"Good questions. I have no wife."

"So it's all a lie." Yes.

"What's the truth?"

"I can't tell you." "Good. I don't want to know." "You have enough problems, don't you, Francesca?" "My problems are my business."

She lit another cigarette. "Can I have one of those?" he asked. "You smoke?"

"Many years ago." He picked one from the pack and lit it. The lights from the city grew brighter as the night engulfed them. "Do you tell Luigi everything we do?" he asked. "I tell him very little." "Good."

Teddy's last visit to the White House was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. He planned to be late. Beginning at seven that morning, he met with his unofficial transition team-all four deputy directors and his senior people. In quiet little conferences he informed those he'd trusted for many years that he was on the way out, that it had been inevitable for a long time, that the agency was in good shape and life would go on.

Those who knew him well sensed an air of relief. He was, after all, pushing eighty and his legendary bad health was actually getting worse.

At precisely 8:45, while meeting with William Lucat, his deputy director for operations, he summoned Julia Javier for their Backman meeting. The Backman case was important, but in the scheme of global intelligence it was mid-list.

How odd that an operation dealing with a disgraced former lobbyist would be Teddy's downfall.

Julia Javier sat next to the ever vigilant Hoby, who was still taking notes that no one would ever see, and began matter-of-factly. "He's in place, still in Bologna, so if we had to activate now we could do so."

"I thought the plan was to move him to a village in the countryside, someplace where we could watch him more closely," Teddy said.

"That's a few months down the road."

"We don't have a few months." Teddy turned to Lucat and said, "What happens if we push the button now?"

"It'll work. They'll get him somewhere in Bologna. It's a nice city with almost no crime. Murders are unheard of, so his death will get some attention if his body is found there. The Italians will quickly realize that he's not-what's his name, Julia?"

"Marco," Teddy said without looking at notes. "Marco Lazzeri."

"Right, they'll scratch their heads and wonder who the hell he is."

Julia said, "There's no clue as to his real identity. They'll have a body, a fake ID, but no family, no friends, no address, no job, nothing. They'll bury him like a pauper and keep the file open for a year. Then they'll close it."

"That's not our problem," Teddy said. "We're not doing the killing."

"Right," said Lucat. "It'll be a bit messier in the city, but the boy likes to wander the streets. They'll get him. Maybe a car will hit him. The Italians drive like hell, you know."

"It won't be that difficult, will it?"

"I wouldn't think so."

"And what are our chances of knowing when it happens?" Teddy asked.

Lucat scratched his beard and looked across the table at Julia, who was biting a nail and looking over at Hoby, who was stirring green tea with a plastic stick. Lucat finally said, "I'd say fifty-fifty, at the scene anyway. We'll be watching twenty-four/seven, but the people who'll take him out will be the best of the best. There may be no witnesses."

Julia added, "Our best chance will be later, a few weeks after they bury the pauper. We have good people in place. We'll listen closely. I think we'll hear it later."

Lucat said, "As always, when we're not pulling the trigger, there's a chance we won't know for sure."

"We cannot screw this up, understand? It'll be nice to know that Backman is dead-God knows he deserves it-but the goal of the op eration is to see who kills him," Teddy said as his white wrinkled hands slowly lifted a paper cup of green tea to his mouth. He slurped it loudly, crudely.

Maybe it was time for the old man to fade away in a retirement home.

"I'm reasonably confident," Lucat said. Hoby wrote that down.

"If we leak it now, how long before he's dead?" Teddy asked.

Lucat shrugged and looked away as he pondered the question. Julia was chewing another nail. "It depends," she said cautiously. "If the Israelis move, it could happen in a week. The Chinese are usually slower. The Saudis will probably hire a freelance agent; it could take a month to get one on the ground."

"The Russians could do it in a week," Lucat added.

"I won't be here when it happens," Teddy said sadly. "And no one on this side of the Atlantic will ever know. Promise me you'll give me a call."

"This is the green light?" Lucat asked.

"Yes. Careful how you leak it, though. All hunters must be given an equal chance at the prey."

They gave Teddy their final farewells and left his office. At nine— thirty, Hoby pushed him into the hall and to the elevator. They rode down eight levels to the basement where the bulletproof white vans were waiting for his last trip to the White House.

The meeting was brief. Dan Sandberg was sitting at his desk at the Post when it began in the Oval Office a few minutes after ten. And he hadn't moved twenty minutes later when the call came from Rusty Lowell. "It's over," he said.

"What happened?" Sandberg asked, already pecking at his keyboard.

"As scripted. The President wanted to know about Backman. Teddy wouldn't budge. The President said he was entitled to know everything. Teddy agreed but said the information was going to be abused for political purposes and it would compromise a sensitive operation. They argued briefly. Teddy got himself fired. Just like I told you."

"Wow."

"The White House is making an announcement in five minutes. You might want to watch."

As always, the spin began immediately. The somber-faced press secretary announced that the President had decided to "pursue a fresher course with our intelligence operations." He praised Director Maynard for his legendary leadership and seemed downright saddened by the prospect of having to find his successor. The first question, shot from the front row, was whether Maynard resigned or had been fired.

"The President and Director Maynard reached a mutual understanding."

"What does that mean?"

"Just what I said."

And so it went for thirty minutes.

Sandberg's front-page story the following morning dropped two bombs. It began with the definite confirmation that Maynard had been fired after he refused to divulge sensitive information for what he deemed to be raw political purposes. There was no resignation, no "reaching of a mutual understanding." It was an old-fashioned sacking. The second blast announced to the world that the President's insistence on obtaining intelligence data was directly tied to a new FBI investigation into the selling of pardons. The cash-for-pardon scandal had been a distant rumbling until Sandberg opened the door. His scoop practically stopped traffic on the Arlington Memorial Bridge.

While Sandberg was hanging around the press room, reveling in his coup, his cell phone rang. It was Rusty Lowell, who abruptly said, "Call me on a land line, and do it quickly." Sandberg went to a small office for privacy and dialed Lowell's number at Langley.

"Lucat just got fired," Lowell said. "At eight o'clock this morning he met with the President in the Oval Office. He was asked to step in as the interim director. He said yes. They met for an hour. The President pushed on Backman. Lucat wouldn't budge. Got himself fired, just like Teddy."

"Damn, he's been there a hundred years."

"Thirty-eight to be exact. One of the best men here. A great administrator."

"Who's next?"

"That's a very good question. We're all afraid of the knock on the door."

"Somebody's got to run the agency."

"Ever meet Susan Penn?"

"No. I know who she is, but I never met her."