“So you’re just going to give in and say nothing can be done?”

“Nothing easy can be done, just hard political work. We lower the temperature, we restrain both sides, and we bring them to the negotiating table, again and again, no matter how many times they walk out. We don’t give up and, whatever happens, we don’t escalate the violence.”

“I think we can—”

But Florence was not yet done. “This plan is criminal, it’s impractical, it has horrendous political consequences in the Middle East, and it endangers the reputations of the CIA, the president, and the USA. But that is not all. There is yet one more thing that completely rules it out.”

She paused, and Cam was forced to say: “What?”

“We are forbidden by the president to carry out assassinations. ‘No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.’ Executive Order 12333. Ronald Reagan signed it in 1981.”

“I think he’s forgotten that,” said Cam.

• • •

Maria met Florence Geary in downtown Washington at the Woodward and Lothrop department store, which everyone called Woodies. Their rendezvous was the brassiere department. Most agents were men, and any man who followed them in here would be conspicuous. He might even get arrested.

“I used to be size thirty-four A,” said Florence. “Now I’m thirty-six C. What happened?”

Maria chuckled. At forty-eight she was a little older than Florence. “Join the club of middle-aged women,” she said. “I always had a big ass, but I used to have cute little boobs that stood up all on their own. Now I need serious support.”

In two decades in Washington, Maria had assiduously cultivated contacts. She had learned early on how much was achieved—for good or ill—through personal acquaintance. Back in the days when the CIA had been using Florence as a secretary, instead of training her to be an agent as they had promised, Maria had sympathized with her plight, woman to woman. Maria’s contacts were usually women, always liberal. She exchanged information with them, giving early warning of threatening moves by political opponents, and helped them discreetly, often by assigning higher priority to projects that might otherwise be sidelined by conservative men. The men did much the same.

They each picked out half a dozen bras and went to try them on. It was a Tuesday morning, and the changing room was empty. Nevertheless, Florence kept her voice low. “Bud McFarlane has come up with a plan that is complete madness,” she said as she unbuttoned her blouse. “But Bill Casey committed the CIA.” Casey, a crony of President Reagan’s, was head of the CIA. “And the president said yes.”

“What plan?”

“We’re training assassination squads of foreign nationals to kill terrorists in Beirut. They call it preemptive counterterrorism.”

Maria was shocked. “But that’s a crime, by the laws of this country. If they succeed, McFarlane and Casey and Ronald Reagan will all be murderers.”