Eady took a moment before responding. “How about a shot that’s not so clean?” he countered. Presenting the fly.

They were in the summer kitchen now, Eady standing over a small table covered in newspaper, working a fillet knife up a trout’s belly, Klay seeing things he’d sensed about Eady come into focus.

“So—” Eady turned to face him. “Would you like a second job? It’s called the CIA’s National Resources Division, Tom. You’d work for me. Exclusively.”

“Natural Resources Division?”

Eady laughed. “National. National Resources, Tom.”

“I thought the CIA couldn’t work domestically.”

Eady ripped the fish’s guts free, yanked them toward the fish’s throat, then sliced them loose. He tossed the organs into a pail.

“We can. And we do. Most of NR’s work is debriefing American business executives returned from overseas trips. College professors and scientists back from foreign conferences. It’s light, informal. Maintenance, really. You would be something a bit more . . .” Eady searched for the right word. “Intentional.”

A caddis fly—that’s how Eady put it—a simple gatherer of information with antennae so long and slender as to be nearly invisible.

Eady turned on the deep well sink, rinsed his knife, and began washing his hands under the tap using a bar of soap. “You’ll be part of an unheralded, secret tradition, Tom. The Sovereign’s partnership with the Agency stretches back generations. Before CIA was CIA.”

He switched off the tap, slid his knife blade through a towel, and hung it on a magnetic knife rack beside the sink. “The Brits got us started. They ran a propaganda shop out of Rockefeller Center, pumped anti-Nazi stories to the old Herald Tribune, the New York Post, the Baltimore Sun, trying to get the Americans to join them in the fight. Pearl Harbor sped things up, and the Brits handed their operation over to our OSS. Morale operations, it became. Many of America’s best reporters, writers, cartoonists, and radio broadcasters served the war effort.”

Eady opened a cabinet above his sink and took out a bottle of scotch. He poured two glasses and handed one to Klay.

“The Sovereign’s role was something special,” he continued. “Richard Helms, future CIA director—who recruited me, incidentally—started out as a journalist with the United Press. Dick interviewed Hitler. Hitler was obsessed with America’s eugenics programs. Wanted to know all he could about it. The American argument distilled, being that healthier humans meant lower taxes.”

Eady opened a door separating the kitchen from the main house, and three Jack Russell terriers darted into the room. “Ruth!” he called, ignoring the dogs. “Ruth!”

Ruth Eady, a petite woman with neat gray hair, a sad smile, and the hands of a persistent gardener, appeared in the doorway holding a plate of cheese and raw vegetables. She wore a bright yellow apron over a pale blue blouse.