"Not according to your wife. I asked her."
"What'd you call her?"
"C'mon, man, if you don't have a common-law marriage I don't know what one looks like."
I shook my head slightly. "She's being generous about Wyoming."
"She says that putting yourself out there in Montana, that was your idea, too. That took balls. That took more than just guts-that took passion."
I looked at him. It wasn't a word I was hearing much, and I wasn't feeling terribly passionate at the moment. I was feeling cold, to the world and to myself.
"Some people need killing," Panno told me.
"I've heard that before," I said. "I'm not sure I disagree with it. I'm just not sure I'm the guy to be making that call."
He nodded, then raised his beer.
"For Natalie and her dad," he said.
I met his glass with my own.
"For Natalie and her dad," I agreed. I didn't sleep well that night, and was up again before the dawn. I tried yoga and couldn't get myself to breathe properly. I took a shower and shaved off the beard, but kept the mustache, turning it into something that drooped deep around the sides of my mouth. I liked the look better than the full beard, but that wasn't saying much. After I had dressed again, I turned on the television and watched the news, and nowhere did my face or Alena's appear.
I checked out early, got into the car, and headed across the Potomac. I drove out to Arlington, parked, and waited for nine o'clock to roll around. When it did, I took the cell phone Panno had given me the previous night and switched it on, then dialed the number for Alena.
She answered on the first ring. "Hello."
"I love you," I said.
There was a pause. "Coms are working," Alena said, softly, and I wasn't sure if it was uncertainty or surprise in her voice. "Call me at noon to confirm."
"Noon," I said, and cut the connection.
Panno called five minutes later, also to confirm that coms were working, and that everything was still on schedule. That left me most of three hours to kill, so I drove over to the Mall. It was the heart of spring in D.C., and it was already muggy, but that wasn't stopping the tourists. It took me a while to find a place to park, by which time it was a little past ten. I started at the Lincoln Memorial and walked from there for the next hour and a half. I stopped for twenty minutes or so at the Vietnam Memorial, found it as affecting as I always did, and spent much of it just staring at the three soldiers, at their fatigue and their honor and their sorrow.
I took my time heading back to the car, and if I was being surveilled, it was beyond my ability to spot it. It was twenty-three minutes to noon as I was climbing back behind the wheel, and that was when the phone Panno had given me began to ring.
"Go," I said.
"He's canceled," Panno told me. He was doing a very good job of keeping the frustration from his voice.
My heart jump-started again.
"Is he spooked?" I asked. "Did he get tipped?"
"Fuck if I know. My information says he's just canceled the Georgetown gig, that's all. Could be a thousand reasons why he would do that, it doesn't mean he knows anything."
"Can you find out if he's still planning on being at the Watergate?"
"He only canceled-"
"No, I know that, I'm asking can you confirm that he will be at the Watergate tonight?"
"I'll get on it. You'll tell her?"
"I'm heading out there now," I said, hung up, and then hit my redial. Alena answered as she had the first time, before the first ring was through. "He's canceled."
"Why?"
"We don't know. I'm trying to confirm that he'll still be going to the Watergate."
"What are you thinking?"
"I don't know yet. Where are you?"
"At work, on campus. It's confirmed, he's not coming?"
"He's not coming," I said. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
"There's a lot on the north side, just off Reservoir Road. I'll meet you there."
I hung up and started driving. After a second, I switched on the radio, punched my way through the AM presets, finally landing on an all-talk station. Nobody was saying anything about any new crisis in the world, and that was a good sign, I thought, because it meant that whatever the reason Earle had canceled his trip out to Georgetown, maybe it wasn't a reason that would cause him to cancel his evening plans as well. And I needed him to keep his evening plans. I needed him to go to the Watergate.
If we didn't hit him today, I didn't know when, or if, we would get another chance. It had taken almost three months and Elliot Trent's death to put this together. Another three months would be all the more complicated, and all the more dangerous for us. It didn't matter that we weren't in the news anymore. The public's memory is for shit, but it's not that much for shit. Alena was exactly where she said she would be, wearing her custodial coveralls and carrying a ratty-looking backpack that went with the ensemble. She had cut her hair very short, and maintained the blond look, and I guessed that was why she'd had to cut her hair; it had been bleached one too many times.
I pulled in and stopped, leaving the engine running, and she opened the passenger door and slid in, dropping the backpack at her feet. I started to turn back to the wheel, but she surprised the hell out of me by reaching out and grabbing me with both hands. She put her mouth to mine, kissed me fiercely and for not long enough, then released me.
"I love you, too," she said. "Drive."
I pulled back onto Reservoir, turning right, heading once again in the direction I had come.
"Has he called you back?"
"Not yet. I'm trying to get confirmation about the Watergate."
"You want to try to hit him there?"
"You see another alternative?" I asked. "There's no way we can take him at his house, and I'm thinking the window on this is rapidly slamming shut."
"We can't dose the podium there," she said. "The first lady will be speaking, we can't take that risk."
"We won't dose the podium. We'll find another way. How do we get to your place?"
"You're heading the wrong direction. Turn left up ahead."
I took the left, followed her directions, turning towards Annandale. "You've already packed up?"
"There wasn't much to pack." She nudged the backpack at her feet with her sneaker. "Why are we going there?"
"We need to stage," I said. "And you're going to have to change clothes."
"Then we'll need to stop somewhere to buy some. How nice?"
"Watergate nice."
"You do have a plan."
"I'm working on one."
"If we don't do this today, we're going to have more than just Earle as a problem," Alena said. "I don't think Panno's friends will be very happy with us."
"I'm trying not to think about that."
"Probably wise."
My phone rang, and I handed it to Alena to answer, heard her side of the conversation. It lasted all of eleven seconds before she was hanging up.
"According to his information, Earle will be honoring his commitment to the first lady this evening."
"Call him back, tell him that we're going to need to know the second he's on the move, and then tell him that he's going to need a suit, and he needs to meet us at the Watergate."
She did so, relaying exactly what I'd said. There was a pause, and then she handed the phone back to me. "He wants you."
"What?" I asked him.
"I'm not playing on the field," Panno said.
"Like hell you aren't," I said. "You want to use a sports metaphor, here's one: You're off the bench. We may need you there."
"You're seriously going to try this?" Panno asked. I couldn't tell if he was impressed or worried. "You're seriously going to try to do this, there?"
"Hell yeah."
"If he's twitched-"
"Then I'll die trying," I said.
CHAPTER
There are certain constants to be found in hotels around the world. They differ, of course, in levels of service, in the amenities they provide. Some offer twenty-four-hour room service, or same-day laundry, or an on-call masseuse, or a video library for your viewing pleasure. Some have concierge services that will literally bend over backwards to get you anything you could need or desire. Some have more, some have less.