The Book of Spies

38

Fairfax County, Virginia
CATHY DOYLE was exhausted. It was nearly one A.M., and the day had been filled with work and the usual pressures to succeed at the various missions on which Catapult was working. As she drove across the Potomac River into Virginia, heading home, she turned on the radio. But it was a report of new terrorist attacks in eastern Afghanistan, and she already had enough facts about it; the last thing she needed was the somber news repeated. She punched off the radio.
Virginia was a land of urban congestion amid broad swathes of woods and farmland. She loved it--it always made her think of Ohio, where she had grown up. She turned off onto a two-lane road washed with moonlight. It ran along the river north of the District. At this hour, traffic was light, the widely spaced houses mostly dark.
She thought longingly of her twin daughters, home from spring break at Columbia, and her husband, a lawyer at the Department of Labor, who had just returned from a conference in Chicago. All would be sleeping, which she would be soon, too.
Humming to herself, she checked the road. There was almost no traffic, and she felt herself relax. She was thinking about home and bed again when she realized there was another car behind her now. She glanced at her speedometer. She was locked in at forty miles an hour, just where she wanted to be, and so was the other guy. Someone else heading home for a good night's sleep.
To her right, the forest opened up, and she could see the river with its rippling surface painted a silky silver by the moonlight. She liked that, too. Nature in all its beauty. She cracked her window. The air whistled in, the cool night air tasting moist, of the river. She turned on the radio again, this time found a blues station. Ah, yes.
Settling back into her seat, she glanced into her rearview mirror. And stared. The other vehicle's headlights were closing in, bombarding her car with light. She hit the accelerator, pushing out. As she passed sixty miles an hour, she checked her rearview mirror again. Her follower was even closer. There was still no other traffic as she started up the long, high hill that would eventually dip down into the valley where her house was, only a couple of miles farther.
Again she looked into her rearview mirror. The other car had moved out of their lane and into the oncoming lane. It was a big pickup. He had not signaled, and he had not slowed, either.
She slammed her foot on the accelerator, speeding toward seventy miles an hour. The pickup dropped back behind, in their lane again. But then the headlights loomed abruptly closer. As she floored the accelerator, he swung into the other lane, overtaking her. Her mouth went dry as they raced up the hill together
She braked to drop behind. Too late. The pickup crashed sideways into her car. Furious, she fought to control the steering wheel. The pickup slammed into her again, holding, pushing her toward the cliff over the river. This time the wheel ripped from her grasp.
Terror filling her, she gripped the steering wheel as the car hurtled through the guardrail, shot over the cliff, and crashed down through young pines, smashing against boulders. One collision after another hurled her back and forth. As the sedan flew over a final precipice and dived toward the shadowy river, she felt a moment of blinding impact, and then nothing.
Washington, D.C.
AT EIGHT A.M. the headquarters of Catapult was solemn and quiet, although all of the morning staff had arrived. A sense of shocked grief infused the building. The news of Catherine Doyle's fatal accident had spread. Tucker had heard hours before, awakened by his old friend Matthew Kelley, the director of the Clandestine Service. When she had not returned home, Cathy's husband had called. Then the Virginia State Police found her car submerged in the river, only a patch of the top visible. The vehicle was badly banged up, which was consistent with the terrain it had crashed down through, and she had apparently drowned. There would be a coroner's report and the results of forensics in a few days.
Tucker wandered the old brick building, chatting with their people, comforting them, and by doing so comforting himself. Cathy had been a good boss, tough and fair, and they had liked her. He urged them to get back to work. Their operators abroad were counting on them. Besides, it was what Cathy would have wanted, and they knew it.
By the afternoon, the pace had quickened, voices talked business, telephones rang, computer keys clicked. He returned to his office and tried to concentrate. Finally the habits of a lifetime returned, and he bent over his work.
"Hello, Tucker." Hudson Canon stood in the doorway, looking concerned. He was an assistant director in the Clandestine Service, a longtime field officer who had been brought home to Langley to oversee a slew of people who in turn created and managed missions. Short, dignified, and heavily muscled, he gave the impression of a high-class American Kennel Club bulldog, with his pug nose and round black eyes and thick cheeks. "How are you doing?" Canon asked.
"It's terrible news, of course. Cathy will be greatly missed."
"Gloria says everyone is working hard, but I must say the place feels a bit like a mausoleum. Damn. I liked Cathy a lot. A fine woman."
"Have a chair." Tucker motioned to one. "What can I do for you?"
Canon gave a quick smile and sat in front of the desk. "Matt Kelley sent me over to take Cathy's place until a new chief is named. You interested in the job?"
"That's fast."
"Don't I know it. Are you interested?"
Tucker's soul felt heavy. "Let me think about it." The position had been offered to him before Cathy was appointed, but he had turned it down.
"I haven't been to Cathy's office yet," Canon went on. "I told Gloria to pack up all of her private things before I moved in. Meanwhile, I'd like you to bring me up-to-date. Start with the hottest missions."
Canon crossed his legs, and they talked. Tucker filled him in on Berlin, Bratislava, Kiev, Tehran, and others. Canon knew the basics about all from Cathy's weekly reports.
"I hear you might've had a breach in your e-mail or Internet system."
"Debi is honchoing it," Tucker told him. "Someone did get in and was able to access Cathy's e-mail for about three minutes."
Canon grimaced. "Long enough to steal more than any of us would want."
"Agreed. Still, we're not sure what they took. Maybe they got nothing. In any case, that pathway is now a dead end, and Debi's team is on high alert, looking for even the smallest signs of attempt to trespass. There's been no other successful cybersleuthing since. The problem was, the breach occurred during the night shift, when we had fewer bodies. They missed the invader--he was damn good at it obviously."
"I see. What else do you have for me?"
Tucker launched into a description of the Library of Gold operation.
When he had finished, Canon sat back, thinking. "Is this a wise use of Catapult's resources? You still have no evidence of involvement in terrorism. Who in hell cares about the Library of Gold? So what if it's some marvelous old relic. That's the bailiwick of historians and anthropologists. This is a waste of time better spent on more critical missions."
Tucker stiffened. "I understand your point, but we're deep into it now. I've got a contract employee and a civilian on the run, being hunted. And a dead man who turned up alive who said he was the chief librarian. He's dead now, too, and it's real this time. There are other corpses--people like Jonathan Ryder and the Charboniers."
"Have you learned anything about the library's location through Ryder or the Charboniers?"
"Nothing yet. Jonathan's life is far easier to probe. We have his travel records, but he was an international businessman and flew around the globe. A lot of cities and towns. As for the Charboniers, we have to work with the French to get information, and that's difficult. You know how secretive they can be."
"It'll be another dead end."
"Maybe. But my two people in Istanbul have a good lead. We need to follow up on that."
"A good lead? What is it?"
"The man's name is Okan Bicer. He sells calligraphy in the Grand Bazaar." Tucker checked his watch. "He's supposed to know where an old acquaintance of Eva Blake's husband is, an antiquities merchant named Andrew Yakimovich. They're hoping Yakimovich may be holding something for Blake that'll tell them where the library is."
Hudson Canon seemed to think about it. At last he nodded. "I'd already expressed my reservations to Cathy about whether this operation was worth it, but she convinced me to give it some time. Your argument for more time is good, too. However, I've also taken it to my boss. Especially now that Cathy's gone and we'll need to rethink Catapult, we're going to have to pull in our horns. You have thirty-six hours to find the library. If you don't know where it is by then, the boss says to pull the plug and end the operation."