of that made him clear his throat.
Washington, D.C.
The Eagle Has Landed
There weren’t any leaks. None of them could believe it. Their
short flight to Washington, then the drive to Georgetown to a small
restaurant called The Eagle Has Landed didn’t raise any curious
eyebrows. There wasn’t a single TV van in front of the restaurant,
not a single reporter from The Washington Post.
“I don’t believe it,” Thomas said as he ushered Becca into the
foyer of the small British pub. “No flashbulbs.”
“Glory be,” said Adam.
Andrew Bushman, appointed director of the FBI six months
previously after the unexpected retirement of the former director,
stood tall even with his rounded shoulders, his gray hair tonsured
like a medieval monk’s, and beautifully suited, when Thomas
walked to the small circular table at the back of the restaurant.
Bushman raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Matlock, I presume? You have
pulled me away from some very important matters. I came because
Gaylan Woodhouse asked me to, told me it had to do with the attempted
assassination of the governor of New York. My people are
directly involved in this. I will be interested to hear how the CIA
could possibly be involved, what they could possibly know that’s
pertinent.”
Gaylan Woodhouse eased around the back of a shoji screen. He
was a slight man of sixty-three who had come up through the
ranks of the CIA and had been known in the old days as the best
spy in the world because no one–absolutely no one–ever noticed
him, and still he was. paranoid, staying in the shadows until
there was no choice but to come out. He had been the director of
the CIA for four years now. Thank God, Thomas thought, Gaylan
had a long memory and a flexible mind.
“Thank you,” Thomas said and shook first the FBI hand and
then the CIA hand. “Now, this is my daughter, Becca, who is very
closely tied to this matter, and my associate, Adam Carruthers.
Gaylan, thank you for putting in a good word for me with Mr.
Bushman.”
Gaylan Woodhouse merely shrugged. “I know you, Thomas. If
you say something is critical, then it’s critical. I hope by that you
think it’s time to bring the FBI up to speed on this thing.”
“Yes, it’s time,” Thomas said.
The two directors eyed each other and managed affable smiles and
civil greetings. Andrew Bushman cleared his throat. “Mr. Hawley
and Mr. Cobb won’t be joining us today, but I suspect you knew
they wouldn’t. I will have any information needed by them sent to
New York when and if it’s appropriate. Now, I need a martini.
Then we can nail this thing down.”
Becca would have killed for a glass of wine, but she was taking
medications that didn’t allow it. She would even have accepted
Adam’s beer. She suffered through approximately four and a half
minutes of small talk. Then Gaylan Woodhouse said, “What have
you got that’s definitive on Krimakov,Thomas?”
Mr. Bushman’s eyebrow shot up. “Does this have to do with the
attempted assassination of the governor?”
“Indeed it does,” Gaylan said. “Thomas?”
Thomas launched into the story of a CIA agent, namely himself,
who was playing cat and mouse with a Russian agent in the mid-1970s
and accidentally killed that agent’s wife. And that Russian
agent had promised that he would get revenge, that he would kill
both Thomas and his family. As Thomas spoke, Becca thought
about what her life, her mother’s life would have been like if her father
hadn’t been in that godforsaken place, trying to get the best of
a Russian agent named Vasili Krimakov. “Of course, Gaylan knows
all of this already. The reason the FBI needs to be involved is because
we are trying to prove whether or not Krimakov is still alive
and thus was the one who tried to assassinate the governor of New
York. Actually, now we’re very certain that it’s him.”
FBI Director Bushman was lounged back in his seat, holding the
nearly empty martini glass in his hand. “But this guy is after you. Why
would he shoot the governor of New York? I’m not getting something