I’d figured that out already. The moment LeHigh said that they called him the Pope, it hit me.

“What about the two guys who bugged my house?”

“Those were LeHigh’s guys.”

“And the meeting with LeHigh in the car?”

“Sorry about that. I was playing my part. Just like you played yours.”

“You didn’t get waterboarded.”

“Again, I’m sorry it came to that,” he says, which appears genuine. He adds, “And by the way, I know damn well what a Red Four is.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that.”

He smirks.

I ask, “When did you guys set up the video cameras?”

“Six weeks ago.” He nods at Red.

“You did a nice job making it look like no one had been there for years.”

Red says, “Yeah, I spent about three hours arranging the leaves just so.”

“A true artist.”

He laughs. He’s not the one I’m pissed at.

“How did you know the Director would show up?” I ask Sullivan.

“They didn’t just bug your house.”

“I didn’t have my phone on me.”

He shakes his head.

I point at myself.

“Me? They bugged me?”

“Check the bottom of your foot,” says Red.

I sit down on the chair. I pull off my sock and lift up my foot. On the arch is a small translucent circle the size of a pencil eraser.

“This is a tracking device?”

“Latest and greatest.”

I peel it off and toss it in the trash.

“So what now?”

“Well, we can’t exactly prosecute LeHigh in open court. I don’t want the public to know that for the past seven years we’ve been torturing enemy combatants on American soil.”

“So, what, he just gets to go free?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“The Vatican.”

“Let me guess, there was a cave-in.”

He nods.

“And LeHigh was there?”

Again he nods.

“What about all the prisoners?”

“We couldn’t risk them talking.”

“So you killed them?”

“To everyone else they were already dead.”

“You are no better than LeHigh.”

“Say what you want about LeHigh, but the man got results. He saved us from at least two separate attacks while I was in office, and those black sites were probably the reason. But in this new era of diplomacy, there are lines that can’t be crossed. If the public found out about the black sites, the CIA would have been condemned, possibly shut down, and we need them. They are the front lines in our war on terror.”

“And you would never be reelected.”

“There is that too,” he says with his prize winning smile.

“And Ingrid?”

“Just so you know, she refused to help, even when I asked her to do it for her country. She said she wouldn’t lie to the man she loved.”

The breath is pulled out of me.

Loved?