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Didn’t that woman ever take a break? As usual, her expression was cold. Lucia thought Samuels must have been much the same age as she was herself, perhaps a shade older but not much. Samuels was one or two inches shorter, but muscular and well-built, and without any excess weight. Her looks were mid-western, her skin fresh, her hair and eyes light brown. Her accent matched.
    ‘Good night, Agent Samuels.’
    ‘Good night to you, Ma’am.’
    Linda Samuels allowed her eyes to follow Lucia until she turned the corner towards the elevators. She caught herself fingering her side-arm, her favorite nine-millimeter Glock, and with an effort made herself stop.
    ‘Bitch,’ she added, under her breath.

2
    ‘Y OU’VE HAD a rough time,’ Ted Lazenby had begun.
    Almost two years had passed since the interview, but Kelly remembered those first words as if they had been spoken the day before. She remembered her first impression of his personal warmth, how she sensed instinctively that this was someone she could like and respect. It was usually when she was alone at night in her apartment that the memories returned. Memories not only of the interview, but also of the events which had brought her to Washington, to a job which made her the envy of many of her colleagues. If they knew what had gone before, if they knew the price she had paid, she thought, they might be less envious. She remembered her conversation with Lazenby clearly enough, but her impressions of the office she would later come to know so well were hazy. Of course, any young agent would have felt anxious on being summoned without warning into the presence of the Director of the FBI himself. But the events which had brought her there had damaged her self-confidence. She still felt as if she were feeling her way through a thick fog. Twenty-four hours before, she had been lying on the beach in Cancun. Now she was in the Director’s office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, and she was alone with the Director. Why she was there, she could only speculate. Her speculations were not encouraging.
    ‘Yes, Sir,’ she had replied, taking Lazenby’s hand.
    He had walked to the door of his office to meet her as his secretary ushered her in. In his other hand, he held a brown file folder, which she recognized at once as part of her confidential service record.
    ‘Have a seat. Did Rose offer you some coffee?’
    ‘Yes. I’m fine, thank you, Sir.’
    ‘All right.’
    Unhurriedly, Lazenby walked back to his desk and resumed his seat. Kelly made herself as comfortable as she could in an armchair in front of the desk.
    ‘You’re Special Agent Kelly Smith, age thirty, single.’
    It was technically a question, but Lazenby was reading from her file, and he made it sound more like a statement.
    ‘Yes, Sir.’
    ‘You’re from Minnesota.’
    ‘St. Paul, born and raised.’
    ‘College at Notre Dame.’
    ‘Yes, Sir.’
    ‘Athletic scholarship. What did you do?’
    ‘I ran track, middle distance, and I was on the tennis team.’
    ‘Then back home to St. Paul to law school. William Mitchell College of Law. The school that produced Chief Justice Warren Burger, if I’m not mistaken.’
    Kelly smiled and nodded.
    ‘I’m impressed, Sir.’
    Lazenby returned the smile.
    ‘So are they, and I bet they never let you forget it.’
    ‘No, Sir.’
    ‘Why law school?’
    ‘My parents are both lawyers. It was expected.’
    ‘What kind of law?’
    ‘General family practice, wills, trusts, estates, that kind of stuff.’
    ‘But you didn’t end up practicing law. Why not?’
    Kelly shifted in her chair.
    ‘I’d always wondered whether it was what I really wanted to do, or whether I was just drifting into it. But I didn’t think about it seriously until my third year of law school. Up until then I had been too busy just keeping up with my school work. I hadn’t really faced up to the reality of what it would be like once I got out of school. When I finally asked