Then I told the truth as I pushed back images of a knee brace as bright red as blood spilled, and leaves and trash clinging to gory hair. I remembered Danny’s brilliant smile and would never forget the small white bag he had carried out of the cafe on a hill, where a dog had barked half the night. In my mind, I would always see the sadness and fear in his eyes when he helped me with the murdered Ted Eddings, whom I now realized he had known. Together, the two young men had inadvertently led each other a step closer to their eventual violent deaths.
“Dear Lord. The poor boy,” was all Mant could say.
He covered his eyes with a handkerchief, and when I left him, he was still crying.
WESLEY AND I FLEW BACK TO NEW YORK THAT NIGHT, and arrived early because tail winds were more than a hundred knots. We went through customs and got our bags, then the same shuttle met us at the curb and returned us to the private airport where the Learjet was waiting.
The weather had suddenly warmed and was threatening rain, and we flew between colossal black thunderheads lighting up with violent thoughts. The storm loudly cracked and flashed as we sped through what seemed the middle of a feud. I had been briefed a little as to the current state of affairs, and it had come as no surprise that the Bureau had established an outpost along with others set up by police and rescue crews.
Lucy, I was relieved to hear, had been brought in from the field, and was working again in the Engineering Re search Facility, or ERF, where she was safe. What Wesley did not tell me until we reached the Academy was that she had been deployed along with the rest of HRT and would not be at Quantico long.
“Out of the question,” I said to him as if I were a mother refusing permission.
“I’m afraid you don’t have a say in this,” he replied.
He was helping me carry my bags through the Jefferson lobby, which was deserted this Saturday night. We waved to the young women at the registration desk as we continued arguing.
“For God’s sake,” I went on, “she’s brand-new. You can’t just throw her into the middle of a nuclear crisis.”
“We’re not throwing her into anything.” He pushed open glass doors. “All we need are her technical skills.
She’s not going to be doing any sniper-shooting or jumping out of planes.”
“Where is she now?” I asked as we got on an elevator.
“Hopefully in bed.”
“Oh.” I looked at my watch. “I guess it is midnight. I thought it was tomorrow and I should be getting up.”
“I know. I’m screwed up, too.”
Our eyes met and I looked away. “I guess we’re supposed to pretend nothing happened,” I said with an edge to my voice, for there had been no discussion of what had gone on between us.
We walked out into the hall and he pressed a code into a digitalized keypad. A lock released and he opened another glass door.
“What good would it do to pretend?” he said, entering another code and opening another door.
“Just tell me what you want to do,” I said.
We were inside the security suite where I usually stayed when work or danger kept me here overnight. He carried my bags into the bedroom as I drew draperies across the large window in the living room. The decor was comfortable but plain, and when Wesley did not respond, I remembered it probably was not safe to talk intimately in this place where I knew at the very least phones were monitored. I followed him back out into the hall and repeated my question.
“Be patient,” he said, and he looked sad, or maybe he was just weary. “Look, Kay, I’ve got to go home. First thing in the morning we’ve got to do a surveillance by air with Marcia Gradecki and Senator Lord.”
Gradecki was the United States attorney general, and Frank Lord was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and an old friend.