Emma and Christine were sitting in white wicker chairs on Emma’s patio drinking mimosas and reading the morning papers. They were a portrait of domestic contentment. Beyond the patio was Emma’s English garden. DeMarco knew it was an English garden because Emma had told him so, and an English garden, as far as he could tell, was one in which the gardener planted a thousand long-stemmed flowers in no discernible pattern, all clustered together.
Emma was wearing white linen pants and a blouse that DeMarco thought of as Mexican – an off-the-shoulder number embroidered with small red-and-orange flowers. Christine, a thirty-something blonde who played cello for the National Symphony, wore a tank top and shorts. Christine had the most beautiful legs that DeMarco had ever seen, but since Christine was Emma’s lover he made a point of not staring at them. In fact, his eyeballs were getting cramps from the strain of not staring.
Emma was tall and slim. She had regal features and short hair that was either gray or blond, depending on the light. She was at least ten years older than DeMarco but in much better condition. She looked over the top of her newspaper as DeMarco approached. Her eyes were the color of the water in a Norwegian fjord – and usually just as warm. ‘Well, you’re a mess, Joseph,’ she said when she saw the condition of his clothes. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’
‘Golfing with the leaders of the free world,’ DeMarco said.
‘Yes, that makes sense,’ Emma said. ‘Would you like something to drink? Mimosa, perhaps?’
‘Orange juice would be great. No bubbly.’
DeMarco took a seat next to Emma at the patio table, a seat where Emma blocked his view of Christine’s legs. He thought this seating arrangement most prudent. He and Christine exchanged how-are-yous, then Christine went back to reading her paper, ignoring DeMarco as she usually did. Maybe if he played an oboe she’d find him more interesting.
‘What do you know about the navy, Emma?’ DeMarco asked.
‘A lot, most of which I’d just as soon forget,’ Emma said.
DeMarco had known this before he asked the question. Although she never discussed it, Emma had worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency and she had worked at a level where the word ‘classified’ didn’t come close to defining the degree of secrecy that had applied to her activities. She claimed to have retired from the agency a few years ago, but DeMarco wasn’t certain that this was really the case. Emma was the most enigmatic person he’d ever encountered – and she delighted in being so.
‘How ’bout navy shipyards?’ DeMarco asked.
‘A little,’ Emma said. ‘Now would you like to tell me why you’re asking silly questions?’
DeMarco told her about Frank Hathaway’s problem and asked her a few questions about shipyards and the people who worked in them.
‘I didn’t know the navy had its own shipyards,’ DeMarco said.
‘The navy operates four major shipyards in this country,’ Emma said in her most pedantic tone. ‘Most of the employees are civil service and their primary function is to overhaul and refuel nuclear-powered warships.’
‘Well I’ll be damned,’ DeMarco said.
‘Most assuredly,’ Emma muttered and poured another mimosa for herself and Christine. These girls were going to have a pretty good buzz on by lunchtime, DeMarco was thinking.
‘Why’s Mahoney loaning you to Hathaway for this thing anyway?’ Emma asked as she handed Christine a glass.
‘I dunno,’ DeMarco said. ‘He plays golf with the guy; maybe they’re pals. But more than likely he wants something out of the navy for his district and figures doing Hathaway a favor can’t hurt. With Mahoney, you never know. A man who drinks beer at nine in the morning is hard to predict.’
‘Humph,’ Emma said, the sound reflecting her opinion of Mahoney. ‘What shipyard does this engineer work at, by the way? The one in Norfolk?’
‘No,’ DeMarco said. ‘One out in someplace called Bremerton, near Seattle.’
When DeMarco said ‘Seattle,’ Christine’s pretty blond head popped up from behind the newspaper she’d been reading. ‘Seattle,’ she said to Emma. There was a twinkle in her eyes and DeMarco could imagine what she had looked like at the age of twelve, tormenting her younger brother.
Emma smiled at her lover then said to DeMarco, ‘Joe, considering my vast knowledge of all things military and your limited knowledge of all things in general, I believe I should go to Bremerton with you.’
DeMarco met Emma a few years ago by saving her life. Luck and timing had more to do with the outcome of the event than any heroics on DeMarco’s part, but since that day she occasionally helped DeMarco with his assignments. She would provide advice, and if needed, access to various illicit experts – hackers, electronic eavesdroppers, and, once, a safe-cracker – all people connected in some way to the shadow world of the DIA. On rare occasions she’d personally assist him, but DeMarco usually had to grovel a bit before she’d help – and yet here she was volunteering.
‘What’s going on?’ DeMarco said.
‘It just so happens that Christine’s symphony is playing in Seattle for a couple of days, starting the day after tomorrow,’ Emma said, patting one of Christine’s perfect thighs.
‘Ah,’ DeMarco said, understanding immediately. If Emma helped DeMarco, the Speaker’s budget would pick up the tab for her trip to Seattle. Emma was fairly wealthy but she was also a bit of a cheapskate. Maybe that’s why she was wealthy.
Carmody was at the rendezvous point at exactly eight p.m. This time the woman had picked a little-used lakeside picnic area fifteen miles from Bremerton. She picked a different place every time they met.
He knew he’d have to wait at least twenty minutes, maybe longer. She was already here, somewhere, but she’d be watching to make sure Carmody hadn’t been followed. Half an hour later he saw her. She materialized out of a small stand of trees on his right-hand side and began to walk toward him. She was dressed in black – black jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, black Nikes – and carried a shoulder bag. She was tall and lithe and she moved quickly but gracefully. When she entered his car, she didn’t greet Carmody. She unzipped the shoulder bag, took out a laptop computer, and turned it on.
The woman’s hair was dark, cut short and spiky, the style as edgy as her personality. Carmody figured she was about forty, though it was hard to be certain. She didn’t have a single wrinkle on her face and the reason for this, Carmody believed, was because she was the most unemotional person he had ever encountered. Her face never changed expression. He had never, ever seen her smile.
The laptop ready, she finally spoke to Carmody. ‘Give them to me,’ she said.
Carmody reached beneath the driver’s seat and took out a flat plastic case holding an unlabeled compact disc. He handed it to her.
‘Just one?’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
She started to say something but checked herself. She put the CD into the laptop’s drive. When the document opened, she scrolled down a few pages, stopped and read the words on the screen, then scrolled down a few more pages. She did this for about ten minutes, never speaking. She didn’t examine the entire document, that would have taken too long, but she looked at enough of it to satisfy herself. She finally shut down the laptop and returned it to her shoulder bag.
‘You have to do better than this, Carmody,’ she said. ‘In a month, you’ve only delivered seven items.’
‘We have to be careful,’ Carmody said. ‘And sometimes the material you want just isn’t available, somebody