stairs, opened up wide, hinges creaking, revealing a very elderly white male, lanky and rail thin, with age spots on his hands and face. Deacon Cather, the Gray Eminence of Clandestine Services.
She knew him from his photograph on Hank Brocius’s office wall. The pair had served for a time together in the same AO in Central America, Cather with the CIA and Brocius with the Marines. She herself had had a glancing contact with him during a terrorist incident at the Port of Chicago the previous fall. Cather, never aglow with health, looked like a cadaver: bony, sunken features, hooded eyes, sallow, jaundiced-looking skin stretched too tight over prominent cheekbones, teeth like yellow tombstones in bright red gums, withered, age-spotted hands, twisted and arthritic.
But his eyes were clear, alert, and seemed to radiate an icy light, as if all the fading forces of his aging body were being concentrated in his look. A subtle, cold-blooded reptile with a very long memory, he held most of the secrets of the Cold War in the stony labyrinths of his mind. And although he had recently been shunted out of Clandestine Services by the new administration, he still wore power as easily as he wore his navy blue pinstripe, his pristine white shirt, and the gold-and-ochre tie with its hieroglyphic pattern that was his signature accessory.
“Miss Turrin,” he said in a raspy whisper, “may I impose for just a moment . . . ?”
Nikki felt a momentary chill and found herself at a loss for words. The intelligence community was full of stories about Cather and his sudden appearances, impromptu and unexpected encounters where people who got invited to share a moment with him in a car quite frequently never came back to their offices or to their homes and families.
“Of course, Mr. Cather,” she said, resisting the temptation to throw her briefcase at him and bolt for her town house door.
He developed out of the car slowly like a wolf spider coming out of a drain, straightening up with an obvious effort, smiling his terrible rictus of a smile at her with as friendly an air as a man with his reputation could manage.
“Thank you, Miss Turrin. It’s a lovely afternoon. Perhaps you would do an old man the honor of a stroll along the avenue?”
Towering over her like a rusted derrick, he extended his left arm in a ghastly parody of chivalry. Nikki took it, feeling the forearm bone like a dry twig under the material of his suit jacket. They walked along together, arms linked, as Cather’s driver slowly eased the Crown Vic to a crawl, keeping pace with them, its motor growling and muttering like an unhappy guard dog.
Nikki saw another blue Crown Vic parked a block up, facing their way, the shadows of two men visible in the tinted glass: Cather’s CIA security detail.
“You have a good eye,” said Cather, following her glance. “I hope you can tolerate the melodrama. I think they’re convinced I’m going to defect, God bless their paranoid little hearts. Let us choose to ignore them.”
Nikki looked up at him, at the side of his face. He was staring ahead, his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him, but there was an air of sadness around him, sadness and something else.
He looked . . . worried. Troubled.
“We never actually met, did we?” he said after a few moments. “I know we spoke on the phone during the . . . events . . . in Chicago last fall. Of course, Mandy Pownall was familiar with you, I recall, and her description of you—she compared you to Isabella Rossellini—seems to have been quite accurate. Compliments from a woman as formidable as Mandy Pownall are rather rare. I’m very glad that Hank has you around. He’s well, is he?”
“Yes, sir. He’s on leave right now.”
“Is he? I suppose even a Marine needs a break now and then. He’s had a difficult time recently, I know.”
“His wife left him, sir. Because of the scarring.”
Brocius had been badly burned in an IED explosion in Iraq, trying to get the
She knew him from his photograph on Hank Brocius’s office wall. The pair had served for a time together in the same AO in Central America, Cather with the CIA and Brocius with the Marines. She herself had had a glancing contact with him during a terrorist incident at the Port of Chicago the previous fall. Cather, never aglow with health, looked like a cadaver: bony, sunken features, hooded eyes, sallow, jaundiced-looking skin stretched too tight over prominent cheekbones, teeth like yellow tombstones in bright red gums, withered, age-spotted hands, twisted and arthritic.
But his eyes were clear, alert, and seemed to radiate an icy light, as if all the fading forces of his aging body were being concentrated in his look. A subtle, cold-blooded reptile with a very long memory, he held most of the secrets of the Cold War in the stony labyrinths of his mind. And although he had recently been shunted out of Clandestine Services by the new administration, he still wore power as easily as he wore his navy blue pinstripe, his pristine white shirt, and the gold-and-ochre tie with its hieroglyphic pattern that was his signature accessory.
“Miss Turrin,” he said in a raspy whisper, “may I impose for just a moment . . . ?”
Nikki felt a momentary chill and found herself at a loss for words. The intelligence community was full of stories about Cather and his sudden appearances, impromptu and unexpected encounters where people who got invited to share a moment with him in a car quite frequently never came back to their offices or to their homes and families.
“Of course, Mr. Cather,” she said, resisting the temptation to throw her briefcase at him and bolt for her town house door.
He developed out of the car slowly like a wolf spider coming out of a drain, straightening up with an obvious effort, smiling his terrible rictus of a smile at her with as friendly an air as a man with his reputation could manage.
“Thank you, Miss Turrin. It’s a lovely afternoon. Perhaps you would do an old man the honor of a stroll along the avenue?”
Towering over her like a rusted derrick, he extended his left arm in a ghastly parody of chivalry. Nikki took it, feeling the forearm bone like a dry twig under the material of his suit jacket. They walked along together, arms linked, as Cather’s driver slowly eased the Crown Vic to a crawl, keeping pace with them, its motor growling and muttering like an unhappy guard dog.
Nikki saw another blue Crown Vic parked a block up, facing their way, the shadows of two men visible in the tinted glass: Cather’s CIA security detail.
“You have a good eye,” said Cather, following her glance. “I hope you can tolerate the melodrama. I think they’re convinced I’m going to defect, God bless their paranoid little hearts. Let us choose to ignore them.”
Nikki looked up at him, at the side of his face. He was staring ahead, his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him, but there was an air of sadness around him, sadness and something else.
He looked . . . worried. Troubled.
“We never actually met, did we?” he said after a few moments. “I know we spoke on the phone during the . . . events . . . in Chicago last fall. Of course, Mandy Pownall was familiar with you, I recall, and her description of you—she compared you to Isabella Rossellini—seems to have been quite accurate. Compliments from a woman as formidable as Mandy Pownall are rather rare. I’m very glad that Hank has you around. He’s well, is he?”
“Yes, sir. He’s on leave right now.”
“Is he? I suppose even a Marine needs a break now and then. He’s had a difficult time recently, I know.”
“His wife left him, sir. Because of the scarring.”
Brocius had been badly burned in an IED explosion in Iraq, trying to get the
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