never heard of Michael O'Shaughnessy and couldn't have known it was an Agency alias — entered the name into the database.”
“We don't know how old this information is,” Caroline hedged. “People keep numbers in their black books for years. Maybe Eric made legitimate contact with Sharif years ago. Maybe he targeted him for recruitment.”
“It was a datebook, Caroline. Sharif bought it last January. Nothing in there is less than current. He talked to Eric sometime this year. And that disconnected phone was in Berlin.”
“You think they planned this,” she said. “That Eric was in Berlin and recruited Sharif to build the device that took out the Gate. Why, Cuddy? Why would a Palestinian do anything for a neo-Nazi like Krucevic?”
“Who said it was Krucevic? All I saw was Eric in a helicopter. Anyone could have been flying it, Caroline. You know that.”
“But, Cuddy...”
“It could have been anybody,” he interrupted.
“We won't know who snatched the Veep until they make contact. And once they do whether it's Osama bin Laden or Hizballah or, yes, 30 April the FBI will be in charge of the investigation.”
“You just want this whole thing to go away, don't you?” Her voice was brittle with frustration.
“Of course!” he burst out. “Isn't that what any sane person would want? Or have you had the time of your life today, Carrie, hiding in the women's bathroom?”
“I'm sorry,” she said inadequately.
“Don't hope for good things, Mad Dog. They're just not thick on the ground.”
Nine
Prague, 5:52 p.m.
“Mrs. Payne.”
A harsh voice, faintly mocking. Sophie turned her hooded head and groped vainly for a face. A piercing light penetrated the cloth masking her eyes; nothing else did.
“Help the lady out, Michael.”
A firm pair of hands under her armpits, and she was hoisted free of the box in which she had traveled now for unreckoned hours. She groaned at the bruising pain of it; her tethered wrists, pulled obscenely behind her back, had gone numb.
The unseen Michael half thrust, half carried her along a smooth surface, probably concrete. A pathway — toward what, exactly? — cold and pitted under her stockinged feet. She was still wearing the suit she had chosen for the embassy inaugural.
It must be spattered with Nell Forsyte's blood. Sophie's throat tightened, torn between the desire to retch and the need to sob. Nell was dead. She, Sophie, was alive. That should have been comforting — but Sophie was no fool. The men who had abducted her would attempt to bargain for her life. And much as he liked and respected her, the President would never negotiate with terrorists.
The air was sharp and chill. She felt the weak sunlight fade, had a palpable sense of passing indoors. A short, stumbling flight of stairs, a stubbed toe. Her son Peter's laugh rang suddenly in her ears — infectious, still young, the faintest edge of her dead husband in its timbre. What did Peter know other fate? Was he frantically calling the White House, demanding information — leaving New Haven on an afternoon train, with just an ATM card in his pocket?
She was thrust abruptly into a straight-backed chair; they left her that way for an instant. Then the hood was pulled off, charging her hair with static electricity. She looked around, blinking in the ruthless light of bare bulbs. A windowless room, probably a cellar of some sort, with carpeting and a few pieces of functional furniture. Doorways led to who-knew-where-but one of them, certainly, to the outside.
Four men, ranged around the room, gazed at her impassively.
“Mrs. Payne.”
The voice came from behind. She turned and looked into a face she knew could never be Michael's. Michael was the American who had driven the car. This man was not an American.
Black hair, close-cropped as a marine's and balding in the center. A harshly beaked nose, small brown eyes under curved brows. Sallow skin. A frankly sensual mouth. His body was compact and powerful, his hands too large for his wrists. He wore gray flannel trousers and a sweater; without touching it, she knew it was cashmere. She had expected a black turtleneck. Something to go with the handgun he slung casually in his shoulder holster.
He squatted down before her chair. A faint odor of aftershave — sandalwood and lime — and cigarette smoke. A scar like an arrow in the short hairs at his temple. Not a knife wound — a bullet, perhaps? She lacked the experience to say.
“You look relatively unscathed.”
She resisted the impulse to answer. The tape over her mouth could only make her ridiculous. But she kicked upward sharply and without warning, landing a foot directly in his crotch; he fell backward with a cry of pain. Before Michael or one of the others could react, he had rolled to his feet and whipped the gun from its sheath. The barrel bit into Sophie's forehead.
“Mian,” one of the men said in warning.
He stared into Sophie's eyes, completely composed. Then he slid the gun back into its holster.
“Tape, Vaclav.” A middle-aged man with a cherub's face silently produced a roll of black electrical tape.
With infinite care, the man named Mian crouched once more at Sophie's feet. He held her gaze deliberately, daring her to kick him again, while he slid the hem of her narrow skirt up to her thighs. Then he lashed one ankle to the right chair leg with tape, the other to the left.
That quickly, she was exposed, knees sprawled wide, helpless to cover herself.
He had chosen his retaliation well; mere physical violence would have strengthened her. This was a humiliation so casual and calculated it almost made her weep.
“I should have explained something,” he said. “I am difficult to provoke.” He reached for the tape covering her mouth and tore it off. Sophie cried out then looked away, ashamed.
“I should also have introduced myself,” he added, wadding the tape into a compact ball and handing it without a word to Vaclav.
“My name is Mian Krucevic. That will probably mean nothing to you.”
“On the contrary,” she said clearly, “I know a great deal about you, Mr. Krucevic. It's hard to follow the Balkans or terrorism without running into your name. But then, neo-Nazism and its psychotics are particular concerns of mine.”
He rose, still poised between her knees.
“A Vice President who can read. How intriguing.”
Sophie looked up at him coolly.
“You didn't know? And I thought you did your homework.”
“Oh, I have, Mrs. Payne. More than was conceivably necessary. One might say I know everything about you. But then, democracy and its decline are particular concerns of mine.”
“Then you must know that I, too, am difficult to provoke.”
“Perhaps. But I didn't destroy the Brandenburg Gate and kill a number of innocent people merely to provoke you, Mrs. Payne.”
“If you're thinking this will have the slightest impact on Jack Bigelow,” she said, “you're mistaken.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Then it will be the first time in a long life”
“There is always a first time, Mr. Krucevic.”
“Of course,” he said thoughtfully. “But what was your mistake, Mrs. Payne? Coming to Berlin? Or running for public office? Who are you, really, but the sum of your errors and lies?”
He began to pace before her, a professor in front of a half-filled lecture hall.
The four men stationed around the room stood at attention, their eyes following Krucevic.
“We should start, I suppose, with the official dossier. You are forty-three years old, the daughter of German
