The Enemy Within (14 page)

“Well,” she said, nodding back toward the knot of officers standing near the doorway. “What did you think of Peter Thorn?”

“He’s an interesting man.” Helen took a last sip of wine, carefully considering her response. “A very interesting man.”

JULY
8

Falls Church, northern Virginia.

“Senior administration officials that the most interesting development at this U.N. conference on security and international development Is something that wasn’t on the official agenda at all: a series of private meetings between U.S. Secretary of State Austin Brookes and his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmad Adeli. Sources close to both governments have characterised these meetings the first between high-ranking American and Iranian officials in more than ten years as surprisingly cordial and productive.”

Colonel Peter Thorn turned his head toward the open bathroom door and paused with his hands halfway through the convoluted process of turning a thin strip of colored silk into a perfectly knotted necktie. He’d left the television on both out of habit and from a desire for some noise to break the silence enveloping his rented town house.

“During the talks, Minister Adeli is said to have confirmed his government’s hopes for the eventual restoration of full diplomatic and commercial ties with the United States. Apparently, only the fear of angering Islamic radicals still entrenched in the Iranian Parliament remains a minor stumbling block.

“Appearing before reporters this afternoon, the usually reserved American Secretary of State seemed a different man smiling broadly and even cracking a few jokes with members of the press. If these reports are accurate, it’s not hard to understand his newly expansive mood. Long under fire for his dull personality and haphazard management style, Austin Brookes must be savoring the prospect of achieving the high-profile diplomatic victory denied his predecessors in three previous administrations.

“This is Terrence Nakamura, reporting live from Geneva, Switzerland, for
CNN
.”

Thorn snorted and finished knotting his tie. Uninterested in world currency fluctuations, he tuned out the rest of the broadcast. He didn’t know whether to be amused or simply disgusted. Like most lawyers and all politicians, the Secretary of State was only too happy to claim credit for the work done by others. If General Amir Taleh hadn’t had the guts to smash the radical hold on his own government, Brookes and the rest of his State Department stuffed shims would still be at receptions passing each other glasses of dry sherry aRt drier position papers.

He shrugged his momentary irritation away. You couldn’t change the ways of politicians any more than you could repeal the laws of physics.

Thorn studied his reflection in the mirror, turning his face first one way and then the other to make sure he’d hit all the right spots with his razor. Satisfied, he tugged at the collar of his blue button-down shirt, loosening it just a touch to let some oxygen down his windpipe. He looked more critically at his reflected image, eyeing the shirt, patterned red tie, and lightweight grey suit with a slight frown. They made him look more like a typical D.C. bureaucrat than he cared to at the moment. As a Delta Force operator, Thorn was used to wearing civilian clothes, but his personal tastes off duty ran more to blue jeans and boots than wool slacks and dress shoes.

Buck up, boyo, he told himself sternly. This was a special occasion after all. It had taken nearly two weeks of fairly regular phone calls, but he and Helen Gray had finally managed to synchronise their busy schedules for an evening out. He intended to make the most of it. Besides, Washington’s finer dining establishments usually had a particular place reserved for people who showed up in casual clothes. They called it the exit.

Thorn checked his watch, swore at himself, and grabbed his car keys off his nightstand on the way downstairs and out the door. He’d made a reservation at Stannard’s one of the capital’s most elegant restaurants for eight o’clock. It was already past seven.

Nearly an hour later, Thorn pushed his way into the Stannard Hotel’s packed foyer. The blast of overworked airconditioning came as a much-needed relief after his dash through the hot, muggy evening outside.

Despite his best efforts, he was late. First, some idiot had stalled out on
rteenth Street Bridge, tying northbound traffic into knots. That was bad, but even a few weeks in the D.C. area had taught him to allow for delays on the highways. What he hadn’t anticipated was the near-total gridlock on the capital’s downtown streets long after the normal working day had come to a close. For a lot of people in this town, parking apparently meant double-parking, turning their blinkers on, and then going off to run errands. As a result, the crowded streets off Pennsylvania Avenue were a zoo down to one lane in places and full of pedestrians darting across without bothering to look for oncoming traffic..

Stannard’s small, richly appointed lobby was a sea of suits and evening dresses jammed with people waiting for tables who had spilled out of an adjoining bar with drinks in hand and their voices at full volume. Thorn slid through the throng, searching for Helen halt afraid she wasn’t there and half hoping that she, too, was late.

“Peter! Over here!”

He turned toward the familiar voice with relief and saw Helen Gray smiling at him. Smart woman, he thought. She’d taken a station in a corner near the entrance to the dining room, shielding herself from the worst of the crush while still securing a good vantage point. He made his way to her side with all possible speed.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said hurriedly.

“You should be.” Her eyes twinkled. “I’ve already been propositioned by an Arab sheik, a labor lawyer, and a dairy industry lobbyist.”

Ouch. Thorn looked carefully at the floor and then back at her. He shook his head soberly. “I don’t see any bodies. What happened? Your pistol jam?”

Helen laughed. “No. I left it at home. It didn’t go with the dress.”

She was right, Thorn decided, a 9mm Beretta would definitely look out of place on the elegantly dressed woman in front of him.

He’d thought the black number he’d first seen her in at Fort Bragg was nice, but the dress she had on now was stunning. It was cut low enough to show off her tanned shoulders and the upper curves of her firm, perfectly proportioned breasts. It was the kind of dress that invited open admiration from men and barely concealed envy from other women. It was a dress he thought would look even better on its way off. Down boy, down! he told his libido, wondering again what it was about this woman, out of all women, that made him think and act so much like an oversexed, under brained teenager.

He cleared his throat and sought more neutral mental ground. “Maybe we’d better see about getting our table.”

“Absolutely,” Helen agreed. From the satisfied look on her face she’d probably been reading his mind.

She nodded toward the tall, imposing figure of a manta stiff and fommal in a tuxedo and firmly ensconced behind a lectern at the entrance to Stannard’s oak-paneled dining room. “I tried to check in earlier, but Prince Charming there seems to think that only someone named Thorn can confirm a reservation made by someone named Thorn.”

Her voice left no doubt about her feelings toward the kind of person who would uphold such an idiotic policy. Thorn had a sudden vision involving punji sticks, barbed wire, honey, and an anthill. He shook his head, very glad he wasn’t in the other man’s pointy black shoes, and led her up to the lectern.

Thirty seconds later he was beginning to plan his own prolonged and painful revenge on the Castro d’.

He gritted his teeth and tried again. “Look, my name is Peter Thorn. I made a reservation for eight o’clock tonight two days ago. Check your book.”

“Yes, sir.” The restaurant’s maltre d’ seemed completely unimpressed.

“I have checked. Your reservation is perfectly in order.” He offered them a bland, disinterested smile. “But I am afraid we are running slightly behind schedule this evening. I will be happy to seat you as soon as the first available table opens up.”

“And just when will that be?”

“Not very long.” The other man pursed his lips, making a pretence of giving the matter some thought. “Not longer than half an hour, I would guess. Certainly not more than forty-five minutes.”

“Forty-five minutes?” Thorn held a tight rein on his temper. He’d only picked Stannard’s because some of the other officers in the Pentagon mess had described the place as a Washington landmark. He was beginning to realize that wasn’t any kind of guarantee of good service. More and more, John F. Kennedy’s description of the capital city as a place that combined southern efficiency with northern courtesy seemed right on target.

The maitre d’s bored eyes slid past him and brightened. “Ah, Senator! It is delightful to see you.”

“Thank you, Henry. My committee meeting ran a little over tonight. Can you squeeze me in?”

Thorn glanced around far enough to catch a profile made famous by years of network television news coverage and tabloid scandal.

“Of course, Senator.” The maitre d’ snatched up a leather-bound menu from his stand and gestured toward the dining room. “Please follow me, I have just the right table for you.”

Thorn watched him go through narrowed eyes. Why, that pompous, lying, no-good son of a bitch. Overhearing snatches of some of the snide, cynical conversations going on around him only fed his growing anger.

“So the chairman said to him, ‘You either play ball on this amendment, Phil, or you can kiss that new overpass goodbye…’ ”

“... the old bastard’s screwing his administrative assistant worse than he is the taxpayers…”

“We slipped some language into the rider to smooth the hicks over, but Morgan may be a problem…”

Thorn shook his head in disgust. D.C. landmar0′ dots this was not his kind of place. Worse, he was probably batting a big fat .000 in Helen’s eyes. He heard a muffled chuckle from her direction and turned toward her.

The look of amused sympathy on her face restored some of his good humor. If she wasn’t holding this fast-developing fiasco against him, it still wasn’t too late to salvage something from this evening. He shrugged ruefully. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

She grinned back. “Yep. I certainly am. I say we blow this Popsicle stand. I prefer eating without all the pomp, circumstance, and hot air.”

Thorn started to relax. Maybe he’d been trying too hard to impress her. “How about Thai food?”

Helen nodded vigorously. “Now, that sounds wonderful. And the hotter the better.”

“Yes, ma’am,”he said, smiling. “There’s a little mom and-pop Thai place not far from my house that’s pretty good. If you don’t mind following me out there, that is.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I think I can manage it. You are looking at an Academy grad with straight As in surveillance and close pursuit, you know.” She paused. “Do they offer takeout at this restaurant of yours?”

He nodded.

“Great. Then we can eat at your place.”

“My place?”

Helen laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those messy bachelors, Peter. The kind that lets dirty clothes and dirty dishes pile up.”

He felt a slow, wide grin forming on his face. “Nope. I come from a long line of God-fearing men with clean bodies and dirty minds.”

She reached out and took his arm. “Oh, good. Those are the best kind.”

When Thorn first moved to the Washington, D.C., area, he’d seriously considere~renting a studio apartment in Crystal City high-rises overlooking the Pentagon. Living there would be convenient and reasonably inexpensive, he’d thought. Three days spent in one of the neighboring hotels had wiped that plan right out of his mind. Holding down a staff billet in the Pentagon’s bureaucratic swamp was draining enough. Combining that with being cooped up in a noisy cage a couple of hundred feet above street level seemed a surefire recipe for going buggy in record time.

Determined to keep as much of his sanity as possible, he’d gone house-hunting with a vengeance, scouring the northern Virginia neighborhoods he’d ringed on a map until he found quarters he could tolerate for a year. He’d finally decided to rent the upper half of a redbrick town house right on the border between Falls Church, Arlington, and Alexandria. It was just off the Columbia Pike and an easy twenty-minute commute to the Pentagon. Better still, the town house complex backed onto a tiny, wooded state park. It was quiet and private enough so that he could at least pretend he wasn’t living elbow-to-elbow with several million other people.

Thorn pushed the front door open with his foot and stepped aside to let Helen in first. His arms were full of warm takeout containers. Delicious smells wafted up from them a mouthwatering blend of garlic, peanut sauce, onion, chicken, and shrimp.

Helen was already down the hall and inspecting his kitchen by the time he finished closing the door. He followed her in and deposited their dinners on a tile counter near the empty sink.

She straightened up from his open refrigerator. “Well, I see you have plenty of the two basic bachelor food groups beer and microwave dinners.”

“Hey!” He pretended to be hurt. “I’m not totally uncivilized. There are plates in one of those cupboards over there. Heck, I’ve even got silverware somewhere around here.”

Her eyes sparkled again. “My, oh, my. I am impressed.”

Helen drifted out into the combination living room while he pulled out plates, forks, and spoons. Except for a sofa, a coffee table, and a wall unit for his CD player and television, the room was empty. Boxes stacked neatly beside the sofa held an assortment of hardbacks, paperbacks, and professional military journals. There were no pictures on the walls. A sliding glass door opened onto a narrow balcony overlooking the woods.

“It certainly looks like you’re settling right in, Peter,” she teased, poking her head back into the kitchen.

“Now, there’s a direct hit,” he admitted. “I left most of my stuff in storage. The people renting my house outside Fort Bragg said they were looking for a furnished place anyway.”