After telling him she’d e-mail the phone numbers they were interested in, she snapped her phone shut at Vail in mild protest. “First thing tomorrow morning, Stan.”

“Thank you.”

“What else?”

“I think we’re both off duty,” Vail said.

“I should go get some sleep. There might be other friendships I have to violate, and I don’t want to be dozing off during that.”

“ ‘Should’ makes it sound like you want to be talked out of it.”

“Sorry, I’m saving myself.”

“For?”

“I think it was Foghorn Leghorn who said it best—‘a time for magnificence.’ ”

He moved close to her and put his arms around her. With a lopsided grin, he said, “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Kate had to be careful not to show how painful it was to maintain her nonchalance. There was nothing she wanted more right now than to accept his offer. “See, there’s the problem, bricklayer. Only men equate quickness with magnificence.”

30

When Kate came in the next morning, she found Vail in the kitchen cooking. “Did you eat?” he asked her. He was piling French toast and bacon on a plate.

“It looks like there’s only enough for six people, so I won’t deprive you. Have you heard from Luke?”

“He’s not big on checking in until he’s got the answers.”

“Too bad you two don’t have more in common.”

“Did Tim say he’d call?”

“Yes. And he has the fax number here.”

Vail sat down and picked up a fork. “You sure?” he asked, pointing at the plate.

“I know that Chicago is ‘hog butcher for the world,’ but they have heard the rumors about cholesterol there, right?”

“ ‘Stormy, husky, brawling / City of the Big Shoulders.’ Does that sound like it was built by men who eat bran muffins?” He stood up and put his arm around her waist. Taking her right hand in his left, he started dancing with her and singing:I saw a man, he danced with his wifeIn Chicago, Chicago, my hometown

After a couple more turns, she stepped back, laughing. “Sit down and eat, you maniac.” She watched him for a few seconds. “You’re in an awfully good mood.”

“Good food, a new mystery, and”—he leaned in close and lowered his voice—“an extremely lusty wench who I suspect I’m about to close the deal with. Life is bountiful.”

“Apparently Carl Sandburg forgot to mention dementia in his list of Chicago’s attributes.” She went over to the counter and poured herself and Vail a cup of coffee. “Anything I can do until we hear from Tim?”

“Maybe you’d better make an appearance at headquarters. We don’t need people getting curious.”

“I do have a ton of mail that I need to get through, as boring as that suddenly seems.”

“Hey, I offered you an alternative. You could be in there right now trying to keep me from falling off one of those army cots, but apparently I’m demented.”

“Ah, yes, nothing says romance quite like ‘army cot.’ ”

About 11:30 A.M. the off-site’s phone rang. It was Kate. “Tim just called me. He’s faxing the phone information to you.”

“I still haven’t heard from Luke. Can you get out of there?”

“I’m through about half this mess. If I set fire to the other half, I don’t think anything would be lost or I’d be missed.”

Vail looked over at the fax machine as it came to life and started printing pages. “We’ve got incoming facsimiles.”

“I’m on my way.”

By the time Kate got there, Vail had pinned sheets of paper to a new section of the wall. She went and stood next to him as he studied them. “Anything?”

“Fortunately, Master Sergeant Longmeadow doesn’t appear to have many friends. And family, if they do exist, don’t appear to be a priority. But he does have a small, inexplicable pattern of calling a car wash.”

“A car wash? Who calls a car wash?”

“The phone is listed to the Sunshine Car Wash Company, but according to the utility companies the address comes back to the Lithuanian Chess Society.”

“A chess club?”

“They probably figured if the mob could have hunting and fishing clubs, why not chess for them?”

“Do you think they’re actually Lithuanian or a front for the Russians?”

“There’s only so many things you can find out staring at a wall.”

“We’re going there, aren’t we?” Kate asked.

“I seriously doubt that you dropped everything and ran over here to stay out of trouble.”

As Kate navigated through the crowded traffic of northwest D.C., she said, “This is the Adams Morgan area. Lot of Latinos and West Africans. And a mix of everything else—and now, I guess, even Lithuanians. Or maybe Russians pretending to be Lithuanians. This is it up on the right.”

She parked in front of the address. It was a brick storefront with a long, thin slotted window too high up to see into. There was a small, hand-painted sign affixed to the paneled-steel front door, which read THE LITHUANIAN CHESS SOCIETY. The background was a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. Above it was a peephole and, to the left, a doorbell. “Apparently they’re not looking for any walk-in members,” Vail said. He rang the bell and held his credentials up to the peephole. Almost immediately he sensed that someone had come to the door and was watching them.

A man in his early fifties opened the door. He was dressed in a suit, and his hair was thick and carefully cut. “FBI?” he said, and stepped back. “Please come in out of the cold.” Although his diction was flawless, it didn’t take a trained ear to detect he was from somewhere in Eastern Europe. “Are you also with the FBI, miss?”

The question, trying to mitigate its condescension with the courtesy of “miss,” was meant to inform this woman, no matter how attractive, of her second-class citizenship inside the walls of the Lithuanian Chess Society. Kate smiled perfectly to relay her understanding of the tactic, and its ineffectiveness. She opened her credentials with an experienced flick of the wrist. Intentionally, she gave no verbal response, enhancing her authority even more.

“I’m Steve Vail, and this is Kate Bannon,” Vail said. “Actually, she’s my boss.” The man stared at him for a moment and then said, “Alex Zogas.” He seemed to be speaking to Vail only, as though still trying not to acknowledge Kate’s presence.

Although he knew the answer, Vail asked, “What exactly is this place?”

“This is a social club, but our main interest is chess. Everyone who belongs is a master.”

“And Lithuanian?”

“Some of us are, but members come and go. You know how it is.”

“And that’s all you do here, play chess?”

“We have dinner a few times a week. We come here to get away.”

“From?”

“In American homes there are pressures that men from our backgrounds are not accustomed to.” Zogas smiled and glanced at Kate. “We come here to commiserate.”

“Any chance I can get an application?”

Zogas laughed. “I don’t know. If you are Lithuanian, it would help.”

“Unfortunately, I have no idea what my heritage is. My father was always wanted by the law, so we were continuously changing names. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m a citizen of the United States.”

“As are all of us, if that’s what you are trying to find out with your little ‘antibiography,’ shall we say.”

Vail grinned. “That was one of my curiosities.”

“And the others are . . . ?” Zogas asked.

“I was wondering if there was any business purpose to your group.”

“Other than members networking, no, none. This is strictly social.”

“Are you the only one here now?”

“No, there are others in the back if you’d like to talk to them,” Zogas offered. “Mind if I ask why you’re here?”

Vail held out a photo of Sundra Boston. “She’s why. Ever seen her?”

Zogas looked at it and said, “Around here? We discourage having members bring women in. Who is she?”

“Her name is Sundra Boston, and she works for the FBI. She’s missing.”