Before Dupree was brought in to head the Office of Special Investigations, meetings were a rarity. Now he held them weekly, as a chance to parade his authority. Dupree was short and wide, mid-forties, the body of a weight lifter in a too-tight light gray suit, one of three shopping-mall suits he rotated. Even across the room she could smell his drugstore aftershave. He had a ruddy moon face the texture of lumpy porridge.

  There was a time when she actually cared what men like Arliss Dupree thought about her and tried to win them over. Now she didn’t give a damn. She had her friends, and Dupree was simply not among them. Across the table, David Denneen, a square-jawed, sandy-haired man, gave her a sympathetic glance.

  “As some of you may have heard, Internal Compliance has asked for our colleague here to be temporarily assigned to them.” Dupree turned to her, his eyes hard. “Given the amount of unfinished work you’ve got here, I’d consider it less than responsible, Agent Navarro, if you accepted an assignment from another division. Is this something you’ve been angling for? You can tell us, you know.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” she told him truthfully.

  “That right? Well, maybe I’ve been leaping to conclusions here,” he said, his tone softening a bit.

  “Quite possibly,” she replied, dryly.

  “I was making the assumption that you were wanted for an assignment. Maybe you are the assignment.”

  “Come again?”

  “Maybe you’re the one under investigation,” Dupree said in a mellower tone, evidently pleased by the idea. “It wouldn’t surprise me. You’re a deep one, Agent Navarro.” There were laughs from some of his drinking buddies.

  She shifted her chair to get the light out of her eyes.

  Ever since Detroit, when the two of them were staying on the same floor of the Westin and she turned down (politely, she thought) Dupree’s drunken, highly explicit proposal, he’d been leaving condescending little remarks, like rat droppings, in her performance evaluation folder: … as best she can given her obviously limited interest … errors a result of inattention, not incompetence …

  He described her to a male colleague, she’d heard, as “a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen.” He tarred her with the most vicious insult you can give someone in the Bureau: not a team player. Not a team player meant she didn’t go out drinking with the boys, including Dupree, kept her social life separate. He also made a point of papering her files with mentions of mistakes she’d made—a few minor procedural omissions, nothing at all serious. Once, on the trail of a rogue DEA agent who’d been turned by a drug lord and was implicated in several homicides, she’d neglected to submit an FD-460 within the required seven days.

  The best agents make mistakes. She was convinced that the best ones in fact made more minor gaffes than average, because they were focused more on following the trail than on following every single procedure in the manual of rules and regs. You could slavishly observe every last ridiculous procedural requirement and never crack a case.

  She felt his stare on her. She looked up, and their eyes locked.

  “We’ve got an unusually heavy caseload to deal with,” Dupree went on.”When somebody doesn’t do their share, it means more work for everyone else. We’ve got a midlevel IRS manager suspected of organizing some pretty complicated tax scams. We’ve got a rogue FBI. guy who seems to be using his shield to pursue a personal vendetta. We’ve got some ATF shit-heel selling munitions from the evidence vaults.” That was a typical array of cases for the OSI: investigating (“auditing” was the term of art) misconduct involving members of other government agencies—in essence, the federal version of internal affairs.

  “Maybe the workload here is a little much for you,” Dupree said, pressing. “is that it?”

  She pretended to jot down a note and didn’t reply. Her face was prickly warm. She inhaled slowly, struggling to tamp down her anger. She refused to give in to his baiting. Finally she spoke. “Look, if it’s inconvenient, why don’t you refuse the request for interdepartmental transfer? Anna asked it in a reasonable tone of voice, but it wasn’t an innocent question : Dupree lacked the authority to challenge the highly secretive, all-powerful Internal Compliance Unit, and any reference to the limits of his authority was bound to infuriate him.

  Dupree’s little ears reddened. “I’m expecting a brief consult. If the spook hunters at ICU knew as much as they pretend, they might realize that you aren’t exactly cut out for that line of work.”

  His eyes shone with what she imagined was contempt.

  Anna loved her work, knew she was good at it. She didn’t require praise. All she wanted was not to have to spend her time and energy trying to hang on to her job, clinging by her fingernails. Again she kept her face a mask of neutrality. She felt the tension localize itself in her stomach. “I’m sure you did your best to make them understand.”

  A beat of silence. Anna could see he was debating how to reply. Dupree glanced at his beloved whiteboard, at the next item on his agenda. “We’ll miss you,” he said.

  Shortly after the meeting broke up, David Denneen sought her out in her tiny cubbyhole of an office. “The ICU wants you because you’re the best,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Anna shook her head wearily. “I was surprised to see you at the meeting. You’re in operations oversight now. Doing great, by all accounts.” Word was he was on the fast track for a position in the AG’s office.

  “Thanks to you,’ Denneen said. I was there today as divisional representative. We take turns. Got to keep an eye on the budget numbers. And on you.” Gently, he placed a hand on hers. Anna noticed that the warmth in his eyes was mixed with concern.

  “It was good to see you there,” Anna said. “And send my best to Ramon.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said. “We’ll have to have you over for paella again.”

  “But there’s something else on your mind, isn’t there?”

  Denneen’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “Listen, Anna, your new assignment, whatever it is, isn’t going to be like getting a new call sheet. What people say around here is true—the ways of the Ghost are mysterious to man.” He repeated the old jest with little humor. The Ghost was an in-house nickname for the longtime director of the Internal Compliance Unit, Alan Bartlett. During closed hearings before the Senate subcommittee on intelligence, back in the seventies, a deputy attorney general had referred to him, archly, as “the ghost in the machine,” and the honorific had stuck. If Bartlett wasn’t ghostly, he was a legendarily elusive figure. Seldom seen, reputedly brilliant, he ruled over a rarefied dominion of highly classified audits, and his own reclusive habits made him emblematic of its clandestine ways.

  Anna shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met him, and I don’t think I know anyone who has. Rumors thrive on ignorance, Dave. You of all people know that.”

  “Then take a word of advice from an ignoramus who cares about you,” he said. “I don’t know what this ICU thing is about. But be careful, O.K.?”

  “Careful how?”

  Denneen just shook his head, uneasily. “It’s a different world over there,” he said.

  Later that morning, Anna found herself in the immense marble lobby of an office building on M Street, on her way to her appointment at the Internal Compliance Unit. The unit’s workings were obscure even within the department, and its operational purview was—or so certain senators had occasionally charged—dangerously undefined. It’s a different world over there, Denneen had said, and so it seemed.

  The ICU was located on the tenth floor of this modern office complex in Washington, isolated from a bureaucracy it was sometimes obliged to scrutinize, and she tried not to gawk at the splashing indoor fountain, the green marble floors and walls. She thought: What kind of government agency gets fitted out like this? She got on the elevator. Even that was trimmed with marble.

  The only other passenger on the elevator was a too-handsome guy around her age in a too-expensive suit. A lawyer, she decided. Like just about everyone else in this city.

  In the mirrored elevator walls she saw him giving her The Look. If she caught his eye, she knew he’d smile and say good morning and strike up a banal Elevator Conversation. Even though he was no doubt well intentioned and probably just wanted to flirt politely, Anna found it mildly annoying. Nor did she respond well when men asked her why a woman as beautiful as she was had become a government investigator. As if what she did for a living were the special province of the homely.

  Normally, she pretended not to notice. Now, however, she threw him a scowl. He looked away hastily.

  Whatever it was that the ICU wanted from her, it had come at a damn inconvenient time; Dupree was right about that. Maybe you are the assignment, he’d said, and though Anna had shrugged off the suggestion, it nagged at her, absurdly. What the hell was that supposed to mean? No doubt Arliss Dupree was in his office right now, gleefully sharing his speculation with some of his drinking buddies on the staff.

  The elevator opened onto a lavishly appointed, marble-lined hall that could have been the executive floor of a high-priced law firm. Off to the right she spotted the seal of the Department of Justice mounted on one wall. Visitors were instructed to buzz for admittance. She did so. It was 11:25 A.M., five minutes before her scheduled appointment. Anna prided herself on her punctuality.

  A female voice demanded her name, and then she was buzzed in by a handsome dark-skinned woman with a squared-off haircut—almost too chic for government work, Anna thought to herself.

  The receptionist assessed her coolly and directed her to take a seat. Anna detected a very faint Jamaican accent.

  Within the office suite, the trappings of the swanky building gave way to a setting of utter sterility. The pearl-gray carpet was immaculate, like no government carpet she’d ever seen. The waiting area was brightly lighted with an array of halogen bulbs that left virtually no shadows. Photos of the President and the Attorney General were framed in lacquered steel. The chairs and the coffee table were of hard blond wood. Everything looked brand new, as if it had been freshly uncrated, unsoiled by human habitation.

  She noticed the foil hologram stickers on both the fax machine and the telephone on the receptionist’s desk, government labels indicating that these were secure lines, employing officially certified telephony encryption.

  At frequent intervals, the phone purred quietly, and the woman spoke in a low voice using a headset. The first two calls were in English; the third must have been in French, because the receptionist responded in that language. Two more in English, gently eliciting contact information. And then another in which she spoke in a language, sibilant and clicky, that Anna had a hard time identifying. Anna glanced at her watch again, fidgeted in the hard-backed chair, and then looked at the receptionist. “That was Basque, wasn’t it?” she said. It was something more than a guess, but less than a certainty.

  The woman responded with a fractional nod and a demure smile. “It won’t be much longer, Ms. Navarro,” she said.

  Now Anna’s eye was drawn to the tall wooden island behind the receptionist’s station, which extended all the way to the wall; from the legally required exit sign, she realized that the wooden structure concealed the entrance to a staircase. It was artfully done, and it allowed ICU agents or their guests to arrive and depart unnoticed by anyone in the official waiting room. What kind of outfit was this?

  Another five minutes went by.

  “Does Mr. Bartlett know I’m here?” Anna asked.

  The receptionist returned her gaze levelly. “He’s just finishing up with someone.”

  Anna returned to her chair, wishing she’d brought something to read. She didn’t even have the Post, and clearly no reading material would be allowed to soil the pristine waiting area. She took out an automatic-teller-machine slip and a pen and started making a list of things to do.

  The receptionist placed a finger on her ear and nodded. “Mr. Bartlett says he’ll see you now.” She emerged from her station and guided Anna down a series of doors. No names were posted; only numbers. Finally, at the end of a hallway, she opened a door marked DIRECTOR and took her into the tidiest office she had ever seen. On a far table, stacks of paper were perfectly arrayed in equidistant piles.

  A small, white-haired man in a crisp navy suit came out from behind a vast walnut desk and extended a small, delicate hand. Anna noticed the pale pink moons of his perfectly manicured nails and was surprised by the strength of his grip. She noticed that the desk was barren, save for a handful of green file folders, and a sleek, black telephone; mounted on the wall just behind it was a velvet-lined glass display case containing two antique-looking pocket watches. It was the one eccentric touch in the room.

  “I’m so terribly sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. His age was indeterminate, but he was probably in his early sixties, Anna decided. His eyes were owlish through his glasses, large round lenses in flesh-colored frames. “I know how busy you are, and you were so very kind to have come by.” He spoke softly, so softly that Anna found herself straining to hear him over the white noise of the ventilation system. “We’re very grateful for your making the time.”

  “If I may speak candidly, I didn’t know we had a choice when ICU called,” she said tartly.

  He smiled as if she had said something amusing. “Please do sit down.”

  Anna settled into the high-backed chair opposite his desk. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Bartlett, I’m curious about why I’m here.”

  “You weren’t inconvenienced, I hope,” Bartlett said, interlacing his small fingers in a prayerful tent.

  “It’s not a matter of inconvenience,” Anna replied. In a strong voice, she added, “I’m happy to answer whatever questions you may have.”

  Bartlett nodded encouragingly. “That’s rather what I’m hoping. But I’m afraid these answers won’t be easy to come by. In fact, if we could even frame the questions, we’d be halfway home. Am I making any sense to you?”

  “I return to my own question,” Anna said with banked impatience. “What am I doing here?”

  “Forgive me. You’re thinking that I’m being maddeningly elliptical. Of course you’re right, and I apologize for it. Occupational hazard. Too much time shut away with paper and more paper. Deprived of the bracing air of experience. But that must be your contribution. Now let me ask you a question, Ms. Navarro. Do you know what it is that we do here?”

  “The ICU? Vaguely. Intragovernmental inquiries—only, the classified kind.” Anna decided that the query called for reticence; she knew a little more than what she volunteered. She was aware that behind its bland title was an extremely secretive, powerful, and far-reaching investigative agency charged with highly classified audits and examinations of other U.S. government agencies that couldn’t be done in-house, and which involved highly sensitive matters. ICU officials were deeply involved, it was said, in scrutinizing the CIA’s Aldrich Ames fiasco; in investigating the Reagan White House’s Iran-Contra affair; in examining numerous Defense Department acquisitions scandals. It was the ICU, people whispered, that had first uncovered the suspicious activities of the FBI’s counterintelligence agent Robert Philip Hanssen. There were even rumors that the ICU was behind the “Deep Throat” leaks that led to Richard Nixon’s downfall.

  Bartlett looked off into the middle distance. “The techniques of investigation are, in their essentials, everywhere the same,” he said, finally. “What changes is the bailiwick, the ambit of operations. Ours has to do with matters touching on national security.”

  “I don’t have that kind of clearance,” Anna put in quickly.

  “Actually”—Bartlett allowed himself a small smile—“you do now.”

  Had she been cleared without her knowledge? “Regardless. It’s not my terrain.”

  “That’s not strictly the case, is it?” Bartlett said. “Why don’t we talk about the NSC member you did a Code 33 on last year?”

  “How the hell do you know about that?” Anna blurted. She gripped the arm of her chair. “Sorry. But how? That one was strictly off the books. By the direct request of the AG.”

  “Off your books,” Bartlett said. “We have our own way of keeping tabs. Joseph Nesbett, wasn’t it? Used to be at the Harvard Center for Economic Development. Got a high-level appointment at State, then on to the National Security Council. Not born bad, shall we say? Left to his own devices, I suspect he’d be all right, but the young wife was a bit of a spendthrift, a rather grasping creature, wasn’t she? Expensive tastes for a government employee. Which led to that lamentable business with the offshore accounts, the diversion of funds, ail of it.”

  “It would have been devastating had it come out,” Anna said. “Damaging to foreign relations at a particularly sensitive moment.”

  “Not to mention the embarrassment to the Administration.”

  “That wasn’t a primary consideration,” Anna retorted sharply. “I’m not political that way. If you think otherwise, you don’t know me.”

  “You and your colleagues did precisely the right thing, Ms. Navarro. We admired your work, in fact. Very deft. Very deft.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said. “But if you know so much, you’ll know that it was far from my usual turf.”

  “My point remains. You’ve done work of genuine sensitivity and displayed the utmost discretion. But of course I know what your daily fare consists of. The IRS man guilty of peculation. The rogue FBI officer. The unpleasantness involving Witness Protection—now, that was quite an interesting little exercise. Your background in homicide forensics was indispensable there. A mob witness is killed, and you single-handedly proved the involvement of the DOJ case officer.”