“I don’t fuck everyone who asks, only the ones I like. I’m not a whore.”

“Women as well as men?”

“Sometimes. Sure, why not?”

Julie chuckled softly, as with a shared secret. She stared into Sydny’s glittering eyes. “I want to see you again.”

“What you want is to find the power inside yourself.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Then of course we’ll see each other again.” Sydny walked her over to the car. The rear door opened. Julie’s heart thudded as she ducked her head and slid into the backseat. At once, the door closed behind her and the car took off.

The driver kept his eyes fixed on the road and on his side mirrors. He did not once even glance at her. Well trained, she thought. Then she turned her attention to the figure wedged into the far corner of the seat, his face deliberately in shadow. Though she couldn’t see his face, by the shape of his torso she knew he wasn’t her boss. Who, then?

All at once the figure moved and in the strobing illumination from the passing streetlights, a strong, rugged face appeared.

“Good morning, Julie,” Whitman said.

Julie, trying to regain her equilibrium, found events running over her like a Mack truck. “I don’t know what to say.”

Whitman shook his head. “You were just doing your job. I’m here now because I want you to tell me what Hemingway’s idea was, because I don’t have a clue. What were you doing at The Doll House?”

“She told you about me.”

“Everything she knew. I intuited the rest.”

Julie watched his face go from shadow to light and back again as they traveled through the dark and silent city. “Just tell me one thing. Was everything Sydny said to me an act?”

“Sydny genuinely likes you.”

Julie blushed and turned away. For the moment, she could not bear to see how he was looking at her, how he might be judging her. “But I lied to her. Repeatedly.”

“She thought that took guts.” He paused for a moment. “She sees something in you.”

Julie ducked her head. “So she said.”

“I would take that at face value, if I were you. Sydny’s an extraordinary woman.”

“Can I tell you something?” Her eyes at last engaged with his. “When I’m with her she makes me feel … alive.”

“Mission accomplished,” Whitman said with a chuckle. “Now tell me what you were doing at The Doll House.”

Julie settled herself, hands overlapping each other in her lap. “Hemingway called me into his office, said he had a line on this stripper named Sydny who worked at The Doll House, a place he knew you frequented. He knew she was your favorite dancer.”

“He knows more than I thought.” Whitman rubbed his chin. “What did he want you to do?”

“Talk to her, ‘woman to woman’ as he put it. See if I could find out what you’re up to when you’re off duty.”

Here’s what I’ve been doing in my off hours, besides visiting Flix, Whitman thought: finding out that Ibrahim Mansour is nothing more than a punk running a wildcat cadre he claims is affiliated with al-Qaeda, which none of my private back-channel contacts can verify. In other words, he was a soft target: an easy win for NSA, currying favor with POTUS on the defensive domestically. But he brought up none of this to her, instead saying, “What could Hemingway be suspicious of?”