“I made law review,” he answered, trying, but failing, to sound humble.

“It’s pretty obvious how smart you are. Me, I just thought I was smart. I’m tired of all this. I’d like to make a statement.”

Bisset straightened up, appearing as though he hadn’t been paying attention and wasn’t sure what she’d said. “You want to make a statement?”

“Can’t get anything past you law-review boys. Yes, I’d like to make a statement.”

“Now you’re being smart.” Quickly he dug into his briefcase and pulled out a pad of legal paper. “Where would you like to start?”

“I’d like to start with an apology to my director, Mr. Lasker.”

“As soon as we get your statement.”

“I see him first or there is no statement.”

“You’re the prisoner, Miss Bannon.”

“This offer expires in five seconds . . . four . . . three . . .”

Bisset grabbed the phone on the desk. “Okay, I’ll get him on the line.”

“No. This has to be in person. Face-to-face. He’s been very good to me, and I owe him that much.”

Bisset stiffened, and it took a moment for him to realize what had to be done next. He dialed the number that the black agent had left him. Bursaw answered, “Director’s office.”

“Yes, this is Assistant United States Attorney Bisset. Miss Bannon has had a change of heart and is willing to make a statement, but first she says she needs to talk to the director.”

“About what?” Bursaw asked, as skeptically as possible.

“She wants to apologize to him.”

“I don’t know if he wants to talk to her.”

“She says she won’t make a statement until she can.”

“Hang on.” Bisset heard the line go on hold, and then, within a minute, Bursaw came back on. “He said he’ll see her. Let me get another agent, and we’ll come down to get her.”

Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door, and when the marshal opened it, Luke Bursaw was standing there, and behind him was Steve Vail. Bisset said, “You’ll bring her right back here after she’s done with the director.” It wasn’t a question but an order.

“The director says she’s got five minutes and that’s all,” Bursaw said. “So you’ll have her back in no more than twenty minutes.”

The elevator car that Kate, Vail, and Bursaw got into had a half-dozen other employees in it, so they didn’t speak until they were out the front door of FBI headquarters. Kate said, “It took you long enough. I almost forgot what you looked like, Stan.”

As they walked toward their car, Vail watched her profile in the clear winter sunlight, her breath clouding the cold air in rhythmic streams. She took a deeper, stuttering breath, her freedom evidently registering. “Actually, it’s Steve.”

“I assume that since you’ve turned me into an escaped federal prisoner, you still haven’t figured out who’s responsible for setting me up.”

“After looking at the evidence, I’d say your innocence is questionable.”

“Then why did you break me out, Stan?”

“I thought by now you’d be ready for a conjugal visit.”

“Suddenly prison isn’t looking so bad.”

They got to the car, and Bursaw climbed in. Kate grabbed Vail and turned him around, kissing him fully. “Thanks, bricklayer.” She got in.

“Let’s see if you’re thanking me when this all goes south.”

Suddenly her smile was gone, and her eyes started to well up. “Sorry, Steve, but all this is scaring me.”

“You’d be a fool not to be scared.” He put his arm around her. Then he took out his credentials and showed them to her.

“I thought you had to give those up to Langston.”

“And who’s the one person in the Bureau who can rescind my being fired?”

“The director?”

“So you’ve got friends in high places. Plus, you’re innocent. Or so I’m told. I promise you you’re not spending another minute in jail.” Then Vail filled her in on his trip to Chicago and the shoot-out he and Kalix had been involved in. He told her about his phone call to the United States Attorney, with him posing as her attorney and Kalix playing the telephone role of his boss, William Langston.

“Kalix did all that for me?” she said.

“What about me?”

“How many times do I have to thank you? You’ve really gotten needy while I’ve been in the big house.”

“But unlike John I’m not trying to suck up to the director,” Vail said.

“That’s a great way to talk about a guy who saved your life.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll find some way to get even with him for that.”

AUSA Fred Bisset checked his wristwatch again. It was now exactly twenty minutes since the two agents had left with Kate Bannon, and it was starting to seem a little too long. He again called the extension the black agent had given him for the director’s office. It rang six or seven times before a female answered it. “Hello.”

“Hello? This is Assistant United States Attorney Fred Bisset. Let me speak to the director, please.”

“The director? This is the employees’ break room. Let me get you back to the switchboard.”

When the operator came on the line, Bisset again identified himself and asked to be put through to the director’s office. He waited a moment, then heard, “Director Lasker’s office.”

“This is AUSA Bisset. Could I speak to the director, please?”

“I’m sorry, he’s in New York for a regional conference.”

“Then can you transfer me to Assistant Director Langston?”

“I’m sorry, he’s with the director.”

23

As Bursaw drove cautiously through the city’s streets, Vail asked Kate, “Do you have any idea what this is about?”

“It’s all I’ve been thinking about since they came for me. I have no idea.”

“Could it be something to do with the CIA?”

“The CIA? Why them?”

“It’s better if you answer my questions first.”

“Okay. Let’s see, the CIA. The only real contact I’ve had with them was when I had Bureau liaison with them. I was over there almost every day. More there than at headquarters, actually. But I think I already told you about that.”

“Ever have problems with anyone there? Any suspicions about anything?”

“No, not that I can remember.”

Vail took out the nine photographs of the CIA employees that Kalix had given him and handed them to her. “Do you know any of these people?”

Kate went through them slowly, carefully studying their features, knowing that work ID photos, due to the regimented posing and general lack of quality, can be more difficult to identify. When she finished, she shuffled back and picked out one. “He’s the only one I know. Myles Rellick. He was one of my contacts there.”

“Anything about him that didn’t sit right with you?”

“Not really. Do you think he’s involved in this?”

Vail explained about finding the CIA safe phone number, Calculus’s three Bryn Mawr Park visits, and how Kalix had narrowed the times down to the nine men in the photos. “You must have seen something, or at least they think you did.”

“I don’t know, the guy was beige wallpaper. Nothing sticks out about him.”

“You don’t need to dwell on it. Just let it roll around in the back of your head for a while. Maybe something will surface.”

“Where are we heading?”

“Thanks to Luke, we have a safe place to stay.”

“Didn’t Bonnie and Clyde say that once?” Kate said.

Bursaw said, “My sister is a history professor at Georgetown, and right now she’s on a sabbatical, in Portugal. That’s her area of expertise. She has an apartment near the school. There’s a car. I’m kind of in charge of maintaining both. She won’t be back until May for a summer course she’s teaching. It’s just a one-bedroom, but it’s well stocked with food. And she’s about your size if you need clothes.”

“What about all the files and information we have at the off-site?” she asked Vail. “Won’t we need that?”

“It’s all in the trunk. And we took photos of everything on the walls. I don’t know if they’re going to go public looking for you—and me, I suppose, since it won’t take long to figure out who helped you. But I don’t think they can announce to the world that you escaped, seeing as how they refuse to acknowledge that you’d been arrested. Lasker’s got Langston out of town for a couple of days, leaving Kalix in charge of counterintelligence operations, so the Bureau won’t be burning a lot of manpower hunting for us. And Luke should be cool for a while, because if they do try to identify Unknown Black Agent Number One, they’ll start at headquarters. No one knows about us being friends. We should have a couple of days before there’s any type of full-court press.”