Our work—she felt jumpy. Just have dinner, she told herself. His call, this rendezvous—it could all be coincidence. They had passed in Wenner’s office. Viv Novek was a notorious gossip. He was handsome, mildly amusing. She liked the line of his jaw. She counted the months she had been alone. Months? It was time to use the word year.

“Tell me about your family,” he said. He refilled her wine glass.

Her father was a retired Army doctor and had moved his family from one military base to another around the world. During World War II, he was a junior clerk with a meteorological unit in England. Then one day everyone in his office was given a business suit and a pair of wingtip shoes and put on a plane, the destination a secret. They landed in Portugal, a supposedly neutral country, and set up shop in a closed insane asylum—from where they observed weather patterns in secret, wearing their business attire, not uniforms, and relayed the information to Allied command.

“We’re both children of the military,” Grayton said.

His father had been a welder who worked on nuclear submarines in a Connecticut shipyard.

The entrées arrived. As they ate, they talked about recent developments in the Balkans. He told her several funny stories about Wenner’s meetings with visiting chiefs of foreign intelligence services. She mentioned she was considering getting a dog. She felt the wine and declined his offer of an after-dinner brandy. She said she should be going. He signaled for the check.

“You never did say how it makes you feel,” he said.

“How what makes me feel?” she asked.

“Digging up the secrets of the community for which you work.”

She dragged a fork across a plate and reorganized the chocolate torte crumbs.

“I don’t really look at it as ‘digging up’ secrets,” she said. “It’s more like tending to weeds. And no one—”

She dropped the fork, and it fell to the floor.

“But maybe you should ask me again,” she continued, “when I haven’t had three glasses of wine.”

At the door, he offered to drive her home. She said she could manage the short ride. She was parked across the street. He walked her to her car. The 1965 Dodge Dart was still damaged from the crash near headquarters, but it was running.

“What happened here?” he asked, inspecting the back of the car.

“An in-the-family accident, that’s all.”

“Sure you don’t want a nightcap?”

One more drink, she thought, and I’d end up waking someplace I’ve never seen.

“No, thank you.”

She got in, lowered the window, and turned the key. The starter made a clicking noise and went dead. She tried again. The engine caught, and she pumped the gas. The car rumbled. Grayton gave her a thumbs-up.

“I hope we can, again,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks for the dinner. Good luck finding answers.”