Kennedy set her bag down and asked, «What's wrong?»

Lee shook his head slowly. «We think Count Hagenmiller was killed last night.»

Kennedy's eyebrows shot up. «Really?»

«Yes… really.» Lee studied Kennedy for a sign that she might know more than she was letting on. He had his suspicions that Kennedy and her beloved Agency didn't always tell him what was going on. On a certain level he respected this, but there were times when it made him a little nervous. As was always the case, her expression betrayed nothing.

After sitting down in her ugly government-issue chair that was covered in some mystery gray fabric, she asked, «What do you mean, we think?»

«We are not entirely sure what is going on at this point. What we do know is that several Hamburg TV stations are reporting that a fire broke out at the Hagenmiller estate last night. The damage was extensive. We know from NSA intercepts that two bodies were discovered in the ashes. Both were badly burned. They presume that one is the count and the other is his bodyguard.»

«I assume we can rule out an accident?»

Lee nodded. «As we've discussed… we're paid to be paranoid. Even with that in mind, the odds that a burning log rolled out of the fireplace and then tackled and killed the count aren't good.»

«I'd have to agree.» Kennedy grabbed her coffee. «What's our early assessment?»

«That's a good question. Our first thought was that Saddam ordered the hit for… take your pick of reasons. Hagenmiller screwed him somehow; maybe Saddam thought he blew the whistle on the heist. Maybe Saddam wanted all of the equipment for half the dough. Who knows? Saddam is the obvious candidate, but we have another interesting development.» Lee pulled up a chair and sat.» About an hour ago, our fax machine started humming. The BKA has put out a bulletin on three individuals. Two men and one woman, all Caucasian. Sally just got off the phone with her contact at the BKA, and they are' fuming.» Lee was referring to one of the case officers who dealt with the European Union and the various law enforcement agencies that helped with counterterrorism. «Supposedly, these three individuals gained access to the Hagenmiller estate last night by posing as agents from the BKA. They have them on tape arriving in one car, and this is where it starts to get a little weird. Two of them get out of the car and go into the house. One man and one woman. A couple of minutes later, the woman comes running out and jumps into the car, and she and the driver leave. Now, about five minutes pass, and all of a sudden the fire starts. At about the same time, they have the third guy on tape leaving the house from a side door. He steals a car and leaves the estate by a back road. They found the car that he stole in the parking garage at the Hanover airport about two hours ago. They have him on airport surveillance catching a cab and have put out a nationwide bulletin for the vehicle.»

Kennedy tried to remain calm. «What about the other car?»

«No word on it yet.»

She took a sip of coffee and focused on concealing the fear that was clawing at her gut. «Any other developments?»

«One.» Lee's face took on an exhausted look. «The secretary of state called five minutes ago.»

Kennedy didn't like the sounds of this. She set her coffee mug back on the desk.

«It appears that he and Hagenmiller are, or in the count's case I should say were, avid art collectors. They have many mutual friends… a list that reads like a who's who of foreign dignitaries and royalty. The secretary of state said that he knows we had the count under surveillance and that he would like us to cooperate with the German authorities in apprehending the assassins.» Lee leaned back and added, «Apparently, a very valuable collection of art was destroyed in the fire.»

«You're kidding me?»

«No. I guess some very well-known and valuable originals were lost.»

«No.» Kennedy frowned in a rare show of emotion. «He told you he knows that we had the count under surveillance and that he wants us to cooperate with the BKA.»

«Yes.»

«And just how does he know we had him under surveillance?»

«I don't know.»

«Do you have any ideas?»

Lee thought about it for a second and said, «Maybe.»

«Make it a priority to find out, please.» Kennedy reached for her phone. «In the meantime, I'd better see what I can do to head the secretary off before he does any more damage.»

It was noon, it was fall, it was Saturday, and if you were a native Washingtonian, it was the best time of the year to be in the nation's capital. Spring was nice, but it brought too many tourists and the dreadful humidity of the Potomac River Valley. In the fall, the air was crisp, the colors were vibrant, and in neighborhoods all around the city, the coeds were back and excited about another year away from Mom and Dad. As Peter Cameron walked hurriedly around the south side of Washington Circle, he thought of none of this. He wished he could be out enjoying the gorgeous Saturday afternoon, but there were more urgent issues at hand.

Cameron had been back in the States for only a few hours, and in that time he had discovered some very bothersome information. He and the Jansens had left Germany just after midnight from a small airfield on the outskirts of Hamburg. Then they flew to Meaux Esbly, another small airfield an hour from Paris. Cameron took the first flight for New York out of Charles De Gaulle in the morning, and the Jansens left from Orly and were to fly nonstop to Mexico City. From there they were to take a flight to Los Angeles and then home to Denver.

Cameron reached the northwest side of Washington Circle and continued up Pennsylvania Avenue. He had just left his small office at George Washington University. Cameron had worked at the CIA from 1974 to 1998. During his last year at Langley; he had been approached by someone who presented him with a job opportunity that would increase his income five-fold and allow him to dabble, free of congressional oversight, in something he really enjoyed. Part of the package was a professorship at GW that required about ten hours a week and paid as much as his old job at Langley. The class was about the CIA, it met three times a week, and he had two full-time teacher's assistants. There were other consulting jobs that came along with his new package and some cash bonuses for doing exactly what he was doing right now.

At 25th Street, Cameron took a right and headed halfway up the block before ducking into the Columbia Hospital for Women. He approached a row of pay phones. Three were being used, and two were not. Cameron plugged in the proper change and dialed a number. When the voice answered on the other end, Cameron brought his fingers up and pinched his larynx. His voice sounded scratchy and a pitch higher.

«I need a cab.»

The voice on the other end asked, «How fast, how far, and how many passengers?»

«In an hour. Twenty miles, domestic, and four passengers.»

There was barely a pause on the other end, then the reply, «Site four in sixty minutes. Anything else?»

It took Cameron an extra second to remember that site four was the Montgomery County Airpark, and then he replied, «No.» He hung up the phone and left the hospital. He hated using phones. It came from years of knowing first-hand the capabilities of the NSA and the CIA, but there was little choice, given the urgency of what he had to do. Cameron had just left one of the computer labs at George Washington. He rarely used his office computer to surf the Web, and when he worked out of the labs, he tried to use a different computer each time. He had also obtained a list of students with Internet accounts and their passwords. The Internet was the strange new world, and the laws protecting privacy on it hadn't yet made it into the infancy stage.