Robert Bidinotto - Hunter

He sipped his coffee and watched. Watched her turn onto 29 east.

He sighed. It was looking as if her meeting with Cronin amp; Company would be first thing in the morning. That didn’t give him as much time as he’d like. He watched for a while as the red dot continued on 29. If she were meeting the cops in Alexandria, she might next take 120-Glebe Road-south, cutting off a lot of miles.

The red dot intersected 120 on the map.

But turned north.

What the hell?

He watched the red dot track along Glebe all the way past the George Washington Parkway, where it picked up the end of Route 123 and veered north again.

Probably heading now for the big cloverleaf entrance onto the GW, just a mile ahead.

He sipped more coffee, staring at the screen.

But the dot kept moving past the GW intersection.

He clicked the mouse several times, enlarging the street map.

Then the hair began to stand up on the back of his neck as he watched the red dot approach a place that he knew very well.

He put down his cup.

Surely she would continue right on by.

But she didn’t. Annie Woods’s car made the right turn off 123.

And onto the access road the led into the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Stunned, he zoomed in to the maximum magnification. Watched the red dot pause at the security entrance, then move on, entering the Agency campus. Then loop around to an area he knew was set aside for employee parking.

Where it stopped moving.

*

He stood on his balcony, staring blankly at the neighborhood.

He wracked his brain for something, anything, that could make sense of what he had just seen. But came up empty. It was as if all the laws of nature had been repealed-as if up and down were suddenly reversed, while gravity and inertia no longer existed. Everything he knew was coming apart, spinning crazily into chaos. And he had no idea why.

Start with what you know about her.

He realized then that he actually knew very little. Nothing but what she had told him. Except for the house in Falls Church, which was real enough; he had been there. But what else did he really know?

She was young, extremely smart, very athletic. She claimed to be an insurance claims investigator, obviously false.

What about her name? The crime victims he had met, including Susanne Copeland, all called her Annie Woods. But was it real? Could she have fooled them, too?

The funeral. He recalled all the Agency faces there. Of course, Arthur Copeland had worked for Langley as a contractor. But what if there was more to it?

The thought occurred to him: How did Annie know Susanne?

He went back inside. He needed answers.

He spent a few minutes working out his pretext. Then pulled a fresh phone and battery from his desk drawer, dialed into the “spoof” website, and programmed in an internal Agency phone number he knew by heart. That one would show up on the Caller ID when he dialed the main number.

“This is Mel Riggins in DS amp;T,” he told the Agency operator. “I need a couple of updated phone numbers, if you would?”

“Certainly, Mr. Riggins. Could you give me the employee names, please?”

“First is Susanne Copeland. Second, Ann Woods. That’s Ann with no ‘e.’”

“A moment, sir.”

There were a few clicks, then the woman came back on the line. “Are you ready for those numbers, sir?”

“Go ahead,” he said. He took down the numbers, then said, “Wait a minute. Isn’t Susanne Copeland in D.I., Middle East?”

“Mmmm…yes, Directorate of Intelligence, but actually with Eastern Europe.”

“I see. Maybe they transferred her. And Ann Woods, where is she now?”

“Let me see… I have her in the Office of Security, special investigations… No, wait a minute. There’s a notation that she transferred some months ago… Okay, yes, she’s now working out of the office of the NCS deputy director.”

Suddenly, he could no longer speak.

“Will there be anything else, Mr. Riggins?”

“No,” he managed to say. “Thanks much.”

He broke the connection. Set the phone down and gripped the edge of the desk.

“Garrett,” he said through clenched teeth.

It had been bad enough dealing with the police.

*

He sat at his desk with a notepad and pen, drawing those lines and circles they call “mind maps.” He liked the technique; it helped him visualize connections between all sorts of random data and ideas. It took another hour before he thought he had sorted it out.

First, there was the CIA and Grant Garrett, plus Annie Woods-an OS investigator now working for Garrett. That looked as if it could be about Matt Malone.

Second, though, there was Annie Woods and Cronin. That was completely separate. It was all about the vigilante killings.

He looked at the linked bubbles of names. The one and only connection between both investigations was Annie Woods. And-as insane and ironic as it was-it looked as if her presence in both of them was all his fault.

After all, she hadn’t known he was going to show up at that funeral. In fact, she had no idea who he was, then. Or even later, when he also turned up at the prison. Or at the victims meeting. Since then, he had been pursuing her- not the other way around.

He remembered strolling outside with her on the street after that meeting. How she’d tried to brush him off; how he’d insisted.

It had been an incredible breach of mission security. He recalled, with bitter irony, that Sinatra song about the warning voice in the night. Don’t you know, you fool? No, he didn’t know. How could he have known? But he’d been a fool, all right. He had not simply walked into a trap; he had set the damned trap for himself. Set it by falling in love, by ignoring the fact that any woman with half a brain would want to know his background.

How could he have been that big of an idiot? So it served him right that, of all the women on the planet, he had picked the one woman who would be most dangerous to him.

And now she knew all about his ties to the vigilante killings. What would happen if she also found out about his connection to Matt Malone? Or did she already know?

Did Garrett?

He took the sheets of note paper he had been scribbling on and fed them, one by one, into his shredder. The loud whirring and grinding sent Luna scurrying from her hiding place under his desk and out of the room.

Intel. He needed more information. Most immediately, he needed to know more about her. Who she really was, what she was really up to.

He dialed in Wonk’s number. After the social preliminaries, he explained what he wanted.

“Let me read this back to you, Dylan. This lady friend of yours lives at a home in Alexandria, and she works for an agency which, on this open line, shall remain nameless. She was married in July 2002 in Georgetown to a man, first name Frank, and was divorced from that gentleman in January of this year. Do you have anything else?”

“I wish.”

The researcher chuckled. “I am certain it will be enough. Call me at noon.”

*

A couple of hours later, he dialed back. Wonk answered at the first ring. “Dylan?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Well? What did you find out?”

“Dylan…are you sitting down?”

“What’s wrong?”

“You simply are not going to believe this.”

“Believe what?”

“In fact, you will not like it one bit.”

“Wonk! For God’s sake, will you get to the point?”

“Ann Woods is her married name. Her ex-husband’s name is Frank Woods. She kept his surname, most probably for career reasons.”

“All right, so what’s her maiden name, then?”

He hesitated again, just for a few seconds. “Ann MacLean.”