After that we went back inside to start editing photos. Somewhere through a neighbor’s open window, a clock chimed midnight.
“Should I make a pot of coffee?” I said.
“Sure,” Luke said, though by now neither of us needed it. We were both wound up, the tension in the room as thick as a stew.
He set up his laptop on my dining table so he could watch me as I worked at the desk. I tucked Napoleon Duval’s business card into the top desk drawer since I didn’t need Luke seeing that and moved the pictures of Katya and Scott Hathaway to a different folder on my computer.
“How much longer are you going to keep staring at me? I’m starting to feel like a lab specimen under a microscope,” I finally said without looking up.
“I’m not staring at you. I’m staring at these pictures, at any male who looks remotely Russian, wondering if he’s your guy.” He was frowning at his computer screen.
“Too bad the pictures don’t come with an audio track so I could listen to the voices.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. “The only photos I have of Scott Hathaway with someone from his staff are pictures with women. I know a couple of men walked in with him.”
“All my pictures are group portraits with his wife and the people Moses rounded up. Donors, Friends of the National Gallery,” he said. “I already looked through them.”
I went into the kitchen and got the coffeepot, filling our mugs.
“Did you bring your copy of the guest list?” I said. “We could at least check names.”
He unzipped his backpack and pulled out the list, scanning it. “Only two men, unless Ashley is a guy. Eric Nettle, his chief of staff, and David Epps, deputy chief of staff.”
“I wonder if either of them is deep in debt? The Russian said he knew the American needed cash, so he must have done some homework and figured out who was vulnerable.”
Luke set the list on the table. “Hathaway certainly doesn’t need money. What’s his motive?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“What makes you so sure the Russian works for Vasiliev?”
“I suppose it’s possible he works for Yuri Orlov.” I went back to my desk and sat down.
“Maybe, except a diplomat of Orlov’s stature doesn’t arrange to have a political opponent assassinated on foreign soil.” Luke sipped his coffee, looking thoughtful. “Though, if he did, it wouldn’t be the first time. Remember that crazy Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.? It was like something out of a bad movie. They found a used-car salesman and got a Mexican drug gang involved. At first nobody official believed it because it was so weird.”
“I remember. I read about it in England.”
“Though if it was Orlov, he wouldn’t team up with Hathaway, not after that scene tonight,” Luke said. “And you said you’re positive Hathaway’s involved.”
I had to agree with him. “Okay, not Orlov and Hathaway, but I definitely think the target’s Attar.”
“Hathaway and Attar are good friends. He wouldn’t be part of any plan to murder Attar, or turn his back and let someone else do it,” Luke said. “This doesn’t work on any level. In fact, no combination of players we’ve come up with works.”
“So far. If we had more information, maybe we wouldn’t be going around in circles.”
“Fair enough, but not tonight. It’s late, we’re not thinking straight anymore, and I’m starting to screw up editing these pictures.” Luke closed his laptop. “Why don’t we call it quits? It’s nearly two o’clock.”
I put my laptop to sleep. “Fine with me.”
He packed up and at the front door laid his hand on my shoulder.
Here it was. He was going to ask me to e-mail him my pictures after I was through editing them and tell me not to bother coming in tomorrow.
“What is it?” I said.
“I’m just going to bring this up once and then I’ll shut up,” he said. “I’ve been through what you’re going through now. The first year’s pure hell. Some days you don’t think you can even get out of bed.”
It took a moment for it to sink in that he wasn’t talking about letting me go. He was talking about his wife’s death.
“Do you think maybe you’re just so stressed that you could have been mistaken about what you heard tonight?” he asked.
I hated doing this, letting him believe it was true that Nick was gone, but I had no choice. “No. I’m not mistaken. I’m sure about what I heard. And thank you for caring enough to ask.”
“Then are you also sure these guys didn’t know you were in the next room listening to them?”
“Positive.”
“Lock up after I go, all right? Including that balcony door. You’re only on the second floor.”
But he waited in the hall until he heard me slide the dead bolt into the jamb and latch the chain. I leaned against the door and listened to the whir of the elevator as it stopped on my floor. The door slid open and shut, then I heard the quiet hum as it descended.
I locked the sliding door and closed the drapes before turning off all the lights. After that, I stripped off my clothes, went to bed, and fell into a restless, anxious sleep. When the late-night alcohol-and-caffeine-induced crazy dreams came, they were of two faceless men who talked about murder as they slowly melted into puddles like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Then Nick called my name as I ran through a fun house of mirrors that led to nothing but dead ends.
* * *
By six thirty I was up, dark smudges under my eyes, a pot of coffee on, back at my desk. The first thing I did before I resumed editing was check e-mail, my morning ritual. Nick’s CIA bosses were still monitoring his accounts, which had all gone dormant, but I couldn’t let go of the foolish hope that I’d be sitting there one day as an e-mail came in, moments after he’d sent it from wherever in the world he was, a link as fragile and finespun as a cobweb, and the heading would be: I’M OKAY COMING HOME LOVE YOU.
But there was no joyful homecoming message, just the usual overnight barrage of mail, including a short, terse note from Perry, all lowercase, no punctuation—his usual chatty style—asking how I was doing. Baz had written a longer letter, asking the same thing with more finesse. I replied to each of them that I was fine, employed (thanks, Perry), and settling into life back home.
Then I typed in every e-mail address Nick had ever used and, on the subject line, wrote: Mom’s Birthday Present. Years ago we had devised a coded way to communicate with each other in case something went wrong, an innocuous-sounding letter involving a family member and some fact the other person knew was patently wrong.
Darling, last night I checked the Internet again for Mom’s birthday gift, looking for that book she wants, the one that’s been so hard to find. I might have located a copy, but someone else wants it very badly and is apparently willing to pay well for it. Not sure what to do next and could use your advice. Love.
If Nick saw this—if—I hoped he’d realize someone had approached me about the well logs. My mother’s birthday was in January and the gifts she favored generally involved a pale blue Tiffany’s box or something in a velvet bag. I hit Send and heard the whoosh of an outgoing letter. Then I poured more coffee and went back to editing last night’s pictures.
After an hour, my neck had a crick in it and my joints felt stiff. In London I would have gone for a run on Hampstead Heath to unwind. I got up and went out on the balcony. The early-morning sky was threaded with clouds tinted the mother-of-pearl shades of an oyster shell. A trash truck banged Dumpsters in the Roosevelt parking lot above the escalating noise of rush-hour traffic. Last night’s reception and those two meetings in the conference room had been replaying in a loop in my head, the undercurrents of threat and menace speeding up until they became a dangerous-sounding whine.
I went inside and took a long hot shower, sluicing away the voices and convincing myself it would be all right once I talked to Napoleon Duval.
But when I called the number on his card at precisely nine o’clock, his phone went straight to voice mail. “Leave a message.”
No name, no you’ve reached and his number. He sounded tough and uncompromising. I lost my nerve, disconnected, and decided to try again later.
At nine thirty I parked the Vespa beside Luke’s Jeep in the postage-stamp space he rented next to our building. A large black SUV with official government plates and shiny enough so I could see my reflection was illegally parked by the bright yellow-and-red Big Wheels Bike mural on the corner of 33rd Street and Cady’s Alley.
Even before I walked through the front door I knew this was bad news. The office was empty—no Ali furtively reading fashion magazines at her desk—which meant whoever belonged to that car was in Luke’s office behind closed doors. I heard the sound of a chair scraping, and a moment later, Luke’s door opened.
A good-looking African-American man with the build and attitude of an ex-Marine stepped into the room. He was about three inches shorter than me and probably in his fifties. His gray-flecked hair was military short, he wore gold wire-rim glasses, and the fatigue lining his well-lived-in face and the deep crow’s-feet around his eyes looked permanent. Navy blazer, khakis, white polo shirt with a logo partially obscured by the jacket, and wing tips as shiny as his car.
Luke was right behind him, looking rumpled and tired. His eyes went straight to me.
“Sophie,” he said, “this is Special Agent Napoleon Duval with the National Counterterrorism Task Force. He stopped by to talk to us about that matter we were discussing last night.”
I had been in midstep when Luke uttered the man’s name, and the shock of it nearly froze me right there. Duval’s face gave away nothing—another disciple of face maintenance—so I kept my expression neutral as well, though I knew he’d caught that tiny flinch. Dammit, Luke had called someone—not Duval, I was sure of that—in spite of what we’d agreed last night: that it was my decision how to handle this. And, poof, Napoleon Duval, my CIA contact, appeared like he’d been conjured out of thin air, though he’d apparently been secunded to a special task force. No wonder he hadn’t answered his phone when I called; he was probably in the middle of interviewing Luke.
We shook hands and I said, “How do you do, Agent Duval?”
“Very well thanks, Ms. Medina.” He pulled out his wallet and handed me a business card. “As Mr. Santangelo said, I’d like to have a word with you, ask you a few questions. Perhaps we could take a little walk, get some fresh air?”
Duval had a light Texas drawl, more of a twang, actually. It sounded like he was asking me for a date.
“Of course,” I said. “I just need a quick word with Mr. Santangelo about a project we’re working on. Our client is very anxious. If you can give me a minute, I’ll meet you outside.”
So I can strangle him while you’re not looking.
“Take your time,” Duval said. “I’ll be right outside.”
I waited until the door shut behind Duval before I swung around to confront Luke. He held up his hand. “Before you say anything, it’s not what you think.”
“Is that so? And what exactly do I think?”
“That I ambushed you.”
“Damn right.”
“Look, I ran into a neighbor this morning when we were both walking to our cars,” he said. “He works for Homeland Security, something in intelligence, but you know how it is with those guys. They can’t tell you anything.”
No fooling. “Go on,” I said.
“So I described a hypothetical situation without going into detail, of course, and asked his advice on how to go through proper channels if I wanted to let someone know about it.”
“And?”
“And apparently it’s like calling the fire department and saying you think you smell smoke coming from under your attic door, but maybe you’re wrong,” he said. “They don’t give advice or deal in what-if. They sound the alarm and send fire trucks and guys with axes and hoses to your front door ready to bust into your attic.”
“Great,” I said, “just great.”
Luke ran both hands through his hair. “Look at it this way: At least you’ll get it over with and then we can forget about it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple. I’ll be back after Duval finishes chewing me up and spitting out what’s left.”
“Relax. He and I had a perfectly civilized talk. It went much better than I expected. He told me I did the right thing, so don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen. Tell him what you told me and you’ll be fine.”
I opened my mouth to tell Luke precisely how wrong this was going to go, and thought better of it. He really had no idea why I was upset.
“Sure,” I said finally. “Wish me luck.”
* * *
Duval was leaning against the Batmobile when I got outside, looking at something on his phone. “You got that client matter all straightened out?” he said.
I pulled his CIA business card out of my pocket. “They gave me this at the embassy in London and told me you’re my contact in the U.S.,” I said. “I tried to call you this morning, but I got your voice mail.”
Duval glanced at the card and scrolled through his phone again. “What time was that?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“What’s your number?”
I told him, and he nodded, verifying my call. “Why didn’t you leave a message?”
“I didn’t want to, under the circumstances,” I said. “I also assume it’s no accident that you turned up after Luke called.”
“You assume right.” Duval clipped his phone to his belt. “Why don’t we head down to the river? It’s a nice day.”
I’d half expected him to tell me he wanted to take me for a little ride where we’d end up in a nondescript office building downtown or on the other side of the Potomac somewhere in Virginia where I’d sit across from him at a table answering questions he’d fire at me like a baseball pitching machine. I hadn’t figured he’d want to take a walk in the park.
“We can take the canal towpath and cut through Grace Street,” I said. “It’s a lot more pleasant than dealing with the crowded sidewalks on Wisconsin and M.”
“Lead the way,” he said.
We turned right at the bike mural and took the little pedestrian bridge over the C&O Canal. Upstream you can see the Potomac River from the towpath, because the canal—all 184.5 miles of it—roughly follows the contours of the river. But by the time you get to Georgetown, the Potomac is a few blocks away, and instead, newish redbrick office buildings and old stone walls rise like a canyon on either side of it.
Duval and I clattered down the steep metal staircase, the sound of our footsteps reverberating off the buildings. On this bright, sunshiny September morning when the air was soft and warm, the kind of day when you felt good to be alive, I expected to see joggers along the towpath or even the backlit silhouettes of people traversing the other bridges farther downstream. Instead we were completely alone and the place was eerily silent. No one looked out an office window or seemed to notice us, and I briefly regretted suggesting that we not join the jostling throngs on Georgetown’s main streets.
“So, how about if you tell me what happened last night at the National Gallery?” Duval said, as though we were getting back to a conversation that had been temporarily derailed.
I thought he might take notes, but maybe he’d written down what Luke had told him and now he just wanted my firsthand account. By the time I’d finished my story, we’d reached the cut-through to Grace Street.
“You have no idea who these men were?” he asked. “You notice anything, like an accent, maybe? Speech tic?”
“The Russian had a deep voice. The American had a cold and he sounded scared.”
“What else?”
“I think they were talking about a plan to kill Taras Attar when he’s in the U.S.,” I said. “They kept talking about a Russian who would arrive in three days.”
“They never mentioned his name?”
“No.”
At the intersection of Grace Street and Wisconsin Avenue, Duval and I turned right and continued down the steep sidewalk toward the river and the waterfront promenade. The thundering traffic noise and the roar of planes landing and taking off from Reagan Airport were deafening.
Duval raised his voice as we turned downriver toward the Kennedy Center. “Do you have any reason to believe these men knew you were in the next room?”
“No,” I said.
He took off his glasses and stared at me. “Meaning all we have is your word you overheard a conversation that appears to involve the Senate majority leader having prior knowledge of an assassination plot of a Russian you presume is Taras Attar.”
It sounded worse coming from him. “Yes.”
Duval and I kept walking until we reached the elaborate fountains at Washington Harbour.
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” I said. “Luke doesn’t know about it.”
Duval put his glasses back on. The lenses had darkened in the sunlight so I could no longer see his eyes. “Speak freely.”
I told him about being summoned to the meeting with Vasiliev and that he’d informed me he wanted the well logs and any information on the test well Crowne Energy had drilled in Abadistan. I said he expected me to be his messenger because he was convinced I had a way to contact Nick.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I asked him how he knew Nick was alive,” I said. “He didn’t feel like sharing that information.”
“You had a busy evening, Ms. Medina,” Duval said.
“Not by choice.” I ignored the little dig. “This time I had a witness. You can verify that conversation with her.”
Duval stopped walking. “What witness?”
“Ali Jones . . . Alicia Jones, the office receptionist. She was in the next room getting an extra set of flash batteries. After Vasiliev left the conference room, she came in and told me she heard the entire conversation.”
“I didn’t see a receptionist when I came into your office.”
“She might have had a late night last night.”
“I see,” Duval said. “You got a home address for her, a phone number?”
I pulled out my phone and looked through my address book. “Just her cell phone. Luke has her address.”
“Never mind. I’ll get everything from him,” he said. “Back to you and this talk. Did Mr. Vasiliev threaten you in any way?”
“He told me his patience lasted only so long,” I said. “And as I was leaving the National Gallery, a black SUV pulled up behind me on Madison Drive. I think the driver was trying to run me off the road, or at least scare me.”
“You think?”
“Before anything happened I got away and lost him. Maybe it was random, but later I wondered if Arkady Vasiliev wanted to make sure I knew he meant business and that was his way of warning me.”
“You want to tell me how you lost an SUV on a Vespa? Driving down a one-way street on the Mall?”
I said, surprised, “How do you know I drive a Vespa?”
He pointed his index fingers at his eyes. “Sometimes we’re very low-tech. The only vehicle outside your building when I arrived was a Jeep. When I left, a Vespa was parked next to it and you had shown up.”
“Oh.”
“So how’d you lose that car?”
“I took a shortcut across the Mall on one of the footpaths. He didn’t follow me.”
Duval’s mouth twitched. “I see.”
We had nearly reached the end of the shops and restaurants and office buildings that made up the Washington Harbour complex. Duval veered over to the river and leaned against the safety rail with his back to the Potomac as though he was just there to people-watch and enjoy a lazy day. I joined him, since it seemed like the logical thing to do.
Duval seemed to be mulling what I’d said, and his silence was making me nervous. “Are you in contact with your husband, Ms. Medina?” he asked finally.
“No.”
“Have you tried to get in touch with him?”
“I’ve sent him e-mails. He doesn’t reply.”
“When was the last time you did that?”
If he didn’t already know the answer, he could find out soon enough. “This morning.”
“Why, particularly, this morning?”
“To tell him about that conversation with Arkady Vasiliev.”
“Either of those stories you just told me—the meeting with Vasiliev and the discussion between the two men—is disturbing on its own,” Duval said in his light drawl. “Taken together, I’m not sure what to make of them—or you—yet.”
I had figured it might go down this way. The man who was supposed to be my lifeline to information about Nick was telling me he didn’t know whether to take me seriously or consider me some kind of kook.
Duval folded his arms and tapped his fingers on his elbows like he was playing an arpeggio on a piano. “Did your husband ever discuss the political situation in Abadistan with you, talk about how he felt about what was going on? For example, do you know if he sympathized with the Abadis or was he pro-Russian?”
He did think I was a kook. Or at least naïve enough to tell him that Nick and I had pillow talk where he spilled secrets about the clandestine need-to-know world he operated in.
“Give both of us a little credit, Agent Duval. Nick never discussed his work with me and I knew enough not to ask.”
“Your husband didn’t confide in someone as intelligent, well traveled, and politically savvy as you, Ms. Medina? I find that hard to believe.”
I shrugged. “Thanks for the flattery. But if I don’t know anything, I don’t have to lie. Keeps life simple. That’s how we operated.”
“Is that so?” Duval said, and I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or sarcastic. “All right, let’s just see where we are here. Right off the bat a couple of things jump out at me and that always gives me heartburn. One, where is Nicholas Canning and why doesn’t he come in? Two is you, Ms. Medina, and your role in all this. It seems like an odd coincidence that you show up as one of two photographers at a gig at the National Gallery where Arkady Vasiliev will be present, practically materializing out of nowhere. Mr. Santangelo told me you just started working with him and, in fact, that was your first assignment. He also happened to mention that you were particularly interested in—and knowledgeable about—Mr. Vasiliev’s exhibition. In fact, he said you discussed it at length during your interview.”
“That’s because—”
Duval kept going. “Don’t you think it’s more than a little convenient that you were right there last night to act as an intermediary between your husband and Arkady Vasiliev?”
“Give me a little credit,” I said, snapping at him. “If I were making this up, don’t you think I’d invent something less outrageous than overhearing an assassination plot that somehow involves the Senate majority leader? I had no idea Vasiliev was going to seek me out and say what he did.”
“Is that so? Well, here’s the thing. As I piece together this story, there are a lot of coincidences,” he said. “Unfortunately I don’t believe in coincidences, especially not that many. They bother me.”
He seemed to believe Nick and I were somehow working together, that we had orchestrated events in order for me to meet Vasiliev at the National Gallery.
“What you’re implying is wrong, Agent Duval. I didn’t set up anything or plan anything.”
“Then you either have impeccable timing or an unfortunate talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.
“Probably the latter.” I felt like he’d knocked the wind out of me. “Look, Vasiliev found out somehow that Nick’s alive. I’d like to know how or who told him. In London I was told that my husband was spotted getting on the Moscow metro. Once. Has he been seen since then? Do you know where he is now?”
“No, we do not know where he is now.” Duval gave me a severe look. “And we’d sure like to know. So if you hear from him, I want you to call me night or day. Next time leave a message, you got that?”
“Yes.”
“And do not screw around with me.”
I kept my voice level. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“About that other conversation, we’ll be looking into that as well. But when all is said and done, a lot of roads seem to be leading back to you, Ms. Medina. So it goes without saying”—he pointed to his eyes again with his two fingers—“that I’ll have these trained on you. I’ll be watching you.”