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Rockville, Maryland
Monday, August 11
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WHEN LINDSEY-MARIE Moffat opened the front door of her modest home, she was holding a tissue to her nose, her face sallow and thin, and her posture spindly and insubstantial, almost like a ghost, as if she wanted to crawl into a cocoon of her own making and disappear inside herself.
Vikki Kidd presented an embossed business card. “I called your office. They said you were home sick.”
The woman looked it over with mild curiosity, her eyes nearly blank. “Bronchitis. It’s been going around.” She laughed bitterly.
“You might have read my article. About Spinnaker.” Vikki could only think the thirtyish blonde wearing sweats over a slight body should not have been so trusting as to open her door to a stranger, even if her conservatively dressed visitor had already identified herself through the peephole as a reporter with the Washington Gazette. Perhaps curiosity compelled her. Or habit. Perhaps the small dog yipping at her heels gave her a false sense of security. She ordered the creature to sit. The papillon obeyed and promptly stared up at their visitor with the same tilted head of curiosity as its owner.
“Yeah, sure, I read the article. Wish I hadn’t.”
The front of the house faced east. The sun was behind Vikki, still low in the sky, and not yet noon. The cool of the house looked inviting. She would have invited herself inside but didn’t want to push her luck. The woman was skittish. Anything unexpected silence her. And Vikki wanted her to talk. “Why do you say that?”
“Makes it real, doesn’t it? Everything. All the shit. Can’t go away now. Always expected it would. Somehow. Some way. People forget. They move onto the next headline. But the next headline keeps coming back to HID, doesn’t it? Now this thing with John ....”
This would have been the moment for her to break down. She didn’t. She went on as before, her voice a steady monotone, as if everything inside her had popped like a balloon, leaving behind a woman with nothing to her. If anything, her face had gone paler. She was withering away before Vikki’s eyes.
“It is him, isn’t it? They haven’t said. Officially. But I’ve been talking to friends at work ....” She repeated herself. “It is him, isn’t it? John?”
“John Sessions, you mean?” Vikki said. “His name’s been mentioned.”
Her eyes became suddenly bright and alive. “You’ve been talking to Jack, haven’t you? My boss worked with him on a few things.”
“That would be Harrison Tobias.” Vikki angled herself forward.
Lindsey-Marie stepped back, fear replacing curiosity. She shrunk tighter within herself. Soon she would disappear. “I really can’t talk to the press.” Her eyes darted toward the street.
Vikki looked at her back. The street was quiet. A bank of clouds was moving in overhead, the leading edge of a storm. The heat wasn’t quite as oppressive. A boy was walking a dog. A mom was loading her kids into a family van. A service truck wheeled down the street and turned at the corner. She turned back.
“Has the FBI approached you?” Vikki asked. “Or the CIA? Anyone else from government? One of your superiors maybe? Testing your loyalty?”
The woman drew her body upright. She backed away and put a hand to the door, preparing to close it, a self-protective instinct, done without thought. Loudly she said, “I’m loyal. As loyal as anybody. Loyal to my country. And the people I work with.” With every statement, her voice grew louder, as is she wanted to be heard.
“But I wonder ....” Vikki possessed instincts of her own. Uncompromising instincts. She knew how to appear open and friendly. Obtaining statements and information from skittish people was a knack she honed over the years. Sometimes she bullied. Sometimes she appealed to common sense. Most times she became an instant friend, the kind of friend a person could confide in with absolute trust, a friend who kept secrets. “Does HID have your back? Can they protect you? Do they even care? They couldn’t protect your boss.”
The woman’s cheek twitched. She was worried. Frightened she could be next. “I don’t know what you’re talking about? Please go away. You’re making it bad for me.”
“Are you being followed? Watched? Is that why you’re afraid?”
Doors had been slammed in Vikki’s face more times than she cared to count. Long ago she developed a strategy: keep her subjects talking, pump them with questions, pepper them with facts and theories, and assume an attitude that mirrored their deepest fears and worries. “You’re more than afraid, aren’t you? You’re petrified. I just want to know, Lindsey ... can I call you Lindsey? ... I just want to know whether you knew about the mass surveillances your agency was conducting. Did you pick up on any clues or evidence? Is HID the shadow government everyone has been whispering about? Does it have direct access to the President? Or does it act independently? Under someone else’s orders? The Vice President. Or the director of the CIA. Maybe the FBI.”
“Possibly,” she said in a whisper. “I don’t know that much.”
“But you suspect?” Vikki took another step forward. “Can I come in?”
She shook her head, a barely discernible gesture, her hand still grasping the edge of the door. The dog had wandered off to the center of the living room and lain down on the off-white carpet, its ears fanned with interest, its eyes alert.
“What about your boss? Was he suspicious about anything? Did he confide in you? Do you know of any reason he would have been targeted?”
The woman stared blankly at Vikki, her face sallow and drawn with fatigue.
“Let me ask you this. Does HID have its own operatives?”
She didn’t respond, but she did blink. Vikki took this as confirmation.
“Does it run its own black sites?”
Again the voiceless blink.
“Does the President know what the Firm is up to?”
She shook her head and then said, “I wouldn’t know.”
“Does Congress?”
“We only collect data. That’s all we do.” She lowered her arm and backed away.
Vikki moved forward. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“I wonder if I could trouble you for a cup of coffee.”
The woman considered the request. Her eyes shot outside. Anybody could be watching her talk to a reporter. She licked her parched lips. “Off the record, right? My name won’t come out or anything like that?”
“If that’s what you want.” Vikki had one of those motherly personalities. It came easily to her. If she could wrangle secrets from her kids, she could wrangle secrets from just about anybody. She understood human nature, and understood how women would rather be nice than rude, which explained why Lindsey-Marie opened the door and why she hadn’t asked Vikki to go. “I understand your hesitance. You’re scared, aren’t you? In fact, you’re petrified.”
She weakly shook her head before saying, “Only ....” Her voice was quavering, unsure, on the defensive.
“Only what? Have they told you what to say? How you should say it? Have they assured you nothing is wrong? Convinced you foreign agents are at the heart of the assassinations?”
“Harrison isn’t dead. I won’t believe it.”
“But he was involved in a bad accident. And he’s still missing. What do you suppose happened to him?”
“Road rage?” She was grasping at straws. “Or money troubles?”
“He staged his own accident, is that it?”
“Harrison was a practical man. A careful man.”
“Then he just wandered off and disappeared into thin air? Is that what you’re saying? Is that what you believe?”
“I really don’t know what happened. That’s why, you see. Why I’m afraid.” She stood straighter.
“What about Milly Whitney? Do you think Jack could have killed her?”
“He could have.” She said it weakly, as if she didn’t believe it, as if she had never believed it. “How am I supposed to know what a man is capable of?”
“And John. Do you think he jumped? Or was he pushed?”
“He was a great guy.”
“Has anyone threatened you?”
“Nobody has to make threats.”
“Then you are scared. Scared you could be next. For what you know.”
“I don’t know anything. Now please go. I’ve already said too much.”
“When was the last time you saw Harry?”
“The day he disappeared. I left the office before he did. He always worked late.”
“How did he seem?”
“Like always. He was ...” She was on the edge of emotional collapse. The toy dog whimpered and stood on its paws. “He was a nice man. A good boss. He had integrity. Not many do.”
“I’ve been talking to Allison Dovecot. Off the record. She liaises with the NSA, am I right?” She hadn’t spoken with the woman. She only wanted Lindsey to believe she had, believe she wasn’t alone. “Maybe you have something to tell me, also off the record.”
She shook her head, pressed her lips together, and crossed her arms, her body language unequivocal. So were her words. “Please go. Before I call the police.”
Vikki nodded toward the business card still clutched in the woman’s hand. “You can always reach me. Day or night. Like you, I don’t sleep very well.”
