This evening, the other team had added yet another new player, a young man with a University of Kentucky T-shirt. He had been a varsity reserve forward for a successful team in the SEC. The new kid was very good. The game was a struggle. Alex’s team kept fighting from behind. Ben and the Kentucky kid constantly battling under the hoop. Alex’s team stayed within three or four points the whole time.
With thirty seconds to go, Alex had scored a dozen points. Ben had twenty-six. But their team remained down by three. Alex sank a short jump shot with twelve seconds to go on the clock. Then, as the other side prepared to kill the clock, Alex faked going back down court, turned quickly and cut directly in front of the new player, figuring the in-bounds pass would be to him.
She had a clear shot from the outside, about ten feet from the basket, but she threw Ben a laserlike eye-high pass. Ben followed with a short jump shot, getting as high as he could on his one good leg, over the reach of the off-balance backpedaling Kentucky kid. Their team had its first lead of the night, 34-33. Three seconds later the opponents threw up a desperation shot that went off the offensive backboard, as time ran out.
The winning players mobbed each other in celebration. Ben, with big powerful arms, looked to Alex who had stolen the ball and fed him the great pass. He hoisted Alex up in jubilation, hugged her tightly, bussed her cheek, and swung her around before setting her down again and passing along hugs to other hot sweaty survivors of the game: Laura, Fred, Juan.
When Alex met Robert a few minutes later, he seemed distant. When they met in the gym’s lobby after showers, she asked what was bothering him and he explained.
“I didn’t care much for the way that big guy with the missing leg picked you up and swung you around,” he said.
“Who? Ben?”
“If that’s his name.”
“That’s his name, and he doesn’t have a missing leg. He has a prosthesis.”
“You know what I mean.”
There was silence as they walked out of the gym to their cars.
At first she was miffed. Then she tried to explain it away.
“It wasn’t anything,” Alex said to him. “Ben is an Iraq war vet and he’s just getting his head straight again. He didn’t mean anything by it. After what he went through in that insane war, I’m happy to have him as a teammate. I’m happy to see he can still play basketball.”
“I just didn’t like it,” Robert repeated. “Him grabbing you like that. He doesn’t own you.”
“Do you?”
“That’s not my point.”
They stopped just outside the door. The night was sharply cold, but dry.
“Then what is your point? Jealousy?” she asked. “Be honest.”
“Maybe. Yes.”
She thought about it. As was their habit, even if she didn’t agree with him, she wanted to see his side of things. His feelings.
“All right,” she said. “Look, when I see Ben next, I’ll tell him that my fiancé saw the touchy stuff and didn’t like it.”
“Why don’t you tell him that you didn’t like it, either?”
She felt herself start to grow angry again, one of the first times there had ever been any contention between them.
“The truth is,” she said, “I didn’t mind. I didn’t think anything of it. Laura Chapman was in the game too. She hugged me afterwards too, and Ben hugged her and Laura has a boyfriend, too. It’s not like Laura and I are taking showers together with Ben handing us the soap.”
“It’s okay if Laura gives you a hug. It’s not okay if a guy does it.”
“You’re being crazy.” She turned and walked toward her car.
“I’m telling you about something that bothers me,” he said, following. “I would think that would be important to you.”
She thought about it. They arrived at her car. Now she just wanted to defuse the issue.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “When I see Ben I’ll tell him you didn’t like what you saw, and I didn’t like it either, and he should never do it again.”
“Thank you. You tell him that.”
“I promise,” she said. A pause. “Okay?”
A longer pause. “Okay,” he finally said.
He kissed her good night. They left separately.
The next morning her cell phone rang on the way to work. She was driving on Connecticut Avenue, a few blocks from Treasury.
She looked at the phone’s screen and recognized Robert’s number. She answered.
“Hello,” he said. “Me.”
“Hello, you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything to Ben.”
“I don’t mind,” she said as she drove. “I’ll do it if you want me to.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t want you to. It’s okay. It’s done. It never happened.”
“If you say so,” she said.
She was pulling into Treasury parking, normally only available to the most senior employees, but Cerny had arranged a spot for her. She showed her government pass. It opened the gate. A guard waved her through.
“I say so,” he said. “I’m fine with everything. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Let’s go to the Athenian tonight, okay?”
“Looking forward to it,” she answered.
Her fiancé could get a little testy, a bit territorial, a bit overprotective at times. She already knew that. But sound reason would always prevail. There was never any reason for him to get jealous. But what stayed with her was an underlying subtext. In his eyes, in his spirit, he seemed to have a premonition of some sort. A sense of danger. Maybe of potential loss. Or maybe he sensed something imperfect that was in the air and yet to come.
The worst part about it was that she shared the same feeling. There was somewhere hanging out there the notion that a third party could somehow do something that could come between them, separate them, take that perfect partner away from the other. It was a horrible sensation. But was it really there? Or were their worst fears just wandering around like sprits or phantoms, looking to settle somewhere?
TWENTY-TWO
On her final day before departure, Alex had lunch with her boss, Mike. He wished her well and expressed the fear that she might be permanently assigned outside his department. She reassured him that if that were the case, she had heard nothing about it. Nor was she inclined to stay with this sort of assignment. She was anxious to do a one-time-only job and return to what passed for a normal life.
In the afternoon there was a final torturous Ukrainian lesson from the baroness. Then in the late afternoon, a final briefing from Michael Cerny on Ukrainian politics. “There’s been tyranny, criminal behavior, and instability for a thousand years. Probably more. No point to expect much different now,” he said.
“Thanks for the cheerful worldview,” she said.
“I’m a realist, so don’t mention it,” Cerny answered. “I’ll try to say hello before you leave tomorrow. If I miss you, don’t worry about it.”
She left the office at 6:00 p.m. and went to the gym, partly out of habit, partly because exercise released tension.
She showered, went home, and changed into some casual clothes. Robert picked her up at 9:00 p.m.
They went out to a nice place for dinner, a French place they liked in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, just a fifteen-minute walk across the Duke Ellington Bridge that spanned Rock Creek Park. La Fourchette on the Eighteenth Street Strip. Great food, but not at all formal, with a genuine French woman keeping an eagle eye on guest satisfaction.
Robert was irritated by a reassignment within the White House. His duties hadn’t changed but his partner had. The Service had brought in a ballistics expert named Reynolds Martin to accompany the president on the impending trip and join the small army of assigned agents. Robert was assigned to partner with Martin, whose behind-the-back nickname was “Jimmy Neutron.”