newly minted quarter. 'When you squeeze this, though, it goes bump in the night.'
Jason took both, examining them closely. 'How much 'bump'?'
'Enough that you don't want to be holding it.'
Jason slid them both into a pocket. 'I'll try to remember that.'
'And keep the two in separate pockets or you'll be singing soprano the rest of your life.'
'I'll definitely remember that.'
As he passed through the lobby, he waved to Kim. She ignored him.
In the garage he sat in the car a moment, planning his course of action.
He remembered his first job for Narcom, Inc.
After 9/11, after Laurin had… disappeared, the days and weeks had blended into a haze of equal grief and impotent fury. He was part of the most elite small-engagement organization in the world, Delta Force. He had dropped into inky darkness to places so deserted, so void of life that even the appearance of a scorpion had provided relief. He had slipped across borders into jungles that stank of decay, where boots rotted away in a week and both animals and plants were equally likely to be poisonous.
But no place had been as near to hell as the empty house on P Street in Georgetown, the home he and Laurin had shared. No encounter was as bad as being able to do nothing other than accept that she had been taken from him and there was nothing he could do about it. Getting even was out of the question; no life would equal hers. Still, he would gladly give years of his for just a chance at those responsible for her death.
Then Mama had called.
At first he had thought some prankster was playing a cruel joke. Then he remembered she was calling on a secure line, a phone that not only was unlisted but did not exist as far as any phone company knew.
It was as if she were intentionally playing Mephistopheles to his Faust.
The soft woman's voice named the members of his last squad and the code name of their mission, information so classified that less than a dozen people knew it. Would he be willing to take a high-paying job that desperately needed doing but carried far too much risk for politicians, a job ignoring national boundaries to stamp out international terrorist organizations, those who were perfectly willing to kill the innocent to impose their politics or religion on others?
Did a bear shit in the woods?
Did he have qualms about killing extremists, no matter their sex or nationality?
Did a shark ask questions before it fed?
A week later, Jason handed in his resignation from the army and Delta Force amid the sounds of debris removal at the Pentagon. That night he was on a plane for Munich, from where he would travel to a small town just across the Austrian border to a place the leaders of three European cells of Hamas were meeting.
Two days later he was on his way home, his rage at his loss partially slaked and his newly opened Swiss account over half a million dollars fatter.
It took the Austrian officials over a week to conclude that they would never find all the body parts.
Narcom had given Jason two things: wealth and revenge. There might be enough of the former in the world, but never the latter.
So much for Memory Lane. He had a new job to do.
Chapter Ten
Hilton Hotel K Street, Washington
That evening
Dressed in a new sweater and slacks as well as a warm and moth-free coat, Jason had cruised the Kalorama District, an area of restored mansions bordering Dupont Circle known locally as Embassy Row. Despite a number of sudden and unsignaled turns that brought the blasts of angry horns, he was still not sure he was not being followed. There was simply too much traffic to be certain.
Checking his watch for the third time in as many minutes, he was aware he was likely to be late for a rendezvous Jason considered useless at best. In typical CIA fashion, the phone number Mama had given him was answered only by the countersign, a time, and the bar of this Hilton as a meeting place. Simple courier delivery of the material Jason wanted would have served. The organization frequently reminded Jason of a group of kids playing at being spies, secrecy and stealth their own rewards. That love of the cloak-and-dagger mystique meant that if Jason were late, he'd miss his contact and have to go through the elaborate process of setting up another clandestine meeting.
He pulled to the curb in front of one the embassies, this one flying a flag he didn't recognize. As expected, a D.C. cop cruiser was behind him in less than a minute. In a world where alliances shifted like sands in a windstorm, the municipal government of the District made every effort to ensure that international antagonisms took only verbal form in its jurisdiction.
One cop stood just outside the driver's window of Jason's rental car. Another was checking the license plate.
The one beside the car made a motion to roll down the window. 'You got a problem, mister?'
Jason shrugged. 'Lost, I'm afraid. Can you direct me to the Hilton?'
The policeman shook his head in disgust. 'Take a look to your left. And remember, visitor to the city or not, we enforce the no-stopping signs in front of these embassies.'
During the brief encounter, Jason had seen no other vehicle stop to observe. It was the best he was going to do.
He was reluctant to hand over the rental car to the hotel's valet. Not having the keys in his possession eliminated one means of escape if something went wrong. That made him nervous.
Get a grip, he told himself. What could possibly go wrong with a simple delivery of papers, material Jason had requested?
But then, he knew Murphy had been an optimist.
His overcoat slung over his arm, he followed the sound of a piano mingled with voices. Just before the bank of elevators, he found a large, crowded room with an oak bar at one end. The sole entrance was clogged with customers coming and going. Tables surrounded by upholstered captain's chairs shared the rest of the space with a baby grand and banquettes against the wall opposite the piano. Jason skimmed the room with a glance. Drum, the voice on the phone, had given no clue as to how he might be identified.
Groups formed and re-formed like swarms of bees; no one seemed to be accompanied by anyone else. It was only after noting that there were roughly equal numbers of men and women that Jason realized it was Friday evening and he was witnessing that uniquely American mating rite, a singles bar. Had he given it any thought at all during the last several years, he would have guessed AIDS, herpes, and other unpleasant possibilities had culled the herd of unmarrieds seeking companionship, if not a relationship, in a saloon. Had he been asked, he would have assumed the ritual had joined the tea dance and church social on society's ash heap.
Jason grinned at snatches of conversation he could not help but overhear, words and phrases he had heard during his bachelorhood fifteen years ago: No woman ever came to such places except tonight, when she had simply agreed to accompany a friend. No man was driving anything less than a Porsche.
He smiled again, this time returning one from a shapely woman, her face surrounded by pageboy curls. It was too dark to distinguish all her features, but it would have been hard to miss the flat stomach that peered with a single eye over pants glued to her pelvic bone, or cleavage that threatened to spill out of a blouse utilizing less than half its buttons.
Undressed to kill.
Her interest looked a lot more personal than Kim's had been. She started in his direction, and for an instant Jason wished he were not here oil business.
'Fife?' The voice came from behind him.
Jason reluctantly turned his head to see a man who, at least in the bar's dim light, looked no older than a college sophomore. More and more people seemed younger and younger, a sure sign Jason was experiencing what the advertisements euphemistically described as the maturing process.
