things might be different, but he was tired. He wanted to die in privacy, with his mind and dignity intact.
A hospital bed had been moved into the study on the first floor of his home. The modest three-thousand-square-foot colonial sat on two wooded acres overlooking the Potomac River. In the spring, they could sit in the backyard and watch the water rush over Stublefield Falls, but now, in the fall, it was barely a trickle. Stansfield sat in his favorite leather chair, and looked admiringly out the window at the fall colors. How appropriate it was to die this time of the year, he thought. At least, Robert Frost would think so.
Sally, his eldest daughter, was in town from San Diego taking care of him. His other daughter, Sue, was to arrive on Wednesday from Sacramento. Their plan was to stay with him to the end. The five grandkids had been out two weekends before to spend some time with Grandpa before he was too far gone to enjoy it. The oldest was seventeen, and the youngest was five. The weekend had been painful but necessary. There had been a lot of tears.
Today Sally had helped him get dressed for a visitor. He was wearing a pair of tan slacks, a light blue button-down, and a gray cardigan. His white hair was parted to the side and combed back. Iowa was slugging it out with Penn State on the TV; but Stansfield wasn't paying attention to the game. He was worried about a phone call he had received. He wanted to put everything in order before he passed. The grandkids were taken care of. Trusts had been set up for college and grad school if they chose, but nothing else. There would be no sports cars or boats, no toys to make them weak. The house would easily fetch a million, not bad considering he had bought the land for two thousand dollars back in 1952. And there were other investments, of course. A person would have had to be a fool not to have capitalized on some of the information that had come across Thomas Stansfield's desk over the years. The daughters would get the bulk of the estate, and he didn't worry for a moment about whether the money would be used wisely.
What did worry Thomas Stansfield was the CIA. Things were not in order, and they were beginning to show signs of being worse than he had thought. No one outside Stansfield's family had been allowed to look behind the curtain he had pulled across his life. There was one exception, and that was Irene Kennedy. Stansfield thought of her as his third daughter. She was, he believed, the most talented and crucially important person working for the CIA. This made her a big target for a lot of people, and Stansfield was worried that when he was gone, his enemies would do their best to destroy her.
SALLY ESCORTED DR. Kennedy into the study and then closed the door on her way out. Irene approached Stansfield's chair and kissed him on the forehead. This was a new thing for them, since the cancer had been discovered. At the time, they had quietly mused over death's habit of bringing one's true feelings to the surface. Kennedy took the chair across from her boss and asked him how he felt.
«Pretty good, but let's not worry about me. There's nothing we can do about that.» Stansfield studied her for a moment and asked, «What's wrong?»
Kennedy wasn't exactly sure where to start, and after a brief hesitation, she said, «The operation we were running in Germany last night…»
«Yes.»
«Things didn't go exactly as planned.»
«How bad?»
«Mitch hasn't reported in yet, and the BKA has put out a continentwide bulletin on three individuals they believe are responsible for the death of Count Hagenmiller.»
«This was expected.»
«Yes, it was, but some other things have transpired.» Kennedy went on to describe the fire and the strange piece of information they had intercepted from the BKA – that it appeared Rapp left the mansion after the Hoffmans and had to steal a car to get away.
When she was done, Stansfield said, «It sounds to me as if something didn't
A hospital bed had been moved into the study on the first floor of his home. The modest three-thousand-square-foot colonial sat on two wooded acres overlooking the Potomac River. In the spring, they could sit in the backyard and watch the water rush over Stublefield Falls, but now, in the fall, it was barely a trickle. Stansfield sat in his favorite leather chair, and looked admiringly out the window at the fall colors. How appropriate it was to die this time of the year, he thought. At least, Robert Frost would think so.
Sally, his eldest daughter, was in town from San Diego taking care of him. His other daughter, Sue, was to arrive on Wednesday from Sacramento. Their plan was to stay with him to the end. The five grandkids had been out two weekends before to spend some time with Grandpa before he was too far gone to enjoy it. The oldest was seventeen, and the youngest was five. The weekend had been painful but necessary. There had been a lot of tears.
Today Sally had helped him get dressed for a visitor. He was wearing a pair of tan slacks, a light blue button-down, and a gray cardigan. His white hair was parted to the side and combed back. Iowa was slugging it out with Penn State on the TV; but Stansfield wasn't paying attention to the game. He was worried about a phone call he had received. He wanted to put everything in order before he passed. The grandkids were taken care of. Trusts had been set up for college and grad school if they chose, but nothing else. There would be no sports cars or boats, no toys to make them weak. The house would easily fetch a million, not bad considering he had bought the land for two thousand dollars back in 1952. And there were other investments, of course. A person would have had to be a fool not to have capitalized on some of the information that had come across Thomas Stansfield's desk over the years. The daughters would get the bulk of the estate, and he didn't worry for a moment about whether the money would be used wisely.
What did worry Thomas Stansfield was the CIA. Things were not in order, and they were beginning to show signs of being worse than he had thought. No one outside Stansfield's family had been allowed to look behind the curtain he had pulled across his life. There was one exception, and that was Irene Kennedy. Stansfield thought of her as his third daughter. She was, he believed, the most talented and crucially important person working for the CIA. This made her a big target for a lot of people, and Stansfield was worried that when he was gone, his enemies would do their best to destroy her.
SALLY ESCORTED DR. Kennedy into the study and then closed the door on her way out. Irene approached Stansfield's chair and kissed him on the forehead. This was a new thing for them, since the cancer had been discovered. At the time, they had quietly mused over death's habit of bringing one's true feelings to the surface. Kennedy took the chair across from her boss and asked him how he felt.
«Pretty good, but let's not worry about me. There's nothing we can do about that.» Stansfield studied her for a moment and asked, «What's wrong?»
Kennedy wasn't exactly sure where to start, and after a brief hesitation, she said, «The operation we were running in Germany last night…»
«Yes.»
«Things didn't go exactly as planned.»
«How bad?»
«Mitch hasn't reported in yet, and the BKA has put out a continentwide bulletin on three individuals they believe are responsible for the death of Count Hagenmiller.»
«This was expected.»
«Yes, it was, but some other things have transpired.» Kennedy went on to describe the fire and the strange piece of information they had intercepted from the BKA – that it appeared Rapp left the mansion after the Hoffmans and had to steal a car to get away.
When she was done, Stansfield said, «It sounds to me as if something didn't
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