“I won’t tell you anything.”

  He waited.

  “Damn you. Both of you.” She slammed her fist against the jamb of the glass doors. “Damn. He called me tonight and told me to get out. He knew I was in danger.”

  Kaiser knew, he thought.

  “Who were they?” he asked.

  “I should ask you. You probably know, you know everything, you set everything up. This is all part of your game, isn’t it? None of it meant anything. God. I made love to you.”

  His eyes were gray, flat, cold; nothing could penetrate him if he stood perfectly still, if he took all that she said and let the blows fall on him.

  “Who were they?” he said at last.

  “They came from that car, it followed me—”

  “A gray car, Ford Fairmont.” It was not a question.

  “You know them, you set everything up—”

  “I don’t know them, Rita.” His voice was calm and, strangely, it seemed to calm her as well.

  For a moment, they stared at each other without speaking.

  “Who are they then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You said you were in the government.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not the CIA.”

  “No.”

  “Who are you then?”

  “I can’t say,” he said.

  “I hate you. I despise you.”

  “Why did Kaiser know them?”

  “He didn’t—”

  “He called you, he warned you away. Why did Kaiser know them?”

  “Kaiser said to get out. He said he didn’t want me to get into it. He said…” She paused.

  “He said,” Devereaux continued, “that was the reason he warned you off the story to begin with. To protect you. He knew what was going to happen.”

  “No. He didn’t know—”

  “But he didn’t take you off the story before, when you were trying to get to Tunney in Washington. At the Watergate. He didn’t know it was dangerous then.” Devereaux spoke aloud but he was only thinking, the computer of memory and logic spinning new answers onto the screen in his mind.

  “You know all this though, don’t you?” she said.

  “No. None of it. I know this is very dangerous now, Rita, I know that.” He paused. They both understood the game had changed; what was in the journal that Father Tunney was keeping? What was worth killing for?

  But how would he get the journal now, now that he was blown?

  “Why did they want to kill me?” she said.

  He considered it calmly but there did not seem to be an answer. Unless.

  “When did you tell Kaiser about the journal?”

  “I just told you.”

  “No, Rita. You told Kaiser as well.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You had to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they had to have a reason to kill you.”

  “Yes,” she said, almost in a trance, reaching back into her memory, “I did tell him. I had forgotten.”

  “Did you tell him that Tunney would give it to you?”

  “No. I didn’t know yet.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then someone is beginning to panic. Everyone is blowing his cover. They waited and waited so patiently. Why blow it now?” He stepped back inside the darkened room but left the glass door open.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Miracles. The business with the miracles. This woman, Lu Ann Carter. They’ve become frightened, something has happened none of them planned on. There’s too much attention on Tunney, they’ll never be able to keep him quiet. And you’ve been the most persistent reporter. You were an easy person to get rid of. You weren’t even part of a paper or a news agency. And they have Kaiser in their pocket. Kaiser wouldn’t say anything. Except that he decided to warn you off, just as he did before, in Washington.”

  She shivered but he did not see it. He was staring into his own thoughts, trying to make sense of the new pieces of the puzzle.

  “Who are they?” Rita said at last.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You. ‘They’ is you. The CIA or whatever you belong to.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “I trusted you. I told you about my brother, about him dying, and I feel so dirty now. You make it so dirty—”

  He turned, looked at her, slapped her with his harsh voice: “Dirty. Yes. All of it. That’s the way of it.” He glanced at his hands; he was trembling and he did not want to feel what he felt. Not for her, not for anyone. More softly: “As long as you know I’m in the dirty business, I can tell you I ran a check on your brother. Cross-Agency. To see if he had been one of ours.”

  “No! Don’t tell me—”

  “Two approaches were made to him. Once here, once in Laos. He turned Uncle down. He was pure as you wanted him to be.”

  “And he died—”

  “It was never clear. It might have been fever. It might have been the Pathet Lao. You see, they were not too exact. If you were white, you might be a spy.”

  “They killed him?”

  “It’s not clear. But if he died, he died for the wrong reason.” His voice was bitter. “Does that salve your conscience? That he wasn’t in this dirty business? That he wasn’t like me? Or your father?”

  “Yes,” she said, “it makes it better. It makes it all right now that you betrayed me. That you used me. I think of your dirty hands on me but that’s all right. It’s fine because I know that Tommy wasn’t one of you. You’re scum, all of you.”

  “Rita.”

  But it was no use.

  I love you, he thought. As soon as he thought it, he realized how foolish he had become. He did not love or hate; it was enough to survive. He had allowed himself a luxury that was not for him anymore.

  He opened the closet and pulled out a shirt and buttoned it. He pulled on his corduroy jacket. He reached for the pistol in the case on the shelf.

  The pistol was seated in a black leather holster that could be attached to a belt. He removed the pistol, a black Colt Python .357 magnum six-shot revolver.

  It was an accurate weapon and reliable. The long, hollow-point bullets could tear a man’s belly open.

  He set the pistol in the belt of his trousers, behind the corduroy jacket, and buttoned the jacket.

  He glanced at her but she stood motionless at the window.

  “What are you going to do?” she said.

  “Stay here, Rita. It isn’t safe to leave now. I’ll be back by morning. However long it takes, stay here. They won’t come back to the hotel.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. If I don’t get back by afternoon, call the Tampa office of the FBI—it’s in the telephone book. Tell them everything that’s happened.”

  “Fuck you. Fuck the FBI, you can’t—”

  “Rita.” The voice was soft, tinged with sadness. “This is not between us now.” But he knew she would only see it that way. He had to keep her out of the way.

  He opened his scuffed bag and removed a small green plastic box. He opened it. His pharmacopoeia, the drugs that made him awake after an all-night flight from Tehran, the drugs that put him to sleep when his body could not function anymore without sleep.

  He removed a white pill.

  “I won’t take that, you can’t make me—”

  “Rita. I want you to sleep.”

  “You want to kill me.”

  “Rita.” He touched her arm, held her. “It’s only a sleeping pill.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “I won’t hurt you.”

  “Let go of my arm.” She punched him then, quickly, expertly, in the right side of the belly, below the rib cage. He felt a flare of pain and stepped into it, twisting her arm back and down in one motion.

  She fell to the bed and he was on top of her.

  She opened her mouth to scream.

  He hit her very hard on the side of the head. The blow stunned her for a moment. He pushed her over on her back. She stared at him, her eyes glazed with pain.

  He shoved the knuckles of his first two fingers in her mouth and felt her teeth sink against the skin. But because he had doubled his fingers, she could not bite effectively; she only broke the skin.

  He dropped the pill down her throat and waited for the reflex to swallow it. She swallowed as she gasped for air.

  “You bastard,” she said when he removed his hand. He held her down.

  “You dirty bastard, you dirty son of a bitch.”

  He waited.

  “Are you going to hold me down like this all night? I’ll vomit as soon as I get up—”

  He stared at her, straddling her body with his legs and holding down her arms beneath his hands. He was cold again, he was himself—Hanley might say that—he was without emotion. He did not love or hate; his instincts for survival were whole again.

  She cursed him again. She said he was hurting her.

  He did not move. He pressed her down, scissoring her body with his legs, pushing against her arms.

  The clock moved slowly, minute by minute. The room was silent except for her labored breathing.

  She yawned.

  He stared at her green eyes and did not feel anything; he could not even imagine making love to her that morning.

  After more minutes, he felt the body slacken beneath him, the muscles stretching into an involuntary relaxed position. She was sleeping then.

  He got off the bed and covered her gently and then closed the doors of the balcony and pulled the drapes across the glass.

  Devereaux went to the door of the room, listened at it and then slowly opened it.

  The hall was empty and bright. He removed the pistol from his belt and cocked the hammer. Slowly, he walked down the hall.

  He paused at the elevator doors and listened but he heard no sound. He walked down to the end of the hall and looked inside the alcove with ice and vending machines.

  Empty.

  He finally reached the staircase door marked by a large glowing “Exit” sign.

  He pushed the door open suddenly and violently and it banged against the stucco wall behind it.

  Nothing.

  Down the fireproof iron and concrete staircase, slowly.

  All the way to the lobby.

  He pushed open the door and saw the policeman at the desk. He went out the side door and down the steps.

  A police car sat in the parking entrance with its red light slowly rotating.

  Answer an alert: burglars in the hotel. She would be safe for a little while in his room.

  He waited in the shadows, near some bushes and trees sprouting in a little garden at the curb.

  Nothing.

  And then he saw it, turning the corner, the same gray car that had followed Rita, the gray car he had been unable to trace.

  At the corner, the gray car turned into a side connecting road and waited in the darkness.

  For a moment, he stood in the shadow of the hotel and considered the options and the questions.

  Why had they—whoever they were—waited patiently so long and then gone on a murderous rampage that claimed two men and nearly claimed a reporter?

  And what was his option after all?

  The Adviser wanted the Section to call off the game. Hanley had given him a small cover but it would not last very long. How long could he trust Hanley?

  And now he was blown. Rita Macklin would not trust him, would seek to expose him. He would not get the journal from her.

  The only cards he held were the “proofs” that Denisov had given him, the two photocopied messages that might be true or not and the photograph of Leo Tunney, not much but perhaps enough to ensure his survival in any bureaucratic bloodletting that might follow Rita’s exposure. Might, might.

  He could kill Rita.

  The possibility was there. He thought of it and then let it go. He would not kill her. She was out of the game.

  He looked around the corner and saw the two men sitting in the gray car at the cross street.

  McGillicuddy was killed in error. He must assume that. The bullet in the confessional was intended for Tunney. First he had a secret that everyone wanted; and now he had a secret that everyone wanted kept secret.

  Why? Why kill him now?

  He felt frozen by the questions. Perhaps it was time to put them aside. There were two men waiting in a gray car for him, for Rita, for someone.

  Devereaux stepped out of the shadows into the lights of the street.

  He started down the sidewalk alongside Gulf View, moving slowly and easily to the main road that would eventually lead him to the causeway and the city beyond.

  Once, in the light of a shop-window, he saw the gray car turn the corner behind him and move slowly down the street.

  They were coming for him; it was time to change the rules of the game.

  Devereaux began to walk quickly down Gulf View, swinging his arms.

  In the next block, across from the beach, was a building site, announcing shared-time vacation condominiums. A construction site would have to do. He saw that the lot opened on both Gulf View and the parallel street beyond.

  Suddenly, Devereaux ducked into the rubble and lost himself in the shadows of the concrete pilings supporting a second deck. Around him was a forest of similar pilings with exposed rods, and stacks of concrete blocks and finishing forms.

  The gray car slid slowly past the lot and then sped up.

  One in front, one in back, Devereaux thought. A classic trap.

  He waited, holding his breath, not moving. He felt the heaviness of the pistol at his belt. He suspected the gray car would stop at the corner and one man would get out and come back down Gulf View to the lot while the second would cut down the cross street to Coronado—the parallel road. Two men, one in the front and one in the back. Men with weapons.

  Devereaux waited calmly. He did not feel fear or any other emotion. His hands were still at his sides, his pistol was in his belt.

  He could see both streets, both were empty.

  A clattering sound, a rock thrown in the lot.

  Shadows in the moonlight and a tangle of unfamiliar shapes hiding him.

  A second sound, this time a man’s step on the rubble.

  One man in, he thought.

  Time for the pistol.

  He reached under the jacket easily and removed the piece with one movement. A game of patience. He had one weapon, they had two; he was one target, they were two, coming from different directions. But in the light, he would see their forms against the streetscape before they could see him.

  Sweat broke out in small beads on his face but his eyes were lazy and gray and calm.

  “Hey? Hey, you? What the hell y’all doing in there? Y’all come here a minute? This is the police, I’m talking at you.”

  Devereaux looked to Gulf View. Through the pilings, he saw the police car slide up to the curb.

  “Did you hear, come on over here gawdammit, I’m gonna come in and get your ass.”

  A man emerged from the pilings, not from where Devereaux had expected.

  “That’s private property in there, son,” the cop said. “What the hell were you doing there?”

  “Sorry.” In contrast, the voice was rough, northern, hard-edged. “Taking a piss. Had too much to drink.”

  “Gawdam. You all think you come down here and can take a piss in the street? Ain’t no gawdam bathroom, ain’t they got toilets back up where you come from?”

  “Yeah. Listen. I’m sorry.”

  “Come here and let us look at you. You got some identification on you?”

  For a moment, the match was even.

  Devereaux pushed away from the piling, his feet scrambling soundlessly over the rubble, moving to the secondary road away from the police car.

  The second man would be coming.

  Quietly.

  Devereaux looked around the corner and saw the gray car stopped at the curb. The door opened with a flash of interior light and a big man got out.

  Devereaux pressed himself very hard against the wall of the dry-cleaning shop that formed part of the next building.

  If he took him, it would be without guns. And it would have to be done quietly, while the first one was momentarily detained by the police patrol on the main road.

  The big man stepped cautiously, half-crouching, into the building site.

  Not a sound.

  Devereaux stretched out and grasped the big man by the right shoulder, swinging him violently around, like the end child on a game of crack-the-whip. The big man careened face first into the red stucco wall. The sound was like that of a sponge thrown against a shower stall.

  Dazed, the man went down, blood welling from his broken nose.

  The second blow, a hard chop to the shoulder, finished him. He sprawled forward. Devereaux leaned over him and heaved him to his feet. He had decided on a new plan in the moment of action; Tunney would wait a few more hours.

  The pair of them staggered into the second street to the empty gray car that waited, idling.

  It must be done quickly.

  Devereaux spotted the key in the ignition. He pushed the nearly lifeless body against the side of the car while he fished through the window. Keys in hand now, he opened the trunk. He looked around but the street was empty, though at the far end, a car was turning into the drive that led to the causeway.

  Devereaux dumped the big man effortlessly into the trunk and stood up, slamming the lid.

  He got behind the wheel of the gray car and pushed the lever into drive. The car moved forward slowly. He drove carefully to the toll bridge connecting the island to Sand Key and crossed. He paid at the far end and went on for five more minutes, past small homes and hotels and sprawling residential apartment complexes.

  He knew where he was going.

  The sign at the side road on the narrow key said a new development was coming in spring; at the moment, the development site on the water’s edge consisted of three wooden huts, boarded up, abandoned. They overlooked an old wooden pier that jutted out into the narrow channel that led to the Gulf.

  He turned the lights off and drove the gray car into a space between two of the huts.

  He had seen the huts on the second day, when he had followed the gray car tracking Rita Macklin on her morning run.