"They have room service here?" Milo asked innocently.

The two other doormen stared uncomprehendingly at him, but Lawrence smiled. "Private cells, at least."

"Like I didn't have that before.”

“Come on, man."

Simmons's mail program bleeped for her attention, and she read Matthew's reply. The last record of a Company agent by the name of Jim Pearson was in 1998, when the forty-year-old agent with that name died of a congenital heart defect.

So Jim Pearson wasn't a Company agent-no real surprise there. All the ruse took was a fake badge. There was also no Jim Pearson in Homeland. What, really, did she have? Of course: the cigarette lighter that Stephanie had found in her room. Round Robin. A haunt of Washington politicians and their entourages.

She opened two browser windows, one to the House of Representatives, one to the U.S. Senate. In each she found the personnel directories and typed Jim Pearson. The House gave up nothing, but the Senate had a single Jim Pearson, who worked as an "assistant scheduler" to Minnesota Republican Nathan Irwin. There was no photograph, just his name. She followed links to Nathan Irwin's page and studied the list of twenty aides in his employ. There again was Jim Pearson, and a few lines above him was Maximilian Grzybowski, "legislative assistant." One of those unfamiliar Polish names that could easily slip a harried woman's mind.

At ten, when his phone rang, Fitzhugh was back at the Mansfield Hotel. He'd brought a bottle of scotch back to the room, but tried not to drink too much of it. "Carlos?" said the senator. His voice sounded tense.

Fitzhugh cleared his throat. "It's taken care of?"

A pause. "There never was a request."

"Wait a minute. Say that again."

"I'm saying, Carlos, that you made me look like a fool. I'm talking to the top man, and when he calls me back he tells me no one ever asked anything about you. Nothing. You may not understand this, but you only get a few favors from these kinds of people. I just wasted one of mine."

"If there was nothing," Fitzhugh began, but the senator had already hung up.

He felt like he was going to be sick. Not because of Nathan Irwin's anger-he'd worked in Washington long enough to know a senator's anger lasts only until the next good deed you do for him. What upset him was that Sal's message, sent through the proper channels, had been wrong. For the past six years, Sal had been Tourism's best source inside Homeland Security. His information was never contradicted. This time he'd made a mistake.

Or perhaps, Fitzhugh worried as he plunged deeper into the scotch, Homeland had uncovered Sal, and was now using him to feed disinformation into Tourism. Was that possible?

He set his scotch aside and dragged out his laptop. It took a moment to power it up and access the Nexcel account, but as soon as he did he drafted a quick e-mail to Sal:

Information proved wrong. Is it a mistake, or were plans changed? Are you compromised?

He sent it off with a hard click on the trackpad button, only afterward realizing his mistake. If Sal were compromised, then Homeland would be watching his account. What would they do? Write back in his name? Probably. What reply, then, would prove he was compromised? That is, what would Homeland want him to believe?

The taxi worked its way through the morning traffic up First Avenue, then let her off on Raoul Wallenberg Walk. She hurried across the lawn, passing plainclothes security men and New York troopers. It was nearly nine. She cut through a long line of tourists that led to metal detectors and showed her Homeland ID to a Vietnamese guard. He passed her to two uniformed women who patted her down and went over every inch of her body with a handheld explosive detector.

The United Nations General Assembly building has a long, sixties-modern lobby, littered with paintings of past secretaries general, low leather couches, and placards with slogans and lists of upcoming events. Simmons found a spot beneath the suspended Foucault pendulum, knowing that Yevgeny Primakov would have to come to her, since she didn't have a photo of him. He apparently had one of her-this meeting place, according to Orbach, had been his idea.

As she stood there, looking expectant, the faces of the world passed by in the form of assistants and interns from all the UN countries. She remembered her last visit, not long after her divorce, when she thought that there was something special about this place. The warmth of internationalism had filled her, just briefly, and she'd even considered working for this amalgam of nations. Like most

Americans, though, in the years that followed she heard more about its failures than its successes, and when the Department of Homeland Security came calling, and the recruiter described how this new department wouldn't be hogtied by the red tape that plagued so many institutions, she succumbed to her innate patriotism.

"Look up," said an old man, smiling. His accent was Russian.

She peered up at the gold-plated sphere that swung directly from a wire.

"It's a nice thing to have around," said Primakov, clasping his hands behind his back and staring up with her. "It's the physical evidence that the planet rotates, despite how things feel where we're standing. It reminds us that what our eyes see and our senses feel isn't always the complete truth."

She stared at the mechanism a moment longer, just for politeness, then stuck out a hand. "I'm Janet Simmons, Homeland Security."

Instead of shaking, he brought her knuckles to his mouth; he kissed them. "Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Primakov of the United Nations, at your service."

When he let her hand go, she slipped it into her blazer pocket. "I wanted to ask about your son, Milo Weaver."

"Milo Weaver?" He paused. "I have two wonderful daughters- around your age, I believe. A pediatric surgeon in Berlin and a litigator in London. But a son?" He shook his head, smiling. "No son."

"I'm talking about the son you had with Ellen Perkins in 1970."

His broad, confident smile didn't falter. "Are you hungry? I missed my breakfast, which in America is a crime. The diner breakfast is America's great contribution to world cuisine."

Simmons nearly laughed. "Sure. Let's get some breakfast."

Together, they crossed the lawn again, Primakov sometimes nodding at others heading in the opposite direction, toting briefcases. He was in his element, a man at ease with his position in the world, even under the threat of a Homeland Security agent dredging up old secrets. He had a single nervous gesture, though: He sometimes raised a fleshy finger to his cheek and swiped at it, as if ushering away a fly. Otherwise, he was all old-world elegance in his tailored gray suit, blue tie, and perfectly fitting dentures.

The diner he'd promised turned out to be an overpriced nouveau American restaurant with a separate breakfast menu. When the hostess offered a window seat, Primakov licked his lips, swatted at his cheek, and suggested a booth in the rear of the restaurant.

He ordered the "Hungry Man" plate of scrambled eggs, toast, sausage, ham, and home fries, while Simmons stuck with coffee. Playfully, he accused her of trying to lose weight, "which is baffling, because you have a perfect figure, Ms. Simmons. If anything, you should add a few kilos."

She wondered when a man had last talked to her this way. Not in a while. She called over the waitress and ordered an English muffin.

Before the food came, they went through some of Primakov's particulars. He openly admitted to having risen to the rank of colonel in the KGB, staying on during its transformation into the FSB. By the midnineties, though, he had become disillusioned. "We kill our own journalists, you know that?"