“Yeah.” Vendeventer shook his head. “Boy, it’s a real shame about Marwan. I’m hoping they find him alive and well—but that seems less and less likely.”
Several dozen questions had already come to Clyde’s mind. But almost all of them had been asked by the Wapsipinicon detectives. Vandeventer’s answers had been detailed and grammatically perfect—interviewing scientists was a piece of cake. Besides, it wasn’t Clyde’s job to be grilling witnesses—he had to go out and win an election first. And he wasn’t winning any elections here in this corridor inhabited by foreign students who couldn’t vote.
“Gotta run,” Clyde said. “Vote Banks.”
Chapter Eleven
The cabbie drove the five miles up to the CIA entrance off the parkway and stopped a bit past the curve that concealed the guardhouse from the highway. Betsy, deep in thought, had not got her badge out, but she didn’t need to. The cabbie and the gate guard knew each other. He drove past the Bucky Fuller Auditorium, into the U drive, and dropped her off at the Nathan Hale statue. Betsy reached intoher purse for the fare, but the cabbie waved his hand—“No need, madam, the gentleman took care of it. Have a good day.” Then, motioning toward Nathan Hale, he said, “Remember, be glad that you have only one life to give for your country.”
She was early and the day was beautiful, so she found a nearby bench to collect her thoughts. How curious, she mused, to have uttered one sentence and caused all this. How curious, too, was Spector, and what he had said about the President. Could that be for real?
How should I play this? she asked herself. She remembered her first graduate seminar at the University of Idaho. She was the only woman in an econometrics seminar. She knew very little at that time about economic modeling and number crunching, but she knew that the men in the class had real contempt for her. She was new, she was not pretty, and she was there for the thrashing. She had remained quiet, had given her paper, and had been hammered without mercy. The professor who ran the seminar, and who hated her mentor, Larkin Schoendienst, urged his men on much like Caligula urging on the gladiators at the colosseum. She had survived. But she had felt raped.
She was a good girl, but she wasn’t stupid enough to repeat that experience. Betsy would follow Spector’s advice. She would say, “Gee whiz, sir, I just don’t know.” Or, “Gee whiz, sir. I haven’t got the whole story.” She was as much at risk here as she had been out in the irrigated potato fields of the Snake River basin. There were rattlesnakes all over here, too, except that she didn’t have her pellet gun and dog, Katie, with her. But she had her survival skills. Her spirits began to rise. She fished in her purse and pulled out her billfold. Cassie had wanted to see what pictures Betsy carried and had let out a whoop when the only one she saw was of Katie, a Labrador mix, sitting in the back of the pickup with her doggie grin on and red tongue hanging out. Betsy looked at that picture and a broad smile spread across her face. It felt strange. She hadn’t smiled in days.
Spector was right. She would not make the mistake she’d made with the attaché back in March. She would not exceed her task. She would not fall into the bureaucratic trap. She would complete her task to the letter and walk out bloodied but unbowed.
As she walked in, the limousine carrying the DCI—her boss for the last week—pulled up. She had seen him once before, when he had come to the Castleman Building to eat pizza with the staff, something his personnel people had encouraged after Casey had stroked out. She smiled at him, he opened the door for her. As she walked in, she heard him ask an assistant, “Who’s that?”
“That’s her.”
“Vandeventer?”
She stepped aside and let him and his people go through security together while she dug her badge out of her purse. When she went through, the DCI was waiting for her. He introduced himself and said, “We look forward to hearing your report today.”
“Oh, thank you, sir. I feel so honored to be able to share my findings at that level.”
“By the way, you should know that Dr. Millikan will be coming out to join us.”
“Oh! So much the better!”
“See you on seven,” he said, exchanged a What a ditz look with his aide, and headed for the executive elevator.
Betsy crowded onto the staff elevator, which stopped at all the intervening floors. She finally got to seven and went straight to her nook. She logged on and paged through her bioweapons report, the best she’d been able to come up with over the last week. No doubt the DCI’s minions had already copied it and pored over it, highlighting all the soft spots—of which there were many.