“It was my understanding that you advised Mac Dekker to keep his head down,” said Eliza Porter Elkins.
“I did,” said Don Baker.
It was 4:00 p.m. on the East Coast of the United States. Baker sat in a chair across the desk from the CIA’s newly appointed associate deputy director of operations. Rain pounded the windows of the seventh-floor office, hard enough to obscure the view of the Northern Virginia countryside. Baker resented being here. He was not responsible for Mac Dekker. Not then and not now. It was a case of guilt by association.
Elkins licked her finger and turned a page in the dossier open on her desk. “Two Saudi diplomats killed at the Hotel Bristol,” she said. “One defenestrated, the other stabbed to death.” She glanced up, amused. “I didn’t know people still used that word.”
“Ma’am?”
“‘Defenestrated.’ It means ‘thrown from a window.’”
“I figured,” said Baker. “Fenestrais Latin for ‘window.’”
“Very good, Mr. Baker,” said Elkins, graciously. “I’m impressed.”
“Benefits of a Catholic school education,” said Baker. “I have the scars to prove it. And ‘Don,’ please.”
“Very good, Don. Sorry about those scars.”
Elkins smiled. She was a pretty lady, very pretty and very much a lady. He guessed she was sixty, though given her looks that was hard to believe. She was tall and blond and curvaceous, if that was a word you were allowed to use anymore. She was dressed in a dark skirt and a blazer with a cream-colored V-neck blouse that dove a little low for government standards. Not that anyone would ever say anything. Not to Eliza Porter Elkins. Not to a woman whose grandfather helped found not only the OSS but also the Agency itself. Not to a woman whose father was, at age eighty-five, the sitting senior senator from West Virginia. Not to a woman whose family owned exactly 51 percent of the land of that same state, including most of its coal mines.
The woman was impressive in her own right. Annapolis honor graduate. Helicopter pilot. She’d come to the Agency after running Consular Affairs at the State Department and before that serving as deputy director of the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency. Three weeks ago, she’d stepped into her new office on the seventh floor of the CIA headquarters.
“Robert Steinhardt ... that’s what he goes by?” she asked. “I’m sorry, I’m only just getting up to speed on all this.”
“For the past nine years or so,” said Baker. It was his first one-on-one interaction with his new boss, and he was eager to oblige. “I told him he should keep it.”
“Keep the name,” said Elkins. “And lay low.”
“Exactly.”
“He took the money, correct?” said Elkins, perusing the dossier. “A million and a half.”
“We pretty much ruined his life,” said Baker. “We had a bounty on his head for nine years, and that’s after we failed to take him out in Beirut.”
“Excuse me,” she said. “‘Failed to take him out?’ That’s not official diplomatic language.”
“Red-flagged him,” said Baker.
The blue eyes narrowed. A toss of the head. Her long, manicured fingers played with the gold chains around her neck. He was a sucker for fire-engine red nail polish.
“We, uh, tried to kill him,” said Baker. “We missed.”
“Thank you, Don. I appreciate the clarification.” She closed the dossier and gave him her full attention. “Some say we shouldn’t have rescinded the order.”
“He was innocent,” said Baker. “True blue. We know that now.”
“You’re sure? You, Don?”
“I am.”
“Good,” said Elkins, happy to be on solid ground. “I can rely on that.”
“You can.”
Elkins rose from her desk and walked to a sideboard. An array of crystal decanters stood filled with various amber-colored spirits. She consulted her watch. “Four p.m.,” she said. “Are we allowed? I’m feeling a little naughty. Bourbon all right?” She picked up one of the decanters and he noticed it was only a quarter full. “Say when.”
“That’s fine,” said Baker when she’d poured two fingers.
