Anonymous Sources (29 page)

“Amazing Grace” is one of her favorites. As she sang, she would lean down to kiss my cheek and pull the blankets back, and I could smell tea
and warm milk and love on her breath. Outside the thrum of New York traffic would be roaring to life. She would coax me to the mirror and wash my face with a warm rag, then brush my curls into pigtails. Singing the whole time.
I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. . . .

It's been years since my mother has woken me with song, and it took me a minute to work out why the memory was washing over me now. It was the first gray light of morning. The only sounds came from pipes moving water in the house upstairs and a bird chirping in a nearby tree.

Then I realized. Something in my subconscious must have been yearning for that voice, and everything it conveyed: a sense that everything in the world was fine, just fine, and that, yes, a hot bowl of porridge did lie in my immediate future.

I turned over in Elias's bed—he had gallantly taken the sofa—and tried to knead the knots out of my neck. Jet lag and exhaustion had mercifully combined to allow me several hours of sleep. But I had apparently slept with my neck twisted and my pillow in a kind of death clutch. Everything in the world was definitely not fine. I felt, to put it bluntly, petrified.

I dragged myself out of bed and down the hallway toward the kitchen. Heavy doses of either coffee or gin were going to be required to get me through the morning. Coffee seemed the more socially acceptable route at six in the morning. Coffee. I registered with fleeting interest that for the first time in days I was craving coffee, not tea: my internal switch had already flipped upon crossing the Atlantic.

In the kitchen I couldn't help cracking a smile. Last night I had not noticed the enormous, barista-style coffeemaker on the counter. It was one of those contraptions that costs $1,000 at Williams-Sonoma and can grind your beans, froth your milk, and probably toast you a bagel while it's at it.

One of the many lovely things about Elias is that he drinks espresso
the way Italians do. Which is to say, like water. He is notorious in the newsroom for disappearing on deadline, driving his editor into an apoplectic fit, and then casually reappearing with a steaming thimble of black sludge. He does not believe in milk. Or sugar. Why dilute perfection? I've seen him grimace at people emerging from Starbucks with twenty-ounce, venti pumpkin-spice lattes in hand. It seems to offend him on some deep, personal level.

I clanked around the kitchen for a bit. My second cup was brewing and I was buttering toast when Elias appeared in the doorway.

“Morning, Shorty. Coffee?”

“Um-hmm. I'm amazed you managed to figure that thing out.” He nodded toward the espresso machine. “How'd you sleep?”

I hugged my arms tight across my chest. “Okay. Considering. How about you?”

He looked ruefully back at the futon. “Okay. Considering.”

I smiled. “Any chance I could check my e-mail? I lost my laptop yesterday, as you know, and my phone too. I am officially”—I paused for effect—“off the grid.”

He regarded me with the stunned expression of a man who has not ventured out without a cell phone for the entirety of his adult life.

“Uh—sure,” he said, recovering. He left the kitchen and reappeared a minute later carrying his laptop.

I set his espresso thimble in front of him and waited. Minutes passed. Elias clicked and typed, clearly checking his own in-box, his face screwed up in concentration. I stared at him and drummed my fingers.

“In your own time,” I finally grumbled. “I mean, I've just got this little old meeting at the White House, nothing important. Wouldn't be useful at all to check the headlines and my messages beforehand.”

“Yes, okay, okay, but listen. There's an e-mail to both of us from Hyde—”

“What's he saying?” I pounced toward the screen.

“It's so weird. He's asking what we know about UTN. Well,
really asking me, I suppose. No reason you should have heard of them. But if it's the UTN I'm thinking of . . . I haven't heard that name in years.”

He looked puzzled. “Hyde says he reached an excellent source of his last night, and the guy told him there's a lot of buzz about UTN. They were these crackpot nuclear scientists from Pakistan. The leader was a real nut job . . . . What was his name again . . . ? But I thought they got shut down after 9/11. Nobody's written about them for years.”

“Let me see.” I tried to elbow Elias over so I could share the screen.

“Hang on. Just want to check . . .” He was typing furiously. “Let me bounce this off a couple folks. At least get a steer on whether Hyde's source is right. I am so
not
loving being one step behind the boss, not to mention you, on my own beat.”

I sighed. He ignored me. He was clearly not going to let me near the laptop.

“Fine,” I said. “I'm going to take a shower. And in half an hour, I am going to reappear so you can give me a primer on UTN. And let me check my mail. Okay?”

He continued ignoring me. I flounced off to the bathroom.

In fact I was ready in less than fifteen minutes, a personal record. I'd had to pull my damp hair into a knot, having discovered that Elias—being a boy—didn't own a hair dryer. The only makeup I had was what had been in my handbag, mascara and a tube of plum lipstick. My reflection in the mirror looked pale and severe. It suited my mood.

Still, the cream sheath dress I'd picked up last night fit remarkably well. And thank God I'd worn my Manolos on the plane. I slipped them on and instantly felt a little better. Some women report that lipstick has this transformative effect on them. My friend Jess swears by a certain shade of Chanel red. For me, it's always been about the shoes. I felt dressed for battle.

Back in the kitchen Elias was scowling. “No one's gotten back to me yet.”

“Well, it has been all of, like”—I consulted my watch—“seventeen minutes.”

“Yeah, but these are guys who check their e-mail every ninety seconds. Anyway, I scanned the wires. Nothing on them about UTN or even Pakistan, except there's flooding in some town I've never heard of, and there was another suicide bomb in the tribal areas.”

“A bomb?”

“Yeah, but that happens every day just about. They barely even register anymore, unless somebody important gets killed or there's a big death toll.”

“How lovely. Anything else I need to know?”

He gave me an overview on UTN. And he finally relinquished the computer so I could log in. There was the message from Hyde. Elias had already fired off a one-word answer—
Checking
—and since I had nothing to add, I left it. There were various invitations to press events, a reminder from news admin to fill out my time sheet, and a note from Jess asking if I wanted to have dinner on Sunday. Then I got to one that made me blush. The subject line of Lucien's e-mail read,
Good Morning, Luscious Legs
.

Elias, reading over my shoulder, smirked. “Should I ask?”

“Nope,” I said firmly, and logged out before he could read further. I stood up. “I need to get going. Could you call me a taxi?”

“No need. M Street is crawling with them.”

I looked dubiously at my four-inch-high heels, remembering the brick sidewalks and the steep hill the taxi had navigated to get here.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I'm coming. Give me ten minutes.”

“I'll give you five,” I said, although secretly I was relieved. It felt safer not to go out alone.

HYDE MET ME OUTSIDE THE
White House with a new cell phone.

“It's a loaner from the bureau,” he said. “I had the IT people program
it so calls to your desk in Boston will forward automatically. Your old cell number should forward too.”

I eyed it suspiciously. “Do you know whether the GPS—”

“I asked about that,” interrupted Hyde, reading my mind. “I confess I didn't quite understand all the technical mumbo jumbo. I think the takeaway was that they've tried to disable the GPS. But I must say the overnight team didn't inspire my complete confidence. So treat it with caution.”

I nodded. “Thanks. You've been busy.”

“That I have, Ms. James. And you? Did you get some sleep?” He studied me. “You're looking . . . if I may say . . . a touch seasick.”

I pinched my cheeks to put color in them. “Never better, actually. Is Jill coming?”

The paper's Washington bureau chief was not among my favorite people. Jill Hernandez possessed a vicious temper and strangely large nostrils, which opened wider still when she was angry, which was often. It was enough to make you steer well clear. Still, I figured the more people in this meeting who were at least supposed to be on my side, the better.

“She is. Now, Mr. Thottrup.” Hyde turned to Elias. “Have you been able to confirm any of the information I've been passing along? About the unfortunate Nadeem Siddiqui no longer being with us? Or why everyone's hair is on fire over this UTN outfit?”

Elias seemed to shrink. “Still working it. I've got lots of calls out. No one's getting back to me. Even the ones who usually do. I don't understand it.”

“Um-hmm. Perhaps you could keep working the phones while we're in this meeting. Perhaps you could even trouble yourself to work the hallways at the Pentagon or State? Between espresso breaks, obviously. It would be so useful, truly, to have someone besides myself producing new information.”

Elias nodded miserably.

He was saved by the arrival of Jill. She came clomping down Pennsylvania
Avenue toward us, a Dunkin' Donuts Dunkaccino mug in hand and a nylon laptop bag slung across her chest. She wore a navy suit at least two sizes too big. This was set off by beige pumps and support hose. Was it just me, or did women in this town go out of their way to look unattractive? Incredible, really, that so many sex scandals unfold in Washington, when everyone walks around dressed like suburban Sunday-school teachers.

“Good morning,” Hyde called out. “So kind of you to join our merry band.”

“Hi, Hyde,” she said curtly, before turning on me. “Good morning, Alex. Any more surprises in store for us this morning? You have no idea exactly how unpleasant you have made my last twenty-four hours.”

I smiled thinly and considered various responses, mostly along the lines of
And you have no idea exactly how unpleasant the sight of your ankles straining those granny tights is
. But both Hyde and Elias were shooting me urgent looks that meant
Zip it
.

I bit my tongue.

Jill, however, pressed on. “I sure as hell hope the two of you know what you're doing, because I certainly don't,” she spat, eyeing Hyde and me. “What a complete fucking fiasco.”

“Thank you, Ms. Hernandez,” Hyde cut across her. “That'll be enough.”

“Well, it's not as if you—”

“I said enough.”

“With
respect
, Hyde,” she said acidly, “I am the one who will be fielding phone calls for the next month—”

“With respect, Jill: Shut up.”

Elias sucked his breath in and muttered, “Whoa.” Jill must have heard it. She rounded on him. The nostrils flared. “What are you doing here? You weren't invited this morning, were you?”

Elias shook his head, his humiliation complete. “I just wanted to make sure Alex made it here okay. Off to the bureau now.”

He was turning to slink off when Jill held out the Dunkaccino mug. “Carry this back for me, will you? I don't think they'll let me take it in.”

I watched Elias fight to suppress a shudder. Then, sweet boy that he was, he reached out his hand.

That's when Hyde snapped. “For Christ's sake, Jill, you'd be bloody lucky to have them confiscate it. Vile plastic crap.” He snatched it from her hands and started marching toward the White House gate.

“Let's go then, both of you,” he called over his shoulder. “ ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more—' ”

I rolled my eyes.

“Oh, come on,” said Hyde. “This is going to be fun.”