“In my neighborhood, we didn’t even have trees,” replied Gary Lawlor.

Monroe offered the man his hand, and Gary shook it. “You’re a brave guy, Neal. You know that?”

“Why? Because I’m airing the senator’s dirty laundry?”

“If what you told Chuck is true, her laundry is well beyond dirty.”

“Suffice it to say that I don’t like the way she’s conducting the people’s business.”

A group of children was approaching, and so Lawlor suggested they take a walk. As they did, he looked around and said, “I’ve had clandestine meetings in a lot of interesting places over the years, but this is certainly one of the most unique. Why’d you pick it?”

“I knew it was the one spot where we’d never bump into Helen. The senator hates kids.”

“But I thought she had a daughter,” replied Lawlor.

“That’s a neighbor’s kid. They just rent her for photo ops.”

Gary laughed. “So what have you got? Chuck mentioned you’re pretty confident you know where Senator Carmichael is getting her information.”

Neal nodded his head. “I knew it was coming from one of the intelligence agencies. I just didn’t know which one. Until this morning that is.”

Lawlor couldn’t believe it. “You know who’s feeding her the information?”

“No. I only know where it’s coming from, not who’s behind it.”

“That’s still a start,” said Gary. “What’s the source?”

“ Langley, Virginia. The Central Intelligence Agency.”

THIRTY-SIX

PARIS

Harvath and Alcott found a small, twenty-four-hour Internet café a few blocks away and ordered two mugs of coffee. Except for a couple of backpackers waiting for an early morning train, the place was deserted. Harvath chose a computer in the back, sat down, and got on line. The first thing he did was log on to the public bulletin board site he used to covertly communicate with Gary Lawlor. He left a brief, coded summary of what had happened so far and then plugged in Davidson’s flash drive and began scrolling through her files. It took over twenty minutes of searching, but when he finally found the record of Sotheby’s mysterious client, he knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. There were two names, one of which he recognized and another which he didn’t. The name he did recognize, Elliot Burnham, was one of the aliases Harvath had uncovered during his investigation of none other than ex-Secret Service agent Timothy Rayburn.

His address was listed as being in care of a hotel called the Carré de l’Ours, or the Skin of the Bear, somewhere in southeastern France. Harvath had never heard of the village before and had to look it up online. Once he found it, he also pulled up the SNCF web site and began scanning timetables for the next high-speed TGV train to Nice. He knew driving the distance would take way too long, and the last thing he wanted to do was hassle with airport security. At least traveling by train, he’d be able to quietly carry his gun along with him. In Nice, they could rent a car and drive north into the Alps for the rest of the trip to the village of Ristolas.

After they gathered their belongings and checked out of the hotel, they took a cab across town to the Gare de Lyon. Once their train was safely outside of Paris and well on its way to the south of France, Harvath finally felt comfortable enough to close his eyes and get a few hours’ sleep.

In Nice, they used Harvath’s Sam Guerin credentials to rent the last car the agency had available, a midnight blue Mercedes. It was well into the evening by the time they pulled across the old wooden bridge and into the tiny village of Ristolas. The three-story, barnlike Alpine hotel known as the Skin of the Bear was located just off the main street. A series of low stone walls surrounded the building and looked as if they might have once been used for grazing livestock. They parked their rental in the driveway and climbed the wooden steps to the hotel’s ornately carved front doors.

A large stone fireplace with books covering its mantelpiece anchored the deserted reception area inside. One book in particular caught Harvath’s attention, and he walked immediately over to it and took it down. It was an autographed first edition of John Prevas’s Hannibal Crosses the Alps. Harvath held it up for Jillian to see. She looked at it for a moment and then went back to studying the many photographs that covered the reception area’s walls. They appeared to be of different climbers who must have used the hotel as a base camp over the years. In each one, there was a big bear of a man whom Jillian assumed was the hotel’s owner as well as a mountain guide.

Harvath had come over to join her and was hoping to spot Rayburn in one of the photos, when a petite, gray-haired woman of about sixty, her face as craggy as the mountains in the photos, emerged from the kitchen and said, “Bon soir. Puis-je vous aider?”

“Bon soir,” replied Harvath. “Avez-vous une chambre?”

Wearing a white, lace-trimmed apron over a loose-fitting peasant’s smock, the experienced hotelier recognized Harvath’s accent and replied in perfect English, “You’re American.”

“Yes.”

“And British,” added Jillian.

“You’re on your honeymoon,” said the woman, raising her eyebrows conspiratorially. “I can always tell.”

For some reason, people often came to that conclusion when they saw Harvath with an attractive woman. He had no idea why. He figured he must have had a look about him that suggested he was perfect marriage material. He had learned the hard way, though, that at this point in his life, marriage or any kind of reasonable relationship was not in the cards for him. “No, we’re not here on our honeymoon. We came to climb. We’ve heard very good things about your hotel.”

“Really?” said the woman as she looked at the ground and smoothed the creases of her apron. “We don’t get many guests here anymore. Not since Bernard has gone.”

“Was Bernard your husband?” asked Jillian as she turned toward the photographs. “Is he the one I see in all of these?”

“Yes,” she said, managing a small smile. “Guests used to say they came for three things-Bernard, the climbing, and my cooking, in that order.”

“He sounds like he was very special.”

“He was. Everyone loved him.”

“What happened?” replied Harvath. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Bernard went climbing about a year ago and never came back.”

Tears began to form at the corners of the woman’s eyes, but she removed a tissue from her sleeve and quickly dabbed them away.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Jillian.

“It’s how he would have wanted to go,” responded the woman, “but you didn’t come to listen to the sad stories of an old woman. You came for a room. I have one available for fifty euros a night. I hope you don’t think it is too expensive, it’s just that-”

“No,” said Harvath, interrupting her with a smile. “Fifty euros is fine.”

“But we’ll need two rooms if possible, please,” Jillian added.

Definitely not on a honeymoon, Harvath thought to himself.

After unpacking his few belongings, Harvath walked downstairs for dinner. A small table had been set in the kitchen, and Marie, not expecting guests, apologized that all she had available was pottage. That didn’t bother Harvath. The temperature had dipped below freezing outside, and the weather was forecasted to get worse. It was a perfect night for soup. Actually, it was a perfect night for the fireplace, a good book, and a large glass of bourbon, but Harvath knew there was no way in hell that was going to happen.

As they ate their pottage, Marie explained that her husband, Bernard, had named the hotel the Carré de l’Ours after an old French saying, Don’t try to sell the skin of the bear until you have already gone out and killed it. She spoke fondly of him and of how Bernard had been born in Ristolas and had started hiking and climbing as soon as he could walk. Mount Viso and its surrounding mountains, valleys, and gorges had been his métier. The people of the village joked that his body had been formed from the mountain’s granite and that glacier water ran through his veins.