Kolhammer watched the car disappear around the bend.

Rogas wandered over, his eyes scanning the area. "You know, boss," he said. "I've never known happy news to come out of these sorts of meetings."

Kolhammer essayed a tired grin. "Would you feel happy about a trip East, Chief?"

Rogas turned his palms out in a "whatever" gesture.

"Then pack your bags. And put together a team: two men, two women. Covert entry and prolonged surveillance. Full-spectrum coverage. Draw whatever kit you need from the Quiet Room. I'll authorize it when we get back to Fifty-one."

"Aye, aye, sir. Mission brief tonight?"

"When you've chosen your team, bring them over to my office. I'll be working late."

They both turned and walked back to the cars.

Kolhammer decided to wait until he was alone, but he was itching to open the papers Taverner had given him.

He was certain he'd spotted Dan Black's name on the first page.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Five nights a week, without fail, J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson dined at Harvey's Restaurant on the 1100 block of Connecticut Avenue. A little dais, which raised them slightly above the other patrons, was blocked off for their private use. Hoover always sat with his back to the wall, while Tolson always faced the door.

They paid two bucks fifty for all they could eat. They were supposed to cover their own tab at the bar, but a local businessman took care of that unpleasantness in their behalf. It was a healthy tab, too. Pooch Miller, the maitre d', poured six shot glasses of Old Granddad and club soda every night as soon as the director arrived.

Hoover nearly always had a medium rare steak, but would occasionally go wild and order green turtle soup. He was a demon in the restaurant's oyster-eating competitions, too, rarely failing to win. Every night when they left, the manager would provide him with a bag of ham and turkey for his pet dogs.

J. Edgar Hoover was a creature of habit.

On this night, however, things were different. They had two guests joining them for dinner. Two somewhat reluctant guests: Congressmen Gentry and Summers.

Very few newspapers or magazines had published a word of the rumors that were flying around Washington about the director. Certainly none dared do so openly, preferring instead to play up Hoover's love of delicate china, the expensive cologne, and his fastidious dressing. No tittle-tattle had ever been aired on the wireless by the likes of Walter Winchell and his peers. But that didn't mean the city wasn't alive with venemous gossip.

Congressman Summers had been to three dinners and two cocktail parties over the last week, and in each case the hors d'oeuvre had barely arrived before somebody was making merry with the latest breathless revelation from the future-courtesy of a friend of a friend of an acquaintance in California. They concerned the president, some future president, the president's wife, a movie star, an entertainer, or-increasingly-director Hoover and his longtime companion.

That was what they were calling Clyde Tolson nowadays, "The director's longtime companion." Tolson, who was sitting opposite, was nursing a grudge against his fourth martini. A senator's intern had told Summers that Tolson had exploded in the foyer of the Bureau earlier that afternoon, when he'd arrived downstairs from a meeting with Hoover and found a delivery had just arrived for him.

A bunch of pansies.

Oh, Hoover still had his allies. Some who refused to believe or even listen to the whispers. Others, like Gentry and Summers, who couldn't afford to cross him. Tame reporters still turned out anodyne puff pieces and glowing testimonials concerning "the man who stood on America's front line against subversion."

But Washington was a town acutely attuned to the merest hint of a shift in the wind, and there was a silent gale howling around J. Edgar Hoover. He still held power, but the perception that it might ebb away was enough to start the collapse, and he was the sort of man who would take half the city down with him when he went. As a rule, it was always best to distance oneself from such spitefulness. Unfortunately, it wasn't always possible.

Congressman Summers, like every politician who arrived in Washington, had an FBI file with his name on it. He assumed that Gentry did, too. Otherwise why would he be here? The existence of these files was an open secret. They were probably illegal. They were certainly dynamite. A complete file would allegedly document entire family backgrounds. Education and employment history, whether or not they'd played sports, whom they had socialized with, slept with, feuded with, cheated, betrayed, and so on. Of most interest to the director, however, was whom they had slept with.

That's why Summers was at dinner with Hoover, despite his best efforts to be somewhere else. He had made a few mistakes, and they had been discovered. He'd taken the call at home, lying in bed beside his wife for a change. Just two months after he'd been elected Hoover had called him personally-at one in the morning to say that one of his agents had come across the most awful photographs of the congressman. It was clearly the congressman: he was easily identifiable. But he didn't need to worry, because the director understood that he was a friend of the Bureau, and the Bureau looked after its friends. There would be no chance of this scandal ever seeing the light of day.

And then he had hung up, without waiting for a reply.

Summers could only wonder what awful indiscretion Gentry had committed.

"Would you like some butter with that bread roll, Congressman?" Hoover asked in his squeaky voice. "You haven't touched your plate or had a sip of wine all night."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hoover," Summers replied. "I'm simply very tired. The war, you know."

"I know, I know," said Hoover. "We all work like Trojans, don't we? Not like some of those union sluggards in California, I'll bet, what with their mandated hours and legislated undutifulness. I swear, Congressmen, that if this tergiversating Herr Kolhammer had his way, the national defense would be subject to veto by the Wobblies and the Comintern."

For one horrid moment, Summers wasn't sure if Hoover was making a joke, and he remained suspended in an agony of indecision. Should he laugh, and risk enraging the vindictive faggot? Or should he nod vigorously and pound the table with an open palm and exclaim something like "Exactly!" thereby looking like a fool who couldn't appreciate Hoover's mordant wit? He could feel his fellow congressman stiffen with tension beside him.

Tolson saved them by snickering cruelly, providing him with a cue to chuckle. Hoover joined in the happy moment, his braying laugh sailing over the heads of the other diners.

Surely this was hell.

Summers was actually grateful when the deal came down at the end of the main course, and Hoover leaned forward to turn the screws. "Congressmen, this week your committee will be reviewing significant expenditures allocated for the Special Zone, if I'm right."

"We will," said Gentry, trying to appear eager to please. "We're looking at an appropriation measure to pay for emergency housing, for all the workers flooding in there."

Hoover stared at him for a long, long time without speaking. His pouchy, bulldog eyes burned fiercely. Air whistled between his crooked teeth. He wouldn't even let the congressman drop his gaze. Summers was glad he wasn't on the receiving end. It felt like staring down the barrel of a gun.

"I am sure," the FBI director said at last, "that you will take as long as is absolutely necessary… to give full and proper consideration… to the best interests of the country… and all of its servants."

"Of course," agreed Gentry after a slight delay.