She smiled and chuckled because she knew I was lying.

I said, “So you decided to dedicate your life to crusade for your brother? Do I have that right?”

“Only partly. I love Thomas very much and I’m very proud of him. I don’t like the Army, but I can’t understand why this country won’t approve of him leading troops into battle. Him, and a few hundred thousand more just like him. I might’ve chosen this field anyway, but having my brother as an inspiration made it more personal.”

“And you figured, what? That if anybody ever knew the two of you were brother and sister, what with your work for OGMM, you might expose his sexuality?”

“That thought had crossed both our minds.”

“You still could’ve told me.”

“No, I couldn’t. It was even more critical to keep it private after he was arrested. If a court-martial board knew I was his sister, they would’ve discounted my advocacy as blind allegiance.”

She was right about that, obviously.

I said, “What about Whitehall? How’d he get that name?”

“Well, Carlson was the name of the commune where I was born, right? See if you can guess the name of the nearest town.”

“Let me see. Was it Smithsville?”

She punched me on the chin. As a trained lawyer my skills of deduction are razor-sharp.

I took another long sip to work up my nerve. I’d been anxiously waiting four weeks to clear this up. Finally I said, “Hey, about that morning.”

“What morning?”

“Christ, are we gonna go through this again?”

“Okay, about that morning…”

“That really was business. I swear it was. I was just trying to get your brother off.”

I probably could’ve said that any of ten other ways, but hey, a little spur in her conscience wasn’t going to hurt anything, right?

She looked me right in the eye and evaded the entire subject. “So have you heard anything about Bales? Or did he just disappear into the night?”

“Nah, they caught him,” I told her.

“Really?”

“Yeah. He was actually hiding out somewhere in the Philippines, using a false passport. But it seems he beat up a prostitute, and when the cops arrested him they notified the American embassy, and voila.”

“How’d you hear that?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Okay. The second he got taken into custody he said he wanted a lawyer. You’ll never guess who he asked for.”

She started laughing.

And I said, “No, really. The chief of the JAG Corps himself called to ask if I’d take his case.”

“And did you say no?”

“What do you think I said?”

She smirked.

“I told him I’ll think about it.”

Her nose crinkled in this really cute way. Then she looked down at her watch, and she stood up and bent over and kissed me. Right in the middle of the forehead. A gushless, grandmother’s peck. Ouch.

Then she straightened back up and smiled at me very curiously.

She said, “You know, Sean, you really did a good job. And I’m not just saying that. There were moments when Allie and I really doubted you’d break this case, but you came through. I really was ready to cut a deal to buy us some more time.”

If she only knew the half of it. But I could never tell her about that other half, so instead I just blushed and said, “Yeah, well…”

Her smile broadened. “No, really, we couldn’t have done it without you. Or Buzz Mercer, either. As much as I despise the CIA, they sure pulled through on this one. Be sure to pass on to him how deeply appreciative we are.”

And in that instant, my mouth just fell open.

I gagged and stammered once or twice, and tried to force some air through my throat, but before I could say anything she shrugged and thumped a hand on her forehead and said, “Oh, right, of course. No need to remind me. Carol Kim, too. She certainly deserves some credit.”

I sputtered out, “How’d you… uh? Oh my God. The bugs? Those were yours?”

She nodded. “Don’t lose it on me now, Attila. We bugged your predecessor’s room too. That’s how we discovered he was leaking information to Spears’s legal adviser, which was actually why I fired him. As I told you before, you really have no idea how your side plays. When I asked for you, I certainly hoped I could trust you, but under the circumstances I had to be sure.”

And suddenly little pieces began falling into place.

Her grin broadened. “I don’t mean to rub it in, but we even bugged your hospital room. God, that little court scene was riveting. Tell me, what was the look on Golden’s face when Mercer finished his testimony?”

I knew what she was up to. She was trying to evade my explosion. I yelled, “My hospital room? You bugged my goddamned hospital room?”

She nodded.

“But how?”

“How what?”

“Don’t give me that crap! How in the hell did you bug my hospital room?”

“Well, I didn’t do it personally. Captain Bridges handled that. He’s a full, dues-paying member of OGMM, you know.”

I guess I looked pretty angry, because I was starting to lunge forward and say something when she reached down and put a finger on my lips.

“Look, before you get all worked up, just remember – if we hadn’t been listening, we wouldn’t have heard you call Mercer about the attempt at the Blue House, and Allie wouldn’t have been there to keep Choi from shooting you.”

And in that instant I suddenly realized how thoroughly Katherine Carlson had deceived me from the very beginning. She’d known everything I was up to. She’d manipulated and exploited me like a dumb mackerel on the end of her fishing line.

No wonder she hadn’t insisted on a change of venue when I’d discovered the bugs. It isn’t like her to give in so easily. Why hadn’t I been more suspicious about that? But they were her bugs. And after I’d ripped them out, and then run to her, she’d faked her little tantrum, then allowed herself to be talked out of it, then simply had them replaced.

But what about Imelda? Wasn’t she supposed to be having my room swept every day? Hell, she’d assured me two or three times that my room was clear. Then it hit me. She was in on it. And that probably meant I was wrong, that she also must be a member of… oh my God, OGMM.

I tried to think through all the ramifications and odd angles, but it was simply too vast and complicated to begin to contemplate. I’d been dancing in Katherine’s web from the beginning.

She’d known about the North Koreans. She’d known everything I’d discovered about the Itaewon station, even as I discovered it.

Which of course meant she’d known there’d been nothing romantic between Carol Kim and me, too. But she’d played it like a Broadway star, kissing and kicking and prodding me along at all the right moments.

And then another piece fell into place. I suddenly understood why she’d been so desperate to get the charges for committing homosexual acts and consorting with enlisted troops dropped. Of all the charges against her brother, those were far and away the least serious. So why those two? Because she knew her brother hadn’t murdered Lee, because he was her brother. Because she’d tracked my progress, and she’d overheard me getting closer and closer, and she’d figured that I’d eventually find out who actually murdered Lee, so she wanted to get her brother cleared of the only two charges that would stick regardless, the two crimes he’d actually committed.

All in all, it was staggeringly brilliant. I felt so profoundly stupid and used I almost sank through the mattress.

But why hadn’t she told me Melborne was a detective, or about his suspicions? Or that Whitehall was her brother? I mean, what was the harm?

And then I understood everything. Or nearly everything. Maybe her brother was in on it, too. Maybe Tommy Whitehall had deliberately held back from me, forcing me to come up to speed, forcing me to dig deeply into things I never would’ve checked if he and Katherine had just sat me down and told me everything they knew from the start. Tommy had waited until I was completely flummoxed and at a dead end before he told me about that key he’d given Lee.