CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Taylor saw Kelly Kramer the second she exited the arrival gate at Baltimore-Washington International. He was standing against the posts that delineated the arriving passengers from those waiting. He looked taller than she remembered. He smiled as she approached, his teeth white against the natural pigments in his skin. His hair was longer, almost to his shoulders, and he still sported the goatee. He looked good.

“Hi,” she said, dropping her carry-on and hugging him, a simple act repeated countless times every day in every airport.

“You okay?” he asked when they broke off the embrace. “You look great.”

“I’m doing a bit better,” she said. They walked toward the baggage carousel. “I’m really trying to fight off this depression. It’s tough.”

The warning light flashed and a siren sounded for a few seconds, and then the carousel chugged to life. The first bag to drop onto the stainless steel track was hers. “Now that’s never happened before,” she said.

Kelly plucked the bag off and set it on its wheels. “A sign, that’s what it is. A good sign. You’re supposed to be here.”

“That the way these things work?” she asked as they headed for the parking lot. He just grinned.

They took 295 South, the Friday afternoon traffic thick but moving well, and Taylor watched the mileage signs as they neared Washington. When they were only a few miles out, she said, “I thought your place was in Baltimore.”

He shook his head. “Nope. I’m in D.C.”

“You should have told me. I’d have flown into Dulles or Reagan.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, concentrating on the road.

“The National Security Agency is about halfway between the two cities, isn’t it?”

“Pretty close,” he said as they passed Cheverly, on the outskirts of the city. Kelly took 50 West and cut north of Anacostia Park, following the main thoroughfare past Mount Vernon Square. The traffic was heavy but moving as they rounded Dupont Circle, the massive trees ghosts of their summer selves. A light layer of fresh snow covered the ground, bright white against the starkness of the barren trees. “You want to get an early dinner?” he asked.

“Sure. What do you have in mind?”

“There’s a great little Italian place near my condo. And they don’t take reservations.”

“That’s a good thing?” she asked.

“Friday night in D.C. without a reservation and you’ll starve. The only places we’ll get in now are the ones who don’t book in advance. And it’s a wonderful little restaurant, if you like pasta.”

“Love pasta,” she said. “Let’s try it.”

Kelly navigated through the rush-hour traffic jamming the circle, then cut north on Connecticut Avenue to Columbia. He found a parking space a few doors from the bistro and they walked briskly down the block. The wind had come up, and the snow was beginning to fall again. Taylor buttoned her coat and held the lapels tight to her neck. She detested cold weather and found driving in snow about the most confusing and dangerous thing in the world. Her view of people who lived in cold climates was mixed—admiration for living with the adversity and wonderment at why they would choose to do it. After all, there was always California. Warm, and by the looks of rush hour, the traffic wasn’t any worse. They pushed on the door, and a blast of warm air hit them.

“I’ll stay here,” she said, standing between the inner and outer doors where the heat vent aimed a steady stream of hot air at the new arrivals.

Kelly shook his head. “California girl,” he said. More customers were a few feet from the door, and he pulled her in by the elbow. “Come on. Let’s get a table.”

The interior of Pasta Mia was very crowded and very Italian, with brightly colored red-checkered tablecloths adorning the tightly packed tables. They found a table, one of the last empty ones and settled in, draping their coats on the backs of their chairs. The waiter was by a few seconds after they sat down, with menus and to take their drink order. Taylor scanned the selection of twenty-five or more pastas.

“What’s good?”

“The spinach fettuccine is out of this world. It’s done in a porcini-mushroom sauce. And the bread is baked fresh in the kitchen.”

“The food looks really good,” she said, watching the waiter go past with two steaming plates of pasta.

“It is.” He changed the subject. “Anything more on what the Mexican police found at the scene?”

“Not really. Nothing of any significance.”

“Did they find any more of him—I mean, more than just his hand?” He swallowed hard, realizing how insensitive that must have sounded to Taylor.

She reached over and touched his hand lightly, to let him know the gaffe was okay. “I think the Mexican police tried to find his body. There was no way. Not with the currents at the end of the cape. And there are so many fish. Big fish.” She didn’t bother describing any more of what had happened to Alan’s body.

“Where’s this photo that you didn’t want to part with?”

Taylor dug in her inside pocket and pulled it out. She handed it across to him. “I suppose I should have asked Alan where this picture was taken, but this was my little piece of him that he didn’t know I had.”

“How’s that?” Kelly asked, taking the photo. “Not sure I know what you mean.”

Taylor waited as the waiter dropped off their drinks and took their order, then said, “You remember how every now and then I’d get roped into going to one of those horrible golf tournaments with clients?” she asked.

Kelly rolled his eyes back in his head. “Remember? You’d make all our lives hell for about three days every time that happened. You hated those tournaments.”

“Loathed them,” she said. “Anyway, I had one and I checked my golf bag—no balls, no tees. So I poked through Alan’s bag. Found what I was looking for, but also found this picture. It was in one of the side pockets of his bag. I thought about telling him, but tucked it away in a book instead. It was my little piece of him that was just mine. I’ve always treasured it.”

“He sure looks happy,” Kelly said. “I wonder what got him laughing like that.”

“It’s a great picture.”

Kelly scrutinized it closely. “I see the writing you were talking about. I can’t make it out either.”

“Do you think somebody at your office could enlarge it, maybe sharpen it up?”

“Probably. I think I know who to ask. She’s a real whiz at stuff like this.”

“Thanks.”

Their food arrived, and they ate and talked mostly about his new life in Washington. Taylor was interested and asked a lot of questions, some of which Kelly was very vague answering. After he had danced about a few replies, she set her fork on her plate and leaned back in the chair.

“Sorry, Kelly, I know you too well. There’s something you’re not telling me. I’m okay if you want to keep certain things private—just tell me to stop asking questions. I’ll live.”

Kelly played with his food for a minute or two. Finally, he set his fork down and took a drink of beer. “Because of who I work for, there are some things I can tell you and some things I can’t. I’m sure you understand that.” She nodded and he continued. “What I’m going to tell you is not classified, but it’s stretching the limits of what they would want me to say. And all this stays at this table.”

“Of course.”

He took another drink of beer. “Before I came to work for G-cubed, I was with the agency.”

Taylor’s face registered shock. “But your résumé, your work history. I checked out your references before hiring you. There was no tie-in to the National Security Agency.”

He shook his head. “They’re very good at manufacturing past identities to mask where their former employees have worked. For some reason, they like to wipe that slate clean when you leave.” He set the beer glass on the checkered cloth. “And there’s one other thing. Not all my time is spent at NSA.”

She furrowed her brow. “What? Then where do you . . .” She let the sentence trail off. Finally, she said, “You work for the CIA. That’s why you live in D.C.”

He nodded. “National Security Agency loans me out to the guys over at Langley. I’m not a spy or anything like that. I work in the Science and Technology Directorate. Computer forensics. Nothing devious. And technically speaking, I’m employed by NSA.”

“How long did you work there before you came to San Francisco?” she asked, her mind spinning.

“About five years. I was getting burned out. I needed a change, and we agreed on an extended leave of absence. It was a good idea to put a lot of mileage between myself and both agencies, so something on the West Coast was perfect. They created a work history for me, and I applied for the job at G-cubed. Everything from there on is exactly as you know it. I wasn’t involved in any clandestine activities while I was working for you. What you saw is what you got. With the exception of my work history.”

Taylor was quiet. The news was simply unbelievable. Was nothing in her life normal anymore? The one person she had reached out to when all else seemed surreal wasn’t who he seemed. Kelly Kramer’s life was a lie. She stared at her pasta, her appetite gone. She saw her hand reaching for her wineglass, wondering if she was telling it to do that. Her fingers closed around the stem and she took a sip, the fruity taste of the chardonnay pleasing to her palate. She repeated the action, this time tilting the glass back and drinking heartily. She set the empty glass on the table.

Kelly hadn’t deceived her without good reason. He was bound by whatever contract he had signed when he first entered the top-secret world of the National Security Agency. They had manufactured the work history for him and insisted he use it on his résumé. She had done her due diligence and phoned the references he had provided. The answers to her questions concerning his work ethic had been predetermined by the agency.

She made a decision.

Taylor let her hand slide across the table and rest on top of Kelly’s. “Okay, I can live with this. I think I understand.”

He didn’t move his hand, just left it sitting under hers. “All right then, let’s see if we can’t find a silver lining in this cloud. After all, we’ve got some pretty high-tech government resources at our fingertips.”

“Tomorrow,” she said, smiling. It felt good to smile. “Tomorrow we find out what we can about that photo.”

He returned the smile and turned his hand over, gripping hers. “Tomorrow.”