INTERLUDE ONE ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

Jimmy Weeks excused himself from the meeting and went to the men’s room, where he promptly threw up. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, thought about the pictures laid out on the conference room table again, and threw up a second time.

Praying to the porcelain god. He hadn’t done it in ten years, but he’d been doing it all night, every hour on the hour, ever since he’d heard the news.

Christ, he’d fucked up. He’d fucked up so bad there was no going back from it. He should resign from the bureau right now, go to some rinky-dink Mexican village, and drink himself unconscious. That’s just what he was going to do, in fact.

As soon as he stopped crying.

I’m sorry, Frank, he thought, twisting the Rolex around his wrist, the Rolex his friend had given him. So sorry. I swear to God, I didn’t know Saint was that crazy, I didn’t know he’d kill everybody. I wish I could—

He heard the door to the men’s room open and got quickly to his feet.

“Weeks?”

Shit. It was Sandoval. “In here, sir.”

“Let’s go. The director wants to finish this up now.”

“Be right out.”

He flushed the toilet, and stepped from the stall.

Sandoval—Franklin H. Sandoval, assistant deputy director in charge of domestic counterintelligence, which made him Weeks’s boss—moved to one side, making room for Weeks at the sink.

“Whoever did this, Jimmy—we’ll get them. We’ll get them, and I swear to God, no one will ever hear from them again. You can pull the trigger yourself.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Sandoval ripped a paper towel from the dispenser and handed it to him.

“Rough in there, huh?” Sandoval asked.

“I can handle it,” Weeks said, though in truth he was getting tired of being grilled about Ares; it wasn’t his fault the op had gone bad, that was all on Bobby Saint. But of course now, even more than before, he had to walk a tightwire on that one; he could hardly lead the bureau to the kid’s father, because sure as shit Howard Saint would turn right around and point the finger at him.

God.

“Before we go back in,” Sandoval said, his voice and manner suddenly hesitant, “there’s one more thing.”

“Sir?”

His boss sighed. “For obvious reasons, much as I would like to, I can’t give the eulogy, Jimmy. On the bureau’s behalf.”

Weeks’s stomach rose up in his throat. He knew what Sandoval was about to say, and he hoped the sudden panic he felt didn’t show on his face.

“Sir. I don’t know if that’s . . . I mean, I don’t know if I can . . .”

“You don’t have a choice, I’m afraid. The director wants this, Jimmy. I get the sense somebody even higher up might want it, in fact.” He put a hand on Weeks’s shoulder. “Besides . . . you two were best friends. It’s only right you speak. Frank would have wanted it.”

“Yes, sir. He would have.” Weeks forced himself to nod, though inside, he felt like throwing up all over again.

“Good man. Now let’s get back inside, finish this up. Christ, what a mess.”

Sandoval strode quickly to the door and through it.

Putting one foot in front of the other, Jimmy Weeks forced himself to follow.