commander's order.
He would have to look into her eyes. He would be watching the woman as she realized that she was about to die.
In 1984, when India was rocked by inter caste violence, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a series of attacks on armed Sikh separatists in Amritsar. Over a thousand people were killed. Those deaths were unfortunate, the inevitable result of armed conflict. Several months later, Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated by Sikhs who were members of her own bodyguard. Her murder was a cold-blooded act and a tragedy.
It had a face.
Major Puri knew that this had to be done. But he also knew that he wished someone else would do it. Soldiering was a career he could leave behind. The job of combatant was temporary. But once he killed, even in the name of patriotism, that act would stay with him for the rest of his life.
And the next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.
Washington, D. C. Wednesday, 11:45 p. m.
Paul Hood was glad when Bob Herbert came to see him.
Hood had shut his office door, opened a box of Wheat Thins, and worked on the Op-Center budget cuts for the better part of the evening. He had left word with Bugs Benet that he was not to be disturbed unless it were urgent. Hood did not feel like end-of-the-day chitchat. He did not want to have to put on a public face. He wanted to hide, to lose himself in a project--any project.
Most of all Hood did not feel like going home. Or what passed for home these days, an undistinguished fifth- floor suite at the Days Inn on Mercedes Boulevard. Hood had a feeling that it would be a long time, if ever, before he regarded anything but the Hood house in Chevy Chase, Maryland, as home. But he and his wife, Sharon, were separated and his presence at the house created strife for her. She said he was a reminder of their failed marriage, of facing a future without a companion. Their two children did not need that tension, especially Harleigh. Hood had spent time with Harleigh and her younger brother, Alexander, over the weekend.
They did things that Washingtonians rarely did: they toured the monuments. Hood had also arranged for them to get a personal tour of the Pentagon. Alexander was impressed by all the saluting that went on. It made him feel important not to have to do it. He also liked the kick-ass intensity of all the guards.
Harleigh said she enjoyed the outing but that was pretty much all she said. Hood did not know whether it was posttraumatic stress, the separation, or both that were on her mind. Psychologist Liz Gordon had advised him not to talk about any of that unless Harleigh brought it up. His job was to be upbeat and supportive. That was difficult without any input from Harleigh. But he did the best he could.
For Harleigh.
What he had been neglecting in all of this were his needs.
Home was the biggest and most immediate hole. The hotel room did not have the familiar creaking and pipe sounds and outside noises he had come to know. There was no oil burner clicking on and off. The hotel room smelled unfamiliar, shared, transient. The water pressure was weaker, the soap and shampoo small and impersonal. The nighttime lighting on the ceiling was different. Even the coffeemaker didn't pop and burble the same as the one at home. He missed the comfort of the familiar. He hated the changes.
Especially the biggest one. The huge hole he had dug for himself with Ann Fan-is, Op-Center's thirty-four year- old press liaison. She had pursued him virtually from the day she arrived. He had found the pursuit both flattering and uncomfortable.
Flattering because Paul Hood and his wife had not been connecting for years. Uncomfortable because Ann Farris was not subtle. Whatever poker face Ann put on during press briefings she did not wear around Hood. Maybe it was a question of balance, of yin and yang, of being passive in public and aggressive in private. Regardless, her open attention was a distraction for Hood and for the people closest to him, like Mike Rodgers and Bob Herbert.
So of course Hood made the desperate mistake of actually making love to Ann. That had ratcheted up the tension level by making her feel closer and him feel even guiltier. He did not want to make love to her again.
At least, not until he was divorced. Ann said she understood but she still took it as a personal rejection. It had affected their working relationship.
Now she was cool to him in private and hot with the press in public.
How had Paul Hood gone from someone who reached the top of several professions at a relatively young age to someone who had messed up his own life and the lives of those around him? How the hell had that happened?
Ann was really the one that Hood did not want to see tonight. But he could not tell Bugs to keep only her out.
Even if she did figure out that was what Hood was doing he did not want to insult her directly.
Ironically, the work Hood was doing involved cutting Ann and her entire division.
Hood was not surprised that Herbert was working this late.
The intelligence chief preferred work to socializing. It was not politically correct but it was pure Herbert: he said that it was more of a challenge trying to get inside a spy's head than into a woman's pants. The rewards were also greater, Herbert insisted. The spy ended up dead, in prison, or incapacitated.
It was a lesson Hood should have learned from his friend.
Hood was glad when Herbert came to see him. He needed a crisis to deal with, one that was not of his own making.
The briefing that Bob Herbert gave Hood was not the low intensity distraction he had been hoping for. However, the prospect of nuclear war between India and Pakistan did chase all other thoughts from Hood's mind.
Herbert brought Hood up to speed on the conversations he'd had with Mike Rodgers and Ron Friday. When
