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  "Hold the line. I'll check with pass section." A couple of minutes later the phone clicked. "It's a Y pass . . . current and in good standing. She works in the Special Projects Office. There's no supervisor listed, so she's probably CIA."

  "Thanks," Powers said.

  "Keep me informed," Sullivan said.

  Powers set the receiver down. "She works in the basement ... Special Projects."

  "Spooks. I wonder what he's doing with her parking pass?"

  "Maybe they were dating."

  "Could be."

  "Maybe they had an argument and she killed him in her office, then put the gun in his hand to make it look like a suicide," Landry said.

  Powers shrugged. The condo was giving him the creeps. He felt he was violating Ray Stryker's privacy. Even the dead should have privacy.

  "There's nothing in the other rooms of any interest. Let's get out of here," Landry said.

  ****

  FOUR

  When Powers and Landry returned to the White House, a copy of a Secret Service log entry recording Ray Stryker's death had already been posted on the bulletin board in W-16. Realizing there was no discreet way to move Stryker's body from the White House to a funeral home until after midnight, when the members of the White House press corps had gone home, Powers and Landry remained in W-16 filling out reports and enduring the expected questions about the death from shift agents coming on duty. Though naturally concerned and interested in further details, nearly everyone already knew of the suicide. With a telephone at every Secret Service post in the White House, news traveled fast. Powers assumed that within minutes of Sullivan's notification of Stryker's death, every Secret Service office in the world and every special agent, whether on or off duty, had been told of the suicide ... or at least had a message concerning the incident left on his answering machine. Agents on every detail, from those assigned to the Vice President or one of a number of foreign dignitaries visiting the United States, or to ex-Presidents, would have something to hash over during off-hours or between pushes. There would be theories and pronouncements of all kinds. With great relish, the usual Secret Service bullshitters would claim to have been Stryker's pals and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Union representatives would jump on a chance to claim that job stress drove Stryker to take his own life. In the incestuous world of the Secret Service, the carrion of death-as well as disciplinary proceedings, divorce, and other general gossip-was talked over, dissected, used, and consumed until nothing was left.

  At three the next morning, having been notified by the agent posted nearest the White House newsroom that it was vacant, Powers pulled a large Secret Service tactical van up to the loading area at the rear of the Executive Office Building. He and Landry carried Stryker's body from the Special Projects Office down the hallway, through a passage leading past the White House bomb shelter, and out a maintenance door and loaded it into the cargo compartment of the van.

  Driving the van out the east entrance, Powers felt begrimed by everything that had happened. Landry was in the passenger seat staring blankly at the road ahead. The ordeal was obviously beginning to wear on him too.

  The funeral home, on the corner of a residential street two blocks south of the Washington Hilton, was a white, wood-shingled, two-story building with a veranda and portico designed, Powers figured, to look homey for mourners. As Sullivan had instructed him earlier by phone, he swerved the van into the wide driveway and cruised slowly to the rear of the building. Waiting outside dimly lit double doors, looking nervous, was a wiry man in his fifties dressed in a red cardigan sweater and Levi's. His gray crew cut and tanned features gave him the appearance of a tennis coach rather than a mortician.

  Powers and Landry climbed out of the van.

  "Agent Landry?"

  Landry introduced Powers. The mortician said his name was Kimball.

  "David Morgan phoned. He told me what to do. Please bring him inside."

  Powers and Landry slid the body from the bed of the station wagon and carried it through the double doors. Inside a bare room reeking of mortuary chemicals, they lifted Stryker onto a metal table. The mortician searched his pockets and dumped the contents into a small brown paper bag.

  "I'll handle everything from here, fellas," he said. "I've already been in touch with the next of kin. Your Mr. Sullivan located them."

  He handed the bag to Powers, who left with Landry without another word.

  For the rest of the night Powers slept fitfully, reliving finding the body. He woke the next morning with an unexplainable sense of guilt, which persisted as he climbed out of bed, showered, shaved, and headed for the White House.

  On the bulletin board at W-16, a notice from Secret Service Chaplain Clint Howard announced a memorial service for Stryker to be held at Our Lady Of Perpetual Help. By midmorning, the agents would be tired of rehashing the Stryker incident and would return to the usual Secret Service topics of discussion during post-standing breaks: overtime pay and women. Powers was glancing at a Runner's World magazine before leaving to start his shift when a telephone call came for him. It was the Chief of Staff. Morgan, understanding full well the speculation that would be caused among the other agents if anyone saw him talking to Powers, asked Powers to meet him immediately at the nearby Sheraton Hotel.

  At the Sheraton, following Morgan's instructions, Powers moved through an ornate lobby to the registration desk. As Morgan had instructed him, he gave his name and asked for a key to Room 1302. He stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for 13. At room 1302, he used the key to unlock the door.

  Morgan was inside . . . standing at the window, staring out.

  "Sorry about all the cloak-and-dagger," he said, without turning around, "but I didn't want to start the rumor mill by calling you to my office."

  He moved to a table.

  "I want to thank you for the way you and Landry handled everything on the Stryker matter. It looks like the precautions worked. The press has missed what for them would have been a nice little news tidbit at Mr. Stryker's expense. I say fuck them."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Jack, let me get right to the point. I just received a call from the CIA-from Director Patterson himself, as a matter of fact. He tells me his people are working a defector operation: a Syrian colonel"--Morgan took out a small leather pad, opened it, and flipped a couple of pages-"named Terek Nassiri, a high-ranking officer in the Syrian Secret Service. He walks into our embassy in Paris early yesterday and defects. The Agency is skeptical at first but verifies his bona fides. The balloon goes up. The CIA flies him out of Paris direct to Andrews Air Force Base. He's met by CIA interrogators and taken to a safe house and questioned all night. Well, he's singing like Pavarotti."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Patterson says much of what he has provided has been verified," Morgan said, thumbing another page. "Early this morning, when their debriefing is nearly complete, Nassiri suddenly says he has another piece of information and insists on speaking to the President himself."

  "He must be a mental case."

  "That's the problem," Morgan said. "Patterson believes the man is sane."

  "What kind of information?"

  "He won't say exactly, just that it relates to the security of the President of the United States. The spooks told him no chance; no matter what he had he couldn't give it to the man directly. So then he insists on speaking with a member of the White House Detail of the Secret Service. Obviously he doesn't trust the CIA."

  "And you want me to see what he has to say?"

  "You got it, Jack. Any questions?"

  "Why didn't Director Patterson go through normal liaison channels? It's not like we haven't handled situations like this before. Why go directly to the Chief of Staff?"

  "Only he can answer that," Morgan said, shoving the note pad back into his inside jacket pocket. There was a thin briefcase resting on the table. He reached inside. "Maybe he wants to make sure the CIA gets credit as the original source of the information rather
than the Secret Service." He took out a sheet of paper and handed it to Powers. "I'm sure that kind of foolish bureaucratic rivalry doesn't surprise you."

  "Not really," Powers said. And since you happen to be the biggest showboat in the White House, I'm sure it doesn't surprise you either, he thought.

  "The safe house is at Rehoboth Beach. This is the address. I want you to go over there and find out what the good colonel has to say. Interview him alone, where you can't be overheard by the CIA people. Report to Sullivan when you return."

  "The CIA people are going to want to know what he tells me," Powers said.

  "Your orders are to report to Sullivan or to me before talking with anyone else."

  Powers nodded. He wanted to ask a number of questions but settled for one. "Why are you sending me to handle this?"

  "To be frank, if it turns out to have something to do with Ray Stryker's death, then we haven't had to let anyone else in."

  "Does Landry know?"

  "Landry is a supervisor and is tied up with the advance arrangements for the trip to the Coast. I suggested sending him, but Sullivan pointed out that if I pulled him off his regular duties at this point, the other agents might suspect something was up. He knows how inquisitive you SS guys are. No disrespect intended."

  "None taken." Prick.

  As Powers drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and onto the heavily wooded Highway 404, he went over what Morgan had told him. Morgan wouldn't have given him the assignment unless he thought it had the potential to be sensitive ... more sensitive than just some defector trying to make points by getting the attention of the White House. Nor was it Powers's first sensitive assignment. Years ago, he'd been dispatched to cover the tracks of a President's daughter who'd spent a weekend with four Jamaican rock stars. And recently he'd been sent to interview one of the members of the President's kitchen cabinet who was convincing rich foreign investors to buy gold from his brokerage house by telling them the President was suffering from a terminal illness. In both cases, the more Powers learned, the less he wanted to know. But that was the way with political chores: molehills threatening to become mountains.

  About an hour later, he turned south on U.S. 1 and, minutes later, arrived in town. Checking his automobile club map for 1025 Seahorse Lane, the address Morgan had given him, he wound through narrow streets of beach cottages and residential homes hidden by pine trees to a beach boardwalk lined with shops, arcades, motels, and trendy restaurants. Near a miniature golf course, he spotted a street sign and turned right. Seahorse Lane, a cul-de-sac ending at the strand, was comprised of wood-frame one-story houses, many with FOR RENT signs--ideal for a safe house, because the neighbors would be used to seeing strangers. At the end of the street, Powers pulled up to the curb one door down from a two-story white clapboard house with dormers and a gray slate roof. Its number, 1025, was on the mailbox. Behind the house, sand dunes led to the boardwalk.

  He climbed out of the car. At the trunk he leaned down, opened his briefcase, and took out a transistor radio he carried to listen to sporting events when on boring protection assignments. Dropping it in his jacket pocket, he made his way along a cracked, bumpy sidewalk toward a screened-in front porch. Inside, a husky young man dressed in a red Budweiser T-shirt and Bermuda shorts was sitting in a chair. Powers assumed he was the lookout.

  "Jack Powers, U.S. Secret Service," Powers said, showing his badge and identification card. The man stepped forward. "I'm Dick Jones." He examined the identification, then reached down and knocked on the wall twice.

  The door was opened by a tall, sandy-haired, freckled man of Powers's age. He was wearing a brown sport shirt with a button-down collar, pleated gabardine slacks, and utilitarian shoes. His eyeglasses had clear plastic frames, the kind perennially popular with Ivy Leaguers. His right hand was behind his back. Unlocking the screen door latch with his left hand, he allowed Powers inside.

  Powers showed his identification again.

  "I'm Bob Miller," the man said, closing the door.

  "Jack Powers. Are you in charge here?"

  "I guess you could say that."

  Miller moved his hand from behind his back and shoved the Beretta he was holding into the front waistband of his trousers. "I guess you're here to talk with our guest."

  To Powers's right, a short middle-aged man wearing Levi's and a polo shirt was standing behind the door holding a shiny Heckler and Koch submachine gun. He set the gun down on the sink and introduced himself as Tom Green. Powers figured CIA people preferred simple pseudonyms because they were easy to remember.

  "What's he like?" Powers asked quietly, in case Nassiri was in a nearby room.

  "Very confident, upbeat," Miller said. "My guess is that he's planned his defection for a long time. He doesn't seem to have any remorse."

  "I understand he's been polygraphed?"

  "Our best examiner administered four polygraph tests to him. He showed no signs of deception-but of course the Syrians are good at training disinformation agents to beat the lie detector."

  Powers nodded. He had little faith in lie detector tests anyway. Unless the person undergoing the test broke down and confessed, nothing was proven other than a person's heart rate and perspiration might increase when asked certain questions. "I understand you've verified his bona fides?"

  "Our main file shows him as being in intelligence work since Hafez al-Assad came to power. In 1984, he was in Paris when a former Syrian prime minister was assassinated outside the InterContinental Hotel. We believe he was in command of the operation. He's been a case officer in London and Vienna under diplomatic cover. He's fluent in Russian and English."

  "What kind of information has he given you?"

  "He provided details of a new tank being used by Syrian forces, some valuable biographical information about the people he worked with, the name of a Syrian resident agent operating a network." He smiled condescendingly. "I hope you're not asking for specifics. That would be strictly need-to-know."

  "I'm just trying to determine if the man is for real."

  "We wouldn't have called you here if we didn't think he was for real."

  "If they ask when I get back to the White House, may I mention your name?"

  Miller bit his lip anxiously. "What you're asking is whether the information he provided is too valuable to be turned over as part of a disinformation operation. The answer is yes. It's too valuable, and we believe the man to be a genuine defector."

  "Is there anything else you can tell me before I talk with him?"

  "Only that he asked to speak with you alone," Miller said.

  "I'm aware of that."

  "You know how defectors are: masters of manipulation."

  "Playing all sides against the middle," Green chimed in.

  "I wouldn't trust a defector as far as I could throw him," Powers said.

  "If you're ready, you may interview him in the back bedroom," Miller said.

  "I prefer to interview him outside."

  Miller shook his head. "No way."

  "I'm not going to interview him in this house."

  Miller and Green exchanged a look-a look that was too obvious to be genuine.

  "He's a defector. And he's in our custody," Miller said. "If you want to interview him, you'll have to interview him here."

  "I'm going to take a walk with him along the beach. We'll remain within your sight."

  "No can do. This man is my responsibility."

  "Perhaps we should phone the White House and have the Chief of Staff make the decision," Powers said.

  The others just stood there as Powers moved to a telephone on a coffee table and picked up the receiver.

  "There's no need for that," Miller said at last. "But if you try to walk more than a hundred yards away from this house, the interview is over."

  Miller led him down a hallway and opened a door. Nassiri was lying on a bed covered with a blue chenille bedspread. There was nothing else in the room-no chest of drawers, nothing-and the wind
ow had been nailed over with thick plywood. Nassiri came to his feet, rubbing his eyes. A man in his fifties, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, he was wearing a wrinkled long-sleeved white shirt and an equally wrinkled pair of trousers. His black hair was thick and short, and he had a two-day growth of beard. His lips were thin and dark, and his shoulders were broad. He was unmistakably a soldier.

  Powers introduced himself and showed Nassiri his badge and identification card. Nassiri studied both carefully. Finally, he nodded.

  "Outside," Powers said. Miller stepped out of the bedroom doorway. Powers led Nassiri down the hall, through a small kitchen, and out the back door onto the dunes.

  Walking without speaking, Powers led him past the boardwalk and onto the sand. At the edge of the wet sand, where the waves were breaking, Powers stopped and turned. There were solitary men about fifty yards in either direction on the beach. The curtains in two rooms of the beach house were pulled back slightly. Powers assumed Miller and Green, probably using directional microphones, were prepared to eavesdrop on what Nassiri would tell him. But, as he'd learned from his pals in the Secret Service Technical Security Division, the crash of waves is one of the most effective audio interferences with the sounds of human speech.

  To make doubly sure they couldn't be overheard, Powers took the transistor radio from his pocket and turned it on, adjusting the volume to a deafening high. Nassiri, as if he'd expected Powers to take such a precaution, cupped his hands and spoke into Powers's ear. "Very clever," he said.

  "What did you want to tell me?"

  "May I see your credentials again?"

  Powers took out the case in his pocket and flipped it open. Nassiri studied it carefully.

  "Who is the only French citizen employed by the U.S. Secret Service?"

  "I didn't come here to answer questions."

  "If you're really a U.S. Secret Service agent and not a CIA impostor, you'll know the answer to that question," Nassiri said.

  "Pierre Le Denmat. He's the Special-Agent-in-Charge of the Secret Service liaison office in Paris."