"He says you're jealous of him."

"Right."

"That you're angry because he found the terrorists."

"Sure."

"That you're trying to get even with him by claiming that he accidentally shot his father."

"Imagine."

"And that you're trying to take credit for shooting the terrorists whom he in fact shot."

"Look," Decker said, "I know you need to protect your pension. I know there's a lot of political pressure and that you need to cover your a.s.s. But why are you dignifying that jerk's ridiculous accusations by repeating them to me?"

"What makes you think they're ridiculous?"

"Ask Brian's father. He's awfully weak. It's a miracle he pulled through. But he'll be able to-"

"I already have asked him."

Decker didn't like his superior's solemn tone. "And?"

"Jason McKittrick verifies everything Brian claims," the superior said. "Terrorists shot him, but not before he saw his son shoot three of the terrorists. Of course, ballistic tests might have corroborated what Jason McKittrick says, but you saw fit to dispose of all the weapons that were used that night." Decker's gaze was as steady as his superior's.

"So that's how it's going to be."

"What do you mean?"

"Jason McKittrick warned me from the start-his son wasn't going to take the blame. I liked the old man enough that I stopped treating the warning seriously. I should have been more careful. The enemy wasn't out there. He was next to me."

"Jason McKittrick's character isn't in question here."

"Of course not. Because n.o.body wants Jason McKittrick as an enemy. And n.o.body wants to accept the responsibility for allowing his incompetent son to ruin a major operation. But somebody's got to be at fault, right?"

The superior didn't answer.

"How did you manage to hide Brian's involvement in this?" Decker asked. "Didn't the terrorists send incriminating evidence about him to the police?"

"When you phoned to warn me about that possibility, I alerted our contacts in the police department. A package did arrive. Our contacts diverted it."

"What about the media? No package was sent to them?"

"A television station, the same station the terrorists had earlier been sending messages to. We intercepted that package, also. The crisis is over."

"Except for twenty-three dead Americans," Decker said. "Do you wish to make any change in your report?"

"Yes. I did beat the h.e.l.l out of that jerk. I wish I'd beaten him more."

"Any other change?"

"Something I should have added," Decker said.

"Oh? What's that?"

"Sat.u.r.day was my fortieth birthday."

The superior shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't see the relevance of that remark."

"If you'll wait a moment, I'll type up my resignation."

"Your ...? But we're not asking you to go that far. What on earth do you think resigning will get you?"

"A life."

TWO.

1.

Decker lay on the bed in his New York hotel room. Using his right hand, he sipped from a gla.s.s of Jack Daniel's. Using his left hand, he aimed the television's remote control and restlessly switched channels. Where do you go when you've been everywhere? he asked himself.

New York had always been good for him, a place to which he'd automatically headed when he had a rare free weekend. Broadway, the Metropolitan Opera, the Museum of Modem Art-these had always beckoned like old friends. Days, he had used to enjoy a soothing ritual of jogging through Central Park, of lunching at the Carnegie Deli, of browsing through the Strand Book Store, of watching the sidewalk artists in Washington Square. Nights, he had liked to check out who was singing at the Algonquin Room. Radio City Music Hall. Madison Square Garden. There had always been plenty to do.

But this trip, to his surprise, he wanted to do none of it. Mel Torme was at Michael's Pub. Normally Decker would have been the first in line to get a seat. Not this time. Maynard Ferguson, Decker's favorite trumpeter, was at the Blue Note, but Decker didn't have the energy to clean himself up and go out. All he did have energy for was to pour more bourbon into his gla.s.s and keep pressing the channel changer on the TV's remote control.

After flying back from Rome, he hadn't considered returning to his small apartment in Alexandria, Virginia. He had no attachment to the small bedroom, living room, kitchenette, and bath. They weren't his home. They were merely a place for storing his clothes and sleeping between a.s.signments. The dust that greeted him whenever he returned made his nose itch and gave him a headache. There was no way he could allow himself to break security and hire a cleaning lady to spruce the place up for his arrival. The thought of a stranger going through his things made his skin p.r.i.c.kle- not that he would ever have left anything revealing in his apartment.

He hadn't let his superior-correction: his former superior-know where he was going after he submitted his resignation. New York would have been on the list of predictables, of course, and it would have been a routine matter for someone following him to confirm the destination of the flight Decker had boarded. He had used evasion procedures when he arrived in New York. He had stayed in a hotel that was new to him- the St. Regis. Nonetheless, ten minutes after he had checked in and been shown to his room, the telephone had rung, and, of course, it had been his superior-correction again: d.a.m.n it, former superior-asking Decker to reconsider.

"Really, Steve," the weary-sounding man had said, "I appreciate grand gestures as much as the next person, but now that you've done it, now that it's out of your system, let's let bygones be bygones. Climb back aboard. I agree, this Rome business is a mess from every angle, an out-and-out disaster, but resigning isn't going to change things. You're not making anything better. Surely you understand the futility of what you've done."

"You're afraid I'm angry enough to tell the wrong people about what happened, is that it?" Decker had asked.

"Of course not. Everybody knows you're rock-solid. You wouldn't do anything unprofessional. You wouldn't let us down."

"Then you don't have anything to worry about."

"You're too good a man to lose, Steve."

"With guys like Brian McKittrick, you'll never know I'm gone." Decker had set the phone on its receptacle.

A minute later, the phone had rung again, and this time, it had been his former superior's superior. "If it's an increase in salary you want ..."

"I never had a chance to spend what you paid me," Decker said.

"Perhaps more time off."

"To do what?"

"Travel."

"Right. See the world. Rome, for instance. I fly so much, I think there's something wrong with a bed if it isn't shaped like an airline seat."

"Look, Steve, everybody gets burned-out. It's part of the job. That's why we keep a team of experts who know how to relieve the symptoms of stress. Honestly, I think it would do you a world of good if you took a shuttle down to Washington right now and had a talk with them."

"Didn't you listen? I told you I'm sick of flying."

"Then use the train."

Again, Decker set the phone on its receptacle. He had no doubt that if he tried to go outside, he would be intercepted by two men waiting for him in the lobby. They would identify themselves, explain that his friends were worried about his reaction to what had happened in Rome, and suggest driving him to a quiet bar where they could discuss what was bothering him.

To h.e.l.l with that, Decker thought. I can have a drink in my room, by myself. Besides, the ride they gave me wouldn't be to a bar. That was when Decker picked up the phone, ordered a bottle of Jack Daniel's and plenty of ice from room service, unplugged the phone, turned on the television, and began switching channels. Two hours later, as darkness thickened beyond his closed drapes, he was a third of the way through the bottle and still switching channels. The staccato images on the screen were the test pattern of his mind.

Where to go? What to do? he asked himself. Money wasn't an immediate problem. For the ten years he had worked as an operative, a considerable portion of his salary had gone into mutual funds. Added to that sum was the sizable amount of acc.u.mulated parachute pay, scuba pay, demolitions pay, combat pay, and specialty pay that he had previously earned as a member of a cla.s.sified military counterterrorist unit. Like many of the military's highest-trained soldiers, he had been recruited into intelligence work after he had reached an age when his body could no longer function as efficiently as his special-operations duties required-in Decker's case, when he was thirty, after a broken leg, three broken ribs, and two bullet wounds suffered in various cla.s.sified missions. Of course, even though Decker was no longer physically superior enough to belong to his counterterrorist unit, he was still in better condition than most civilians.

His investments had increased to the point that his net worth was $300,000. In addition, he planned to withdraw the fifty thousand dollars that he had contributed to his government pension. But despite his relative financial freedom, he felt trapped in other ways. With the whole world to choose from, he had narrowed his choices to this hotel room. If his parents had still been alive (and briefly he fantasized that they were), he would have paid them a long-postponed visit. As things were, his mother had died in a car accident three years earlier and his father from a heart attack a few months afterward, both while he was on a.s.signment. The last time he had seen his father alive was at his mother's funeral.

Decker had no brothers or sisters. He had never married, partly because he had refused to inflict his Spartan way of life on someone he loved, partly because that way of life prevented him from finding anyone with whom he felt free to fall in love. His only friends were fellow operatives, and now that he had resigned from intelligence work, the controversial circ.u.mstances behind that resignation would prompt those friends to feel inhibited around him, not certain about which topics would be safe to discuss.

Maybe I made a mistake, Decker thought, sipping more bourbon. Maybe I shouldn't have resigned, he brooded, switching channels. Being an operative gave me a direction. It gave me an anchor.

It was killing you, Decker reminded himself, and it ruined for you every country where you ever had an a.s.signment. The Greek islands, the Swiss Alps, the French Riviera, the Spanish Mediterranean-these were but a few of the glamorous areas where Decker had worked. But they were tainted by Decker's experiences there, and he had no wish to go back and be reminded. In fact, now that he thought about it, he was struck by the irony that just as most people thought of those places as glamorous, so Decker's former profession was often portrayed in fiction as being heroic, whereas Decker thought of it as no more than a wearying, stultifying, dangerous job. Hunting drug lords and terrorists might be n.o.ble, but the slime of the quarry rubbed off on the hunter. It certainly rubbed off on me, Decker thought. And as I found out, some of the bureaucrats I worked for weren't all that slime-free, either.

What to do? Decker repeated to himself. Made sleepy by the bourbon, he peered through drooping eyelids at the television set and found himself frowning at something that he had just seen. Not understanding what it had been, oddly curious to find out, he roused himself and reversed channels, going back to one that he had just flicked past. As soon as he found the image that had intrigued him, he didn't understand why it had intrigued him. All he knew was that something in it had subconsciously spoken to him.

He was looking at a doc.u.mentary about a team of construction workers renovating an old house. The house was unusual, reminiscent of pueblo-style earthen dwellings he had come across in Mexico. But as he turned up the sound on the television, he learned that the house, astonishingly elegant regardless of its simple design, was in the United States, in New Mexico. It was made from adobe, the construction foreman explained, adding that the word adobe referred to large bricks made of straw and mud. These bricks, which resulted in an exceptionally solid, soundproof wall, were covered with a clay-colored stucco. The foreman went on to explain that an adobe house was flat-roofed, the roof slanted slightly so that water could drain off through spouts called ca.n.a.les. An adobe house had no sharp edges; every corner was rounded. Its entrance often had a column-supported overhang called a portal. The windows were recessed into thick walls.

Leaving the distinctive dwelling whose sandy texture and clay color blended wonderfully with the orange, red, and yellow of its high-desert surroundings, the announcer made some concluding comments about craft and heritage while the camera panned across the neighborhood. Amid mountain foothills, surrounded by junipers and pinion trees, there were adobe houses in every direction, each with an eccentric variation, so that the impression was one of amazing variety. But, as the announcer explained, in a sense, adobe houses were unusual in New Mexico, because they were present in force in only one city.

Decker found that he was leaning forward to hear the name of that city. He was told that it was one of the oldest settlements in the United States, dating back to the 1500s and the Spanish conquest, still retaining its Spanish character: the city whose name meant holy faith, these days nicknamed the "City Different," Santa Fe.

2.

Decker was right to be suspicious-two men were waiting for him in the lobby. The time was just after 8:00 A.M. He turned from the checkout counter, saw them, and knew that there wasn't any point in trying to avoid them. They smiled as he crossed the busy lobby toward them. At least, the right men have been chosen for the a.s.signment, Decker thought. Their controllers obviously hoped that he would let his guard down, since he knew both of them, having served with them, in military special operations.

"Steve, long time. How you been?" one of the men asked. He and his partner were close to Decker's height and weight- six feet, 190 pounds. They were also around Decker's age- forty. Because they had gone through the same physical training, they had a similar body type-narrow hips and a torso that broadened toward solid shoulders designed to provide the upper-body strength essential in special operations. But there, the resemblance with Decker ended. While Decker's hair was sandy and slightly wavy, the man who had spoken had red hair cut close to his scalp. The other man had brown hair combed straight back. Both men had hard features and wary eyes that didn't go with their smiles and their business suits.

"I'm fine, Ben," Decker told the red-haired man. "And you?"

"Can't complain."

"How about you, Hal?" Decker asked the other man.

"Can't complain, either."

No one offered to shake hands.

"I hope the two of you didn't have to keep watch all night."

"Only came on at seven. Easy duty," Hal said. "Checking out?" He pointed toward Decker's suitcase.

"Yeah, a last-minute change of plan."

"Where you headed?"

"La Guardia," Decker said.

"Why don't we drive you?"

Decker tensed. "I wouldn't want you to go to any trouble. I'll catch a taxi."

"No trouble at all," Hal said. "What kind of buddies would we be if, after all these years of not seeing you, we didn't put ourselves out for you. This won't take a minute." Hal reached into his suit coat, pulled out a thin cellular phone, and pressed numbers. "You'll never guess who we just b.u.mped into," he said into the telephone. "Yeah, we're talking to him right now in the lobby. Good, we'll be waiting." Hal broke the transmission and put the phone away. "Need help with your suitcase?"

"I can manage."

"Then why don't we go outside and wait for the car?"

Outside, traffic was already dense, car horns blaring.

"See," Ben said. "You might not have been able to get a taxi." He noticed a uniformed doorman coming toward them. "Everything's under control," he told the man, motioning him away. He glanced toward the overcast sky. "Feels like it might rain."

"It was forecast," Hal said.

"The twinge in my left elbow is all the forecast I need. Here's the car," Ben said.

A gray Pontiac, whose driver wasn't familiar to Decker, pulled up in front of the hotel. The car's backseat had tinted windows that made it difficult to see in.

"What did I tell you?" Ben said. "Only a minute." He opened the pa.s.senger door and gestured for Decker to get in.

Heart pounding, Decker glanced from Ben to Hal and didn't move.