Quinn switched the air conditioner on high and backed out of the parking space, turning abruptly onto the street. "Our people are strung out everywhere, beating the bushes. They don't want any problems in Canada, and we damned sure don't want some fringe group taking a shot at the Russians in Washington."
Where the former Soviet leader was concerned, Burke thought, they weren’t worried about left-wing terrorist factions. The major worry was renegade Afghans or dissidents from one of the republics. The American President, however, would be fair game for any number of groups.
It took only a short time to drive the few blocks to the unmarked brick office building in Arlington where the CIA maintained offices involved in recruiting and training. Quinn ushered Burke into the lobby and showed his ID card to a uniformed security guard. Burke picked up a visitor's pass and they headed for the elevator.
They entered an office marked "Personnel Processing." Burke spent the better part of the next hour filling out forms, getting fingerprinted, photographed, voice printed. He felt like a stuffed bear being tossed about a kindergarten circle. Finally, he signed the security oath and listened to another caution about its significance.
Once outside the building, Burke dusted his hands together. “What a hassle. Sure takes tons of crap to satisfy the bureaucrats."
"You just experienced a little taste of it. They say everything has its purpose. I have a feeling the purpose of a lot of this shit is to provide jobs for constituents of those big spenders across the river. Anyway, you are now officially in. We'll go over to Lori's office and I'll finish briefing you on Jabberwock."
"Lori? Your daughter?"
"She runs a travel agency. Does a damned good job of it, if I may say so." His pride showed in the cherubic smile that crossed his face as he unlocked the car. "She put in a few years in Europe with the Agency. Worked under cover as a writer, and then as a travel agent. She enjoyed that so much she decided to do it in the real world."
"She's got no CIA connection now?"
"Only a business one. Normally we use our own planes or military aircraft. If we have to use airline travel, she books it. The bills are paid through dummy accounts that provide no trace back to Langley. She has connections in every corner of the globe. She can get tickets booked from different cities, by different agencies. Then we pick up what we need, wherever we need it."
Chapter 12
Clipper Cruise & Travel was located in a modern brick and glass office building in Rosslyn, just across the Key Bridge from Georgetown. Its distinctive logo, the rakish lines of a majestic nineteenth century clipper ship, appeared above an entrance that faced the sweeping Potomac. Paintings of some of the more famous craft—"Nightingale," "Witch of the Wave," "Cutty Sark," and the first large Baltimore clipper, "Ann McKim" — graced the walls.
Quinn led Burke past a row of glassed-in cubicles where attractive young women called travel counselors assisted clients with their trip plans. At the end of the row stood the "Captain's Cabin," with a porthole in the door instead of a window, the office of Clipper's distaff president, Lorelei Quinn. The call of the sea must have been irresistible, Burke thought.
As he soon learned, the grandmotherly woman at the desk outside Lori's office was much more than a mere secretary. For one thing, she had a top secret security clearance. With the title of executive assistant, Brenda Beasley was the only other person in the office privy to the CIA connection. Should Lori not be available, she took calls on the secure line for emergency assistance. A kindly looking, white-haired woman, she reminded Burke of someone from a Norman Rockwell painting.
Before Brenda could announce their arrival, Lori spotted her father through the open door and strode out to meet them.
"Come in, Dad," she said. Holding out her hand to Burke, she spoke in a lilting, low-pitched voice that seemed to have an almost physical charm. "You've got to be Mr. Hill."
He wasn't prepared for this. The cute, perky kid he remembered had indeed grown up. Now a striking young woman, she had long dark hair and impish eyes that lent a quality of mystery to her face. Not a pageant type beauty, but a woman with an attraction far beyond skin deep. It reminded him of the only other time he had encountered that name, while cruising down the Rhine west of Wiesbaden. The Lorelei Rock stood on a cliff near St. Goar. According to local legend, a young maiden had thrown herself into the river in despair over an unfaithful lover. She became a siren whose voice lured fishermen to their destruction. Lorelei Quinn's voice might be capable of that, he thought.
"Mr. Hill was my dad," he said with a grin. "I'm Burke. Don't make me sound as old as Cam. This Santa Claus beard is just to throw young ladies off guard."
Her smile turned contrite. "You'll have to forgive me if I confess that I couldn't really remember what you looked like. I recall your coming for dinner a time or two. But I'm afraid I was paying more attention to Barbie dolls then than to my Dad's friends."
Burke grimaced with a shrug of resignation that let his shoulders sag as though a stack of years had been dumped on them. Maybe he wasn't as old as Cam, but it still left him a good twenty years older than Lori. "You're certainly not the little girl I remembered. Knowing your mother, I should have guessed you'd turn out to be a lovely lady."
"Well, thank you, Burke." She said it with sincerity. "Now what have you two been up to?"
"I got him initiated into the Hawk Elliott fan club," Quinn said with a chuckle. "If your conference room isn't in use, honey, I'd like to borrow it a while to go over some things with Burke."
Burke's eyes followed with unaccustomed interest as she walked over to a door that led off one side of her office. He found something strangely appealing about the way she moved, totally feminine, graceful, but showing the quiet confidence of a woman with a firm grip on her place in life.
"Take as long as you like," she said.
Quinn led the way into a paneled room walled on one side with windows that faced the imposing Washington skyline. It featured a long, oval-shaped hardwood table.
"I see why you're so proud of your daughter," Burke said when the door was shut behind them. "If I was a few years younger—"
"Who said he wasn't as old as Santa Claus?"
"Hell, I've been living like a hermit for so long, I might as well be."
"Haven't there been any females in your life since the divorce?"
Burke's eyes dropped as a wistful look came over his face. "Yeah, there was one. A girl I met up in Alaska, shortly before I left there."
Burke had saved virtually all the money he had made in the oil fields, accumulating a sizable nest egg, and was trying to decide what his next move should be. He had gone to Anchorage to check on some prospects when it happened, one of those chance encounters that seemed almost a part of destiny. Ginger Lawrence, a vacationing teacher from Idaho, stood dejectedly in the hotel lobby, looking like a waif abandoned by the world.
When Burke asked if he could be of help, she reluctantly admitted to having overslept and been left behind by her tour group. On a whim, he volunteered to show her the town. It turned out to be a thoroughly delightful junket. She was ten years his junior, but their interests dovetailed on several counts. He was an expert photographer, she an avid amateur. He was a student of history, she a teacher. Both were partial to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff (a taste for Russian composers he had cultivated listening to tapes during Alaska's endless winter nights).