"I… well, I think she must already know."

"You think?"

She hesitated momentarily before she pointed at the card. "He's been here. Last week. Several times, with two other agents."

This was the last thing I wanted to hear, though I obviously wouldn't be going through this charade had I not suspected something. Of course, the topic Larry came to discuss with Jennie was not her, but me. So I could now put a motive behind Jennie's repeated failures to return my calls. Either she had a guilty conscience because she had dumped on me to Larry or Larry had ordered her to withhold contact until I was cleared-or on my way to Leavenworth. Oh, there was, I suppose, a third possibility, but being irresistible, I completely ruled that out. The point is, my personal problems were becoming my professional problems.

Regarding me, I was sure Jennie told Larry to piss off, that Sean Drummond was one of the good guys, pure in mind, body, and soul, that obviously I had nothing to do with the disappearance of the money. Partners help each other out in a jam, right? But by the same token, don't partners also call each other when somebody's ass is hanging out?

Elizabeth misinterpreted the worried expression on my face and asked, "Do you think this is serious? Is she in trouble?"

"Nah. A waste of everybody's time. She's a hero."

Elizabeth was proud of her boss and said, "She is amazing. Her intuition is extraordinary. I sometimes think she can read minds and predict the future."

"Well… I wouldn't go that far."

"Oh, I would. Do you know that three months ago, she studied our file on that Jason Barnes character? Almost as if she foresaw this coming."

I looked at Elizabeth.

She said, "What were the chances of that?"

What were the chances of that? "Elizabeth… what file?"

"Jason Barnes's clearance packet. As I recall, Barnes's Top Secret clearance was nearly five years old. They expire at that point. A complete new background investigation had to be completed."

"I think you're mistaken."

"Oh, no, I'm not mistaken. So many clearance requests come through here, I'm sure I wouldn't remember, except… well, afterward, Miss Margold asked me to retrieve another file… a background investigation on Jason Barnes's father."

I was staring at Elizabeth, or perhaps past her.

"It was quite sensitive. I had to go through a lot of trouble to get my hands on it."

Elizabeth was now looking at me a little oddly. She said, "Are you all right?"

Was I? No-I was two beats short of a heart attack. I could not keep the shock and amazement from my face. I felt a numbness beginning in my chest, working its way up to my throat.

"Can I get you some water?" Elizabeth asked, peering at me closely

"No… I'm… I just remembered…"

"Remembered what, Mr. Drummond?"

It was none of Elizabeth's business what I remembered. Without another word, I left.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

A quick call to Phyllis disclosed the address and directions to Mark Townsend's home in Vienna, a stone's throw from where Joan was blown to pieces at Tysons Corner.

I slid the radio dial to a golden oldies station and listened to Fleetwood Mac and Heart, zoned out the whole way.

Townsend's home was on Bois Avenue, a French word, I believe, for "woods." True to the appellation, the neighborhood was filled with tall, leafy oaks and well-manicured, unostentatious middle-class homes. I pulled into the driveway, parked, and made my way to a front door neatly wreathed in black velvet. I pushed the buzzer, and after a moment a young lady opened the door.

I said, "Good afternoon. My name's Drummond. You must be…?"

"Janice Townsend."

Obviously this was the daughter we rushed home from college. She was quite pretty, petite, and thin, and I assumed the good looks and svelteness came from Joan. I said, "I'm very sorry about your mother, Janice. I worked with your father. Is he in?"

"Is this important?"

"I'm afraid it is."

"All right. Follow me."

So I did. The house was not at all stiff and formal like its master, probably reflecting the taste of its mistress; it was homey and furnished fairly tastefully, which is as much as you can hope for on Uncle Sam's paychecks. We passed by a living room on the right, a dining room and kitchen on the left, and she and I ended up at a small study in the rear. Janice asked me to wait, then pushed open the door and entered alone. She emerged a moment later, stepped aside, and I went in.

Her father sat leadenly in a heavily worn leather chair beside a small fireplace, with a fire roaring, and the newspaper resting in his lap was unopened and unread. I was surprised to note that Mark Townsend, a man who probably slept in starched PJs, was unshaven, uncombed, and sloppily dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He had aged at least ten years.

I said, "Good afternoon, sir. Allow me to start with my condolences."

"Yes… thank you." He said, sort of absently, "Would you… uh…"

I thought he was offering me a seat, and I fell into the cozy cloth easy chair directly across from him, uncomfortably aware that this was probably Joan's chair, and this was probably the room where Mark and Joan had spent their Sunday mornings, and I was intruding on his reveries.

As I mentioned, Mr. Townsend looked awful, and, less charitably, I thought, a little out of it. The eyes that were once un-blinkingly laserlike now flitted epileptically, and his pupils appeared glassy and dilated. I presumed he had been prescribed some form of medication, which was better than drowning his grief in booze, and probably cheaper.

One of us had to speak, but I had rushed over here in a mental blur, and I wasn't exactly sure how to start this, much less where I wanted to take it, or definitely where it would end. Fortunately, he looked at me and said, "I heard about your role in catching these.. . Well, you took a big chance. I thank you."

I nodded.

After a moment he asked me, "What were they like?"

I knew why he asked, and I wanted to tell him the people who murdered his wife were worthy foes, that our collective failure to get them before the ax fell had nothing to do with our ineptitude, it had everything to do with their staggering genius. But he deserved the truth.

I took a deep breath. "I spent considerable time with the woman, MaryLou. She was wild and trampy, viscerally cunning and treacherous. I observed Hank for only a few moments. A large man, physically powerful, though a hair's breadth from a moron. Wizner had more brains than the others, and certainly he had impressive technological skills."

"He was the ringleader?"

"I think he planned the killings-the single acts themselves. But he had neither the talent nor the background to construct the overarching plot, to arrange the environment, to track the targets, or to design the complexities that surrounded each of the murders."

"What about what he and his ring accomplished at Fort Hood? Some of those thefts showed impressive ingenuity and boldness."

"That was Fort Hood, where he spent much of his life, and where he was on the inside. Also those were thefts committed against a community that had no idea he was preying on them and failed to take proper precautions. This was Washington, our turf. We were aware he was here, we were aware what he was doing, and we did our best to take him down."

He contemplated this, and me, a moment. He said, "I hadn't realized they were so utterly dependent on Barnes. All this, over… over what? Family shame." He added, "In thirty-two years in the Bureau, I went up against all types. It's dismaying to see the shades of evil that reside in some people's hearts." He stared at his hands a moment, and I knew this was a deeply troubled man who had spent his professional life fighting crime, and, in the end, it landed on his own doorstep in the most horrible way imaginable. He was struggling to understand why, but the truth was why no longer mattered.