in the new job was to be pegged as a girl. “Anything I should know before going in there?”
“Oh, you haven’t met the boss yet?” said Nolan, teeth flashing white in the twilight. “Let’s see... you get used to him?”
“Encouraging,” she said with a light chuckle.
“But seriously,” said Nolan. “He’ll be sizing you up. Be straight and don’t be spooked. You’ll do fine.”
She made her way down the darkened hallway, then knocked on the door marked CLEMENT CHAMBERS—AGENT-IN-CHARGE, COUNTERTERRORISM with three measured raps.
“Come in!”
She opened the door to a well-lit office cluttered with boxes of files. Behind the desk, framed by alternating bands of gray venetian blinds and the lightening sky, was Chambers, a ruddy man of medium build with blond hair and a blond moustache, familiar to her from pictures alone.
“Ms. Frieze, I presume,” he said, shuffling papers before standing and extending his hand in greeting. He appraised her as they shook.
“Mr. Chambers,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“It’s good to have you in the ranks,” he said, without sounding convinced. He sat down and laid an open file in front of him, on which Frieze saw her head shot. “Take a seat.” He clicked a pen in his right hand as he leafed through the file.
“I’ve got my letters of recommendation from Agent Training and Linguistics,” she said, reaching into her briefcase.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said as he looked through the file. “I have everything I need here.” He leaned back in his chair, holding the file up like a book. “BA in Middle Eastern Studies, graduating with honors from the University of Chicago. Fluent in Arabic.”
“And Farsi, sir.”
He looked up at her, and continued. “Two years in Afghanistan and eighteen months in Iraq as a contractor for the US Army, working as a translator. I understand your service there was... not without incident.”
She squirmed in her chair. “I’ve been—”
“Declared fit for duty by a psychiatrist, I know.” He clicked the pen again. “I don’t take issue with that. But I know what PTSD can do to an agent. And I don’t like trouble, Ms. Frieze.”
“You won’t have any from me,” she said, locking eyes with him.
He looked down and closed the file. “You were a translator,” he said. “Making good money. In fact, I know you’d be making more today if you’d continued as a translator than now that you’ve undergone special agent training.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” she asked.
He rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. “Greater risk, less reward. Which leads me to ask you—what does bring you to our doorstep, Ms. Frieze?”
She stared at him just long enough to convey that she didn’t need to answer his question. Then she said, “To better serve my country and the Bureau, sir.”
Chambers grinned. “Yes, I’m sure.” He picked up the pen again and sat back. His chair squeaked against his weight. “You came in on a rather unusual day,” he said. “The arrival of the Iranian president means most of our team is scattered around the city. This has been weeks in preparation. There’s not much we can use you for today. I can have you shadow one of our agents coordinating with the Diplomatic Security Service.” He stood up, and Frieze followed suit. “Let me get you acquainted with your desk.”
As she turned to walk out, the door opened and Nolan leaned into the office. “Ramadani’s switching hotels.”
“What the hell do you mean, he’s switching hotels?” demanded Chambers.
“He’s not going to the Plaza,” said Nolan. “Apparently his motorcade is on its way to the Waldorf right now.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said. “Why the hell am I only hearing about this now?”
“They sprung this on everyone. I only just got the call from the NYPD. They’re calling it a security measure against possible planned attacks on the Plaza.”
“Damn it,” said Chambers. “Was anyone on our side privy to this?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” said Nolan. “Information’s still sketchy. We’re scrambling to get up to speed.”
“Christ,” said Chambers. “Unbelievable. Get everyone up to speed, then find out whatever you can. What a goddamn nightmare. Rookie!”
It took Frieze a moment to realize he was talking to her. “Yes, sir?”
“Get up there.”
“Up there, sir?”
“To the Waldorf. I want a full roster of hotel staff and their work schedules within the hour. Do you think you can manage that?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.”
“I meant now,” he said. “Go! Get moving!”
She walked down the short hallway ahead of Nolan.
“Getting pushed out of the nest already, huh?”
“Oh, please,” she said. “Asking a couple of questions of a hotel clerk. How hard could it be?”
8:26 a.m.
Tracie Flowers, ten years old, sat next to her mother as the train clattered along the Long Island Rail Road. The train had pulled out from Pinelawn at 7:39 A.M., a full three minutes late, she had noted with some dissatisfaction. But she had been pleased that the train had reached the other stations with no additional delays, and they were on schedule to pull into Penn Station at precisely 8:37, with a journey lasting exactly the projected fifty-eight minutes. Tracie found this pleasing.
Being content at having fit the train’s progress into a neat pattern in her mind, Tracie counted the seats, the windows, and the slats on the luggage racks. She counted the passengers all along the way, keeping track of those who entered, those who left, and the luggage that each had stowed up on the racks. She counted the number of people wearing hats, those using headphones, and the number of people with each hair color. (She was distressed that she couldn’t quite classify one man’s hair as either red or blond. Her mother cast the deciding vote for blond, and all was well again.) She took each of the numbers and factored it, then figured out if it could be expressed as a sum of primes, and then found complex mathematical relationships among them, as well as between each one and the current day, month, and year.
This occupied her mind for most of the forty-five minutes of the ride so far. At 8:32, right on schedule, the train’s brakes began to whine as it pulled into Woodside. She heard the familiar hiss and opening of doors, and Tracie mouthed the announcement of the station along with the recording. Things became disordered as people got up and others came in, and it took a moment for everything to settle down and Tracie not to become overwhelmed. The train started moving again, and she got busy with the task of
