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said—everyone’s got something to hide.”
    “This is about that thing in Panama, isn’t it?” Philpot asked darkly.
    “I’m just saying . . .”
    “You’re blackmailing me?”
    “Reminding you what friends are for,” answered Holliday blandly.
    There was a long silence punctuated by Philpot dragging on his shake. “We put traces on them all. The only one we couldn’t finger was Tritt,” he said finally.
    “You’re positive?”
    “The others all alibied out. Travkin is in Mariinsky Hospital in St. Petersburg with lung cancer and has been for the last three months; Edward Fox, the Brit, is doing something nasty in the Sudan at the moment; and Bertrand, the Frenchman, is in Fresnes Prison.”
    “What’s the last sighting of Tritt?”
    “Geneva passport control. There’s no record of him having left Switzerland but that doesn’t mean much.” He finished off the first cheeseburger, wiped his mouth and his tie with a napkin, and started on the second burger. His body language told Holiday the man was suffering from a bad case of nerves.
    “You worried about something, Potsy?”
    “I don’t like being used,” said the heavyset man. He shook his head. “This is worse than it looks, Doc. Stay out of it.”
    “That’s it?”
    “Talking to you is what worries me. You’ve gotta understand, Doc—I work for the organization that invented the word ‘paranoia.’” He looked around the parking lot furtively. “Other places, they give random drug tests. At NCTC they put you under random surveillance and give you pee tests. It’s a brutal environment to work in.”
    Something suddenly occurred to Holliday and he asked the relevant question. “Where was Tritt flying into Geneva from?”
    “Rome,” said Philpot. “November sixth. We’re assuming he was doing research for the shot.”
    “Before Rome?”
    “Glasgow International, Scotland.”
    “Before that?”
    “Orlando on Virgin Atlantic.”
    “Before that?”
    “Nassau, Bahamas. He has a little place there, a house on Lyford Cay. All under his own name.”
    “You don’t find that a strange itinerary?”
    “We get everything except Glasgow,” said Philpot. “What the hell does a man like Tritt find to do in a place like that for three days?”
    “Checks in with his employer,” replied Holliday.
    “You actually know who hired him to make the hit? Want to share? I’ve been doing all the talking so far.”
    “How about Katherine Pierce Sinclair?” Holliday said. “She owns a country estate called Edinburgh House within driving distance of Glasgow and a place in the Bahamas, as well.”
    “So does Sean Connery. So what?” Philpot asked. “I would have thought you’d have had enough of Sinclair since your run-in over the summer.” Philpot shook his head. “You should have seen them dancing around, trying to clean up that mess. We called in the Israeli ambassador, who’s from Queens, by the way, and tough as nails, but he just stonewalled us.” Philpot took a last bite from the second burger and sucked on the straw in his milkshake.
    “I’m going to need a few files,” said Holliday as Philpot drained the last of the bright pink concoction. There was so much exhaust from passing cars and trucks that Holliday was getting a headache. “Quickly.”
    “Don’t push it, Doc. I am absolutely, positively not giving you official files and that’s final.”
    “Tritt, Kate Sinclair and whatever you’ve got on the senator.”
    “You’re crazy. They could lock me away forever in one of those secret jails they’ve got in Colorado. You’re talking treason.”
    “You owe me, Potsy.”
    Philpot picked up his garbage, lumbered over to the refuse bin and dumped the paper and plastic into it. He turned and walked back to the picnic table.
    “You ever been to Rock Creek Park?”
    “Sure.”
    “You know where Ross Drive is?”
    “I can find it.”
    “Half a mile in off the Ridge Road there’s a dry culvert and a bridge. Three steel