"Video games are easy to make," Nancy said. She went to the closet, got her stylish off-white jacket, and pulled it over her shoulders. "Scanning someone's picture in is also easy. Any well-equipped teenager could do it."

"But earlier today, Dominique phoned and threatened Hausen."

"Government officials are threatened all the time," Nancy said. "And maybe he deserved it. Hausen gets on a lot of people's nerves."

"Does his thirteen-year-old daughter get on people's nerves too?"

Nancy's lips came together slowly. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Of course you are," Hood said. "The question is, can you help me? Do you work for this man?"

Nancy turned away. "You think that because I betrayed an employer years ago I'll do it again."

"This isn't the same thing, is it?" Hood asked.

Nancy sighed. Her shoulders rolled forward. Hood could feel the storm die aborning.

"Actually," she said, "it's exactly the same thing. Paul Hood needs something and once again I'm ready to flush my life down the toilet so he can have it."

"You're wrong," he said. "I didn't ask for the first one. That was your doing."

"Let me bask in the waves of compassion," she said.

"I'm sorry. I feel bad for that headstrong girl, but what you did affected a lot of lives. Yours, mine, my wife's, whoever you were with, whoever we might have touched together--"

"Your kids," she said bitterly, "our kids. The kids we never had."

Nancy stepped forward and put her arms around Hood. She began to cry. Paul held her closer, felt her shoulder blades heaving against his open hands. What a waste, he thought. What a tragic goddamned waste this all was

"You don't know how many nights I lay in bed alone," Nancy said, "cursing myself for what I did. I wanted you so bad I was going to go back and turn myself in. But when I called Jessica to see how you were, she told me you had a new girlfriend. So what was the point?"

"I wish you had come back," he said. "And I wish I'd known all of this then."

Nancy nodded. "I was stupid. Insecure. Scared. Angry at you for filling my place. I was a lot of things. I guess I still am. In many ways, time stopped for me twenty years ago and started up again this afternoon." She stepped back and pulled a tissue from the nightstand. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes. "So here we are, full of regrets and one of us at least feeling that you can't go back. And that one isn't me."

"I'm sorry," Hood said.

"Me too," she said back. "Me too." Nancy, took a deep breath, stood tall, and looked into his eyes. "Yes," she said, "I work for Gerard Dominique. But I'm not privy to his politics or personal life, so I don't think I can help you there."

"Is there anything you can tell me? What are you working on?"