Seven miles south of Washington, DC, the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad bike and running path started in Shirlington, went up northwest through Falls Church and ended nearly fifty miles away in Purcellville.
Saturday morning at nine thirty, the FBI’s Behavioral Science Division’s newest section chief, Francis Sinclair, pulled his new Subaru Forester off the Dulles Toll Road into the leafy town of Vienna that was midway on the path.
Three minutes later, he came upon the bike path access he was told to report to. Just in off the road he noticed the shell of a tiny old-fashioned rail station along the path now serving as a rain shelter. He parked in the grassy shoulder behind it, making sure to bury his car deep under the shadows of the trees.
It took another five minutes to walk from the car to a footbridge down the path where he’d been told to wait.
He dabbed a bead of sweat off his forehead as he looked through the bridge’s chain-link down at a sluggish brown-green stream below. He thought to check his phone for the temperature but then remembered that he had left it at home like he’d been told.
He looked north up the desolate curving path, at the trees and transmission towers and telephone poles.
Then he closed his eyes and remembered the night he’d been compromised the year before.
It was in a cop bar that he’d gone to with an old classmate from Holy Cross who worked at State. His friend’s brother was a DC cop, and it had been his birthday and they had actually closed the bar down as a bunch of strippers came in. He hadn’t even wanted to cheat, but he was drunk and this one half-Spanish, half-Chinese-looking stripper was super hot, and she took him back to the room where they put all the empty bottles.
The camera that had recorded him must have been one of those low-light night vision ones.
He’d been able to mostly forget about it.
That was until they asked him to come for a meeting over at Justice the morning he flew back from Jackson after visiting Agent Hagen in the hospital.
Francis was still sweating against the fence several minutes later when he noticed some movement to his left.
Just to the north of the bridge, something large suddenly emerged from the undergrowth.
It was a horse.
Sinclair felt his jaw loosen as he recognized the stiff-backed haughty-looking woman riding it.
“Hello, Francis,” Dawn Warner said as Sinclair approached.
He looked up at her. At her tight white T-shirt, her tight dark riding pants, her black leather boots. Her riding helmet was one of those English bobby-hat-style ones.
Sinclair stared at the horse. He knew nothing about horses. This one was brown.
“You live around here?” he said, puzzled.
“Not too far,” Dawn Warner said as she dismounted with surprising agility. “My daughters were all equestrians at a stable about a mile from here, and I still come out here and ride every now and then. I find that riding in the woods is a great way to clear your head. What do they call it? Forest bathing? Why don’t you bathe with me a little, Francis. Walk me back down the trail here so we can talk.”