George said to Maria: “Thank you for all you do for Jack. You’re the greatest godmother ever.”

“It’s no sacrifice,” she said. “It’s a joy to know him.”

Maria was going to be fifty next year. She would never have a child of her own. She had nieces and nephews in Chicago, but the main object of her maternal love was Jack.

“I have something to tell you,” Maria said. “Something important.”

She got up and closed the living room door, and George wondered what was coming.

She sat down again and said: “That car bomb in Beirut the day before yesterday.”

“That was awful,” George said. “It killed eighty people and wounded two hundred, mostly women and girls.”

“The bomb was not placed by the Israelis.”

“Who did it, then?”

“We did.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It was a counterterrorism initiative by President Reagan. The perpetrators were Lebanese nationals, but they were trained, financed, and controlled by the CIA.”

“Jesus. But the president is obliged by law to tell my committee about covert actions.”

“I think you’ll find he informed the chairman and vice chairman.”

“This is horrible,” George said. “But you sound pretty sure of it.”

“I was told by a senior CIA person. A lot of Agency veterans were against this whole program. But the president wanted it and Bill Casey forced it through.”

“What on earth got into them?” George wondered. “They committed mass murder!”

“They’re desperate to put a stop to the kidnappings. They think Fadlallah is the mastermind. They were trying to take him out.”

“And they fucked it up.”

“But good.”

“This has to come out.”

“That’s what I think.”

Jacky came in. “Our young man is ready to go back to his mother.”

“I’m coming.” George stood up. “All right,” he said to Maria. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks.”

George got into the car with Jack and drove slowly through the suburban streets to Verena’s house. Jasper Murray’s bronze Cadillac was in the driveway beside Verena’s red Jaguar. That was opportune, if it meant Jasper was there.

Verena came to the door in a black T-shirt and faded blue jeans. George went inside and Verena took Jack away for his bath. Jasper came out of the kitchen, and George said: “A word with you, if I may.”

Jasper looked wary, but said: “Sure.”

“Shall we go into”—George almost said my study, but corrected himself—“the study?”

“Okay.”

He saw with a pang that Jasper’s typewriter was on his old desk, along with a stack of reference books a journalist might need: Who’s Who in America, Atlas of the World, Pears’ Cyclopaedia, The Almanac of American Politics.

The study was a small room with one armchair. Neither man wanted to take the chair behind the desk. After an awkward hesitation, Jasper pulled out the desk chair and placed it opposite the armchair, and they both sat down.

George told him what Maria had said, without naming her. As he talked, in the back of his mind he wondered why Verena preferred Jasper to him. Jasper had a hard edge of self-interested ruthlessness, in George’s opinion. George had put this question to his mother, who had said: “Jasper’s a TV star. Verena’s father is a movie star. She spent seven years working for Martin Luther King, who was the star of the civil rights movement. Maybe she needs her man to be a star. But what do I know?”