“Yes,” Adam said. “You know, Donovan did call.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t think much of it at the time, but he—oh, now I remember, he said, of course he said this, he said it was ‘strictly between the two of us.’ I said, ‘You know that’s not something I ever agree to.’ And he, let me see, oh, now I know, he said, ‘Lives are at stake.’ And—”

“Still hard for me to believe he says that,” Stanley murmured.

“Yes, yes, me too,” Adam said. “So I humored him, said something I often say to him, which was along the lines, ‘Oh, Van, you know I’ve always taken great care with anything you’ve been able to share with me.’”

“Careers are at stake,” Stanley added quickly.

“Most likely, yes. Lives. I’m not sure Donovan has any say-so where lives are concerned.”

“By the time he’s involved and he’s calling you—that’s, it’s, well, damage control. Is that still the phrase?”

“Possibly,” Adam said softly. “Oh, have you noticed how ‘the way forward’ is everywhere?”

“Yes, yes. I don’t know why, since no one has a way and most are going backward. But Donovan.”

“Donovan, yes. So he said, ‘We can’t have anyone writing about this tonight. Can you hold it off for one night, two at the most?’ ‘Why?’ He says, ‘Can’t say at this time.’ You know, last year, Stanley, I would have … that, that would have stopped me for two days. But since these other things, the way they’ve happened—the wiretaps, the warrants—I wasn’t prepared to agree. Told him that. He argued. Then he said, ‘If anyone learns we have this capability, having the capability will be meaningless.’”

“What capability?”

“I asked him that. He never said.”

“They said it was a helicopter. I wonder … if it was?”

“We never saw the crash site up close, did we?”

“No,” Stanley said.

“What kind of capability is that—that … that takes down a war plane?”

“Funny enough, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda doesn’t have fighter jets. We have them. So why do we want to take our own people down?”

They sat silently for a few moments, thinking of capabilities. The church was getting colder, and it occurred to Stanley that the sun was setting, they’d been talking too long, and it was time to get back to the Room.