"About something as sensitive as espionage? Over an insecure airwave? Do I look that stupid to you?"

Actually, Barry Enders was the farthest thing from stupid. Of all the people I had met in this case, he was the smartest, and he had come closest to uncovering the truth.

Well, on second thought, that made him the second smartest. Bian was the smartest. And Sean Drummond, who had looked over her shoulder every step of the way, was the biggest halfwit.

Because, here again, Bian had cynically gambled on the government's worst instincts-the institutional infatuation with covering up failures and embarrassments. And, here again, the government came through with flying colors; the Feds were dispatched to quash Enders's investigation and Bian got more of the one thing she desperately needed-time. Time to pursue more leads, time to get to Iraq, time to place the noose around the necks of her targets.

"Are you out of answers, Drummond?"

Not yet. I explained, "Bian's assignment was to establish a social connection, to create trust, and see what she could learn about his activities." I added, "They not only spoke over open airwaves, they even met in public places a few times."

"She never mentioned that she even knew Daniels."

To me either, Barry. "What can I say? It was a highly classified government investigation."

"Yeah?" There was a long, dubious pause. Reaffirming my high estimation of him, he said, "I also accessed her phone records and her charge card."

"So what?"

"Well… they went on two dates. September 20, a nice dinner at Morton's steakhouse, she had lobster, he had steak, and somebody slurped five scotches and two very expensive bottles of red wine. That came to three hundred big ones. October 15, they attended a ballet at the Kennedy Center-tickets at two hundred a pop." He added, "You know what's really interesting? She booked the reservations on her phone, and she paid both bills. And with cash, not charge."

"Tell me something I don't know. It's in her expense reports."

"As a taxpayer, I'm incensed. I saw Daniels's other lady friends. She didn't have to spend a nickel to get this guy."

"Welcome to our new, kinder, gentler federal policy. We try to send them upriver with a nice memory." I said, "Barry, she's not a suspect."

He said, with real steel in his voice, "I'm the cop. I say who's a suspect, and I say she's a suspect."

"Forget about her."

"Where is she?"

"Someplace you can't touch her. She's-"

"The hell I can't. Watch me."

"… in Iraq and-"

"A subpoena will fix that. Have her ass on the next-"

"Shut up… just listen, Barry." He quieted down. "Bian was shot and kidnapped by terrorists two days ago."

He went quiet.

I reminded him, "They don't respond to subpoenas."

He stayed quiet.

"We all feel bad, Barry. She's a fallen hero. You'll look like an unpatriotic shit if you push this."

This, obviously, was not what he expected to hear, and for a moment there was a stunned silence. Eventually, he said, "Well, I'm…" Whatever it was he was going to say, he changed his mind and told me, "You know what? If I had a buck for every time you've lied to me, I'd be eating at Morton's."

"Call the public affairs office in the Pentagon. They'll confirm that she's listed as MIA."

He promised or, considering the circumstances, threatened to do just that. On that distrustful note we both punched off.

There was one more loose end, and Phyllis was dangling at the end of it. So I dialed her next and, when she answered on the second ring, I said, "Drummond here."

She replied, with a note of impatience, "Where's here?"

"Back." I told her very nicely, "And by the way, thank you for not blowing up my plane. It meant a lot to me. Seriously." I asked, "Did you get my message about Hirschfield and Tigerman?"

She did not respond to my paranoia, yet could not resist reproaching me about procedural minutiae. She said, "You know better than to leave an electronic message. What if I misplaced the phone, or if I hadn't checked my messages?"

"They'd be dead. So what? I never liked them anyway. Neither do you."

"You wouldn't be so cavalier if they were dead."

"Wouldn't I? There are more where they came from. Arrogant eggheads are a dime a dozen."

"I don't think I like your attitude." That was the whole point. Phyllis had decided there were things she didn't want me to know that turned out to be things I needed to know. As a lawyer, I expect clients to mislead me and withhold important information, because they are guilty and they want to hide it. So now it was time to learn the source of Phyllis's guilt. She said, "Tell me what that message was about. What exactly is the threat to Tigerman and Hirschfield?"

"I'm not in the mood." I changed subjects and asked, "Hey, how about those two dead princes? Did your sheik friend freak out or what?"

"It's very… unfortunate. Turki won't even take my calls. In our business, these deals are supposedly sacred." She added in a tone suggesting I should be very concerned, "The White House is ordering a full investigation."

"So now we're investigating our investigations. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?" I added after a moment, "You should remind them that investigations don't always turn up results they like. Consider this one."

She now sensed that Sean Drummond was a problem employee whom she was mishandling. She said in a far friendlier tone, "Sean, come straight to Langley. We're all waiting for you."

"I don't think so. I'm now the spy out in the cold. Isn't that how you people phrase it?" I added, "I told you to get rid of me. You should've listened."

"Don't be foolish."

"I know about it, Phyllis. About the leak, about the soldiers who were killed, and about the Agency's effort to keep a lid on it. I'm not sure it need ever have been hidden. But it shouldn't stay hidden."

For a moment she said nothing. I had just moved the conversation from the abstract to the specific, and she needed a moment to think about this. She took that moment.

She asked, "What do you want?"

Smart lady. "A name. The courier for your exploitation cell."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

I remained silent.

She asked, "How do you know it was a she?"

"You're wasting time with stupid questions. I'm three minutes from the Washington Post building-that's two minutes longer than you have to answer. Are we on the same wavelength yet?"

Long pause again. "Diane Andrews."

"What happened to Diane Andrews?"

"Why did anything have to happen to her?"

"Who's your favorite Post reporter?"

"Sean, please, let's-"

"Personally, I'm torn over where the Pulitzer should land-Mideast desk or national desk? Hey, what do you think?"

"She's dead."

"Dead how? Heart attack? Another fake suicide? Another skiing accident? What made her heart stop ticking, Phyllis?"

"No… it was murder. Open and shut."

"Tell me about the murder."

"About seven weeks ago, jogging in a park, at night, not far from here, somebody drove a hatchet through her forehead. No fingerprints, and no forensic evidence. Even the footprints were swept clean with a broom. There were some bruises on her arms, suggestive of a slight struggle, and her killer was right-handed."

"And obviously her killer wasn't caught. Who are the suspects?"

"There are no suspects. Just theories."

No suspects? I thought about this. "But you knew it was premeditated and planned, and the killer understood enough about police procedure to clean up the trace evidence. You knew she wasn't an arbitrary victim and you knew it probably was related to her work."

"Those were our assumptions, yes."

Except that the killer had made no effort to mislead about the cause of death, this smelled a lot like the murder of Cliff Daniels. But before I made that leap, I needed to know more. I took a stab in the dark and asked, "Had she been tortured?"