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the Special Intelligence Unit, was popularly known within the Executive Branch as “the Plumbers,” or the Dirty Tricks Unit, and St. Yves was reputed to be in charge.
    Kit took the logbook for classified documents that was his responsibility and spent the next hour and a half wandering from office to office, verifying that the last person signing for each document was, in fact, currently in possession of it. Then he went to the interoffice loan vault, where documents on loan to the White House from the various intelligence agencies were stored. There he spent the next half hour checking red-and-gray-covered documents against the list, and was pleased to find that they were all there. Nothing was less fun than searching the corners of the White House and the Executive Office Building for a document that some executive assistant borrowed from some assistant secretary and then shoved in the back of a desk drawer and forgot about.
    At twelve-thirty sharp Kit showed up at the door to room sixteen. A thin, hawk-faced woman met him at the door. “You’re Kit Young,” she said, holding out a slender, well-manicured hand. “I’m Dianna Holroyd. That’s with two n’s. I’m executive secretary and den mother for this group. Mr. St. Yves asked me to tell you he’ll be a few moments.”
    “What’s happening?” Kit asked, gesturing into the office, where workmen were moving filing cabinets and ripping telephones from the wall with chaotic efficiency.
    “We’re expanding,” Dianna told him. “Part of our operation is moving across town, and the rest is taking over most of this hallway.”
    “What’s happening to the Vice-President’s press office?” Kit asked, amused at the constant game of musical chairs that went on in the EOB.
    “That’s moving into the President’s Counsel’s office. The President’s Counsel is moving across the street into the White House. I don’t know whose office he’s getting.”
    “Fascinating,” Kit said sincerely.
    “It’s like dominoes,” Dianna agreed, smiling. She was very pretty when she smiled.
    “Greetings!” St. Yves said, appearing from behind a moving file cabinet. “We got our marching orders this morning, and so we march. Into bigger digs. The SIU takes on new functions, grows with the times. You hungry?”
    Kit admitted to hunger, and St. Yves shepherded him upstairs and out onto Seventeenth Street. As they walked over to the nearby restaurant, St. Yves kept up a steady stream of small talk. He had led an adventurous life, traveled all over the world, and spoke with equal facility of Kathmandu and of Paris. His stories were sprinkled with the names of heads of state, movie stars, authors, rich men, wise men, beautiful women, traitors, spies, and assassins, all of whom he knew well or had been closely associated with.
    Kit learned two things from the conversation: first, that St. Yves was at least ten years older than he looked, and, second, that St. Yves wanted something from him. What it could be, he had no idea, but he was sure that before the meal was over St. Yves would let him know.
    The Sans Souci was the in-place for those few in official Washington that knew, or cared about, good food. Since Dr. Gildruss, the President’s Adviser for International Affairs, was such good copy, the Sans Souci had been mentioned several times in various newspaper columns and news magazines. Now it was becoming the in-place for those who wanted to be seen eating in the in-place. This had not, as of yet, St. Yves assured Kit as he ushered him through the doors, affected the food.
    “And,” St. Yves said, “it’s a good place to talk, because it’s so fucking public nobody pays any attention to you.”
    The maître d’ placed them at a table along the far wall and St. Yves talked Kit through the menu: “The coquilles St. Jacques isn’t bad; a little rich, perhaps. Keep away from the tournedos . The chef makes béarnaise as though he were dueling with the saucepan. Do