She stamped a foot and pointed a scornful finger at his face. “Pervert. You sick, disgusting pervert,” she howled.

“I didn’t touch you.”

“Well, somebody did.”

“Not me.”

“I thought it was you.”

“It wasn’t, okay?”

The crowd around him settled down. The situation was harmless. Maybe the old guy did it, maybe he didn’t; so what? Just a harmless squeeze anyway, and who cared if this old lecher indulged in a quick feel? A few of the men backed off and returned to what they were doing. Others began talking among themselves. A few chuckled.

Morgan dodged through an opening that suddenly cleared and raced as fast as his feet could carry him toward the exit. But Charles was gone, disappeared into the night.

All right, so you think you’re smart, Morgan thought; the girl had obviously been a setup, the perfect diversion. He was surprised he had fallen for such a simple trick.

And he was nearly certain that the phone number he was given was connected to a disposable cell phone, probably under a false name. He could easily find out, but knew it would be a waste of time. Based upon what he’d just seen, Charles knew enough tradecraft to avoid such a stupid mistake.

Charles wasn’t as smart as he thought, though.

Morgan raced back to his booth. Charles had left his glass and, by extension, a clean set of fingerprints. By the next day Morgan would know Charles’s real name, where he lived, where he worked, and from there he would uncover his relationship to Jack Wiley.

When he got to the table the glass was gone. In its place was a small note: “Nice try, Morgan.”

13

The appointment was at eleven, and the escorts were standing and waiting at the stately River entrance to the Pentagon, ready to get the ball rolling as the black limo rolled up.

Bellweather emerged first, followed by Alan Haggar, and Jack brought up the rear. The escorts rushed them through security, then up two flights of stairs to the office of Douglas Robinson, the current secretary of defense.

It was the Dan and Alan hour from the opening minute. Bellweather, after a brief moment surveying the office, declared, “Doug, who’s your interior decorator? What an improvement over my time.”

“My wife.”

“Listen, be sure to give her my compliments.”

“I hate it.”

Bellweather laughed and squeezed his arm. “So do I. It’s godawful.”

A crew of waiters bustled in and began setting plates, glasses, and silverware on the large conference table off to the left. The secretary was busy, very busy; not a minute was to be wasted. To underscore that point, a uniformed aide popped his head in and loudly announced they had only fifteen minutes, not a minute more; the secretary apparently was due at a White House briefing of epic importance. Jack was pretty sure this was fabricated-the bureaucrat’s rendition of the bum’s rush. Another man, older, a scholar-looking gent of perhaps sixty, wandered in next and was introduced as Thomas Windal, the undersecretary of defense for procurement.

Jack first shook Windal’s hand, then the secretary’s. Windal’s shake was halfhearted but firm, while Robinson’s grip was limp bordering on flaccid. In truth, the secretary appeared exhausted, almost depleted: Jack thought he had aged considerably from the TV images of only a year before. He had large rings under his eyes, a dark suit that looked loose and baggy as though he had experienced a sudden weight loss, and a pale, resigned smile that suggested this meet-and-eat was at the bottom of his wish list. He’d far rather be taking a nap.

Robinson turned to Haggar, who, for a very brief period, had been his number two. “How you doing, Alan? Getting rich?”

“Working on it. That’s what we’re here to talk about,” Alan said with a wicked smile, making no effort to disguise their purpose. They began shuffling and ambling to the table.

“So what are you guys pitching today?” Robinson asked wearily, as if they were annoying insurance salesmen.

“Would you care to guess?”

“That polymer your blowhard Walters was bragging all over TV about a while ago? Am I right?”

“Yes, and we’ll get to it in a moment,” Bellweather said, falling into the seat directly to the right of Robinson. “So how’s the war going?” he asked, casually flapping open his napkin.

“Which one?” Robinson asked, a little sadly.

“We get a choice?”

“You do, but I don’t. Iraq? Afghanistan? The war on terror?”

“Why don’t we start with Iraq?”

“Just horrible. My in-box is crammed every morning with letters awaiting my signature. Condolence notes to parents about their kids that were killed. I can barely sleep. Do you know what that’s like, Dan?”

Bellweather quietly nodded. He thought it best, though, not to remind Robinson that he’d gotten 160 soldiers killed on that senseless lark to Albania. Truthfully, he couldn’t even remember what that was about. Albania? He must’ve been high or tanked when he ordered that operation.

Then again, he hadn’t sent any letters or even brief notes to the families. Why should he? Death was one of the things their kids were paid for. “Thank God I was spared that fate,” he replied, scrunching his face solemnly, munching on his salad. “How about Afghanistan?”

“More of the same.” A brief pained pause. “Just not as bad, thankfully, at least not yet. But there’s always the future not to look forward to.”

With only twelve minutes left, they weren’t going to waste more time or words commiserating with Robinson. Haggar, always the numbers man, worked up a concerned expression and launched in. “Do you know how many of those soldiers were killed by explosive devices?”

“Somebody, a month or two ago, showed me a chart. I don’t recall the numbers exactly. I know it’s a lot.”

“Well, you’ve had 3,560 killed as of this morning,” Haggar said casually, as if they were discussing ERA stats in baseball. “Twenty percent due to accidents, disease, friendly fire, the usual cost of business.” A brief pause. “Sixty-eight percent of the total were a direct result of explosives.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, well over half. Amazing when you think about it, and ninety percent of those were roadside IEDs. Another ten percent were killed by rockets or roadside ambushes.”

“Higher than I thought.”

Bellweather reached across the table for the ketchup. “That’s why we’re here, Doug,” he explained. “We want to help.”

Laughable as that claim was, nobody so much as smiled.

“And you think this polymer will make a difference?” the secretary asked.

Bellweather was smacking the bottom of the bottle hard, slathering his hamburger and French fries in ketchup. “Jack, tell him about it,” he ordered without looking up.

Jack quickly raced through a description of the polymer, briefly encapsulating the physics behind it, the years spent in research, the difficulty of getting it just right. He was careful to come across as factual rather than boastful. A light dissertation more than a sales pitch.

“You might want to look at this,” suggested Haggar as he handed the secretary a copy of the pictorial results from the live testing done in Iraq. Robinson was barely eating, Jack noted, pushing a fork aimlessly around on his plate. He slid on a pair of reading glasses, opened the book, and began quietly flipping pages while Haggar began to prattle about the miraculous results.

After a quick pictorial tour, he removed his glasses and handed the book to Windal, his undersecretary. “Take a look at these,” he said, obviously impressed. “So what do you want me to do?” he asked, ignoring Haggar and now looking at Bellweather.

“Jesus, Doug,” Bellweather said, as if the question were facetious. “This screams for a fast-track, no-bid approach.”

“That’s a big request, Dan.”