“I don’t know,” Stone said. “It all has something to do with Ed Rawls. Remember him?”

“How could I forget? We saw him at Dark Harbor a while back. I got kidnapped that summer, remember?”

“That’s right, I’d forgotten you were there.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I mean, I’d forgotten you met Rawls.”

“Him and his bunch of Old Farts, as I recall they named themselves. All old Agency hands, retired. What would Rawls have to do with the strong case?”

“Will thinks it’s some sort of dirt that might hurt Kate’s run for reelection, and it may have come from Rawls.”

“How could a disgraced CIA officer have something on Kate?”

“I don’t think he has anything against Kate; he was her mentor when she was at the Agency.”

“And she got him sent to prison. That could have annoyed him and made him less protective of her.”

“If he’d wanted to hurt her he could have done it when she ran the first time.”

“Well, there is that.”

“Also, Will pardoned him.”

“I’d heard that, but I didn’t believe it. Why would Will do that?”

“Ed was very helpful to Will when he ran the first time. He kept coming up with stories of planned attacks on his campaign, and Will was able to head off some of them.”

“Wasn’t Rawls in a federal prison at the time?”

“He was, which made his help very surprising. Ed seemed to know everybody of any importance—politicians, journalists, et cetera.”

“Other Agency officers, too,” Holly offered.

“Were there people at the Agency who would hold grudges against Kate?”

“She was a very popular director, when she got the job, but then there were the people who wanted the job and didn’t get it. They and the people they might have promoted didn’t like her much.”

“Who would have been the most important one on that list?”

“Hugh English. He was director of operations, ran the clandestine side. Everybody expected him to get the job.”

“But he reckoned without Will Lee.”

“Right, he wouldn’t have expected Will to appoint his wife. I mean, he needed the acquiescence of Congress to get that done.”

“Must have been a real shock to her competitors.”

“You bet your sweet ass. I expect they voted Republican that year, to a man.”

“Where is this Hugh English now? Do you know?”

“He’s teaching at a small liberal arts college somewhere in New England—Connecticut, maybe.”

“Would he be in touch with people in his old circle at the Agency?”

“Of course. The Agency is a very select club, and when you leave it you find yourself among people who don’t know as much as you do. The people who know are your old colleagues, and they tend to stick together. Look at Ed and his Old Farts.”

“Would English and his old crowd tend to cluster, like Ed and his bunch?”