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husband,” he said. “Not much time for dating, and I couldn’t imagine asking a woman I actually cared about to marry somebody who might be killed at any time.”
    â€œYes, that’s a hard thing. But husbands die of other things, not just bullets. It’s a risk everybody takes when they marry—that the other person might die. Much higher risk that they’ll cheat on you or leave you. So I chose to marry a man who will never cheat on me and never leave me. Yes, he might be killed at any time, but my odds of keeping him are still far higher than the national average. And now that he’s working at the Pentagon, he’s far less likely to come home covered with a flag. Instead he brings home whatever groceries I ask him to bring.”
    â€œSo you call him during the day.”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œBut the secretary said—”
    â€œI only call DeeNee when he has his cellphone off.”
    â€œDoesn’t she have his cellphone number?”
    â€œOf course she does. And he checks in with her frequently.”
    â€œBut she said—she claims not to know anything about what your husband does.”
    Mrs. Malich laughed. “She’s hazing you, Captain Coleman.”
    â€œPlease just call me Cole. Or Captain Cole, if you have to.”
    â€œDeeNee is a superb secretary. My husband trusts her implicitly. In part because she not only never tells anybody anything, she manages to not tell them in such a way as to make them think she doesn’t know.”
    â€œShe’s very good at that.”
    â€œBut you, I take it, are
not
pretending when you say that my husband has not been in to the office in three days.”
    He nodded.
    â€œThat worries me.”
    â€œOh, I’m sure it’s because he’s busy on something—”
    â€œCaptain Cole, I know he’s busy on something. I know from the way he tells me almost nothing. Normally he gives me enough information that I won’t worry. Like when he worked on counterterrorism in the District for a few months. He didn’t tell me anything at all about it, specifically, but he did let me know that he was supposed to imagine ways that terrorists might go after key targets in DC, and I gathered that he was not just looking at high-profile psychological targets like monuments and such, but also at infrastructure targets and political targets.”
    Cole felt a surge of relief. So his new boss
did
do something that mattered.
    â€œBut you don’t know which ones.”
    â€œI have a brain. I assumed he looked at bridges and other choke points for transportation. And opportunities to attempt assassinations. That sort of thing.”
    â€œI thought the Secret Service worked on protecting the President and Vice President.”
    â€œAnd there are plenty of people working on protecting Congress and the Supreme Court and other key personnel. You have to understand, I’m only guessing here, but I know my husband and I know what he’s good at. I’m sure his assignment wasn’t to protect the President, it was to figure out how to kill him despite the protections that are in place. Just as his assignment was probably to figure out ways a terrorist might bring Washington to its knees without having a nuke or poison gas.”
    â€œAnd he completed that assignment.”
    â€œFrom his sudden air of relief and cheerfulness back in February, yes, I believe he did.”
    â€œAnd now?”
    â€œAnd now he doesn’t even go to the office, but doesn’t tell me that he hasn’t gone to the office, but he’s still coming home every night at the regular time, and he has a haunted air about him, so whatever he’s doing, he hates it.”
    Cole finally realized what was happening here. “You didn’t invite me to the house just to chat.”
    â€œNo, Captain Cole,” she said. “I’m worried about my husband.”
    â€œBut I can’t