“I’ll work cheap. Tell you what: Allow me the use of your suite through the weekend, and she’ll be dead by the middle of next week.”

“You sound serious,” he said.

“And you sound interested.”

He stopped eating. “All right, I’m interested,” he said warily. “Tell me why we wouldn’t get caught.”

“Because you and I have no history together that could be discovered later, and because I have no motive to kill your wife. Also, when I leave New York for Washington, I’ll no longer be Darlene King, but someone else, who will disappear the moment she’s dead.”

He set down his plate. “Ah, the stuff that dreams are made of,” he said wistfully.

“I imagine you’d be a very eligible man as a widower—handsome, well connected, and, finally, rich.”

“That’s perfectly true. But, if you’re what you say you are, why are you confiding in me? I could walk down the hall, rap on the door of the presidential suite, and tell the director about you. I’ll bet he would be interested.”

“Oh, you couldn’t do that, Jeff: You’d have too much to explain. You’d end up having to explain it to your wife, and she might react badly. You might find yourself living on your State Department salary. No, I’m perfectly safe confiding in you.”

“Convince me you’re what you say you are,” he said.

Marie-Thérèse set her plate on the room-service cart and got out of bed. She walked over to where her purse rested on a chair, dug out her little silenced pistol, walked back to the bed, and pointed it at Purdue’s head.

Purdue’s face froze.

“Oh, relax,” she said, “I’m not going to shoot you.”

“What kind of gun is that?” he asked, fascinated.

“An assassin’s weapon. It was made by your very own CIA,” she said.

“And how did you come into possession of it?”

“By means too convoluted to explain.”

“If you shot my wife with that, could the gun be connected to other murders?”

“No, it could not. You’ll have to trust me on that.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

“You think it over,” she replied. “I’m going to have a shower.” She walked into the bathroom, taking her purse and the pistol with her.

Carpenter closed her phone. “The NYPD has given up on La Biche’s returning to the Carlyle suite, so they’re going to concentrate on our local headquarters,” she said to the meeting, “in the belief that she might watch the place again. They’re stationing snipers on the rooftops nearby.”

“I don’t see what else can be done,” the director said. “My people are watching the airports, train and bus stations. We’ve circulated her description to the car rental agencies, too. What identity was she using at the Carlyle?”