Washington, D.C.: 6 June 10:35 A.M. Eastern time
“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea for you to show up at Langley,” said Jax Alexander as they walked away from the airport’s valet parking window. “Not with that APB out on you.” He glanced over at her. “How about if I drop you at Tysons Corner?”
The air outside the terminal was hot and breathless, and reeked of jet fuel and engine oil. Tobie lifted her hair off her sticky neck and arched her back. “What? Are you suggesting I need a change of clothes? I’ve only been wearing these for two days, and it’s not like it’s the middle of summer or anything.”
He laughed. An attendant driving a black 650i BMW convertible with cream leather seats pulled up and got out to hand Jax the keys.
“This is yours?” She tossed her messenger bag in next to his garment bag. “What are you? A double agent passing secrets on the sly to the Russians or something?”
“Nah. The Chinese pay better.” He started to close the trunk, then hesitated, his gaze sharpening on her face. “Are you all right?”
In point of fact, she felt like hell. She felt like she hadn’t eaten or slept in a week, but she was too jittery to do either. She was scared and confused, and she’d never felt more alone in her life. All she wanted to do was crawl under the covers of her own bed and hug her cat—or maybe stroll down Magazine Street to Gunner and Pia’s shop, and smile while she listened to Gunner rant about conspiracies and government corruption. She wanted her old life back, her old self back. And she wasn’t sure she was ever going to have either again.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Gordon Chandler was at his broad cherry desk, his head bent over some papers, when Jax walked into the DCI’s office in the Old Headquarters Building. From here he could look out over a stand of beech and maple in full leaf beneath a smog-smudged June sun.
“You wanted to see me?”
The DCI’s head came up, his eyes narrowing. He was a tall man, with the pale coloring and long, thin bones of a New Englander. Like the President, he’d graduated from Andover and Harvard and moved comfortably between executive boardrooms, public office, and plum government appointments ever since.
He didn’t wait for Jax to close the door before he exploded. “Jesus Christ. What the hell have you been doing, Alexander? We send you down to New Orleans to look into a suspicious death and the next thing I know, I’ve got a one man World War III on my hands.”
Jax stood just inside the door, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. “According to the rules of engagement, we’re allowed to use deadly force to preserve our own life or to protect the life of someone else.”
Chandler swiped one hand through the air like someone brushing aside an annoying gnat. “I don’t need you to quote me the rules of engagement. It’s your job to keep yourself out of these kinds of situations. Instead, you seem to create them. I want you to go over to the armory and turn in your weapon. Then I want you to sit down and write up a detailed report on everything that’s happened from the time you got off the plane in New Orleans until the minute you walked into my office this morning. Your report will be reviewed by the Office of Professional Standards. I suspect they’ll come back with a recommendation for disciplinary action. In fact, I’ll be surprised if you’re still with the Agency at the end of all this.”
His eyes remained hard, but a tight smile curved his lips. “Now get out of my office.”
Jax went down to the armory and turned in his Beretta. Then he went over to Division Thirteen to leave Fitzgerald’s hard drive with Matt.
“It’s password protected,” he told Matt. “See if one of our geeks can figure out a way into it, would you? And were you able to set up something with one of the guys from the old remote viewing programs?”
“Not until two-thirty,” said Matt, handing him an address. “There never were that many of these guys, and most of them seem to have moved out to the land of fruits and nuts.”
Jax grinned. Matt wasn’t a fan of California. “So who’s this guy?”
“His name’s Ed Devereaux. He’s a priest now. Lives in Silver Spring up in Maryland. He only agreed to do it because he used to work with Youngblood. I had to tell him everything we know about the prof’s death.” He handed Jax another address. “This is the information on Fitzgerald’s ex. She’s a scholar at the Foundation for a Freer Society on South Glebe Road.” Matt gave Jax a hard look. “So what’d the Director want?”
Jax turned toward the door. “He said I’m doing a helluva job and to keep it up.”
“You’re shitting me.”
Jax laid a splayed hand across his heart and opened his eyes wide in a parody of innocence. “Would I do that?”
“Yes.”