The Cutout

Department. Dare Atwood, she said, was on her way over.

Bigelow closed the magazine, his forefinger resting for an instant on its glossy cover; then he whipped off his tie and dress clothes and threw on a polo shirt and khakis. He would have to call her son. Peter had arrived at his mother's residence — the Naval Observatory — that afternoon. Should he do it now? Or let the boy sleep? Terrible, if Peter heard it first from a television screen. Like the outcome of a close election.

He fumbled with his belt buckle, and then his fingers stilled. Sophie was dead. Throughout each hour of the past five days, he had known it was a possibility. But the fact of her death threw his crisis management in a harsher light. Death demanded reevaluation. Where had they gone wrong? The pundits would certainly ask. And the next question was inevitable: Who would pay?

“So Krucevic is dead?”

“We have confirmation of that, yes. From Caroline Carmichael.”

“The woman who found Sophie.”

“My analyst,” Dare Atwood amended. “And our Budapest station managed to collect a remarkable amount of intelligence from... the 30 April bunker in Hungary.”

This was technically true; she saw no reason to explain exactly how Eric's disk had survived the explosion.

“We're rolling up Krucevic's networks all over the world. Thirty-five arrests have already been made, in fourteen raids.”

“Do we have enough to screw Fritz Voekl?” Bigelow asked pensively.

“I believe we do. He's clearly implicated in the VaccuGen mumps scandal — the records of E-mail correspondence between the chancellor and Mian Krucevic confirm his full knowledge and support of the vaccination campaign. And then there's the Brandenburg dump.”

“What dump?”

“Voekl ordered all evidence from the 30 April bombing destroyed. Our station chief in Berlin, Wally Aronson, has found out why.”

“Go on,” Bigelow ordered.

“You may remember that Fritz Voekl got his political start running a munitions plant in Thuringia.”

“Best little gun shop in the GDR.”

“The FBI's forensic technicians have traced chemical residues from the explosive responsible for the Brandenburg Gate's destruction directly to plastic explosive produced in that plant.”

Bigelow whistled softly.

“It ain't exactly proof the man planned a hit on his own capital.. ..”

“And it won't be admissible in court. But its as close as we'll ever get to a smoking gun.”

The President swiveled in his desk chair thoughtfully.

“We're not goin' to court. Dare. What we want is Fritz Voekl outta office.”

“For that,” Dare replied, “you need only public outcry. Give the mumps epidemic to the press, Mr. President, and you'll have it.”

Bigelow glanced over at his DCI.

“We owe that much to Sophie. Having failed her in every other respect.”

Dare Atwood bowed her head.

“May I say, Mr. President, how deeply I regret the Vice President's death?”

The President stared out the Rose Garden window. At this hour of night, a spotlight lit the bare canes; they threw a shadow like barbed wire across the withered lawn.

“I know you did everything possible,” he said. “Don't know what else we coulda done. But I'm sure I'll be reading about this fiasco in the Washington Post for the next six months.”

So much, Dare thought, for mourning Sophie Payne.

“How much access should the Agency afford the press, Mr. President?”

He studied her.

“The Agency? Or your analyst — the Carmichael woman?”

“She's something of a heroine,” Dare observed delicately. “The fact of the Vice President's death takes nothing from the extraordinary courage and brilliance Ms. Carmichael displayed. That should not go unrecognized.”

Jack Bigelow considered the point. A heroine might be useful at dispelling the funk of failure. But they would have to be careful how they handled Carmichael.

“There's just one question I gotta ask, Dare.”

“Yes, sir?”

“The Sarajevo cable says she used a homing device to find Sophie in that tunnel. But who planted the transmitter — and where, exactly, did your gal get the device?”

Dare felt a tremor between her shoulder blades and stood a little straighter.

“From someone within the 30 April Organization, sir. That much is obvious. If difficult questions are asked, I suggest we refer to our constant need to protect our Intelligence sources and methods. That tends to put an end to certain conversations.”

Bigelow tossed a copy of the Financial Times across his desk. Even upside down, Dare knew what the headline said: American's Body Discovered in Terrorists' Lair.

“You realize the kind of stink this could cause?” Dare returned his gaze steadily.

“I haven't read that piece yet, sir.”

“You in the habit of runnin' rogue operations, Dare?”

“Absolutely not, Mr. President.” She hesitated. “The groundwork for that ... operation ... was laid during my predecessor's tenure.”

Bigelow scowled.

“And no one saw fit to inform you of it?”

“No, sir.”

“Wonder how many other DCI's that bastard Sorensen has end-run.”

Dare had asked herself the same question. Had Scottie made a practice of deceiving his superiors? Or was her case special — a higher threshold of mistrust — because she was a woman with no operational experience?

“Mr. Sorensen has already proffered his resignation,” she told the President.

He shook his head.

“We can't accept it in the present climate. Too many questions would be asked. And Sorensen might feel obligated to answer them.”

“I agree.”

The President crumpled the Financial Times and tossed it in his wastebasket.

“Watch your back, Dare,” he advised her. “You're not careful, son of a bitch will have your job next.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

Tom Shephard caught up with Caroline thirteen hours after Delta Force did.

He stood in the doorway of her room — the embassy had pulled rank with the Sarajevo hospital and insisted it be private — and studied her. She was sound asleep. Her head lay slantwise across the pillow, her blond hair lank from several days' neglect. The bandaged collarbone was just visible through a gap in her gown. The room was filled with dusk and the green glow of a fitful fluorescent tube, so that the quality of her skin was cadaverous; nothing of Caroline's force or spark remained.

He had not entered a hospital since the day five years before when his Jennifer had died. He found he was still not ready. With a flutter of panic, he turned to go.

“Hey, Shephard.” Perhaps it was her wound that had stripped her of all defenses, or the fact that the long, hard quest was done. Whatever the reason, she looked at him baldly and stretched out her hand. He understood then just how lonely she was — how much in need of human contact.

He took her fingers between his own and squeezed them gently.