He gestured at the bag outside the door. "I travel light. One bag."
"Looks like you'll have another. The courier from Langley was here a short while ago. Left that case over there." She pointed across the office toward a black metal case that sat beside a small, round table.
Burke walked over to it and found an ordinary aluminum camera case which, instead of the usual shiny metal, had been painted a dull flat black. He turned to Lori and grinned. "Good old CIA," he said with obvious amusement. "Paint it black, make it invisible."
A shadow seemed to cross her face. "Don't knock it. You might wind up very happy to have something that makes you a bit less conspicuous."
Burke caught the change in her expression. There wasn't even a hint of humor in her eyes. He wondered again what might have happened in Europe while she was operating without the shield of diplomatic immunity. "I can tell you've been there," he said.
She nodded. "I've been there, all right. You might even say I was practically born there."
She had been born in Hungary at the time of the uprising, he recalled. Obviously she'd been in enough tight spots that she didn't find anything humorous about the Agency's meticulous attention to detail. Glancing back at the case, he noticed it came complete with luggage tag made out with his name and home address. Opening the lid, he found a Nikon with three lenses, 50mm, 28mm wide angle and a 300mm telephoto that was unbelievably compact. The waterproof case also included color film and a light meter. Everything as ordered.
He turned back to Lori. "Did they send my passport?"
She took another packet from her desk. This one was sealed, with Burke's name on the front. "I trust it's in here. You can check it out at the table there if you'd like." She glanced at her watch. "I might just drop you by the airport. I need to go down that way shortly."
He sat at the table and opened the flap, then dumped the contents out. There was a passport in the name of Burke Hill, with his bearded face glaring out of the embossed State Department seal. And next to it was another issued to Douglas Bell. He had worn the beard for so many years now that the clean shaven face looking out at him was a bit startling. It didn't look like him, and yet it did. Douglas Bell could easily pass for five to ten years younger than Burke Hill. He fanned out the rest of the packet's contents. All of the ID that might be required for one Douglas Bell, driver's license, Social Security card, gasoline credit card, business cards, even a gold Master Card.
"I can't believe all this," he mumbled, shaking his head.
Lori looked up. "Believe what?"
"Sorry. Guess I was talking to myself. Cam said he was getting me another passport in a fake name, sans beard. They've included a driver's license, the works. I'm not going to Israel as Agent Double-Oh-Seven, you know. What the devil would I need all this stuff for?"
"I don't know why they're sending you over there," Lori said. "Evidently you think it's something pretty routine. Dad must have thought otherwise."
"It would look that way."
"Well, I'd suggest you keep everything handy. Dad wouldn't have had them send it to you if he hadn't thought you might need it." She got up and walked around the desk. "I have to check a couple of things with Brenda, then we'll be ready to go."
Burke looked down at the pile of bogus credentials and slowly shook his head again. First a fake photographic assignment, and now this. It was exactly the sort of thing he had hoped to avoid.
Lori drove a shiny red Corvette that she treated with tender loving care. The antithesis of her father, Burke thought. As they headed down Memorial Parkway alongside the Potomac, he spotted the gleaming dome and broad columns of the Jefferson Memorial, and beyond it the pristine white spire of the Washington Monument. After all these years, he realized, the sights of this vibrant capital city still stirred a feeling of awe inside him.
"Seeing all those memorials to the founding fathers makes you stop and think," he said. "Maybe all this is really worth it."
"All this?"
"You know, wandering around the world, poking at shadows, trying to make sense out of random conversations, rumors—"
"You sound like you aren't convinced."
His voice took on a slight edge. "Frankly, I'm not. Your Dad coerced me into this. I didn't volunteer. I had some real bitter experiences in my waning days with the Bureau. I haven't been exactly thrilled at jumping back into this sort of thing."
She looked around at him, her dark eyes narrowing. "That validates one of my concerns."
"What's that?"
"I thought you were taking this a bit too lightly. I worried that you'd been out of the game too long to be serious about the potential for danger. That could prove deadly."
Burke shook his head. "All I'm doing is going over there on a photographic assignment, for which nobody's going to want the pictures I shoot. I'm to meet an old contact of Cam's and see if he can provide some information we need. Then I come back home."
Lori shifted lanes to take the National Airport exit. "The good news is you won't be in any intelligence agency's computer, so you should have no trouble traveling as Burke Hill. But once you make contact with your man, I presume it's a man, all bets are off. If he should be on somebody's hot list, you'll become a target, too. That's why Dad sent along the other passport."
He hadn't considered it from that perspective, but he remained unconvinced. He was more concerned about any throwback to his tainted past. "I got badly burned at the Bureau doing a lot of unnecessary undercover crap at Hoover's bidding. It left me with a lot of stains I had a hard time washing out. I can do without any more of that."
"If you feel that way about it," Lori said, glancing around at him, "maybe you shouldn't be going on this trip at all."
He detected a critical note in her voice, but he couldn't blame her for it. He had already considered the possibility of canceling out. But he'd given Cam his word. Whatever accommodations were required with his conscience, he'd have to face them when the time came. He shook his head. "No. I told Cam that I'd help him with this. I'm not backing out."
"I admire you for that, but—"
"Look, I used a different name when I first went to Alaska. I changed it back pretty fast. Alaska's full of guys who've taken on new identities to hide from their past. I decided to face up to mine, and it took a long time to live it down. I'm perfectly happy with being Burke Hill now. I think I can take care of myself on that basis."
"Men." She groaned in exasperation. "That's why women make better intelligence agents. They can take the necessary precautions without compromising some macho image. If you're going through with this, please don't do anything foolish out of some sense of bravado. It simply makes good sense to take basic precautions. I had a friend from Paris who was lucky to get out of East Germany alive one time after ignoring some obvious warnings. He had convinced himself he was acting the perfect innocent, but the Stasi took a different view. We barely got him back across the border. As it was, he took a bad fall that left him with a permanent limp."
Burke saw they were swinging around toward the terminal entrances. He didn't want to leave her on a sour note. It was time to make peace. He smiled. "Okay, Lori. No macho. Believe me, I'll be Mr. Humble Pie. And while I'm gone, you'd better go pick up those symphony tickets, because I'm holding you to that invitation."
"You can count on it," she replied with a grin of her own. "I’ll get them as soon as I get back from my holiday junket."
Monday was the official date for observing Memorial Day.
"Where are you headed?"
"Sailing with some friends down the coast around Virginia Beach. It'll be a long drive back Monday night, but it should be a fabulous day. The weather forecast sounds perfect."