Chapter 23

The room was a plain spare space mostly empty of furniture. The three guys were the three federal agents who had made the trip up to the 14th Precinct in New York City. They didn’t seem pleased to see me again. They didn’t speak at first. Instead their leader took a small silver object out of his pocket. A voice recorder. Digital. Office equipment, made by Olympus. He pressed a button and there was a short pause and then I heard his voice ask, “Did she tell you anything?” The words were fuzzy with distortion and clouded by echo, but I recognized them. From the interview, at five o’clock that morning, me in the chair, sleepy, them alert and standing, the smell of sweat and anxiety and burnt coffee in the air.

I heard myself reply, “Nothing of substance.”

The guy clicked another button and the recorded sound died away. He put the device back in his pocket and pulled a folded sheet of paper from another. I recognized it. It was the House notepaper the Capitol guard had given me at the door of the Cannon Office Building. The guy unfolded it and read out loud, “Early this morning I saw a woman die with your name on her lips.” He held the paper out toward me so that I could see my own handwriting.

He said, “She told you something of substance. You lied to federal investigators. People go to prison for that.”

“But not me,” I said.

“You think? What makes you special?”

“Nothing makes me special. But what makes you federal investigators?”

The guy didn’t answer.

I said, “You can’t have it both ways around. You want to play all cloak and dagger and refuse to show ID, then how should I know who you are? Maybe you were NYPD file clerks, showing up early for work, looking to pass the time. And there’s no law about lying to civilians. Or your bosses would all be in jail.”

“We told you who we were.”

“People claim all kind of things.”

“Do we look like file clerks?”

“Pretty much. And maybe I didn’t lie to you, anyway. Maybe I lied to Sansom.”

“So which was it?”

“That’s my business. I still haven’t seen ID.”

“What exactly are you doing here in Washington? With Sansom?”

“That’s my business too.”

“You want to ask him questions?”

“You got a law against asking people questions?”

“You were a witness. Now you’re investigating?”

“Free country,” I said.

“Sansom can’t afford to tell you anything.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “Maybe not.”

The guy paused a beat and said, “You like tennis?”

I said, “No.”

“You heard of Jimmy Connors? Bjorn Borg? John McEnroe?”

I said, “Tennis players, from way back.”

“What would happen if they played the U.S. Open next year?”

“I have no idea.”

“They would get their asses kicked all over the court. They would get their heads handed to them on a plate. Even the women would beat them. Great champions in their day, but they’re old men now and they come from a whole different era. Time moves on. The game changes. You understand what I’m telling you?”

I said, “No.”

“We’ve seen your record. You were hot shit back in prehistory. But this is a new world now. You’re out of your depth.”

I turned and glanced at the door. “Is Browning still out there? Or did he dump me?”

“Who is Browning?”

“The guy who delivered me here. Sansom’s guy.”

“He’s gone. And his name isn’t Browning. You’re a babe in the woods.”

I said nothing. Just heard the word babe and thought about Jacob Mark, and his nephew Peter. A girl from a bar. A total babe. Peter left with her.

One of the other two guys in the room said, “We need you to forget all about being an investigator, OK? We need you to stick to being a witness. We need to know how Sansom’s name is linked with the dead woman. You’re not going to leave this room until we find out.”

I said, “I’ll leave this room exactly when I decide to. It will take more than three file clerks to keep me somewhere I don’t want to be.”

“Big talk.”

I said, “Sansom’s name is already way out there, anyway. I heard it from four private investigators in New York City.”

“Who were they?”

“Four guys in suits with a phony business card.”

“Is that the best you can do? That’s a pretty thin story. I think you heard it from Susan Mark herself.”

“Why do you even care? What could an HRC clerk know that would hurt a guy like Sansom?”

Nobody spoke, but the silence was very strange. It seemed to carry in it an unstated answer that spiraled and ballooned crazily upward and outward, like: It’s not just Sansom we’re worried about, it’s the army, it’s the military, it’s the past, it’s the future, it’s the government, it’s the country, it’s the whole wide world, it’s the entire damn universe.

I asked, “Who are you guys?”

No answer.

I said, “What the hell did Sansom do back then?”

“Back when?”

“During his seventeen years.”

“What do you think he did?”

“Four secret missions.”

The room went quiet.

The lead agent asked, “How do you know about Sansom’s missions?”

I said, “I read his book.”

“They’re not in his book.”

“But his promotions and his medals are. With no clear explanation of where else they came from.”

Nobody spoke.

I said, “Susan Mark didn’t know anything. She can’t have. It’s just not possible. She could have turned HRC upside down for a year without finding the slightest mention.”

“But someone asked her.”

“So what? No harm, no foul.”

“We want to know who it was, that’s all. We like to keep track of things like that.”

“I don’t know who it was.”

“But clearly you want to know. Otherwise why would you be here?”

“I saw her shoot herself. It wasn’t pretty.”

“It never is. But that’s no reason to get sentimental. Or in trouble.”

“You worried about me?”

No one answered.

“Or are you worried I’ll find out something?”

The third guy said, “What makes you think the two worries are different? Maybe they’re the same thing. You find out something, you’ll be locked up for life. Or caught in the crossfire.”

I said nothing. The room went quiet again.

The lead agent said, “Last chance. Stick to being a witness. Did the woman mention Sansom’s name or not?”

“No,” I said. “She didn’t.”

“But his name is out there anyway.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

“And you don’t know who’s asking.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“OK,” the guy said. “Now forget all about us and move on. We have no desire to complicate your life.”

“But?”

“We will if we have to. Remember the trouble you could make for people, back in the 110th? It’s much worse now. A hundred times worse. So do the smart thing. If you want to play, stick to the senior circuit. Stay away from this. The game has changed.”

They let me go. I went down in the elevator and walked past the guy at the door and stood on a broad paved area and looked at the river flowing slowly by. Reflected lights moved with the current. I thought about Elspeth Sansom. She impressed me. Don’t come dressed like that, or you won’t get in. Perfect misdirection. She had suckered me completely. I had bought a shirt I didn’t need or want.

Not soft.

That was for damn sure.

The night was warm. The air was heavy and full of waterborne smells. I headed back toward Dupont Circle. A mile and a quarter, I figured. Twenty minutes on foot, maybe less.