He nodded. “One of my team bought it on our last trip.”

She peered into his eyes, saw he was telling the truth. “I’m so sorry, Whit.”

He nodded. “To the point, there’s a position to fill. Sandy was our armorer.”

“No,” she said at once.

“I haven’t even asked you.”

“You didn’t have to.” A bit of her even white teeth showed between her partly open lips. “I know you inside and out.”

If that were true, he thought, you’d never have gone out with me in the first place.

He sighed. “I need you, Charlie. Sandy was the best. He wasn’t good enough. That only leaves you.”

“I don’t do your kind of work.”

“You don’t know—”

“Stop right there. Recall I once worked for the NSA.”

“The NSA is all electronic surveillance. It doesn’t do a goddamned thing on the ground.”

“Nevertheless, I can guess well enough.”

It was like trying to chip away at granite with a spoon, he thought. “You owe me, Charlie.”

“What? I don’t owe you a fucking thing.”

“We’re now bound to each other.”

“Like hell we are,” she flared.

And then he let her have it, all that was left in his arsenal. “I saved your life.”

7

“Gregory, is this a joke?”

“You know me better than that, boss.”

King Cutler jammed his hands deeper in his raincoat. His collar was up, his shoulders hunched against the rain. No one had ever seen him deploy an umbrella no matter how filthy the weather. The two men were walking the Mall. The Reflecting Pool, a stippled mass, reflected nothing today, not even the low, gunmetal sky against which slate gray clouds ran as if being chased by the devil himself. Near to six p.m., the light was failing, colors suppressed to muddied tones of gray and black.

“You know the rules. I will not countenance a female on any of my field teams, let alone Red Rover.”

“Red Rover is my team, boss. You gave me that leeway when you hired me.”

“Everything has its limits,” Cutler said sourly. “Women are bad luck in the field.”

“You mean like Mata Hari?”

“Don’t cut cute with me, Gregory. I’m like a sailor plying the high seas in the eighteen hundreds. Women are bad juju.”

“Bad juju is what we had on Red Rover’s last brief,” Whitman pointed out. “No women there.”

Cutler stopped under the portico of the Smithsonian Castle. He ignored the water coursing down his face. “Listen, Gregory, I’ve afforded you immense independence—far more than any other team leader. I felt you needed it—and also, frankly, you deserved it. The places you go, the things you do are not for the faint of heart or the unsure of purpose. Let’s call it a bonus, above and beyond the more than generous hazard pay USA deposits in your bank account every month.”

“Then let me make Charlie Daou a part of the reassembled team.”

Cutler shook his head. “Did you not hear a word I’ve been saying?”