Foggy Bottom June 27
The bar at Kinkead’s was emptying out. Julia Lancette ran a finger along the rim of the wine glass. Above the bar, the television was turned to CNN. Only in Washington, she thought. Grayton was late. He had called her office twice to inform her he was running behind. That had given her more time to sit in her office chair, stare at her desk, and consider what she should do regarding her conversation with Charlie Walters. She had not heard anything from the red-bearded man at the Gauntlet bar, nothing about the man with a glass eye and the tattoo. She did not know what to do next.
President Mumfries was on the television. The sound was too low for Lancette to hear, but she knew what he was saying. Earlier in the day, at a luncheon held by a business lobbying group, he had declared he would run for President. As he made the announcement, Lancette’s mother called, and they watched the speech together. “You know why he’s making his announcement there,” her mother had said. “Because there are no reporters to ask him what he thinks about Margaret Hanover running.”
She pursed her lips. The lipstick felt odd. It had been a long time since she had worn any. Her hair was pulled back and held in place by a hair clip. She was wearing a knee-length, black dress, modestly cut, but it did accentuate her long neck and shoulders. Two men at the other end of the bar were staring at her. Both wore gray suits. One directed a half-smile at her. She tried to keep her face blank. The smiling man called the bartender over, spoke softly to him, and nodded his head toward her. Oh shit, she thought.
Grayton sat down on the stool next to her.
“I hate to begin with an apology, so instead: ‘It’s nice to meet you, Julia.’”
He held out his hand and she took it.
“No apologies needed.”
“Hungry?”
She nodded.
“Good. To the table, then.”
The hostess guided them to a booth. Grayton asked the hostess to inform Michael that he was here tonight and that he had brought plastic pouches to collect evidence. She laughed and walked away.
“The sous-chef used to be in the Bureau,” Grayton explained to Lancette. “Left us, studied cooking, and—bang!—a whole new life. Last time President Hanover came here—shit, shouldn’t have said ‘last time,’ but it was—he got food poisoning. Bad oyster. Nothing the place could have done about that. Hanover was great. Sent Bertis, the chef, a note inviting him to the White House for dinner. ‘No hard feelings,’ he wrote. ‘But watch out. I’ll be cooking.’ Bertis and Michael were so relieved no one found out about the incident. Think of the publicity. But you didn’t see anything about that, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you must read a lot of papers and watch a lot of news.”
Was he referring to her job?
“Yes, I do,” she said.
“And nothing on this. See, some secrets can be kept … . Want to try the oysters?” He laughed.
“No thanks … . And if no one found out about the bad oyster, how do you know about it?”
“Well, no one rarely means no one.”
Without consulting the wine list, Grayton ordered a bottle. He suggested several choices for dinner that were not on the menu. They ordered.
“On to the obligatory portion of the evening?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said.
He went first: Dartmouth, Eighty-second Airborne, NSC staff aide, several jobs in the community, headed the Bureau’s antiterrorism office, then deputy directory. He mentioned the divorce.
“One fun fact: One summer, when I was kid, I stayed at my grandparents’ on the eastern shore. Had this job driving cars across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Believe it or not, some folks cannot handle driving that four miles. Too long, too high. Panic attack. So the state paid us to drive them across in their cars. Then we’d wait for another anxiety case going back the other way. Back and forth, back and forth. A lot of miles. Not much distance … . And you?”
“Nothing all that exciting.”
Washington University in St. Louis, the Woodrow Wilson School, and then straight to the DI. She assumed he knew the circumstances of her departure from the Directorate of Intelligence.
“And now, this,” she said.
“Could you please be more vague?” he asked and laughed.
“Don’t think so. But, I’m sure you know …”
“Yes, I do. I did my research. And as deputy director of the Bureau I would not ask you to disclose classified information. But it must be fascinating—maybe disconcerting?—to sift dirt from dirt.”
“Never had it put that way. Just trying to help the DCI stay ahead of the bad P.R., which—”
“Never seems to end.”
“Never seems to end,” she repeated.
“And how do you feel about that?”
The appetizers arrived. A straw was sticking out of the crab and corn chowder Grayton had ordered. There was writing on the paper wrapper covering the tip: “Beware of warnings in soup.” Grayton showed it to Lancette and drew a plastic pouch from his pocket.
“See? I was serious.”
He placed the paper in the bag and sealed it. He wrote “Exhibit A” on the pouch. Smiling, Grayton asked the waiter to deliver it to Michael in the kitchen.
Fun and games, Lancette thought.
“The last week must have been hard on you,” she said.
“Yes, a tough one. Unfortunately, those in our profession do not have the luxury of grieving during such times.”
It’s not our profession, she said to herself.
“I wish that everything could shut down for a while, so we could—”
“Feel?” He started the soup.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Grayton pointed the spoon at her.
“There’s still a lot to do,” he said.
“Did he do this on his own?”
“Probably. Usually the case.”
“But usually we know the name,” she said.
“That is right.”
The waiter returned to their table.
“I have a message from the kitchen,” he said. “‘There’s no crime, if there’s no evidence. Flush.’” He held out two empty hands and then left.
Lancette ignored the joke.
“Did you work much with President Hanover?” she asked.
“Sure. Not much one-on-one. But meetings on terrorist threats. Budgets. International crime. Gun stuff. I know Mumfries better.”
“Why?”
“Coordinated a lot with him when he was running the intel committee. He was always supportive of us in the community, understood our work.”
Our work—she felt jumpy. Just have dinner, she told herself. His call, this rendezvous—it could all be coincidence. They had passed in Wenner’s office. Viv Novek was a notorious gossip. He was handsome, mildly amusing. She liked the line of his jaw. She counted the months she had been alone. Months? It was time to use the word year.
“Tell me about your family,” he said. He refilled her wine glass.
Her father was a retired Army doctor and had moved his family from one military base to another around the world. During World War II, he was a junior clerk with a meteorological unit in England. Then one day everyone in his office was given a business suit and a pair of wingtip shoes and put on a plane, the destination a secret. They landed in Portugal, a supposedly neutral country, and set up shop in a closed insane asylum—from where they observed weather patterns in secret, wearing their business attire, not uniforms, and relayed the information to Allied command.
“We’re both children of the military,” Grayton said.
His father had been a welder who worked on nuclear submarines in a Connecticut shipyard.
The entrées arrived. As they ate, they talked about recent developments in the Balkans. He told her several funny stories about Wenner’s meetings with visiting chiefs of foreign intelligence services. She mentioned she was considering getting a dog. She felt the wine and declined his offer of an after-dinner brandy. She said she should be going. He signaled for the check.
“You never did say how it makes you feel,” he said.
“How what makes me feel?” she asked.
“Digging up the secrets of the community for which you work.”
She dragged a fork across a plate and reorganized the chocolate torte crumbs.
“I don’t really look at it as ‘digging up’ secrets,” she said. “It’s more like tending to weeds. And no one—”
She dropped the fork, and it fell to the floor.
“But maybe you should ask me again,” she continued, “when I haven’t had three glasses of wine.”
At the door, he offered to drive her home. She said she could manage the short ride. She was parked across the street. He walked her to her car. The 1965 Dodge Dart was still damaged from the crash near headquarters, but it was running.
“What happened here?” he asked, inspecting the back of the car.
“An in-the-family accident, that’s all.”
“Sure you don’t want a nightcap?”
One more drink, she thought, and I’d end up waking someplace I’ve never seen.
“No, thank you.”
She got in, lowered the window, and turned the key. The starter made a clicking noise and went dead. She tried again. The engine caught, and she pumped the gas. The car rumbled. Grayton gave her a thumbs-up.
“I hope we can, again,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks for the dinner. Good luck finding answers.”
“We’re both searchers, aren’t we?” he asked. His smile was slightly skewed, but warm.
“Yeah,” she said. “Two of a kind.” She drove off.
It was past one o’clock. A tail light was out; her car was rattling more than usual. She knew she could not pass a DWI test. She drove slowly.
Could she like this jerk? Was he fishing for something? Was he or one of his buddies in the community—god, she hated that euphemistic term—concerned about her conversation with Walters? Hell, the last thing this bunch was—this collection of spies, saboteurs, covert warriors, satellite watchers, and clandestine managers—was a community. She had to tell someone about Walters. Should she inform Wenner of her trip to the bar? It probably violated several regulations. Was it improper use of official cover for nonofficial purpose? Or was it unauthorized assumption of duties?
Tending to weeds—she had never before explained her work that way. Not the same as growing something, she thought. Perhaps certain people were fated to clear space for others. Yet is that what she really wanted to do with her life, why she had gone to expensive schools, why she had put up with all the bullshit of “the community”? It’s time to think, she told herself. Once all this—whatever “this” may be—was over.
She passed the Lincoln Memorial, crossed the bridge, and noticed a car close behind her. She tried to determine if there were any lights on its roof. She could not tell. She checked her speedometer; she was under the limit. She tapped her brakes. The car behind hers—it was a four-by-four—remained close. On the other side of the Potomac, she followed the signs for the George Washington Parkway. The four-by-four took the same exit. On the parkway, Lancette stuck to the right lane, hoping the other car would speed by. It switched lanes and began passing her. She turned on the AM radio.
The four-by-four slammed into the Dart. The impact threw her away from the wheel. The tires beneath her hit the gravel of the shoulder. She lunged for the wheel. Her car was heading for a steep embankment that
led to a slip of water. She pulled hard to the left. The Dart regained hold of the road.
Lancette looked to the left. The four-by-four was pacing her. The windows were tinted. She could not see the driver. The four-by-four plowed into her again and pushed the Dart to the edge of the road. She punched the accelerator, held the wheel tightly, and stayed on the road.
The four-by-four pulled back and then crashed once more into the Dart. Lancette’s car skipped across the road toward the embankment. She heard the sound of the two cars grinding against each other. She heard herself yelling: “You fuck! You fuck! You fuck!” She felt her car losing the road, flying across the shoulder, toward the water.
She turned her face toward the four-by-four. She could see nothing behind the window.
Then the four-by-four jerked forward, as if pushed from behind. It shot ahead of her. She saw the black stretch of water. She yanked the wheel to the left.
A tree, damnit! She pounded the brakes and ducked. Metal slammed against wood. Her head hit the wheel. The windshield shattered. Lights streaked by. Glass fell on her. Pain raced through her chest, shoulder, and neck. She waited for another crash, another explosion, and before it arrived, she dropped into nothingness.
“Miss Lang. Miss Lang.”
She tried to focus. Someone’s hands were on her. A pounding echoed in her head. She was afraid to move. She felt pieces of the windshield in her hair.
“Miss Lang. Can you … ?”
She opened her eyes. A black man was next to her.
“Sit up if you can. But if it hurts, lie still.”
She placed her right arm against the seat—no bolt of pain—and then pushed. Slowly, she propped herself upright. Glass tumbled off her.
“There you go. It’s not too bad. I called for an ambulance.”
She touched her forehead. It was wet, warm.
“You’re banged up there, but it’s not cut deep. Take this.”
He placed a handkerchief in her hand and guided it to the wound.
“Don’t press too hard.”
There were no lights on the parkway. She could barely see the man. Then he leaned against the opened door and the interior light came on. Late-fifties, she guessed. A gray circle in his hair. His face was covered with sweat. He looked familiar. She wiggled her toes and carefully changed the position of her legs. They seemed fine. She tried to slide toward the door.
“Take it easy,” he said.
“I think I’m okay,” she said. “Let me try.”
He moved out of her way, and she swung her legs out of the car. Her left shoulder and arm hurt.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I was behind you and saw this car smack right into you. Looked like he was trying to force you off the road. I came up on his rear and drove straight into him—pretty fast—to push him away. You went flying off the road. Hit this tree.”
“And where’d he go?”
“He tore out of here. I couldn’t chase after him. My headlights were gone, and a piece of metal was caught in one of the wheels. I pulled over.”
He pointed down the parkway. She couldn’t make out his car.
“An ambulance will be here soon,” he said.
“Did you see who—”
“Got the license … . You don’t know?”
She shook her head. She was trying to clear away the fog. The pain became sharper. She wanted to stand up and grabbed for the side of the door. He placed his hand on her shoulder.
“I think we should wait for the medics,” he said.
Several cars drove by. The interior light went off. She did not want to look at the front of the car.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“My name is Clarence,” he said.
“I’ve seen you … .”
“Dunne,” he added.
A thought struck, and she felt frightened.
“You called me Miss Lang.”
Shit, Dunne thought, a rookie mistake.
“Just trying to see if you’d wake up.”
How the fuck does he know my cover? she asked herself. She moved back into the car.
“You should keep still,” he said.
“How’d you know that was my name?”
“Went through your bag looking for I.D. But, don’t worry, I didn’t take anything.”
She saw her bag on the front seat. There was glass on it.
Using both feet she kicked him in the stomach and pushed him back. She shut the door. Glass from the windshield fell into the car.
“Stay away!” she yelled. “Stay back!”
Dunne stepped toward the front of the car. He held his hands up. He spoke through the windshield frame.
“You’re right. I lied. I didn’t go through your bag. I was following you.”
Lancette wished she had a gun.
“Why?” she shouted.
“Because we were both looking for someone in the same place.”
“What place? Where?”
She looked around her car. Maybe she could find a loose screwdriver, a socket wrench.
“The Gauntlet,” Dunne said.
She wondered if he had called an ambulance. How long had she been out? How long does it take for an ambulance to arrive?
“And?”
“And I thought we might see if our searches overlapped.”
“And how’d you know I’d been there?”
“An associate of mine saw the business card you left behind there.”
“So you followed me?”
“Went by your office tonight, saw you leaving. Took a shot. Got lucky.”
“Instead of just approaching me?”
“My mistake. I apologize. I wanted to see what I could learn about you before I did approach you. But it’s a good thing I did—”
“Yeah, real good. How do I know you weren’t driving that car?”
“Guess you don’t,” Dunne said. “But it’s unlikely I tried to kill you and then called 911, isn’t it?”
Lancette could see flashing lights down the highway.
“Listen,” Dunne said. “I was chief of security at the White House. And these days I’m not on Jake Grayton’s A-list. I saw you with him tonight. So maybe it’s stupid for me to be talking to you.”
She didn’t say anything. She heard a siren getting louder.
“I think we should have a chat and see if we have any mutual interests.”
First Walters, she thought, then Grayton, then someone tries to kill me, now this guy wants to talk.
“Maybe,” she said.
Dunne stepped toward the door of the car.
“But stay the fuck back for now!” she yelled at him.
He stood still.
Lancette closed her eyes and listened to the wailing of the ambulance.