at the corners of his mouth for no apparent reason. As they approached, she could see him better and was gripped by the greenish, no-nonsense eyes. She judged Summers’s bodyguard to be a stone killer.
“Beth! Hello, girl!” Sybelle increased her pace over the last few steps and put her hands on Beth Ledford’s shoulders, pulling her close for an air kiss. She whispered, “Make this look normal.” Then she pushed away with a big smile and slid onto the stool between Beth and the paneled wall.
“Sybelle! I’m so glad you could make it. I didn’t want to leave Washington without saying hello.” She had turned to face Summers, and when she turned back, the man was already seated to her left, elbows on the bar, looking at her. “Who is this?”
“A guy who specializes in the kind of thing you mentioned, so I brought him along to pay the taxi fare.” Summers kept the smile playing on her face.
Beth studied the man for a moment. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”
He shook his head. “No.” A silent, one-word conversation.
The bartender came down and rolled her eyes when they ordered only a tonic with a slice of lime, and a glass of water. “Can you afford all that?” she joked. “I mean, along with this lady’s iced tea, the bill is going to be horrendous. Maybe four bucks.”
Sybelle reacted first. One sure way to draw attention is to be too cheap. Bartenders remember slights. “Bring us a couple of menus, too. We just want to catch up on some things before we order.” The bartender drifted away, happier.
“Really,” Beth continued. “You look familiar.”
The man cleared his throat. “Get to business. Why are we here?”
Beth Ledford looked over at Sybelle. “Is this Kyle Swanson?”
“Damn,” said Swanson.
“Told you she was sharp,” said Summers. “Pay up.”
Swanson laid a hundred-dollar bill on the bar.
“Wow,” Beth said. “Summers and Swanson both. The A-List. Pleased to meet you, Gunny. You’re a legend in the community. I’ve seen your picture several times, including when you got the Medal of Honor.” As she shook his hand, the drinks and menus arrived.
Summers spoke, the voice dropping to a lower tone that would not go beyond the three of them. “Beth, I heard about what happened to your brother. It was horrible. I’m very sorry.”
“Thank you. My mom is all torn up about it. Joey was special to all of us, and the closed-coffin funeral was difficult. I’ve seen what bullets can do to a human body, and my imagination ran wild.” Softer, she said, “He was my brother!”
Kyle Swanson leaned closer. “I’m sorry he got killed, too, Ledford. But just to be clear, he should not have been running around a war zone with just a box of Band-Aids.”
Beth Ledford felt as if she had just been slapped. In the three weeks since Joey had been killed, nobody had said such a thing to her, although it had been implied. Anger surged through her, and she turned to Swanson, their faces no more than eighteen inches apart. “You can go to hell, Swanson. I don’t care who you are.”
Sybelle placed a hand on Beth’s forearm. “Ignore him, Beth. Kyle is as subtle as an Abrams tank. Apologize, Kyle.”
“Right.” He took a sip of water and scanned the mirror that spread across the wall behind the bar.
Beth crossed her arms and leaned back, doing a slow exhale to keep her temper.
“Who’s the ‘nobody’ in your ‘nobody will listen’ scenario?” Kyle had changed neither his voice nor the set of his face.
Ledford answered, “I’ve been in D.C. for the past week, trying to get somebody to take me seriously. First, my own people, the Coast Guard, turned me down. Then the State Department, and the FBI. Even my own congressman. Nobody will touch it.” She brought her cell phone out of her purse. “I’ve got the pictures right here.”
Swanson’s frown lifted slightly. He did not want her to show any cell phone photos in a public place. “Put that away and settle down,” he ordered. “If you’re claiming a matter of national security, this is not the place to discuss it.”
Summers leaned in. “When does your emergency leave end?”
“I have to be back in Jacksonville in six days.”
“Not anymore. As of right now, you are now on temporary duty as my special assistant. You and I are going directly back to our offices in the Pentagon and do the paperwork, get you a higher security classification, and have you sign an unbreakable national security secrecy oath. Kyle will join us a little later.” She flicked a glance at Swanson, who nodded.
“I got it.”
“What?” Beth asked as she slid off the chair. “Got what?”
“Keep smiling. You’re being followed.”
Swanson remained at the bar, and when the bartender wandered over, he apologized for skipping out on the lunch order but handed over a big tip. He kept his eyes over her shoulder on the long mirror, where rows of liquor bottles sat on shelves. As he spoke, he watched the reflection of a woman at a table near the door. Her auburn hair had been swept back in a tight bun, but she was shaking it free so that it reached her shoulders. From her purse, she took out a pair of dark-rimmed Sarah Palin glasses and put them on. A white plastic shopping bag with the logo of a shoe store also had been folded inside the purse, and she shook it open. The wide-knit lightweight pink sweater around her shoulders was whipped off and stuffed into the shopping bag, along with the purse. In less than thirty seconds, her hair, eyes, and expression had all been changed, resulting in a brand-new look that someone as unaware as Beth Ledford would never have picked up.
Sybelle and Swanson had noticed her because it was their business to look for anything strange and out of place. Across from the restaurant’s front door, they had seen a young guy in old jeans, worn-out Nikes, and a green baseball cap loitering outside, reading a newspaper. A guy like that should have been busy playing a video game on his cell phone, not reading about current events, and the two Marines immediately recognized that he was doing surveillance.
Then the woman came in alone, out of breath, took the empty table beside the door, and buried her nose in a glossy big magazine about weddings and brides, studiously avoiding looking at Ledford at the bar.
Swanson admired her swift disguise change. Whoever she was, she was a pro. The guy with the green hat was also a watcher, waiting just outside to tail Ledford upon leaving. This woman was now able to switch back into the rotation. Kyle estimated there would be at least four of them to keep the subject in a visual box at all times. Make that six, because someone would have been stationed to cover the rear door of the restaurant, and a spare would be roaming in the area. Plus there would be cars waiting upstairs in case the target had wheels. Then there also would be a couple of people running the show. That added up to a lot of assets to deploy to watch Beth Ledford, who believed nobody was paying any attention to her.
He sipped his water and chatted aimlessly with the bartender for a minute so the woman left the restaurant first. By the time he left a minute later, she was already lost in the crowd, and Mr. Green Cap was also gone.
Swanson headed back to the Pentagon. Ledford had not mentioned pestering the CIA or the Department of Homeland Security, but she had talked to the FBI. It did not matter how many people the Feebs had on her, because Sybelle was taking her to the Pentagon, into the secret offices where the watchers could not follow. Kyle decided that it would be good for Ledford to drop totally off the grid for a while.
THE TWO BOYS, NOT yet in their teens, were skinny from the food shortages but had sinewy muscles from hard work just like almost everyone they knew. Ahmad and Ali were the best of friends, and late at night they liked to leave the familiar streets of their village and get out from beneath the eyes of the adults who were always
