"Yeah, and-"

"What're you waitin' for, boy? Do it."

I put my hand over the phone and explained our predicament.

I put the phone back to my mouth. "Done."

"Okeydokey. Now, what's the answer? Fifty million, or you gonna try playin' dick-around with me?"

Something in his tone sounded wrong. I slapped my hand over the phone again and yelled, "Right now-he wants an answer."

We all looked at Mrs. Hooper. This was developing really quickly Mrs. Hooper kept shaking her head.

Looking at her, I said, "He's serious. Yes or no?"

She stared at the tabletop for about ten seconds. She said nothing.

Then, through the earphone, I heard a loud blast. The line went dead again.

I put down the phone. "Shit. He just murdered somebody."

Mrs. Hooper avoided my eyes and asked, "Who?"

"How the hell would I know?"

We all looked at one another. For once, nobody said a word until the phone rang again. I picked it up and demanded, "Who did you just murder?"

"That? Aw, jus' the head of the Republican National Committee. Hey, you believe he's got a mistress over by Dupont Circle? Married man, too. What'n the hell's this world comin' to, huh? Y'know, all this shit goin' on… and that horny bastard jus' had to sneak off and get a little afternoon poon." He added, "By the way, cash, used fifties and hunnerds. Oh, and none of that sneaky shit them Treasury assholes like to try. We'll look, we know what to look for, and if we find something, it's gonna really suck for you."

I put my hand over the phone and informed everybody that the RNC just got a job opening. Mrs. Hooper's eyes shot wide open. She said, "Danny Carter… he… oh God… he…" Then she suddenly started crying.

I no longer needed, nor did I wait, for a consensus or permission. I said, "Deal."

"Well, yee-haw. Good call, boy."

"But murder one more person, it's off. Understand? Kill one more soul, and you're dead. We'll hunt you down, and we'll find you. I'll personally cut out your guts."

He laughed. "That's the spirit. By the by, yer gonna be the delivery boy Hey, call you back in an hour."

"No, you'll call in two hours. We have a lot of work to do to get the money."

There was silence for a few seconds. Eventually, he said, "Now listen up-the next asshole gets it in two hours and ten minutes. Don't fuck nothin' up. Keep yer phone battery charged, 'cause you and me, we gonna powwow in two hours."

The line went dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Mrs. Hooper sat perfectly still, crying and sobbing. She said, "He killed Danny. I… what could I…" A chorus of racking sobs began belching up from her stomach.

Jennie looked at Mrs. Hooper and said, "We warned you."

Mrs. Hooper bounced in her seat like somebody had just shot a ten-thousand-volt bolt up her fanny. "I… I…"

Phyllis stood up and snapped, "That's enough!" She looked at all our faces and said, "No more finger-pointing." She stared at Jennie. "Understood?"

Clearly, Special Agent Jennifer Margold, who had been so compulsively rational since the start of this thing, was experiencing a rare emotional outburst. It was a human response, and I, for one, was glad to see it, glad to see that the raw pathos had gotten under her skin, and glad to see I wasn't falling for an ice queen.

More selfishly, I was now on the hook for agreeing to a deal, and I was out on a limb all by myself. Somebody needed to make Mrs. Hooper understand that what was happening here was far beyond the calculus of presidential vanity and the pornography of electoral politics. This was a choice with human consequences, life or death. Eventually Jennie said to Phyllis, "You're right."

She turned to Mrs. Hooper, who was slumped in her chair, staring at her knuckles, experiencing a sort of Pontius Pilate epiphany.

Jennie said, "That was… unforgivable. Was Danny Carter a friend?"

"Yes."

"Was he married?"

"He and… well, he and Terry… have two kids, and I… I've known them over twenty years." She looked around at our faces. "I got him this job. Danny was so energetic, so brilliant, so… so loyal." Which apparently reminded her, and she looked at Jennie and asked, "Who's going to notify Terry Carter?"

There was an awkward stillness in the room while we jointly considered the baffling dilemma of how you inform a wife that she's now a widow, and, by the way, her husband died in the arms of somebody other than her, and incidentally, in a few minutes, that revolting revelation was going to be all over the tube. "When we get confirmation he's dead, I'll assign an agent to handle it," Jennie informed her.

Mrs. Hooper looked more than a little relieved.

Jennie turned to Phyllis and said, "With this bargain, the Agency no longer has any justification for involvement. It's gone purely domestic." As if we needed to be reminded, she cautioned us, "Everything we do is going to undergo congressional and maybe public scrutiny"

I won't say Phyllis also looked relieved, but without sounding at all reluctant, she replied, "Of course."

Which put Jennie in the driver's seat and in charge of this mess. She said, "Mrs. Hooper, you need to call the President for permission to proceed."

Mrs. Hooper returned to studying the tabletop. "He's not going to pay them off. In any event, as his political adviser I still have to advise against it."

I said, "Why?"

She looked up at me. "Because nobody in this country will vote for a man who pays off murderers. But I know him. He'll say that's irrelevant. He'll say that indulging murderers is morally wrong and begets more murders and more murderers. He tends to be practical that way."

Jennie looked at me. I shrugged.

Mr. Wardell chose this moment to make an interesting observation. "Incidentally, Danny Carter was not one of our suspected targets. How in the hell was he involved in this Barnes thing?"

Jennie said, "He wasn't. He was a message."

"What message?" Mrs. Hooper asked.

"This confirms my speculation. It's no longer about revenge. They're now concerned only with money and making their escape. They're telling us they'll murder whoever they please, until their demands are met."

We all pondered that fresh insight a moment.

I noted the obvious. "We've lost our only advantage. We can't even guess who they're targeting."

"That's right. We can't," Jennie observed. She turned back to Mrs. Hooper. "Listen… I think there might be a way out of this for us and the President."

"What are you talking about?"

"Simple. We use the money to lure Barnes and his people into a trap."

Everybody thought about that proposal a moment.

Phyllis was the first to speak up. "I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"It will be expected. These are not stupid people, Jennifer. They'll take precautions."

"I'm sure they will. Entrapments are always a gamble. We have to outthink them."

Recognizing the thought that was running through all our minds, Jennie added, "The past doesn't always have to be a prelude to the future. Right?" She turned to Mrs. Hooper and suggested, "If this works, the President's a bold leader who rolled the dice. If it fails, his intentions were honorable, and we screwed up the execution."

I still wasn't sure this was such a good idea. On the other hand, I had really gotten myself into a box. I was the one who agreed to the deal.

Chuck Wardell was nodding, and Mrs. Hooper also began nodding. It was dawning on them that this wasn't a perfect solution, but there were no perfect solutions, and it satisfied everybody's needs, egos, and moral/political equations.

Actually, not quite everybody's.

Jennie knew it, too, because she turned to me and said, "Sean, the final vote is yours. They selected you as the courier."