Dom approached cautiously, unsure of the protocol. Should he call himself Father Carlino? How far was he supposed to carry the charade? He decided to walk with confidence and let his collar speak for him.
As it turned out, the guy knew exactly who he was waiting for. When Dom closed to within a few feet, the chauffeur lowered the sign and closed the distance with an outstretched hand. “Hi, Father,” he said. “I’m Paul Boersky. I’ve worked with the director for a long time. Follow me.”
Boersky led the way out the front of the station and across two lanes of traffic picking up and delivering passengers. As they closed in on a Lincoln Town Car, the vehicle beeped as it unlocked, and Boersky opened the right rear passenger door for Dom.
The priest stopped short. “We’ve never met, and this feels suspiciously like a slow-motion kidnapping. Do you have ID?”
Boersky smiled. “Was wondering when you’d get to that.” He produced a creds case from his suit coat pocket and flashed his gold badge. “Really, I’m a good guy.”
As he slid into the offered seat, Dom tried not to think about how many times Jonathan had used false credentials to get his way.
During the drive through progressively more frightening city streets, Dom fought the urge to ask questions. Given the cloak-and-dagger prelude, he harbored no hope for straight answers anyway.
The trip ended after ten minutes at a place that Dom knew well. “You’re kidding,” he said. “Here?”
Boersky threw the transmission into park. “No one can ever say that Director Rivers doesn’t have style,” he said. He looked at Dom through the rearview mirror. “I’ll be waiting here to drive you back to the Metro.”
St. Matthew’s Cathedral was a far cry from St. Peter’s in Rome, but it was likewise a far cry from St. Kate’s in Fisherman’s Cove. Most famous, perhaps, as the site of John F. Kennedy’s funeral Mass, St. Matthew’s had little of the golden grandeur of its Roman father. It was dwarfed in size not just by Saint Patrick’s in New York, but even the Episcopalian Washington National Cathedral just a few miles away in Upper Northwest. Still, Dom’s heart beat a little faster as he entered.
Following his final instructions from Paul Boersky, Dom turned left as he entered the nave and headed for Our Lady’s Chapel. Again, he spotted Irene’s security detail first, chiseled men in dark suits standing just outside the chapel. Once you know what to look for, these guys might as well wear T-shirts that read BODYGUARD. Only in Washington were such teams so commonplace that they were barely noticeable.
Irene sat contemplatively in a pew near the stunning sculpture of the Blessed Mother reaching down toward her children and stared straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap. She still wore her ubiquitous pantsuit, but this one was a green print instead of the monochrome navy blue she’d worn outside the Ripley Center. She wore her strawberry-blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.
Dom sat next to her. “Good afternoon,” he said. “You changed clothes quickly.”
“Hello, Father. I was going to call you if you hadn’t called me. And the last me you saw wasn’t really me. She’s my body double. It’s a security thing. Her unofficial, entirely impolitic alternative job title is my bullet catcher. May it never come to that.”
Dom didn’t know if that was highly likely or virtually impossible. Throughout her career, Irene had had a reputation for getting involved in firefights, and being named director hadn’t done anything to change it.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little unnerved by all this,” he said.
“Join the club.” Irene moved only her head to look at him. “I have it on good authority that I’m being watched.”
“By whom?”
She shrugged. “I have my thoughts, but I was hoping perhaps that you could tell me.”
Dom recoiled. “How would I know who’s following you?”
“Call it a hunch. My security detail picks up an electronic tracking device, and then a physical shadow on me on the very day that Digger goes on an alleged shooting rampage in Mexico. As you know, our mutual friend would be the first to disavow the validity of coincidence.”
“All due respect, you’re director of the FBI. Aren’t you followed all the time?”
“Not so much as you might expect. And when Scorpion is caught in a crack, all other ancillary events take on special meaning.”
“Can’t you just arrest the followers?”
Irene laughed. “Not in the United States, you can’t. If they don’t make a threatening move, they’re within their rights to follow anyone they want.” She waved her hand, as if swiping an invisible marker board. “Enough about me. Tell me what Digger has gotten himself into.”
“It has to stay off the record,” Dom cautioned.
“As do all things Digger-related.”
Dom related all the details he knew. “Frankly,” he concluded, “our biggest shock was when we came to realize that the FBI is gunning for him.”
Irene’s jaw tightened at the mention of her Bureau; then she smiled, albeit without humor. “We’ve known each other too long for a shot like that, Dom.”
“Are you saying that you’re not out to arrest him?’
“Of course we’re out to arrest him,” Irene said. “Or at least our border field offices are. But that’s not because of anything I did. That’s because the Mexican police labeled him a mass murderer and reported him to Interpol. I have pull, but I can’t keep the country from complying with its international treaties.”
Irene steeled herself for something, and when she looked at Dom again, the sadness in her eyes pained him. “Don’t you need to put on a stole or something? I want you to hear my confession.”
The question startled him. “Oh, my goodness, Irene,” he said. “I had no idea.” They’d played the confession ruse so many times that it never occurred to him that she might be seeking absolution for real.
He pulled a leather pouch from his pocket and removed from it a square of purple cloth. When he shook it, the square fell away from itself to form a clerical stole. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to do this in a more private place?”
“This place is fine,” she said.
“But you’re such a public figure. If people eavesdrop-”
She held up a hand. “I’ll share a secret with you, Father. This spot-these few pews in this tiny chapel-is one of the most acoustically dead spots in Washington. If someone’s not within, say, ten feet of us-and my detail will make sure they’re not-they couldn’t hear a word we say.”
Dom felt his jaw drop. “How can you be so sure?”
There was that tired smile again. “Because I oversaw the project to make it so. We sweep for listening devices twice a day on random schedules.” What she saw in Dom’s face made her laugh. “This is Washington, Father. It’s a spooky town. Truly private meeting space is essential. Even the NSA doesn’t know about this spot, and the CIA is the reason we have it in the first place. The Agency has been paying a lot of attention to us recently.”
She nodded to the stole in Dom’s hands.
He jumped a little, brought back into the moment. “Of course,” he said. He kissed the stole and draped it around his shoulders.
Irene crossed herself. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a long, long time since my last confession.”
“And what are your sins?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” she said. “It’s not so much about what I’ve done as what I’m about to do.”
Dom felt a pang of paranoia. Was it possible he was in danger?
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Father, I didn’t mean it that way.”
Tension released from his shoulders.
Irene scowled, looked genuinely hurt. “One day we’ll have to discuss how you could even think such a thing. No, the sins I’m about to commit are of the national-security variety.”