“She’s a pretty girl. It’s such a pity.” The words sounded smooth and social, but they burned through him like acid. Her eyes never moved away from the picture, and he had to fight the urge to lunge up and tear the photo off the wall, hide it face down, protect it. “Suzanne left you in—what?—ninety-one? Left you all alone with Sally to care for. That must have been difficult.”

The shock left behind an ache, like arthritis of the soul. He couldn’t seem to think of anything to say, not even Stop.

She continued the autopsy.

“It really wasn’t your fault, you know. Could have happened to anybody. I’m sure you didn’t intentionally turn your back on her. It was hot, you were tired …”

She let it trail off, without even the courtesy to give him the fatal stab. He sat dumb and hurting while she turned away from the picture and settled herself in the guest chair across from him. Legs crossed with a whisper of nylon, and he stared at the shadowed revelation of her thigh.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. She raised an eyebrow.

“To show you I can,” she answered, as if it were obvious. “By the way, I had your office swept for bugs today. There were six.”

It took a second or two to sink in, and then he sat up so suddenly that his chair squeaked in alarm. She held up a hand to stop him.

“Now there’s only one. Mine. I’m being straight with you, Marty.”

“Whose were they?”

“Well, they don’t usually label them, so I have to guess. Other U.S. intelligence organs, the Israelis—they do it for fun, I think. The fifth, of course, was mine. It’s the sixth one that worries me. I don’t know whose it is.” She pulled off her brown leather gloves and rubbed her hands. She didn’t bother with manicures; her nails were blunt-cut, clean but unpolished. “Why are you here, Marty?”

It sounded like a trick question. He said cautiously, “To present the—”

“No, you, Marty, you. Why you? Why not, say, Dr. Harrison, Dr. Scheider? Why a bureaucrat, when obviously one of the scientific experts would have been so much more convincing?” She watched his face for awareness of the answer. “Because you’re expendable, Marty. Because, frankly, if you get lost in big bad Washington, nobody cares. Nobody except Sally, provided she even knows you’re alive.”

Another surgical strike, one he suffered in silence because he had no defense to offer. It was all so easy for her.

“You’re down here in the engine room,” she continued more softly. “Marty, you’re going down with the Titanic, understand? This isn’t a game for amateurs. Pack your bags and go home.”

“No.”

“That’s not a suggestion.” She sat back, folded her hands neatly together. “It’s a threat.”