Taylor Smith - Liar's Market

She took a dangerous sip from her wineglass—dangerous because she was starving and now there wasn’t even the prospect of a good meal to fill her empty stomach. Not that the wine did anything to improve her mood, which was becoming grumpier by the minute, knowing she’d trudged out in the pouring rain for nothing more than a tepid glass of mediocre California Chardonnay and yet another chance to observe the diplomatic version of that ancient male ritual, the pissing contest.

In this environment, it meant feigning to possess more insider access than the other guy—with “feign” being the operative word here, Carrie decided, watching her two companions over the rim of her wineglass. One was an ambitious young Bostonian, who had to be fresh out of college, with that thick, shining mop of Ivy League hair and those darting, nervous eyes that belied a self-promoting line of patter. Carrie had already forgotten his name. David? Douglas…something? He was a junior aide to one of the visiting senators. She was guessing it was his first official trip abroad.

The other was Nigel St. John (pronounced “Sin-jin,” she had to keep reminding herself, like that actor who always insisted that “Ralph” was really “Rafe”—God, but some Brits could be pretentious…). St. John was a minor British Foreign Office functionary who always seemed to latch on to her whenever she was dragooned into attending one of these official cocktails.

Carrie would have been happy to leave the two of them to their own devices, now that she’d done her duty and made introductions and a little small talk, except that Nigel kept clutching her arm and drawing her back into the circle of their conversation every time her gaze drifted over his shoulder in search of some avenue of escape.

The embassy’s top-floor reception area was a large, open room painted a pale antique yellow, with cherry wainscoting and crown moldings imported from the Carolinas and deep blue broadloom woven in the carpet mills of Georgia. Occasional chairs, chests and tables scattered around the room were eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Philadelphia Hepplewhite and Chippendale pieces. An ever-changing array of canvases by contemporary American artists lined the gallery-like walls.

This was where America put its best foot forward in the British capital. Guests were expected to do no less.

The scent of hot seafood canapés and expensive colognes drifted over the assembled crowd of sixty or so guests invited to meet the visiting senators this afternoon. Tinkling glasses provided a high counterpoint to the deep drone of mostly male voice holding forth from every part of the room, punctuated by the occasional eruption of mock-hearty laughter.

As she looked over the room, seeking out her husband, Carrie recognized a number of faces belonging to the usual crowd of Brits and officials from other friendly embassies who regularly showed up at these functions and hosted their own in return. One or two returned Carrie’s glance with acknowledging nods that ranged from merely polite to downright lascivious—the latter from a randy Australian charge who smirked as he checked her out from head to toe and back up again, with pointed pauses at breast level. Carrie was tempted to offer a stiff-fingered salute in return, but that would have been considered poor protocol and, in any case, took more nerve than she possessed.

Instead, she turned away from him, and as she did, she spotted Drum over by the tall, arched windows with Senator Watkins, head of the Senate’s select intelligence committee.

Her husband’s raised eyebrows when Carrie had first walked in the room, followed by a quick smile and nod, told her she’d probably passed muster—maybe even exceeded his expectations. Well, fine. With the exception of an ambassador’s spouse, whose role as chatelaine made her something of a social force to be reckoned with, nobody on the diplomatic circuit paid much attention to a mere “wife of.” After seven years of marriage, the last three spent here in the British capital, she’d long since resigned herself to the fact that her primary job at these affairs was to serve as ornamentation.

She’d worn a green silk wrap dress that Drum said turned her gray-green eyes catlike. Her long, coppery hair was clipped up in a loose twist impaled by a jeweled stick. There hadn’t been time to do much else with it, given the last-minute nature of this command performance. In any case, it had seemed the safest bet to survive the sleety rainstorm she’d had to brave to get over here from their Kensington town house. A few soft tendrils had shaken loose in the bluster.

“Don’t you agree, Carrie?” St. John asked out of the blue.

Carrie shifted her focus back and offered what she hoped was a convincing nod. She’d dropped the thread of the conversation, which seemed at the moment to consist of the usual complaints about the fickle French. Her two companions were so busy upping the ante of their mutual indignation that she knew they sought her input only as a matter of courtesy.

“No doubt,” she said. She had no idea what she’d agreed with, but it didn’t matter. They required only an appreciative audience.

Her gaze shifted back to her husband. She could have tried begging off this reception when he’d called at the last minute like that. She had work of her own to finish, pulling together the bibliography on her master’s thesis, which was almost ready to be shipped back to her advisor at Georgetown, if only she could quit her nervous tinkering. If he thought it was ready to defend, she’d finally complete the program she’d abandoned six years earlier when her son was born. And then…well, first finish the thesis, she told herself. One step at a time.

The lowering clouds outside had added another disincentive to coming out this afternoon, plus the fact that she liked to be home when the embassy van brought Jonah home from kindergarten. In the end, though, she’d done what Drum asked, as she always did. After all, this was an important occasion for him and it wouldn’t kill her to be amiable.

Like all intelligence officials abroad, he operated under cover in a milieu where “Spot the Spook” was the favorite game of bored diplomats. Officials in the know sometimes referred to Drum archly as the post’s “resident intellectual,” but his cover story said he was a commercial counselor. As his wife, Carrie was required to maintain that charade, while at the same time taking special precautions not to compromise his position or station operations. Most of the carefully selected guests to this particular reception, of course, knew what his real function was, but she’d long since learned that the safest path in all situations was to neither confirm nor deny anything.

The delegation of American politicians had arrived in London that morning, their first stop on a whirlwind fact-finding tour in the latest round of the war on terrorism. Drum would be leading them through their briefings with his intelligence contacts in MI-5 and MI-6, as well as the Foreign and Prime Minister’s offices and the Ministry of Defense.

His present companion across the room was the head of the delegation. An overweight, blustering power-house from Arizona, Senator Watkins was obviously in lecture mode at the moment, but Carrie knew there was no need to worry about Drum. He’d lived his entire life among powerful movers and shakers. Not only had his father been a five-star general and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the MacNeil family had been wealthy and influential Virginia landowners, businessmen and community leaders for generations. Drum could hold his own with anyone.

His body language now, as he leaned a shoulder against a leaded glass window frame, told Carrie he was just waiting for the senator to run out of breath. His bespoke Savile Row suit, a soft, dove gray pinstripe, draped his tall, lean body beautifully. His shirt and silk tie were likewise understated but elegant. His silver hair was slightly tousled, as befits a busy man, but it gleamed in the glow of the dropped crystal chandeliers that lit the high-ceilinged reception room.