Washington, D.C.
November 5
8:50 a.m.
Kim rang the bell three times before Elle opened the door wearing her bathrobe. “Goodness, Kimmy. It’s awfully early. Is Marion expecting you?”
Kim stepped over the threshold and kept on walking. “Is she in the breakfast room? We can find our own way.”
Gaspar followed.
Elle called out, “She’s in the salon, I think.”
Perfectly costumed, Marion glanced up from her morning paper. She had coffee in a bone china cup. French pastries filled a basket on her silver tray. “I wondered when you’d be back. It’s Agent Otto now, am I right? Not Mrs. Nguyen anymore?”
Kim shrugged. Refused the bait. Essential work here didn’t involve Marion, but her breakfast companion, Sylvia Black. She was right there. Cheeks bright. In expensive travel clothes. Jeans, silk shirt, leather jacket. Fashionably functional boots.
The costume worried Kim. Sylvia was all but gone.
“Agent Otto, Agent Gaspar,” Sylvia said, rising, as if greeting old friends. “How may I help you?”
Kim selected her best opening. She touched Sylvia’s arm, connecting. Gentle, lowered voice. “Cooper’s cut you loose, Sylvia. He’s setting you up. He sent us to Zurich for evidence against you.”
Sylvia barely flinched, but Kim caught it. She said, “He sacrificed you last time. He’s doing it again. You’ll go to prison.”
“That’s not true.” Faint whisper, quivering chin, dry mouth.
“You think he’ll be your Main Man forever? Come on. You’re smarter than that. Aren’t you?”
“Smarter than you give me credit for.”
Kim said, “I think you’re a very smart woman. That’s why I’m here. Come with us. It’s all set up for real this time.”
No response. Kim felt the clock ticking. Sylvia looked to Marion for guidance. For fifteen years Marion had mentored and protected her younger protégé. Sylvia trusted her.
Another betrayal.
Kim pushed as hard as she dared. “I thought Marion was my friend once. But believe me, her own hide always comes before yours.”
No response.
Gaspar said, “Wake up, Sylvia. You were expendable five years ago and you’re expendable now. Cooper would have killed you in that Chevy with Bernie Owens, but he still needed you. When he doesn’t need you anymore, that’ll be the end. And it’s coming.”
No response.
Kim said, “He’s on his way here now to take you away, isn’t he?”
Sylvia’s expression was the only acknowledgement required.
Kim said, “You’re leaving DC. You’re leaving the country. And when no one is around to watch him? He’s going to kill you, Sylvia. You know that. You know it.”
Sylvia looked down at her hands. She was close to panic. Kim recognized the signs.
One last hard push.
“He’s using you, Sylvia,” Kim said. “He doesn’t love you.”
“He does too.” Defensive and insecure, but defiant.
Kim considered telling the truth, that Cooper didn’t love anyone. Was never loyal to anyone. Never had been and never would be. But Kim had read Sylvia’s memoirs. She wasn’t the stone cold bitch Gaspar assumed her to be. She was bendable. Fragile. Somewhere under all that experience, the Iowa farm girl remained.
And Kim knew all about farm girls. She’d been one herself, once upon a time. Impossible to beat your DNA. Couldn’t be done. Even after years of trying. In death, Sylvia’s farm girl DNA would be precisely identifiable. No escape. Only surrender. Kim had to make Sylvia own it.
Sylvia loved Cooper. And she wanted to believe Cooper loved her. But she was as smart as she said she was. Or at least as cunning. Self-preservation was paramount. She knew the truth. So she’d work it out eventually, precisely the way Kim had planned.
But how long would Sylvia take to get there? Cooper was close. Kim felt it the same way she felt the temperature in the room.
She said, “You’ve been betrayed before, Sylvia. You know how it feels. Your heart hurts. Your mind warns you constantly, but you keep going, thinking you’re going to get away, that it’s only fear, that you can break through, you’re really OK. But you know you’re not. You know. Trust your gut, Sylvia. Trust me.”
No response.
Kim said, “We’ve got to get out of here before he shows up. We’re sitting here like targets, Sylvia. Are you coming with us or not?”
She was so focused on Sylvia that Marion Wallace’s voice startled her.
“You should think about it, Sylvia dear,” Marion said absently, rustling the paper as she turned the page. “I mean, why don’t you go with them? He’s rescued you before. He’ll do it again. And when he does, you’ll know for sure that he loves you and everything these people are telling you is nonsense.”
Translation: use the emergency plan. Working girls always had one. And these two working girls were smarter than most and they’d been in tight spots before. Sylvia raised her head and looked directly into Marion’s eyes. Something passed between them. A bond forged in earlier times, and leaner struggles. Sylvia nodded slightly.
“OK,” she said. “Let me get my bag. I’ll hurry.”
And she headed up the stairs.
Marion returned her gaze to her newspaper. “Still too trusting, Agent Otto. She might escape.”
“You told her to come with us. She will.”
“You overestimate me. People do what they do.”
But five minutes later Sylvia came back, with her bag.
Sylvia hugged Marion and said, “Until we meet again, sweetie.” Then she led Otto and Gaspar through back hallways to a rear exit originally used for deliveries. They came out in a narrow paved alley running parallel with Dumbarton Street. There was dog manure and broken bottles and empty soda cans and trash and pale leggy weeds all over it. There were overfilled dumpsters awaiting pickup. Overhead, a low grey cloud ceiling masked visibility. Winds whipped around corners and through tunnels between buildings. They walked fast, with their hands stuffed into their pockets for warmth.
They were twenty feet from the end of the alley when Archie Leach stepped out of the shadows.