Holly was at her desk at State the following morning. Her deputy secretary, Maclean McIntosh, knocked and entered the room. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully.
“Good morning, Mac,” she replied. “Anything of note happen in my absence?”
“I had a note from the White House chief of staff that we’re to host a writer, name of Martin Schell, for an indeterminate time. He’s doing some research for a book.”
“What sort of book?” she asked.
“Nonfiction, I gather. He must be pretty well connected.”
“Mac, if I know you at all, you know exactly how connected he is and everything else about him.”
Mac grinned sheepishly and opened a file. “Born in Boston forty years ago, attended Groton, then Yale, graduated summa cum laude. He’s written half a dozen well-reviewed books featuring various government agencies, a couple of bestsellers. Divorced two years ago, no kids.”
“That sounds pretty accurate to me,” a voice said from the doorway.
Holly looked up to see a man—six-two, a hundred and sixty pounds, thick, longish salt-and-pepper hair—carrying a handsome, well-used briefcase and dressed in a tweed suit and a knitted necktie. “Let’s see some ID, or I’ll have to have you taken out and shot,” Holly said.
He produced a letter from an inside pocket. “I’m Martin Schell. This is a copy of the letter you’ve already received from the White House chief of staff.”
Holly read it. “Picture ID?”
He opened his briefcase and produced a well-stamped passport.
“A little travel tip,” Holly said. “Don’t ever carry your passport in a briefcase; it could be too easily stolen. Put it into an inside jacket pocket and button it down.”
“Point taken,” Schell said, doing as instructed.
“Have a seat,” Holly said. “Coffee?”
“Thanks, I’ve already had mine,” he replied, sitting down. “You don’t want to know me on more than one cup of coffee.”
“I understand you want to poke around the State Department for a while,” she said.
“I promise not to do any poking. I just want to get a feel for the place, so I can get my readers to think they’ve been here before. Verisimilitude.”
“A few rules,” Holly said. “Don’t open any desk or file drawers. Don’t mess with anybody’s computers. Don’t hit on the women. If you ask somebody a question and don’t get a straight answer, move on to another question. There are others, but I can’t think of them right now. We haven’t had a visitor like you before.”
“I’m grateful for the opportunity, Madam Secretary, and I’ll try not to infringe on anybody’s good nature.”
Holly flipped through his file. “I see you have all the clearances, so I won’t take the trouble to bar you from any large meetings. Smaller, more intimate ones are another thing entirely. You’ll need my or Mac’s permission for those.”
“If I stray too far afield, just give a sharp jerk on my leash, and I’ll sit and stay.”
“That’s a start,” she said. “This is Maclean McIntosh, deputy secretary. He’s Mac, and I’m Holly.”
“How do?” he said to Mac. “I’m Marty. Holly, can I ask you what your usual day is like?”
“I haven’t had a usual day yet,” Holly said. “It’s a morass of meetings, phone calls—many of them to or from abroad, and many of them contentious. We try to be diplomatic, but it doesn’t always work.” She turned to McIntosh. “Mac, get this guy a badge, one of the good ones.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mac left the room.
“You want to tell me what your book is about?” she asked.
“You already know what my business is here,” Schell replied. “As for the book, let’s just say it’s about diplomacy, domestic and foreign.”
Mac came back with a plastic-encased visitor’s badge, green in color. It had Schell’s photo, taken by the security staff, already on it. “Hang this around your neck,” Mac said, handing it to Schell. “Don’t take it off until you’re out of the building, and don’t forget to wear it tomorrow and every day you’re with us. And give it back to me when you leave.”
“Right,” Schell replied.
Holly got up, walked to a door, and opened it. “This is a vacant secretary’s office,” she said. “You can camp here, but don’t use the phones. Use your mobile.”
“Right.” Schell walked into the office and sat down.
“Did you bring a laptop?” she asked.
“In my briefcase,” he replied.
“Keep it in your briefcase when you’re here, but lock it in that cabinet if you don’t want to haul it around.” She pointed. “The key’s in the center desk drawer.”
He opened the drawer and found it. “Thanks.”
“I’ll leave you to it.” She left the small office and closed the door behind her.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door she had just closed. “Come in.”
Schell walked in. “I need a few minutes alone with you sometime today,” he said.
“Now is good,” she said. “Close the big door and sit down.”
He did. “Let’s start with the obvious: How long have you known Mac McIntosh, and what’s his background?”
“About eight years, starting at the Agency. He came to the White House with me as chief of staff of the National Security Council, then to State when I moved over. He’s a Boston boy: Exeter, followed by Harvard where he stayed long enough to get a PhD in poli-sci. Speaks three or four languages. Married, no kids.”
“Do you think he might be a good fit for a mole?”
“I don’t know what a good fit for a mole is,” she replied.
“Have you ever learned anything about him that surprised you? Something not in his file?”
Holly thought about that. “He sings and plays folk and jazz guitar. We can’t shut him up at parties.”
“What’s his wife like?”
“New Yorker, Harvard, like that. She works for the Joint Chiefs of Staff; I’ve no idea what she does there.”
“Does she speak any languages?”
“Spanish, I think.”
“Does either of them speak German or Russian?”
“Mac speaks both, though he says his Russian isn’t so hot. Why do I think you’ve already read both their files?” Holly asked.
“I’m looking for stuff that isn’t in their files,” Schell replied. “Is there anybody on this floor that you regard as even a little suspicious? Furtive, takes a lot of work home, a linguist?”
“Nobody furtive, but lots of the other two.”
“Is there a staff meeting scheduled for this week?”
Holly checked her calendar. “This afternoon at three, room 721, one floor down.”
“Is that where the staff meeting was held when Mac spoke those words that got picked up on the GRU intercept?”
“Yes,” Holly said. “And yes, it’s been swept, no bugs present.”
“See you there,” Schell said, then left.