Allender sat at his desk in the tower study with all the lights off and the venetian blinds cracked open so he could see out into the avenue. By now he’d convinced himself that, one, he was little more than a pawn in some bureaucratic power play McGill was making, and, two, he couldn’t trust Rebecca Lansing. Too many coincidences, and even Melanie had had doubts about her.
He heard his cell phone chirp from out in the living room. He decided to ignore it. Any more surprise visitors tonight and he was going to go downstairs and get one of his shotguns. Then he realized that the tone was not for a call, but a text. He rarely used the text function; in fact he found the smart phone most useful for getting navigation help when he was driving. He got up, spied the phone’s window alight on the coffee table, and read the message: “Beware the Ides of March.”
Whoops, he thought. He unlocked the phone to check the sender box. V.S. He didn’t know anybody with the initials V.S. Wait. Virginia Singer. Melanie.
He immediately had questions but sensed this wasn’t the time for phone conversations. He went upstairs to pack a bag. Then he went down to the vault to get some cash, his passport, his emergency travel valise, and a different handgun. He retrieved the phone and his car keys and left through the back door. He didn’t bother with the alarm system, which was still defunct. He walked across the dark garden to the back gate, then stopped and listened for a minute. The alley seemed to be deserted. He walked back to the side door of the garage, let himself in, and got into his car, an older-model Mercedes diesel sedan. He put the key into the ignition and then stopped, wondering if he should turn it.
“Aw, c’mon,” he muttered. Too many spy movies. He reached up and triggered the garage door, started the car, backed out into the alley, lowered the door, and drove down the alley to the side street. He made his way through downtown and across the Memorial Bridge and headed for Richmond, not even bothering to look in his mirrors for followers. Unless they wanted him to know he was being followed, he’d never see them, and it was much more likely that his car would be tracked, along with his phone. Shortly before midnight he took a motel room off the interstate and turned in.
The following morning he went to the lobby, got some coffee and a fat pill, and then asked where the guest computers were. Once into the motel’s terminal, he sent a text message to Melanie’s phone number, telling her to meet him where they had had their first dinner date, at 8:00 P.M. Then he continued down the interstate until he came upon a large truck plaza, where he pulled in for diesel and a pit stop. He was tempted to take off his license plate and park it on the back of a nearby semi, but remembered that he had a better plan once he got to the Farm. Two hours later he took a motel room next door to the Opus Nine restaurant. He got his key card, checked the room, and then drove out to the Yorktown battlefield park to just walk around and get some fresh air.
At 8:00 P.M. he was sitting in a corner table nursing a martini and examining the wine list. He heard a flutter in the dining room conversation and looked up. Melanie apparently had decided to reprise her Ms. Vanderbilt gig. She was dressed in a tight-skirted yellow linen suit that complemented her hair and the Grace Kelly look-alike features. He watched with amusement as some older couples flat-out stared at her face as if they were seeing a ghost. He wasn’t staring at her face, and he realized she’d caught him checking her out. The maître d’ came out of nowhere and seated her at Allender’s table.
“That looks good,” she said.
“Tanq marty,” he replied. “I ordered you Bombay.”
“God is good,” she said as a waiter arrived and produced her drink. She smiled and they tipped glasses at each other.
He complimented her on her entrance and told her Minette would be proud. “You think you were followed down?”
“No need,” she said. “Nobody follows anyone in a vehicle these days. The surveillance systems have moved way past physical bugs. Operations tracks the computer in the car if it wants to because the manufacturers are all collecting continuous maintenance and operating data via various Wi-Fi links. And since we’re both employees, our vehicle entertainment systems have all been modified for real-time tracking and the occasional 911. Plus, if you step outside, Google Earth, or at least the NSA version, can actually see you. You want to hide, get on a submarine.”
“Yeah, I’d forgotten all about that stuff. What provoked your get-out-of-Dodge warning?”
She described her own late-night visitor and the subsequent drink with the Secret Service guy.
“They have him under their protection?”
“That’s what he said. Looks like you were right about Bethesda. Good thinking on his part, too. A presidential facility on a military installation.”
“That would imply that McGill didn’t do something to Hank Wallace, but that it’s the reverse: Wallace is running some kind of in-house op against McGill.”
“And using you—me, too, I guess—to do—what?”
“I have no fucking idea,” he said. “Let’s order. I’m starving.”
After dinner they retired to the bar. She was apparently staying in the same motel he was in, so they could afford to relax, not having to worry about driving anywhere. She finally asked why he’d wanted to come down to the Farm.
“I wanted to get out of Washington,” he said. “I’m convinced the Chinese are watching everybody involved in this little caper. I figured if I could get to the Farm I’d only have to worry about McGill.”
“You think the Chinese still mean to take you out? For the Chiang thing?”
“Not sure, but I’ve seen more weapons pointed at me in the past week than I have in years, if ever, actually. All by Chinese, too.”
“Logical conclusion,” she admitted.
“You’d probably find that exciting. I don’t.”
She laughed. “Why would I find that exciting?”
“You’re an operator,” he said. “That’s a volunteer profession. Sometimes dull, sometimes hair-raising work. An element of real danger, depending who your opposition is. We screen out the true adrenaline junkies, of course, but there has to be some element of Action Jackson in any good operative.”
“I suppose,” she said. “Like I said, I mostly tried out because I was bored.”
“What’s the usual cure for boredom?” he asked, gently. Then both their phones began ringing. They looked at each other and accepted the calls.
“This is Hank Wallace,” a voice said, to both of them. “I trust you’ve had a good dinner at Opus Nine?”
Melanie nodded at Allender, indicating she wanted him to do the talking.
“We have,” Allender replied. “Are you here with us tonight?”
“Regrettably, no,” Wallace said. “I’m at one of those famous ‘undisclosed locations’ in an effort to stay healthy. I recommend you both head over to the Farm and stay there until I send further instructions. I have arranged entry clearance and there is secure transportation outside your restaurant as we speak. Tomorrow I will have a job of work for Doctor Allender. Go now, please.”
The connection beeped off. They looked at each other, finished their drinks, paid the bill, and went out front, where a black Suburban was waiting as advertised.
“This the grab, after all?” Melanie said, her brave façade cracking just a little.
“After a fashion, I suppose, but I think this has more to do with a threat from the MSS. As we know, they’re here in the Williamsburg area. I’ll get the driver to take us over to the motel for our stuff.”
Allender opened the back door for Melanie, half expecting Carson McGill to be sitting there, but he wasn’t. Forty minutes later they were cruising through the gates to the Farm.
* * *
The next morning they were sharing coffee in the breakfast dining room when a young man brought a sealed brown envelope in and gave it to Allender.
“Oh, goody,” Melanie said. “Our decoder rings.” She’d been enjoying the stares as other people came into the dining room and saw a reincarnation of the famous actress having breakfast with the dreaded Dragon Eyes.
Allender opened the envelope and scanned the contents. “Oh, my,” he said, finally. “This is going to be interesting indeed.”
“Where we going?” she asked.
“To the dungeons,” he said, closing up the packet. “I’m going to do an interrogation.”
“Anybody I know?” she asked, but before he could answer, her phone rang. It was Martine Greer, demanding to know why she wasn’t at work.
“I’ve been recalled to another assignment,” Melanie told her smoothly. “They’ll be sending my replacement shortly, I’m sure.”
“Tell him or her to wear Kevlar, then,” Greer declared. “I’m cranking up a proper shit-storm in the House this morning. Your bosses are gonna hate life.”
“I think they already do,” Melanie said, and closed the connection. She told Allender what Greer had said.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s going to rattle some cages at Langley. Headline: ‘CIA Attempts to Sabotage House Chairman’s Reelection. Homophobic Smear Campaign. Speaker Schedules Hearings.’”
“Smear? Not if it’s true.”
“Can you prove that she is gay?” he asked.
“She sure as hell came on to me, and other women in the office—”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” he said. “You could testify, and so could they, but they’d all lose their jobs, and you work for the Antichrist over there in Langley. Plus, accusing someone of being homosexual doesn’t carry the clout it used to.”
“It would in her district, or so she said.”
“She’s a Democrat. She’ll get the DNC to crank up the smear professionals and totally demonize her opponent and then blame him for the whole thing. No, all this means is that McGill has dropped the first shoe.”
“What’s the second shoe?”
“That Chinese woman in Greer’s car. McGill has set a trap, I believe.” He looked at his watch. “Meet me out front in thirty minutes.”
* * *
An hour later they arrived at the gates of what looked like a high-security prison, without a single bit of greenery in sight around its two-acre compound. It was enclosed by high chain-link fences surrounding a single long, windowless one-story cinder-block building. A grass-covered hill rose right behind the building. The grounds immediately around the building were surfaced entirely in gray gravel and there appeared to be an unusual number of utility and HVAC cabinets at the back of the building. The parking lot outside the compound contained several civilian vehicles, but no people were in sight when they arrived. Allender told the driver that they would call Dispatch when they needed a ride back to the residential building, and then walked up to a kiosk outside the gate. He pressed a button. A television screen came to life. A voice asked them to state their names and then hold their facility badges up to a scanner. A moment later, a warning buzzer sounded and the gate retracted. They walked up to the plain metal door and went right in. Inside there was a security lobby with a desk and a metal-detector portal. The guards were in casual clothes and not visibly armed. A large and totally bald black man waited to greet them.
“Doctor Allender, welcome back,” he boomed as he offered a massive paw.
“It’s good to be back, Deacon,” Allender responded. “I think. This is Melanie Sloan from the CS. Melanie, this is Armstrong Battle, the director of this facility. She looks quite a bit different from when she came through the basic training course.”
“I guess so,” Battle said, shaking hands gently with Melanie. “This face I would have remembered. Let’s go to my office and I’ll fill you in.”
Melanie massaged her right hand as they walked down a corridor to one end of the building, passing several offices where people appeared to be pushing papers, talking on the phone, or doing other office-drone things. There were no windows, and she felt that the building was amazingly quiet and kind of creepy. She was struck by the fact that Allender seemed quite at home here. As tall as he was, he was still a head shorter than the giant leading the way.
Battle’s office took up the entire width of one end of the building, and while there were no windows in the walls there were large-screen display panels that gave a view of what looked a lot like vistas from Yellowstone Park. Battle saw her looking and explained that the panels could do day and night and display just about any panorama in the world. He sat down behind an enormous oak desk and gestured for them to take seats in a circle of armchairs positioned in front of the desk. Coffee was offered and declined.
“Right,” Battle said. “Ms. Sloan, do you remember doing interrogation training as part of your CS syllabus?”
“Yes, I do, vividly,” she replied. “But it wasn’t here. It was—”
“Yes, yes, of course, it was in building six. Still is. This, on the other hand, is the real deal. All the admin and control rooms are on this level where we’re sitting. Two stories down and tucked back under the hill behind this building is a suite of interrogation cells, ranging in ambience from a lawyer’s conference room to something the Inquisition would have approved. Below that is a complex of cells which we modeled after the Lubyanka complex in Moscow, complete with those pretty, white-tiled rooms with a prominent drain in the center of the floor. Hence the building’s nickname: the Dungeons. Ever hear of it?”
“No, I haven’t,” Melanie said. “You said ‘real deal.’ Does that mean—”
“Yes it does, Ms. Sloan,” Battle interrupting her again. “It surely does. And Doctor Allender has been, over the years, the grand master of the edgier parts of our little fun palace. For reasons only he knows, he has asked that you be allowed to sit in, on the control level, of course, on one of his special séances. I have agreed to allow that, on two conditions. One, that you never speak of your experiences here to anyone, ever. And, two, that once you go into the control room you may not leave until the session is completed, nor may you speak. Agreed?”
“I guess I have to ask,” she said. “Am I going to be watching people driving ten-penny nails into a subject’s head?”
“No, no, it’s ten in the morning. We don’t do that kind of thing until well after lunch.”
She cocked her head to one side and gave him an impatient look, knowing he was screwing around with her. He finally grinned.
“No, this is going to be done in what we lovingly call the Extrusion Room. It hasn’t been used since the good doctor here retired, much to our sorrow.”
“Who’s the subject?” she asked.
“Agreed? Or not agreed?”
“Yes, agreed,” she said. “Never tell and don’t speak. Got it.”
“Very well, Ms. Sloan. Never violate those conditions, especially the ‘tell’ part. If you do, we will find you and introduce you to the museum level. Now, Doctor Allender: Do you know who the subject is?”
“Hank Wallace didn’t say,” Allender replied. “He termed it a ‘job of work.’”
“Ah, yes, I’ve heard that term before,” Battle said. He fiddled with some controls on the console that was sitting on his desk. One of the eight-foot-high scenic panels went gray and then came back into focus. It now showed a gently lit room carpeted on both the floor and the walls, with a medium-sized conference table in the middle. There were two comfortable-looking, high-backed upholstered chairs, one on either side of the table. There was a single, oversized doorway with a window at the back of the room. The door had a sign on it that she couldn’t read, but she did notice that the door lacked a handle. In its place was a simple brass plate.
Sitting at the table in one of the upholstered chairs was a woman dressed in what looked to Melanie like an oversized, sleeveless, white pillowcase. The woman was Rebecca Lansing, and Melanie thought she looked terrified.
“What. The. Fuck,” she murmured, unaware that she’d even said it.