It Now?"  Corry almost finished her mouthful and said, 
"He's big on defense. Period.  Faust never met a weapons system he 
didn't like."  She licked her teeth and remembered.  "He and Em were 
tight.  Em used to put together these dinners for him at a gazillion 
dollars a plate.  All corporate types.  Faust would give them fifteen 
minutes on Mom, apple pie, and armaments.  I used to have to go to all 
of them.  Em liked to parade me.  Feel me under the table.  Then we'd 
go home and nothing would happen.  Later on, I went to work for Faust. 
Em fixed it.  I let him.  I told you about that.  I figured it was a 
big step in the right direction."  One thing I had noticed about 
Corry--you could ask her about chaos theory, and by the fifth or sixth 
sentence she would have the conversation back on herself.  "I'm not a 
Hill junkie," I said.  "Don't even watch C-SPAN.  So tell me.  Is Faust
for real?  Or is a strong posture on defense just a moneymaker for the
guy?"  She popped a last brown French fry into her mouth.  "Oh, he's 
for real.  Even has his own personal gun collection.  He showed it to 
me at one of his parties.  The guy's a barrel stroker.  Real Freudian 
stuff.  Asked me if I wanted to go shooting with him."  She wiped her 
mouth.  "He's a case.  Loves to visit military bases.  Kind of a hobby 
for him.  If not an obsession.  He doesn't have a lot of defense 
industry back home, so he prides himself on his impartial credentials. 
Defense industry loves it.  They can't get enough.  They could care
less how he votes on Medicate or education.  As long as he pushes the 
big-ticket acquisition stuff."  She wiped her mouth a second time, 
although it was already clean.  "Em used to laugh about him.  When he 
was drunk.  He said that once Macon-Bolt got Faust up in an NGFB 
prototype, his committee would double the order.  And it was more than 
that.  Em and Bob Nechestny were betting on Faust as a potential number
two man on the next ticket.  Regional balance.  Listening to it all 
made me feel like a member of the inner circle.  It was exciting.  I
admit it.  It still is."

"Tver met Nechestny?  Mr.  Macon-Bolt?"  Corry looked surprised.  As if
I had asked a very dumb question.  "Sure.  Em was his boy.  All the 
parties.  Do we have time for coffee?"

"Get one to go."

I stood up.  So did Corry.

"I've got to make a stop," she told me.

"I'll get the coffee.  How do you take it?"

"Black."  I got in line behind a scrawny guy in jeans and a worn 
T-shirt.  He had a ratty ponytail, a rattier beard, and a trucking 
company cap.  He talked country.  Maybe never wore a tie in his adult 
years.  Commuters wouldn't see him, except when he came by to cut their
grass.  But I knew guys like him from the Army.  He was the kind of
man  whose great-greatgrandpappy wore gray and clubbed the shit out of
the  Army of the Potomac until Grant came east and sat on him with the
full  weight of the Union. He counted out pennies to pay for his
McNuggets.  Born knowing Washington was out to fuck him.  He fought our
wars  anyway.  I waited by the door for Corry and handed her the
coffee.  "More on Bob Nechestny, please."  The parking lot stank of
truck  exhaust.  The car had an air-conditioner sourness.  I had tuned
the radio to a college jazz station before we stopped, and I let it 
continue playing low.  "Bob's a smoothie," Corry said.  "Type who 
bought his manners when he joined his first country club.  He knows the
world jumps when he gives the order, so he doesn't feel like he has to
make a lot of noise.  Terrific suits. Knows how to work a crowd. 
Makes senators look like mannequins.  God returns his calls.  And 
probably worries Bob will be too busy to chat."  She leaned into the
seat belt to sip coffee without baptising herself.  "I don't know what 
else to say.  If he ever dies, they'll probably lay him in a temple 
instead of a grave. Nobody knows how rich he is."

"What did Em think of him?"

"Em admired him.  Worshipped him."

"I never knew Em to worship anybody."  I turned off onto 29 South. 
With back roads in our future.  Where I could register headlights 
following us in the dark.  Corry edged into her coffee again.  "Maybe 
'worshipped' was too strong. But Em was dazzled.  The money .. . the 
access.  The deal-making.  He used to say, "I don't know how the guy 
does it."  From Em, that was serious praise.  And I think he was a 
little afraid of Nechestny, to tell you the truth."

"Why?"  Invisible shrug in the darkness.  "Who isn't afraid of the 
boss? Nechestny was the ultimate boss."  "You said Em was going to 
pieces over the last several months.  That things were going downhill 
between the two of you. That he was drinking."

"We didn't have much of a hill to go down."  "Can you tie it to any 
events?  The decline?  Anything out of the ordinary happen?"  We 
bounced over rail tracks and Corry lifted the coffee high.  A floodlit 
gas station flew a Confederate battle flag.  "Life with Em was never 
ordinary," she told me.  "I don't know.  He was traveling a lot.  We 
were best together when he was spending a lot of time on the road.  You
know how that is.  I do remember one time.  He'd been out at one of
those hush-hush test ranges in Nevada or Utah or someplace.  He came 
back from the airport already hammered.  Absolutely stinking.  That was
the first time he ever hit me.  It was so sudden.  I never expected 
it."

"Why didn't you leave him?  When he hit you?" She waited a moment to
answer.  I turned onto a rural route.  Mazing  our way to the west. 
"Well ... I told you.  About the opportunity I  thought he represented.
I thought I needed him."  She sipped at her  coffee again.  Then again.
I had her white face in my peripheral  vision.  "I guess this is going
to sound sick," she said at last.  "But  I think a part of me thought I
deserved it."  The jazz station was  breaking up.  We were well into
the Piedmont.  I turned up the volume and scanned through the channels.
The Ford had a crappy radio.  I  don't think either of us wanted
silence.  I settled on a DJ with a  salesman's voice and a Nashville
play list I did not listen to country  very often, but I felt like I
had heard all of the songs before.  Then  the hustler said we were
going to get another news update from Atlanta.  It did not make the
night any better.  The Atlanta cops, the FBI, and  the aTF.  had an
Iranian immigrant holed up in a condominium.  It  sounded like a real
siege.  The reporter on the scene said the man was  the prime suspect
in the bombing of the aerospace research facility whose loss had been
such a tragedy for area families and the nation.  I  pictured a very
frightened rug smuggler hugging the floor and wishing  he had a flying
carpet.  I did not believe an Iranian had done it.  Unless he had been
hired to mask the local talent.  I still could not  say who was behind
the bombing.  But I did not believe for a minute it  was anybody with a
turban and bushy eyebrows.  A number of nasty things  had gathered for
a jamboree in my stomach.  I was beginning to sense  how very small a
chip I was in this game.

Small meant disposable.

I stopped at a motel in one of those Shenandoah Valley towns that live 
off agriculture and Civil War tourists.  Corry came into the office 
with me.  When I specified twin beds, the night clerk looked at me like
I was king of the fools. It was after midnight.  Corry shut herself in
the bathroom while I watched CNN. The condo siege in Atlanta was the 
big story.  Corry came back out in a T-shirt, but she had panties on 
this time.  She got into her bed and switched off the lamp on her night
table.  I lowered the volume but kept watching.  With a sick feeling 
that I knew what was coming.  Death live.  A little after one, the Feds
and a local SWAT team stormed the Iranian's place.  There was enough 
gunfire to make it seem like revenge for Desert One.  They killed him. 
No officers down.  I didn't wait for the commentators to start 
second-guessing.  I turned off the TV and went in to brush my teeth.  I
stumbled to my bed in darkness.  Exhausted.  But sleep was not on the 
program.  Too much to think about.  Too little clarity.  And Corry's 
steady breathing.  After a while, she got up to go to the bathroom
again.  When she came back, she stood between the two beds.  As if 
trying to make up her mind.  I closed my eyes like a kid afraid of the 
bogeyman.  After maybe a minute, I heard her crawl under her sheet.  We
were both worn down.  Corry snored.  No sleep for me, though.  Jagged 
thoughts.  Stabbing and retreating. Answers that dissolved when I 
reached for them.  Soldiers are trained to take the initiative.  I was 
just a lab rat.  Then, in the darkness that's been haunting us since
our cave years, revelation hit.  The kind of thing beyond logic and 
reason.  When you just know something.

Something bad.  I got up--very quietly--and felt in my travel bag for 
the pistol she had given back to me.  Insisting we might need it.  John
Reynolds, crouched down like the fool that he was.  Champ Stupid. 
Bare  feet on a gritty rug.

I drew the weapon out by the barrel, took it into the John, and shut 
the door. The motel was not going to put the nearest Hyatt out of 
business.  The fixtures were fifties white porcelain and the light was 
hard.  I rolled the chamber.  Then I opened the gun and dropped the 
bullets into my hand.  I flicked it shut again and tried the action.

Click.  Okay.  Whom did she expect me to shoot with it?  I did not 
believe her story about how she had gotten her hands on the thing.  I 
had not believed much of what she had told me.  But I had not thought 
her through.  Call Freud, Jung, and Adler to ask why, but she had 
become a blind spot.  I wanted to cordon her off, to keep her at just 
the right distance.  But there was no right distance. And there had to 
be more to her than a clinging case of nerves.  Or even poor taste in 
men.

What was the gun all about?  I am not a weapons junkie.  But I've been 
around enough of them.  I went over the revolver thoroughly.  Pretty 
simple piece of metal.  Everything worked fine.  Then, as an 
early-morning afterthought, I checked out the bullets.  At first 
glance, they looked normal.  But something was off in the vegetable 
bin.  I put the pistol and the rest of the ammo down on the floor, then
held one of the rounds up to the light.  Squinting.  Measuring with my
eyes.  Then I inspected each of the others.  After that, I just sat
for  a long time.  Finally, I reloaded the thirty-eight, shut off the 
lights, and went back into the bedroom.  My eyes needed to readjust to 
the dark and I went slowly.  Quietly.  I walked up to Corry's bed, 
bumping it a little, then stopped. Her snoring session was over, but 
she lay in the stillness of sleep.  Her hair shone white.  I pointed 
the gun at her head.  Holding it eight or ten inches back.  And I 
pulled the trigger.

I pulled the trigger again and again, listening to six claps of the 
hammer and the following silences.  Corry moaned once, but did not 
wake.  She had given me a working weapon.  But the bullets had been 
doctored.  The first time I pulled it on somebody, I would have been 
dead.

My morning-after had come early.  When I could not bear looking at her 
anymore, I put the thirty-eight back where it had been sleeping in the 
luggage and slipped outside.  I sat against the motel wall in my jockey
 shorts and T-shirt, watching the occasional car go by.

I went inside when the horizon began to crack and got a couple of hours
of bad sleep.  When I could not lie there any longer, Corry was still 
dreaming contentedly.  She truly was a beautiful woman.

I showered and dressed.  The noise lifted her eyelids a little. 
"There's a diner down the road," I said.  "I'll walk down and get us 
some breakfast."  "I don't eat breakfast."  Voice husky with night ness
"Just coffee.  Please.  Black.  And maybe some juice.  Are you all 
right?"  I left.  I wanted to keep on going.  To leave Corry and all 
the rest of it in a cut-rate motel room.  The motel sat at the edge of 
town, where signs pointed off to the interstate.  It was Sunday morning
in a green world.  Cars and pickups went by with families.
Church-bound.  Back in D.C."  this was the hour to bagel-out and read 
the papers. The diner was a bastion of contrariness.  Old guys in 
suspenders, a couple of bikers.  And a time-machine waitress.  A family
in their Sunday best sat in a corner booth.  The smell of frying meat 
and coffee thickened the air.  I took a stool at the counter.  Figuring
I would eat first.  I was in no hurry to go back to the motel.  The 
waitress brought me coffee without the asking.  The menu was not 
health-oriented.  It was hard to believe that entire civilizations had
existed without coffee.  The diner did it sharp and on the thin side. 
But hot.

Two old men laughed in their private world.  I ordered big.  I was way 
beyond the chickenshit despair that steals your appetite.  While the 
cook was doing the heavy lifting, I got change and bought a Sunday Post
from a machine out on the sidewalk.  The edition had closed too early 
to include the end of the Atlanta condo siege.  I drank more coffee. 
Amazed at the normalcy of the rest of the world.  I was already dead to
the newspapers, ancient history.  Tish had been a blip.  I ate fast, 
piggish, and even finished up the little packets of jam with the toast.
A burly guy sat down on the stool beside me.  Arms cut off his
T-shirt.  Little Devil tattoo on a construction worker's bicep.  He was
as shaggy as a mountain man, beard and mustache dirty with gray.  He
looked just  on the edge of unstable.  Typical diner dweller on the
American byways.  The waitress brought him coffee, topped me off, and
went to pick up a  plate of pancakes from under the warmer lights.

"Much in the paper?"  Mr.  Muscles asked me.

"You can have it."  "Thank you kindly."  He reached for his wallet and 
dropped a twenty on the counter.  "Breakfast is my treat.  Now get the 
fuck up, walk out that door, and get in the white van."

I put down my mug.  "And if I don't?"  He could take me.  I had a 
soldier's muscles.  He had real ones.  And he did not look like he 
would succumb to elegance of form.  "Well, then," he said, smiling 
under his mustache, "I'll have to kill you right here."  He looked at 
the big pink bow on the waitress's backside.  "Have to kill her, too. 
And a bunch of these other good people.  Just to make it look right." 
He took a quick sip of coffee.  "Girl in the motel, too. And that 
redheaded wild woman of yours."

A big hand closed over my upper arm.  "Moment of truth," he told me. 
"All this shit has reached a point where we either achieve resolution 
... or clean house. Your call.  Colonel." "Sit over there."  My escort
pointed to an arrangement of deck chairs  by the pool.  The big-buck
surroundings made him look like an escaped  jailbird.  "He'll get to
you when he's ready."  I sat.  Under the shade  of a
blue-and-white-striped umbrella.  In the pool, a man swam laps. 
Savagely.  Doing a breast stroke, he thrust a tanned, shaved head up 
from the water.  Followed by monstrous shoulders.  I had seen plenty of
swimmers with better form, but none with more ferocity.  The guy was
in  a grudge fight with nature.  After a last heart-attack lap, he
climbed  out.  Dripping.  Hogging the North American oxygen supply.  He
stripped  off his goggles, tossing them onto a table meant to hold long
drinks. Coming toward me, he reminded me of a minotaur.  Scars webbed
his body.  Skin gouged and horned.  He looked as if he had been taken
apart and  reassembled.

I stood up.

A big hand shot out.

"Roscoe Hunt.  Call me Punchy.  So you're the stud who's been pissing 
off everybody from the Buddha to Jesus Christ."  He wasn't a bully 
about the handshake.  He didn't have to be.  Firm, wet paw.  Up and 
down and done.  He turned half away and ripped an enormous towel from a
stack on a bench.  Rubbing his scalp, then fitting the towel over his 
head like a monk's hood.  He crouched and stripped off his trunks. 
Grunting, he dried himself in the sunlight.

"Mind if I call you John?"

"Do I have a choice?"  He cocked an eyebrow.  It rippled the bare skin 
above it. "Hell, everybody gets a choice, son.  Life is choice.  Free 
goddamned will.  We just have to be prepared to pay for our wrong 
choices."

"Call me whatever you like."  He dropped the towel on the flagstones 
and pulled on a fine blue cotton robe.  With the logo of the Oriental 
Hotel, Bangkok.  A pitcher of water waited.  The ice had faded to 
feathers.  He picked up the pitcher and drank, ignoring the glass.  The
back of his hand wiped brown lips. The skin around his mouth looked as
if it had been charred.  "Truth be told, I wish I didn't have to call 
you anything," Hunt said.  "Wish I'd never heard of you.  You're a pain
in the butt."  He looked at me with green eyes hardened by
intelligence.  "But here we are."  I cocked my head toward the big 
house.  "Not a bad place to be."  "I like it," he said.  "Well, come on
inside.  We'll get us something to drink."  He walked as though he 
really wanted to run.  Too much energy for one body.  "Magdalena," he 
called.  "Magdalena."  You sensed immediately that Punchy Hunt was the 
real thing.  He was what all the blustering Gabriellis wanted to be and
could not bring off.  He raised your fears, while the others just 
raised their voices.  My escort had brought me--after two changes of 
vehicle in wooded areas--to a horsey estate between Route 66 and
Middleburg.  The area was a theme park for millionaires.  Nobody 
blindfolded me or played rough.  It did not seem to matter that I saw 
where we were going.  My escort and the succession of drivers seemed 
concerned only about being followed.  The estate was one of the serious
ones you can't see from the highway.  Just a turnoff with brick
pillars  and a "Private Road" sign.  Arcades of trees.  White fences as
long as  Third World frontiers.  From a low hill I saw a small lake and
a  private airfield, wind sock dead in the heat.  The house of
white-painted brick looked like it had been built in the eighteenth 
century for a serious player.  Every other generation had added a wing 
or a floor.  It was big, gracefully imperfect, and unattainable.  The 
kind of place that made a good citizen feel like a loser.  The back of 
the house had been redone with a lot of glass.  A door slid open and a 
black Lab darted toward the general.  Followed by a Hispanic in a 
maid's costume.  She was plain enough not to cause trouble in the 
barracks.  "Let him out and he always wants to jump in the goddamned 
pool with me," Hunt said.  I thought the dog would leap up on him. 
Just short, it stopped, sat, and showed its tongue.  "Good boy, Castro.
All right.  Come on." The general slapped his thigh and the dog 
closed on him.  "Can't swim with a goddamned dog.  Love the little 
mutt.  But I don't want to go swimming with him. Magdalena?"

/ "Si, senor general."  "Get us up a pitcher of gin and tonic.  Like 
gin and tonic, John?  Only damned drink for this weather.  Hungry?"

"I had a power breakfast."

Hunt grunted.  "Just as well.  Can't have a serious talk over food. 
That's Washington bullshit."  He grunted again, with the dog heeling. 
"Fuckers never talk about anything serious anyway.  You like that 
goddamned town?"

"It's an interesting place."  "No goddamned place for a soldier.  Pick 
up all sorts of bad habits.  Get sloppy.  Worst thing that can happen 
to a man.  Lose his discipline."  He regarded me.  "Looks like you keep
 yourself in pretty good shape."

"I do what I can."

"One of my boys do that to your eye?"  I shook my head.  There had not 
been much swelling or discoloration where Frenchy had nailed me.  But 
Hunt was accustomed to reading all the signs.

"A foreign relations seminar got out of hand."  He grunted and led the 
way inside the house, showing me his back.  A man who had forgotten how
to be afraid.  Hunt was an exception among exceptions.  If it had not 
been for Special Forces, I doubt he would have survived in the 
military.  There was just too much of him.  Probably wrestled the 
doctor when his mother gave birth.  The air conditioning felt wet on my
skin.  I followed Hunt down a hallway lined with hunting prints and
the loot of an overseas career.  "Come on in," he said, opening a
door.  He  held it for me.  When I passed by him, I realized how much
shorter he  was.  It was startling.  He was shorter than I was, but
bigger in every  way that mattered.  He could have ripped me apart.  He
made the dog  stay in the hallway and it flopped dolefully.  Hunt shut
the door.  "Sit down, sit down."  We were in the handsomest library I
had ever  seen that did not come with a tour guide.  I sat in a brown
leather  chair of a quality I would never be able to afford.  Even if I
survived long enough to make another major furniture purchase.

The maid knocked and the general told her to come in.  The dog 
whimpered for attention, but did not cross the threshold.  The maid 
laid down a silver tray with a pitcher and the proper glasses.  Then 
she got out of Dodge.  She had known exactly what Hunt would ask for 
and had it ready.  "Good worker," the general told me.  "Brought her up
from El Sal.  Whole damned family massacred.  By our side.  Roberto
was  scum.  But he was our scum."  "That your way of telling me Aley
Aalstrom's working for you?"

The general laughed.  One big rush of noise.  "Hell," he said, "I knew 
you and I were going to get along, John.  Yeah, well.  This thing of 
darkness I acknowledge mine."  Can't run a foreign policy without folks
like Aalstrom, and you can't run a business without them, either. 
When's the last time you bought a car off a Mormon elder?"  He smiled, 
but did not laugh again.  "You're smart enough to see the uses of 
somebody like Aley.  Don't pretend otherwise."  The library was
magnificent.  Not huge.  But big enough for a fine old desk with carved
pedestals--dogs and stags chasing each other--and a quartet of gents' 
chairs. The expensive editions in the bookcases looked cherished and 
read.  The shelves closest to me held several different sets of 
Shakespeare, none of them new.  As in the hallway, the paintings were 
of hunting scenes, or of dogs or game.  I was just about to tell the 
general exactly what I thought about Aley and anybody who would employ 
him, when he stood up.  He had followed my eyes.  "That's a Landseer," 
he told me.  "Real thing.  Hell, maybe it's not art the way Constable
or Turner were art.  But I like it.  All those fag critics can bugger 
off."

"Landseer's respected."  "Hell he is," the general said.  He poured two
gin and tonics.  "That Philly exhibition back in the eighties?  Know 
why they did that? Bunch of Landseers were coming on the market.  Drove
the prices way up.  It's business, John.  The buck is the final
arbiter  of beauty.  Follow art, do you? Most soldiers wouldn't know
Landseer  from a land mine I shrugged.  "I've been to the big city. 
Didn't like  everything I saw there."  He held out a glass and I
accepted it.  Figuring it couldn't hurt.  "I like the art trade. 
Better than Vegas.  More substance.  But take it from me, it's all
about the money.  And nothing but.  Lay down enough auction-house
money, the Metropolitan  would stage a black-velvet painting
retrospective.  With a ten-pound  catalog full of scholarly
commentaries.  "Elvis as Allegory."  Ever read Marx?"

I nodded.  "Bugger didn't like to wash, know that?  Same thing as 
goddamned Che Guevara.  Wish I could've been there when we nailed his 
dirty ass.  My personal theory is that Communism went down the tubes 
because the sonsofbitches had no sense of hygiene.  Good hygiene is a 
hallmark of the disciplined man."  He took a powerful drink.  Able to 
inhabit fully whatever he was doing at the moment. "Cruelty isn't 
discipline, John.  It's a manifestation of inadequacy, of failure--I've
always seen it as a last resort, no more.  When I go cruel, you know 
I'm serious.  Frustrated.  But let's stick to Marx.  Now, that 
smelly-ass sonofabitch was no dummy.  Understood greed.  The way things
really work.  Just couldn't accept that greed wasn't a monopoly of the
moneyed classes.  Hated what he knew, romanticized what he didn't. 
Typical goddamned intellectual.  But valuable, nonetheless.  I find him
instructive.  Read Max Weber?"  I nodded again. I had been an 
excruciatingly dutiful student.

"Good for you.  Weber's my boy.  Greed isn't what brings us real 
wealth.  It's the sense of duty.  Of calling.  The tirelessness of the 
true believer.  The pursuit of a grail.  Like being a soldier.  Greed 
is for second-raters, John.  Like that bitch with the hotels."  The gin
and tonic was first-rate.  And unreal.  Hunt gave a smaller laugh. 
"Now  I used to preach that the United States Army officer corps was
the last  surviving Calvinist institution in the Western world.  Folks
thought I  was crazy.  "Old Punchy's had one too many grenades go off
between his ears."  But you can turn that to advantage."  He slapped a
paw down on  his thigh and the short sleeve revealed a crocodile-hide
wrist.  Burn  scarring.  "And the Air Force .. . they're nothing but
goddamned  Jesuits.  Jesuits without God."  He drank and waved his free
hand.  Sitting back down.  "Now, I admire Calvinists, John.  In their
place.  All that sense of duty.  The discipline, the clarity of form. 
Conviction of being one of the elect.  All twisted up with a terrible
fear of failure.  Makes a great officer."  He looked at me with eyes 
that had seen more than I could imagine.  "Trouble is, all that crap 
makes for a dumb shit of a civilian following retirement.  I have 
personally seen my friends fail right and left when they took off their
uniforms and tried to make a go of the business world.  Reality breaks
'em like glass."  He held up his own glass and I noticed he was
missing  two fingers on his left hand.  "Me, I've really come around on
the Air  Force.  Little shits are in touch with the spirit of the
times.  Do  absolutely anything to get what they want.  We need to
study those boys."  He finished his drink and parked the glass. 
Leaning toward me.  "Don't be a dumb fucking Calvinist, John.  You
don't have to go before  your Maker in a robe of shining white.  Minor
transgressions are  forgiven in the church of real life."  He grinned. 
His teeth were too  even.  I wondered which enemy had claimed the
originals.  "Hell, look  at the goddamned President."

"I believe in right and wrong."  "And so do I, John.  So do I. But
life's not as neat as we'd like it to be.  How about a top-off?"  He 
bounced out of his chair and poured another round.  "Had I regarded the
world as a domain of absolutes, I would have been dead before the end 
of my first combat tour.  My career would have been short and not at 
all sweet.  Goddamned failure to boot." We both drank.  The Lab made a 
dog-dream sound beyond the door.  "Well, I survived.  And prospered." 
He shook his head over memories.  "Not because I embraced that which 
was wrong.  Hell, no.  Because I recognized that sometimes it takes a 
sequence of small wrongs to get to a big right.  I do believe that the
end can justify the means.  After all, that's why we have a military. 
Kill our fellow man so a greater justice will prevail.  Right?"

"Where's Tish?"

"She's safe."

"You have her here?"

"You know better than that, son."

"What happens to her?"  He smiled.  A rugged little smile.  "That's up 
to you.  You have the fate of many people in your hands.  You screwing 
the blonde, by the way?"

"No."  "Didn't think so.  Too much of a Calvinist.  Now, if I were you,
I'd fuck her brains out.  Looks like a thoroughbred.  And life does
not  give any of us an excess of chances.  Fuck her.  Enjoy it.  You'll
be  forgiven."  His smile broadened slightly, as if someone had twisted
a  screw at the back of his head.  " "Down from the waist they are 
Centaurs.  Though women all above: But to the girdle do the gods 
inherit.  Beneath is all the fiend's."  You one of those poor
sonsofbitches who've afraid of women, John?  Most men are."  His smile 
quirked, marking private thoughts.  "Know why I love Shakespeare? 
Because the bugger had the balls to kill that self-righteous little 
bitch at the end of Lear.  All she had to do was make her poor old 
daddy feel good.  But she was just too much of a goddamned puritan, one
of those little tin saints who have to turn out all the lights."  He 
looked at me with forty-five-caliber eyes.  "Saints and puritans fuck 
things up for all of us, John.  Shakespeare understood how the world
really works."

"Who was in the car?"

He didn't get it.  "Who was in the car?"  I repeated.  "My car.  The 
body that was supposed to be Tish."  His lips formed a burned and 
broken shell.  A sort of smile.  "That shouldn't bother the Calvinist 
in you.  Any more than it would a Marxist.  She wasn't one of the
elect.  Strictly Lumpen-proletariat.  Homeless. Mad.  Worthless. 
Shopping-cart  sweetheart.  No one's missed her.  Calvin himself had no
patience with  beggars."

"Save the Wal-Mart theology."  He made a kill-you-if-I-feel-like-it 
face.  "All right.  Let me put it to you straight.  You don't give a 
shit about that homeless woman.  You're just glad it wasn't your 
girlfriend in that car."  He grinned with the suddenness of an air 
strike.  "Occurs to me that Miss O'Malley's a crackerjack Catholic. 
Understands repentance.  And forgiveness.  The efficacy of works. 
Charity.  Faith, too.  Great big buckets of it.  But that's just
more--what did you call it?  "Wal-Mart theology'?  I like that.  You've
got balls, son."  "Even if I didn't care about the woman, I'd care 
about the law."

"God's law?  Or man's?  Can the bullshit."  "What about Farnsworth? 
And Em Carroll?  They're missed.  They weren't worthless.  What about 
all those people at the lab in Georgia?"

Hunt put down the glass he had emptied a second time.

"Avoid romanticism, John.  It destroys your operational effectiveness."
His face was serious, not mocking.  Almost priestly.  "That .. . those
deaths were inexcusable.  My people had nothing to do with them.  I
had  nothing to do with them.  I deplore them."  His chin lowered, but
his  eyebrows climbed.  He fixed me with those bayonet eyes.  "I was
called  in because the whole business was getting out of hand.  Run by 
amateurs.  Clowns like Gabrielli."  He caught my surprise and smiled 
again.  "Oh, yes.  Our friend the general.  Horse's ass. Worse.  Can't 
see past the dollar signs.  To the damnation at the end.  Not every man
in Army green's a good Calvinist."  Grunt.  "Gabrielli's a fraud even 
unto himself.  If he even has a goddamned self.  Pretty typical these 
days."  "Why should I believe you?  That you weren't behind the 
killings?"  Hunt made a face like a kid forced to eat broccoli.  "You 
really think I'd be that sloppy?  Hell, if Gabrielli and his 
blue-suiter buddies were still running this, you would've been dead 
days ago.  And your girlfriend.  And blondie.  Whom you really should
fuck.  Cowardly not to.  When you really want to."  His smile returned.
"Tell me you don't think about it."  His robe had slipped open.  He 
stood and retied it. "Men don't think," he said, scanning his 
bookshelves.  "They do not consider the ends of things.  Or the 
sources, for that matter.  We live our lives in a fog. Imagining 
lights just ahead of us.  Hallucinating moral systems.  For which there
is no biological justification."  He ran his fingers along a set of 
green books whose titles I could not see.  "We believe in things that 
are perversions of logic.  Even as we reject our most powerful desires.
We reason away opportunity."  He turned to face me again.  Cinching
the  blue robe tighter.  "The truth is, we're cowards.  Man is born
afraid.  Fear is his constant companion. Only fear is with him at the
end."  His  lips turned up delicately.  A rose opening.  "When you
grasp that  fundamental truth, everything else makes sense. Religion. 
Civilization.  Law.  Government.  You name it.  Everything is a
fortification erected against the fear that threatens to overwhelm us."
He took down a book and paged through it, but still spoke to me. 
"Fears  come in two kinds, John.  General and specific.  The fears we
all feel  .. . and those peculiar to an individual or time and place." 
He snapped  the book shut and replaced it on the shelf.  "When you
understand a  man's specific fears, you have him."  He looked at me
again.  "You know  me.  I mean, you know a little about me. The
stories.  Rumors.  I'm  sufficiently vain to assume you've brushed up
against my reputation."  He stood erect.  The minotaur again.  "Credit
those stories, John.  Believe in them.  None of them captures the full
reality.  If driven by necessity, I could inflict so much pain on Miss
O'Malley that she would  truly go out of her mind.  And I would have
you there watching.  Where  she could see you.  Don't lead us down that
road, John.  Exercise your  free will for the good." I looked down at
my drink.  Not a time for  brave words.  "What do you want?"  He
stepped over to me and put his  hand on my shoulder.  "You know what I
want.  The disks.  All of them.  Every single one of them."  He lifted
his hand. Unaccountably, I felt  the loss of the human connection.  If
Hunt was human. "Give back the  disks .. . and I'll give you back Miss
O'Malley.  I won't hurt either  one of you.  Or anybody else involved."
He sat back down in his chair.  A high judge on his bench.  "And
there's more.  My employer--who is a  genuinely great American--will
pay you ten million dollars.  Aalstrom  was telling the truth about
that."  I don't know if he caught my  reaction.  It wasn't much.  But I
distinctly recalled Aley offering  five million.  I began to understand
my old non-friend's intense  interest in the transaction. "..  . and
here's what's going to happen," the general continued.

tinued.  "You're going to agree to take that money.  And I'm going to 
be the middleman.  I'm going to handle the deposits.  You will actually
receive two million, sufficient for your needs.  I will retain eight. 
You will say nothing, because you will be grateful for your life and 
that of your beloved.  As well as for your newfound wealth.  Then you 
and I will have something on each other.  A mutual guarantee of good 
behavior.  In time, all will be forgiven."

"And if I don't have the disks?"

"That would be unfortunate."

"If I don't play?  If I give them to somebody else?"

"You wouldn't make it across the street."  I was slower.  But my second
drink was empty now, too.  I settled the glass on the carpet.  "The 
disks .. . have the plans for the NGFB on them, right?  Everything? 
The black stuff?  All of it? Correct?"

The general nodded.  "Is one of us surprised?"  "What if I turn out to 
have a martyr complex?  What if I believe that airplane's a bad deal 
for my country? What if I do beat you out the door?  And across the 
street.  And put those disks in somebody else's hands?"  "Like most 
martyrs, you would die for a dying cause. For a dead cause.  And you 
would effect no good whatsoever.  You would destroy the lives of those 
around you.  Out of vanity, not virtue.  Your choice, John." He walked 
across the room and laid his hand on an antique globe.  Turning it a
little.  "I find romanticism the enemy of all that is good--and I do 
believe in good, my friend.  We disagree only on the substance, not the
concept.  Washington is a city tragically prone to romanticism.  No. 
That's wrong.  "Tragic' is too grand a word for the sordid nonsense on 
the banks of the Potomac.  Washington is pathetically given to 
romanticism."  "You think it's romanticism to buy a
three-hundred-billion-dollar airplane we don't need?"

Hunt was a master of his own reactions.  He did not tweak a facial 
muscle.  All he did was spin the globe under a big hand.  Strategic 
roulette.  "No, John, it's not romanticism."  Spoken in the calmest of 
voices.  "I believe buying the Next-Generation Fighter-Bomber is sheer 
realism.  To oppose the purchase is romanticism."

"We don't need it.  We can't afford it.  And you know it."  He lifted 
his hand and shooed off a slow, invisible fly.  "On the contrary.  We 
can afford it.  This is a very rich country, son.  Richest in history. 
And we are spending a lesser proportion of our GNP on our national 
defense today than at any time since the Great Depression.  And you 
might recall where that led."  He patted the globe.  As if it were a 
good dog.  "There's plenty of money out there.  Don't worry about it.
Now ... as for needing that airplane ... of course we don't.  Not in 
the sense you mean it.  We don't need it strategically."  He looked 
down at the globe. Choosing a country to invade.  "But we need our 
defense industry.  That's our strategic ace in the hole."  He spun the 
globe again.  "Defense industry beat the Russians.  Not our armed 
forces.  Defense industry beat those sorry-ass Iraqis. Not twits like 
Gabrielli who move tanks at the speed of tricycles and worry about 
scratching the paint jobs."  Huge shoulders rolled under the tree-bark
skin of his neck.  "Our defense industry is the most feared institution
on earth.  I would starve people to keep it going.  I would starve 
infants to death, John.  Defense industry is what keeps America on top.
And I am determined that America should stay on top."  He crossed his 
arms and pointed his full attention toward me.  A minotaur with the 
eyes of a snake.  Suddenly, he grinned.  "You're a hardhead.  Aren't 
you?  Here I am offering you salvation, and you just refuse to have 
faith."  The grin decomposed.  "Like weapons, John?  Guns?  Fine 
ones?"

"They have their place."

"Exactly right.  Come on.  Let me show you something."  He retied his 
robe with a snug knot this time and led the way back out into the 
corridor.  The dog rose and followed us.  We entered a lower-ceilinged 
area.  Probably part of the original structure.  Hunt opened another 
door.  Stairs.  Going down.  I wondered if this was the trip to the 
torture chamber.  Anxious to stay close to its master, the dog nearly 
knocked me down the steps.  Hunt pushed on along a passageway to a 
vault door.  He bent to an electronic combination lock and worked it 
quickly. The room was twice the size of the library.  It was full of 
guns.  And edged weapons.  This was no nutcase arsenal.  It was a 
museum.  Hundreds of muskets and rifles--and some automatic 
weapons--waited in long cherry racks.  Some behind glass, others ready 
to hand.  Swords, from Bronze Age fragments to modern ceremonial 
sabers, hung below the crown molding and gleamed in a fan on the far
wall.  There were crossbows, longbows, pikes, and axes.  Helmets and
breastplates.  Carved clubs.  Oriental weapons in the shape of animals.
Hunt took down a double-barreled shotgun that looked as though it had 
been worked by silversmiths.  He cracked it open and held it high. 
Squinting into the barrel. Then he took two shells from a drawer, 
loaded the weapon, and laid it on a glass display case full of old 
military revolvers.  For a few seconds, he just admired the weapon. 
"Holland and Holland," he said.  "A thing of beauty."  Then he turned 
back to me.  "John ... we are privileged to live in the greatest
country in history at the greatest time in history.  There is not an 
enemy who can threaten us at present.  None on the horizon."  He looked
down the gleaming rows of wood and steel.  "No, my friend, we're on
top  of the heap.  And it is our mission--yours and mine--to make sure
we  stay there.  To defend the new American empire that none of the 
politicians will even admit we possess.  With the indispensable support
of our defense industry."  He laughed his longest laugh of the day.
"We're the next best thing to gods."

"Senator Faust ever see your collection?"  Hunt grimaced.  "Hell, it 
was all I could do to keep him from jerking off in front of me."  He 
picked out a rapier and prodded the air, testing the weapon's balance. 
Then he hung it back on its pegs.  "But let's stay on-message here. 
Those disks.  They matter so much because of two things.  First, for 
the short term, we don't want our secrets lying around so the bad guys 
can figure out where our vulnerabilities are.  Longer term, it's about 
industrial superiority.  Tens of billions of black dollars already went
into that aircraft.  And even we can't afford to give the technology 
away for free.  Even if those who stole it could not build it, they
could model beyond it.  In fact, that would be the smarter strategy by 
far. Don't imitate, counter.  We're in a constant state of virtual war 
with our former allies, everybody trying to out model everybody else. 
Looking for the big breakthrough.  Our allies are envious creatures, 
John, small men and evil. They hate our superiority, our success.  And 
they hate us.  More deeply than do our nominal enemies.  The Europeans 
would ruin themselves to spite us.  The Japanese remain the monsters 
they have always been."  He ran his fingers over a samurai sword 
displayed in a wooden cradle.  "There are capabilities built into the 
NGFB's technology you can't imagine.  Paradigm-shattering capabilities.
Even now, I can't share them with you.  And we don't want to share them
with anybody else."  "What you're trying to sell me ... is that
defense  industry is more important than the military."  He lifted a
hand to his  chin and more reptile skin emerged from his sleeve.  "Yes.
You don't  have to like it.  But it's the truth.  Companies like
Macon-Bolt  protect us today.  G.I. Joe's an anachronism."

"You say that?  After all you've been through?"  The general smiled 
indulgently. "I enjoyed what I did.  God knows what would have become 
of me had I not found the military.  I would likely have come to a bad 
end young.  But I loved my work in our country's service.  I had an 
aptitude for it, a calling.  I thrived in conditions that broke other 
men.  I loved that which was forbidden to those of lesser strength." 
He  shook his head.  "But I will not pretend my career was more
important  than it was.  We lost most of the fights I was in.  Truth
is, we didn't need to be in them in the first place.  The age of the
warrior is over.  Done. And it isn't coming back.  I'm a dinosaur." 
"Christ," I said.  "Look at the papers.  It's all machetes and rusty
machine guns out  there.  With the odd cell phone thrown in.  It's Cain
and Abel warfare.  It's nothing but warrior stuff. How does the NGFB
fit into that?"  He  blew those considerations away like dust. "Do any
of those fights  threaten our country?  Come on, son.  That's all
busybody stuff.  Pimples on the ass of the world.  We get involved
because we're bored. If it ever got serious, we could wipe them out. 
We're just beating our  meat."

He picked up the shotgun he had loaded.  "John," he said, "I really 
thought you'd be more mature than this.  I've tried to reason with you.
But you're beginning to wear on me."  He pointed the gun toward his 
Labrador and pulled one of the triggers.  The sound punched through my 
skull.  The dog exploded across the carpet.  Its head bounced off the 
far wall.  Blood splashed my jeans.  The shot echoed.  My ears ached. 
Hunt stared at me with such force that it drew my eyes away from the 
animal's death.  "I just want you to understand how serious I am," he 
said.  "You have forty-eight hours to produce the disks." I drove back
toward D.C. with the end-of-the-weekend crowd.  The woman  who had set
me up to die with a gun full of useless rounds sat beside  me.  She
didn't speak, but I sensed her brain going like a hard little 
computer.  What did she know?  What did she want?  When they delivered 
me back to the motel, she had been sitting on her bed.  Watched by two 
gunmen.  I guess her charm was wearing thin, because it did not look 
like they had established much of a rapport.  The desk clerk made me 
pay for an extra day since we had overstayed checkout time.  He had no 
idea what was going on, probably did not want to know.  I knew more 
than I wanted to.  But not enough to make anything good happen.  I felt
like roadkill. With a deadline to meet and no idea where to start. 
People I did not know were watching me and I had no idea how to hide. 
I did not know if I was being followed at the moment, or if they had 
wired my rental car with a locator, or both.  For all I knew, the 
bastards were tracking me with satellites.

The green hills lowered into the outer burbs.  "Listen to me," I said 
to Corry, breaking the silence.  "And don't interrupt until I'm done." 
I watched the road ahead and kept my voice low.  "I don't know what 
you're all about.  I still can't figure your angle.  But I know you've 
got to be working for somebody.  So let me give it to you straight. 
And  you can report back to God Almighty or the Chinese or whoever pays
your  laundry bill."  A four-wheel-drive crammed with Sierra Club
wannabes  cut me off, but I had no anger to spare.  "I don't have those
goddamned disks.  I don't even know what's on them.  Oh, I'm just
barely smart  enough to realize there's some deep, dark secret swirling
around the  NGFB, but I don't know what that secret is.  And I don't
care.  A week  ago, I might have cared.  Now I just want Tish back. 
Alive."  I let a  mile pass.  It was hard to speak to her, hard to know
what to say.  Maybe silence would have been better.  But we're talking
animals.  "And  just for the record, don't say another goddamned thing
about Em and  what a shit you think he was.  I've about got it figured
out that he  was a hero.  Him and Farnsworth.  The two of them. 
Heroes, baby.  Whatever's on those disks, they thought it was rotten
enough to risk  their lives over.  I don't care if Em drank.  I don't
care if he pulled  the wings off flies and kicked your little gold
ass--although I suspect  that was a two-way street.  All I know is that
he was trying to do the  right thing.  To say nothing of Mickey
Farnsworth.  Those guys carried  the flag up the hill, right into the
machine guns.  And I can't do it.  And won't do it.  All I want is
Tish.  And my own life. I'm as selfish  as they come, lady.  Maybe even
more selfish than you.  I'm scared shitless, and I want to live, and I
don't know what to do.  So pass it  on to whoever you're working for. 
If you think it'll help."

Route 66 had entered the cash canyon, with malls on one side, office 
buildings on the other.  The exits led to Volvo country.

"You're wrong," Corry said.

"About what?" "About me, for one thing."

"I don't think so, sister."

"I really am attracted to you, John."

"Just how stupid do you think I am?"  "You don't know anything.  You 
just refuse to understand.  The first time we met, I had a feeling 
about you.  You were so ... solid."

"The word is 'thick."  " "Stop it.  You don't understand how much I 
need somebody I can count on.  Somebody I don't know, just somebody who
isn't out to use me." She laughed minutely.  "If you want me to put it
 bluntly, somebody who doesn't just want to fuck me on the cheap."

"You're overestimating both of us."  We passed the headquarters of the 
National Rifle Association and I thought of Punchy Hunt's arsenal.

"You don't know how attractive honesty can be."

I howled.  "And you do?"

"You're crueler than Em.  You're just slower about it."

"Definitely slower."  "And you're wrong about me 'working for 
somebody."  I'm not working for anybody."  That was the lie that pushed
me over the edge.  I shouted at her.  "Fuck you, Corry.  Just fuck
you.  I'd shove you out the goddamned door, but I'm not going fast
enough to  make it worthwhile."  I glanced at her. Briefly.  Just long
enough to  hate that ineradicable beauty.  "I know about the gun.  I
know about  the goddamned gun, Corry."

She had great timing.  She gave me just enough space to collapse back 
into a muddle of anger and helplessness.  "What .. . are you talking 
about?"  she asked. With a very different tone in her voice.

"Go to hell."  "Please.  Just tell me what you're talking about.  I 
don't know what you're talking about."  I was blasting past BMWs.  "The
bullets.  The buHets, Corry.  Don't give me that shit about how I'm 
your love supreme.  You know goddamned well the first time I pull that 
gun on somebody I'm dead."

"No."

"Yes."  "No.  Please ..."  The girl was Meryl Streep going for her
hundred-and-first Oscar.  She was good.  Even now, her voice was 
believable.  As if she really had not known.  "What do you mean, you 
would've--" "The bullets are no good.  They won't fire.  Don't pretend 
you don't know."  I don't know what I expected.  But it wasn't what I
got.  Corry sank into an arctic quiet just long enough for me to pass
a  semi. Then she began to scream.  Kicking the dashboard, the floor. 
The hard life of a rental car.  It was a stunning performance.  Had I 
not known her better, I might have bought it.  Just before the turnoff 
for the Vienna metro stop, she found her way back to language.  "You're
lying," she muttered.  "You're lying to me. You don't know what you're
talking about."  I ripped across the lanes and hit the exit ramp like
a  teenager with Dad's Corvette.  Fishtailing through the maze of metro
parking lots.  Sunday-empty now, toll gates open.  I pulled into a
satellite lot behind a wall of shrubs and aimed for the far corner. 
Slamming on the brakes just in time to stay out of the trees.

"Get out," I said.  But I didn't give her time.  I jumped out of the 
car and ran to her door.  Yanking at her.  Forgetting the seat belt.  I
dragged her out as far as I could, then went back in for the buckle. 
Feeling her.  Smelling her.  Hating her.  I pushed and yanked at her 
until she was on her knees on the macadam. Crying.  I went into the 
trunk, into the bags.  The bully boys had not taken away Corry's 
artillery.  I drew it out and walked back to her.

She cringed.  Looking up at me.  I pointed the gun at her.  With the 
late heat rising from the blacktop.

"Don't," she said.  "Don't."  I pulled the trigger.  Again and again 
and again. Listening to those chickenshit little clicks.  Then I 
tossed the gun at her.  And followed up by throwing her suitcase out of
the trunk.  I flung her purse against her shoulders.  When I looked in
 the rearview mirror, she was still lying on the ground.

Weekend repairs had shut down the in-bound lanes of 66 short of the 
river.  The detour shunted into Rosslyn and I crossed over to 
Georgetown, which was a big mistake.  The traffic was a mess even on 
Sunday evening and the sidewalks were dense as Calcutta with people who
looked as though they figured the next person's life had to be better 
than their own.  The crosswalks streamed.  I waited out the light at 
Wisconsin and M behind three muscle boys in a jeep with a roll bar.  A 
medieval beggar woman meandered between the lanes, holding up a sign 
warning us all against hormones in meat and world government.  The 
light changed and one of the jeep boys grabbed the sign out of her 
hands and laughed as they pulled away.  I almost hit her and caught a 
blast of curses.

A cop cruiser--one of those Crown Vies D.C. could not afford--flashed 
me before I got to George Washington University.  I did not know if it 
was about nearly whacking the witch back in Georgetown or playing with 
guns in public places or the bigger stuff in my life.  I pulled into 
the most expensive gas station in the universe and killed the engine. 
"Out of the car," the cop told me. Inevitable sunglasses.  Marks on 
his forearm that could have been scars.  Or a gangland tattoo from the 
days before he switched sides. "What's wrong.  Officer?"

"You got an expired registration."

"This is a rental."

"Get out of the car.  Now."  I got out of the car.  His partner took my
place behind the steering wheel.  "Get in the cruiser," Cop Number One
told me. "Unless you want me to put you in it."  He opened the door. 
There did not seem to be any real malice in him.  Just a guy doing a 
shit job at the end of a hot day.  He drove me up to paleface 
Northwest, to one of those pockets a little too close to the danger 
zone for the lobbyists and SES types.  No lights, no siren. No 
information.  He worked the radio briefly, but I don't know the cop 
codes. He stopped the cruiser behind a school with a parking lot full 
of family vans and mothers with dark circles under their eyes.  The cop
let me out and pointed toward a sports field where grade-schoolers 
played soccer by the herd. "Lieutenant Dickey's over there 
somewheres."  The light was fading, but he still wore those sunglasses.
"Don't come up on him from behind.  He don't like that." Dickey was 
halfway up a stand of bleachers.  One of the few males making the
scene.  On the field, kids ran and collided while their mothers 
shrieked like Romans at a Christian-eating contest.  Dickey held a 
portfolio open on his knees.  Pen in hand.  I did not come up on him 
from behind.  I climbed the bleachers, apologizing to mothers with 
bloodlust in their eyes.  Dickey saw me, but went back to his work.  I 
stood just below him.  Finally, he shut the portfolio and zipped it. 
Gesturing to me to have a seat beside him.  "Fucking fag sport," he 
told me.  "American kids ought to be playing football."

"Your son?"  He looked at me.  "My daughter.  But just look at those 
wimpy little boys out there, would you?  She chews 'em up and spits 'em
out.  I mean, this coed shit has gone way too far.  I worry about the 
future of this country."  He looked heavy and worn in the bleeding 
light.  Almost human.

"So tell me about the blonde," he said abruptly.

I looked around.  "Here?"  He waved a paw at a mother's back two rows 
down. "They're not interested in us.  Listen.  I fucking hate this. 
But I'm beginning to get this deep-down fear that there might be a 
remote chance I owe you an apology."  We both watched the kids.  I 
tried to figure out which one had sprung from Dickey's loins, but it 
was hopeless.  They all looked too normal.  "So what's the apology 
for?"  "I'm not apologizing yet.  But I want to talk like gentlemen. 
And see what happens."  He half rose from his seat.  Yelling.  "You see
that?  You see her?  Go get 'em, Kath.  Give it to 'em, you hear me?" 
I  had her now.  A lanky girl with brown hair.  On the hormone express
to  being a teenage knockout.  She looked briefly in her father's
direction, then trotted down the field with a smile on her face.

Dickey settled back down.  And his voice hardened.  "Tell me about the 
blonde."  I told him.  Everything I could remember about her.  I might 
as well have been some old Italian mama in the confessional.  I 
surprised myself with my need to talk. Wondering all the while if 
Dickey might not be a much better judge of animals than I had given him
credit for.  I was just a beaten old dog.  Responding pathetically to 
the slightest sign of decency.  Not good for much.  The field lights 
came on.  His daughter ran over little boys who would run over her 
heart in a couple of years.  While Dickey heard me out.  I was ready to
tell him all the rest, too.  But I made myself stick to the subject of
Corry Nevers.  One sin at a time.  I told him about the gun.  And even
 about the metro parking lot scene.

When I was done, we sat for a while.  "You know," he said at last, "I 
worry about my kid.  I mean, how can I not worry?  Her growing up in a 
world like this. I mean, I'm a goddamned cop.  And I know I can't 
protect her from the crap that really matters."  He looked almost as 
lonesome as I felt.  "I just hope I can keep her off the goddamned 
drugs, you know?  Kids got no sense."

"She looks like she's going to be a very pretty girl."  Dickey snorted.
"That worries me, too.  Anyhow.  We're both dumb fucks.  You and me 
both.  Must be godddamned genetic."  He began unzipping his portfolio 
again.  "I checked you out.  Really good this time.  And your redhead. 
You're clean."  He grunted.  "Both of you.  Looks like she took a 
shitty fall.  Poor judge of roomies.  And you're too goddamned dumb to 
make a drug dealer.  And don't give me any I-told you-so crap."  He 
opened the portfolio on his lap and carefully moved his paperwork to
one side.  The heavy bureaucracy of copdom.  He dug his big fingers 
into an interior pocket.  "I play fair," he said.  "As fair as I can, 
anyway.  Here.  Have a look at these."  He handed me half a dozen 
photos.

" "Corry Nevers," my ass," he said.  "Try "Karen Aalstrom."  " The 
first picture was a mug shot of Corry.  With a slammer number.  Not 
looking her best.  And, yeah.  It read "Karen Aalstrom."  The second 
picture was of Corry and Aley holding hands on a beach.  Flowered shirt
over his gut.  Corry in a bikini. Matching sunglasses.  It had an FBI 
stamp.  I handed the photos back to him without looking at the rest. 
And laid my face in my palms.  "Born Karen Hinkel," he said. 
"Sacramento, California.  December fifteenth, sixty-seven.  A little
older than she looks.  Teenage runaway.  Off to Hollywood.  Nailed for 
very ambitious shoplifting.  Tearful homecoming.  And back to L.A. 
Calls herself an actress when she does paperwork.  Had a couple of 
parts in movies a generous person might call art films or something. 
Busted for raiding the petty cash at a Mercedes dealership where she 
worked the desk.  Cruising for Mr.  Right, I guess.  Charges dropped. 
And I wonder why." I looked up at the high-summer sunset.  "Remember
that big hooker ring  out there?"  Dickey asked.  "Couple years back? 
Gal with the kraut  name?  And those movie stars?  Our girl was the
pride of the stable.  Eleven charges, and she walked.  Then the Malibu
cops pop her for  reckless driving in somebody else's car.  Cocaine in
her purse.  Way  above the 'personal use' level.  And a cute little
automatic, thank  you.  Sweetheart walks again.  Oh, and this is all
after the marriage  to Mr.  Aalstrom, who is another fucking story.  I
mean, can you imagine it?  Letting your wife work as a hooker?  Must be
some kind of  California thing."  He looked at a photograph.  I looked,
too.  "I  guess maybe she's a pretty good actress, after all," Dickey
said.  "Just never got her big break.  Until now, at least.  The "Corry
Nevers' trail was the best I've ever seen.  Great papers.  All the way
back to birth.  Blondie's working for real pros this time." He shifted
his butt on the hard bench.  "Husband's trouble.  Fraud charges.
Extortion.  Multiple counts of assault, and not all against men. 
Resisting arrest.  Jails are crowded out there, so he only did fifteen 
months total.  Got some very unappealing friends down in Mexico.  And 
suddenly he's a straight arrow for the last couple of years.  Jimmy 
fucking Stewart.  And don't that make you wonder?"  The game was over. 
The kids muddled about as though the last thing they wanted to do was 
hook back up with their moms.  "I bet you're trying to figure out a guy
like that and a looker like her," Dickey said.  "Me, too.  But believe
me, it really does take all kinds.  Try my job for a couple of days."
His daughter punched a little boy on the upper arm, then strolled 
toward the bleachers.  "Must be a hell of a marriage, though.  They 
beat the L.A. stats for longevity.  Maybe the guy's a sausage king. 
Anyhow, they got plenty of history between them.  And an ocean view in 
Redondo Beach they can't afford. Two-year-old Jag just a car length 
from the repo man.  California living.  But the Feds put the tax man on
him, and damn if the bugger didn't come up clean. And people think 
clean don't smell."  He grunted and stood up.  "I figure you'll excuse 
me at this point.  I don't want my daughter any closer to this.
Cruiser'll take you home.  We'll talk tomorrow."

"We need to talk," I said.

"I been telling you that for days, soldier boy."  "Please.  Just a 
minute."  A little girl with huge gypsy eyes was closing on us. 
Feminine now.  Skinned knees and all.  "I need your help."  He looked 
at me.  With his overcooked eyes.  "I been telling you that, too.  Now 
get out of here.  And try not to turn up dead."

* * * I was starting to feel at home with the dead.  You're not 
supposed to be in Arlington Cemetery after hours, but I did not care 
anymore.  All my life I had played by the rules, and all it got me was 
this.  A home away from home in a boneyard.  My girl grabbed by a 
Shakespeare-shitting goon with billions of dollars and the arsenal of 
democracy behind him.  Dead friends.  I sat by Farnsworth's grave with
my back against a tree wide enough to swallow my shadow.  "So what's
on  the disks, sir?"  I asked the headstone.  "What's the big secret? 
What  was worth dying for?"  I had imagined that I possessed a
redeeming  degree of self-knowledge, a perspective on my limitations. 
I had never  realized what a hopeless case I was until Dickey showed me
the photos  of Corry.  Or Karen Aalstrom.  The one of her and Aley
holding hands on  the beach was beyond pornography.  Everybody was
lying.  And I actually  had been on the verge of believing Punchy Hunt
when he told me he had  been brought in on the case just days before to
clean up the mess.

Bullshit.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.  If Corry was hooked up to Aley, and Aley
was hooked up to Hunt, even I could figure out that Hunt had been in
on  all this at least since Corry hooked up with Em.  This was a setup
of  long standing.  Poor old Em must have looked like a security risk
to  the black hats a long time back.  Lonely old Em.  With his life
gone to  shit and a bottle on the next pillow.  Corry would have seemed
like an  angel.  In a very literal sense.  He had not suspected a
thing.  She  had played him so beautifully that his big worry was that
she was about  to leave him.  Corry had killed him.  I would have bet
my life that she  led him out of that restaurant after his last supper
and guided him down the street to where fate was waiting.  She had
known exactly what  was coming.  Maybe it was even Aley who pulled the
trigger.  And Hunt  had blessed it. That was certain.  And Bob
Nechestny was Em's boss.  He  would have been in on it, too.  Em had
grabbed the disks.  He was about  to hand them over.  To somebody who
could John Law the big boys.  With  Farnsworth working as a go-between.
But Corry had blown the whistle.  Then walked arm in arm with Em until
the bullets hit him.  She had  treated me kindly in comparison.

An ant wandered up my wrist.  There was still so much I could not 
understand. Corry and her husband were working for Hunt, who had to be 
working for Bob Nechestny, Mr.  Macon-Bolt Industries.  And Corry had 
to know I did not have the disks.  Yet Aley figured I had them.  And 
Punchy Hunt thought I either had them or knew where I could get my 
hands on them.  There was money on the table, and everybody wanted his 
share.  I thought I had Corry's pistol figured out now.  I was supposed
to carry it as protection when I turned over the disks.  The bad guys 
would set things up to make me nervous, and I'd reach for the gun like 
a country boy on the streets of Laredo.  My share of the money would 
lessen considerably.  Hunt was going to rip off Nechestny and 
Macon-Bolt for eight million.  Or ten, if he killed me.  Which seemed 
likely.  Aley didn't realize that Hunt was working the same scam on a 
higher level and he was ready to settle for five.  So he and Corry 
could live happily ever after in Mondo Redondo.

So why didn't Corry tell him I didn't have the disks?  The frogs were 
another story.  Day late and a dollar short.  Talking a hundred k when 
the kitty had run up to ten mil.  But they had been right about a few
things.  Among them, that our own people had laid down the bomb at the
lab in Georgia.  I was convinced that The Hunt Club had done the deed.
It gave a new twist to the old Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to 
be associated with any club that would have you as a member.  But I did
not know why Hunt's boys had hit the lab.  I could not make the key 
connections.  And I still wanted to know why Robespierre and Danton 
thought our side had played them for fools.  I should have asked, but 
didn't.  A jetliner's position lights floated down toward National. 
The boneyard crickets were so loud they covered the sounds of the
aircraft and the city.  I kept very still, watching for the least 
change in the shadows.  I had sneaked out of the roof hatch of my own 
house, working down the block like an amateur burglar.  Any place but 
D.C. and I would have been busted. Then I worked the alleys over to 
Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast.  Took a cab to Dupont Circle.  Where I 
surfed the crowds.  I strolled in the door of a late-night bookstore 
and hustled out the cafe entrance at its rear.  I took another cab. 
Across the river to the Marine Corps Memorial.  Cabbie thought I was 
nuts.  And he was right.  I climbed over the wall into the cemetery. 
And worked my way through a hundred and forty years of dead soldiers to
Farnsworth's grave.  Still worried that somebody had tailed me all the 
way.  The night held still.  The nearest movement I could see came from
the headlights bridging the Potomac.  I could have slept.  Maybe
should  have.  But there was more to do.  I just wished I could make my
brain  work.  My body was a lost cause.  If Hunt was a stickler for 
timetables, I had about thirty-six hours left.  And not a single clue 
to the location of the disks.  I wanted Tish back.  Doing the right
thing would have been nice, but I was ready to settle for considerably 
less. They could have their NGFB, if that was the price of Tish's 
life.  I could swallow it.  Em and Farnsworth were dead, and dumb 
heroics were not going to bring them back.

The thought was bitter.  Dickey was the only one of us who really gave 
a shit about justice.  At least the only one still alive.

I needed allies.  Any I could get.  Publicity was out.  I had no doubt 
that a public move on my part would kill Tish immediately.  She was 
prime evidence, and Hunt would make sure she went away.  But I had 
decided to work with Dickey, if I could do so quietly.  It was a 
forlorn hope, considering that the D.C. cops could not even crack the 
gang that was chopping the heads off all the city's parking meters. 
And, against every shred of patriotic pride I had left, I was even 
going to take a chance on the French.  I said goodbye to Farnsworth and
left the cemetery by a different route.  I walked up to a little row of
Third World feed troughs between Henderson Hall and Route 395.  And I 
called the French embassy from a hooded pay phone.  An earlier user had
conjugated the Spanish verb chin gar on the nearby wall.  The weekend 
duty officer was a typical junior dick afraid to bother his superiors. 
He did not want to give me Colonel de La Vere's home number.  Until I 
told him I knew who bombed their research lab.  De La Were was 
sleeping.  For the first thirty seconds, he was stupid.  For the next
thirty, he played dumb.  Finally, I said: "Listen, fuckhead.  Just
tell  your sorry-ass buddies Lieutenant Colonel John Reynolds is going
to be  waiting for them at the far end of Pentagon North Parking in
half an  hour.  If they don't know where it is, explain it to them. 
Tell them  I'll wait thirty minutes, then the deal's off.  Screw this
up, and  you'll spend the rest of your career in Djibouti."

I hung up.  And started walking.

Cuckold showed up in one of those big Citroens shaped like the stuff 
that crawls out of drains at 3 a.m. I got in the passenger side.  We 
drove.

"Where's Frere Jacques?"  I asked him.  Bandage pale on his snout.  He 
kept both hands on the wheel.  As if the car might have a mind of its 
own.

"Working.  Your friend.  This Aalstrom.  We are watching him."

"Turn right," I said.  "You found him?"  "There is always a way.  He 
has an arrangement with a waitress.  In Arlington.  But we have seen no
movement, no activity."  "He'll move.  Just wait.  He thinks he's 
playing for big stakes."  I guided him to the mud flats behind Crystal 
City.  Scummy, infested.  When they built the Pentagon, they dumped all
the waste there.  Now weeds would not grow. We parked at the edge of a
construction site.  There was a partial view of the city.  Blocked by 
highway bridges.  "So," Cuckold said, "what is so important? What is 
it that cannot wait?"

"Plenty.  But first I want you to tell me something."  He shrugged. 
The French have a way of shrugging that makes you want to crush their 
little shoulders. "On our first date," I began, "you said something 
about the Americans making fools of you.  I was under a little stress, 
and my recollection may not be perfect.  But I think you said something
to the effect that we didn't have to bomb your lab because we'd
already  made fools out of you.  What was that all about?"  "It's true.
You did  not have to make the bombing.  This was a terrorist action. 
Of great  viciousness.  For nothing."  "How do you know it was for
nothing?  You  shits stole the plans for the NGFB.  Tens of billions of
dollars' worth  of research.  Now, maybe my fellow Americans tend to be
creatures of excess, but I think I can see why they might have gotten
angry that you  ripped off Uncle Sam's most expensive secret."  Cuckold
laughed.  Everything about him made me want to smack him.  My new
ally.

"I don't know," he said.  "Maybe you are a fool.  Or maybe a liar.  Or 
both things.  But if I must say it out loud, I will say it.  Yes, you 
have made fools of us.  Terrible fools.  This was our most important 
program, to find out the secrets of this airplane.  And you .. . give 
me the English words .  you 'set us up."  You made us go through all of
the steps, spend all of the money, so much time.  But you cheated us.
You gave us false plans.  Then you watched us build the program to
copy  your technology, and you laughed.  You knew all along that what
you  gave us would not work.  So we were already the big fools.  There
was  no need to kill so many people.  There was no need .. ."  I felt
sick.  I got out of the car because I thought I was going to vomit.  I 
understood now.  I had it.  And it was worse than I thought.  I didn't 
throw up.  I just stood.  Dizzy.  Staring up at the bug-ugly high-rises
of northern Virginia.  "Oh, Jesus Christ," I said.  A plane roared
overhead.  We were just a gunshot from the runway at National.  "Oh, 
Jesus."  Now I knew why they wanted the disks back.  Now I knew why it 
was worth so many lives.  Now I knew why Em and Farnsworth had risked 
everything.  Cuckold came up beside me.  Tough little sucker.  Good on 
his feet in the dark.  "Fuck off," I said.  There were tears in my 
eyes, but I did not think he could see them in the bad light.  "And you
can go to fuck yourself as well," Cuckold said.  "Are you all
right?"

"No."  I did not think I would ever be all right again.

"You know something.  Tell me what it is that you know."  I fingered 
the corners of my eyes and waved my head.  "You already know it.  We're
 all dumb shits.  I should've figured it out on day one."

"What is it that I already know?"

I turned and looked back across the river.  Broken view.  Some light, 
lot of darkness.  I thought briefly about Corry.  Because even that was
easier than thinking about what I had just learned.  I looked at my 
city and realized that Em had not gotten Corry her job on the Hill.  He
just thought he did.  Faust was wired in with Nechestny and Hunt.  My 
think-tank bud, Rob Burns, had it exactly reversed.  The senator had 
been working Em.  Faust and Corry were sharing the same hymnal.  And 
God only knew how many scumbags in uniform like Gabrielli were
involved.  Plenty of them had to know.  How many Air Force generals 
were involved?  Had to be a bunch.  If it spilled over to touch the 
Army.  This was enormous.  And where did it all end?

Tish and I were bread crumbs.

"What is it that I must know?"  Cuckold said.  I looked at him. 
"You're all shits.  I'm pissing pink lemonade because of you."  "And I 
must wear these supporting things for my kidneys.  And my nose is very 
bad.  The nose is very distinct in my family, and now it is ruined.  I 
think we are even."

"There's no such thing as even."

"What do you want to tell me?"  I toed the ground, dawdling like a kid.
I was about to tell him one of my nation's greatest secrets. 
Something  I had not known myself five minutes before.  "Don't you get
it?"  I  finally asked him. "Don't you see, for Christ's sake?  They
had to  blow up your lab.  Because the plans didn't work.  We didn't
slip you  fake plans or doctored ones or anything else.  You had the
real thing.  And we had to destroy every last trace of it, all the
evidence."  I  could not look at him.  "The goddamned airplane doesn't
work."

"That .. . makes no sense."  "Hey.  I thought the French were supposed 
to be so cynical."  I laughed.  It was the sound of an animal dying. 
"All of this .. . it's all because the Next-Generation Fighter-Bomber's
 nothing but a great big fraud.  It's all lies.  It's a fake."

"That's not possible."  "The hell it isn't.  We've got Bl bombers we 
couldn't use in the Gulf war.  We've got B2s that have to live in 
intensive care wards.  This isn't a first.  It's just bigger this 
time."

"I think you are lying.  You are trying to fool us again."  I wanted to
grab him. Almost did.  "Okay.  Your turn again.  Tell me.  What was 
wrong with the model you were copying?  What made you so sure the plans
were bogus?  How did you know it wouldn't work?"  Cuckold made a puffy
little sound.  Like a kid pretending to smoke a cigar.  "For one
thing,  the matter of stealth was questionable.  Our computer models
indicated  that such an airplane would be detected by the latest-model
radars."  He  thought for a moment.  I wondered if he was censoring
himself.  "And  the composite materials.  This is your big secret, I
think?  The thing  you most want to hide?  Well, our scientists did not
believe the materials to be stable.  That is why they believe you have
made fools  of us.  The compound would begin decomposing in I think
they have said  five years.  A few more years, and the aircraft would
be worthless.  Melting.  Like the ball of wax, you know?  We thought
you were trying  to bankrupt us, then leave us defenseless. So we would
need to turn to  America for everything."  I stood with my head bowed
and my hands  stuffed into my pockets.  "That's it, pal.  Capitalism at
its finest.  Just think about it.  We build that goddamned airplane. 
And by the  time the production run's ending, the fleet's already
rotting away."  I  looked at him.  With my whole face twisted.  "And
then what do we have  to do?"

"You would need all new airplanes."  "And it won't matter that 
Macon-Bolt took us for three hundred billion.  It'll be the only 
contractor left standing.  The

NGFB contract's going to put all the other defense aerospace players 
out of business.  Macon-Bolt will buy them up for ten cents on the 
dollar.  Or less.  And the patriots at Macon-Bolt will say they're 
sorry about the NGFB and they don't know how it could have happened. 
And we'll give them a contract for six hundred billion to try again. 
It's fucking beautiful.  From a business point of view, it's a hell of 
a lot better than building something that works and lasts."

"This cannot be true."  I held out my hands, palms up.  "Believe what 
you want. I'd bet my life on it."  Cuckold leaned back against the 
car.  "I think you are already betting your life.  You cannot put the 
same chips on different numbers."

"Skip the Cartesian shit.  You know what I mean."

"If you are right .. . this is a terrible thing."  "I'm right, pal. 
And your scientists were right.  You did everything right.  You grabbed
the secrets.  Your boys cracked the code.  And now you've got me 
standing here at zero dark thirty spilling the beans."  "If this is all
a true thing .. . tell me why they have made the bombing of your own 
laboratory."  I looked down at the chemical mud.  I was shivering.  Not
from cold.  But from the sort of fear that hits you when you are truly
weary and lost.  "I don't know.  Not yet.  Could be any number of
reasons.  Maybe a whistle-blower.  Maybe parallel research that came up
with the wrong answers.  I'm going to find out."  "If you live.  I 
think now they will want to kill you very much.  When they look in your
eyes and see that you know."  "I'm going to live.  And I'm going to 
beat these shits.  And you're going to help me." I came to my senses
in that poisoned lot in Virginia.  When I realized  that the NGFB was
the biggest scam in history.  I am a creature of  doctrine and
training. But the two had come apart on me.  My doctrine  held that
those in uniform could be trusted all of the time and that  our
government could be trusted most of the time.  I held a 
fundamentalist's conviction as to the virtue of those I served. I need 
to believe in something.  I think belief is the most basic human need,
even more irreducible than the impulse toward sex.  Like most of the 
faithful, I rejected evidence that threatened my beliefs.  Luther had 
the psychology of my kind down cold when he wrote the hymn "A Mighty 
Fortress Is Our God."  I need big, thick walls.  My training, on the 
other hand, had conditioned me to attack: You could not decide an issue
in your favor without going on the offensive. Throughout my career I 
had attacked-mentally, at least--those who slighted that which I 
revered.  The collapse of my beliefs left me on the defensive, stunned,
and reacting to enemies I could not identify with certainty.

Now I knew my enemies.  The fallen angels.  And I was going to attack. 
Like most military people, I am also a creature of fear.  I lived for 
two decades in the safety and comfort of regulations that divided good 
from evil with transcendent clarity.  Yet all the while, fear shaped my
life: the fear of failure, of not measuring up, of losing the regard
of  my comrades, of taking the incautious step that leads outward from
the  garden, of revealing the imperfections I recognized in myself.  A 
thousand years ago, I would have been one of those dull-witted 
Crusaders who kept plodding eastward while the smart guys had fallen 
out to loot Byzantium.  Now I decided to throw away the regulations, to
break the rules, and to shift the fear into the lives of others.  It 
was time to stop worrying about losing and start trying to win.  The 
first step, according to my hundreds of thousands of dollars of 
taxpayer-funded training, was to identify the weak spot in the enemy's 
defenses.

That part was easy.

We stopped to pick up Cuckold's sidekick.  He was on stakeout.  Keeping
tabs on Aley Aalstrom.  Cuckold rapped the window of the rat-bite 
Peugeot with his knuckles.  Hands flew up in a martial-arts defense, 
striking the steering wheel. Sidekick had been snoring.  He was 
embarrassed as only a Frenchman can be.  We left the Peugeot and lumped
into the Citroen.  With me in the backseat like Grandma.  Heading
north  to the city.  "Listen," I said, "if we're going to work
together, you  need to tell me your names.  Or make some up."

Voltaire and Rousseau glanced at each other.

Dummy quiet.

Then Cuckold said, "I am Henri.  He is Gerard." "Delighted to make
your acquaintance.  Here's the deal.  I

know which street he lives on.  And I have a fair idea as to the block.
But--" "There is no problem.  We know where he lives."  Henri the 
Cuckold wiped a finger below his nose.  Cleaning an invisible mustache.
I wondered if he had shaved one off for this job.  "This is a long 
affair.  All of these people who are involved. Perhaps not all.  Many. 
When we first became interested in the airplane, we watched them.  Only
we made a mistake with this one.  We saw only the women. Always the 
women.  We decided he was not a serious man.  We have not watched him
for some time.  We had stopped even before you bombed our 
laboratory."

"I didn't bomb your lab."

"Before your people bombed it."

"They weren't my people, either."

"Your countrymen, then."

Yes.  My countrymen.  "I find it strange," Henri went on, "that in the 
great land of democracy, where all men are created equal, such men live
 in ways no longer permitted to the aristocrats in France."

"It's just money," I said.  "His family owns an entire state."  We 
crested Arlington ridge.  Washington lay before us.  City of stars 
fallen to earth.

"We need to talk terms," I told him.

"Tell me your terms," Henri said.  Wary.  "You do everything you can to
help me rescue Tish O'Malley.  Anything happens to her, it's a deal 
breaker."

"But you do not know where she is."

"I'll find her."  Henri thought about that.  Maybe he did not believe 
me.  "This is agreeable.  We will do everything to help that is not 
foolish."

"The foolish stuff, too."

"Maybe not so foolish.  No absurdities.  But I think we will agree. 
More?"  We pulled onto the bridge.  Bright banks of lights.  Nighttime 
construction work. Traffic life lined down to one lane.  "You get the 
disks.  If and when I locate them.  But you promise me that the 
government of France ... or somebody .. . will publicize the fraud. 
Tell everybody that the goddamned airplane doesn't work as advertised. 
Knock Macon-Bolt in the mud."  Henri and Gerard spoke French to one
another.  Gerard shrugged muscular shoulders, then lit a cigarette.  I
opened a rear window.  "I think this will be all right," Henri told
me.  Turning his head to talk.  Glancing back at the freeway between 
phrases.  "France will be glad to embarrass these people.  I would say 
'to shame them," but I think they have no shame.  So there will be an 
embarrassment in public.  I believe it will be so, but I cannot 
promise, of course.  I must refer it."  "Then refer it.  Next point.
I'm not going to be popular around here when this is over.  You get 
Tish and me out of the line of fire.  You set us up someplace where we 
can rebuild our lives."  I knew I was at their mercy on this one. 
Maybe  they would just give me a bullet when they had what they wanted.
There  would not be a diplomatic protest.  More French.  Big, smoky
gestures  from Gerard.  Younger and dumber, he still seemed to be the
final  authority.  Henri ran his hand back over his close-cut hair. 
"This is  not such a problem.  You have my word.  If you help France,
France will  help you."  "Last point.  You offered me a hundred
thousand. That's  bullshit, and you know it."

"How much do you want?"  "Five hundred thousand.  Dollars, not francs. 
And this is not a payoff.  I'm not selling you the disks.  That's 
separate.  But

I'll need money to set up a new life with Tish.  If she wants to hang 
around. And I'm not going to have a lot of handy credit references." 
Another conversation between Ravel and Debussy.  Gerard turned, gave me
a suspicious look, and muttered something I could not hear.  "I think 
this will be approved," Henri said.  "But I must refer this, too.  It 
is a great deal of money."

"It's fucking peanuts."  Henri canted his head.  I could imagine the 
expression I could not see.  One eyebrow lifting higher than the other.
 A slight pucker of the lips.  The eyes counting ghost bills.

"I will ask," Henri told me.

"Ask hard."  "I will try.  It is not so easy today.  In the old days, 
there was always extra money for such purposes.  But now .. . you see 
how things are."  We crossed the Mail on Fourteenth Street and hit the 
downtown government ghetto. Monumental buildings, lit up for nobody. 
After midnight, the streets were as dead as an archaeological site. 
"All right.  Do what you can," I said.  "Now let's review.  You're 
committed to help me get Tish back.  Alive and kicking.  If necessary, 
you'll get us out of here and help us make a fresh start.  You'll ask
about the money, and you'll confirm the business about publicizing the 
flaws in the NGFB.  In return, I hand you the disks.  If and when I get
 them."

"And ... if you do not find the disks?"

"You still help me get Tish back." "I think I am not making such a
good bargain."  "Bullshit.  If you do  get those disks, you've got your
arms around the world's biggest  secret.  Real comeback for La Belle
France.  And revenge for the lab  bombing.  I get crumbs."

Suddenly, Gerard spoke.  In French.  That spitting tone.  He flicked an
empty hand toward me.  Then he tossed his cigarette butt out of the 
window and dropped back into his sulk.  "What's the matter with Maurice
Chevalier?"  I asked Henri.  That Gallic shrug.  "Oh, he just thinks 
you make plentiful demands.  For someone who has so many enemies and no
 friends at all."

We stopped at a stucco-front mansion in Kalorama.  No brass plate, but 
I figured it had some connection to the French embassy.  Gerard went 
inside while Henri and I stayed in the car and crafted the questions he
would ask our target.  "We need something concrete on the Nechestny 
connection," I told him.  For the third time.  "Not logic, not 
insinuation."

" The smoky gun," " Henri said.  "Yeah.  A smoking gun.  Details.  And 
why did they hit the lab down in Georgia?  That's big.  We need a chain
of evidence we can tip to the media.  After we get Tish back."  "No 
media," Henri told me.  "Not this kind of publicity.  Not yet."  "Okay.
 We'll defer a decision on that.  But we need the story on that lab."

"I think you need this more than us."  I shook my head.  "It all fits 
together. You can't separate it."  I rubbed my eyes.  Exhausted. 
Moving, I was okay.  But I could not take much more waiting.  A police 
cruiser rolled by.  More bored than curious.  I really was anxious to 
talk to Dickey.  I intended to play multiple hands.  To do whatever it 
took.  Gerard came back out lugging a small rucksack in his left hand, 
fresh cigarette in his right.  Tools of the trade, I figured.  I had 
expected to see the metal suitcase with the little pain machine they 
had used on me.

In the car, Gerard handed Henri a 9mm-sized pistol, then cleared his 
own and rammed in a fresh clip.  He did not offer me any artillery. 
But  he did toss me a dark rag.  It took me a couple of feels to puzzle
it  out.  Commando mask.  Made out of a synthetic fabric.  Holes for
the  eyes and mouth.  Lot better than hacking the leg off a pair of
panty  hose.  As we pulled out, he threw me a pair of gloves, too. 
Material  thin as a condom.  And even more sensitive.  No fingerprints.
Short  run over the buffalo bridge into Georgetown.  Even in the
bottom hours  of the night, parking was a problem.  We cruised, with
Henri and Gerard  cursing in turn.  My ear had tuned sufficiently to
understand Gerard's complaint that this was worse than Paris.  We
parked six blocks away.  There was nothing closer that was also legal. 
The Citroen did not have  diplomatic plates and it was not the time to
get towed.  Three bad  customers prowling residential streets.  No dogs
and no leashes.  Well past the Wilson Pickett hour.  Nobody would have
mistaken the guns  shoved under Cezanne's and Monet's alligator shirts
for colostomy bags.  Plus Henri's bandaged nose.  A good cop would have
sniffed us a ward  away and busted us on smell alone.  The best we
could hope for was that  an observer would read us as three gays still
sorting out the dating  game and look the other way.  "It is on the
next block," Henri told me.  "Come.  There is an alley.  We must be
quiet now."  I'm good at quiet.  I've done the night patrols and the
bedroom exits.  But I was clumsy  compared to these boys.  Serious
training behind them, and beaucoup experience.  They moved with vacuum
silence.  The tension of their  bodies had changed magically.  As if
the bones and muscles had  downshifted.  I watched their backs
intently.  They seemed on the edge  of evaporating into the darkness. 
We eased past a row of garbage  containers and the smell had more
weight than my com pan long.  The  frogs were so good it jarred me. 
Like finding out the Sunday-school  teacher is also an exotic dancer. 
The city sounds came back to me.  Sirens.  Snake-pit hiss of traffic in
the distance.  Music, mostly  drums, from a bad neighbor.  And the
insect prickling that haunts our  world.  One high lamp in the alley. 
Taking the lead, Gerard shied  around it.  But I saw the shadow of his
forearm dip into his pack,  emerging with the hand disfigured and
extended.  They really had worked  the site before.  He moved directly
for a metal box mounted on a pole,  snipped it open, and went to work
with a mini-light clasped between his  teeth.  Henri closed his wire
fingers around my bicep.  With his free  hand, he pointed toward the
back of a pale house built to imitate the town homes in his part of the
world.  Freestanding, though, with little rat-catcher alleys on each
side.  From the back, the house was four  stories.  Up on the street
side, it would be three.  He lifted his  chin, as if his hand did not
provide direction enough.  "There," he  whispered.  "You see?"  I
looked. Trained to be observant.  Yet I had  not noticed until cued
that there was a soft glow behind a pair of  blinds on the top floor. 
"Listen," I said.  "This guy's got an  artillery collection.  Serious
firepower."  "Be quiet.  Do not worry.  His guns are locked in a room
with an alarm.  He is afraid of them."

"You hope."  "When we go inside," he said, "there will be stairs. 
Always the stairs.  You must walk with a spreading of the legs.  The 
feet must touch only the sides.  Lightly."  He judged me in the 
darkness.  "Perhaps you are thinking too much."  I was.  This was the 
point of no return.  The beginning of the counterattack.

"I'm crossing a line," I told him.

Henri stood so close to me that I could smell the long day on his 
breath.  "I think you have crossed this line sometime before," he said.
"But now you are aware.  Put on your mask.  And the gloves."  His
voice  was almost fatherly.  He understood people, too.  I aped him as
he  prepped for action.  His face, the pale bandage, disappeared. 
Gerard  came up.  A spook.  Mask on, head like a chunk of dark metal. 
There  was no wet, no light, where his eyes lurked.  We followed him
over a slat fence, one at a time.  Maybe I had thumped him around, but
Henri  went over like a young cat.  I did not hear either one of them
land on  the far side.  I did my best, but I was bigger and less
trained.  And a  lot stiffer.  I came down with a paratrooper thump. 
Gerard was already  across the garden.  A tiny light traced a section
of basement wall,  then stopped at another utility panel.  Bell
Atlantic was going to have  a serious repair job on its hands. 
Security systems only stop  amateurs.  Of course, in D.C."  where
breaking and entering is just another teen sport, that's usually
enough.  While Gerard handled the  com ms and sensors, Henri climbed
the steps to a screened-in porch and  let himself inside. The boys were
quick.  I let Gerard follow him,  then brought up the rear.  Keeping
enough distance to allow reaction  time.  I wondered whether, if the
night went bad, one of the 9mm rounds  might not turn out to be for me.
We entered the house.  A heavier  darkness.  The sound of three men
breathing in a hallway.  And music,  downbeat jazz, from an upper
floor.  I sensed Gerard smiling.  The  music made everything easier. 
Although it also meant the target was  probably awake. Our eyes tuned,
enriching the surroundings.  The  silhouettes of my new partners. The
vertical pool of a mirror on the  wall.  Beyond an archway, the
nighttime blue of kitchen appliances.

We began to move.  I followed them up the stairs.  Moving as I had been
told. When I put my hand on the banister for steadiness, the wood was 
wet.  Then I realized that the wet came from my own palm.  Sweating in 
the glove.  The music grew louder.  On the second-floor landing, I 
heard other sounds streaming from above.

Senator Faust was living up to his reputation.  Maybe monks are never 
surprised by burglars.  But some trade-offs are not worth making.  As 
soon as he picked up on the level of activity upstairs--the moans and 
the guy grunts-Gerard galloped up the remaining flight of stairs. 
Followed by Henri.  I waited a few seconds and reached the bedroom door
just in time to catch the senator's delayed reaction to the intrusion.
He was fat.  Not just hefty the way he looked in his well-cut suits in
the photos or video bites.  His belly and thighs and cow tits covered 
so much of the bed that at first I could not see the girl under him.
Then I saw a foot and a calf.  And another foot, a slender arm.  The 
woman was lying belly-down.  Faust lifted himself, fell back clumsily, 
then finally succeeded in separating himself from his lover.  He 
plopped on his rump beside her, eyes huge, mouth chewing fear.  He made
no attempt to protect the girl. Instead, he struggled up off the bed 
and stood with his back to a window blind. As if jumping were a 
consideration.  It takes far longer to describe this than it took it to
happen.  Action goes fast.  Gerard leapt behind the senator like a
panther and got a paw over the man's mouth.  His other paw stabbed a 
pistol in Faust's ear.  For the first time, the woman on the bed moved.
She had a fine, glistening body.  Even flattened and splayed, it 
possessed an elementary clarity that you might see once or twice in 
your lifetime.  If you're lucky.  She pulled a muss of sheet and pillow
toward her.  Covering herself.  But instead of covering her nakedness,
she tried to shield her face.

She was too slow.  I saw her.

It was Corry Nevers.

I watched.  Useless.  Henri slapped Corry--or Karen--out of the bed. 
Plenty hard enough to earn respect for his seriousness.  She did not 
bother with the sheet at all now.  Maybe she thought nakedness was her 
best armor.  Or maybe she wasn't thinking at all, caught off balance 
for once.  She probably was not accustomed to being the one on the 
receiving end of bad surprises.  I wondered, stupidly, why she did not 
look at me or ask for my help.  Forgetting that I wore a mask. Henri 
got a fistful of the hair at the back of her head and steered her from
one door to another, opening each.  A bathroom.  A shallow linen 
closet.  The last door before the one by which we had entered was 
exactly what he was looking for.  A walk-in closet.  Without windows. 
In a masterfully coordinated gesture, he let go of her hair and gave 
her a knee between her ass cheeks.  She stumbled into the darkness.

"Do not make a noise," he told her.  "If you wish to live."  I could 
have told him she was too smart to scream.  Except when a man wanted 
her to.

He shut the closet door.  Faust was not wearing much senatorial 
dignity.  He stood naked and shaking with fear, dick shriveled, paunch 
trembling. Astonishing, what money can do.  He had been linked with 
actresses and anchorwomen, and he had the reputation of being the 
town's most eligible and irresistible bachelor.  Nothing but an 
overripe pear on stumps.  A skinned pear. His flesh had the whiteness, 
almost the translucence, of the great slabs of lard the butcher sold to
poor people when I was growing up.  Lard, with curls of matted, 
colorless hair.  Where his thighs and belly came together, his body
creviced softly.  It almost had the look of a maw, of something that 
devoured the small and vulnerable.  His eyes were the worst, though. 
The eyes of a true coward.  You could see that Corry had disappeared 
from his mental horizon.  He would have helped pitch her out the window
if it would have saved him a pinch on the cheek.  His eyes were 
self-concerned without intelligence, vicious without strength.  When 
Gerard dropped his hand from the senator's lips, a strand of drool 
trailed like a skein of spiderweb.  The mouth showed a big emptiness of
the kind you see when people remove false teeth.  But I kept going
back  to his eyes.  Colorless chips.  Shifting from one of us to the
other.  And back again.  I wondered what he saw.  Henri and Gerard tied
the  senator's hands with a necktie that had been tossed over the back
of a  chair.  Then they sat him down in the chair, on top of his
discarded  clothes.  His love handles contoured to the wooden arms. 
"Please don't  hurt me," he said.  In the voice of a ten-year-old. 
Then he began to  cry.  "You can have anything you want.  Money.  You
can have the girl.  She's--" Henri struck him across the mouth.  Very,
very hard. Blood burst from Faust's lower lip.  The words stopped. 
When they grabbed me  that first night, they had not touched my face. 
Henri bent close to  the man's snout. Grabbing fistfuls of the man's
cheeks, distending his  face.  It looked as though the meat would rip
away from the senator's  gums.  "You think .. . how is it you think I
would touch a woman .. .  who is dirty with your filth?  You think we
are thieves?  You are the  no-good fucking thief.  You are a filthy
thief, a pig.  And you will be  the dead pig if you do not help me." 
He let go of the senator's face.  Red-and-white flesh showed where the
gloved fingertips had been.

"Please," Faust said.  "Anything.  What do you want?"  "Is it true that
this airplane, the Next-Generation Fighter-Bomber, does not work?"  I 
saw the first glint of intelligence return to the senator's eyes.  "Oh,
now .. it's a damned fine .. . it's .. . there's only a few little 
problems .. . see, it's--" When you punch a man, you don't wind off one
of those Hollywood haymakers that fill up a screen.  Unless you want
to  be the first one on the deck.  You get in and jab short and direct
with  a recoil finish that reloads your arm like an automatic weapon. 
But  slapping somebody is a different art.  A slap can go for the long
arc,  the buildup of force.  Henri reached over his left shoulder as if
to  scratch his spine, then brought the backs of his knuckles down at
the  back of Faust's jaw.  Jumping teeth.  I could feel the crack in
the  man's ear.  Faust must have weighed two-fifty, but he nearly
spilled  out of the chair.  Before the senator could recover, Henri
thrust his  hand in between the man's legs. Grabbing balls.  Not a job
I would  have wanted.  Faust began to scream, but Gerard slapped a hand
over his  mouth again.  The senator wriggled and jumped, clamped his
eyes shut,  and nodded his head in short jerks.  Sweat exploded from
his skin.  Henri let go of the guy's glories and wiped his glove clean
on the bedsheet.  "Cochon," he muttered.  Gerard let the pain calm just
enough, then he removed his hand from Faust's mouth.  Wiping the blood
from his glove on the drapes.  He stood ready to clamp back down. 
Henri returned to the discussion. "Listen.  You are a man with 
alternatives.  You can make a stop to the pain now. Or I can finish so 
that there is no more lovemaking for you."  He smiled harshly, lips 
closed.  Then added, "No fucking the little girls, huh?  Would you like
 such a life, you mountain of shit?"

"Please," Faust said.  Sweating.  Panting.  Still unable to fully open 
his eyes. "Please."  "Tell me about the airplane.  Tell me how it does 
not work."

"I don't know.  I'm not a scientist.  I don't understand--" Henri sent 
a fist straight into the man's nose.  It was a beautiful jab.  Better 
than anything the guy had used on me.  Bone crunched.  The instant the 
fist withdrew, blood streamed downward, joining the slower flow from 
Faust's lip.  "I am not a scientist, either," Henri said calmly.  "So 
you will not need the technical langauge.  I think you should talk to 
me." "I'm a United States senator," Faust cried.  Henri laughed.  Then
Gerard laughed, too.  Gerard gave the man's ears playful little tugs. 
Then he closed his fist around the left ear and tore it away from the 
senator's skull.  As if doing a magic trick.  He closed a glove over 
the man's mouth again.  I had never seen such a thing done.  My stomach
twinged.  I was not remotely capable of playing in the same league as 
these boys.  And I did not want to play against them.  I do not know if
Faust fully realized what had been done to him.  He got the pain,
though.  He bent forward hugely.  Rocking.  In agony.  Pace all tears 
and blood. Gerard bent over the chair, following the senator's misery, 
hand clamped firmly over his mouth.  He tossed Henri the ear.  Henri 
dangled it in front of Faust's eyes.  And the eyes changed.  Several 
times.

This is something you do not want to see.  Faust finally understood 
that things were going mortal.  United States senator or not.  Gerard 
tentatively freed the man's mouth.  And Faust got away from him.  He 
collapsed onto the carpet, blood draining onto pale blue pile.

The ear thing spooked me.  I did not know how you could ever make such 
a thing right.  We had crossed another border.  Henri tossed the ear 
onto the bed.  He knelt beside the senator.  "You pig," he began.  "Do 
you know how many French citizens have died in your explosion?  How 
many lives are ruined?  So many families?  Children without the father?
You have done this to us ... and all we ask is that you talk to us in 
return.  That you tell us about this airplane.  And why you have made 
the bombing."  Slowly, as if the world had ground down, Henri looked up
at me.  "And about this bombing in Georgia.  This killing of your own
people."  He turned back to Faust.  "You must talk to me now.  It is my
 last offer."

"I can't hear," Faust moaned.  "I can't hear."  Somehow we all knew 
that he could hear.  He was not lying, though.  He just did not 
understand what had happened to his body.  The stump of his ear must 
have hurt ferociously.  Maybe there were big sounds in there that were 
hidden from us.  He kept reacting to Henri's words, believing all the 
while that his hearing was gone.  I worried that he was beyond the 
possibility of sensible thought or speech.  "I will take the other 
ear," Henri said.  "Then your eggs.  Maybe your eyes.  I will take you 
apart into pieces."  Faust cuddled himself.  Going fetal.  Weeping. 
But he began to talk at last.  "I never wanted ... to do it. 
Nechestny.  He did it.  He paid.  Gabrielli. And Hunt.  Hunt's a 
madman.  Crazy man.  He loves to kill things.  Kill anything. The 
airplane's too soft.  Melts like a popsicle.  But they can treat it ...
make it last long enough .. . the full production run.  Other things. 
Systems.  The electronics.  Nothing really works.  Not the way they 
say.  But the stealth. That's the worst.  The skin."  He cried harder, 
pawing his skull with bloated hands.  Then he gathered himself to speak
again.  "French stole it.  You stole it. You're French.  I know it. 
You knew everything.  Whole deal could have collapsed.  So  much money.
Macon-Bolt .. . everything riding .. . once-in-a-lifetime  deal .. ." 
He sobbed himself down to a level no man should ever reach.  Maybe
people get there in concentration camps.  "Had to kill the  French. 
Kill them all.  All the French. Kill everybody who knew.  Hunt wanted
to kill more ..."

"And the other bomb?  In your own laboratory?"  Faust began to shiver. 
Going into shock, I figured.  Henri smacked him across the face.  An 
awkward blow, the angle bad.  But it was enough to bring the senator 
back to the realm of the living.

"Tell me about the other bomb."  "GAO.  Fuckers.  Fucking goddamned 
bastards. Goddamned shits.  Running their own .  their own goddamned 
tests.  Using our labs. Our people.  Behind our backs.  They were on 
the trail.  General Accounting Office.  Bastards every one.  Think 
they're God's gift .. . had a team in the lab.  Had to get them.  Get 
everybody who might have known.  Could have spoiled everything.  Hunt 
said we had to kill them all."  Henri had begun to pant.  "And where 
are the disks?"  he asked Faust.  "Don't know."  His voice rose.  "Oh, 
God. I don't know, I don't know.  Everybody wants them.  Kill for them.
Hunt's going to find them.  But I don't know anything .  nothing else 
.. . please ..."

"Where are the disks?"

"Please don't hurt me anymore .. ."  Henri rose and planted a shoe at 
the bottom of the senator's belly.  Flattening him on the carpet. 
Blood  and lard.  Ruination of the divine gift.  The Frenchman moved
his shoe  down to the senator's crotch.

Faust screamed.  The shoe jumped to his face.  The great body went into
convulsions.  Until Henri kicked it back to stability.

Faust's eyes stared through the ceiling.  "There is nothing .. ." 
Henri said, allowing the first genuine emotion into his voice, "..  . 
not a thing I could do to you ... no thing of adequate horror ... to 
punish what you have done."  He shook his head.  "I wonder if it is 
real to you even now.  All that you have killed and destroyed.  In your
filth."  He drew a switchblade from behind a trouser pleat and landed 
like a hawk.  "Forgive me," the senator begged.  In a shrunken voice. 
Eyes unseeing.  Time all fractured.  "Oh, God.  Please forgive me. I'm 
sorry.  So sorry.  Don't hurt me anymore."  Henri began at the pulp 
where an ear had been and traced the knife into the fold between 
Faust's double chins. The blade must have been extremely sharp.  It 
cut smoothly.  I had heard that a man could not feel his own throat 
being cut, but I still do not know if it's true.  Faust did not reveal 
what he felt.  He closed his eyes and his bloody lips trembled.  I had 
not expected this.  But I did not move to stop it, either.  We stood 
and watched him die.  It was hyper-real, yet fantastic.  I could not
accept this as a scene in my life.

Blood slopped into the carpet.  I came back to life when Gerard moved 
toward the closet door.  I knew what was coming.  And I spoke for the 
first time.

"No."  Gerard stopped.  Both Frenchmen looked at me.  It crossed my 
mind that maybe I would be left lying here, too.  But I was not afraid 
now.

"No," I repeated.  Maybe there was something new in my voice.  Or maybe
Gerard had just been showing an excess of initiative and was unsure. 
He  made no further move toward the closet.  We stood suspended in time
and  that room. Waiting for God to make a decision.  I needed Henri to
back  me up.  Even if Gerard was somehow in charge, I hoped that the
two of  us could stop this.  I feared their training and their rules,
their  habits and desires.  Even now, I could not let Corry die.  Just
like  that.  She was too real to me.  "Leave the girl," Henri told his 
comrade finally.  "She has no importance."  He was wrong about that, of
 course.  But I was not going to tell him.  Maybe I should have.

"That wasn't part of the deal," I said.  "Killing him."  The Citroen 
bugged from traffic light to traffic light on Massachusetts.  Gerard 
snoozed.  As though the business behind us mattered less than a pizza 
delivery.  Henri drove.  And thought about what I had said.  Caught in 
the web of signals by the Convention Center, he turned his face back 
over the seat.  "You're right," he said.  "This is not part of the 
deal.  It is not included and not excluded.  But I think he does not 
matter to you."

"Killing matters."  The light changed.  We hopped to the next signal. 
On the corner, a creature in a smeared track suit bent into a waste 
container.  Puking or searching.  "That is naive," Henri told me.  "But
you are not naive.  You lie to yourself.  You do not break free of the
things you are supposed to believe. Sometimes I think you are like a 
slave.  A slave to the pleasant beliefs.  In Africa, I have seen so 
much death it became boring.  I walked through corpses the way a child 
wades in the sea.  Without a thought.  Rice is worth more than the 
lives of men and women, John.  Water is worth more."  He stopped, but 
began again before I could respond.

"I

have seen the bodies .. . slaughtered like the cow.  The beefsteaks cut
from them.  Men eating men.  And in Paris, they lie.  Like they lie in
London, in New York.  They will not put this in their newspapers. 
Because it does not match their philosophies, their educations.  Think 
of it.  Men who will discuss with you the merits of the flesh of a 
child, why it is better than that of a grown man.  Men who laugh with 
their great white teeth.  While they roast a woman's buttocks.  You 
think killing matters?  Then you are a child.  Humans are thrown away 
like the toilet paper."  He flung an arm at the windshield.  "Look at 
this city around us."

"Killing matters."  The Frenchman shook the back of his head at me. 
Driving again.  I imagined a hard little smile on his face.  "Oh, yes. 
It matters.  But not in this way that you mean.  It matters because 
such a man deserves to die. He has earned his death.  There is always 
a price to pay in life.  But his life .. . the life itself .. . that is
 unimportant."

"No."  We drove past a ruin where the rear wall had been lopped off an 
old tenement.  Behind Chinatown.  On the left, the National Public 
Radio building slept, dreaming of the good causes of its youth.  "And 
what should we do?"  Henri asked.  Anger denting his accent.  "Should 
we collect the evidence?  Chase this man with the law?  Ask your 
government to judge him?"  He laughed.  As though laughing hurt.  "I 
think there would be no justice.  Only great lies.  Deals, perhaps. 
But there would be no justice."  It was my turn to think.  As we
rounded Union Station with its spotlit facade, I said, "Your government
.. . was his murder authorized?  Did you actually have permission to
do  that?  Or were you just inspired?"

He shrugged.  "What does it matter?"

"You didn't have permission.  Did you?  It was just your call."  "There
is no justice.  There is no justice anywhere."  He made a right turn. 
"Men must make their own justice.  Men of courage.  Otherwise .. ."  He
 lifted a hand from the wheel and snapped his fingers.  "Le deluge."

Gerard roused briefly, then lolled again.

"And the law?"  I asked.  "It doesn't matter at all?"  We came up 
beside the Capitol.  The dome glowed through the trees.  "I believe in 
the law," Henri said. His voice had calmed again.  "Until it 
interferes with justice.  I believe in the law for the minor concerns. 
Does your law protect the small against the great? Can you say this 
with honesty?  Would this man have come to justice?"  He turned up East
Cap.  "Suffering is for the small people.  For people such as us.  For
the people in these laboratories.  For their families.  But for the 
great, there is only scandal.  Then there is a book and a new wife.  A 
fresh start.  Merde."

He understood America.  "Stop here," I told him.  "I'll walk the rest 
of the way."  We were in front of the Folger Library.  White marble 
glowing in the hot night.  As good as civilization got.  Henri curb 
sided "So now we are done.  Until tomorrow.  Be careful.  You have the 
pager number, the telephone."

"The whole world's watching," I told him.

"What?"

"A mantra.  From an age of belief."  He grunted.  "I think you are a 
stupid fucking dreamer.  But we must work together now."  "You're 
wrong, you know.  I do care that he's dead.  Not for the sake of his 
personality.  I believe the law is all we have, in the end.  Even now, 
I believe that."

"The law will shit on you."

I shrugged and cracked the car door.  "Probably.  And I'll still 
believe."  Gerard stirred again.  Henri looked at me with the eyes of a
 revolutionary on the barricades.  "You must be ready to fight."

"I'm ready to fight.  But murder takes getting used to."  "Listen, 
John.  There will be more death.  Expect it.  Only hope it is not your 
death."  His tone of voice carried no threat.  I believed him.  There 
would be more death.  I was ready to participate in it.  But I did not 
have to like it.

"We'll see," I said, moving to get out.

"No," Henri told me.  "You'll see."

I walked up East Capitol toward home.  Broken brick sidewalks.  You had
to pay attention even by daylight.  I reminded myself of a woman who 
has made up her mind to have sex but still feels obliged to protest her
innocence.  I knew Henri was more in the right than I had admitted. 
But  I hated it.  Faust had it coming. If anybody did.  A great trust 
betrayed.  But I still would not have done it myself.  Not like that. 
Maybe it meant I was a coward.  Maybe it meant I was the weak link. 
The truth is that I was meant for a middle-class life and church on
Sunday.  June, Wally, and the Beav.  I believed in God--especially when
I wasn't thinking about it--and critical thought did not come
naturally  to me.  I would have made a lousy Frenchman.  In the
interval between  two streetlights, a figure stepped out in front of
me.  A figure with a  gun.  "Give it up, motherfucker. Come on.  Give
it the fuck up."  Soft  voice filled with hatred.  He was a veteran,
not just a kid out to  finance a new pair of sneakers.  He kept enough
distance between us to  prevent any counter moves And he stood with his
legs set apart and  staggered, like a fighter.  Ready for any crap life
might throw back at him.  "Okay," I said.  "All right, now.  My
wallet's in my back pocket.  I'm going to reach into my back pocket." 
"You just shut up and give it  the fuck up, motherfucker.  You just
toss that thing right the fuck  over here."

I lobbed the wallet at his feet.  "Now get the fuck down," he told me. 
"Get down on you fucking belly."  I got down on my belly.  I did not 
believe he would shoot.  He seemed too organized, too smart.  But life 
is full of surprises.  It struck me that it would be one hell of a 
twist if, in the middle of all that was going down, I got waxed by a 
mugger.

"Shit, motherfucker," he said.  "This all you got?"

"That's everything."

"You ain't even got no fucking phone cards."

I did not answer.  Let him roll.  "You be one sorry-ass poor 
motherfucker," he said.  "Ought to cap you and put you out of you 
misery like a goddamned dog."

"There are two credit cards in the pocket."  "Shit.  You think I'm that
dumb?  I don't want you damn credit cards."  A flying wallet hit me on
the top of the head.  "You stay there, hear me?  You stay right the 
fuck there, you sorry motherfucker."  I stayed right there.  I listened
to his footsteps pick up speed until he was fading at a sprinter's 
pace.  When the sound died, I rose and picked up my wallet.  Wearily, I
gathered the papers and cards he had scattered. It was the least
exciting thing that had happened to me in a week.  lood painted my 
dreams.  Until the phone woke me.  I jerked up.  Caught in a twist of 
sheets.  The bedding was soaked with nightmare sweat.  Daylight scoured
 the room.

I had a hangover head.  Without the pleasure of drink.  The phone cord 
had twisted.  I dragged the cradle onto the floor, firing needles of 
noise into my ear.

"Hello?"

"You awake, soldier boy?  I wake you up?"  Dickey's voice.

"Yeah.  I'm awake."  "That's a good thing.  "Cause we got serious 
business to discuss."

"My phone isn't secure, we shouldn't--" "Shut up and listen," Dickey 
said.  "You just listen to me a minute.  I got a dead senator.  Throat 
cut like a poor little lambie.  And that ain't the half of it.  Looks 
like the guy was tortured by serious sickos.  Unless he was maybe 
impersonating that artist fuck with the ear cut off."

"Shouldn't we wait and talk--"

"You wait.  I'm not done.  So I got this dead senator, right?  And me 
and my new Army buddy just happen to have a mutual acquaintance who has
been working for this senator.  As a staffer, they tell me.  Working 
her little tail off, I bet. Ain't life in this town rich?  And here's 
where it gets really interesting.  Me and my bud happen to know that 
she is one naughty girl.  With a hit-and-run sheet that goes back to 
her training-wheel days.  And what, you are about to ask me, does this 
have to do with saving the taxpayer the cost of a senator's pension? 
Well, just coincidentally, there are blond hairs on this dead senator's
pillow.  And elsewhere.  And if a cop with a basic understanding of
human biology can trust all those nasty stains on the bed, there was a 
totally different sort of activity going on before the senator's 
reelection bid got canceled.  Yet there is no blond body, living or 
dead, at the scene of the crime.  And this fuck did not commit suicide,
let me tell you."  Dickey let off one of his don't-this-world-stink? 
whinnies.  "Me, I got FBI snots fresh out of college crawling all over 
the place because it's a goddamned senator, and they're so smart they 
know everything.  Except they don't know what me and my Army buddy 
know.  Now let me ask you something, your hero ship Are you awake
enough to put these simple facts together and guess who those blond 
hairs might belong to?"

"We need to talk."

"You keep telling me that."  I was afraid.  Shocked awake.  Afraid with
layer upon layer of fear.  I was an accomplice to a murder.  Among
other things.  And Dickey had just told the big, bad world that he and
I had a meaningful relationship.  My thoughts rushed, but my thinking 
was glacial. Dickey knew exactly what he was doing.  And I failed to 
get it.

"Just tell me when and where," I said.  "Name the place."  Dickey gave 
me another nose honk.  "I'll get back to you.  Right now, I'm up to my 
ass in self-righteous J. Edgars and meat-eating reporters.  But don't 
take off for Mexico, all right? And you might want to steer clear of 
Miss California.  Don't you go aiding and abetting a felon on me."  He 
hung up.  I flopped back down on the bed.  I just wanted to think for a
minute, to reconstruct something that resembled a viable future.  I 
had, at best, a day left until the deadline Hunt had given me.  And
everything was coming apart instead of coming together.  The disks were
as far away as ever.  I was in serious trouble, no matter what 
happened.  And the woman I loved was a lot worse off than I was.  Had 
she been lying beside me, I would have held her so tight it would have 
taken God and an army of angels to pry us apart.  But even Tish and 
dead senators and Dickey and blond hairs on a pillow could not hold me 
in the land of the living.  My body foreclosed on the sleep debt. 
Which was massive.

I blew it again.

The next time I woke, it was twilight.  Corry sat by the bed.  With a 
gun in her hand.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," she told me.

"What?"  Corry smiling.  But not making nice.  "I was hoping you'd talk
in your sleep.  That you'd call my name.  It would have meant a lot to
me."  "What do you want?"  The sheets were brinier than ever.  Despite
the air-conditioning.  I sat up against the back of the bed, drawing 
the sheet with me.  Shy.  Or just scared. "Maybe I want to thank you. 
I owe you my life."  She wagged the gun slightly. "By the way, I 
changed the bullets."

"I don't know what you're talking about."  She smiled.  A girl born to 
win.  At any cost.  "Don't treat me like a fool.  I know it was you.  I
knew it was you the instant I turned around.  The way you move.  The 
cut of the shoulders--you know you have nice shoulders, by the way?

I've seen a lot of shoulders.  I know it was you, John.  I'll always 
know you."

"Want to fill me in?"  Corry still smiling.  "And your voice.  I know 
you so well. You don't realize.  I heard you say, "No."  Then you said 
it again.  I knew what was happening.  I know that you saved my life." 
I just wanted to go to the bathroom and piss.  "I would've hated to see
a great marriage come to a premature end, Mrs.  Aalstrom."  It took
her a moment to absorb that.  But she managed it.  "I knew you'd find
out  sooner or later," she said.  "It was inevitable.  But that doesn't
mean  you understand."

"Can I just go to the bathroom for a minute?"  "No."  She lifted the 
gun a little.  She did not hold it like a girl.  Corry was loaded down 
with medals from the battle of the sexes.  "I want you to have a sense 
of urgency."

"I thought you came to thank me."  "Among other things."  She filled 
her chest and gave a soap-opera sigh.  "I suppose I need to clear the 
air.  About Aley.  And all that."

""And all that."" She looked at me with Actors Studio tenderness.  "I 
suppose I'll never be able to make you understand completely.  You want
me to be Salome. The ultimate bad girl.  Damned forever.  Beyond 
redemption.  And you think you're John the Baptist.  You want it all to
be so clear.  Good and evil.  Wicked or wonderful."  She smirked. 
"You're just such a guy sometimes.  But it's not that easy.  Sure, I've
done things I'm not proud of.  But I'm not necessarily ashamed of
them,  either.  Those things were about survival.  Survival, John.  And
getting ahead.  Trying to get ahead.  I hustled.  You don't know what 
work is until you've lived that life.  Rich kids are the lowest life 
form in the universe.  Yeah, and I stole.  From other people who stole.
 And Aley .. ."

She smiled.  But her voice turned as bitter as a mouthful of aspirin. 
"I was young.  He seemed ... he seemed like a guy who had everything. 
Everything I wanted."  She allowed herself a different kind of laugh, a
very small one. "Yeah, he had it.  He just didn't know how to pay for 
it.  Neither of us did." She was good at meeting my eyes.  But this 
time she looked away.

The gun held steady, though.  "You live and learn," she said.  "It took
me a long time to learn.  You keep thinking.  This time it'll be 
different.  This time I'm really going to make it.  And you do foolish 
things.  There was a time in my life when Aley and I deserved each 
other.  We were perfect ..."

I shifted my back.  More sweat.  "And?"

"And now," she said, "there's you."

"Corry--or do you prefer Karen?"

"Corry, please.  I've begun a new life."

"All right, Corry.  Just how stupid do you think I am?"  Cat smile. 
"Oh, your stupidity may be immeasurable.  It's one of your many 
attractive qualities, John.  I've had plenty of men who thought they
were smart."

"You know I'll never believe another word you say."  She lost her 
smile.  And leaned toward me.  "That would be sad.  Even tragic. 
Because we were made for each other, John.  You're everything I always 
wanted.  Only I didn't know it. You're a white knight.  An honest guy. 
Loyal."

"I just happen to be loyal to somebody else."  She waved it away.  A 
queen dismissing a fool whose wit was slower than hers.  "That won't 
last.  She won't hold your interest.  There's too much of you and too 
little of her.  You're baby-sitting."

"I'm going to marry her.  When we get through this."  "If you get 
through this. If we get through this.  And .. . maybe you should ask 
her first.  I don't think she'd go for it.

She'd say yes, then she'd freeze up.  She'll fade on you.  Disappear. 
She's fluff.  And deep down inside, she knows it.  She's afraid of 
you."

The light was dying.  Tish was dying.  I had no time,

"So ... I should just forget about Tish?  And marry you?"  "You could 
do worse. I'd make you happy.  Once you got your devils under control, 
I'd know how to make you happy.  I'm strong enough for you.  And it 
wouldn't have to be marriage."  "Of course, there is the matter of the 
living, breathing husband." "The one who gave me a gun to protect 
myself?  With dummy bullets?  Who's so fucking greedy he wants all the 
money for himself?  The husband who wants me dead?"

"Every marriage has bad patches."  "John, this is serious.  You and I 
... we could make it.  We could bring this off.  We could beat them 
all."

I shook my head in wonder.  "Listen to me," she pleaded.  "We're 
talking ten million dollars.  Ten.  Tax-free.  Do you have any idea how
 much money that is? How much did Aley offer you?"

"He said it was five."  "See?  Everybody's lying.  Except me.  John, 
even if you don't want to be with me do this with me.  Help me.  Even 
if you don't want to be with me at first, I'll give you six million. 
No, seven.  That's fair, isn't it? Seven million dollars?  All you 
have to do is help me a little bit.  You won't regret it."  A woman 
pleading, with a gun in her hand.  Another new experience. "I have 
what you want, John.  I have what you need."  I lost it.  You just hit 
a point and you snap.  We are not rational creatures.  I barked 
something and jumped out of bed and stood there in my birthday suit. 
Too angry and frustrated to give a damn anymore. "I'm going to the
bathroom.  Shoot me, if you want.  But let me tell  you once and for
all sister.  You do not have one goddamned thing I  want or need."  Her
eyes held me for a moment.  Those great eyes.  The  kind of eyes that
ruin men's lives with false candor.  As I was turning  away, she
said:

"How about the disks?"

"There's not much time," she told me.  "You have to really listen."

I was listening.  "Aley's going to call you.  This is it.  The big one.
It's his last chance.  He's desperate.  He knows Hunt will cut him out
 if he doesn't produce this time.  We can turn that against him."

"Where's Tish?  Where are they keeping her?"  Economical shake of a 
blond head. "I don't know.  And that's the truth.  Hunt keeps 
everything in separate compartments.  Aley doesn't know, either."

"Why should I believe that?"

"I swear to God," she said.  I lifted a corner of my mouth.  "You don't
strike me as the religious type."  "Please listen.  He's going to call
soon.  You have to get it right.  Agree to meet him.  But you say 
where.  And set a tight deadline. Cut down his reaction time.  And 
don't go to meet him, or Hunt, or anybody, on their turf.  Once they 
know you have the disks, they'll do anything it takes to make you tell 
them where they are.  Then they'll kill you."  "How will I prove I've 
got the disks?  Or that you've got them?"  She reached into her purse.
Without shifting her eyes from me.  She tossed a disk onto the bed.  It
 landed halfway out of its jacket.

"Give Aley that one.  It's the real thing.  Then talk money."

"And Tish."

"He'll lay out how they'll do the funds transfer for you.  In return 
for the disks.  He'll give you the number of an account in the Caymans 
and the matching codes.  So you can verify the payout."  She switched 
the pistol to her left hand and stretched the fingers of her right. 
"Aley's got a triple cross set up.  He's going to tell Hunt you're the 
one insisting on using the Caymans account, that you've been working a 
scam all along.  Hunt won't like it, but he'll release the funds.  It's
small change to his crowd.  Although he is one stingy sonofabitch." I 
wondered if she had enjoyed a close relationship with Hunt as well. 
"Then Aley cues the account so that your confirmation query triggers 
another transfer.  To Panama this time.  Into an account even Hunt 
won't be able to track.  And it'll look like you did it.  Hunt kills 
you in revenge.  Aley keeps the money."

"Wasn't it supposed to be Aley and you?"  "That's why he gave me this."
She lofted the gun.  "With the sandbox bullets."

"And?"  "The money?"  She smiled.  It was an ugly, sincere smile. 
"Fuck Aley.  That shit.  I know more about offshore banking than he 
ever will.  The instant the money hits Panama, it's out of there. 
Straight to Luxembourg.  Straight to us, John."  She leaned toward me 
in the early dusk of the bedroom.  "He'll think Hunt screwed him after 
all.  But he won't be able to do anything about it."  I looked at her. 
Looking for holes.  "Except Aley's bound to wonder why his dream girl
is suddenly gone.  Don't you think he's going to suspect you?"  She 
prodded the air lazily with the gun.  "I'll be too disappointed.  No, I
think I can make his life sufficiently unhappy that he won't suspect a
thing.  I figure if I stay with him .. . say six months .. . then file
for divorce over one of the countless other reasons he's given me ..
."  She straightened her Sunday-school posture.  Little Miss Prim. 
"Besides, that'll give you time to wrap up the thing with your girl. 
More than enough time."

"You're a confident woman."  "} know you, John.  I know her.  There 
aren't more than a dozen different types of people."  "And how do I 
know you won't do a job on me?  Or kill me, for that matter?  Maybe pay
somebody a couple of bucks to do the dirty work.  How do I even know 
that disk is real?  You've got so many angles, this could be a setup 
within a setup within a setup."

"Have an alternative?"

"I could wait."  "Until your redhead strolls down memory lane?  For 
keeps?"

"Listen ... I don't give a damn about the money, Corry."

"Everybody cares about money."

"I don't."

"Yes, you do.  You will."  "Six months pass .. . and you're ringing my 
doorbell, ready to hand me seven million bucks?  And give me a kiss 
besides?  I'm supposed to believe that?"  "I'll give you a lot of 
kisses.  I'll kiss you like you've never been kissed."  "I'm going to 
do what you want.  In the short term.  You know that.  But don't 
imagine that I trust you.  In any respect.  Don't confuse necessity 
with volition."  "You'll learn to trust me, John.  I'm trusting you
with that disk.  With my life.  They'd kill me.  Aley would kill me. 
He'd make it ugly."

"What about the disks?  Where are the rest of them?"

"I have them." "But you don't trust me?  Not enough to tell me where?"
"It's better  if you don't know.  In case anything goes wrong
tonight."

"That's reassuring."

"It's practical."  "Okay.  At least tell me how you got them.  When 
everybody else has been digging tunnels to China trying to find them." 
She canted her head. Posing for a magazine cover.  Hair wandering 
across her cheek.  She probably would not have made it as a model, 
though.  Successful models all have some little flaw.  "All right.  I 
don't mind telling you that.  I got them from Em.  He had them."  I 
hung my head.  Hit from the front, back, and sides.  I should have seen
it on day one.  "Em was going to go public.  Wasn't he?"  I asked her.
I wanted to hear it from that perfect little mouth.  "Or turn them
over  to the GAO?  Or to somebody else?"

"Em was stupid," she said.

"That makes two of us."

"Em was stupid in a different way."

"A better way."  "A useless way," Corry said.  "Don't romanticize him. 
Em was a shit.  He was a fucking drunk with so much on his conscience 
he was afraid of dying."

"Was he dying?"

"Yeah."

"Cirrhosis?"

"Cancer.  He hit the jackpot."

"You're cold."

"Try realistic."

"I never know what to believe."

"Try trusting me."

I laughed.  "Like Em did?"

"I'd do anything for you."

"Then tell me something.  When they killed Em .. . you didn't come 
straight here from the police station.  Did you?"

"No."  "You went back to the apartment.  And grabbed the disks.  That's
why they tore it up.  The disks were supposed to be there.  Only you 
saw the main chance.  And you had your own key.  And you were quick." 
I  admired the tactician sitting in front of me.  Wondering how she
would  turn out as a strategist.  "So who did it?  Hunt's boys?  His
goddamned  Hunt Club?  You grabbed the disks and stashed them and
showed up  sobbing on my doorstep.  While your teammates went nuts
hunting for the  goods."

"Yes.  Now do you believe that you can trust me?"

"No.  Where'd you stash the disks?"

"I won't tell you that."  "Who shot Em?  And don't give me the big-bad 
black-boys crap you gave the cops."  "Aley did.  Aley shot him.  It was
the first time he killed anybody.  He panicked.  He ran.  That's when
I  knew I had to grab the disks myself.  That I couldn't depend on
him."  "And you knew it was going to go down. You walked Em right into
the  ambush?"

"Em had it coming.  He was a shit."  "Let's just agree to disagree on 
that.  So ... how'd you do it?  Did you get him to bend over and kiss 
you?  To distract him?  Or was it just supposed to be a miracle meeting
on the streets of Washington, Em and his old Army acquaintance Aley 
Aalstrom?"  Corry brushed stray hairs back over an ear and leaned 
toward me.  "John, do you know that your girlfriend can't have 
babies?"

"Don't change the subject."

"Would you like to know why she can't have kids?"

"No."

"Then we both have to accept that some things are best left buried in 
the past."

"Leave Tish out of this."  "You're the one who's so intent on including
 her in our lives, John."

"Tish has had a hard-luck life, Corry."  Corry laughed.  A human being 
should not be able to laugh like that when he or she is still young. 
"We make our luck. She doesn't understand that.  Or anything else.  I 
know the type.  She probably did this big remorse number on you.  All 
weepy.  "Oooh, I can't have little babies for you .. ."  Get a grip, 
John.  Her kind doesn't feel remorse.  She's just sorry she got 
caught."

"Go to hell."  "You believe in the image you've created of her.  She's 
just a slut on temporary good behavior.  Because she thinks she won the
lottery.  And she wants to make sure she gets the payout.  If you did
marry her, it wouldn't be six months until she was down on her knees 
giving a blow job to some agent or promoter.  Or maybe just the 
paperboy."

"You're poison."

"I'm honest."

"No.  You're not.  You're the devil."  "John, do you know what happens 
to romantics?  Their kids come out looking like some other guy."  The 
phone rang. And we both stopped.  As it rang for the second time, 
Corry told me: "Tell him you have what he wants.  Tell him you'll meet 
him.  On your turf.  This is our chance, John."

It was a woman who introduced herself as Melissa.  She offered me a 
special low introductory rate on a new MasterCard.

I hung up.  "Telemarketer."

Corry had a way of sharpening her eyes that made me think she was 
getting a sight picture on an invisible rifle.  "It was that policeman.
 Wasn't it?"

"No.  It was a credit card offer.  Really."  "John, we need to discuss 
this.  What have you told the police?"  "Next to nothing.  Just what I 
had to tell them to get them to put me back on the street."

"Was the cop the one who told you?  About me and Aley?"

"Yes."

"What else does he know about me?"  "He thinks you're trouble.  He 
warned me to stay away from you."

"Is he watching me?"  "I suspect he'd like to.  But this is D.C." 
sister.  The cops are in a round-the-clock sewer diving competition. 
We're small stuff."

"Has he made any connections?"  "No.  Not really."  I had, though. 
Corry was too good for Hollywood, but for once, I had more information 
than she did.  That told me she was not plugged in all that tightly 
with Hunt and company.  Who had been tapping my phone.  Hunt wasn't 
sharing the power information with Corry. Or, I suspected, with Aley. 
I liked it like that.  But I also believed that Hunt would see Corry as
one hundred percent disposable.  Thanks to Dickey's phone call.  Hunt 
knew the cops had connected her to the Faust murder.  Which was not a
Hunt-approved action.  Hunt might just be anxious to talk to Corry 
about that.

The stakes were going up and up.  "Don't tell the police anything you 
don't have to," Corry said.  Voice earnest.  "It won't help."

"Corry, I'm at the point where I'm afraid to talk to myself."

"And that other one.  The French guy who was here.  The one you fought 
with.  Has he tried to get in touch with you again?"  I wondered if 
this was a test question.  If it was, I was ready to fail.  "No.  I 
think the cops scared him off. The frogs are still hot about the lab 
bombing.  But even the French are smart enough to figure out that I'm 
not connected."  "Stay away from them," Corry said.  "Don't talk to the
French.  Don't talk to anybody.  I'm the only one you can trust, John.
 Believe me."

The phone rang again.  We both jumped.

It was Aley.  "John.  Hey, Johnny boy.  The clock has been fucking 
ticking. Ticktock.  So you got good news for me, or what?  Moment of 
truth."

"Maybe."

"What the fuck is that?  "Maybe."  Talk to me."

"Not over the phone."

"Don't waste my time, Johnny boy."  "Fuck you, Aley.  I've done enough 
of an analysis of the situation to figure out that you need me a lot 
more than I need you.  You're a flunky.  So can the bad-boy act." 
"John, you remember all that shit about snuff films?  You know, where 
they gang-fuck some babe and torture her?  Kind of cut her up piece by 
piece?  Then kill her?  Right on camera?  Well, I am here to tell you 
that cinema verite is not just a legend of our time.  They make 'em 
right across the border.  Little ranch down the highway from TJ.  Your
redhead's got star quality."

"Doesn't work, Aley.  Try sugar."  "Try getting real.  The curtain 
comes down in the morning, Johnny boy."  "Here's the deal, Aley.  I've 
got something you want. And I'm prepared to give you a taste.  If you 
say, "Please."  "

"Tell me you got them, John.  Say it."  "Meet me at Monsieur Paul's. 
Pennsylvania Avenue.  Southeast.  I'll be at the bar.  In half an hour.
If you're late, I'm going straight to General Hunt.  And you can go 
make Mexican movies for a living."

I thought I had it all sorted out at last.  And I had already begun to 
shape a plan.  I walked out of the house.  Into the concentrated 
end-of-the-day heat. Leaving Corry upstairs in her web.  I turned the 
corner fast.  Heading for Monsieur Paul's, where Capitol Hill gets 
strange.  A kick-ass energy surge powered me.  I imagined myself taking
charge of the whole mess at last.  For the first time, I had cards and
chips.  And I was ready to cheat like a Congressman in a tight 
reelection campaign.  Then I recognized Mary Farnsworth.  Bent over.
Locking the Cadillac Seville that had been the general's pride and joy.
She saw me.  And barely kept her excitement within the bounds of 
decorum.  Queen Mary. The last person I wanted to see mixed up with 
desperados.  I wondered if anything would ever really go right for me 
again.  "I don't know how you live here," she told me.  "Parking is 
just an impossi&;7ity."

"Mary, you promised me you'd--" She hushed me with a fine, small 
gesture of the hand.  "Oh, I did every last thing you said.  But ... do
you understand what Louisiana is like this time of year?  Besides, I 
could not stop thinking about Mickey.  And I began to feel like the 
most shameless coward.  Just running away. -Running.  Just like that. 
Without even knowing what I was fleeing from."

"Mary, this is serious."  Her bearing changed.  She reared like a drill
 sergeant confronted with a cruddy pair of boots on parade.

"My husband's dead, John.  I think I can appreciate the seriousness in 
that."

"You shouldn't be here.  It's dangerous."  "And what about you?  I kept
thinking about you, John.  I thought you might need a friend.  To
stand  by you."

"You can't help me now.  You have to leave."  Her eyes surprised me. 
Reserve melted into yearning.  An ache to do something, anything, in 
the face of immeasurable loss.  "I don't want to burden you," she told 
me.  "That would be the last thing.  It's only that;..  given all 
that's happened .. . I didn't know if it would be safe to telephone 
you.  You see, I found them."

"Mary, you need to get out of here.  Now.  Please."  "But I found them.
 Those disks.  I thought you might need them."

I hurried Mary into an alley.  Not a crack dealer in sight.  Or anybody
 else. Gray birds pecked garbage.

"Stay in the shadows.  Away from the light."  "I just thought you'd 
want to know .. ."  She was confused now.  "You bet.  Tell me about the
disks.  How many?  Where were they?"  Mary shook her head.  As if 
looking around for answers that had slipped from her mind.  "I was .. .
John, you have to understand.  With Mickey ... I mean, I was so 
terribly upset.  Devastated I wasn't thinking at all.  But when I came 
back, I had to go to the bank.  To our safe-deposit box.  For our
personal papers, records."  She wrinkled her fine mouth.  A shadow 
twisting within a shadow.  "It should have been obvious.  I should have
thought about it immediately."  She touched at the sweat that covered 
every forehead in the city. "I was just such a fool.  You see, we 
always kept a big safe-deposit box.  I had to keep all my jewelry in 
it.  Mickey insisted.  He had that dread of crime soldiers seem to 
acquire.  Well, wasn't it just the most obvious place in the world for 
him to keep those disks?"  "How many of them are there?  Is there any
writing on them?  Where are they now?"  She shrugged.  "Oh, there must 
be dozens. I don't know.  I didn't count them.  I was so excited. 
Perhaps .. . oh, would sixty or so sound right?  That's just a guess, 
now.  But you can come over and count them.  I brought them home.  They
all have Macon-Bolt stamps on them.  With a lot of numbering.  And 
they're marked Top Secret."  Was Mickey supposed to keep anything like 
that in our private box?"  "Mickey--I mean.  General Farnsworth--was a 
hero.  He knew exactly what he was doing."  She regarded me with a 
sorrow the new darkness could not mask.  "Then why is he dead?  I miss
him so, John." The customer next to me at the bar looked like Gertrude
Stein in a  biker's jacket.  Monsieur Paul's had a core gay clientele,
but it was  open to other human variations.  Tish and I had gone there
a few times  to hear friends of hers play jazz.  Of all the
establishments I could  have picked for the meet with Aley, I figured
Monsieur Paul's was the  likeliest to surprise him and keep him off
balance.  Besides, the  kitchen did a good club sandwich.  I had the
third triangle in my mouth  when Aley came in.  Funny to watch him. 
L.A. boy or not, the  atmosphere hit him hard.  He saw the crowd, not
me.  Management kept  the bar dark.  During the day, the sunnies ate at
the sidewalk tables  and drank bottles of beer.  At nightfall the
vampires came out.  And  plenty of victims drifted in. The joint
provided good people watching  at all hours.  I enjoyed watching Aley.
I left the last quarter of the  sand which and worked toward him
through the performance-art boys.  He  finally saw me.  A
what-the-fuck-is-this?  expression split his lips.

We did not shake hands.  "You hitting from both sides of the plate 
now?"  he asked me.  "Your problem," I told him, "is that you never met
 Mr.  Right."

"Up yours, Johnny boy."  "You're going to fit right in.  Have a seat. 
Over in the corner.  It's more romantic."  I let him lead the way. 
Shirt too shiny.  Jacket expensive but loser-snug in the armpits. 
Padded shoulders.  With organic padding at the butt of his trousers.  A
 heavyweight in the heat.  No weaponeering, as far as I could tell.

"So what's with the circus?"  A splendid human specimen with a West 
Indian accent loomed.  "What going to be your pleasure?"

"Two drafts," I said.  "Whatever."  "You're deep in the shit," Aley 
told me. "Right down to the wire.  So talk to me.  You got the goodies 
or not?"  It was strange as hell sitting there.  Wondering how much he 
knew.  Thanks to Mary Farnsworth, I knew Corry was out to beat me.  But
were she and Aley playing as a team, after all?  Or was she out to
beat  him, too?  The disk she had given me had some alphanumerics
printed on  its label.  It looked convincing if you did not know what
you were  looking for.  But it did not look like the disks Mary had
described.  Who knew what the real disks looked like?  Hunt had to
know.  Did Corry  and Aley really believe they could bluff the big
boys?  I did not rule out the possibility.  The scent of money makes
folks stupider than the  prospect of cost-free sex.  I had the aces. 
Or I would have them as  soon as I got across the river to Mary's
house.  But no matter which  way I turned, I was sitting with my back
to a door or a window.  If I  was going down, I was not going alone. 
It was going to be a fight.  Keeping Tish alive constituted a clear and
worthy mission.  Maybe we  had a chance.  But I could not expect to
outmaneuver everybody else--I  had to let them outmaneuver themselves. 
I tossed the disk onto the table and watched Aley.  I expected him to
grab it.  But he only stared  at the thing.  "How do I know it's real?"
he asked me.  "That could be  something you picked up at
Computerland." "You don't want it, I'll go."  I reached for the disk. 
He flattened a  swollen hand over it.  "Just fucking wait.  You listen
to me.  If it  turns out you're blowing smoke, I'm going to introduce
you to misery  like you never imagined.  To say nothing of your trash
mick bitch."  "Aley, you're more impressive when you keep your mouth
shut.  And  that's just what I want you to do.  Until I tell you to
open it again."  The waiter brought the beers.  I suspected the guy was
one of the bar's  key attractions.  He floated away, muscles and air,
twirling his tray on an index finger.  "The disk is good," I said. 
"And you know it.  Now let me tell you how we're going to work the
battle han doff.  You  are going to give me a phone number.  And you
are going to be standing  by that phone at a quarter to five tomorrow
afternoon.  Sixteen-forty-five, pal.  At that time, I will designate a
location  within the city of Washington.  You will be there at six p.m.
Eighteen  hundred on the dot.  I will name a very public location, with
more witnesses than even Hunt could take down.  Tish O'Malley will be
there.  And she will look as healthy as Tarzan.  General Hunt will also
be  there.  Make it happen.  Accept no substitutes."

Aley opened his mouth and raised both hands.  "Save it," I told him. 
"My deal, or no deal.  And I've got it fail-safed.  Any of the Hunt 
Club boys try to move on me between now and tomorrow afternoon, the 
disks will be in French hands before the HOW lanes open up.  And one 
more attendee.  General Gabrielli will be there.  In uniform.  Tell 
Hunt to make it happen."  "What's that monkey Gabrielli got to do with 
the great apes?"  I sipped my beer.  Acting calmer than I felt and
hoping it came off.  "Insurance.  If Gabrielli's there with all those 
stars and his nameplate, he won't want any rough stuff that might get 
him dirty in the public eye.  We'll keep the swap clean that way.  No 
double crosses.  And I'll have backup."  Aley snickered.  "My ass. 
You're so deep in the shit you couldn't find backup to sing harmony at 
your funeral.  Get real."  "Know why I invited you here, Aley?  Because
you never were anything but a pussy with hormonal confusion.  So let's
talk money.  Ten million.  Not five.  Hunt told me.  Yeah, you're 
master of your emotions, all right.  I wish I had a mirror so you could
see your face.  So smart.  So tough.  Well, let me offer you the break 
of your life.  It's a deal.  I'll settle for the five.  You take the 
other five.  And I won't feed you to Hunt."  He really was small-time. 
Corry was a thousand times more accomplished as a hustler.  "Your turn 
to talk.  Tell me about the money. How it's going to work."  He shook 
his head in disgust.  "Just fuck you.  It'll go to the Caymans.  It's 
all set.  Here's how it happens .. ."  Aley laid it out. Exactly the 
way Corry said he would.  I could not get a constant fix on how much
anybody really knew, but Corry seemed to know more of whatever there 
was to know than Aley did.  Maybe they were still in it together.  But 
I was starting to buy Corry as a triple-crosser.  Maybe going for a 
quadruple.  There were so many layers of lies, a Southern belle could 
not have kept them straight.  I let Aley talk.  Then I let him pay for 
the beers.  And I made him add to the tip.  He started to stand up, but
I got a foot behind one of his chair legs and yanked it in behind his 
knees. "One more thing," I said.  "You killed Farnsworth.  Didn't 
you?"  "What the fuck? You wired or something?  You're talking shit." 
"Truth or consequences.  I just want to know.  Let's see some eyes. 
Talk to me, Aley."  "What does it matter who killed him?  Fucking 
nigger busybody.  They in short supply this week?"

"I'm just sentimental.  Tell me you killed him."  "John, we are talking
ten million dollars.  And that's just the trickle-down effect for the 
little people like you and me.  The old shit was on the heart-attack 
express.  Old and in the way."

"Just say you killed him.  I don't even need the details."

"You wearing a wire?  What is this?"  "No wire.  But here's the deal. 
You try to beat me out of my five million, and I'll put the Farnsworth 
murder on you. Fair's fair."  Aley smiled in recognition.  "Shit.  We 
all have our price.  Don't we, John?"

Mary Farnsworth's kitchen.  With the blinds closed.  The disks lay on 
the table between us.  They looked real.  Felt real.  I was going to 
bet my life that they were real.  "Mary, you're sitting in front of 
three hundred billion dollars. Give or take a few billion."  It was 
the kind of thing she did not need to know. But it was also the kind 
of thing you can't resist saying.  "If you let me take them, neither 
one of us will ever see a penny of it."

"I don't want money."

"I know.  I'm just talking.  It's a human disease."

Mary smiled.  But the valiant attempt at warmth faded.  "More coffee, 
John?" "Please."  I had driven the most convoluted, back-as sward 
route imaginable to get to Mary's place.  Then I parked several blocks 
away.  I gave the neighborhood's sensor lights a workout.  Slipping 
through backyards.  Thanks to the leash laws, there were no dog 
problems.  When I arrived at her back door and gave the triple-secret 
club knock, she had coffee waiting.  On Judgment Day, Mary would be out
there serving iced tea to the damned.  She poured me another cup of
her  New Orleans roast.  Blended with chicory.  She refilled her own
cup, parked the pot with her customary grace, and sat back down like a
woman  with something to say.  "John .. . are you a Christian?  Forgive
me for  being so awkward.  I mean, do you consider yourself a
Christian?  I  suppose it's a terribly personal thing to ask ."  I
reached for words.  "My church attendance has been pretty spotty."

"But do you believe?"  I looked down at the disks.  This was not 
something about which I was comfortable talking.  Nor had I expected to
talk about it.  Death, disks, and theology.  I suppose it all matched 
up.  "Mary .. . I'm not sure I'm the kind of person who really knows
what he believes.  I'm a trial-and-error kind of guy."  I smiled, a 
real lemon-biter, thinking of a long sequence of errors.  "I just may 
be the sloppiest believer on earth.  But ... at the end of the day ... 
I guess it's there."

"We all need faith, John.  I wish you faith.  Strong faith."

"Don't worry about me."  She gave me those wonderful brown eyes.  "Oh, 
I don't. Not really.  Not that way.  You strike me as a natural 
believer.  The sort who has the faith but not the habits.  And that's 
what's important.  Not the rituals, comforting though they may be.  God
is ... ultimately unknowable.  We're too small for God.  I have always
seen you as a worshipper, though.  In your way. Sometimes plain human 
decency is a form of worship.  Perhaps a very high form." She scrubbed 
her hands together.  Not a very Mary-like gesture.  "This is so
awkward."  "Is there something you need me to do?"  I drank the 
piercing coffee. She placed her hands flat on the tabletop.  As though 
she had suddenly regained control of them.  The nails shone unpainted. 
"John, you know Mickey and I were always active in our church."

I nodded.  And drank.  "I have always considered myself a good 
Christian," Mary said.  "I have been blessed with faith."  She rolled 
that beautiful face slightly to the side.  "I have counted many 
blessings.  I know I am an imperfect being.  A very imperfect being .. 
. and I have certainly been guilty of the sin of pride ..."

"What is it, Mary?"

In the thin light, her eyes looked like long, dark hallways.  "I always
assumed," she continued, "that I adhered adequately to the tenets of my
faith. It was vanity.  I see that now.  A lack of self-evaluation, of 
the critical faculty applied where it is most needed.  I believed that 
I believed in the Christian virtues."  I tried a smile.  "Mary, you're 
probably the most saintly person I've ever met.  If sheer kindness 
counts for anything ..."  She shook her head.  "No.  No, that's not 
true.  My soul..  ."  She leaned toward me and her voice dwindled to a 
whisper of bones.  "My soul is filled with sin.  And I can't help it." 
Her eyes held me.  Their grip was just short of physical.  "John, do 
you know who hurt Mickey?  Who killed him?"

"I think I do."

She gentled a hand toward the disks.  "Can you use these to hurt 
whoever it was?"

"Yes.  I can do that."  I would never have believed her face could 
change so.  Or that any face could change so.  Those precise, 
drawing-room features took on the bone-thunder look of a vengeful 
prophet.  "I want them to suffer," she cried.  "I want them to pay.  I 
don't care if I'm damned for it."  The granite began to crack, to melt.
Tears burst through, water from the rocks.  "I want them to hurt the 
way I hurt. I want them to hurt the way Mickey hurt.  And I don't care 
about anything else in the world."

To my amazement.  Dickey had a listed home number.  I had been prepared
to work my way through layers of police bureaucracy to reach him, but 
the recorded voice read me his number and would have dialed it for me 
if I had not been calling from a convenience-store pay phone in 
suburbia.

I called, he answered.

"It's John Reynolds," I said.  "I need your help."  "You bet you do. 
What're you doing calling me at home at this hour?  Wake up my daughter
 and all."

"Please.  This is important."

"And it just can't wait till morning, right?"

"It can't wait until morning."  "You got rocks, I'll say that for you. 
What's your major malfunction this time?"  "I need a phone number. 
It's unlisted.  For a Roscoe Hunt.  Retired general.  A.k.a. Punchy 
Hunt.  Ever heard of him?"

"We move in different circles."  "He's got a big spread ten or twelve 
miles out of Middleburg."

"So that's where our defense dollars go."

"Some of them."

"All right.  Jesus.  I'm going soft, I swear.  Give me the name again."
"Hunt. First name Roscoe.  Nickname's Punchy.  Horse farm about--" 
"Yeah, yeah.  Got it. Call me back in ... give me twenty minutes.  The 
whole world's asleep."

"Thanks.  I owe you."

"You got debts Bill Gates couldn't pay."  He hung up.  I figured Dickey
would come through.  Anticipating, I got back in the car and headed 
west.  Thinking about an Elvis Costello song.  A favorite of Tish's. 
With the line "I can give you anything but time."  I knew where I was 
going.  I simply did not want to be shot when I arrived.  I was going 
in clean.  No real wampum to trade.  Mary and I had hidden the disks 
inside the empty PC casing in her husband's library, the one that had 
been looted of its hard drive.  I figured it was the safest place in 
her house.  The disks sure as hell would not have been safe with me. 
File me under "Unprepared for the Twenty-first Century."  I never had a
car phone or a cellular to call my own.  Now I saw the value.  I had a
bad time finding a pay phone in the yuppie belt off 66.  I had to push
on to a gas station where Route 50 hits 15 and the big rigs back road 
down from Maryland and parts north.

When I called.  Dickey had the number for me.  "I'll phone you in the 
morning," I told him.  "I pay my debts.  At six o'clock tomorrow 
evening, you'll have all the murderers you can handle in one place. 
But  they're not going to go gently into that good night."

Hunt did not answer his own phone.  A guard-dog voice just said, 
"Hello," and waited.  "This is Lieutenant Colonel John Reynolds.  I 
need to talk to General Hunt."

Fido did not respond immediately.  I began to wonder if he had hung up.
 But the phone noise did not change.  Finally, he said:

"You're not on the list.  Call back during business hours."

"I need to talk to him now.  Tell him it's John Reynolds."  "You're not
on the list, buddy."  I could feel the phone pull away from his ear. 
"Wait," I said.  Or yelled.  "Three hundred billion dollars.  Computer 
disks.  Tell him."

"What is this shit?"  "Hunt's going to lose a lot of money if you don't
get him on the phone.  And I guarantee you he'll lose his temper, too.
 You know what happened to that Labrador of his?"

"Stay on the line."  I stood in the almost-cool of the night.  Watching
a big gal with a time-warp Charlie's Angels hairdo pump gas into a 
pickup.  The truck had a bumper sticker that said, "Impeach the 
President--and her husband, too."

Hunt's voice came on like a storm.  "Watcha got?  What is it?  That 
you, Reynolds? Start talking."

"It's me.  I want to see you."

"You have my disks?"

"No."  He blew the rhythm.  After the pause, he said, "Aalstrom just 
told me you did."  "I need to see you.  You're being scammed.  I'm on 
Route 50, fifteen minutes from Middleburg.  Headed your way.  I'd like 
to make it inside the gates alive."  Hunt laughed.  Then chopped off 
the sound with an invisible axe. "Reynolds, you got more balls on you 
than a fifteen-foot Christmas tree, you know that?  You tell me you 
don't have my disks, but you want to drive right on into the belly of 
the beast.  You trying to run some kind of scam yourself, boy? Or are 
you just crazy?"

"Try me."  "Damned if I won't.  Come on out here.  Let's have us a 
talk.  If you're fucking with me, I'll kill you with my bare hands."
The gates to Hunt's estate stood open.  I did not see any guards.  But
I was certain Hunt's boys saw me.  I followed the country road that 
served as a driveway for about a mile, with a gauntlet of trees black 
on the flanks of my headlights.  The road was flat but gave the 
illusion of a descent into an ever-thicker darkness.  Suddenly, the 
landscape opened and climbed.  The car crested a low ridge.  Across a 
field I picked out two silhouettes carrying those jagged, chopped 
automatic rifles that look like pieces of modern sculpture.  In the 
background, a pair of red lights floated up above the trees.  I cranked
down the window.  Engine noise confirmed it: A plane had taken off from
Hunt's private airstrip.  I wondered if it had to do with my problem
or  with some other grand scheme to take over the world with guns and 
money.  Another defensive line of trees.  Slight movement, perhaps 
imagined.  Good soldiers waiting for an enemy to attack.  I half 
expected to see the outline of dug-in tanks.

Bright windows marked the big house.  I braked hard at the last minute 
and stopped just short of a steel swing gate.  I didn't remember it. 
But there had been a lot on my mind during my last visit.  Three boys 
in black emerged from the shrubs.  One stood behind the gate.  Directly
in my headlights.  Pointing a weapon as angular as a swastika at my 
windshield.  The other two spooked along the side of the road.  A big 
voice said, "Get out of the vehicle.  Clasp your hands behind your 
head."  No malice in it.  The tone was as routine as the kid at the 
Burger King drive-through.  One of the boys patted me down, intimately
enough to make a positive impression back at Monsieur Paul's.  Real
high-security prison frisk.  Then they went through the car.  And under
it.  With flashlights.  Out in the big-bucks peace of Middleburg, Hunt
had a little army of commandos.  In black uniforms.  Faces mottled
dark  with camouflage.  These were not weekend warriors.  When the
reception  committee was done with me and my rent-a-Ford, one of them
just called  out, "Clean."  The guy with the minimalist automatic
pulled the gate  open.  I drove up the rise to the house and parked
next to a pair of  four-wheelers.  More security around the parking
apron.  By the time I  got to the front door.  Hunt filled the opening,
a minotaur black against the lights of the entryway.  "Wondered if
you'd pussy out at  the last minute," Hunt said.  "Then I figured, Naw,
this boy's gone to  too much trouble. He's going to play out his hand. 
Come on in."  He  turned and marched down the hallway.  A red dragon
reared across his  back.  Hunt went barefoot, with massive, scarred
legs pumping under  khaki desert shorts.  The black hairs had been
burned off the muscle of  one of his calves.  Those legs were an
encoded history of the man's  life.  But my eyes pulled back to the
dragon.  Emblazoned on seductive blue silk, writhing over Chinese
characters I could not read.  The wrap  was cut like an old-fashioned
smoking jacket and tailored to fit.  Above the collar, a purple scar
meandered down the back of Hunt's  skull.  But every line of his body
seemed to converge on the dragon.  I  got the same impression as the
first time I saw him: a man who had been  blown apart and reassembled. 
"Hell, let's just use the library," he  told me.  "Still haven't got
the goddamned armory cleaned up to academy standards."  He pushed open
a door.  The lights were on over the  bookcases.  He had known exactly
which room he would use.  He was the  kind of guy who knew exactly how
much ammo to hump and who never forgot  the spare battery for the
radio.  A two-canteener.  "Sit down, sit  down.  Want a drink?"

"I'm driving."  He smiled at that.  "Maybe.  And maybe the boys'll have
 to bury you out back before sunup.  Sure about that drink?"

I shook my head.  "I'm not much of a drinker."  That got a snort. 
"Hell, son, a couple of days ago I would've said you weren't much of 
anything."  He looked at me with eyes of pure jade.  "Now I'm not so 
sure.  You don't mind if I have one, I take it?"  He bent to a cabinet.
Hidden mini-fridge.  A bottle of Stoli bobbed up in his right paw. 
His  left drew out a can of V8 Juice.  "Nothing but goddamned
vitamins," he  said.  "Take care of your body, your body takes care of
you.  Make me  happy and tell me you were yanking my chain on the
phone.  Tell me you  have my disks."

"I don't have the disks."

"Aalstrom told me you did.  What happened to them?"

"I never had them.  Aley's a liar."  "Why'd you tell him you had them? 
He says you even gave him a taste."  He dropped into one of the leather
chairs that fit you like a lover.  It looked like he was drinking 
blood.

"He's got a disk," I said.  "It's bogus.  At least, I think it is."

"You don't fucking know?"

"His wife gave it to me.  To give to him."  One of Hunt's eyebrows 
lifted a notch.  Like the range slide on a rifle.  "I think they're out
to screw each other," I told him.  "But I'm one hundred percent 
positive they're both out to screw you."  Hunt dimpled his chin and 
looked down into his glass.  "You know, that woman has the makings of a
great courtesan.  Just lacks patience.  Haven't been fucked like that 
since I left Thailand."  He smiled with half his mouth. "Figured I 
ought to test-drive it.  And I guess you still haven't?"

"Not my type."  "Hell, boy, she's everybody's type.  You're dumber than
dogshit, passing that up.  So she gave you a disk?  To give to Aley? 
To tease me with?  Now how about explaining that to an old soldier 
who's been hit upside the head a couple of times too many?"  I leaned 
back in the big chair.  Half expecting iron clamps to leap across my 
chest and lash around my legs.  But I only got that glorious softness. 
"Here's my take on it," I began.  "You be the judge.  Either she's out 
to beat everybody, including Aley.  Or she and Aley are working
together on the double cross.  No matter which way I cut it, though,
they're both out to use me to blindside you.  For the money.  I'm here
to bet my life that the disk Corry gave me is a fake.  They're setting
up a hand-off scenario in which you have to transfer the money. 
Temporarily, as far as you know.  So I can confirm it and feel secure. 
So I can imagine I'm in the driver's seat.  For a millisecond.  Only 
the instant I make the call, another electronic transfer occurs. 
International borders pop up like fire walls.  The ten million
disappears.  And we're both cut out.  Thanks to the wonders of 
information-age banking."

Hunt's face locked up.  "You wouldn't realize what happened," I went 
on.  "Not immediately.  You'd have other things on your mind.  Fires to
put out, dragons to slay.  Accounts to settle.  By the time you exit 
the battlefield and get those disks into a computer for a look at the 
contents, they'll be high in the sky and over water.  And you won't 
have the code to follow the money.  They only need a couple of hours. 
Maybe less."

"I'd find them," Hunt said.  Voice of stone.  "Sure.  But they don't 
believe it. They think they can bring it off.  She's sure of it.  I 
suspect she's even ready to toss you Aley.  Not much of a sacrifice. 
And so what if you do find them?  The damage is done.  You've blown 
your shot at crisis management.  And you look like a horse's ass. 
Scammed by a drunk-tank hustler and a slut for all seasons."  I
concentrated on keeping my voice sober and firm.  Although I probably 
sounded like a prisoner begging his executioner for five more minutes. 
"They've spotted your one weakness."  I avoided his eyes when I said 
that.  Looking just to the side.  At the blue silk on his shoulder. 
The way you avoid locking eyes with a really mean dog.  "You're 
overconfident.  And they are not as dumb as they seem. What Aley lacks 
in table manners, he makes up for in his knowledge of international 
banking.  And she knows more than he does.  A lot more.  She could pick
the devil's pocket and make the poor bugger smile in the process."  I
tested his eyes again.  And found them opaque.  He might as well have 
been an idol carved into the wall of a cave.  "They've got it figured. 
An excuse for every move.  Cover stories for their cover stories.  The 
deal goes down.  They fade on you.  As if they're just plain scared. 
After all the carnage.  You're supposed to blame me for the bad disks 
and the missing money.  I'm dead, you're out ten million, your 
credibility's in the sewer, and Macon-Bolt goes shopping for a new 
security messiah."  Our faces were two masks--mine a crude wooden thing
meant to hide fear.  Hunt rubbed his thumb back and forth across the 
side of his glass.  A look of amusement had grown on his face.  It was 
the kind of look that was just a hair-trigger short of fury.  "Well, 
fuck me," he said.  "Now .. . just what's to stop me from killing you 
and that redhead of yours and tidying up the sandbox?  Before I look 
into the Aalstroms' family values?"  I leaned forward.  "Two things. 
First, I expect you to live up to your reputation. The 0-Club stories 
claim that, in addition to being the meanest sonofabitch in the gutter,
you were also a guy who paid his debts.  Who never left a comrade
behind.  A young SFer lieutenant who got shot to shit in the Laotian 
highlands carrying out the corpse of a CO he personally hated."  His 
eyes had changed again.  He could have stared down lions.  "Maybe I'm a
chump," I said.  "But I figure you owe me.  For the preemptive info. 
I'm saving you ten million bucks and a major embarrassment.  And all I 
want is my girl back."  I wished I sounded more confident, more 
convincing.  "She won't say a word.  She'll do what I tell her.  You 
set the rules.  Just let her go."  Hunt drained his glass and pawed his
lips dry.  "Reynolds .. . that gal of yours must be one hell of a 
screw.  Or else she's the possessor of talents as yet un divined by old
Punchy Hunt.  You know, she asked my boys for pen and paper.  Wanted
to  write you a little old letter. Just in case she didn't make it back
to  your loving arms.  God Almighty, I feel like I'm in the presence of
true love.  Now, I still might kill you.  After all, you are one hell 
of a security risk.  But I'm thinking.  You said there were two reasons
why I shouldn't cut your throat and throw you in the cook pot Try
number two."  I wished I had taken him up on the drink offer.  I had 
been trying to appear rigorous, macho, clean, confident.  Now I was 
ready to drink straight from the bottle.  "You need me to play through 
the scenario.  To give you the walking, talking proof.  I told 
Aley--"

"I know what you told Aalstrom.  Just talk to me."  "All right. 
Tomorrow evening, at eighteen hundred hours, Corry--or Karen, or 
whatever her name is--she and I will link up with Aley in Union 
Station.  Then we'll meet you in the main hall for the han doff.  She 
and Aley don't know the location or the specifics yet. I've been 
holding it back.  As if I'm afraid and clinging to my only card."  I
looked into the mask of his face.  Maybe it was a trick of the 
lighting, but his cheekbones seemed to have climbed.  To barricade his 
eyes.  He looked like a devil in an Oriental pantomime.  "One of us 
will be packing the bogus disks," I went on.  "Probably Aley, by the 
time we meet you.  He'll grab them from whoever has them.  Sheer 
nerves.  I'm not going to call him till sixteen-thirty or so.  So he'll
be sweating.  And pissed.  After I call, he'll spend a couple of
minutes wondering just how close he can cut it with you.  Afraid you'll
try to  set up your own double cross.  Then he'll panic.  Afraid he's
going to  blow the whole deal.  And he'll call you.  Say just before
five.  To  pass you the location for the transfer.  And to make sure
you've  transferred the funds.  When we're all on-scene at Union
Station, he'll  be nervous as a whore in church.  And she'll have her
eye on him, not  on you.  He's the one she doesn't trust.  But you have
the intel in  advance.  You can set it all up, preempt the bank
transfers, grab Ozzie  and Harriet on the way out.  Or follow them. 
However you want to do  it. You'll have them red-handed."

Hunt rubbed his jaw.  Heavy beard.  Unshaven since the previous 
morning.  I could hear the whiskers crisp under his fingers.  "What if 
you're wrong, boy?  What if Aley already put that disk in my hands and 
it's sound as the Federal Reserve?" "He didn't."  Hunt grinned. 
Showing those replacement teeth.  The  originals would have been brown
with coffee stains and tropical  medicine.  "No.  He didn't.  But what
if he does?"  "He won't.  Not if  he's in on the scam with Corry.  And
I think he thinks he is.  Although  she's probably angling to
triple-cross the double-crosser."  "Gets kind  of fuzzy, doesn't it? 
Kind of like applied morality."  "Ask him to  deliver the disk I passed
him.  He'll make every excuse in the world to  delay handing it over." 
"But ... if you're right .. . and I press him  .. . he'll run for the
jungle."  "Which is why you need me.  To walk the line.  At eighteen
hundred."  Hunt stood up.  And calmly set his  glass on a table loaded
with photographs of a young soldier with lost  colleagues.  I noticed
one photo in particular.  I was glad Hunt's back  was turned.  So he
could not see the stunned look on my face.  The last  linkage had just
fallen into place.  Hunt walked over to the Landseer  doggie painting
and stared at it.  Back still to me.  Feet planted  apart, roots
embedded in the floor.  The dragon fidgeted on his back.  As though his
muscles were wrestling under the fabric. ""His captain's  heart,"" he
said, "'which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst  the buckles
on his breast, reneges all temper .. . and is become the bellows and
the fan to cool a gypsy's lust."" He groaned.  A speared  beast. "That
bitch."

With slow arms, he lifted the painting from the wall.  He tossed the 
frame into the air.  I never saw anything like the performance that 
followed.  Not outside of a Jackie Chan preview.  As the painting fell,
Hunt punched through it and caught it.  His hands and arms moved so 
quickly my eyes could not tune.  He chopped and hacked at the frame, 
keeping it up in the air.  Juggling.  Smaller and smaller pieces.  He 
screamed.  And smashed the splinters ever smaller. Flipping them high. 
Double-cutting them with the edges of both hands.  Howling. After 
maybe ten seconds, he stopped cold.  Leaving a mess of wood chips and
shredded canvas on the floor.  He had a new career waiting as an art 
critic.  He flopped back down in his chair.  Gasping.  For the first 
time, he looked old.

"The bitch," he repeated.  "That little bitch."  Suddenly, he mastered 
himself again.  But his face remained pink.  He had done the 
unforgivable.  He had lost control.  And it embarrassed him.  As every 
man will, he tried to make a joke of it.  In his sandpaper fashion. 
"My theory of art valuation," he said softly, still searching for 
oxygen, "is that there is a finite supply of the salable. Each time a 
piece of value is destroyed, the relative value of the surviving pieces
climbs.  Followed, if erratically, by their selling price."  His face
shone rose, with spots and lines of darkness.  "Think of it as creative
destruction."  He looked down at his hands.  One bled along a finger. 
He watched the blood bead and streak.  "Aging teaches us the laws of 
entropy.  On a very personal level.  Still, the notion of killing a 
piece of woman flesh as fine as that little blond bitch does not appeal
to me.  I have .. . I've had to do many things in life that do not
appeal to me.  My survival was conditional upon it.  Can you
understand  that?"

Yes.  I could understand that.  Still I said:

"You wouldn't have to kill her."  His eyes gave me two seconds of pure 
disdain. Then he shook his head slowly and said, "I'm tired.  This 
should have been a small job.  Nothing at all.  I want to end it."  The
jade eyes were flawed now. "You really don't have any idea where those
 disks are?  The real ones?  I could make you a rich man."

"Sorry."  He grimaced.  "Nechestny's a horse's ass, of course.  Greedy.
Could've made an airplane that worked.  More real potential.  Could 
have sold the services a pretty good one now and a better one later on.
But no.  Old Bob had to go for the big kill.  It's all a game to him."
The martial arts display had been dazzling.  But now Hunt's lips were 
purple and black.  There were unexpected spaces between his words.  "I 
don't expect you'll credit this, John .. . but I have always believed 
honesty is the best policy.  This world's so goddamned crooked .. . 
honesty is like a suit of shining armor.  Oh, you might move a little 
slower.  But you're more apt to get there .. . alive."  He stopped to
glut his lungs.  A dying minotaur.  "I am a violent man.  It has been 
my trade. But I don't like to think I'm truly a dishonest one.  There 
are roles ... to be played.  Jobs to be done.  Certainly, you might 
conceive of honesty differently than I do.  But ... " He snapped back 
to being old Punchy Hunt.  "Hell, boy, it's all crap.  Every bit of it.
I'm tired and talking trash.  So you just listen to me.  You hit the 
goddamned lottery.  I don't know if it's brains or balls.  But I'm 
going to see to it that you walk.  Redhead, too.  After you deliver my 
two little scumbag shit traitors into Daddy's loving arms."  He pawed 
his cheek. Streaking it with blood.  "Union Station, huh?"

"Safest for me.  The crowd.  Witnesses."  Hunt laughed.  His lungs had 
come back on line.  An act of will.  He smacked a big bare knee with 
his palm.  "Damn, you're not as dumb as you look.  Now .. . what's all 
this bull Aley was laying down about how you want Gabrielli there?  In 
uniform?"  "More security.  Gabrielli's scared.  If he's there in his 
greens, the center of attention with all those stars on his shoulders 
... I figure he won't want you doing the damn-damn on anybody.  Where 
it might turn into the ultimate photo op."  He smiled.  A pondering 
smile.  "Why not?  Good experience for old Gabe.  Lay some fear on him.
Goddamned therapeutic.  Don't know how we ever let a craven shit like 
him pin on all that rank.  Goddamned peacetime Army."

"And Tish."  He nodded.  "Yep.  And the instant those disks change 
hands, I want you to un-ass the area of operations.  ASAP.  Tow your 
girlfriend right on out of there.  Don't wait for permission.  Leave 
that building at warp speed.  I'm going to have things to discuss with 
our friends from California." "And call off Gabrielli.  I want to go
back to work."  "Don't worry  about Gabe. He's fully booked.  Now .. .
tell me one more thing.  Are  you happy in the Army, John?"  I
shrugged.  "It's been good.  Tastes a  little sour at the moment." 
Hunt puckered his lips.  A thinking  gesture.  "Tell you what.  You
decide you want to pack it in ... retire  .. . you call me up.  This
wild bunch I got working for me could use an  injection of sanity. 
You've got balance.  And balls.  I'd have plenty  of work for you. 
Good work.  Not like this Nechestny crap.  Christ,  I'm sorry I ever
hooked up with the guy."  He stretched out a paw.  Handing me an
invisible gift.  "Don't jump to conclusions.  I know  you're sitting
there thinking.  Screw this ape.  I wouldn't work for  him in a million
years.  But think about it.  Let it simmer.  Till all  the present
danger passes into the cavalcade of memories.  I'd take  care of you. 
And the work's not all covered in slime like this one.  Our country
needs good men who can work in the shadows."

"I'll remember the offer."  He smiled.  More fake white teeth. 
"Diplomatically put.  But let me just lift the blinds one little bit 
for you.  The world is not as it seems.  At least, not as it seems to 
the common man.  We're reconstructing this country.  Streamlining it. 
Key people .. . from industry, government .. . the military .. . we 
want to ensure that talent continues to be rewarded, that America not 
only remains the world's leader, but widens that lead."  He gave a
dismissive wave.  "Now, I'm not talking right-wing political crap.  Or 
left-wing, either.  Politics is for people who lack power and don't 
really understand how to get it.  Politicians don't run anything.  The 
people who run the politicians call the shots.  Like it or not, that's 
the truth of it.  No, what I'm talking about is a core--an expanding 
core--of people who understand what needs to be done, people who have 
the money, the power, the vision .. . the talent.  The guts.  People 
who understand that the Constitution, while a beautiful document--and 
I'm the first to admire it--folks who realize that the law does not 
always extend far enough.  People .. . who would do anything for this
country."  I did not know what to say.  But he did not expect me to say
anything. "And don't waste another minute trying to stop the 
Next-Generation Fighter-Bomber.  It's going to happen."

"I hate that airplane," I said.  "Well, channel your hatred more 
constructively. I understand you, John.  We're not as different as you 
think.  I know you're thinking about your dead friends."  He opened his
arms like a priest giving the blessing.  With the blood drying on his 
face and hand.  "Well, they're dead. Can't bring 'em back.  We all 
have dead friends in this business.  You have to move on."

He put his paws on his knees and levered himself out of his chair. 
"Now  get out of here, son.  Before my mood changes."

I got out of there.  But with the gate closed behind me, I made the 
mistake of thinking about what he had said.  About his crowd of 
insiders running things. Even if it were true, I did not want to 
believe it.  Self-delusion has its place.  Anyway, I had more urgent 
things on which to expend my dwindling brainpower.  Or so I tried to 
convince myself.

New possibilities haunted me.  Middleburg looked expensive even at two 
in the morning.  The fox-hunt crowd.  They wanted to be English in the 
worst way.  And they were English in the worst way.  Riding britches 
and Range Rovers. Overcooked food.  Acres of pastel hats at the Gold 
Cup.  Overdressed women with time on their hands.  And pet polo teams. 
Now and then an heiress shot an Argentine horseman.  It made Karl Marx 
seem pretty sympathetic.  On the other hand, I was not in condition to 
render an impartial judgment on anything.  I thought of Tish.  I had no
guarantee that Hunt would turn her over to me, or even that she was 
still alive.  I decided I should have demanded proof.  Then turned on 
myself for even thinking something so stupid.  I had pushed Hunt as far
 as I could.  And I had gotten off easy.

So far.  I tried as hard as I could to believe he would bring Tish to 
Union Station.  And that she would break into a great big smile when 
she saw me. Tearing away from her captors, running toward me--I could 
see it as though it were already a memory.  I just wanted her alive.  I
no longer cared about her past.  Anyway, mine was nothing to lay on a 
snow-white altar cloth.  What mattered was that I loved her.  We could 
improvise from there.

I stopped at the gas station where I had used the phone on the drive 
out.  I tanked up, bought a Diet Coke and a pack of cupcakes, got a 
couple dollars' worth of extra quarters, and ate supper on the hood of 
my car.  With my hands shaking.  My body had stood by me when it 
counted.  But the pent-up fear was spilling out now.  I had one more 
call to make before I went home.  A couple to make after sunup.  And a 
friend to betray.  As he had betrayed me.  I dialed an emergency number
 the frogs had given me.  Henri the Cuckold answered.

"It's John Reynolds.  Tell me when you're awake."

"I am awake."

"You don't sound awake."

"I am listening."  I pictured him rubbing his hatchet face.  Blinking 
his eyes away from a bedside lamp.  "This one's for Lafayette," I said.
"You need to be standing by this phone at four-thirty in the
afternoon.  At that time, I will give you a location in the city of
Washington.  If  you are there promptly at six, you will see me or one
of my companions  hand over a bag to a couple of military-looking men. 
The computer  disks you want will be in that bag.  The men receiving
them will be the  people who blew up your research lab."

"You have the disks?"  He was awake now.  "Why not--" "No.  I don't 
have them.  But I -will have them.  It's complicated.  And no, I can't 
pass them to you ahead of time.  First, I won't have them until the 
last minute.  Second, this is the only way I can get my girl back.  You
promised you'd help me rescue her."  After a little too much 
hesitation, he said, "We will keep the promise." I knew Corry would be
waiting for me when I got back.  To hear my take  on how it had gone
with Aley.  And she would damned well want to know  where I had been
since I left him.  That was fine.  I wanted her on  edge, worried about
losing control of the whole scam.  Corry with a  clear head was an
enemy of mankind.  At first, I thought she had fooled  me and gone. 
Dead quiet on the home front.  I found her upstairs,  racked out on my
bunk.  She did not react when I switched on the  overhead light.  So
far gone she was mouth-breathing.  We were all worn down.  That was
good, too.  Unless it made somebody jumpy on a trigger.  Corry lay
curled up like a child.  Pistol loose in her hand.  I could  have
snatched it and thumped the crap out of her.  But I'm a sucker for  the
social rules.  "Get up," I told her.  In my best drill-sergeant 
imitation.  "My bed isn't part of the deal."

At last I found a weakness in Corry Nevers, alias Corrine

Nevrosky, a.k.a. Mrs.  Karen Aalstrom, nee Karen Hinkel.  She could not
find her way back to sensible life.  Too damned tired.  She flapped
and  half rose, dropping the pistol, then reaching frantically to
recapture  it, eyes flashing open and quitting again.  I gave her my
reading light  full-face.  It turned her into Dracula's favorite bride.
For one bad  instant I worried about the gun.  She gripped it fiercely
in that small  hand.  Fingers so stressed I thought she might start
shooting blindly.  Instead, she shook her head and shoulders,
determined to conquer  herself, and forced those blue eyes open. 
"Where were you?"  she demanded.  On brain delay, she looked at her
wristwatch.  That made it  worse. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Walkin' after midnight."  She raised the pistol.  This girl clearly 
needed time to put on her cosmic makeup.  "Pull the trigger, Corry. 
And you'll be back in L.A. screwing deadbeats for dinner.  If you're 
lucky."  She closed a second hand over the gun.  Steadying the aim.  I 
suppose Corry had been thin in the self-control department for a while.
The tantrum in the car should have tipped me.  What conned you was her
ability to carry herself with royal confidence when she had a grip. 
You  figured her for the world's strongest human being outside of the 
steroid set.

"I want to know where you've been.  And don't lie to me."  I flopped 
down in the chair she had occupied the evening before.  "Arlington 
Cemetery.  Thinking.  I'm not as quick as you.  Or as confident.  I had
 to consult a friend."

That wild streak of panic in her eyes again.  "Who was it?"

"A dead man."  "Who did you meet?  You're so goddamned stupid, I should
 never--"

"Your social skills are deteriorating.  I didn't meet anybody.  Except 
your loving hubby." "What were you doing?  Don't fuck with me, John." 
Remarkable that a  face so full of hatred and mottled by sleep and
pillow lines could  remain so beautiful. After you banged up against
Corry Nevers, you  would always read history with a different eye. 
Understanding the  follies of great men.  And the siege of Troy. "Kill
me and we're both  going to have a bad day.  I did exactly what we
agreed. And Aley said  exactly what you said he'd say.  Then I went to
Arlington and sat on my  ass in the dark.  Talking to my ghosts.  We
all have our little  quirks."

"Did Aley believe you?  Was he--"

"He took the disk.  He'll be standing by the phone."  She dropped the 
gun to her side.  "Don't try to do me, John.  I'll come through on 
everything I promised you.  Don't blow it for both of us."  "It's up to
you now, sister.  You'd better be able to produce the rest of the 
disks.  Or there is going to be a serious tide of unhappiness."

"Don't let me down, John."  That earned a smile.  "Just honor your part
of the deal.  And I don't mean the money bullshit.  That's all yours. 
I  just want to walk away with Tish self-propelling next to me."

"She'll stumble on you.  She'll always stumble."

"Then I'll pick her up and carry her."

Corry left.  Stroking the thirty-eight in her purse.  Any muggers 
working the graveyard shift were going to get more than they had 
bargained for.  I was beginning to feel good and warned myself not to 
get overconfident.  It seemed like I had it wired at last.  I had even 
known she would leave.  Because she needed to link up with Aley, to lay
out a different set of lies.  Maybe she had to report in to Hunt, too.
And she would need to refine her airline reservations, now that the 
timeline was set for the deal.  She would have to fetch the rest of the
phony disks that were supposed to make her rich and leave me dead. 
All  before meeting me in the bar at the Dubliner at five-thirty in the
afternoon.  I had not told her any more than that.  Just, "Meet me at 
the Dubliner.  It's a yuppie boozer on Massachusetts.  Bring the 
disks."  That enraged her.  But she had tried not to show it.  I was 
performing according to her script.  More or less.  And she did not 
want to blow it now.  I went to bed. Allotting myself four hours' 
sleep.  I dreamed in basic black.  When the alarm went off, I was 
homicidal.  I hit the John, then pulled on my running gear.  Not
exactly my preferred activity after a short, bad sleep, a week of 
deprivation, and a couple of beatings.  But this was a special run.  I 
jinked through traffic and down alleys.  With the heat raising its 
fist.  I was sure somebody would try to follow me.  Probably in a car. 
But I knew the one-way streets, the vacant lots that cut across blocks,
the old tradesmen's passageways.  I did a pair of underpasses,
doubling back both times so a trail car could not follow.  It was the
wildest  dash in D.C. history that did not involve street crime.  At
the end of  it, I walked into the shabby fortress where Dickey hung his
hat.  The  desk sergeant judged me sufficiently strange to merit a han
doff  instead of a brushoff.  He called Dickey, who came out of a
hallway  looking even more swollen than usual.  "What the fuck?"  he
said.  That  translated as "Good morning."

"Time to talk," I said.  "For real."  He looked me up and down.  And 
snorted. "Nice legs.  I hear you were back in fag country last 
night."

"I'll tell you all about it," I said.  And this time I meant it.

* * * We sat in his office.  Drinking lukewarm brown vinegar that only 
cops and old NCOs would call coffee.  I told him everything I knew. 
All  of it.  As clearly as I could.  He turned out to be a good
listener  once he got what he wanted.  I wondered again how much of his
spiel was  the real Dickey and how much of it was the persona a smart
cop had  crafted over the decades.  Looking like a fool has its
advantages.  If  anybody knew that, I did.  Of course, the difference
between Dickey and  me was that I had been the real thing.  "Christ,"
he said at the end of  it, "it's enough to make me wish I was on the
mayor's bodyguard  detail."  "} couldn't lay it out earlier.  I didn't
have all the  pieces.  And I didn't know who I could trust."  He
treated me to a  smile.  "Now you figure you can trust me?"  "If you
were on anybody's  payroll, you'd wear better suits."  He let the
remark go by and sat  back.  "I should bring the FBI in on this.  By
all rights." That  scared me.  I should have seen it coming.  But my
thinking had been so blurred, I had imagined Dickey would want to
handle anything going down  on his own turf.  I did not want any other
players in on this game.  Especially not federates.  The field was
already too crowded, the score  too close.  And I had committed too
many fouls myself.  The FBI was not  going to award me a trophy as Most
Valuable Player.  Before I could  come up with a counter argument
Dickey said, "Thing is, they'd just  bitch it all up.  At this point. 
Come stomping in like elephants.  The  fucks."  He chewed into his
cheek.  "I got to tell them.  But I don't  see why I got to tell them
just yet."  Dickey sipped cold coffee.  The taste made his double chin
quiver.  "So I got one question.  And it's  serious. Why Union

Station?  Sounds to me like Mr.  and Mrs.  Commuter could find 
themselves in the middle of the O.K. Corral.  There's a serious 
public-safety issue."  I nodded as though I had thought it all through.
But I had not.  For all my training in plans and operations, I had
been  as sloppy as a second lieutenant.  And my selfishness embarrassed
me.  I had chosen Union Station because of the crowd, ignoring the fact
that  the crowd was made up of real people.  The truth was that I had 
forgotten that Tish and I were not the only people on the planet. 
Maybe I was becoming a real Washingtonian.  I could not change the swap
site.  It was too late and the tolerances were already too close. 
"This  town's got enough of a problem with headlines," Dickey said.  "I
don't  go for this Union Station business one bit."  "I had to pick a
public  place.  If I tried to do it in private, they'd kill me for
sure.  And  Tish.  And everybody else."

"Sounds to me like these bad boys might do it anyway."  "I don't think 
so.  Not unless it all goes to shit.  The common denominator of all the
players left standing is their desire to avoid more publicity.  The 
bombings .  the killings ... it all got way out of hand.  There's no 
rug big enough to sweep any more trouble under.  The industry pricks. 
Hunt and his boys .. . the French ... to say nothing of Frankie and 
Johnny from L.A..  .. nobody wants to end up in the spotlight."

"But they're shooters."  I pulled at my running shorts.  They were 
almost dry. And sticky as a spilled margarita.  "I figured you could 
handle that.  Anyway, they're not sloppy.  They hit what they want to 
hit with the first shot.  No debris."  Dickey looked at me.  Face 
scrubbed of any expression.  "Listen, partner.  You're overestimating 
me and my department.  I only know two officers who hit on the first 
shot, and they're both certifiable.  A setup like this takes skill. 
And  planning.  Rehearsals, if you want to do it right."  He looked at
his  watch.  "And you come in here giving me less than eight hours to
stage the invasion of Normandy.  It's going to be a miracle if nobody
gets  killed."  I hung my head like a beaten prizefighter.  In a cop's
shabby  office, in the slam-dunk morning light, my plan looked a lot
shakier  than it had the night before.  I ached to believe it still
could  deliver success.  But faith slips. Dickey's eyes were different,
though.  There was life in them now.  Detective Lieutenant Dickey, the
original pissed-on cop.  His thoughts had moved beyond me.  Maybe he 
was dreaming of one last great bust to cap his career.  The best I can 
say of the two of us is that we believed, in our different ways, that
things might just work out.  Against all odds.  People don't understand
how idealistic cops and soldiers can be.  All the public sees is the 
uniform and the face you learn to wear above it.  Dickey seemed to me 
to be fighting the good fight in a city committing suicide.  I felt 
like I was duking it out with the whole world.  I figured we both 
wanted to do what was right.  It was a lousy combination.

He let me out the back door of the station and I made my way between 
squad cars down for lack of spare parts.  He signaled to the patrolman 
on motor-pool duty to let me pass.  I faded into the heat of the side 
streets.  I went home. Showered.  Dressed for success in khakis and a 
polo shirt.  And treated myself to a crab cake sandwich at Eastern 
Market.  The Last Lunch, since there might not be a Last Supper.  For 
good luck, I put a big tip in the plastic bucket.  Then I lingered over
my plastic tray.  Struggling to war-game everything that could go
wrong.  The truth is, I was thinking like a punk.  Short-horizon stuff.
I could not get beyond my reunion with Tish.  It's a good thing I
could  not foresee all that was coming.  I would not have been able to
go through with it.  Panhandlers on the sidewalk, then metro limbo.  I
headed downtown underground.  Riding with the gentlemen of leisure who
had figured out the secret of summer afternoons in the city.  A guy 
with a deep scar down his cheek wore a T-shirt that read, "Just because
I'm black doesn't mean I'm a criminal."  I had one more loose line to 
reel in.  And I had to do it in person. The bastard would not have 
taken a phone call from me.  Not now.  So he was going to get the 
living, breathing, unhappy John Reynolds.  I was playing the politics
of inclusion.  No deserving party was going to be left out of the game.
A sax player blew old Broadway hits by the metro exit and a Central 
American pushed flowers in the heat.  Office studs moved fast along the
sidewalks, hurrying through the exhaust haze in shirtsleeves and ties,
too young to be so soft around the middle.  A few old-schoolers 
dehydrated in their suit jackets.  Women in pearls wore a wet shine on 
their foreheads and a hatred of panty hose in their eyes.  The whole K 
Street hustle.  The lobby was so cold it startled you when you came in.
But I stayed hot.  I came out of the elevator like a fighter coming
out  of his corner at the beginning of a round.

"May I help you?"  the receptionist asked.  "Check with Burns before 
you call the cops," I told her and the flock of secretaries.

I banged through the door to his office.  All those handshake, 
shoulder-hug photos.  Couple of Presidents.  And the ex-cabinet members
who rewrite history and take consulting fees from dictators.  Shortage
of females, but the town had been late to change.  Corry Nevers would 
have brightened up the walls.  Shame he had missed her.  My friend and 
betrayer, Robert Mayhew Burns, opened his mouth wide enough to swallow 
a cannonball.

"Yeah, fuckhead.  It's me."

It is a wonderful thing to see fear in a man born of fine lineage. 
It's  a very democratic event.  Rob Burns was a fitness-club type. 
Just like  his sister, who had dated, drained, and dumped me.  But I
was bigger,  stronger, and a lot meaner than Mr.  Think Tank.  He did
not have time  to get all the way out of his chair. I helped him up
with one hand on  his throat and the other blasting into his gut.  When
he hit the wall,  books tumbled.  His secretary was in the doorway.  I
did not have to  see her.  I could hear her, feel her.  I knew
precisely the look of  rupture she would have on her face.  "Tell her
if you want her to call  the cops.  Fucking tell her."  I loosened my
grip on his neck.  He  gasped.  Talking in separate words.  "It's ...
all ... right .. .  nothing .. friends .. . shut .. . the .. . door,
Joanne ... all right  ..."

"Mr.  Bums--"

"Shut the door."  "Don't shout at the help, Rob.  What would Granddad 
say?"  The door closed.  And I was alone with the last traitor in the
pack.  A guy I had really liked.  Who had sold me out to Punchy Hunt
on  one side, and to the French on the other.  He was going to make a 
brilliant cabinet member someday.  I wondered how thick those office 
windows were, whether I could send him flying down to the street if he 
played it wrong.  I threw him back into his chair.  Then I sat on his 
desk and put my foot on his chest.  Rolling him back against a credenza
where family photos stood isolated from the upstart trash. "I'm one 
dumb sonofabitch," I told him.  "It's really unbelievable.  I was so
dumb.  But you were stupid beyond belief, pal."  I shook my head. 
"Jesus Christ, it couldn't have been money.  Or is the family silver in
 hock?"

The punch just above the belt buckle had been one of the few perfect 
things I had accomplished in my life.  He still could not breathe 
properly.  And he was terrified of this sudden contact with reality. 
"Don't ... be a fool.  Power, John.  Only thing this .. . town 
understands.  Got to be connected.  Never meant to harm--" I was never 
a bully, except emotionally, and my fights tended to be eruptions, not 
sadistic choreography.  This was a new experience.  I had time to plan 
exactly where and how I would hit him.  Time to shape the fist so I 
would not sprain a finger or my wrist.  Time to come down off the desk 
at an angle that gave me maximum leverage.  I aimed where his left 
canine would be hidden at the corner of his mouth.  Bonus play.  I got 
two of his teeth.  He spit them into his hand, dropped one, and began 
to cry.  I had never realized it could feel so good to hurt another 
human being.  "Yeah," I said, "that's me.  The dumb fucking soldier. 
First your sister fucked me, then you did.  I bet your family reuses
toilet paper."  I was as angry at myself as I was at him.  I had really
believed this human being was my friend.  If only in a Washington kind
of way.  "De la Were almost screwed it all up on you.  Showed up 
unexpectedly.  Right?  Looking for results.  Christ, you must have 
panicked.  Just couldn't get him out of your office fast enough.  And 
then I showed up too soon.  But I was soaking wet and blind and thick 
as day-old cement.  You danced circles around me.  You'd make a great 
con, you know that?"  He looked at me.  Bleeding.  Thinking too much. 
I realized I was being stupid again.  "Hell, Rob.  What am I talking 
about?  You are a great con.  In a city of master criminals.  You were 
the information clearinghouse, tipping the frogs to Hunt and selling 
out Hunt to the frogs.  And giving me up to everybody after I strolled 
by asking the wrong questions. You're the man who can't lose."  I had 
thought of myself as cynical before all this began.  Now I was amazed 
at how naive I had been.  "So tell me.  Who do you think is going to be
more anxious to kill you?  De la Were and his boys?  Or Punchy Hunt?" 
Do not believe the saints and sociologists.  Fear can be a beautiful 
thing.  When you see it in the right pair of eyes.

"Don't .. . you can't .. ."

"The hell I can't." "Please."  "Man .. . does it hurt when you say
that word?  Say it  again."

"Please."  I folded my arms.  I was not worried about Rob striking 
back.  He was a worm caught on the sidewalk after the rain.  "Great 
riff," I told him.  "I admire it.  All that Anglophile crap.  Family 
history as a cover story.  Brilliant stuff."  "Please, John.  We can 
work this out.  Please.  General Hunt doesn't need to--" I gave him a 
little openhanded tap on the side of the mouth where I had punched him.
He shied.  "That's my decision.  Who to tell and what to tell them.
It's my turn now.  Although, as a military man, I have a soft spot for 
people who obey orders."

Anxious eyes.  "What do you want me to do?"  I wasn't ready to tell him
yet.  I wanted him to hurt a while longer.  "Why the French?  I've 
figured out the Hunt connection.  But why sell everybody out to the 
frogs?  Tell the truth now, Robbie."  He looked down.  Probably 
wondering if a chump like me could understand the calculations of 
policy at the strategic level, the nuances of the international order. 
He spoke to me in a lecturing tone, a professor with blood on his chin 
and shirt.  I let him yap.  The poor bugger did not know how to talk
any other way.  "The Brits .. . are backing off on European 
integration.  The single-currency thing.  France is going to lead.  All
of Europe.  Germans are rich.  But they're afraid.  Afraid to lead. 
France ... is the key.  We've got to play the French card.  If we want 
leverage in the new Europe.  Trade.  The military thing.  The Mideast 
connection ..."

I snorted.  "You are a no-go at this station."

"What?"  "That is the dumbest political analysis I've ever heard.  You 
sleeping with a French girl or something?"

"France is going to--" "Can it.  That's enough.  The answer is that you
wired yourself in with the French because you're stupid.  Now let's 
talk about Em."  I tossed him the box of tissues from his desk.  "Not a
 bleeder, are you?"

"I don't know a thing about Em."  I would have liked to hit him again. 
It felt so good.  But I did not want his face to look any worse.  He 
had a public appearance coming up.

"Bullshit.  Ever been in Punchy Hunt's library?"

Rob shook his head.  Patting his hurt little mouth.  "Didn't think so,"
I told him.  "Hunt has his own kind of social standards.  So let me 
tell you about his library.  Lousy art that costs a bundle. 
Leather-bound sets I think he actually reads.  And memorabilia aplenty.
Photos.  He's got this round mahogany table right by a big leather 
chair.  Table's covered with framed photographs.  Some of the frames
are works of art in themselves."  I glanced around Rob's office, at
his  photo display.  "He's more selective than you.  But then, he
generally  knows who's going to come through his door.  Anyway, there's
a photo of  Hunt as a lieutenant colonel.  Wearing a big shit-eating
grin.  Standing  beside your old man.  Back when Daddy was doing the
OSD ticket punch.  I didn't notice it the first time. Hunt's so damned
impressive.  Riveting.  But last night I saw it.  And everything fell
into place.  Brother, you should have stayed on Hunt's side. 
Exclusively." I  smiled.  With all of my own teeth.  "Got a spare shirt
in a drawer?  Maybe in a closet?  You seem like that kind of guy."

Rob nodded.  "Good.  Because you're going to need it.  But we'll get to
that."  I leaned down toward him.  "I couldn't figure out how the bad 
guys made me as a connection so quickly.  They seemed too good, too 
aware, too fast.  They were waiting for me every time I went to the 
John, ready to hand me the soap."  I looked at the frightened little 
man in the chair before me.  He was not that small physically, but he 
was miniature in spirit.  "I should have figured out the French 
connection.  But Hunt .. . that was another matter.  I'm not a
genealogy expert.  Then I saw that photo.  And I got it.  The real Hunt
Club isn't those thugs with war toys he's got patrolling his spread. 
It's a blue blood thing.  Hell, your families probably really did hunt 
together, back before genetic decay set in.  I'd forgotten, you see. 
One key part of the Punchy Hunt legend.  Kid from rich family goes to 
West Point.  Volunteers for Vietnam.  Folks in my line of work 
worshipped Hunt for that.  For the self-sacrifice.  The guy did great 
things for his country.  Back then."

"He's still doing good things, he--"

I lifted his face in both my hands.  As if about to kiss him.  Instead 
of a smooch, I worked my thumb through the skin into the brand-new gap 
between his teeth.  "Save it.  I have a deep-seated need to 
communicate.  So there it is. Hunt.  You.  And Em.  God knows who 
else.  Old money getting a plus-up.  And yeah. Power.  Does Bob 
Nechestny really run Macon-Bolt?  Or is he sort of a puppet? Your 
little pet risen from the lower classes."  I let go of his snout.

"Nechestny's naive.  He doesn't know what it really takes in this 
town."  "Thank you.  Now back to my little story.  Money and power and 
old families.  The stuff that made America great.  But Em got an attack
of conscience.  He did the unforgivable.  He broke ranks.  Tell
me--did  it bother you more that Em was trying to expose your 
three-hundred-billion-dollar rip-off, or that he was doing it with a 
black general?  I don't expect you to answer that.  I'm allergic to 
platitudes."

"What do you want?"  I raised my eyebrows as theatrically as I could. 
"What do I want?  Maybe good government?  Integrity?  Peace in our 
time?  An honest return on the defense dollar?  You're bleeding again.
Hey, I'm a simple guy.  All I really want at this point is my girl 
back."

"There's nothing I can--" "Wrong.  You're going to help.  You're going 
to do exactly what I tell you.  Or I'm going to let the frogs know 
you've been playing a double game on them with Punchy Hunt and Company.
Then I'm going to let Hunt know you've been triple-crossing him. 
They'll kill you, Rob.  And they'll make it hurt on the way."  The man 
was so frightened he could not speak.  His lip bubbled pink spit.  And 
he began to shake.  With the spirit upon him.  "All you have is a 
walk-on role.  At six o'clock, you are going to be standing by the
Center Cafe in the main entrance hall of Union Station.  When I'm gone,
go down to the John and run cold water over your mouth.  It won't hurt
much.  Then put on your clean shirt.  If you don't have a clean tie in
the office, go around the corner to Brooks Brothers.  I'm sure you've 
got a charge account that goes back a century."

"What's going to--"

"Shut up.  Or I'll break your nose for shits and grins.  I am not a 
happy man today."

"What if I don't--" "I'll make two phone calls.  And the race will be 
on to kill you.  Six o'clock.  Make that five of.  If you're late, the 
deal's off."

"What do I have to do?"

"Look important.  Make your family proud of you."  I really did want to
hurt him some more.  I liked myself less with each passing hour.  But 
getting past decency and mercy also has a wonderful lightening effect. 
You can loathe your behavior and feel really good about what you're 
doing at the same time.  At the door, I turned around one last time and
looked at the coward in the desk chair.  "Aren't you even a little bit
ashamed?"  I asked him.  "Your kind used to sacrifice for this
country.  First to volunteer in war.  Dollar-a-year men in peace.
Obligation.  Responsibility.  Noblesse oblige.  You were the best we
had."

"Don't kid yourself," he said.

I had two hours to kill before my bar date with Corry.  So I went to 
the National Gallery.  To see my second-best girl.  I figured the 
National Gallery was safe and close to Union Station.  It did not 
attract many killers.  It had pay phones.  And I needed a dose of 
civilization.  With all its discontents.  I needed to believe that 
something of worth might be salvaged in the end.  That it wasn't all 
ugly.  The girl was my secret.  It was possible that I had shared her
with only one other man.  In over a hundred years.  High-schoolers on 
class trips yawned past her, and women in glasses with graying hair 
pinned up admired her for all the wrong reasons.  While my number two
redhead just stood there with her American Mona Lisa smile, waving her
 goodies. Winslow

Homer had painted her.  The picture was formally titled "Autumn."  The 
real name had to be "Fuck me."  Maybe Homer shared the joke with a 
couple of pals.  Or maybe he kept it to himself.  The armies of art 
historians never realized what he had done.  Despite a recent 
retrospective that analyzed the guy to a second death.  We see what we 
expect to see.  That flaw had damaged my ability to compete with Corry 
and company.  One old girlfriend told me I had rose-colored contact 
lenses glued to my eyeballs.  But she had a doctorate, and thought
about what she was going to say a day in advance, and could never 
sustain relationships.  I seemed to have better luck with redheads.  I 
stood in front of that painting, trying to zen out my jitters, with the
air-conditioning not quite working and tourists slumping by like
plague  victims.  In the winter, when the all-in-black crowd came out
to pose,  I had seen the tragically hip blow off my sweetheart as Homer
at his  weakest, sunk in his Norman Rockwell mode.  My second-best girl
wore  the laced-up, exclusionary clothing of 1877, a black hat and snug
black  velvet jacket, with a heavy oyster-gray skirt.  She stood on a
damp  forest path, surrounded by leaves the color of Tish's hair.  A
white-gloved hand held the ruffle of her skirt up to her waist.  If you
did not crack the code, you just figured she was holding the cloth up 
out of the mud. But if you knew how women looked--if you knew how they 
felt and smelled and a little bit about how they thought--you saw that 
Homer had played the greatest erotic joke in the history of painting. 
The damp, fleshy folds of cloth and their shadows form an image as 
explicit as a rotten-hearted porno mag.  Only Homer did it with style. 
The model must have been a hoot.  I bet Homer never got over her.  When
you finally figured out her smile, she made Corry Nevers look like a 
schoolgirl at a pajama party.

I never told anybody about my gallery girl.  Not even Tish.

I was afraid word would get around and some Bible-beater from the Hill 
would have my alternative darling imprisoned in the National Gallery 
basement, where I would never be able to see her again.  I broke my 
communion to make my calls from a pay phone by the men's room.  Tipping
the players to the Union Station meeting place and the six o'clock 
be-there-or-be-square linkup time.  I staggered the calls and trolled 
the galleries in between.  Giving everybody just the right amount of 
time to fight the traffic, park, and rush to the grand hall.  Now and 
then I got an attack of the shakes.  I even called Colonel Maurey, my 
boss at the Pentagon.  I left a message on his answering machine. 
Promising I would be in for work at the usual time in the morning.  I 
did not qualify it by adding, "If I'm still alive."  None of us can 
really imagine his own death. And I had gotten my fill of theatrics. 
Everybody was anxious.  Everybody wanted to play.  Homer had his joke. 
Now I was going to have mine.  The best call was the one to Aley.  He 
was squirming.  Dying to get the deal done.  His response to the Union
Station location was, "What is this shit you are laying on me?" 
Followed by a suspicion as natural to him as weakness to the flesh. 
"So  what is it, Johnny boy?  You planning to get on a train and ride
or  something?"  His macho spiel sounded about as tough as cellophane
now.  He could not wait to dump the financial data on me.  "So, Johnny
boy?  You prepared to copy?  You got a call to make.  Confirm that
you're a  rich man.  Make sure nobody tried to screw you at the last
minute.  You  got to look out for number one."  I pretended I had a pen
and paper.  Watching dads lead their anxious sons into the men's room. 
Aley read off a list of numbers.  A phone code for the Caymans.  The
bank access  number.  An account access number.  More codes to unlock
the deposit  information.  Financial numerology.

"You need me to repeat any of that?"  he asked me.

"I've got it."

He repeated it all anyway.  "Call in, Johnny boy.  This is the ultimate
Dialing for Dollars.  Do it now.  And don't trust anybody.  Confirm 
that deposit."  The moment of truth was coming.  Everything Aley had 
longed for.  The pressure put him in competition for the title of 
Jumpiest Man on Earth.  I was another contender.  Scared as hell.  As 
the time ran down, my palms started getting damp. The hairs prickled 
on my forearms.  And my feet were sweating.  I worried about Tish.  And
about myself.  Dickey had me concerned now about a slaughter of the
innocents during rush hour.  I had made some remarkably dumb decisions.
I could only hope they had been less dumb than the decisions made by 
everybody else. That was just possible.  Soldiering teaches you a few 
basic things.  For example, battles are not won by the most competent 
army, but by the least incompetent. Murphy the Lawgiver is the patron 
saint of mankind.  And there is no bomb as unstable and volatile as the
human heart.  Just before it was time to link up with Corry, I went in
to look at the Renoirs.  I hate Renoir.  In a couple of minutes I was 
in a sufficiently brutal mood to face what was coming.

The Dubliner is one of those bars that fake history.  Dark wood and 
dark beer. The windows are small and the rooms are deep.  It's always 
twilight inside.  The food is bad, in keeping with Irish tradition, but
they know how to draw a Guinness or a Harp.  In the evenings,
different  Irishmen take turns singing the same songs.  Kids who work
on the Hill  come by after work to romanticize a heritage their
ancestors were only  too glad to leave behind.  But a drinker could do
a lot worse.  In this  town.  Corry sat at the back most table under a
print of the Easter  Rising.  She was drinking a whiskey sour.  In an
Irish pub. The girl  really had no shame.  She saw me and froze for a
moment.  As if she had not really expected me.  When I sat down beside
her, I smelled the  earlier drinks on her.

"How many of those have you had?"  I asked her.  Corry shifted a big 
soft purse that could have served as a weekend bag.  The kind of thing 
women who can't make choices lug around.  She moved it from my side of 
her chair to the other. Letting me know how protective she felt about 
the disks.  "You don't understand," she said.  With drink in her voice.
 Almost enough to make the emotion real.

"Buck up, girl.  You need to be ready for action."  She laughed.  "Look
who's talking.  When were you ever ready for action?  I could've given
you the best action of your life."  I moved the whiskey sour across
the  table.  She moved it back.

I wanted her edgy.  Not falling-down drunk.  "Corry .. . these people 
don't fuck around.  You don't want to--"

She threw the drink in my face.  "You think you're too good for me," 
she said. "Fuck you, John."  There were only half a dozen other people 
in the bar.  But we suddenly attracted far more attention than I 
wanted.  I wiped my face with a paper napkin.  Wishing the sting of the
alcohol out of my eyes.  Just walking from the National Gallery to the
bar--allowing for a few side-street doglegs--had soaked me in sweat. 
The drink added sugar.  Like glue.  On my shirt. In my hair.

I kept my voice down.  Although I would have been glad to punch her. 
"Corry, you can straighten your ass out right now.  Or I'm walking." 
But her emotions were ahead of me.  She barely listened.  Wetness in 
her eyes.  And fear.  Confusion.  A sinner on Judgment Day.  "It's time
to go now," I told her.  "Get straight.  We're going over to Union 
Station.  It's the last stop."  "I have to go to the ladies' room," she
said.  And she stood up.  With reasonable competence.  Scraping her
chair back.  She knew where she was going, so it was not her first trip
to the can.  I wondered how long she had been sitting and drinking. 
She swayed a little.  In handsome linen slacks.  Baby-blue blouse 
precise at her shoulders, with a slight drape at the waist.  Good 
clothes for traveling.  Just before she turned the corner, she wheeled 
and looked at me.  With a smile you never want to see on your wife.  Or
even on a transient girlfriend.  Not a ghost of trust in the girl. 
She  walked back toward our table.  With the steadiness that comes of
great  concentration.  She grabbed the purse.  With her genuine,
authentic,  fake computer disks.

It was a nice touch.  I watched her walk away again.  Even now, I did 
not know her.  Had she planned to throw a drink at me all along?  To 
complete the effect? Was she that good?  Was she far less drunk than 
she was acting?  If so, the girl was wearing a whiskey-based perfume. 
Was there even a sliver of real emotion in that woman?  The one thing I
believed about her was her fear.  I guess I never learned to recognize
love.  But I knew fear when I saw it.  She had gotten the world just 
where she wanted it.  And now she was afraid of what she had done. A
waitress brought me ice water and a stack of paper napkins.  Unbidden. 
Maybe there is understanding and kindness in the  world.

"How many drinks has she had?"  I asked.  The waitress thought for a 
moment.  She was largish and blond in a way that drives Arabs nuts. 
With dropout's eyes.

"I could check at my station.  I think five or six."

Lot of afternoon booze for a small woman like Corry.  "It's all right. 
I'll get her out of here as soon as she comes back.  What's the 
tariff?"

"Let me get the bill."  I dipped and wiped and wished away the whole 
past week. The boys along the bar had lost interest when Corry 
disappeared, but the barkeep had a nose for trouble and kept his eyes 
on me.  I would have liked a drink myself.  But there was no time now. 
I paid and tipped big.  Just before Corry came back.  She marched in 
like a mean little soldier.

"Time to go," I said again.  She looked at me with those deadly blues. 
"Couldn't we just sit for one more minute?"  I checked my watch to make
 her happy, but I already knew we were out of time.

"Got to go," I told her.

"But it's right across the street."

"We're not going in the front door."

"I need a minute."

"This is it, Corry.  Now or never."

"I need a minute with you."

"Thanks for the drink."

Her eyes did not waver.

"I love you, John.  Can't you see that?"

"You'll get over it." At the back of Union Station there is a
multilevel parking garage  built to bankrupt tourists.  You can slip in
from the H Street bridge  over the rail yards.  We did just that. 
Avoiding the regular  entrances.  Getting there was a minor trial. 
Corry still had her  walking skills.  But barely.  And she would not
trust me to carry the  bag with the disks.  I wanted to move fast
across those prairie-wide  avenues.  Corry was good for only a funeral
march.  The heat smelled.  So did I. Corry had whiskey on her breath. 
I had it caked into me. Along with a sugary lime smell.  We passed a
squatter dressed for  January.  His resident flies deserted him for me.
That's how I went to  Armageddon.  Leading a drunken beauty who
thought lying was mankind's  basic mission.  Waving flies away from my
face.  The gasoline air in  the big garage sat a few degrees cooler
than the day outside, but Corry  found the up ramp hard going.  She
still would not trust me with the  bag full of disks.

I let her struggle.  Pissed.  I maneuvered through the level where they
held the rental cars for the Amtrak crowd.  Figuring that was the 
approach my fans would least expect me to take.  I looked hard for the 
bad boys.  Hunt would have scouts out.  Dickey, too, I hoped.  Maybe 
even the French.  But nobody in the garage had that trouble look.  I 
had the pulse.  The rush.  Any fly that sucked up my sweat was going 
into an adrenaline frenzy.  I had been here before.  A few times.  Bad
times.  In that moment.  Union Station blurred with half a dozen shit 
holes scattered around the world.  Where the U.S. Army does the quiet 
things that let our fellow citizens live the sweet life back in the 
Land of the Big PX.  Corry came up beside me.  Lopsided with the bag 
weight.  Sweating jewels.

"Something the matter?"  she asked.

I shook my head.  "Just stay up with me."

"I can't go so fast."

"Just stay up with me.  Keep it together, girl."  I knew she would 
listen now. Frightened people are easier to steer than a kiddie car. 
If they think you are unafraid.  A carillon chimed.  Six.  We were 
late.  But the gang would hang.  I had no idea what their various plans
would be.  But every last hustling shit bird would have one.  Hunt. 
The frogs.  Dickey.  And Aley.  Maybe even Mr.  Think Tank. And Corry 
all whiskey, fear, and greed.  Planners.  Schemers.  Dreamers.  Our
lateness bothered me.  It was one more part of my plan going off track.
Like Corry's unexpected appetite for booze.  I had tried to do 
everything with Command and Staff College precision.  Forgetting that 
all that Leavenworth junk works only with other Leavenworth types. 
When it works at all.

"Wake up," I said.  "Get alert, girl."  "I meant it," she told me. 
"What I said. About the money.  Your cut." "Save it for your
marriage."

"I'm coming back.  In six months.  I mean it."

"Worry about the next six minutes."  We made it inside the rear 
entrance, mezzanine level.  No shooters or grabbers by the automatic 
doors.  There were rows of boutiques, left and right, shopped by 
travelers too early for their trains.  I had told Aley to meet me in 
the store that sold the Disney paraphernalia.  It was my private joke. 
On a Mickey Mouse kind of guy.

I stopped just short of Uncle Walt's capitalist legacy.

"Wait here."

"What?"  Corry asked me.

"Just stand here.  I'm going in to get your beloved."

"Don't leave me alone."  "Do what I say.  Stand right there against 
that wall. Keep away from the windows."

"We should stay together."  "No.  I don't want you trapped inside.  If 
it all goes to hell.  I'll be right back."  What I really meant was 
that I wanted her available.  If Hunt and his boys had decided to screw
me and do a premature grab.  I was not going down for this damsel if I
could help it.  Aley stood behind a rack of cartoon-figure ties, 
watching for me.  He had positioned himself against a camouflage of 
colors and wore a windbreaker three months ahead of the weather.  The 
jacket was zipped halfway up.  I had no doubt that he had a gun under 
it.

"You make that call?"  he asked me.

I nodded.  "We're good to go."

He sighed.  Then he registered my empty hands.  Panic burned his eyes. 
"Where's the merchandise, Johnny boy?"

"Your wife's holding it."

He looked at me.  Calculating.  And twisted up his face.  "I wouldn't 
trust her with a dump I took last week.  Let's go."

"Where's Hunt?"

"Downstairs.  You'll see."

"Tish?"  "Too much fucking talk, all right?  Everything's like little
Johnny wanted.  Your birthday party, okay?"  He was shaking.  Trying 
not to show it.  But he was shaking like a prisoner under an icy 
shower.

We were all afraid.

"Let's just fucking move," he said.

I led the way.  "Bitch better be there.  If she--" Then he saw her. 
Where I had parked her.  And he laughed.  "Ain't she just a package?"

"She's a package."  He bumped against me and sniffed.  "Hey, you 
fucking stink. You been hitting the sauce or something?  That fear 
thing nibbling at you?"

"Your wife shared her drink with me."  We came up to Corry.  Aley got a
really good whiff.  "Fuck, Karen.  One hell of a time to fall off the 
wagon."  "Yeah? Show me your veins, you goddamned junkie."  She turned 
to me.  "You know he's a needle boy?"  "Could we postpone the domestic 
bliss?  Let's just do this.  All right?"  Aley gripped me by the upper 
arm.  There was real strength in his hand, meanness.  If he was into 
syringes, it was meth, not heroin.  I let him hold on to me.  Fighting 
the instinct to put him down on the marble floor.  I wanted him certain
that he was in charge.  He spoke to Corry.  Or Karen.  Surprising me 
one last time.  With what he did not know.

"He really had them, huh?"

She nodded.

"You checked them out?"  he asked her.

"Like I have a fucking computer."  "I mean, they look all right?  Our 
boy hasn't been playing swaps or anything?"

"They look all right."  The rest of the world cruised by.  I guess we 
just looked like three happy shoppers.  I could not spot any of Hunt's 
hired guns.  Which I took as a very good sign.  He was keeping the 
operation small.  Tight.  I did not see any of Dickey's boys, either. 
That was not a particularly good sign.  I was short of friends.  Aley 
turned his full attention to me.  "I'm going to tell you one time and 
up front.  Your role in all this is to keep your mouth shut.  You are 
going to walk between me and Karen.  Karen, give me the disks."

"I have them."

"Give them to me, all right?  You're fucking drunk."

Corry let him take the bag.  He hefted it.  "Okay.  Feels righteous. 
We're going to take that big walk now, John boy.  Down those stairs 
over there."  He nodded toward the spiral staircases that led down to 
the center arcade on the ground floor.  "Tourists get in the way, screw
'em.  Three abreast.  All the way.  At the foot of the stairs, we turn
out into the main hall.  Hunt will be just where you wanted.  With 
General Bootlick, in full regalia.  And your drop-down redhead slut."

"Get your hand off my arm."  He let go of me.  And laughed.  For an 
instant. "Yeah?  Now listen.  Final instructions.  Your mouth stays 
shut.  You are decoration.  Do anything funny, and the war's on. 
Redhead gets the first bullet."  "Fuck you, Aley.  You're shaking so 
bad you couldn't get that pistol out of your jacket without shooting 
yourself."

We began to walk.  Down the streets of Tombstone.  To my surprise, 
Corry gave my hand a quick squeeze.  With her eyes on the horizon.  I 
wish she had not done that.  There was a little too much humanity in 
it.  I did not want her real.

"Nice and slow," Aley muttered.  Almost to the stairs.  I glanced from 
side to side.  Trying hard to spot anybody or anything that looked out 
of place. Anything that felt off.  Any pair of eyes flashing an excess 
of interest.  I just wanted the plan to work.  This one time in my 
life.  Just let me trade the joker disks and Hunt's delinquent hired 
help for Tish.  And let us go.  The rest of them could fight it out 
over the fool's gold and who had done the most cheating.  Just let Tish
and me get out through those big front doors.  I had warned the frogs 
that they might be recognized and needed to hug the edges. They seemed 
to have taken the warning seriously.  It was a good sign that they
stayed out of sight.  Let them make their move after Tish and I had 
gotten offstage.  Hunt was supposed to be waiting by the Center Cafe in
the main hall. With my think-tank buddy as the surprise game-show 
guest.  I wanted Hunt to react to the unexpected presence of Robert 
Mayhew Burns.  To say just one public word to the bastard.  And let the
French make the connection.  Then let Mr.  Old Washington Blood 
strategize his way out of that.  Or invoke his family's contribution to
American history.  I would have felt a lot better if I had caught a 
glimpse of Dickey's whipped-hound-dog face.  At the top of the stairs,
I took one last, hard look at the world around me.  Aley knew 
street-punk tricks.  But he did not possess the whole tactical 
framework for staying alive. Stairs, escalators, and elevators were 
fatal choke points.  The curved staircase had marble flooring one 
flight down on the left, a two-story drop to a food court on the right.
Once we stepped onto those stairs, we were trapped until we walked 
away from them at the bottom.

"What's the matter with you?"  Aley said.

"Nothing."  Corry stumbled and I caught her.  Feeling the brief push of
her breast against my forearm.  I got her straight and she looked at 
me.  With those Hollywood eyes.  She shook her head.  And said 
plaintively, "You just don't know."  "For Christ's sake," Aley said. 
"Is there a love story I'm missing here? Get a move on, huh?"  We 
started down the stairs.  Corry's flats tapped on the marble.  I could 
feel Aley's nerves blowing holes in his skin.  I felt sick to my
stomach.  I saw it coming.  I think I had known it before I really knew
it.  Call it a premonition.  I had shied like a snaked horse at the
top  of those stairs. If Corry had not stumbled and hit my reflex
button, I  might have hung there until somebody dragged me down.  Two
men dressed  like kids.  L.L. Beaners in baggy jeans.  Sports logos and
earrings.  They had the effect down.  If you did not look too closely
at their  faces, you would have figured them for sixteen going on six
years in  Lorton.  But the faces had years of grown-up trouble behind
them.  Joking and jiving at the bottom of the stairs.  They waited
until we  were almost to the middle.  Then the taller one caught me
looking.  And  made his move.  Partner following.  Guns materialized
from under the  layers of hip. Pistols the size of howitzers.  The hit
men lunged up  the steps toward us.  I tried to shrink myself. 
Crunching down like a  kid who sees a whipping coming. It was a stupid,
useless, and natural  thing to do.  Shots.  Thunder in the marble
temple.  Lightning flashing  an arm's length away.  They had
automatics.  Blasting fast and out of  rhythm with each other.

Even professionals get the monster in their eyes when they do the job. 
The act pumps them.  They breathe like winded dogs and they'd sweat at 
the North Pole.  I saw only one hit man's face after the shooting 
began.  For a strip ripped off a second.  Killing was his drug.  And he
 was superhigh on it.

I thought it would be the last face I saw.  Beside me, Corry did a 
dance.  Still on her feet.  But jerking.  A sixties go-go dancer.  A 
wild hand slapped my arm. Gushes tore out of her back.  Flames of 
blood.  Sprays of it.  Followed by shreds of dark red meat.  I saw her 
face for an instant before she fell: a perfectly beautiful woman.  It 
was a waste beyond calculation.  Aley said, "Fuck," one last time and 
crumpled against me.  He knocked me onto my rump, hard against the lip
of a stair.  At my feet, Corry twitched like a snake with its back 
broken.  There was more of her spread over the stairs than there was 
left in her body.

A moment of iron silence stopped the world.  One of the gunmen grabbed 
the bag with the disks.  They took off like Olympic hurdlers. 
Brilliant  at their work. The job had been done with speed, shock, and
just  enough overkill not to mark them as professional assassins.

I had not mattered to them.  Screaming all around me.  Running.  I 
heard a whistle and torn bits of language.  I got to my feet.  Rising 
from the dead.  Running after the killers.  A creature of faulty 
instincts and the wrong kind of training for real life.  I must have 
looked like the craziest man in the world. Smeared with blood not my 
own.  Bare-handed.  Chasing killers.  The pros did not have to worry 
about me, though.  Not on any count.  By the time I reached the bottom 
of the stairs, the gunmen were deep in the slaughter-pen crowd and I
had regained my true focus.  My life had not flashed before my eyes 
when the guns came out.  But Tish had.  The gunmen went for the side 
entrance.  I cut left. Toward the main hall.  Wondering if Tish would 
be there.  Wondering where the hell Dickey's boys were.  Too dumb to 
realize a security guard might take a shot at any bloodstained, running
male.  I crashed between two dazzled grand moms Eyes white, shopping 
bags heavy.  They did not know what was happening around them.  I sent 
one of them spinning.  The other shrieked, "Lucille!"  I made it
through the portal by the Godiva Chocolates stand.  With the gunshots 
still echoing, the rush-hour crowd looked like a cockroach convention 
after the lights came on.  That grand hall.  Great space.  Under the 
guardianship of stone legionnaires perched up on the balconies.  This 
time I would have preferred living cops.  Hunt was there.  As promised.
Standing tall.  With Gabrielli beside him.  Hunt looked cool.  Just 
waiting for an invisible light to change.  But Gabrielli had the jumps.
Rob, my think-tank buddy, stood a few feet behind them.  Mug swollen. 
Body cowering.

Or so I imagined.

Tish was not with them.

And Dickey had let me down worse than I knew.  I stopped maybe ten feet
away from Hunt.  As if it was time to go for our six-guns.  But the 
only gun that mattered now was the one I felt in the small of my back. 
"Don't raise your hands, soldier boy," Dickey's voice commanded.  "Just
 walk.  Straight ahead."

I started moving.  Immediately.  In a bitter, satisfied voice.  Dickey 
said, "Maybe I'll start wearing better suits now.  What do you think 
about that, smart-ass?"  I had been around enough violence to know that
it blinds those unaccustomed to it.  When anyone insists they can

describe all the details of a crime scene, that person is either a
combat veteran with a lot of survivor's scars or a liar.  The little
drama  Dickey and I were acting out did not even register on the human
cattle  around us.  I was more furious than scared.  At that moment.  I
wanted  to fight back.  But I did not know how.  A gun in the small of
my back  impressed me.  Enough to keep my anger just short of any
further  stupidity.

I wanted to land fists, and walked on like a sheep.  As we approached. 
Hunt looked me up and down.  Then turned away and strode toward the 
doors.  Gabrielli looked me over, too.  But his eyes had the cartoon 
jitters.  Rob Burns glanced from side to side in wonder.  Amazed that 
this play could go on without interference.  He still had no sense of 
the reality of this world.

"Keep moving," Dickey said.  No steel in my back now.  But I sensed him
right behind me.  A voice so calm it sounded mechanical came over a 
public address system: "There is a disturbance in the center hall. 
Please use the side corridors.  There is a disturbance in the center 
hall..."  We left the building. Through the automatic doors.  A 
Lincoln Town Car, the serious bureaucrat's vehicle of choice in D.C." 
waited curbside.  Upscale anonymity.  Surrounded by guys in sunglasses 
and suits.  They looked like Federal Marshals, the ultimate D.C. cover.
I watched Hunt direct Rob Burns to the front seat beside the driver. 
Uniform brass flashing in the sun, Gabrielli got in the left rear. 
Hunt waited for me.  Face as bland as paperwork.  He had seen a lot
worse.  Before breakfast.

"Nice try," Hunt said.  "Get in the goddamned car."  I did.  But first 
I turned and gave Dickey the eyes.  Aching for him to feel just one 
tiny sliver of guilt.

"Some cop," I told him.

Hunt climbed in behind me.  Pressing me against Gabrielli.  A Lincoln 
will hold three won ks in the backseat.  It's a tight fit for three 
soldiers.  No police escort.  We just pulled into traffic behind a Red 
Top cab.  Driving down streets I knew.  From jogging, walking, driving.
D.C. had become my city.  Without any meaningful realization on my 
part.  Now it was my last city.  And it looked different.  Familiar and
foreign at the same time.  I felt a tourist's hunger to see
everything.  One more time.  Each monument and statue, every color and
sign of life.  My advantage over the death-row boys was that I got to
go out by the scenic route.

I was scared now.  Gabrielli smelled like the rest room in a truck
stop.  Hunt was ice.  Rob Burns looked straight ahead in the front
seat.  He and Hunt were still playing on the same side of the game
after all.  The French had let me down.  But Rob did look nervous. 
Like a petty  thief who had just blundered into a cop bar.  I had done
a serious  number on his face back in the office.

I figured the least I could do was screw him on the way out.  The car 
entered the Eighth Street tunnel.  Heading onto 395.  The driver was 
good.  In the heavy slop of rush hour.  I said, "So where are Rob's 
friends?  The frogs, I mean. Didn't he tell de La Vere--" "Shut your 
goddamned mouth," Rob yelled.  He sounded like a girl.  "Rosencrantz 
and Guildenstern are dead," Hunt said calmly. "They had a traffic 
accident.  On the way to Union Station."  After a few car lengths, he 
added, "I think you should confine your concerns to the fate of young 
Prince Hamlet, John.  This is the final act."  The car popped out of 
the tunnel.  Back into the killer sunlight.  And bounced over a 
pothole.  The prospect of my death reached a new level of reality.

But you can't just fold.  The rule is never give in.  Never give up. 
If  your captors think you have already accepted your death, it just
makes  it that much easier for them.

"And Tish?"  I asked Hunt.  "Is she still alive?"  That got a little 
smile.  "You have a nine teeth-century sensibility," he told me.  "It's
rare these days.  But I think you should be quiet now."  He liked his
I'm-aneducatedculturally-astute-soldier riff, though.  And he knew I 
got his jokes.  So he said, "Ophelia is irrelevant.  This graveyard 
scene plays differently."  I felt his tree-trunk leg against mine.  In 
an air-conditioned hearse.  "Know why you remind me of Hamlet, John? 
Because you and he are both troublesome, meddling motherfuckers who 
turn everything in the neighborhood to shit.  You can't leave well 
enough alone.  You spoil things.  The king should have taken care of 
him in the first act.  For the good of the state.  Now shut the fuck 
up."  We crossed the river.  Slowing as cars crowded onto the bridges 
from one access ramp after another.  Even the best driver could not do 
much. Struggling to keep his voice calm, Rob turned his puffy lips 
toward Hunt.  "He's . got rather a fantastic imagination, you know.  I 
mean, you understand what I was doing, right, Punchy?  How I had to 
work it?  The way I explained the French thing?"

"I understand," Hunt said.  We ramped down onto the George Washington 
Memorial Parkway.  Heading north.  A pickup loaded with lawn mowers 
almost hit us as we merged.  It could have been good news for me. 
Maybe  a chance to run.  Even a hospital bed would have been better
than what  I was facing.  Hunt's driver hugged the right lane.  I
watched the  river.  And the city beyond.  It seemed impossible that I
might never  see it again.  That I might never see anything again.  The
monuments  looked white and beautiful.

"Tish didn't do anything," I said.  My voice shook.  There was no
hiding the fear now.  "Guilt," Hunt said, "is an abstract concept I 
find useless.  I told you to be quiet."  All of this was nothing but an
annoyance to him in the end.  My death was a minor chore.  The Rosslyn
high-rises loomed and Gabrielli spoke for the first time.  "You know. 
Punchy, I really have a lot on my plate.  If you've got everything 
under control .  you could just drop me along here and I could hoof it 
over to the metro stop.  Get back to work."

"Later," Hunt said.  With finality.  A guy in a sports car who looked 
like he had never had a date in his life cut in ahead of us.  Hunt's 
driver hit the brakes, said nothing, gave gas again.  Beyond the fringe
of trees, the river and the far bluffs looked beautiful.  Beautiful, 
beautiful, beautiful.  I was so scared. Paralyzed by the beauty of the 
evening traffic.  I fought my emotions, wanting to preserve a shred of 
dignity.  As if it mattered.  I felt my eyes wet and I looked away from
the landscape.  I forced myself to remember every charge I had
outstanding on my credit card.  To keep from breaking down.  I wanted 
to cherish every minute of life.  But I could not face it.  I felt 
pulverized by the thought of dying.  It was real and unreal.  I figured
it was going to be a long ride to Middleburg and Hunt's private
killing  ground.  I was wrong.  It wasn't long at all.  A few miles up
the  parkway, the driver snapped the car out of the stream of traffic. 
Onto  a ribbon of blacktop that led back into the trees.  Fort Marcy.
The  remnants of Civil War earthworks.  I had stopped once to see what
the  place had to offer.  Nothing except a few big mounds of dirt.  And
trees.  Two Park Service signs and an orphaned cannon pointing 
nowhere.

Fort Marcy was a spot where disillusioned pols shot themselves. 
Everybody else just drove on by.  The driver had been given his 
instructions in advance.  He parked at the far end of the empty lot. 
Out of sight of the surrounding roads. Everybody was amazingly calm 
about this.  Rob Burns had his nerves almost under control.  Gabrielli 
had accepted his part in things.  The driver was cut from ice.  Hunt 
was Hunt.  There was none of that small-time haste, none of the
confusion that is supposed to go along with murders.  The driver turned
off the engine and got out.  In his element now.  The executioner.  He
 walked up into the brush.

We all followed.  My legs unwilling.  I should have heard birds 
singing.  Leaves rustling.  Something poetic.  But the big rasp of the 
traffic drowned out every other sound.  As it would swallow the sound 
of the shots.  Not two hundred yards away, commuters were heading for 
their homes in the burbs.  Listening to NPR.  Or some soft-rock station
running giveaways.  It was a drab way to go.  Still, a part of me did 
not really believe I would go.  I could not possibly die.  Someone had 
tossed a Big Mac wrapper in the weeds.  When I lifted my eyes, I could 
just see a roofline toward the river.

My voice arrived before I had the words fully shaped.  "You .. . okay
..  . you can do whatever you're going to do to me .. . but you don't 
have to hurt Tish."  I lost it.  At least partway.  "Please.  I'm 
begging you.  Just let her go.  If she's alive."  Hunt snorted.  "You 
must have read Walter Scott as an adolescent."  The driver stopped 
walking just short of an earthen parapet that a hundred and thirty 
years of rain had not been able to melt.  The fort had guarded the city
 against Lee and Jackson.

Maybe soldiers other than me had died here.  There had been no battle 
on the site, but maybe there had been one of those little skirmishes 
that are briefly reported, then lost to history.  As I would be. 
"Here," the driver told Hunt. "This is good."  It was a professional 
assessment.  A spot well hidden from casual observers.  You could hear 
the world of men, but not see it.  A Park Ranger would find me when he 
stepped into the brush to take a piss.  Rob stopped beside the driver. 
He would not look at me now.  I balked at going forward.  A born bully,
 Gabrielli gave me a push.

My heart beat so fast it was almost a constant.  I wanted a chance. 
Any chance. But I had Gabrielli behind me on one side.  Punchy Hunt on 
the other.  With the driver and Rob just ahead.

We all stopped.  I tried to plan a run.  They would shoot me down.  But
I would not die passively.  And there might be a miracle.  I might 
escape somehow.  I believed there were miracles on this earth.  I had 
never seen one.  But I believed in them at that moment.  Then I knew I 
would not run.  I did not want to be shot in the back.  That suddenly 
seemed terribly important.  Ridiculously important.  Besides, running 
would have taken a form of energy I did not have now.  I decided I 
would at least throw a punch at the end, to show them I was a
fighter.

I wondered if my limbs would obey me.  I made up my mind.  I would hit 
Hunt.  Even if he wasn't the guy with the gun.  Nobody else really 
mattered.  They had me penned.  The driver stepped closer to Rob Burns.
Gabrielli gave me another punch between the shoulder blades.  Driving 
me into the circle.

I went mulish.  Gabrielli pushed ahead and tugged me by the arm.  I 
jerked free. But I was surrounded now.  I could see each pencil-point 
whisker on Gabrielli's jaw, smell medicine on his breath.  Rob backed 
away.  As if I were contagious.  He stood on the driver's flank. 
Blinking.

Hunt's presence swelled behind me.  A horn complained from the highway.
I closed my eyes, then immediately opened them again.  In panic. 
Afraid  someone would pull the trigger before I had a last chance to
look at  the world.  To smell it. Feel it.

I saw the blue sky through the trees.  The action of a semiautomatic 
clicked back and came forward again.  The driver.  Then a second weapon
 snapped.  Hunt.

I began to pray.  Like a terrified child.  Wordless.  I could not move.
I wanted to resist.  Ached to fight.  But I could not see a course. 
My  arms would not do anything but twitch.  To his credit.  Hunt did
not  expect somebody else to do his dirty work.  Maybe he enjoyed
killing.  Some men love it.  He stepped in between me and Rob Burns and
lifted  his pistol.  He had slipped on a pair of black gloves.

He shot Rob in the bridge of the nose.  So different than Corry's 
dying.  So much simpler.  Rob's head snapped back.  Lumps of crap blew 
out the rear of his skull. The head jerked forward again.  He fell 
dead.

Nothing but a car backfiring.  The driver shifted, smooth as Fred 
Astaire, and fixed his pistol to the back of Gabrielli's skull.  Hunt 
reversed the pistol in his hand.  Extending it to Gabrielli.  Who gave 
him the most confused look in history.

"Take the gun," Hunt said matter-of factly Gabrielli obeyed.  For an 
instant, his eyes strayed to me.  But Hunt's force pulled his attention
back.  Gabrielli held the pistol as if he had no idea what it might
be.  An odd piece of machinery.  Drooping below waist level.  "Put the
gun  to your temple," Hunt told him.  "I'm going to give you thirty
seconds  to make the most important decision of your life."  Gabrielli
raised  the gun a few inches.  Conditioned to take orders.  But he did
not lift  it all the way.

"Put the fucking gun to your head," Hunt barked.  Gabrielli lifted the 
pistol until the barrel touched the skin between his ear and his ghost 
of a side burn Then he jerked it away.  Hot.

But the weapon stayed close to his head.

"Punchy, I ... what--" "Shut up.  You don't have time to talk."  Hunt 
lifted his wrist so he could read the time.  Big gold Rolex.  "Here's 
the deal, Gabe.  Thirty seconds from now ... or sooner .. . you'll pull
that trigger."  He did not even look at the man with the loaded gun. 
"Otherwise, I'll kill your wife, the son she's watching at soccer 
practice, your daughter in college, and the mother you dumped in a 
fucking rest home.  As well as you.  Twenty seconds left."

"Punchy, I--" "Shut your mouth."  Hunt rammed his face up against 
Gabrielli's. The ultimate drill instructor.  "You scum fuck.  I'll 
kill every fucking one of them.  I'll do it slow."  Just as abruptly, 
he turned his back on the man.  And looked at his watch again.

"Eight seconds.  Save your family, man."  I watched Gabrielli's face. 
There was nothing else in the world worth watching.  Nothing else it 
was possible to watch.  He was crying.  Big, sudden tears.  Like 
raindrops on his face.  A clown mask of a face.  So much of everything,
of every possible thought and emotion, passed over his features in 
those seconds.  Fear.  Anger.  A lot of hatred.  The terror beyond 
fear.

A flicker of sentimental recollection.  Time is not a constant.  But it
 is unforgiving.

"Three seconds," Hunt said.  "Two."  I don't think Gabrielli ever 
considered turning the gun on Hunt.  The barrel did not move even an 
inch in that direction.  It shook in the air.

"One."  I knew he was going to do as ordered.  And it looked like he 
would botch it, miss the aim.  Just bust up his skull.  Or blind 
himself.  But not end it.  At the last instant, Gabrielli pressed the 
pistol firmly against his ear and pulled the trigger.

I closed my eyes.  The shot hung in the air.  My ears ached.  Dead meat
thumped dirt.  Hunt closed a big hand around my bicep.  I opened my 
eyes.  Gabrielli's last expression was one of embarrassment.  An 
irrelevant response of the facial muscles.  His head had a lopsided 
shape.  The day had turned into the worst anatomy lesson in the 
world.

"Places to go," Hunt told me.  "And things to see."  The driver knelt 
to test neck pulses.  There were brains all over the bushes.  But 
Hunt's boys did things by the book.  Before we left.  Hunt took a last 
look at the bodies.  And snorted. "Your pal Burns," he said.  "You 
know he was a big player in the Washington gay scene?  Not that I give 
a good goddamn.  The bravest human being I ever knew was queer as a 
three-dollar bill."

No.  I had not known.  D.C. is the last closet.  "Serves that 
sonofabitch Gabrielli right, though," Hunt went on.  "He was a disgrace
to the goddamned uniform.  Two-bit thug.  He was the asshole behind
the  Mickey Farnsworth killing. Totally unnecessary.  And I liked
Mickey.  Shit-for-brains idealist that he was." Hunt nudged the black
stripes  on Gabri elli's trouser leg with the toe of his shoe.  "Gabe
and that  bastard Faust were in it together.  Trying to steal my
operation.  Frogs  did us all a favor when they took out that inflated
sonofabitch.  Saved  me the trouble."  He glanced at Rob's body.  "They
look like a couple  to you?  Folks are going to figure it was just
another love affair gone wrong.  Gabe shot him, then shot himself. 
"Don't ask, don't tell,"  right?"  He gave me a playful punch that
hurt.  "You see, John?  There  really is justice in this world. 
Sometimes."

"Is Tish all right?"  He thumped me on the shoulder.  Happy.  He had 
enjoyed his theater piece.  Suspense to the end.  For everyone except 
the director.  "Our white knight," he said.  "Didn't think they made 
'em like you anymore."  Then the humor faded.  He came close and I 
noticed he was sweating.  He gave off the rich smell of the killer. 
"Just get back in the car.  And ponder mortality.  We're going to go 
watch some television." He was serious.  About the TV business.  His
driver hustled us back  toward Hunt's estate.  The suburbs ran out. 
Small towns with  Confederate hangovers huddled along the highway.  The
horse farms  began.  Middleburg drowsed in the hot evening.  I did as I
had been  told.  I pondered mortality.  Violent death shifts your
cosmic house  off its foundations.  The pipes come loose.  Plaster
falls in on you.  And there had been a lot of death.  Death on a
personal level.  Ugly as a public toilet.  Yet I still hoped to
survive.  I told myself that if  Hunt meant to kill me, he would have
done it back at Fort Marcy.  And  made it look like a love triangle. 
Hope is the opium of the people.  Religion is just a format.  Like
philosophy.  At the moment, my  religion was battered and my philosophy
was gone. But I hoped beyond  reason.  That I would live.  That Tish
was alive.  I believed she was  still alive.  With all the fervency of
a snake-shaking Pentecostalist. Hunt was right.  I was yesterday's man.
With a flawed sensibility.  It  was not just that I believed in the
wrong things.

It was that I believed, period.  Hunt was the man of the future.  But 
even his confidence had limits.  As soon as the gates to his property 
opened, I spotted the first elements of his private army.  Out in 
force.  They were real pros and a civilian would have missed them.  I 
picked them out in the treeline.  Camouflage not quite the right shade.
And the inevitable movement.  If you expected them, you saw them.  At 
least fifty armed men.  Maybe more.  Little teams in one position after
another.  In an open swale hidden from the road, I even saw a guy
crouched under a manpack antiaircraft missile.  Hunt had not taken any 
chances. It had all looked so smooth.  But maybe the day's outcome had 
been a near-run thing.  Maybe the French had been a real threat.  Maybe
there were elements involved that I had not managed to trip over. 
Maybe  Tish and I were nothing but a footnote in this history.

Hunt caught me looking.  "I need to call them off," he said.  "Show's 
over.  "Our revels now have ended."  Almost."  He gave one of his 
snorts that heralded a change of tone.  This time he went lighter. 
"You'll pardon me if I don't consider you a serious threat, John."  We 
parked and went in that commanding house.  The Hispanic maid waited at 
the door like a nineteen-fifties housewife. "Bring those drinks, 
Magdalena," Hunt told her.  "We'll be in the library."  For a moment, I
hoped that his flair for the theatrical had positioned Tish in his
library.  With her mouth anxious under that wonderful hair.  I imagined
 an explosive smile and the way she would rise from her seat.

She was not there.  "Sit down," Hunt told me.  "Over there this time." 
He glanced at his watch and opened a cabinet.  Revealing a television 
screen.  He picked up the remote.  Smiling.  And dropped his butt into 
one of those magnificent leather chairs.  "} think this is going to 
impress even you," he told me.  "Hell, it impresses me.  Bob 
Nechestny's the only businessman in America who could get a spot on CNN
whenever he wanted it."  A familiar face warmed into focus.  One of
Ted  Turner's gals, carefully selected to be presentable but not
threateningly pretty.  The drinks arrived.  I accepted mine with an 
unsteady hand.  The anchorwoman bracketed clips of a confrontation over
a broadcasting tower in Bosnia.  Where U.S. troops were set to remain 
for the next hundred years.  Then she said: "Remaining with security 
issues, there was a remarkable development in the defense industrial 
sector today.  For that story, we go to Kurt Lustkrieger in
Washington."  The screen filled with an earnest face positioned in
front of a  corporate-looking complex.  "Yes, Barbie, it was a
startling day that  shook up the traditional way of doing business
here.  Robert Nechestny,  CEO of Macon-Bolt Industries, made what
defense analysts are calling a  revolutionary announcement that will
set new standards of  accountability in America's major weapons
purchases."  Cut to a  common-looking man in a perfect suit and crimson
tie.  Standing behind  a podium.  The corporate god himself. Reading. 
His voice was assured,  but not emotional.  There was just enough
warmth in the tone to suggest  honesty.  He wore glasses you sensed
came out only for a text.  "Ladies  and gentlemen, I come before you as
a man accountable for a major failure.  Our scientists, in the course
of rigorous testing, have  discovered flaws in the design of the
Next-Generation Fighter-Bomber,  set to be America's premier combat
aircraft in the new century.  These  flaws are fully the responsibility
of our company, and our company will  fix them at no cost to the
taxpayer.  Further, in view of the  inevitable delays to the deployment
of this essential system,  Macon-Bolt Industries will discount the cost
of the program to the  Department of Defense by nearly twelve billion
dollars over the next five years.  We at Macon-Bolt pride ourselves on
serving our country  and its brave men and women in uniform, and those
interests will always  come first." The correspondent came back
on-screen.  "Barbie, it was  truly a day of revelation and change.  Mr.
Nechestny went on to  announce that our French allies will be given a
major role in the  further development and production of the
Next-Generation  Fighter-Bomber, which will then become not only
America's but NATO's  dominant combat aircraft over the next decade. 
Analysts were startled, since the French aerospace industry had been
regarded as Macon-Bolt's  last remaining competition.  We're looking at
a new era in  international cooperation in the arms trade here. 
Returning to the  main theme--that twelve-billion-dollar refund to the
taxpayer-shortly  after Macon-Bolt's mea culpa announcement, the White
House issued a  press release praising the company's integrity and its
contribution to  the national defense.  Back to you, Barbie."  The
anchorwoman returned  and told us, "More on the Macon-Bolt announcement
and the volatile afternoon on Wall Street coming up on Business News." 
Hunt laughed out  loud. And clicked off the television.  He laughed
again.  "A thing of  goddamned beauty," he said.  "And a thing of
beauty is a joy forever."  He drank and the hospital smell of gin
sanitized the room.  "Nechestny's a goddamned genius. Frogs won't know
what hit 'em.  He'll  own the Eiffel Tower, screw their wives and
daughters, and they'll give  him nylons and chocolate bars."  Hunt
granted me an intimate smile.  "And I'll save you any concern on his
behalf.  Bob isn't going to the  poorhouse any time soon.  Macon-Bolt's
stock dropped twelve bucks a share after that announcement.  Nechestny
grabbed the opportunity for a  major buy back Stock closed two and a
half points higher than the  opening price.  Made a nice pile myself,
if my broker didn't dick it  up.  Refill, John?"  No.  One drink had a
lot of hitting power today.  I craved water.  With about six separate
layers of dried sweat on my  skin.  And one layer of whiskey sour.  The
air-conditioning felt lush  and poisonous.  "And don't you worry about
that little discount to the  country," Hunt went on.  "Old Bob'll just
wrap it into program costs.  Macon-Bolt won't lose a nickel.  And the
NATO deal's going to be big."  He put a hand on his knee and leaned
forward.  "Get my point yet,  John?"

Yes.  I got his point.  "You know," Hunt said, "I look at you and I 
just see a permanent hardhead.  You're just an incurable dumb-ass 
idealist.  You remind me of old Mickey Farnsworth."

"I take that as a compliment."  "You would.  And I suppose it is one. 
In a useless sort of way.  But let's remember that poor old Mickey's 
dead."  He looked into his glass and rattled the ice.  "The age of 
idealists is over, son.  If there ever was one.  The only thing 
idealists do is crap on the sidewalk and call it art.  And it is a 
terrible goddamned waste.  At least in your case.  You have 
potential."

"Thanks."  Hunt waved a paw at me.  "Now, don't go getting goddamned 
smug.  When all the dust settles, I want you to try to think clearly. 
Step back and look at the big picture.  I'm telling you, John, the 
alliance between our defense industry, our military, and Congress is 
going to keep this nation on top for another fifty years, maybe a 
hundred.  Maybe forever."  He swept an arm across the room, across the 
world.  "Everything that happened this past week ... it was all 
nickel-and-dime mon key business.  Small-time.  Sideshow of a sideshow.
Now the winners keep an eye on the sideshows.  But they concentrate on
what's going on in the big tent."  I knew he was right.  But I still 
believed in something better.  Even if I could not see it, describe it,
or begin to shape it.  "Tell you what," Hunt said.  "We're done now. 
At least, I'm done with you.  The rest is silence."  I want you to just
go on home.  And don't waste time and energy on those disks Mary 
Farnsworth has hidden away in that old PC box."  He read my face.  "Oh,
they're the -real thing, all right.  But it doesn't matter now.  Hell,
you keep 'em.  As a souvenir.  And don't worry.  Nobody's going to 
touch Mary.  I promise you that."

He got to his feet.  Minotaur rising.

"What about Tish?"  I asked.  Hunt made the wrong face.  "John .. . you
came to me-so you claimed--because I'm a man who pays his debts. 
Well,  I'm paying my debt to you.  You're walking out of here alive. 
George  is going to drive you home.  But you do not have a further line
of  credit."  He folded his arms.  "It's time for you to go now."  So
that was it.  Tish was dead.  Gone.  If I had really been an idealist,
or  just a man worth a damn, I would have punched him.  Fought him. 
Even  if it killed me. Instead, I walked out of that library door and
down  the hall with an emptiness inside me that was as broad as all the
prairies on the continent.  At first. Hunt just followed.  But out in 
the twilight he took over the lead.  We came around the corner of the 
house and tunneled between a brace of bodyguards. Hunt's Lincoln 
waited on the spotlit parking apron.

There was a shadow in the backseat.

It was Tish.  "Next time," Hunt told me, "let's be on the same side 
from the beginning."

But I did not care about old generals anymore.  I did not care about 
anything except crossing twenty feet of parking apron and getting that 
car door open.  We made a clumsy mess of it.  Tish trying to get out, 
me trying to get in.  She looked startled and weary.  And as beautiful 
as heaven.  We collided and she kissed me all over the face and cried. 
Her guitar case and a big gym bag had been stuffed in the backseat with
her, making our reunion crowded and wonderful.  She worried over the 
blood on my clothes--Corry's blood--and I told her it was nothing.  I 
don't really remember the car starting or driving back down to the 
public road.  I only remember holding my woman so tightly she had to
ask me to let her breathe.

Our mouths were dry and we stank like two apes.  But as soon as we got 
in the door, we headed upstairs.  And almost made it.  The action 
started on the landing.  Several dynamic iterations of calisthenics 
later, we were on the bed. I never had changed the sheets, and it was 
just as well.  We had not talked.  And did not talk.  There was too 
much to say, and I guess we were both afraid of some of it.  Anyway, 
nothing that could be put into words was important now.

We were noisy, though.  Toward midnight, in a gorge of quiet, the 
doorbell rang. I let it ring a second time.  And a third.  Before an 
alarm went off in my back brain.  If it was trouble, I did not want it 
coming up here where Tish lay.  I jumped out of bed, trying to remember
 where my khakis might have landed.

"Don't go," Tish said.  "Just for a minute," I told her.  Not sure if I
 would ever be coming back.  It had all seemed too good to be true.

A fist began pounding the door.  I jumped down the stairs.

It was Dickey.  Alone in the porch light.  Holding a couple of 
folders.

He looked at my bare chest and feet.

"Sorry about the timing."

"What do you want?"

"Can I come in for a minute?"

"Do I have a choice?"

He considered me with cop eyes.

"Yeah," he told me.  "This time you get a choice."  I looked down.  His
suit had not improved yet.  And his shoes had carried him down a lot
of  sidewalks.

"Come on in," I said.  He dragged the last of the day's heat in with 
him.  I shut the door against the city night and we stood in the 
hallway.  Letting the central air put things right.

"I don't owe you any apologies," he said.

"I didn't ask for any."  He lifted his hand.  "I'm not here to screw 
with you, okay?  And I don't owe you any goddamn apologies.  Or 
explanations.  But I just want you to try to see my side.  Between two 
guys who maybe want the same thing but go at it in different ways." 
His  face showed loss.  Years of it.  Decades.  "A guy wants to be a
good  cop.  The academy lesson plan and all that.  The sacred rule of
law.  But it all just gets so big and fast.  And bad.  I mean, look at
this  city."  He pointed through the wall.  "Just look at it.  We're so
far  from the goddamned rule of law that it's all a cop can do to try
to  hold back the rule of evil.  And not every cop in the department
wants  to do that much."  He looked at me with a face sanded raw by his
work.  "You think we would've ever gotten a single case to court on
this one?  To say nothing of your dip-passport French pals who killed a
United  States senator.  No, buddy, you just look at what we did get. 
We came  out okay.  Maybe we didn't get all the bad guys.  But ... by
my working  standards ... we got a pretty good score."

"I just want to put it all behind me," I told him.  He twisted up one 
side of his mouth as if a hook had caught it.  "Yeah.  But you're going
to think about it.  I know your type.  You'll think about it till the 
day you die, soldier boy." He shifted his potato-sack posture. 
Energizing himself to go back out of my door and face his streets. 
"Anyway, I don't want your stomach to get upset every time you think 
about me."  He thrust out his hand.  Offering the folders he had 
brought with him.

"Here.  They're a gift.  City Hall won't miss them."  The entryway 
light was weak. I had to lift the folders to read the titles on the 
cardboard lips.  They were police records.  One for Tish, one for me. 
Hers was a good bit thicker.

"I'm going to marry her," I told him.

He shrugged.  "You could do worse.  It's all a crap shoot

And he left.  I double-locked the door behind him.  I stood dully for a
moment, looking at the folders but not really seeing them.  Lot of 
weariness to sleep away.  It was no time for serious thinking.  I 
started upstairs.  Then I noticed Tish's guitar case and the King Kong 
gym bag she had picked up somewhere along the way.  I went back down 
the steps stone-legged, dropped the files on the stereo stand, and 
picked up her baggage.  I wanted to see her buck naked playing that 
guitar before I went to sleep.  When I entered the bedroom--our room, 
our fortress--Tish half rose from the sheets.  That would have been a 
painting.

"Is everything all right?"  "Better," I said, "than I ever thought it 
could be. Hey, I brought your stuff up.  Would you do me--" "Oh," she 
said.  "John.  I forgot.  That bag.  He said it was for you.  That 
scarred-up guy who looks like a bull."

The bag suddenly felt heavier in my hand.

Body parts?  A bomb?  I was weary and incautious.  Anxious for closure.
I put down the guitar case.  And yanked open the bag's zipper.  Blow
us  to kingdom come.  At least the timing was good.  Go out on a cloud
of  ecstasy.  The bag was full of money.  More money than even bankers
see  in cash.

Tish gasped.  "My God," she said.  "He told me ... I mean, he said it 
was something he owed you.  I didn't ..."  I held up two fistfuls of 
banded hundred-dollar bills.  Baffled.  Then, slowly, I grew one of 
those little smiles you get when you realize the joke really is on you.
"The guy's crazy," I said. "He's got one of those warped 
nineteenth-century sensibilities."  Tish did not hear me.  She was 
never a greedy girl.  Except in lovemaking.  But a mountain of cash 
like that would turn the head of a saint.  She got out of bed and stood
naked in front of the money.  "So," Tish asked finally, "do you, like, 
have to report this on your taxes?"

I took the disks from Mary Farnsworth and mailed them to the General 
Accounting Office with an anonymous letter.  Nothing ever came of it. 
The money amounted to exactly five hundred thousand dollars.  It was my
commission from the pile Hunt ripped off Nechestny to pay himself for 
the phony disks.  He probably took Macon-Bolt for twenty or thirty 
million, not ten.  Plus expenses.  In their different ways, the French,
Aley and Corry, and Faust and Gabrielli and Rob Burns had been set to 
blow the deal.  Hunt had used me as bait to draw them out of their 
holes.  I had not saved the country or the defense budget.  But I had
done a mighty good turn for old Punchy.  Law of unintended 
consequences.

I was smart enough to realize the money was a reward and not a bribe. 
I  was not important enough to bribe.  If I really had been an
idealist, I  suppose I would have sent the money back to Hunt.  I
didn't.  I used my  connections--the kind you build up over the years
in the intelligence  world--to launder it.  I knew Mary Farnsworth
would not have accepted a  nickel, so I arranged an anonymous
quarter-of-a-mil donation, in  General Farnsworth's honor, to a
scholarship fund for minorities.  It  pleased Mary--she wept with pride
when she told me about it. The other  half is parked offshore in Tish's
name.  We have an agreement.  As long as we stay together, she is not
allowed to touch a dollar of it.  But  if she ever gets restless and
puts on her traveling shoes, it's hers.  No matter what happens, she'll
never have to count pennies in a  one-room apartment again. We're
getting married next June.  Mary  Farnsworth is hosting the reception.
She's become the mother Tish  never really had.  I went back to work. 
Nobody wanted to pry into what  happened.  People made little jokes and
let it go.  They had no idea.  And didn't want one.  As soon as I
could, I took another week of leave.  And flew up to Massachusetts. 
Habit of the tribe.  I laid my flowers  on Emerson Carroll's grave and
saluted.  In the end, he had been a good  soldier. But not a lucky one.
And I went back to General Farnsworth's  grave.  Regularly. I talked
to his headstone like an old widow.  He  remains my hero.  But there is
vanity in all of us, and it takes  eccentric forms.  I had to find the
workman with whom I had spoken the  afternoon of Farnsworth's funeral. 
I had to prove to him that he had  been wrong.  That there is still
loyalty in the world.  That some of us  do come back.  I was certain I
would run into him eventually.  But I never did.  Finally, I went to
the cemetery's admin offices and

inquired.  I even remembered his name.  Rickie York.  Richard York, 
probably. After searching the records, the personnel clerk told me 
that no such man had ever been employed at Arlington.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction, so it is less interesting than life.  It is,
however, more succinct and manageable.  When it works, fiction gives 
the illusion of immediacy, born of compression and exaggeration.  We 
see that which lies before us with unnatural clarity.  Z/the author has
luck.  The writer of fiction is the adult counterpart to the child who
comes home full of tall tales.  Fiction is lying, born of an old 
compulsion.  Yet when masters write, it brings us to a greater truth. 
In lesser hands such as mine, this form of entertainment still may 
serve good ends--or so I have convinced myself.  The novel you have 
just finished has two purposes.  The first is to be sufficiently 
engaging to finish in the black and keep my publisher happy.  The 
second is to shine a storyteller's lamp on a problem of national 
importance.  Traitor's characters are fictional (in the case of Tish, 
inspired by listening to Aimee Mann's brilliant disc.  Whatever, while
driving in the rain).  But the problem of massive corruption in the 
defense industry is real.  As a serving soldier, I was appalled by it; 
as a citizen, I am enraged.  The fact that this corruption is, in most 
cases, technically legal disgusts me.  It should disgust you, too. 
Each year, we spend tens of billions of dollars on weapons that do not 
work as promised and that are inappropriate to our needs.  It is 
impossible to kill these programs.  Too much is at stake. While 
contractors speak piously about giving our men and women in uniform 
"the best," and about jobs for the American worker, defense acquisition
is really about fantastic profits torn from a system that lacks
serious  accountability. In Washington, those in power know the system
is  corrupt-morally, ethically, and practically.  But there is no 
constituency for change in our capital. Defense contractors are big 
campaign and PAC contributors; they are a major source of advertising 
revenue for the media; and they hire retiring generals and admirals at 
generous salaries, ensuring that these officers will not speak out for 
reform while on active duty.  My beliefs are generally the same as
those of John Reynolds in this book-the plot is fabricated, but the 
spirit is true.  I do not imagine that a one-man crusade disguised as a
thriller can change much.  But it is the best I can do.  I hope that 
readers will carry a sense of this problem with them after they have 
finished the book and put it away on a back shelf.  One man can do 
little, but informed Americans pulling together can accomplish a great 
deal over a span of years.  Defense procurement reform is an idea whose
time will come-hopefully before a military crisis.  The current system
does not serve either our soldiers or our citizens well.  While we,
the  people, constitute the wealthiest nation in history, we cannot
afford waste on this scale.  We need a strong defense--but we are
getting the  wrong defense.  Anyway, our national defense begins in our
classrooms--not in the boardrooms of contractors.  Given the deep 
pockets of defense industry and the genius of its lawyers, it will take
time to clean up this vicious and lucrative system.  But I believe it 
can be done.  Honest men and women still can win in this country, if 
they do not fall victim to the cynicism that is corruption's great 
enabler.  There is a lighter side to this book, of course.  Since my 
childhood in the Pennsylvania coal fields where the world came to us 
through paperbacks and three black-and-white television channels, I 
have loved the noir masters of print and film.  They described a great,
smoky, seductive world in which the women cocked their eyebrows like 
Lauren Bacall and the men toughed it out to the final showdown.  The 
dialogue was the way people should have spoken; the stock characters 
were endlessly renewable; and the same old plot was eternally fresh. 
The creators always gave good value, and you sensed that their 
morality--it was ferocious behind the murk--was closer to the real 
texture of life than were the entertainments for which 
junior-high-school students were supposed to settle in those days. 
Hammett, Chandler, Cain, and all the Hollywood people right down to a 
boozed-up screenwriter named Faulkner, policed the fog of my 
adolescence.  This novel is a grateful, inadequate tribute to them.  I 
wish more books could be this much fun to write.  It was a labor of
conviction and love.  Even my editor's suggestions were as seductive as
Veronica Lake.  If the masters of the genre were alive, the incredible
scandal of our defense industry would inspire them to new 
masterpieces--but those giants are dead.  The reader will have to 
settle for this three-hundred-page fan letter.

I hope you found it a good read.