"That has been this country's downfall," Vail said. "As far as you know, none of your members have had any contact with the FBI, for any reason?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Zogas said. "How would our name come up in one of your investigations?"

"I guess that's the real question, isn't it?" Vail wasn't going to tell Zogas that it was Longmeadow's phone records, in case someone knew him and might warn him. It was a long shot, but he didn't like the Lithuanian's calculated responses to his questions, so he decided that a couple of lies would give Zogas something to think about. "The woman I showed you a picture of did all kinds of investigations. Sometimes institutional irregularities came to her attention, sometimes people called in tips, and sometimes something was a spin-off of another investigation. The notes she left behind indicated that she was just getting started on the LCS-sorry, that was her shorthand for your club, or society if you prefer-so there wasn't much detailed information. Do you have any enemies who might have called the FBI about your club?"

"No."

"How about any bad business deals away from the club? What kind of businesses are your members involved in?"

"Nothing very exotic. We are all successful, with varying interests. It's kind of an unwritten requirement for membership here, to be financially established. I, for example, own eight coin-operated car washes in the D.C. area. They're all self-serve, so my time to run them is minimal. Others have dry-cleaning stores, car rentals, and hair-cutting shops. One of our members even does some translating for the government in immigration cases. Certainly nothing that would be cause for retribution against a group of men whose passion is chess."

"Well, this just may be one of those times that a mystery has to remain a mystery. Do you mind if I show the others the woman's photo?"

"Please do."

They walked back into the game room. Zogas spoke with the vague authority of a leader. "These people are from the FBI. They have a photograph of a missing woman who also worked for the FBI and was apparently looking into our club's activities." There was no reaction from any of the four men, none of them even looking up. Vail glanced at Kate to confirm the oddity of their lack of response.

Vail went over to the first table and showed the photograph. "Her name is Sundra Boston. Have you ever seen or heard of her?" Both men shook their heads in silence.

At the second table, Vail showed the photograph again, and after the two men glanced at it, he continued to study their faces. They both appeared to have dark circles around their eyes and mouths. "I'm sorry, you seem familiar," Vail said to the one who hardly looked at the photo. "Have we met before?"

Slowly the man raised his eyes to Vail. In a controlled tone, he answered, "No." Even though a single syllable, Vail could hear its heavy accent.

"I'm sorry, what is your name?"

The man glanced at Zogas, who gave an almost undetectable nod. "Algis Barkus."

Vail smiled. "No, I guess not. I would have remembered that name. Everyone, thank you for your time."

Zogas walked them to the front door. "If there is anything else we can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask."

"There is one thing that would help put this to rest. Do you think we could get a list of your membership?"

For the first time since their entering the club, Zogas appeared to be caught flat-footed. "That might be a problem."

"Why?" Vail asked, almost before Zogas finished.

"We have worked extremely hard since coming to this country and taking citizenship. We enjoy having this sanctuary and, in relative anonymity, being allowed to socialize with men of similar interests. This is a small but, we feel, elite group. I doubt that the membership would approve of the U.S. government knowing exactly who we are. We fear that it wouldn't be long before someone from some governmental agency would be demanding we admit two Hispanics, four females, and someone in a wheelchair."

"We're only looking for a quick way to cross you off our list of people who might know something about one of our employees disappearing. We're not going to turn your membership roster over to Health and Human Services."

"I'll tell you what, Agent Vail. I will present your argument to the members, and they'll put it to a vote."

"How long will that take?"

"A day, two at the most."

"I'll call you. Is there a number here?"

Zogas took out a business card and wrote it on the back. "Give me two days. By then I should have a definitive answer."

For the first time since entering the club, Vail heard the men in the back speak. He listened for a moment and then asked, "Is that Lithuanian?"

"Yes, it is."

"Interesting. People, probably myself included, have a tendency to lump all the Eastern European languages together. But it is definitely different from, say, Russian." Vail watched him closely to see if "Russian" hit any nerves.

"You have a good ear. They are definitely different languages."

Once they were outside, Kate said, "I guess we've solved one mystery today. Now we know the whereabouts of Himmler's, Goebbels's and Goring's sons." When Vail didn't laugh, she thought that his mind had once again raced ahead, trying to find the next turn. She glanced at him and saw something in his face she'd never seen before. He actually looked shaken. "Steve, what is it?"

He turned and searched her face as if he didn't know who she was. Then he said, "I know who framed you."

31.

What!"

When Vail didn't answer, Kate asked again. "What did you say?"

"Not here." He grabbed her by the arm and glanced back at the club, pushing her toward their car.

He started the engine, and she asked again. "What is it?"

Still he wouldn't answer but pulled away from the curb and drove off, once more checking to see if anyone from the club was watching. When he got a block away and was certain that none of the Lithuanians could see them, he pulled over. "That night you and I broke into the Russian safe house in Denton, remember?"

"Guys in ski masks, large handguns, you setting off explosives, fire-something about it rings a bell."

"Did you notice anything funny about that guy Barkus or the other one playing chess with him?"

"Other than their warmth toward FBI agents, especially the female subspecies, not really," she said. "Oh, Barkus had dark circles under his eyes. Probably something to do with his not getting back to the coffin until after sunrise."

"You weren't as close to him as I was. Or the other one. They both had them, dark circles all the way around their eyes-and around their mouths, too."

"What were they?"

"Dozens of tiny cuts scabbed over."

"The areas left exposed by ski masks. From the shattered lightbulbs," Kate said.

"And that night they were speaking in some foreign language that wasn't Russian. It sounded Eastern European. It could have been Lithuanian. It all makes sense now. That guy in the tunnel in Chicago, Jonas Sakis, he made a reference to game theory and zero-sum games. And when I said something about him being Russian, he gave me this strange smirk. It was because he was Lithuanian."

"That means-oh, my God!" Kate said. "That means these guys are tied directly to the Russians. They're working with them, and they have ears and eyes in the NSA, the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department, and who knows where else."

"That's why we've got to be very careful. You, me, and Luke, no one else."

"No one else? The three of us against all of them?" The three of us against all of them?"

Vail ignored Kate's plea. "The real question is, what's the connection between the Lithuanians and Sundra-and you?"

She shook her head in disbelief at his self-control, gaining her own calm from it. "Connected how?" she asked.

"I don't know, but I got the feeling that the Lithuanian Chess Society is going to vote nay to our getting a membership list. So let's drive around here while you write down as many tags as possible. Maybe we can identify some of them." Vail put the car in gear, and said, "There was also something Zogas said that bothers me."

"What?"

"You're familiar with statement analysis?"

"A little bit. It's been years since I used it at OPR."

"Do you remember what he said in his announcement to the others about Sundra?"

"No."

"I told him that she works works for the FBI. He told them that we had a photograph of a missing woman who had for the FBI. He told them that we had a photograph of a missing woman who had worked worked for the FBI. Past tense." for the FBI. Past tense."

"Couldn't that just be a translation problem for him?"

"It could be. He had an accent, but his grammar was almost flawless. Anyone who uses words like 'commiserate' or can explain game theory in a few words or think of something like 'antibiography' has a better command of English than I do."

"Then that's not a good omen for Sundra, is it?" Kate asked rhetorically.

When they pulled up at the off-site, they saw Bursaw's car parked in front. "Good, Luke's here. Maybe he can help figure this out."

In the workroom they filled Bursaw in on everything that had happened and their conclusion that the LCS was somehow connected to both Sundra Boston's disappearance and Kate's being framed. Vail explained about Zogas's possible slip in verb tense concerning the well-being of the missing analyst.

Bursaw considered it for a moment. "More often than not, that stuff is accurate. I hope it was was just a translation problem. I'd like to think we haven't been looking for a dead body." just a translation problem. I'd like to think we haven't been looking for a dead body."

Vail handed him the list of license plates Kate had taken down at the chess club. "Can you get these run, but not through WFO? Have the locals run them and keep it quiet."

"That detective from Metro Homicide we turned Jonathan Wilkins over to said if I ever needed anything. I've known him for a while, so it won't be a problem to keep it quiet."

"Until we figure it out, we don't need to be distracted by who might know what. You, Kate, and me-that's it. If something leaks out, we won't have to waste time wondering if someone from the Bureau innocently mentioned it to someone that they shouldn't have. We'll know it's something the opposition somehow came up with on their own and we can trace it back that way," Vail said. "How'd you do with the missing persons?"

"I found only one. Maurice Lyle Gaston, late of Matrix-Linx International, Springfield, Virginia. We did a security clearance on him. Matrix-Linx has a defense contract. The only fly in the ointment was that he disappeared in Las Vegas. A sister who lives here reported him missing to Fairfax County when he failed to come back from a weekend getaway there."

"Las Vegas. Interesting." Vail wrote down the information in a small notebook. "Good. Kate and I will look into it."

"On a more definitive note, I did find out how Longmeadow came up in her files."

"How?"

Bursaw smiled as if he were about to unveil an important piece of the puzzle. "In a counterintelligence case. Surveillance was following a Russian by the name of Dimitri Polakov. He was later expelled from the U.S. for suspected spying activities. It was Labor Day, last year, and a surveillance team was looking for a target to follow around. They had no reason to believe he was doing anything-they just wanted to log enough hours to qualify for holiday pay. You know, before they lost lost him and had no choice but to break off the surveillance and go home. All of a sudden, this guy coasts up to a mailbox and then takes off. The team leader sees there's a signal chalked on the box, so now they realize that they've stumbled onto something. There was going to be a drop. Polakov drives all over for the next two hours and lands at an apple orchard that's open to the public-you know, to pick your own apples. The target gets out of his car and wanders off down one of the paths. The crew goes into the parking lot, and they start copping tags, hoping that whoever he's meeting has a car there. They write down fourteen of them. Meanwhile two agents follow Polakov on foot, but he never makes a drop or picks any apples, so the team thinks that they may have gotten burned. But still they had the plates. Maybe one of the tags belongs to whomever Polakov was supposed to meet. They give all of them to Sundra to look into. Subsequently she was just running out the leads by the numbers when she requested tolls on the owners of the cars in the lot. One of them was Chester Alvin Longmeadow." him and had no choice but to break off the surveillance and go home. All of a sudden, this guy coasts up to a mailbox and then takes off. The team leader sees there's a signal chalked on the box, so now they realize that they've stumbled onto something. There was going to be a drop. Polakov drives all over for the next two hours and lands at an apple orchard that's open to the public-you know, to pick your own apples. The target gets out of his car and wanders off down one of the paths. The crew goes into the parking lot, and they start copping tags, hoping that whoever he's meeting has a car there. They write down fourteen of them. Meanwhile two agents follow Polakov on foot, but he never makes a drop or picks any apples, so the team thinks that they may have gotten burned. But still they had the plates. Maybe one of the tags belongs to whomever Polakov was supposed to meet. They give all of them to Sundra to look into. Subsequently she was just running out the leads by the numbers when she requested tolls on the owners of the cars in the lot. One of them was Chester Alvin Longmeadow."

"So he was there for a drop but probably made the surveillance, and the exchange never took place. That's nice work, Luke," Vail said. "It ties Sundra to Longmeadow, who we now know is connected to the LCS through the sergeant's phone records. And we know that the Lithuanians are connected to the Russians because of their coming to the safe house in Denton."

Bursaw held up the list of license plates collected at the chess club. "I'll head over to Metro and get these run."

After he left, Kate said, "Well, it looks like we've got all the players. Now we just have to figure out how they fit together."

"That's why I thought the three of us should sit down and brainstorm this."

"You're going to wait until Luke comes back?"

"Actually, I thought we'd enlist the help of Sakichi Toyoda."

"Who's that?"

"He was considered the king of Japanese inventors, at least in the early twentieth century. He started a little company called Toyota," Vail said. "But more important, at least for us, he developed the concept of the Five Whys. Ever heard of it?"

"I don't think so."

"Toyoda figured out that when a problem occurs, if you ask why five times, give or take, you'll trace any problem back to its root cause and then can prevent it from recurring."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Let me give you an example. You have a business manufacturing and selling porcelain dog figurines. One day your customers start calling to complain that the items they received all have the same damage. Let's say the left ear has a crack in it. So you ask why why are they arriving in that condition? That's one. You find that every one was shipped that way. So, through a series of whys, you discover-number two-that they're coming out of the mold like that because the mold tears during the injection process. And-number three-that's happening because the person who's operating the machine isn't calibrating it properly. Why hasn't he been calibrating it? Number four-because he's new and he didn't know he was supposed to. And-number five-why didn't he know? Because it wasn't part of his training. So you make it a requirement that anyone performing that task has to receive are they arriving in that condition? That's one. You find that every one was shipped that way. So, through a series of whys, you discover-number two-that they're coming out of the mold like that because the mold tears during the injection process. And-number three-that's happening because the person who's operating the machine isn't calibrating it properly. Why hasn't he been calibrating it? Number four-because he's new and he didn't know he was supposed to. And-number five-why didn't he know? Because it wasn't part of his training. So you make it a requirement that anyone performing that task has to receive x x number of hours of training. Problem solved and, in all likelihood, permanently." number of hours of training. Problem solved and, in all likelihood, permanently."

"So if we can answer enough whys, we can figure all this out?"

"I suppose if a person can answer enough questions, he can figure out anything. This is not easy to do. It takes a lot of discipline, a lot of looking at the big picture and the small picture at the same time. However, it does have a way of cutting through the layers of distraction, which in this case are everywhere. If we can do it, we might find a starting point."

"Okay, what's the first why?"

Vail moved to a wall adjoining the one with the documents pinned to it. "I think you've already asked that." With a black marker, he wrote: 1. Why would the LCS be connected to Sundra, the safe house, & the Calculus list?

Kate said, "Shouldn't that be 'How'?"

"The important thing is to pursue answers to the questions. Toyoda probably wasn't an English major, but he was a genius. Out of respect, let's just use his whys."

"Sorry." Kate thought for a second. "The LCS has to be working with the Russians."

"That's the only possible explanation, with them coming after us in that safe house. And now we can trace Sundra back to Longmeadow, who we know is spying for the Russians. But Lithuanians, historically, have never been fond of the Russians. In fact, Lithuania was the first of the Soviet states to declare its independence after the fall of the Berlin Wall. So ..." Vail wrote: 2. Why would the LCS and the Russians be working together?

"I don't know, why?"

"What's always the best guess for motive? Someone wrote a song about it making the world go round?"

"I'm guessing it's not love, so you think this is about money?"

"Very few things aren't. Zogas described himself as a businessman. He said they all own small businesses. They're entrepreneurs. When the Russians need somebody taken out, they call the LCS and are able to keep their own hands clean. If that is true, it brings us to 'why' number three. If the Russians are paying the LCS ..." He wrote: 3. Why do the Russians want their moles dead?

Kate thought about it for a second. "Like we've been saying all along, it doesn't make any sense, because historically the Russians have always done everything to help their double agents escape to Russia or some other communist country."