Balance of Power

suddenly seemed to belong to another lifetime.

“I honestly don’t know,” she answered.

Ron Plummer and Bob Herbert arrived then. Hood held up a finger. Herbert saw that he was on his private line. He nodded and the men turned their backs to the doorway. Ann Farris arrived a moment later. She joined the two men waiting in the hall.

“I guess that depends on—” Sharon said, then stopped.

“On what?” Hood asked. “On me? On whether I want you here? You know the answer to that.”

“I know,” Sharon said, “though I don’t know why. You’re never around. We go on vacations and you leave the first day.”

“That happened once.”

“That’s only because we haven’t even tried to take another vacation,” Sharon said. “What I was going to say is, my coming back to Washington depends on whether I want to watch the kids get disappointed over and over again — or whether I want to put a stop to it altogether.”

“That’s what you want,” Hood said. He had raised his voice and lowered it quickly. “Have you asked them what they want? Does that matter?”

“Of course it matters,” she said. “They want their father. And so do I. But if we can’t have him, then maybe we ought to settle that now instead of letting this drag on.”

Herbert turned back toward the office. His lips were pursed and his eyebrows were raised. Whatever he had was important. As Herbert turned back around, Hood found himself wishing that he could start everything over again. The day, the year, his entire life.

“Don’t go up there,” Hood said. “Please. We’ll figure something out as soon as the situation is under control.”

“I figured you’d say that,” Sharon replied. Her voice wasn’t hard, just final. “If you want to figure it out, Paul, you know where we’ll be. I love you — and I’ll talk to you, okay?”

She hung up. Hood was still looking out the door at the backs of the heads of his subordinates. He had always regarded Bob and Mike and Darrell in particular as a special kind of family. Now, suddenly, they were his only family. And it wasn’t enough.

He hung up the phone. Bob heard it and turned. He wheeled in followed by the others. His eyes were on Hood.

“Everything okay?” Herbert asked.

It suddenly hit him. His wife had just left their home and taken the kids with her. He half had it in mind to send someone to the airport to stop them. But Sharon would never forgive him for muscling her. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to forgive himself.

“We’ll talk later,” Hood said. “What’ve you got?”

“A major crapstorm, as they say back in my home-town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. I’ve just got to make sure you still want Darrell and Aideen in the middle of it.”

“Paul,” Ann said, tapping her notebook in her open hand, “if I could just steal a minute I can be out of here.”

Hood looked at Herbert.

The intelligence chief nodded. “Okay if I stay?”

Ann nodded.

“Okay,” Hood said to Ann.

“Thanks,” she said.

Hood’s eyes dropped briefly to Ann’s fine-boned fingers under the notepad. The long, red fingernails seemed very feminine. He looked away. He was angry at Sharon and was drawn to Ann, who wanted him. He hated feeling that way but he didn’t know what to do about it.

“I’ve just had a call from the BBC,” Ann said. “They obtained a tourist’s videotape of the scene around the Congress of Deputies in Madrid. It shows Martha’s body being removed—”

“Freakin’ ghouls,” Herbert complained.

“They’re newspeople,” Ann countered, “and whether we like it or not, this is news.”

“Then they’re ghoulish newspeople,” Herbert said.

“Let it go, Bob,” Hood said. He wasn’t in the mood for another family squabble. “What’s the bottom line, Ann?”

She glanced at her notes. “They pulled an image of Martha’s face,” she continued, “ran it through their data base, and came up with a picture of Martha when she met with Nelson Mandela’s Zulu rival Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi in Johannesburg in ninety-four. Jimmy George at the Washington Post says he’s got to run with what he knows tomorrow before the BBC story gets out.”

Hood pressed his palms into his eyes and rubbed. “Does anyone know about Aideen being there with her?”

“Not yet.”

“What do you recommend?” Hood asked.

“Lie,” Herbert offered.

“If we try and fudge this,” Ann replied with a hint of annoyance, “if we say something like, ‘She was a diplomatic troubleshooter but she was really there on vacation,’ no one’ll believe us. They’ll keep on digging. So I suggest we give them the bare bones truth.”

“How bare bones?” Hood asked.

“Let’s say that she was there to lend her experience to Spanish congressional deputies. They were concerned about rising ethnic tension and she’s had experience in that area. True, end of story.”

“You can’t tell the press that much,” Herbert pointed out.

“I have to,” Ann said.

“If you do that,” Herbert said, “they may figure out that she wasn’t there alone. And then the bastards who shot Martha might come back for a second try at Aideen.”

“I thought the killers were all at the bottom of the sea,” Ann said.

“Maybe they are,” said Hood. “What if Bob’s right? What if they’re not?”

“I don’t know,” Ann admitted. “But if I lie, Paul, then that could be deadly too.”

“How?” Hood asked.

“The press’ll find out that Martha was there with a ‘Senorita Temblon,’ and they’ll try to track her down. It won’t take them long to figure out that there is no Senorita Temblon. Then they’ll try to find the mystery woman themselves. They’ll also try to figure out how she got into the country and where she’s staying. Their search could help lead the killers right to her.”

“That’s a good point,” Herbert had to admit.

“Thanks,” Ann said. “Paul, nothing is optimal. But if I give out this much, at least the press’ll be able to verify that what we’re giving them is the truth. I’ll admit there was someone else and I’ll tell them that because of security considerations her associate left the country quietly. They’ll buy that.”

“You’re sure?” Hood said.

Ann nodded. “The press doesn’t always tell everything. They like the feeling of being in on something secret. Makes them feel important at cocktail parties, part of the inner workings.”

“I was wrong,” Herbert said. “They’re not just ghouls. They’re shallow freakin’ ghouls.”

“Everybody’s something,” Ann said.

Herbert scrunched his brow at that but Hood understood. His own integrity had taken a few good hits over the last few hours.

“All right,” Hood said. “Go with it. But contain it, Ann. I don’t want the whereabouts of Darrell or Aideen found out. Tell the press that they’re being brought back here under very tight security.”

“I will,” she said. “What do I say about a successor to Martha? Someone’s bound to ask.”

“Tell them that Ronald Plummer is Acting Political and Economics Officer,” Hood said without hesitation.

Plummer thanked him with his eyes. Acknowledging that in an official statement, without attaching another name to the office, was a vote of confidence in Plummer. The job was his to lose.

Ann thanked Hood and left. He didn’t watch her go. He turned to Herbert.