A shadow blocked the peephole.
“Who the hell are you?” a woman demanded.
“Ms. Givens? We’re from Mr. Page’s office.”
“Shit,” the woman said, and opened the door. She was tall, with a long thin neck and narrow features, high cheekbones, and blue eyes. Her hair was wet, and she was wrapped in a bath towel. “Has something happened to Dotty?”
“No,” Schermerhorn said.
“She’s fine so far as we know,” McGarvey said. “The director has been trying to contact her, but she doesn’t answer her cell phone. We were sent out to tell her there’s trouble with the White House meeting first thing in the morning.”
“I can’t help you guys. She’s not here.”
“This is really important.”
“She called about an hour ago, said she was spending the night with her boyfriend. She does that sometimes.”
“How do we contact him?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s got a place somewhere in Georgetown, but I don’t have the address or phone number.”
“You’re Ms. Givens’s roommate?”
“No, just a friend from New York. We used to work together at the UN, and I come down here from time to time. She comes up to stay with me every now and then.”
“Do you at least have a name for her boyfriend?”
The woman shrugged. “No last name — just George.”
THIRTY-ONE
Alex had the cabby drop her off near the end of Dumbarton Avenue NW, just a block from the edge of Rock Creek Park, and less than two blocks from Otto Rencke’s safe house, which itself wasn’t far from Kirk McGarvey’s apartment.
The evening was dark and quiet, the only real traffic and activity in Georgetown at this hour was down in the tourist section along M Street, with its bars, restaurants, and chichi shops. After work, she’d driven to her second apartment in Tysons Corner, just across the Dulles Access Road and not far from the CIA’s back gate, where she’d packed a few overnight things in a bag.
She called her sometimes roommate, Phyllis Dawson, using an untraceable pay-as-you-go cell phone. “I’ll be with George tonight, maybe tomorrow. I think he might propose to me.”
“What trouble are you in now?”
“Nothing serious, but someone from the Company might pay you a visit.”
“What do you want me to tell them?”
“The truth.”
“Yeah, right,” Phyllis had said, and laughed.
They’d worked together at the UN, spying on delegates for an international lobbying firm that worked for a consortium of international businesses. But they’d been too effective, both of them posing as high-priced call girls. When the WikiLeaks were made public, a couple of Brazilian diplomats had been burned, and Alex and Phyllis, who’d worked under assumed names, were forced out. Their control officer and his boss were more than satisfied when the girls simply disappeared without a fuss, happy to sweep the entire incident under the rug.
Phyllis, working under a new identity, had landed a job gathering intel for another international lobbying firm, this one dealing in the secrets of big banks.
They kept in touch from time to time to share gossip, the only people in the world with whom they could be totally open. Or nearly so, in Alex’s case.
Around the corner, Alex used a universal electronic key to open the door of a Ford Fusion, started it, and drove the two blocks to the Renckes’ safe house, where she parked across the street and a few doors down from the electric gate.
A few lights were on in the house. While driving past, she had spotted two old cars parked in back — one a Mercedes, the other a Volvo station wagon. One belonged to Otto, the other to his wife, who still used her maiden name of Horn.
It actually meant nothing that both cars were there. Nor did it make much sense to her to stay here very long, in case the car was reported missing and the police sent out a stolen vehicle notice on the net.
She thought there might be some obvious sign that Schermerhorn was here, but then she knew she was being foolish to hope for such luck. After twenty minutes she turned around and returned the car to where it had been parked.
After wiping down the steering wheel and door handle, she walked a few blocks to M Street, where she had a drink at Clyde’s in the Shops at Georgetown Park, which backed up on the old C&O Canal. The place was busy with the late after-work crowd.
The problem was timing her disappearance. If she went back to work in the morning, and McGarvey brought Roy over to look at the thirty-six suspects, it was possible they would end up on the seventh floor. She had altered her appearance enough that she was pretty sure she would never be picked out of a police lineup. But she and Roy had been a thing in bed for a short while and had lived in close quarters in Germany and again in Iraq. He might pick up on something if he saw her. Escaping at that point would be problematic.
On the other hand, she wanted to know how close they were to solving the mystery. The only way she could get that information was by sitting in her office and listening in on what was said in the director’s office via the direct wire link between her phone console and his.
She’d removed the light in the director’s console that showed when she was connected. Simple but effective.
The key was if someone had shown up at the Chevy Chase apartment, looking for her. But if they’d come that far, it meant they’d put her file back on the list despite Page’s removing it. It meant she was a suspect. But only Schermerhorn could possibly make that determination, and then only if he could meet her face-to-face.
Another possibility she’d considered, and the reason she’d packed an overnight bag, was her Tysons Corner apartment. There was a possibility, no matter how slight, that they had found the place. That in turn would mean they had discovered her Monica Wrigley persona. All her background preparations would unravel from that point.
But she couldn’t take the risk of phoning Phyllis again in case they’d requested an NSA look and listen. Nor could she avoid the risk of going to the office in the morning as normal to find out what was coming her way, if anything.
A reasonably well-put-together man in a business suit, tie loose, collar open, came over to her. He looked to be in his late thirties, maybe forty, and he had a wedding ring. He smiled.
“No line, but you’re an attractive woman,” he said. “My name is Jeff. May I buy you a drink?”
“Why not?” she said, and motioned for the bartender. “Your wife out of town?”
“She works for a senator who likes to go on junkets. They’re probably sleeping together.”
The bartender came and refilled her glass with a Pinot Grigio.
“Kids?”
“No time.”
“Never too late. Leave Washington, get a new life,” Alex said, her problem of staying away from her Tysons Corner apartment for the night solved. But she almost felt sorry for the guy, and she guessed she wanted to give him a chance. “Call her right now, wherever she is, tell her you love her, and ask her to come home.”
“She’s an ambitious girl. It’s one of the reasons we got married. But she won’t leave the senator.”
“When will she be back?”
“Not till Wednesday.”
“Five days,” she said. She took a drink of her wine and then smiled up at him. “Okay, Jeff, your place, or would you rather go to a hotel?”
He returned her smile, only the slight hint of guilt at the corners of his eyes. “I have a small place just up Potomac Street. It’s walking distance.”
“You’ve done this before.”
“Like I said, she’s gone all the time. And we have snoopy neighbors where we live.”