His smile faded as he saw it moving gracefully across the pond.
He’d first sailed this ship in the 1960s and had continued to do so every year thereafter, even when Mrs. Mountjoy was alive and felt he was living in the past.
But this time was different. He couldn’t help thinking that Cochrane was captaining his own Cutty Sark. One last voyage across oceans. A desperate swan song.
He sat on a park bench next to Phoebe and David. They were holding hands, and that was a good thing as far as Dickie was concerned. Phoebe needed David to bring her down from the exuberant excesses of London life. Plus, he embalmed bodies for a living, which meant he knew too well where excess could lead. By contrast, David needed Phoebe’s irreverence, heart, and warm thighs to make him understand that death was the end of matters rather than the beginning.
Dickie thought about his own inevitable death and wished he could perpetuate his soldierly bravado to convince himself that it didn’t matter.
Cling onto a moment that stuck two fingers up to death and captured all that was final about life.
He imagined how that might look.
Him wearing an immaculate British army officer’s uniform.
A cigarette in his mouth.
Inhaled deeply and with panache and machismo.
A wink at his terrified young soldiers who were about to follow him over the top at Passchendaele or the Somme, charge behind him through the woods at the Bulge, follow him into battle against incensed Mau Mau warriors in the jungles of Kenya, or watch him with disbelief as he singlehandedly destroyed an Argentine machine gun nest at Goose Green during the Falklands War before he was put on his ass by two nine-millimeter rounds.
The last action was a real personal memory; the ones before it belonged to other men he didn’t know.
But they all shared the same human spirit.
Now he was an old man, no longer invincible; not the chap who had endless spunk and charm and strength.
He looked at Phoebe and smiled.
She was a good girl. Admittedly, she needed to stop wearing skimpy outfits all the time. But that was just a woman thing that had no depth beyond showing that she had the interests of mankind at heart. He started coughing uncontrollably. Blood sprayed over his chin.
“Dickie!” Phoebe placed her hand around the major’s head while dabbing his face with her favorite chiffon scarf.
Dickie held a hand up while trying to control his cough and stop more flecks of blood from coming out of his mouth. “It’s okay. Okay.”
David looked shocked. “It’s not okay!”
Dickie wagged a finger, suppressing the urge to cough again, and smiled. “Rule of thumb — two pints ’o the red stuff minimum before a soldier starts feeling light-headed and needs a transfusion. Anything less is codswallop.” He gently stroked Phoebe’s face while maintaining his smile. “Girls do it every month and don’t bleat like cowardly Argies who’ve been caught out by Guardsmen on Mount Tumbledown.”
David now looked horrified. “You can’t talk about women like …”
“It’s a fact of life for them and it’s a fact of life for me!” Dickie watched his Cutty Sark hit the pond’s perimeter and stay there as if it had been roped to a wharf. “No one cares when you bleed. It’s what happens after that can sometimes make others get all sensitive and scared, and…”
“We care.” Phoebe squeezed Dickie’s hand while looking at him with eyes that the major reckoned were better than the Koh-i-Noor diamond he’d seen while recuperating from war by helping to guard the crown jewels in the Tower of London. “Very much.”
“I’m not letting you take me to a doctor. Cochrane will do that when he gets back. He understands death, and I need a man like that by my side if a quack tells me I’m on the way out.”
David slapped his legs with frustration. “You’re a bloody fool. Haven’t you seen the news? Pigs will learn to fly before Will escapes Washington, D.C., alive.”
Dickie stood awkwardly while grimacing, composed himself, and marched as best he could alongside the pond. His back ached as he bent down to collect his boat, though he kept his expression stoic and dignified. Upon his return, he held the Sark in two hands diagonally across his chest, like a rifle belonging to a soldier on guard duty, and said to David, “He’ll come back.”
At 6:20 A.M., Marsha entered the FBI ops room. The place was at full capacity. It didn’t surprise her that Pete Duggan, his HRT colleagues, and all Marsha’s analysts were here, but she was shocked to see that every agent who was supposed to be hitting the streets was also in the room. Most of them were huddled over maps of D.C. “What’s going on?”
One of the analysts pointed at Charles Sheridan. “You better ask him.”
Marsha made no effort to hide the hostility on her face. “Charles?”
Sheridan grinned as he looked up from a map. “Hey, Marsha Gage has decided to join the party.”
She repeated, “What’s going on?”
Sheridan’s grin widened. “I decided to demote myself while you were away, and take over your job. And you know what, turns out your job’s a walk in the park. I’ve achieved more in the last few hours than you’ve done in weeks.”
No way was Marsha going to let him speak to her like that in front of her team. “You pick up your prescription pills yet?”
“What?”
“The Bureau health center keeps calling me to remind you.”
“My prescription?”
“Your Viagra pills. Come on, Charles, you mustn’t forget to start taking them, because I know your wife’s desperate for something to finally start moving down there.” She nodded toward his crotch.
Sheridan looked furious as he walked fast toward her.
So furious that Marsha placed a hand on her sidearm.
But Pete Duggan stepped into Sheridan’s path. “You take one more step toward Agent Gage, and you’ll have other reasons for needing to visit the health center.”
Marsha came to his side. “It’s all right, Pete. I can handle this.” Everyone in the room was looking at her, and you could hear a pin drop. She raised her voice as she stared at the task force. “If anyone in this room ever takes orders from a CIA officer again, you’ll not only be off my team; I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your careers working as a night-duty security guard, patrolling the outside of the J. Edgar building. Now, back to work!” Her eyes locked on Sheridan. “Precisely what have you achieved in my absence?”
Sheridan composed himself. “I got me a source, and that source has told me that Cochrane’s going to be outside the Friendship Heights metro on Wisconsin Avenue at ten fifteen this morning.”
“A source?” She frowned. “How would a source be able to predict Cochrane’s exact location?”
“That’s none of your darn business.”
Marsha’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe that source is an intelligence operative. A friend of Cochrane’s. Someone who’s met him and given him important information. An individual who you’ve suspected and have put the thumbscrews on to flush him out.”
Sheridan smiled, though said nothing.
Patrick and Alistair moved to Marsha’s side, having overheard the conversation.
Patrick said between gritted teeth, “And maybe that person is a she.”
Sheridan’s eyes twinkled.
Alistair asked, “What have you done to her?”
Sheridan folded his arms. “The traitor’s been taken care of. That’s all that matters.”
Marsha darted a look at Alistair and Patrick. “You know who she is?”
They answered in unison, “Yes.”
“American citizen?”
They nodded.
Marsha pointed at Sheridan. “The CIA has no authority to act on U.S. soil. If I find out you’ve broken the law, it’ll be my pleasure to personally put cuffs on you.”