Anonymous Sources (43 page)

“Sure.”

At the door he hesitated. “I'm sorry you got so mixed up in this. But you're safe now. It's over.”

“Yes. I think it finally is.”

HYDE STEPPED OUT INTO THE
hall while I changed.

It didn't take long.

My filthy dress had been removed from the room, surely headed for the garbage chute. Or perhaps for police evidence. I could think of at least three people's blood that might be spattered on it. That was counting my own. I might be the first woman since Monica Lewinsky to have my dress confiscated as evidence in a national crisis. Blech.

When I appeared, I was wearing the now dusty Tod's flats, a baggy set of blue nurse scrubs, and the bandages turban.

Hyde looked guiltily at me. He slid off his suit jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“Not much longer now,” he whispered. “Then you can rest.”

“I gather it's not my best look.”

“Nonsense. You look smashing. Surgical scrubs are all the rage this season, everyone knows that. Now, let's go.”

He steered me into the corridor. McNamara was waiting.

“You'll want to go this way,” he said protectively. “There's a pack of reporters down that hall.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Waiting for you.”

“For
me
?”

“A guy caught that whole scene on the hotel ledge on his cell phone. The video's been playing over and over on TV. You're the story now, I imagine.”

I shot an alarmed look at Hyde.

“Well, you did manage to kill off most of the other protagonists.” He shrugged. “There's no one else left to interview.”

I sighed. We headed down the hallway, McNamara steering us toward a back elevator.

Hyde had his phone out, scrawling through messages. “They've found his plane. Tusk had a Cessna gassed up and waiting for him at Freeway Airport out in Bowie.” Hyde kept reading, snorted. “Elias has it from a good source that all they found in the plane was a duffel bag stuffed with fake passports, and a half-starved cat.”

“Philby,” I said.

“You know his
cat
?”

“It was jumping all over him. When I interviewed Tusk, out at Langley. He said it lived in his office. Said Philby was—how did he put it? ‘One of the milder eccentricities' out there.”

Hyde had stopped walking and stared at me. “Philby. You're telling me that Tusk had a cat . . . named
Philby
?”

I looked at him, puzzled. “Yes, that's what I said.”

Hyde whistled. “Well, the man might have been a complete psychopath, but he had a sense of humor.”

“I'm not following.”

“Kim Philby. British spy? Turned double agent and sold secrets to Moscow? Maybe the most famous spy ring ever? Come on, those guys all met at Cambridge University. You of all people should know them.”

The name was starting to sound familiar. But I hadn't made the connection before. Apparently no one at the CIA had either. Or more likely, they had, and it was an inside joke.

“Christ, it's frightfully clever,” said Hyde, on a roll now. “We ought to be able to do something with that. . . .” He snapped his fingers. “I've got it! I'll wake up Charlie Swift in London and get him to whip up a sidebar feature. About how Tusk was parading around CIA headquarters with a cat named for the most notorious double agent in MI6 history. Then again . . . no. No, it's too good to waste on Charlie. I'll write it myself.” He started tapping away on his phone.

I yawned. An exit sign glowed ahead. The fluorescent hospital lights hurt my brain. How many days since I had slept? It required all my concentration to stay upright.

Hyde glanced at me and stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “Come on, you've got a scoop to write. You dictate. I'll type. Elias will help. And we'll make Jill go out and buy us doughnuts.”

We grinned at each other.

When we stepped outside, the heat had broken. It was raining, a steady downpour coating the sidewalk. I pulled Hyde's jacket up over my head to keep the bandages dry. McNamara waved down a taxi. It splashed through a puddle as it pulled up, soaking us. Water sloshed between my toes.

Hyde reached out a damp arm to open the car door.

He caught my eye.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I knew what he was thinking. It was just the right weather for a Burberry coat.

    

    

I
am not fearless anymore.

That was one of the consequences of last summer, and of the strange chain of events that began—for me at least—with the death of Thomas Carlyle.

I miss it sometimes. Not the nights on my kitchen floor, or the grief that drove me to scratch myself and rip out fistfuls of my own hair. They haven't gone away, not entirely. Some sorrow is unending.

But I do miss the fearlessness that comes from believing you have nothing to lose. Because now I do. That's a story for another day. Suffice to say that Lucien and I were not quite finished with each other. I have
yet to strangle him, although he tempts me daily. Most mornings now he wakes up beside me. Given the number of expensively tailored suits he has shifted to my hall closet, he seems to consider this a permanent arrangement.

The answer to Tusk's question, meanwhile, is yes. I would like to live to be a mother someday. I had never admitted that to myself. Strange, the truths that come to you, dangling off a ledge one hundred feet up. I imagine giving birth again will be the most terrifying thing I've ever done. Given everything that has happened, that's saying something.

Now, do not get the impression that last summer left me an entirely changed woman.

I still drink too much.

I still spend too much money on ludicrously impractical shoes. I adore them. So sue me.

But now a thin, white scar snakes above my left eye. Elias says that combined with my fiery hair, it makes me look like a pirate. I tell him he's just jealous. He retaliates by launching into an impression of Captain Jack Sparrow. Life goes on.

I did find it hard, after my brush with covering nuclear terrorism, to summon enthusiasm for the ivory-tower beat. So I switched beats and moved cities. I live in Washington now. I've started over. I've had to pay my dues again, covering the mundane, bread-and-butter stories that fill the inside pages of the
Chronicle
.

But I've been digging. Hustling. And do you know what? Just this week, there it was. The old itchy feeling. The itchy feeling I get when I'm onto a story, but I don't quite know yet what it is.

What do you want to bet I have a good time figuring it out?

W
riting a novel is a solitary endeavor, so it's remarkable to contemplate how many people played a role in making this one a reality.

My thanks have to start with my colleagues at NPR. Barbara Rehm and Loren Jenkins created the intelligence beat for me and then supported me in every possible way. My editors Bruce Auster, Ted Clark, and Steve Drummond have talents bordering on the magical; every script they touch emerges better. Chris Turpin and Madhulika Sikka made room on their shows for my spy stories (nearly) every time I asked. Steve Inskeep believed in me and in this book at moments when I wanted to quit.

Dick Clarke, Simon Conway, Bill Harlow, David Ignatius, and Allison Leotta shared insights from the trenches on how the heck to get a first novel published these days. I owe a debt to Steve Coll, for incisive reporting on all kinds of subjects, and from whom I learned that bananas get waved past radiation detectors. Matthew Bunn and Jeffrey Richelson patiently explained how nuclear devices and NEST teams work. Gordon Corera set me straight on MI6 lingo. Any mistakes are mine.

I am indebted to everyone at Gallery/Simon & Schuster, including Louise Burke, Jen Bergstrom, and most especially my editor Kathy Sagan. Thank you for taking a chance on me.

It is no exaggeration to say this book would not exist without my amazing agent, Victoria Skurnick. She made me rewrite it twice, and that was before she agreed to take me on as a client. (Sample comment on an early draft: “This is pretty bad. Actually, it's awful.”) That it got better is testament to Victoria's talent. My sincere gratitude to her, to Jim Levine, and to the entire team at the Levine-Greenberg Literary Agency.

I smile just thinking about Becca and Jim Zug, who between them boast both the most infectious laugh ever, and an inspirational collection of kitchen gadgets. Anne Mitchell volunteered her guest room and her wise counsel at critical points along this journey. Susie King has been by my side in Washington and at the bottom of icy slopes in Wyoming. To Sasha, Kate, Kat, Paula, Christina, Kerry, Kathy, Tracy, Meg, and Jess, aka the Forces of Nature: It was twenty years ago that we threw the party to end all parties at the top of the Eliot House bell tower. I didn't know then that I might use the setting in a novel one day. But I did know those women would stick with me. And so they have. Together we have survived bad haircuts and broken hearts and hurricanes, not to mention some truly hideous bridesmaids' dresses (I plead guilty). My circle of Harvard friends ranks among my greatest blessings. Thank you for embracing this latest project with your usual gusto!

I had the enormous good fortune to marry into a huge, loud, crazy, and wonderful Scottish family. When combined, the Boyle, Farquhar,
and McNamara clans make up roughly half the population of Scotland, and if they each follow through on their promise to buy a copy, this book will do just fine.

On this side of the Atlantic, my brother, C.J., provided probably the most helpful (and definitely the most entertaining) comments of my early readers. There really aren't words adequate to thank my parents, Jim and Carol Kelly. They have championed my writing since the fourth grade, when I founded the
Lemons Ridge Bugle
and enlisted Mom to write the Recipe of the Month column, and Dad to pick up the photocopying bill. I never quite grasped how much they've done for me, until Nick and I produced two miscreants of our own.

Anonymous Sources
was mostly written in a sunny room in Italy, with my husband delivering a steady stream of espresso throughout the day. At a certain point each afternoon he would switch me from coffee to Chianti, and that's usually when the writing got good. We worked out the plot together, on long, looping runs through olive groves, with me agonizing over the latest way I'd managed to paint a character into a corner, and Nick coming up with a brilliant way to fix it. If there is a heaven on earth, it is racing your husband down a hill in Tuscany, swapping ideas for how to kill off your villain. (Peach, I am saving the death by silver-tipped cane for the sequel.)

Our sons are the reason I wrote this book. I wanted to find a way to do what I love, and still be there every day when they came home from school. Alexander and James, you are too young to read this story. But you already know that I named Alexandra James for you. When you're old enough to read it, I hope you like her, and I hope you know that your mother loves you, so much.