“I guess we’ll just have to compromise. I’ll scrub you down while you tell the story.”
“‘Scrub me down,’ huh? Is that what you call it now?” He opened his mouth to protest, but she had already peeled off her T-shirt and tossed it in his face. Then she was running up the stairs, screaming in mock fear as Ryan followed close on her heels.
Much later, he stood on the second-story balcony with a cup of coffee and stared out across the frigid gray expanse of the ocean. He watched as the towering thunderheads several miles offshore seemed to grow at an alarming rate, and could soon feel the strong gusts as they brought small sprinkles of rain inland. If he strained, he could hear the distant peel of thunder over the television tuned to MSNBC in the master bedroom. Every major news network had been providing continuous coverage of the preceding week’s attack in Washington, as they were prone to do with any disaster—natural or otherwise. As he sipped the warm coffee, he heard the screen door slide open and Katie approached from behind, gently wrapping her wind-tanned forearms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder.
“You’re expecting a call, aren’t you?”
Ryan raised an eyebrow at that. They had been together for only six months, and though they had once had a short, awkward discussion about the work he used to do, the subject did not often come up. Once again, he was amazed by how perceptive she could be.
He turned to face her, instinctively reaching out to touch her cheek, smooth beneath waves of shimmering golden brown. As her troubled blue eyes searched his face, he found he could only answer truthfully.
“I guess I am. The call is a given. It’s whether I go or not…” He turned to gaze at the approaching storm. “I just don’t know.”
She leaned in to kiss him gently on the lips.
“Yes, you do.”
Later that evening, Katie left for Orono to attend a night course in physics. From the front door he watched as she tossed her books haphazardly into the rear seat and sped off in her battered Corolla, throwing him a cheerful wave along the way. Although she couldn’t have known it, her prophecy was fulfilled when the telephone rang just before eight. Ryan hesitated and kept his fingertips on the receiver for several seconds before lifting it to his ear.
It was still dark the following morning as Ryan streaked north on I-95 in his dark blue BMW 645Ci. He had scribbled a short note punctuated with an apology and left it on the kitchen table, but guessed that Katie would still be furious when she finally got back from Orono. Although the concern skirted the edge of his mind for a while, it was soon replaced by the pleasure of the car’s performance and the scenic beauty of the surrounding countryside.
As the first rays of the sun filtered through the passing forest, dense tree cover overhead rained dying leaves of brilliant red and yellow onto the roof of his vehicle and the approaching road. The trip seemed to pass faster than he had expected, and it wasn’t long before he pulled into the daily parking lot at Bangor International Airport, the heavy sedan easily navigating the numerous speed bumps leading into the garage. It was just past 7:30 when he collected his electronic ticket from a pretty blond attendant at the United Airlines counter, who managed to flash him an alluring smile despite the early hour. By 8:45 he was on the next flight to Washington, D.C.
About the same time he landed at Dulles International, Katie Donovan was rocketing recklessly up the narrow driveway bordered with pines to the house on Cape Elizabeth. She was in a dangerous mood, having spent the morning arguing with her faculty-appointed advisor over the course her dissertation was taking. As a second-year PhD candidate in applied mathematics, she had already spent so many years in school that the thought of leaving it all behind to start her career was becoming an increasingly attractive idea. The argument had degenerated into a shouting match; she had definitely burned some bridges there, but took solace in the fact that she would be spending the rest of the afternoon with Ryan.
Opening the front door, Katie announced her arrival with a flourish, but there was no answer. The sound of her heels clicking against the polished hardwood floors echoed throughout the house as she walked through the empty rooms. In the kitchen, she looked around in puzzlement before noticing the sheet of paper on the table.
The note was apologetic, but Katie still found herself growing angrier each time she read it. How could he just take off without even saying good-bye? Over the past six months she had opened herself to him, shared so much, and in return he had revealed almost nothing of his past, except that he had briefly worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. It had taken a considerable degree of craftiness and charm to get that much out of him.
She picked up a framed photograph of the two of them standing on a pier at Kittery Point, Ryan’s arm loose around her waist. She admired his dark Irish good looks, lean physique, and easy smile, then caught herself and slammed the picture down on the antique wooden cabinet, leaving a small mark in the lacquered surface. Tears welled in her eyes, and she wiped them away angrily as she stormed out of the house. Feeling suddenly childish, it occurred to her that he would probably be disappointed if he could see her now. She felt a rush of shame, which quickly turned to anger again as she drove away even faster than she had arrived, which was very fast indeed.
CHAPTER 2
WASHINGTON, D.C.
To avoid the challenge of getting into Langley while listed as a visitor, Ryan had agreed to meet the person he spoke with on the telephone “off campus,” so to speak. He waited in a brightly lit café just off the George Washington Parkway, seated in a far corner of the room facing the door. The atmosphere was pleasant on a Friday afternoon, young professionals and college students busy making plans for the weekend, exchanging small talk and gossip, casting flirtatious glances across the crowded room. Many of these glances were aimed in Ryan’s direction, but he didn’t notice; sitting alone in the bustling atmosphere of the café, he could not help but feel old and out of place.
After almost twenty minutes had passed, a cold gust of air swept through the room as the door was pulled open. The man who entered was so unremarkable in dress, height, and build that he immediately blended into the background. That kind of practiced anonymity was to be expected, though, as Jonathan Harper had nearly twenty years of field experience to draw from. He had begun his career as a young analyst working the Soviet desk, but it wasn’t long before the bland-featured, exceptionally intelligent young man had found his way into the Operations Directorate. By the mid-1980s he was running agents behind the Iron Curtain and making arrangements for those few defectors whose positions within the Committee for State Security made them valuable assets to the CIA. Now, at the pinnacle of his career, Harper had the number-three spot at Langley as the deputy director of operations. He lifted his hand slightly to acknowledge Ryan’s presence as the younger man stood up, coffee cup in hand, to follow Harper back out into the cold.
“You look well, my friend. College life seems to agree with you,” Harper remarked as the two men strolled slowly along in the direction of the Mall. The sky was a pale gray, and the bite of the air seemed to promise an early snowfall. Ryan glanced to his left and guessed that the words were meant sincerely. Sometimes it was difficult to tell as Harper’s face never seemed to give anything away. With his hair carefully parted on the right, his conservative but expensive style of dress, and a solemn expression that seemed to be permanently etched into his features, Jonathan Harper, as Kealey had always thought, looked more like an aging minister or banker than an intelligence officer.
“I can’t say I’m unhappy.”
Harper took a moment to digest those words. It was the same way with Ryan every time.
“Got
