“Which was the direction Elisa Vandersteel was headed as she rode through the park,” and I can tell by the look on Benton’s face that he’s very worried.

“The last phone call she made was to him at seven-oh-six P.M. as she was putting a FedEx in the drop box on JFK Street right next to the school of government,” he says. “We know this because of the content of the voice mail when the boyfriend tried her back about ten minutes later, and based on everything else, I’m thinking she was dead by then. I’m thinking she did exactly what we thought, Kay. She entered the park off JFK Street, and as she rode near the lamp something got her.”

“Does her boyfriend know?” I recall seeing him and other staff going in and out of rooms while we were at the Faculty Club.

No doubt there will be plenty of witnesses to vouch for his whereabouts at the time of Elisa Vandersteel’s death, and it’s unlikely he has anything to do with it. But Mrs. P’s grandson is in for a god-awful time in every way imaginable.

“There are a lot of people to talk to. This is going to be a shit storm, and you’ve been up for twenty-something hours with no end in sight,” Benton is saying. “Let Luke handle the autopsy, Kay. You’ve already done the hardest part. Why don’t you come with us?”

“Us? Who else besides Lucy?”

“Wyeth.” Benton walks me to the far end of the bay where a ramp leads up to another door. “As you may have gathered he’s one of us, with our NCTC.”

The National Counterterrorism Center monitors both domestic and international threats. It works hand in glove with U.S. intelligence agencies such as the CIA.

“If he’s been in the Boston area for the past few days I assume he wasn’t here because of Briggs unless you had intel about his death in advance,” I reply, and our voices echo inside the vast hollow concrete space where we talk, just the two of us near a huge drain in the floor and a thick coiled hose. “And I hope that’s not true. Because if you had even a glimmer—”

“We didn’t. There was no forewarning that I’m aware of, just the photograph e-mailed, as I’ve said, and he was already gone by then.” Benton uses that euphemism again.

Gone.

“Wyeth has been in the area on another matter.” Benton pauses, his eyes on mine, and then he says, “I’m very concerned about the possibility of some major attack planned for the Washington area, and that what we’re seeing right now is the tip of the iceberg.”

He says he can’t get into the details but Briggs was an important target in more ways than I know.