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looked up. “I want to see the in-depths on the overnights, especially the India-Pakistan situation. I think it’s going to heat up even faster than anyone believes, and we’ll have to play catch up over there.”
    â€œI’ll set up an Intelligence Operations briefing this afternoon.”
    â€œLet’s put it on the nine o’clock agenda. I want something for USIB at ten. But first I want to see a file summary of everything we know.”
    â€œWill do.”
    â€œNow, what do we have on the situation in Havana? Do you know who the guy was?”
    â€œNavy lieutenant commander Paul Andersen, stationed at the Naval Intelligence unit at Guantanamo Bay. He flew up to Miami on Thursday, picked up a new identity, and Friday flew to Havana with a delegation of travel agents and cruise ship reps. He’d apparently set up a meeting with Hector Sanchez, the second-in-command in Cuban Military Intelligence Internal Affairs. Something is supposedly going on in Castro’s private security detail. Sanchez was going to talk to Andersen in trade for asylum and presumably a stack of cash.”
    â€œWas it a setup?”
    â€œNaval Intelligence is still working the problem. Havana police found his naked body in the alley behind his hotel. He’d been beaten up and then took a dive, or was thrown, out his tenth-floor window. That was about ten minutes after the prostitute he’d hired left the room.”
    â€œWhat about our people on the ground?”
    â€œThey’re working on it. But they’ll have to burn a couple of assets to get anywhere.”
    â€œDo it,” McGarvey said.

    â€œAll right,” Adkins replied. “No one is safe anymore. But that has to change.”
    â€œWe’ll give it a try.”
    When Adkins was gone, McGarvey called Otto Rencke’s extension in the computer center on the third floor. Back like this he was having trouble with people depending on him. Part of the job. But trust gave him an odd feeling between his shoulder blades, as if someone with a high-power rifle was taking a bead on him.
    Otto answered on the first ring, his voice sharp, even shrill. “What do you want?”
    â€œGood morning, what’s eating your ass?”
    â€œI’m busy. What do you want?”
    â€œI want to know what you were doing at my house yesterday, and why you just sat in the driveway without ringing the bell.”
    â€œSomebody else.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œSomebody else. I wasn’t out there. Louise and I spent the entire weekend painting the apartment. And each other.” Otto’s tone of voice softened a little; more like his old self. “Maybe you oughta get security out there, ya know. Don’t want it purple. That’s the color for a shroud. Bad. Bad. Bad dog. Something might be gainin’ on you, ya know.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œNot ready yet,” Otto replied distantly, as if his mind had suddenly gone elsewhere. “Difficult, delicate. Still pastels, but I don’t know, can’t say. Just look up, Mac; we all gotta keep our eyes really open, ya know. All the time, not just in the night.”
    Rencke broke the connection, something chiming in the background noises of his office, and McGarvey was mystified. When Otto was in the middle of something he tended to go off to his own little world. But this was different. He had never had this harsh an edge before.

    THREE
    â€¦ HE HAD TO WONDER IF WHAT HE HAD ACCOMPLISHED HAD REALLY MATTERED AT ALL, OR IF HIS CAREER HAD BEEN NOTHING BUT A WASTED EFFORT.
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    T he U.S. Intelligence Board meeting ran ten minutes past the lunch hour, but nobody grumbled. There was a sense of accomplishment now that a new DCI was at the helm.
    McGarvey presented the distinguished service intelligence medals to Whittaker’s people, grabbed a quick sandwich at his desk while dictating letters to Ms. Swanfeld, then