“A store. I offer it to dissuade you from jumping to the conclusion that the killer had to have been someone involved with theater, specifically the opera. Anyone could have bought it the way I did.” He laughed and checked his watch. “Almost time for a real drink. Here I’ve been telling you everything you need to know about the Lee case, as well as what’s wrong with opera singers today, and nothing from you. Where does your investigation stand?”

“I’ve got people questioning the agents. We brought in Warren. Dumb kid bolted and got a faceful of Willie Portelain’s fist.”

“And he has an airtight alibi, I assume.”

“Anything but. We’ll start interviewing everyone in that Young Artist Program. Maybe we’ll get lucky and come up with somebody who had it in for the victim, a guy she jilted, another singer who was jealous. I understand that opera singers can get pretty jealous of one another. In the meantime, we’re still at square one. Hey, Ray, I saw the article about you. Pretty nice.”

“My fifteen minutes of fame. I wasn’t pleased with the photograph. I’m a lot younger and better-looking than the picture shows.”

Berry cocked his head and exaggerated his scrutiny of Pawkins’ face. “Yeah, you’re right. Look, Cole wasn’t happy when I told him we’d be getting together on the Lee case, but he didn’t say no. I can use your help.”

“And you’ll have it.”

Pawkins paid with a credit card.

“Let’s stay in touch,” Berry said as they stood on the sidewalk.

“Absolutely. I may have to run out of town for a day or two, but I’ll let you know. Not sure I can get away. I’m in Tosca.”

“So I read. You really enjoy being in operas, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. Take care, Carl.”

As Pawkins began to walk away, Berry said, “Hey, Ray.”

“What?”

“I almost forgot. Remember the Musinski case you worked on six years ago?”

“Sure.”

“They’re reopening it.”

“Oh?” Pawkins said, his eyes narrowing.

“Yeah. Forensics has come up with something that might link that grad assistant to the scene.”

“That’s interesting,” Pawkins said.

“Cole said he’ll be wanting to talk with you about it.”

“Anytime.”

At approximately the time that Annabel Lee-Smith met with the Opera Ball committee, and Berry and Pawkins conferred, Milton Crowley wearily exited the plane that had brought him from Amman, Jordan, to Washington. He hated flying, especially long trips that crossed time lines, and found airport security procedures to be unnecessarily burdensome and most likely ineffective. Most of all, it was the flights themselves that turned his mood foul, the dispirited flight attendants, uncomfortable seats that seemed deliberately designed to cause discomfort, and what passed for food served in-flight. As he tried to sleep-he was tired, but also wanted to avoid talking with his seatmate, a gregarious woman whose voice was like a cracked bell-he thought of better days in air travel, when he was younger, when flying to exotic lands was a special privilege and people dressed properly for their flights and…

He went through Customs and stood in a line of people waiting for taxis. His turbaned driver drove a vehicle that reeked of stale tobacco and whose rear seat was lumpy and confining; he thought of spacious London cabs and their intelligent, gentlemanly drivers and…

And he thought of his cottage in Dorset, where he would soon retire and flip a bird at the whole bloody world of intelligence, politics, and governments, and the insane men who governed them. Always, it was the vision of the cottage that salved his otherwise cranky disposition.

He handed the driver a slip of paper on which he’d written the address of a building on Ward Circle, closed his eyes, and prayed that the ride would be quick.

It wasn’t.

He was eventually deposited outside a gate and fence. The driver was told to leave. Crowley showed his identification to a military guard, who placed a call. Crowley was allowed to pass through the gate and enter the building. The soldier at the desk reviewed his credentials, and he, too, made a call. A few minutes later, with a visitor’s pass hanging from his neck, he was escorted by a uniformed young woman to a staircase. He had to stop halfway. His right hip had been acting up and a stabbing pain caused him to wince and to let out a small verbal protest. He’d been told he should have the hip replaced, but he wasn’t about to let any surgeon cut into him, thank you very much, unless it became an absolute necessity. It flared up only now and then. Once he was at the cottage, things would be better.

“Sorry,” he told his escort, who stood a few steps above him and looked unhappy at the delay.

She led him to a room at the end of a long corridor. Two armed, uniformed young men stood watch. The female officer said something in a guarded voice, which prompted one of them to open the door. Crowley entered. The room was a rectangle. Large windows had been sealed and painted, the color a slightly different pale green from the walls. A man in a three-piece suit seated at a long table in the center of the room stood and shook Crowley’s hand. “Good trip?” he asked.

Why do people always ask that? Crowley wondered.

“Yes, quite, thank you, Joseph.”

“Please, sit down,” Joe Browning said, indicating a chair to his left, which Crowley gratefully took, relieving the pressure on his hip. “I appreciate your coming here on such short notice.”

“It seemed necessary,” Crowley said.

“That’s an understatement,” Browning said, underlining it with a chuckle. “So, fill me in. As you can imagine, our people are anxious to be brought up to speed on what you and your colleagues have uncovered in Jordan.”

Crowley cleared his throat and looked to where a window once was. He wished it were still there. The room was claustrophobic. “I’m afraid we’ve gotten only so far,” he said. “I don’t know whether you are aware that our source in Amman was killed.”

Browning nodded.

“Without that source, we’ve reached a bit of a standstill, I’m afraid.”

“Sorry to hear that. Actually, we’ve been receiving intelligence through other sources that helps fill in some of the gaps.”

“That’s good,” Crowley said.

“Interesting, the way terrorists’ minds work, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is, although I prefer to think of their so-called minds as more depraved and immoral than interesting.”

“Of course. What our people found especially probative was this shift in their thinking. What’s your take on it?”

“I’m really not paid to analyze information, Joseph. I simply arrange for it to be gathered. But off the record, I would say that there is a certain wisdom to their new approach. It will certainly be easier to carry out, and the impact could be substantial.”

“If it’s what they’re really intending. Tell me, Mr. Crowley, did your source in Jordan-I understand he had a pretty direct line into the insurgents through a family member-”

“That’s right.”

“Was there any hint as to the sort of high-profile target they might choose?”

“That’s what we were hoping to find out,” Crowley replied. “According to the source, they were in the process of drawing up their hit list. I suppose it had to meet with bin Laden’s approval.”

“If he’s still alive.”

“Yes, if.”

“But it was ascertained that it would be centered here in Washington.”

“That was our information, which we passed along.”

“Yes, and we appreciated that. The secretary made an announcement right after we received that info. We’ve raised the terrorist alert level to Orange-Plus.”

A tiny smile crossed Crowley’s lips. Americans and their fondness for anything technological, colorful-and useless. A vision of sitting on a white wrought-iron bench at riverside in Dorset came and went.