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jingling change in his pockets. “I gotta ask,” he said. “What are the chances that your guys did it? You know, that the guy had the plans to the moon rocket taped to his dick and somebody in the CIA killed him, and pulled his pants down to get the plans. What I’m asking is . . . what if we did it?”
    Howard shook his head. “We didn’t.”
    “Boy Scout’s honor?” Lucas asked skeptically.
    “You’ll have to take my word for it—but I checked,” Howard said. “Our people don’t really kill other people. And if we did, you’re about the last guy we’d want investigating it.”
    Flattery, Lucas thought; makes you feel warm and fuzzy, unless it makes you feel manipulated and used.
    “So I see these guys on TV, CIA guys, they’ve got M-16s and they’re wearing these rag things on their heads . . .”
    “We don’t kill people. Not on this kind of deal,” Howard insisted. “We have paramilitaries, you’d see them in Afghanistan or Iraq, everybody knows that. But we don’t do murder. If somebody did, I’d know about it. You can’t keep that kind of thing secret.”
    “Not even in the CIA?”
    “Nowhere. They’d be shit-faced panicked and I’d get a feel, you know? All I got from this one was confusion. Nobody at the CIA even knew who this asshole was, until we told them. And we didn’t pay any attention until the Russians called us up.”
    “Which makes it less likely that it’s a big secret mission,” Lucas said. “The Russians calling up like that.”
    “You’d think so,” said Howard. “But Russia is so fucked up right now that their right hand doesn’t know what their left hand is doing. Maybe the wrong hand is the one that’s calling us up.”
    They thought about that for a moment, then Lucas asked Peyton, “Anything else?”
    Peyton said, “We’ve got a young guy up there, named Andy Harmon. He’s coordinating with a couple of our auditors. He’s a book guy—but he can get to me or Barney in a hurry. If you need phone checks, or research, like that, we’d be happy to help. Something we can do on a computer. If it gets serious, then we can put some guys in.”
    “You got six zillion guys . . .” Lucas said.
    “All but three of them are reading Terrorism for Dummies books. The whole goddamn bureau . . .” His voice trailed away; he didn’t want tosay it out loud. “Anyway, we don’t have a lot of time for a small-change antique Russian operation.”
    Lucas shrugged. “Okay. I’ll stay in touch.”
    “Our guy will call you when you get there,” said Howard. “He’ll give you some contact numbers. Good luck.”
    A whole lot of nothin’ going on, Lucas thought, as he checked out of the place. Nothing but a murder. Small change.
    Back home again, Lucas finished packing, kissed Weather and the baby, and talked to the housekeeper about dealing with the garage-door contractor. She told him not to worry.
    At ten o’clock, as Weather was going to bed—she got up early every day that she operated, and that was almost every weekday—Lucas tossed a duffel bag on the passenger seat of his Acura truck, slipped an aging Black Crowes album into the CD player, and headed up I-35 for Duluth.
    Spies, he thought.

     3 
    C ARL W ALTHER WAS HUNTING . In black jeans, a Mossy Oak camouflage shirt, and a ball cap, he moved almost invisibly through the night, closing in on the woman as she trudged down West Fourth Street, pushing her shopping cart with a rattle-bang-bang-bang over the cracked sidewalk.
    He liked the night: liked the cool air, the silence, the odors of foliage and damp soil that rose in the darkness. Liked the taste of salt in his mouth as he completed the stalk.
    He remembered the knife, remembered the slash she’d taken at him. He could feel the tightness in his arm, the wound still healing. He told himself to run cool: but the fact was, he felt almost nothing. Grandpa still worried that he might become tense, that he might panic, that he might