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There it was. He was done. As Tony’s shoulders relaxed, the thought crossed his mind that his job could be “done” literally as well as figuratively. Ruiz’s eyes moved timidly in Tolberg’s direction.

What he saw surprised him. The dapper chief of staff was smiling broadly, his eyes dancing with pleasure. Isaiah J. Tolberg got up off his chair, came around the coffee table, and sat down next to Tony on the leather couch. He swung his cuff-linked sleeve around Tony’s shoulders.

“Young man, that was about as fine a political speech as I’ve ever heard anybody deliver. You will go far. That brain of yours works. But, oh boy, so does that tongue. Excellent.

“But as good as that little sermon was, the lesson you haven’t yet learned is the one about political costs,” said Isaiah Tolberg, unwinding his arm from Tony’s shoulders. His tone was fatherly. “It’s
a hard lesson to learn in theory. One has to personally suffer the cutting bite of political failure to really internalize the teaching.

“But I’m going to give you a tutorial now, Tony. You can have all the right arguments. All the right policies. All the right analyses and prescriptions. You can be one hundred percent correct. And still, in politics, it’s possible that the smartest path is not to move ahead.

“Let’s take your geo-eco strategy. If I followed correctly, your point is that conservation helps both the climate and helps wean us off foreign oil. Do I have it right? Well, the question is, how do we really get Americans to conserve? I’ll tell you how; there’s only one way to do it. We would have to tax carbon fuels like oil and natural gas. Gasoline would need to become too expensive for commuters to buy it for guzzling SUVs. Natural-heating gas would have to cost more than solar panels. Alternative energies would require help to compete against fossil fuels.”

Tolberg looked at Ruiz with a disarming smile.

“So, how much tax do we need, Tony? What do you think? Two or three dollars on top of the average four-dollar price per gallon of gasoline and home-heating propane?”

The instant Tony Ruiz nodded his assent, he realized he had fallen into Tolberg’s trap.

“Well, what do you think will happen to this president if, after the California crisis, all he can come up with is a two-dollar gasoline tax?” Tolberg’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Can you imagine the conservative talk shows—they would have a field day. I can hear Rush Limbaugh now: ‘Gene Laurence doesn’t think California suffered enough. He watched people die in the Golden State and now wants to punish Californians with a two-dollar gas tax.’ Do you know how long we would last? I’ll tell you. Five minutes. We would be eaten alive, Tony. Chewed up and spat out.”

Ruiz’s eyes looked downward. He knew Tolberg was right. His previous misgivings about the White House’s chief of staff gave way to a renewed admiration for the older man’s incisive political acumen.

“It’s all about the moment, my friend,” Tolberg continued, press
ing his point. “Politics is about timing. Your plan was the right one if we’d had the guts and the inclination to launch it a year ago. Now, after California, we can’t ask people to suffer more.”

Tolberg got up. The meeting was over.

“All good ideas, Tony. Good ideas with bad timing. Pack your bags. You’re off to Moscow in twelve days.”

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
AUGUST 17, 5:45 P.M.
CIA HEADQUARTERS

General Martha Packard picked up the phone slowly. She didn’t like unscheduled calls from the White House. Twenty years in Washington had taught her that impromptu interruptions from high-level civilians almost never brought good news.

Her caution would be proved right. Again.

“Senator, nice to hear from you,” she lied. “What’s up?” Martha Packard was not one for small talk.

“General, I’m so glad to hear you’re well,” said the voice of President Eugene Laurence’s chief of staff. It was clear to Packard that Tolberg had elegantly engaged her nonexistent phone manners. She ignored the taunt.

“I’ve been speaking to the president about your upcoming trip to Moscow. We’re all intrigued, General. Your success over there could shape the rest of this president’s term in office. The stakes are big enough for this to be Eugene Laurence’s principal legacy—it could well be what history books will remember about this president.”

Packard didn’t answer. The general did not like the rhetorical warm-ups all Washington politicians thought were a necessary beginning to every conversation. She looked down irritably at the coffee spot just to the left of her medal of valor. General Martha Packard went to work in uniform. She was not the first former mili
tary officer to become the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. But she was the first one to refuse to occupy the traditionally civilian position without resigning her military commission.

If her silence made Isaiah J. Tolberg uncomfortable, he certainly didn’t show it.

“Now, the president feels that a mission like the one you’re undertaking has such big political ramifications that it might be worth expanding our delegation beyond your ample expertise to include some additional political brainpower.”

Packard felt every muscle in her body tighten. Tolberg was in full Washington-speak mode. In English, his words meant, “We don’t trust you to go alone.” She knew what was coming. Tolberg was joining the trip.

“So the president has asked Tony Ruiz to join you in Russia. I’ve just talked to him and he is willing to go along.”

“What?” Packard choked, unable to contain her irritation. “You’re sending a twenty-nine-year-old former policeman with me to negotiate with the most suspicious and conspiratorial humans on the planet? That isn’t possible.”

“Tony’s presence is, General, what the president desires,” answered Tolberg without missing a beat. She couldn’t tell through his thick formality if he was irritated with her sharpness.

“Well, Senator, the White House may think that Tony Ruiz is a nice fellow. But he has no experience. Hell, I don’t even know if this Washington State kid ever crossed the border to Canada. He also talks too much; his interruption in the Cabinet Room a few months ago was inexcusable. Remember that while we Americans like brash youngsters, it is a quality foreigners don’t appreciate.

“No,” the CIA director concluded. “I don’t want him on the plane. He can’t come.”

“General Packard, I don’t believe I was asking for your permission. You are leading this delegation. And you are the person who first brought the idea of a transcontinental crossing to the president’s attention. But you’re traveling at the president’s behest. And
he has decided that he would like somebody from the White House to join along. Tony is his choice.”

Packard was furious. This was her mission. Her idea. Her launching pad to a political future. She wasn’t about to share the limelight with a bit player.

And notwithstanding the elegant words, she knew Tolberg had just tried to put her in her place. She wasn’t about to roll over and take it.

“Senator Tolberg, don’t pull this civilian one-upsmanship on me. Like you, I’ve been around the track in this town. My trip to Moscow could instantly transform our relations with the second-mightiest nation on this planet
and
solve our energy needs for the next fifty years. This isn’t a school field trip; there can be no mistakes. I’m not about to have an under-thirty White House chaperone with me on one of this country’s most important missions.”

She could hear Tolberg hesitating. She took advantage of the silence and pressed further.

“The Russians need to hear us speak with one voice. They don’t do well with confusion, sir. They should have one clear interlocutor. This is a CIA trip. The presence of somebody from the White House, even if I am clearly the mission chief, has the potential to create misunderstanding.”

Packard thought this last bit was particularly convincing. So she decided to end magnanimously.

“There will be ample time to consider the political issues upon my return. If I’m successful in Moscow, we’ll need to think a lot about how we announce the transcontinental link. And I respect the president’s desire to make Mr. Ruiz an integral part of those discussions. He will be very helpful at that stage, I’m sure.”

Leaning back in her deep desk chair, she knew she had won this skirmish. General Packard never ceased to be impressed by how much time and energy in Washington had to be spent beating back the small incursions into one’s own territory. It was an enormous waste of effort; but there was no doubting she was very good at it.

Silence permeated the secure phone line. She said nothing, patiently awaiting Tolberg’s verbal retreat. But when he spoke, she could not believe what she was hearing.

“General Packard, you’ve known me for a long time. Unlike you, I don’t like to be blunt. I’ve always believed adults should be courteous in their professional interactions. I don’t believe in rapping people on their knuckles to get a message across.

“However, it’s obvious I haven’t been clear enough with you. President Gene Laurence believes that having a White House presence on this trip would be beneficial. Notwithstanding Mr. Ruiz’s young age, President Laurence has developed an enormous respect for his political insight. As a result, the president has asked Tony to accompany you to Moscow. I am calling you to advise you of the president’s decision, not to ask your opinion on the subject.

“Now, General Packard,” continued the chief of staff with ice in his voice, “I would like to ask you if all this is clear enough?”

Martha Packard closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She could not believe that the director of central intelligence was being forced to accept the presence of an underage agent from the president’s office.

But she had no choice.

“Yes, sir. Crystal clear.”

FRANKFURT
AUGUST 21, 2:45 P.M.
LUFTHANSA, FLIGHT
891

Anne-Sophie Perlmutter let her weight slip deep into the plane’s window seat the minute the Frankfurt-bound Lufthansa Airbus 320 lifted off from Kiev’s Boryspil State International Airport. Overwhelmed by the feeling of losing control, she tried to close her eyes.

A few hours ago, Anne-Sophie had careened down the highway from Kursk to Kiev. The Ukrainian capital was the closest airfield to her house with direct flights to Frankfurt. Over flat farmland and across the Ukrainian border, the drive had taken less than three hours.

As the airplane climbed through Eastern Europe’s overcast skies, Anne-Sophie could feel her hands tremble. The rivets that had long held up the load-bearing fixtures of her life were now buckling. Her existence had become like a runaway freight train, plodding at a steady speed down tracks that led to a precipice. So far, she hadn’t been able to find a way to alight. Hopefully, this trip to Germany would provide a road map.

Five weeks had passed since the fateful argument at her father’s house. Since then, not a single word about the fight had again crossed Daniel’s and Anne-Sophie’s lips. The two had bent over backward to be polite—particularly in front of the children.

But the lifeblood was seeping out of the couple’s relationship. The caring was draining away. Like water in a bathtub. Sucked into invisibility, gone and irretrievable.

She had tried to find a dialogue with Daniel. But he had hardly engaged. His responses had reverted to a standard monotone—neither hot nor cold. Still, Anne-Sophie had decided on a final effort, if only out of respect for over a decade together. She needed to tell herself that they had attempted to repair it.

It didn’t go well. The conversation that was supposed to be about reconstructing a way to live together had instead turned into the final rupture. Over steaming cups of coffee and croissants at Kursk’s turn-of-the-century Ustinov Café, Anne-Sophie’s attempt to reglue their marriage had unraveled into another bitter exchange about his job and Russia.

And that was before Daniel had sprung yet another one of his surprises.

“Stop exaggerating Russia’s problems,” he had admonished her a half hour into the conversation in a voice that dripped with irritation. “In the year and a half of working for Zhironovsky, I’ve come to understand that our gas is a powerful weapon against those who want to do us harm. These guys in Moscow are sophisticated. They are using gas to send a message to the world.”

“What is that message, Daniel?” asked Anne-Sophie impatiently. She had struggled to remain composed against yet another reappearance of his paranoid xenophobia.

“The message is that the fall of the Soviet Union doesn’t mean that Russia can be mistreated. We are the largest country on the planet. A world power. And we require respect. The mistake of the communists was to believe that military power and nuclear weapons were the only way to get the world’s respect.”

She hadn’t known what to say to him. But Daniel clearly had more. It was his big revelation.

“Zhironovsky has offered me a job at headquarters, in Moscow. He told me last week that we should move there. He has given me a new assignment. And I said yes. This move will solve a lot of the problems between us. You need a big city. You need to see foreigners. You need to take your mind off your little life in a little town. I can go now and you can come at the end of the school year, with the children.”

He had been excited to share the news about the family’s move. He had talked on, needing his wife to understand the alluring heights to which he now had access.

“My new job will be to take care of Volga Gaz’s international issues. And, if we are successful, we will push the Americans down a few notches. If our project works, the Americans will suddenly wake up one day and find themselves depending on Volga Gaz for a huge part of their gas needs.”

Daniel Vladimirovich Uggin’s mouth had curled into a wide smile. “We’re going to force the Americans to look at Russia in a far different light.

“So you see, Anne-Sophie,” Daniel was saying, “we’re moving to Moscow.”

Yesterday’s coffee was the very moment Anne-Sophie Perlmutter would always remember as the end of her marriage. The realization had hit her like lightning when her husband dictated his unilateral decision to move. There was no bridging the gap. She was stuck in Russia with a man who had fallen
out
of love with her and
in
love with his country and his job.

A thousand questions had zoomed through her mind—separation, moving, and, above all, the children. But she had held her tongue. She needed time. She had to get away.

“Moscow?” she lied, forcing a smile to cross her lips. “Hmm? Moving to the big city? That is something I never thought of. It could be just the right thing. Let me think about it and we can talk in a few days.

“Can I change the subject?” Anne-Sophie had asked, forcing an easy smile to her lips. “My father called to tell me he wasn’t feeling well. He is getting tests done on Monday and Tuesday at the hospital. I would like to go for a few days. You’re home for the next few days, right? Do you think that is okay? I can catch the Lufthansa flight from Kiev tomorrow afternoon.”

None of it was true. Her father was fine. But knowing the conversation might go wrong, Anne-Sophie had already planned this trip. Blaise would pick her up tomorrow. What forethought, she had said to herself, waiting for Daniel’s answer.

He hadn’t hesitated. Daniel had clearly been pleased that Anne-Sophie hadn’t rejected outright the sudden notion of moving to Russia’s capital. “Darling, you haven’t told me anything about Hermann! I’m sorry he isn’t well. Yes, of course, of course.

“Leave the children with me. Go to your father.”

FRANKFURT
AUGUST 21, 4:00 P.M.
FRANKFURT AIRPORT

Anne-Sophie squinted right and left as she walked through the terminal’s electronically rotating glass doors, pulling her small Samsonite suitcase behind her. The bright sunshine blinded her.

Traffic was a constant mess at Frankfurt’s Rhein-Main airport. Named after the two rivers that converged in Germany’s business capital, the airport was one of the world’s busiest. The terminals’ access roads were a jumble of cars, buses, taxis, shuttle vans, and masses of passengers struggling to reach their assigned lanes. Vehicles serving airport destinations such as terminal transfers, parking lots, and local hotels were directed to the near curbside. Taxis and private cars to downtown and other places in the Frankfurt metropolitan area picked up passengers fifty yards away, on mul
tiple concrete islands accessed and connected by pedestrian crosswalks.

Elite units of Germany’s border police in instantly identifiable yellow shirts walked in between cars eyeing drivers and vehicles approaching the terminal. They were heavily armed with submachine guns and protected by gray bulletproof vests. The border police did not mingle or talk to the traffic cops whose shrieking whistles and frenzied gestures moved the endless flow of cars pouring into the airport.

The chaos at Frankfurt Airport was not the picture of Teutonic orderliness one would expect in Germany’s financial center.

Anne-Sophie studied the crisscrossing directional signs that distributed passengers to their preferred means of transportation. Picking her way through the airport shuttle services to the passenger pickup islands, her attention was caught by one particularly noisy car whose horn would not stop blowing. She smiled as she recognized the driver. Not even Italian or Turkish immigrants would risk the social opprobrium that inevitably befell anyone making this much noise in Germany.

Only Blaise Ryan could be so oblivious to the rules of German etiquette.

Anne-Sophie picked up her pace and ran toward the noisy gray Ford Focus. Contrary to all rational expectation, the fact that the Ford had found its passenger did not diminish the driver’s need to make noise. In fact, Anne-Sophie noticed that her proximity to the vehicle only increased the driver’s rate of pressure on the car’s horn.

Anne-Sophie threw the Samsonite next to the compact roll-away suitcase already in the open trunk and jumped into the passenger seat. She threw her arms around her old friend. The two women embraced and kissed each other multiple times on both cheeks.

“Get your seat belt on and let’s get out of here before one of those border police guys comes and arrests us. God, they look scary!” Blaise accelerated the car forward and zigzagged between the maze
of drop-offs and pickups arrayed in front of them. Within just a few minutes, the Ford had accelerated to over 150 kilometers an hour.

“I just love your autobahns,” said Blaise, gray eyes gleaming through the streaks of red hair falling over her eyes. “There is no speed limit, and whatever the car is telling me right here is meaningless because I don’t read kilometers. I’m oblivious.”

Typical Blaise. She knew exactly that 150 kilometers per hour equaled over ninety miles per hour. But with Blaise, the truth was something that could be temporarily blurred. Not to mislead, but rather as a useful social tool to enhance pleasurable conversation.

“Don’t act so innocent. You know exactly how fast you are going,” giggled Anne-Sophie. Somehow the combination of blue sky, sunshine, and her friend’s California smile was already lifting the burden off her shoulders. “Where are we going?”

“To Heidelberg. Only an hour’s drive. You came one-tenth of the distance that I flew last night. Don’t tell me you’re tired. I landed about four hours ago—I’ve stood in a long line at passport control, had breakfast, and bought some expensive underwear in that silly shopping mall underneath the airport.”

To prove her purchase, Blaise pulled one hand off the Ford’s steering wheel to hitch up her already short skirt, revealing newly minted, orange-colored La Perla thong panties. “I also read the newspaper, rented the car, went into a smelly bathroom at the rental agency to brush my teeth and do up my hair, drove around for an hour, and now…here I am, so happy to see you!”

“Put your hand back on the wheel, you crazy woman.” Anne-Sophie was in full-scale cackle now. “Heidelberg? Why Heidelberg? Shouldn’t we just call my father and say we’re here and go to his house? Anyway, I haven’t been to Heidelberg in fifteen years. I don’t know anybody there.”

“Good,” snapped Blaise. “That is another reason on a long list of good reasons to go to Heidelberg. It’s close. It’s beautiful. I’ve never been there and have always wanted to go. We’ll be alone because, as you just told me, you don’t know anybody. It’s the inspiring home
of philosophers like Friedrich Hegel and Karl-Otto Apel. And God knows we need to do some thinking. Enough reasons?”

Blaise glanced over at the woman sitting next to her. Anne-Sophie was a shadow of her former self. She was too thin, nearly gaunt. Her sculptured face read exhaustion. Blaise wasn’t surprised—even in faraway San Francisco, the two women’s daily e-mail exchanges had given ample warning of Anne-Sophie’s state of mind.

Blaise’s right hand reached over to stroke her friend’s cheek. Though Anne-Sophie smiled broadly, Blaise’s quick look away from the windshield had picked up the gathered clouds of sadness in her friend’s eyes. The soft touch of Blaise’s hand was designed to remind Anne-Sophie that, behind the laughter, there was a soul mate who knew her. Loved her. Felt with her.

For a second, Blaise’s grin disappeared as her hand returned to the steering wheel. “The most important reason we’re going to Heidelberg is because you and I need some time alone. We need to talk, friend.”

HEIDELBERG
AUGUST 21, 6:00 P.M.
THE PHILOSOPHENWEG

In German, it is called the Philosophenweg. A tree-lined, flower-strewn walk on the northern side of the broad Neckar River, the Philosopher’s Lane was a burst of cross-river fairy-tale views toward the turrets and domes of the old city’s ramparts and castles. For seven hundred years, philosophers from Heidelberg’s Ruprecht Karls University have walked, talked, debated, and disagreed across from the magnificence on the other side of the Neckar.

Heidelberg’s original name came from the famed fruits of the great hill behind the old town—Heidelbeerenberg, or Blueberry Mountain—but it was the beautiful storybook cityscape that had
given it the reputation as Germany’s most romantic town. It was not a coincidence that the city’s most popular bumper sticker was
Ich habe mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren
.

I lost my heart in Heidelberg.

This was a place where people spilled their hearts, opened their souls. Blaise had chosen well.

An hour ago, they had checked into the Goldener Hirsch—the Golden Stag—an elegant, small hotel where Blaise had prepaid for a suite for two nights. Once in the sumptuous three-room chamber, Anne-Sophie and Blaise raided the minibar, pulling out a small bottle of champagne and a bag of cashews.

They had burst out laughing at Blaise’s imitation of the harsh look of the stout woman who had checked them in at the hotel’s reception desk. With hair mounted in a large beehive at the top of her head, the matronly clerk clearly had disapproved of the new, apparently lesbian, guests. The fat lady had resented the fact that the room’s prepayment meant she was left with no choice but to give the lodge’s best quarters to this undesirable gay couple.

Blaise had traveled far longer, so Anne-Sophie had insisted that Blaise be the first to, according to the hotel’s overwritten brochure, “luxuriate under our enormous showerhead’s wide barrage of independently delivered water pixels.” They had lounged in the hotel’s thick white bathrobes while waiting for room service to deliver the apple strudels ordered for a snack. They had made a pact with great fanfare on the run-of-show of the rest of the day’s activities: It would be a quick snack, a long walk, and a big dinner.

Now, at 7:30
P.M.
, the two women were a half hour into their stroll on the Philosopher’s Lane. The sun, still warm, but low in the western sky, extended their shadows far ahead of their bodies. Anne-Sophie told her friend about yesterday’s coffee with Daniel. She ended with his plans to move to Moscow.