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* * *

When Warfield got to his office the next morning there was a voicemail from Joe Morgan, the U.S. attorney. “Only got a second before I catch my plane. The lawyer representing Helen Swope called. You remember Swope — the Koronis trial. Something on the little lady’s mind. Impression is somebody helped her with her testimony, and now she’s having a problem with it. Wants to talk. Meeting’s Friday at ten. Knew you’d want to know.”

Warfield hung up and mulled that little tidbit over for a moment. What a bombshell that would be. But until he learned more on Friday it would be a waste of time to speculate on it. Things like that came up frequently.

Paula walked in with a tan envelope containing the information he had asked her for, put it down with a smile and left. Warfield dumped the contents onto his desk. The agent in charge of Quinn’s security on the New York trip had been Randall C. Coffman.

* * *

Warfield waited until evening to call. “Mr. Coffman, this is Cameron Warfield. I work in—”

“Uh, sure! That Japanese bomber, Yoshida, was it? That’s you, right?”

Warfield acknowledged it was him. He told Coffman he needed information about one of his assignments.

“I’ll try to help.”

“Ever work for the CIA director?”

“Quinn?”

“Yes.”

There was silence for a few moments, then, “Maybe we could meet.”

“Breakfast tomorrow morning.”

* * *

Warfield arrived first and chose a corner booth and watched the action behind the counter. At five-thirty in the morning Waffle Houses around the country are preparing the service workers of the world for the day with hot coffee, pecan waffles, bacon and eggs, grits and their favorite music on the jukebox. To Warfield, it was something to watch. The waitresses barking orders one after another and the cook keeping track in his head of every order in the house. Warfield wondered how they kept it straight.

Randall Coffman was thirty-one and had been with the Agency for nine years. Graduated fifth in his class at Spelman College in Atlanta with a major in government and minor in criminal science. He had been quarterback and senior-year captain of the football team and active in the Spelman chapter of SIP, Statesmanship in Politics. Coffman denied any interest in running for political office, but he’d always been awed by the vision of the founding fathers. Now he’d come to loathe the double-speak, the legal bribery and so many other examples of what he considered depravation and moral prostitution in Washington. Warfield had gleaned that information off Coffman’s personal Web page after they talked on the phone last night and decided the guy was pretty gutsy to publish some parts of it.

At six-two and two-hundred pounds, Coffman was in good shape and well-groomed. He wore creased khakis and a navy knit shirt.

“Knew you from your pictures on TV,” he said with a wide smile of healthy white teeth.

After a few minutes of sizing each other up and weighing the prospects of the Redskins at Dallas, Coffman beat Warfield to the point. “Quinn in trouble?” There wasn’t much chance of a conversation being overheard in the Waffle House either.

Warfield shook his head. “Special project.”

Coffman nodded and smiled. “I’m cool with that.”

“You were on his security detail?”

Coffman nodded again.

“He leave you guys behind a lot?”

Coffman shrugged. “At times.”

“And you protested.”

“And how did you know that?”

“Tell me about it.”

Coffman took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’d seen it happen now and then…before I was in a position to protest. It was okay with me before I was put in charge of his detail. At that time it wasn’t my place to call him on it.”

“Talk to Quinn about it when you became in charge?”

“First couple of times, no. It was an hour or two here and there. He’d say where he was going, we’d shadow him from a respectable distance, stay out of his way. I always knew where he was. No big deal.”

“And then?”

Coffman looked out the window. His lips pulled tight and his eyes glassed over a little. “I’m telling you this because I’m still stinging from the transfer. And because I think I know the kind of guy you are. But I’ll deny saying it so don’t quote me…unless you’re wired. You wired?” His facial expression said he was only half joking.

“We’re on the same team, Randall.”

“Quinn was in New York couple days. Just finished making a speech at a breakfast conference one morning. It was early, around eight. Said he had some private business to take care of and would be back in time for a meeting scheduled for noon the next day. I’m saying to myself, the next day? He didn’t want a tail — nobody was to follow him. Told me to cover for him. That’s more than twenty-four hours he’s gonna be invisible. I figured he was visiting a lady friend, maybe, because of the sly little grin he gave me.”

“You complied?”

Coffman nodded. “Big mistake. Murphy’s Law or somebody’s…you know, if something can go wrong, it will. Sure enough, my supervisor checks in with me. I lied to him. Told him Quinn was in his room, had the flu, didn’t want to be disturbed for any reason.” Coffman looked into his coffee mug. “You can’t imagine how I hated myself for doing that.”

“I think I can.”

“So when Quinn came back the next morning I confronted him, respectfully. Told him I wouldn’t be a party to that again. That turned out to be my last day on his security detail. At least he didn’t fire me.”

“Who knows about this?”

“The overnight? No one. Didn’t even tell my supervisor. Quinn may have, I wouldn’t know, but no one ever said another word to me about that night.”

The waitress brought more coffee. The two men sat without speaking for a minute.

Then Warfield said, “You happen to remember the date?”

Remember! It was the longest twenty-four hours of my life and I’ll never forget it. The man whose life I was responsible for was out of touch. It was last year, April 22nd.”

* * *

Warfield returned to his office perplexed. If all of this didn’t cause him to wonder about Austin Quinn, it damn well did nothing to clear him. But that seemed to make Warfield more reluctant to believe it. Maybe he was afraid to learn it was Quinn. The CIA director might be arrogant, cocky, demanding, but it was unfathomable that he was disloyal to his country. Warfield found himself wanting to walk away from it, leave it where it was, let someone else find it out if it was true. But no man with an ounce of grit would let it lie.

He called the White House travel office and asked for flight schedules from New York to Paris. Someone named Tammy took his call.

“Most flights depart late afternoon or early evening from JFK and arrive in Paris the next morning, Paris time. That okay?”

“So if I need to leave New York around ten in the morning and be back by seven the following morning?”

“No, sir. That wouldn’t be possible.”

“One other question. Would those schedules have been different in April last year?”

“I’ll have to check. Please hold.” Two minutes later, she was back on the line and said none of the New York to Paris schedules had changed since then by more than an hour. “Anything else, sir?”

Warfield checked his notes. It looked like this cleared up any question of Quinn meeting with Seth in Paris on that night. He was relieved. “No, that’s it.”

Tammy caught Warfield before he hung up. “Oh, sir, I just thought of this: I don’t suppose you want to consider the new Oberon. No one here ever uses it but I think it does meet your scheduling requirements.”