“What a day,” the computer repairman said as a greeting. She agreed and described the problem to him. “No problema,” he replied and went to work. She made calls to dead lines.

“Yes, sir,” she said into the phone. “We can get you five hundred words on that right away.” She scribbled a note.

“Hey, Myra,” she said. “Not enough time for an assignment like that.” She shook her head after hanging up and punched in another number.

“Can you scoot over to the Capitol,” she said, “and get reactions as to how this might affect passage of the China accord?” She closed a folder and placed it in a pile.

No one was on the other side of any of these conversations. But the rules called for it. When a noncleared individual was on the premises, you played the part all the way.

“I guess everyone is out covering something,” he said, as he worked on the computer.

“You can imagine.”

“But you’re not getting any incoming calls?”

That’s a sharp observation, she thought.

“They’ll come later, when people start filing.”

“Yeah, guess so … . So, where were you when—”

“Right here,” she said. “Staring out the window, daydreaming, when a colleague called.” She was glad she could tell the truth.

“I was across the river. There’s this boathouse thing for one of the schools. Not much happening there in the middle of the day. Sometimes I chill there, take a break from the hurly-burly of competitive computer repairs. Go down to the rocks and light a … that is, just hang, you know. And this guy’s going by in this kayak thing. Got on headphones, listening to a radio. And he starts shouting at me. ‘They killed him. They killed Hanover.’ I was freaked. But it’s funny how they always say ‘they.’”

When she didn’t say anything, he continued talking: “So what does Inter-Business Media do? Funny, it’s like IBM, right?”

“We’re a news service for business periodicals—mainly overseas.”

“Just wondering. You know, we have only a few private firms that use this program. Usually it’s law enforcement. I have to go to Quantico all the time … . And, here we are.”

He hit a command; the program began to whir. “You just had to reconfigure the preferences. No biggie.” He asked her to sign the bill.

“That says Janet—”

“Lang.” She hated using this alias. A playmate struck and killed by a mail truck when they were both five years old.

“Yeah, got it. So what did you say you guys do with this program?”

She wondered why he was asking.

“Not much. I told the home office that we didn’t need it. But some vice president there insisted. You know how it is. So I have to run monthly checks of all the programs and send in a report saying all’s well.”

“Funny thing to be doing today.”

“Bureaucracies like their schedules.”