“I have a firm I use from time to time.”
“Right.”
She brightened. “Perhaps I should go.” She paused before she added, “It was self-defense, that man I shot. He broke into my house. Two women, there alone — my God, surely there will be no question! When the police investigate, I’ll be delighted to cooperate.”
“I’m sure the authorities will see it as self-defense,” Jake Grafton said.
“On the other hand, perhaps I should go to the police now, make a statement, tell them how it was. They can get the bodies, I can arrange for a contractor, then go to Europe with this behind me.”
“What if they arrest you?” I asked.
She sat staring at me, her mouth slightly agape.
“Tommy can call you from time to time, keep you advised how things are going here,” the admiral said sympathetically. He could read her like a book. It had taken me six months, way back when, to figure her out. Slow on the uptake — that’s always been one of my failings. So Grafton was an admiral and I was just a grunt in the spy wars.
“I don’t have any clothes,” she pointed out with a frown.
“Do like the common people do,” I said curtly. “Buy some.”
She ignored the tenor of my remark. We discussed the location of her passport — a dresser drawer in her bedroom — and I promised to get it for her tomorrow.
On that note we went inside to see about dinner. I confess, I was feeling better already. I had someone to share the load with, and I was getting rid of Dorsey.
Once inside, Dorsey sailed off to the restroom. That’s when I whispered to the admiral, “Corpses get so gross if you leave them lying around the house.”
“I’ve heard that,” he said, nodding solemnly.
Mrs. Grafton — Callie — opened cans and defrosted and warmed a precooked ham. Kelly chattered with her in a language I assumed was Russian while Callie worked. Every now and then Callie glanced at Dorsey or me as the tale progressed. I had had about all of Dorsey I needed for a few years, so I sat beside the admiral’s mom and chatted her up.
After we had gone through the usual questions — where do you live, did you grow up there, etc. — and the conversation slowed to a trickle, the admiral said, “Tomorrow is Mother’s birthday.”
“What do you want for your birthday, Mrs. Grafton?” Dorsey asked brightly.
“I don’t want any more fucking robes, I can tell you that,” the old lady declared. “Got more of them than I’ll ever use.”
Jake winked at me, I bit my lip to keep from laughing, and Dorsey looked flustered.
I decided this would be a good time to show Admiral Grafton the submachine gun, so I did that while the beautiful Dorsey O’Shea, an heiress and socialite who had never worked a day in her life, attempted conversation with an old farm woman from western Virginia who had known nothing but hard labor all of hers.
“Nice shooter,” Jake Grafton said to me as he hefted the MP-5. “Right out of a government arsenal.”
After he looked it over I returned it to the corner near the porch where I could get to it quickly.
“Do you really think letting Dorsey go to the airport is a good idea?” I asked. Yeah, it had been my idea, but now I was having second thoughts. “If there’s a warrant out for her, they’ll red-flag her passport. She’ll be arrested at the airport.”
“I’ll lay money there’s no warrant for her,” Jake said. “For you, sure. Erlanger, perhaps. But why Dorsey?”
“Someone has to take the fall for the bodies at her house.”
“You, more than likely.” He looked me square in the eyes. “The real question is what degree of cooperation the person organizing this chase is getting from the various law enforcement agencies. The more he wants, the more he has to reveal. Do you really think he wants Dorsey hauled in on a material witness warrant to tell the authorities everything you told her?”
“I guess not.”
“I doubt it, too.”
Dinner went reasonably well, considering. While things were looking up, I couldn’t get those killers out of my mind. They were out there, they had the resources of the police agencies at their disposal, and I knew it was just a matter of time before they found Kelly and me. When they did, it was going to be really bad. Our lives were on the line, and perhaps the lives of Dorsey and now the Graftons. As Dorsey so elegantly pointed out, the circle kept expanding with everyone I talked to. How much time we had left I didn’t know, but I could feel it slipping away.
I wondered how Willie Varner was getting along. Poor Pulzelli, sliced up by assholes who knew damn well he didn’t know diddly-squat.
I guess I had a sour look on my face, because Callie Grafton said, “Is the food okay, Tommy?”
“Sorry. I was thinking about something a thousand miles away.”
She smiled gently.
“What I want to know, young man,” the admiral’s mom asked loudly, “is how you got into this house without a key.”
“He’s a cat burglar,” Dorsey said with her mouth full, defying all the social conventions. “He picks locks.”
“Well, hell,” said old Mrs. Grafton. “A man’s gotta do something in this world, don’t he?”
I gave her a big grin. Some of these old ladies were real dears.
We were drinking coffee afterward when Jake Grafton excused himself and went upstairs.
Twenty minutes later he came downstairs and motioned for me to follow him.
As we stood beside his car, he said, “I’m going to make some telephone calls from a pay phone, just in case.” He pulled a small address book from his pocket just far enough that I could see what it was.
“Who will you call?” I asked. He knew half the people in government, yet one or more of them were hunting me with a vengeance.
“Relax,” he said. “I know a few people who can be trusted.” With that, he got in his car and drove away.
Jake Grafton pulled into a filling station with a pay telephone mounted on a pedestal where drivers could use it without leaving their cars. After getting five dollars in quarters from the station attendant, Jake stood beside the phone to use it. He dialed a number from his address book.
“Hello.”
“Sarah, this is Jake Grafton.”
There was a moment’s hesitation before Sarah Houston said, “How are you this evening, Admiral?”
“Sneaking right along. Howgozit at NSA?”
“So-so.”
“By chance, are you alone?”
“Yes.” She didn’t sound full of enthusiasm, but then her history with Jake Grafton had its serious ups and downs. The name her parents gave her was Zelda Hudson. She was a certified genius who became a master computer hacker, programmer, and network guru. She got her start in business hacking into government and defense contractor computers to steal secrets to sell. Although she was getting rich on that gig, she masterminded the theft of a U.S. Navy submarine in order to get richer; Grafton had hunted her down, and she wound up pleading guilty to thirty-seven felonies. Later he had been instrumental in springing her from the pen to help set up a computer network to hunt down terrorists importing nuclear weapons into the United States. Of course she had had to change her name: The FBI provided a new identity, and she became Sarah Houston. After that adventure Grafton even managed to get her a research job at the National Security Agency.
Tonight Jake told her, “A friend of mine tells me someone took out a CIA safe house on the Greenbrier River in West Virginia this past Tuesday, killed most of the folks there. Have you heard anything about it?”