“Perhaps,” Finch suggested, “Ms. Carmichael should be sent to Berlin.”
“These jokers aren't in Berlin, Matt.” The President was impatient. “After that flag goes up, they may not even be in Prague.”
“But they staged a brilliant hit in the heart of the new capital,” Finch persisted.
“Somebody in Berlin knows the 30 April operation. Krucevic must have a network there, something that could be identified and exploited. Where else do we start if not in that square?”
“Caroline is no case officer, Matt,” Dare protested.
He dismissed this with a wave.
“You've got case officers on the ground. Carmichael understands the terrorists' thinking. She knows how to deal with Krucevic. She might even be able to predict where he'll go. Hell, if it ever conics down to negotiation, she'll be invaluable. We need her in Berlin.”
“But she's not accustomed — ”
“Then let's call it a go,” Bigelow interrupted. “Get the girl on the plane.”
In a previous incarnation, Dare Atwood had run the Office of Russian and European Analysis. She had trained Caroline Carmichael and followed her progress through the bureaucratic ranks as an eagle follows the flight of its young. When MedAir 901 exploded thirty-three minutes after takeoff, it was Dare who met Caroline's plane from Frankfurt and broke the news of Eric's death. A cord of unspoken affection rah between the two women that made the present disaster all the more painful.
But as she stared through her office windows at the dismal autumn night, Dare felt something like heartache. Her affection for Caroline was irrelevant now.
She had only one course of action open to her; she would take out the cost in nightmares if necessary.
Alerted by something — a footfall, a shift in atmosphere — she turned an instant before the tap came on her office door. Ginny, her executive secretary, peered around it.
“Ms. Carmichael to see you.”
“Hello, Dare,” Caroline said as she crossed the DCI's carpet for the second time that day. She was one of the few subordinates who still called Dare by her first name. “Am I allowed to ask how it went at the White House?”
“You are. As well as could be expected. Thirty April has made contact.”
Caroline came to a dead halt midway between Dare's desk and her easy chairs. Her pallor was suddenly dreadful.
“You were hoping, somewhere in your mind, that it wasn't Krucevic,” the DCI said softly. “So much for hope. Take a seat.”
The younger woman did as she was told. After an instant, she managed the look of fixed calm Dare remembered from the morning's conference. She doubted it had been evident for most of the afternoon. Caroline had spent the past four hours off campus, in the polygraphers' relentless hands. Four hours of questions and seismic bar graphs, of emotions wildly fluctuating. At one point, the Security report noted, the subject had looked close to tearing the wires from her fingers and walking out. But the infernal machine had eventually given her a clean bill of health.
“I'm sorry to call you back here at this time of night,” Dare told her. It was seven-thirty, late by government standards.
“I'd have come anyway, if only to hold Cuddy's hand. What sort of contact?”
“They dropped a video and the Vice President's clothes at Embassy Prague.”
“Payne is on the video?”
“I'm afraid so.”
Caroline's eyes narrowed.
“She's not ”
“Not dead.” Dare twisted the topaz on her finger. “By now, with any luck, she might even be resting comfortably. But if she's left for long in 30 April's hands, I wouldn't vouch for her chances.”
Caroline nodded, her lips compressed.
“I'd hoped her status would shield her.”
“Status didn't do much for Gerhard Schroeder.” Dare, too, had seen photographs of the Socialist chancellors blasted limo. The mortar that had killed Schroeder was triggered when the car crossed an infrared beam. No smoking gun, no fingerprints, only a crater where a man had once been.
“What I heard today convinced me that Mrs. Payne is in extreme peril,” Dare said. “Which makes me question whether 30 April has any intention of returning her at all.”
The implication hung in the air between them.
Caroline took a deep breath, a swimmer about to plunge.
“Did you see... Eric?”
“No. It was impossible to see anyone. Krucevic was never visible on camera just a voice. The rest of them, maybe three or four men, wore hoods. Krucevic referred to a few by name. Otto, I think ”
“Weber,” Caroline said automatically.
“Did he call anyone Michael? Cuddy thinks it's possible Eric is still using his Agency alias. He found something in desist.”
Dare shook her head.
“But there was a boy. Jozsef. Krucevic claimed he was his son.”
She watched Caroline consider this fact like a cut stone under a spotlight.
“And he offered the kid up to the world of television? I wonder why. He kidnapped Jozsef, you know, from his mother. If we could find her “ She stood and began to turn restlessly before the DCI's desk.
“We could use her,” Dare concluded quietly. “You think like a case officer.”
Caroline laughed.
“I wish. That's what we need a cowboy with a cause. Only whom do we trust?”
“I've always preferred straight thinkers to straight shooters. So think out loud. Krucevic and company were in Prague a few hours ago. Where are they headed?”
“Prague is probably a diversion,” Caroline replied, “but they'll want to stay fairly close to an urban center, in order to use our embassies for contact. Bratislava is an easy jump from Prague. So is Budapest or Vienna. Poland is the wrong direction. If they'd wanted Poland, they'd have started there from Berlin.”
“If they're operating in a linear fashion,” Dare countered. “Don't rule out Poland. These people are byzantine.”
“Serbs are Byzantine,” Caroline corrected her.
“Krucevic is a Croat. He would not consider that a compliment.”
“Caroline, I'm sending you to Berlin on the Bureau's plane.”
The younger woman stopped pacing. Dare said, “You're traveling at the request of the President.”
“I am? Gee. Maybe he'll give me one of those nifty little stickpins with the presidential seal on it.”
“Support the Bureau investigation, Carrie, in any way you can. It'll be headed up by the Berlin Legal Attache, but our station chief a fellow named Walter Aronson should be grateful to have you.”
“I know Wally.”
Of course Caroline knew Wally. He had replaced her husband in Budapest two and a half years ago.
“You're going under State cover,” Dare continued. “Ambassador Dalton has been informed you're coming. Embassy communications are down, and the staff is mainly operating out of Dalton residence. You'll make the best of it, I know.”
“I always do,” Caroline said.
“Travel Section has your itinerary and funds. You can pick them up on your way out of the building. Your dip passport is in order, I hope?”
“Last time I looked.”
Dare glanced in a file.
“And you have a back stopped identity. A Jane Hathaway, resident in London. Still clean?”
“I suppose so. I haven't used her since Nicosia.”
“Will you be carrying a personal weapon?”
“Yes.”
The DCI snapped the folder closed.
“Dare, how much time do I have?”
“The plane leaves Dulles at midnight.”
“Why Berlin? Why not Prague, since that's where the video surfaced?”
“By the time you fly into Central Europe, they'll have left Prague behind. We can't chase a moving target. But if you're on the ground in the midst of the investigation, Carrie, you may figure out where they're headed.”
“I want to go to Budapest.”
Dare went very still.
“Because it was Eric's last posting?”
“Partly.” Caroline hesitated, then shrugged. “Anything can be hidden in Budapest.”