But to pretend that sex was their only failure was not fair to Irene. They had drifted apart both in and out of the bedroom — and they had become strangers to their children, as, well. Yet, as his father had taught him, and as he had learned from the examples provided by his father's friends, he had given his family all of the important things: a good home in a fine neighborhood, a swimming pool in the backyard, a nice school for the kids, allowances for the kids and money for their clarinet lessons and ballet school and baseball camp, the security of a substantial bank account, new cars, membership in a country club, an expensive vacation every year… If he had provided all of this and yet the four of them were strangers who merely boarded under one roof, then he had not fully understood his father and had gone wrong somewhere, somehow.
But what was the answer? Could it be explained by the usual pop sociology and pop psychology? Had he provided all the material comforts and then failed to give them love? Had he not managed to communicate to Irene and the children the things he felt in his heart? Had he and Irene been trapped by conventional man-woman roles that stifled their relationship? Had he been a male chauvinist pig without wanting to be, without knowing that he was? Had he walked along the generation gap, his kids on one side and he on the other, without understanding that it was a vast canyon and not just a gully? Running missions for the agency, he had been away from home for one and two months at a tune, six months out of twelve. Mike and Terri were adults by the time he received the White House assignment. Should he have been with them more time than he had been when they were young, to serve as an example and as a source of authority? Should he have been home every night to comfort Irene, to share the triumphs and defeats and irritations of daily life? Had his prolonged absences — and perhaps even the sometimes ugly nature of his job — been the cause of the alienation within his family? And if that were true, then wasn't he responsible, after all, for the withering of Irene's desire?
He felt very much alone.
He was adrift. Moving aimlessly toward an unknown future. He had no one. No one. And nothing. Nothing at all.
Except Dragonfly.
He finished the note to the cleaning woman, left it in the center of the kitchen table, switched off the fluorescent lights, and went into the living room. He took up the dropcloths, folded them, and put them away. He called a taxi service and asked to have a cab waiting out front at three-fifteen. Then he went into the bedroom and packed two suitcases.
After he had changed out of his jeans into a pale-brown suit, yellow shut, brown tie, and leather shoulder holster, he took his gun out of the top drawer of his bureau. It was a nickel-finished Colt Government Model.45 Automatic with an eight-and-a-half-inch overall length and a five-inch barrel. Weighing only thirty-nine ounces, it was perfect for use with a shoulder holster. The sights were fixed, of square Partridge design, and glareproof. Slanted ramp-style, the forward sight caught the light and yet allowed for an easy draw. Canning's holster, which snapped open from sideways pressure and “sprung” the pistol into his hand, thus accommodating a barrel lengthened by a silencer, made the draw even easier. The Colt's magazine held seven standard.45 Auto cartridges, not the most powerful ammunition made, but sufficient. More men in the counterintelligence services of all nations had been killed with this handgun than with any other weapon. Canning had killed nine of them himself: two Russians, two Poles, two Chinese, and three East Germans.
He often wondered why he was able to kill with such complete professional detachment, but he had never found the answer. And in his darkest moments, he thought that a murderer who suffered no remorse should expect to raise a family as alienated as his own.
Struggling to avoid that sort of despair, he took the precision-machined silencer from the bureau drawer and screwed it onto the Colt's barrel. The silencer was five inches long and filled with a new, resilient wadding material that made it one hundred percent effective for at least thirty rounds.
He looked at his watch: three o'clock.
Time to get moving.
He pressed the pistol into his holster and distributed three spare magazines, all fully loaded, in his pockets. He reached for the gun, touched the stock, and smiled as the weapon popped into his right hand. He brought it out, flicked off the safety, studied it for a few seconds, and returned it to the holster.
Once again, he was a field op.
He felt considerably younger than he had when he'd gotten up this morning.
He turned out the lamp and carried his suitcases into the living room, where he suddenly remembered that he hadn't locked the kitchen door. His apartment had two entrances: one off the third-floor landing that was common to two other apartments, and a private entrance from the courtyard by way of a set of switchback stairs. He had used the private entrance this morning when he'd gone out for a quart of milk, before the rain had begun. He put the suitcases down and went to lock up.
Turning the knob on the kitchen door, intending to open it and latch the outer storm door, Canning saw two men enter the courtyard through the archway in the alley wall. The kitchen door was centered with four panes of glass; therefore, he could look through the stoop railing and straight down into the courtyard. He let go of the knob. He knew these men — not who they were but what they did. They were both tall, solidly built, dressed in dark suits and raincoats and matching rumpled rainhats. They paused inside the arch and looked around the courtyard to see if they were being observed.
Twisting the lock shut, Canning stepped quickly away from the door before they could look up and see him.
Lightning shredded the purple-black sky, and a frenetic luminescence pulsed throughout the dark kitchen. The ensuing thunder was like a shotgun blast in the face.
Canning hurried to the living-room windows and cautiously parted the heavy rust-colored velvet drapes that had come with the apartment. Sheets of rain washed the street, made the pavement glisten, boiled and foamed in the gutters, and drummed on the roofs of parked cars. Across the street a blue Ford LTD was at the curb, its parking lights glowing, the windshield wipers beating steadily. From this distance, veiled by the rain, the driver was only a black and nearly formless mass behind the wheel. He was looking out of his side window, looking directly at the apartment house: his face was a pale blur between his dark raincoat and his rainhat. Canning looked up and down the street, but he saw no one else.
By now the two men in the courtyard would have started up the steps toward the kitchen entrance.
He left the windows and went to the front door. He took the Colt.45 from its holster, carefully opened the door, and stepped onto the landing. It smelled faintly of the lemon-oil polish that the superintendent used on the oak banisters. Leaning against the railing, Canning looked down to the bottom of the stairwell and saw that it was deserted. He had expected that much, for they wouldn't want to make a hit in a public corridor if there was a chance they could take him in the privacy of his own apartment.
Listening to an inner clock that was ticking like the timer on a bomb, he went back into the living room, closed the door and locked it. He reached for the wall switch and turned out the overhead light—and now the entire apartment was cast in darkness.
He listened.
Nothing.
Yet.
He holstered the pistol and picked up the suitcases. He carried them into the bedroom and shoved them into a closet. Leaving the closet open, he walked back to the doorway and stood half in the bedroom and half in the living room. He drew the Colt once more and stood very still, listening.