“It might be complicated, Adrian.”

“Because she’s secretly in love with you.” Carter glanced at Gabriel to see his reaction but received only a blank stare in return. “She’s a big girl, Gabriel. And thanks to you, she’s a true professional now.”

“Where is she?”

“Still at the Counterterrorism Center at Langley, which means she’s technically under my control. If you want her, she’s yours.”

“Poor choice of words, Adrian.”

“I was speaking in a professional sense, of course.”

Gabriel walked in silence for a moment. “Obviously, she’s perfect for the job. But are you sure she’s ready to go back into the field?”

“She worked with you during the Halton affair.”

“As a liaison only. This operation would require sending her undercover again.”

“I’m given regular updates on her progress. The Agency psychiatrist we assigned to her says she’s coming along nicely. Personnel says she’s had no problems adapting to her new cover identity, and her superiors at the CTC have given her extremely high marks.”

“Not surprising, Adrian. She’s a star. God only knows why your recruiters rejected her in the first place.”

“They thought she was too independent-and maybe a bit too intelligent. We’re not like you, Gabriel. We like our case officers to think inside the box.”

“And you wonder why your most talented operatives are working for private contractors now.”

“Spare me the critique, Gabriel. Do you want to use her or not?”

“I’ll know after I talk to her.”

“She comes on duty in the CTC at noon.”

“ Langley?” Gabriel shook his head. “I want to see her somewhere the Agency isn’t listening.”

“That narrows our options considerably.” Carter made a show of careful consideration. “How about Dumbarton Oaks? The gardens, at noon.”

“Just make sure she’s alone.”

Carter smiled sadly. “Thanks to you, Gabriel, she never goes anywhere alone. And she probably never will.”

26 DUMBARTON OAKS, GEORGETON

The sun managed to burn through the veil of haze by mid-morning, and by the time Gabriel presented himself at the entrance of Dumbarton Oaks it had grown appallingly hot. He purchased an admission ticket from a man in a little booth and was handed a glossy brochure. He consulted it frequently while he strolled past the elaborate arbors, trellises, and ornamental pools. A few minutes after noon, he made his way to a distant corner of the gardens, where he found an attractive woman in her early thirties seated primly on a wooden bench, a paperback book open in her lap, lilies of the valley at her feet. She wore a simple cotton sundress and sandals. Her blond hair had grown out since he had seen her last; her alabaster skin was beginning to turn red from the intense sun. She looked up sharply as Gabriel approached, but her face remained oddly expressionless, as if it had been rendered by the hand of Mary Cassatt.

“Were you able to spot Adrian ’s watchers?” asked Sarah Bancroft.

He kissed her cheek and led her toward the shade of a nearby trellis. “A nearsighted probationer fresh out of the academy could have spotted Adrian ’s watchers.”

"Let’s hear it.”

“Woman with the sunhat, man with the plaid Bermuda shorts, the couple wearing matching ‘I Love New York ’ shirts.”

“Very good. But you missed the two boys in the dark sedan on R Street.”

“I didn’t miss them. They might as well have just waved hello to me as I came inside.”

They sat down together, but even in the shade there was little relief from the heavy wet heat. Sarah pushed her sunglasses into her hair and brushed a trickle of perspiration from her cheek. Gabriel gazed at her in profile while her eyes flickered restlessly around the gardens. The daughter of a wealthy Citibank executive, Sarah Bancroft had spent much of her childhood in Europe, where she had acquired a Continental education along with a handful of Continental languages and impeccable Continental manners. She had returned to America to attend Dartmouth, and later, after spending a year studying at the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art in London, became the youngest woman ever to earn a Ph.D. in art history at Harvard. While finishing her dissertation, she began dating a young lawyer named Ben Callahan, who had the misfortune of boarding United Airlines Flight 175 on the morning of September 11, 2001. He managed to make one telephone call before the plane plunged into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. That call was to Sarah. Gabriel had given her the chance that Langley had denied her: to fight back against the murderers. With Carter’s blessing, and with the help of a lost Van Gogh, he had inserted her into the entourage of a Saudi billionaire named Zizi al-Bakari and ordered her to find the terrorist mastermind lurking within it. She had been lucky to survive. Her life had never been the same since.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said.

“Why ever would you think that? Because in the midst of a very tense operation, I committed the terribly unprofessional act of confessing my true feelings for you?”

“That was one reason.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, Gabriel. I’m over you now.” She looked at him and smiled. “Is it my imagination or do you seem a little disappointed?”

“No, Sarah, I’m not disappointed.”

“Of course you are. The question is, do you really want me tagging along on another operation?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because your lovely new Italian bride might not approve.” She adjusted the thin straps of her sundress. It clung to her breasts in a way that could cause even the most faithful eye to wander. “You know, for a man of your many gifts, your knowledge of women is shockingly deficient.”

“I make up for it in other ways.”

“With your unfailingly pleasant demeanor?”

“For starters.”

She gazed at him for a moment as though he were a dull student. “The last person Chiara wants to see in the field again is me.”

“You were a guest at our wedding.”

“One of the worst days of my life. And that’s saying something, because I’ve had some pretty terrible days.”

“But you’re over me now?”

“Not even a flicker of interest.”

A pair of Japanese tourists approached and, in a combination of broken English and halting gestures, asked Sarah to take their photograph. She agreed, much to Gabriel’s displeasure.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“What have I done now?”

“What if there had been a bomb in that camera?”

“Who would put a bomb in a camera?”

“We would.”

“If it was so dangerous, then why did you let me do it?”

“Because they were obviously harmless Japanese tourists.”

“How did you know that?”

“I can tell.”

“Just by looking at them?”

“Yes, I can tell just by looking at them.”

She laughed. “You’d better be careful, Gabriel. Otherwise, you might make me fall in love with you again.”

“And we can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t.”

Gabriel gazed across the gardens and asked how much Carter had told her.

“Only that you’re going after Ivan Kharkov.”

“Know much about him?”

“He’s not formally under the purview of the CTC, but he probably should be. We went to war in Iraq, in part, because we feared that Sad-dam might be willing to supply the terrorists with sophisticated weaponry or even weapons of mass destruction. But the terrorists don’t have to go to a state like Iraq to get their weapons. They can go to a nonstate actor like Ivan instead. For the right amount of money, he’ll sell them whatever they want and route it to them through one of his customers in Africa or Latin America.”

“You’ve obviously learned your craft well.”

“I was well trained.” She crossed one leg over the other and smoothed the wrinkles from her sundress. “What do you need me to do this time?”