"Oh . . ."

She laughed again. Women are such bad judges of men.

But appearances aside, Lila was a smart and perceptive lady Which was a prerequisite for her job, since she belonged to the Agency's security service, and probably knew, ten ways to kill me with her eyelashes. She signed me in, commenting, "I hear you had a fun morning."

"I had an interesting morning."

"It's sure getting weird around here."

"It was weird here before this morning"

She shrugged and said, "Phyllis is in her office with Mort. She wants you to join her right away"

So I left Lila, and by the door that led into the converted rear warehouse I noted that some tidy and efficient soul had already installed a bulletin board showing the temporary residents where to set up, and where to sit, who'd be on whose team, who'd have what phone numbers, and, more helpfully, the phone numbers for some nearby pizza and Chinese delivery joints. I hate to sound incorrigibly s.e.xist, but when women have the reins, the little things do get taken care of.

Also I observed a bunch of temporary part.i.tions that appeared to have been hastily erected to divide the equally temporary occupants into roughly three groups: Agency employees, Feds, and Homeland Security bureaucrats.

I should mention that in the federal culture, walls are the foundations upon which you build trust, teamwork, and fluid communications. Just kidding.

I walked through the maze of cubicles and walls without seeing anybody I knew, found Phyllis's crib at the rear of the building, and entered. She nodded at the heavyset man seated comfortably in a chair in front of her desk, whose face I only vaguely recognized. She said, "I believe you two know each other."

Not really, though I did recall being briefly introduced to Mort Silverman around my second day on the job. He was short, bald, and broad of girth-fat, actually, a gent of Jewish descent with an elegant Bronx patois who handled Middle Eastern affairs for the team. I was not really sure what this meant, and the Office of Special Projects does not really encourage its employees to give a s.h.i.t. Unlike me, Mort was a regular CIA employee, and his official t.i.tle was project officer, as was mine, so we were roughly equal in rank.

Anyway, the three steaming cups of coffee on the desk suggested that Phyllis had already been notified by Lila that I was in the building, and further indicated that Phyllis was laying it on thick.

She apparently read my mind, because she offered me a seat with an ingratiating smile and then ordered Mort, "Tell him what we know."

Mort handed me a slim folder stamped "TOP SECRETSensitive Sources," followed by the usual string of initials indicating sources and collection methods and the compartments you'd better belong to if you open the file. I wasn't in any of the right clubs, but with the White House Chief of Staff decomposing on a morgue slab, protocols were falling by the wayside, fast. Mort asked me, "You heard about the bucks on the President, right?"

"Where do I sign up?"

"Hey, pal, if I knew, why would I be sittin' here?"

Ha-ha. Phyllis stared at us, I'm sure thinking that men have a really neat sense of humor.

Mort informed me, "Inside the folder's what we know. Read4 it when you get time. It's like a mystery novel with the back half missing. Thing is, we learned about it only a few weeks ago"

Agency people are great folder builders, and I flipped it open and scanned the cover page, an abbreviated guide to all that followed. Essentially, we had first learned of the bounty not through any of the sophisticated collection means listed on the cover, but an announcement on Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language news channel. Details to follow.

I looked at Mort. "This is for real?"

"Real as it gets."

Phyllis chose this moment to say, "It does look implausible, doesn't it? It was aired three or four times before the night shift at the counterterrorism cell noticed. Of course, we got them to remove it from the broadcast."

Mort said, "Yeah, but it was prime time over there and Al Jazeera's on satelliteMiddle Easterners, Americans of Arab descent, Indonesians, Pakistanis . . . its audience is huge. Plus Arabs are big-time bulls.h.i.tters, and these days they all got a cell phone, so word spreads fast around the souks and tea rooms."

Naturally, I asked, "And how did Al Jazeera learn about it?"

"Back it up a bit," Mort replied. "There was a Web site posting the offer and reward."

"A Web site?"

"Yeah. Called www.killtheprez.com."

"This is a joke, right?"

"That's what we thought. At first. After this morning, I might think differently." He handed me a color page. "What do you think of this?"

I took a moment to study it, apparently a reproduction of the Web page under discussion. The background was pink, the print a crazy mixture of fonts, colors, and writing styles, reminiscent of one of those old-style circus posters, with floating balloons and clownish little figures dancing around the page. It certainly looked like a joke, or like somebody so contemptuous of this President that even an offer to a.s.sa.s.sinate him deserved to be treated facetiously I next read the offer, splashed in bold blue letters across the top: "KILL THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT AND EARN $100,000,000 UNTRACEABLE AMERICAN GREENBACKS."

Beneath the heading was the inevitable small print, laying out the "contest" rules and requirements, of which there were three: The claimant had to communicate his plan in advance; a unique "killing signature" was required for authorship verification; and to receive the grand prize the claimant had to remain anonymous and above suspicion.

I looked up at Mort. "How do you communicate your intentions in advance?"

He bent forward and pointed at a line near the bottom. The line read, "" Mort said, "That address."

"And with that address can't you find who's behind this?"

"We tried. That address is linked to an anonymous e-mailer, and probably that one links to a daisy chain of five or ten more anonymous e-mailers."

Mort somehow sensed I didn't have a clue, and talked me through it. "It's not all that sophisticated. The e-mail is automatically forwarded to an anonymous e-mailersort of like a blank mailboxwhere it happens again, and again. Like jumping through ten black holes." He directed my attention to the bottom of the page where seven or eight languages were listedRussian, Spanish, Arabic, even Yiddish. Mort said, "Click your cursor on one of those, and it directed you to the same Web page, only it was in that language."

"We're talking past tense?"

Phyllis said, "The Web site was closed two days after the Al Jazeera broadcast."

Mort commented, "Al Jazeera's news manager told us they were tipped off by a phone call. Wouldn't say who. Can you believe that a.s.shole quoted me the First Amendment?" He looked annoyed.

I asked, "Who shut down the site?"

"The owner."

"Do we know why?"

Phyllis looked at Mort and said, "The prevailing theory at the time was that he pulled the plug before the joke caught up with him."

"What's the current feeling?"

Phyllis regarded the Web page. "It's possible he got one or two viable offers. Probably there was an exchange of e-mails, the prospective killers forwarding their plan and the recipient somehow verifying he had the money. It's also reasonable to a.s.sume that some kind of arrangement to get the reward was worked out. Of course, we have no idea what."

"I see."

Phyllis leaned toward me. "But I think we'd all agree that one hundred million is a large . . . well, an almost incredible figure." She added, "We limited the knowledge as much as possible. The Secret Service was informed, of course, and the White House."

Mort added, "And don't a.s.sume it's Arab money. Could be a p.i.s.sed-off Saudi prince, Colombian or Mexican drug lords, a foreign government, some U.S. billionaire who finds this President politically disagreeable . . ." He frowned and let the list of disturbing possibilities drift off.

Phyllis informed me, "Certainly you can appreciate why we've tried to keep this under a tight-lid. This bounty . . . well, it's an almost insurmountable temptation, isn't it? That kind of money can fuel a lot of wicked ambitions."

True enough. I don't believe everybody has a price, but a hundred million bucks can leave stretch marks on a lot of consciences. I mean, there are guys in New York who, for a few thousand Georges, will pump ten slugs into whoever you name. For a hundred million they'll wipe out Manhattan, with Queens thrown in for a bonus. But back to the discussion, I said, "It smells like a hoax."

She stared at me a moment then replied, "Drummond, you might find this hard to believe, but you are not the only bright person in this organization. Consider thiswhat matters is not what you or we believe but what others believe."

She had a point. I suggested, "This might be a good time to ask other international intelligence agencies what they know about this."

"Catch up. An hour ago, a message went to all our station chiefs to visit their counterparts and ask around. Given time differences, this kind of sweep normally takes about twelve hours to complete."

"And I'll be informed, right?"

"Trust me."

No comment.

There was a knock at the door, and it opened. Jennie stood in the doorway and asked, "Can I steal Sean for a moment?"

n.o.body seemed to mind, so I stepped out and followed her through the maze of part.i.tions to a side room allocated as her temporary office.

Directly outside her office and behind a gray metal desk sat an elderly woman, heavyset, with frizzy brown hair surrounding a face that was round and cherubic, like a jolly, chubby angel. We paused momentarily for Jennie to introduce me to Elizabeth, her executive a.s.sistant.

Elizabeth looked a little frazzled and clearly was not enjoying her new and uncertain environment. We exchanged pleasantries, then she asked me, "Where do I get paper and supplies in this madhouse?"

"Got me."

"How do I get my phone connected?"

"Plug it into the wall?"

Elizabeth pointed at the wall. "There is no phone socket out here."

"Good point."

"So . . . ?"

I shrugged.

Elizabeth said, "You work here, don't you?"

Jennie informed her, "He's my partner for this case. But he's a typical male, Elizabeth."

For some reason Elizabeth found this very funny Personally, I considered this remark both rude and s.e.xist, rooted as it was in an old, false, and demeaning stereotype. I suggested to Elizabeth, "See Lila out front. She knows everything."

As we entered Jennie's office, she looked at me and said, "Okay, we've had a couple of breaks."

"Go on."

"We found the limo."

"And did we find Larry?"

"Larry, too. The limo was discovered in the woods, maybe three miles outside Culpeper, Virginia. Larry Elwood was in the front seat."

"Should I be an optimist?"

"It wouldn't look right on you."

"Right."

"Unfortunately, the car and Larry were incinerated."

Unfortunate for us, but even more unfortunate for Larry I thought. Yet for some reason I was not surprised by this revelation. "Okay, details."

"The car was spotted by a helicopter from the Culpeper Sheriff's Department. The pilot saw the smoke, called it in, and the local fire department promptly responded. Everything was already toast."

"Fast fire."

"Very fast. The car, the car's interior, and Eftvood were soaked with gasoline. But Elwood was beyond caring, having already been shot in the head several times. Incendiary grenades were used for ignition, at least five, some taped to the underside, along the gas tank, all rigged to explode simultaneously. This wasn't amateur work."

"Eliminating all forensic traces and evidence, right?"

"And our key suspect."

"So Larry's probably not an accomplice."

"Don't be hasty. Could be you're right, and he and the car were kidnapped. That would a.s.sume the killers knew the car type and plate numbers, as well as Larry's route and morning routine. Leading back to our insider theory. Or could be Larry was part of the scheme, they recognized he was an obvious lead and decided to eliminate him before he compromised them. In that case, they're really brutal b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

I thought the morning murders already established that.

"Another thing," she continued. "You recall that Peterson ordered Chuck Wardell to give us the names of everybody involved in the Hawk's security detail?"

"Okay."

"They maintain three shifts for the Hawk's residence. The shift we found this morningthe dead shiftthat's the B shift. The C shift was supposed to come on duty at 1300 hours. They all showed."

"And the A shift?"

"D shift. There's no A shiftdon't ask." So I didn't and she continued, "We've accounted for everybody but one agent. Guy named Jason Barnes. Since he went off duty yesterday at 1300 hours, n.o.body's heard from him."

"Maybe he left town."

"Maybe. His supervisor's next door. I thought you might want to be there."

"Good. Let's talk to him."

We proceeded to the office next door, where Agent Mark Kinney was seated at a table swilling a diet Pepsi. He was roughly my age, bony-faced, dark-haired, retreating hairline, fit, and from all outward appearances, an everyday Joe, which I'm sure fit nicely with his job description.

As we entered the room he looked up with an expression I judged to be slightly p.i.s.sed off and distrustful. I know that look. I get it a lot.

Jennie handled the introductions as we fell into chairs directly across from Agent Kinney. We all shook hands. Jennie smiled and in a friendly tone advised him not to regard this session as a threatening or antagonistic interrogation. She suggested he should look upon this as simply an amiable and innocent background chat between three federal officers.