Instead, a gruff voice said, “Pincher.”
“Mr. Pincher. Jon Mallory.”
He said nothing at first. Then, “A long time. How have you been?”
“Fine.”
“I hear your latest story on Africa ruffled a few feathers.”
“I heard that.”
“Some of the philanthropists thought you were picking on them.”
“I know.”
“How’s your brother?”
“That’s what I’m calling about.” He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid something might have happened to him.”
Jon listened to the man breathe. Pincher had served as an off-the-record source once for a feature he’d written about proposed constitutional changes in Turkey; he had only agreed to talk with him because he knew Charlie, though, and he suspected that was the only reason he had taken this call.
“Why do you think something might have happened to him?”
“He was supposed to call me this morning. He didn’t.”
“Not like Charlie.”
“No.”
“But then calling you at all isn’t like him, either. Is it? I thought you two weren’t in contact.”
“We weren’t.”
“You’re revealing something to me here, then, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
But of course, he was. Pincher could read the sub-text: that Charles Mallory had been one of his sources on the recent stories about Africa.
“I can’t say I hadn’t suspected that,” he said. “But why do you think I can help you on this?”
“Because you know my brother. You’ve worked with him, anyway.”
Pincher made a sound—what could have been a sigh or a laugh or a cough. His deliberate silences were a good sign, Jon thought, so he didn’t say anything.
“
“Okay.”
“Someone who worked with your father, too. Here in Foggy Bottom. He’s in the private sector now. Satellites.”
Jon Mallory waited.
“Satellites,” Pincher repeated. “Okay? And that didn’t come from me.”
“Wait.”
But Herbert Pincher had already hung up.
IT WAS NINE minutes later when Jon Mallory thought of Gus Hebron. Another face from his father’s funeral. A large man with a big wide face and steely eyes. At the gravesite, he had clapped Jon once on the back and then walked away through the veil of snow to his car, not saying a word. He’d skipped the reception.
And Jon thought again of the face that should have been at the funeral but wasn’t.
His brother’s.
For some reason, Charlie had chosen to miss their father’s funeral.
There was no listing for Gus Hebron in the current year’s phone book, but Jon found a “white pages” listing online, with an address in Reston, Virginia. A new listing. He called the number and listened to it ring. Six times, seven, eight. No answer. No voicemail.
At 6:28, before going out to pick up some Chinese food for dinner, he tried again, and Gus Hebron answered. Jon Mallory immediately recognized the throaty way he said “Hello,” even though it had been close to twenty years since he had talked with him.
“Gus Hebron?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Jon Mallory. I don’t know if you remember me.”
He waited through a silence. Looked out at the old stone bench in the back yard, the place he liked to go to think.
“Jonny Mallory? Of course. What’s the occasion?”
“I’m calling about my brother.”
“Yeah?” Jon heard clicking sounds in the background. “What about him? What’s up?”
“I’m trying to find him.”
“Oh? Okay.” Hebron breathed heavily again, and Mallory remembered that even as a twenty-something- year-old, he had always seemed short of breath. “Hey, listen, Jonny. I’m sort of in the middle of something here. But why don’t you come on over to my place? All right? If we’re going to talk, I’d rather do it in person, anyway. Okay?”
“When?”
“Come on over.”
SIX
GUS HEBRON LIVED IN the Virginia suburb of Reston, the first planned post-war community in the United States. His house was a large brick colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac with lots of oaks and elms behind it. Three stories, tall French windows. Much too much house for one man living alone, which Jon Mallory suspected that Gus Hebron was.
He had found a bio of Hebron online, along with some personal details. Eight years ago, he’d become partner in a commercial satellite business known as Sky Glass Industries Inc. It was sold last year to Boeing. Hebron’s division worked on defense and intelligence contracts, including surveillance projects for the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense. Before that, he had helped develop satellite programs for NASA and the National Security Agency. Born in upstate New York, Hebron had received his master’s degree from Georgetown, where he’d taken a class from Jon Mallory’s father. He’d served as a combat engineer officer in the U.S. Army, then worked for Raytheon and United Technologies Corporation before taking a post with the government.
The neighborhood where he lived was new and felt oddly uninhabited. The sun had set, but orange-gold afterglows burned through the shedding trees as Jon pulled in. Hebron greeted him at the front door wearing baggy, faded jeans, fuzzy slippers, and an oversized Washington Redskins jersey. Number 8. He was a big man—six-one, 250, Jon guessed. Full face, easy grin, short-cropped curly hair, with age lines on his forehead and around his eyes. It was a face that didn’t reveal much, although Jon sensed that he was a complex man. The last time they had spoken, Gus had been a student of his father’s. He always wore short-sleeved buttoned shirts in those days and grinned a lot but never said much.
“Come on in, Jonny. Get you a beer?”
“All right.”
Jon stood in the doorway and surveyed the living room. The house was elegantly appointed and seemed brand new. Two-story foyer, hardwood floors, a mantled fireplace. A sixty-inch television played C-SPAN on mute. The room was cluttered with a half-dozen beat-up cardboard boxes stuffed with papers, notebooks, and file folders. Two computer monitors sat side by side on an old wooden work table. The chandeliers were set too bright.
Gus Hebron handed Jon a sixteen-ounce can of Bud Light in a Redskins coolie. He returned to the kitchen and came back with a fruit bowl filled with Chex mix, setting it on the large glass coffee table between them.
“So, what are you doing with yourself these days, Jonny?”
“Nothing real exciting.”
