It was something Gabriel had never understood about America—the geniality of its border policemen. He’d always found something reassuring in the bored surliness of the Israelis who stamped passports at Ben-Gurion Airport. American customs agents were far too cordial.

He looked out the window. They had left the Dulles Access Road and were driving now through McLean. He’d been to Virginia just once before, a brief visit to a CIA safe house deep in the horse country near Middleburg. He found McLean to be an archetypal American suburb, neat and prosperous but somehow lifeless. They skirted the downtown commercial district, then entered a residential section with large tract homes. The developments had names like Merrywood and Colonial Estates. A road sign floated toward them: GEORGE BUSH CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE.

“You’re not actually thinking about taking me into Headquarters, are you?”

“Of course not,” Carter said. “We’re going into the District.”

The District, Gabriel knew, was the way Washingtonians referred to their little village on the Potomac. They crossed a highway overpass and entered an area of rolling hills and dense woods. Gabriel, through the trees, glimpsed great houses overlooking the river.

“What’s her name?”

“Sarah Bancroft,” Carter replied. “Her father was a senior executive in the international division of Citibank. For the most part Sarah was raised in Europe. She’s comfortable abroad in a way that most Americans aren’t. She speaks languages. She knows which fork to use when.”

“Education?”

“She came back here for college. Did a bachelor’s in art history at Dartmouth, then a stretch at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. I take it you’re familiar with the Courtauld?”

Gabriel nodded. It was one of the world’s most prestigious schools of art. Its graduates included an art dealer from St. James’s named Julian Isherwood.

“After the Courtauld she did her doctorate at Harvard,” Carter said. “Now she’s a curator at the Phillips Collection in Washington. It’s a small museum near—”

“I know the Phillips Collection, Adrian.”

“Sorry,” Carter said earnestly.

A large whitetail deer darted from the trees and crossed their path. Carter let his foot off the gas and watched the animal bound silently away through the darkening woods.

“Who brought her to your attention?” Gabriel asked, but Carter made no response. He was hunched over the wheel now and scanning the trees along the edge of the road for more deer. “Where there’s one,” he said, “there’s usually another.”

“Just like the terrorists,” Gabriel said. He repeated his question.