On the way to the register, Lancette picked up a shaving kit with the CIA logo. Maybe she’d give it to her father, she thought, and she got in line.

“Stuff makes great gifts, eh?”

The man behind her was talking. Fortyish, receding hair, glasses. A seersucker jacket.

“Yeah, uh, everyone loves it.”

“Wonder if the money goes into operations,” he joked. “Look.”

He was holding a cap bearing the seals of the CIA and the KGB. “On sale,” he said. “Could be a collector’s item. There’s one more left.”

“No thanks,” she muttered and turned toward the cashier. She dug her purse out of her handbag and dropped the jacket and shaving kit. He rushed to pick up the items.

“Walters, Dr. Charlie Walters,” he said. “In the DA.”

“Julia,” she said, and took the jacket and shaving kit from him. “Thanks a lot.” She paid and left the shop.

He caught up to her in the lobby. They walked past the stars on the wall—each representing an unidentified CIA officer killed on duty—and across the large CIA emblem on the tile floor.

“Truth be told, I still get a little rush when I walk in and out of the building,” he said. “Feel like that fellow in the movies. What’s his name? He did all that space stuff before those CIA movies?”

She knew the name but did not offer it.

“Nice to meet you,” she said brusquely, outside the front entrance. A downpour was underway. His umbrella was open and up.

“Been raining for days—except for the funeral. That was something wasn’t it? How it cleared up. Need an escort to your car?”

“No thanks. I’m right there.” She pointed to her 1965 Dodge Dart. It was, she joked to friends, the only frivolous item in her life.

“Cool car. A Valiant, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Something like that.”

“And what an important person you must be, with parking so close. I’m in the far lot. Are you over here much?”

“Nice to meet you,” she said again and skipped down the steps.

Her key stuck in the lock. Only an anal obsessive, she said to herself, would lock her car in the parking lot of the CIA. She jiggled the key and opened the door. She tossed her CIA merchandise on the passenger seat. Her blouse was soaked. Clumps of dirty blond hair stuck to her face. Just what I need, she thought, a lonely CIA man.

She drove past the guard booth and made a left on Chain Bridge Road. The rain was worsening, a typical wet Washington summer. She cursed her wiper blades. Both were old; one was torn.

Close to the parkway, a dog—it looked like a dog—darted across the road. Lancette pounded the brakes. The dog cleared the car. And then she felt the impact, as a car slammed into the rear of the Dodge.