"Who are you, then?" I asked.

She thought for a second, weighing the truth versus a possible lie. The truth won out. "My name's not Beverly Sands, it's Agent Valerie Jensen," she said. "I'm with the NSA."

"Since when do you guys have field agents?"

"We don't. Just like we also don't bug phones," she said, standing. Without the slightest hint of modesty, she hiked up her white sundress, reholstering her .38 along her inner thigh. "C'mon, we've got to get back to the party."

I stood up, falling in line behind her. We were ten feet from the door when she suddenly motioned for me to stop.

The next thing I knew, she was kissing me.

CHAPTER 87.

BEFORE I could figure out what the h.e.l.l was going on, the door of Brennan's office opened. The hinges had the distinct sound of a train flying off the tracks.

Immediately, Valerie broke away from me. We'd been caught in the act: our mouths agape, eyes wide with surprise. But between the two of us, I was the only one not acting.

Valerie had heard the footsteps and had seen the turn of the door handle. Talk about thinking fast on your feet. Agent Jensen was even faster with her lips.

"Are you two cheating?" the young girl asked.

Staring at us with her arms crossed, waiting for an answer, was the Brennans' nine-year-old daughter, Rebecca.

"Cheating?" asked Valerie.

"You know, like, having an affair? You came to the party with a different man," Rebecca said. "I saw you, don't lie."

"No ... no, honey," I said, shifting quickly into denial mode. It was pure reflex. "We were just-"

Valerie cut me off faster than a New York City cabdriver. "Yes, you caught us," she said. "We're having an affair."

I looked at her, stunned. Did you really just say that?

She really did.

Little Rebecca nodded with the kind of self-satisfied grin kids get when a grown-up treats them like a grown-up. She pointed at me.

"You better be careful, then," she said. "I saw this movie on TV, and when the husband found out, he killed the other guy with a snow globe."

"Ooh, I've seen that movie, too," said Valerie. She turned to me, raising her hands to act it out. "You get hit right in the head with the snow globe-bam!-and blood starts gushing down your forehead and-"

"I know, I know!" said Rebecca excitedly. She was rocking from her heels to her tiptoes. "Wasn't it gross?"

"Totally gross," said Valerie. "Like, gag me with a giant spoon."

Rebecca giggled. "You're funny," she said. "You're also really pretty."

"Thank you," said Valerie. "I think you're really pretty, too."

"You think so?"

"Yes, and your mother tells me that you go to the Sidwell Friends School, so I bet you're really smart, too."

Rebecca liked every word she was hearing. "Did you know that Sasha and Malia Obama go there?"

"I did know that," said Valerie. "Have you met them?"

"Yeah, they're nice, which is cool because they really don't have to be, I guess."

I kept doing the smartest thing I could do at that point, and that was keep my big mouth shut. Brilliantly, effortlessly, Valerie was bonding with this girl quicker than Krazy Glue. Sooner rather than later, though, she'd have to ask the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Can you keep a secret?

But out of nowhere, another question beat us to it. Oh, no ...

"Rebecca, what are you doing?" he asked.

CHAPTER 88.

WE ALL froze as Mr. Henchman appeared in the doorway. As he glared at Valerie and me, it was the closest I'd ever come to being able to read another man's mind.

Two random guests where they absolutely shouldn't be. Whatever's going on, it isn't right.

"You know you're not supposed to be in here," he said to Rebecca. There was little doubt, though, that he was talking to all three of us. "You could really get in trouble."

Valerie and I looked at Rebecca, our collective fate now in the hands of a nine-year-old ginned up on the movie Unfaithful.

I was starting to think we didn't have a snow globe's chance in h.e.l.l.

Especially when Mr. Henchman applied the full-court press. "Well, Rebecca? What am I supposed to tell your father?"

Then again, some kids you can only press so far.

"Geez, Walt, don't have a cow!" she bellowed. "I was just giving them a tour of the house." Both her hands then landed squarely on her hips. "But if you're so desperate to tell my father something, maybe it should be how you like to drink all his liquor when he's not home."

Oh, snap. Out of the mouths of babes ...

Never had I seen a guy so big back down so fast. The upper hand now wore pink nail polish with glitter.

And on that note ...

"Thank you again for the tour, Rebecca. I think I'll be getting back to the party now," said Valerie.

"Yes, I really should be getting back, too," I added. "But this certainly has been fun."

I followed Valerie out of Brennan's office while "Walt" remained behind to chat a little more with Rebecca. If I had to guess, I'd say he was negotiating a keep-silent agreement with her in order to keep his job.

For a few seconds, at least, Valerie and I were alone again.

"Come here," she said, quickly pulling me over to the wall in the hallway. Next thing I knew, she was moving toward my mouth again.

"What are you doing?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Counselor," she said, her thumb removing a smudge of her lipstick from my lower lip. She was cleaning me up, that was all. "Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss."

She took a step back, making sure she'd gotten it all. A satisfied nod told me she had.

"So now what?" I asked.

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether what you suspect about Brennan is true," she said.

"And if it is?"

She smiled. "Then you and me? This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

CHAPTER 89.

ONE HOUR later, and from one hot seat into another.

I kept shifting around in my chair, trying to get comfortable, but I knew it wasn't the chair. It was me. I had that uneasy feeling, the kind you get when you think you're being watched. Only, in this case, I knew for sure I was being watched.

In the parking lot. In the lobby. In the elevator. In the hallway. And ultimately, in the conference room. There were cameras everywhere. Everything was being recorded.

Welcome to the NSA's headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland.

"What fun have you brought us now, Valerie?" asked Jeffrey Crespin.

Based on his tone alone, I was fairly certain the word fun in that question bore little resemblance to the actual definition of the word. Suffice it to say, Valerie Jensen had never been awarded Employee of the Month.

No wonder, really. When I'd asked her before the meeting why an agent working undercover would risk drawing so much attention to herself with her skeet shooting exhibition on Brennan's lawn, she told me she simply couldn't help it. Quote, "I just hate those p.e.n.i.s-measuring contests that men always have."

Crespin, who was introduced to me as a deputy director of some counterterrorism division I'd never heard of, listened patiently in his suit and tie as Valerie-now in sweatpants, a Northwestern T-shirt, and a ponytail-finished briefing him about her Sat.u.r.day afternoon at Brennan's house, which had necessitated her dragging Crespin away from a charity dinner and into the office on a Sat.u.r.day night.

The long and short of it? Their ongoing investigation to prove Shahid Al Dossari was helping to launder Saudi money that was ending up in the hands of Al Qaeda operatives had suddenly collided with some Columbia Law School professor posing as a writer with the Times and his unseen partner, who were conducting their own little investigation.

"Only it's not so little," said Valerie. That was when she turned to me and nodded. It was my turn to talk.

But before I could get two words out of my mouth, Crespin interrupted me. "Where's this partner, the one you were on the phone with at Brennan's house?" he asked.

"That's part of the agreement," I answered.

Crespin c.o.c.ked his head at Valerie. He definitely didn't like the sound of that. "What agreement?"

"Let's just say the partner has trust issues," Valerie explained. "The agreement I made with Mr. Mann is that he would come here voluntarily in exchange for being able to come alone."

"Do you at least know where this person is?" asked Crespin.

"I don't," she answered. "But Mr. Mann does."

He was staring at me again. "And I suppose that's going to remain your secret, right? Who he is ... who he works for?"

"Yes, but I know of a way you could probably get it out of me," I said, grabbing the segue. "That is, if it didn't kill me first."

With that, I took out a flash drive containing the recordings Owen had first shown me, along with the ones from Dr. Wittmer. The stage was mine again. Or, at least, I was making it mine.

Valerie had a laptop booted up and ready to go. This was her second viewing within the hour. I dispensed with any preface and simply clicked Play.

I'd only just met Crespin, but I was hardly surprised to see him stare at the screen stone-faced as he watched. The guy was stoic. Like a doctor. I hardly expected him to recoil at the sight of torture.

But there was something.

It happened at the beginning of one of Wittmer's recordings-the detainee who was cooperating under the influence of the serum but was still killed by it. The very moment the guy's face was visible on-screen, Crespin glanced at Valerie. And Valerie glanced back.

"What?" I asked. "What is it?"

"Nothing," said Valerie.

But I knew the sound of that nothing. It was the same nothing I'd told Detective Lamont and his partner, McGeary, when they were showing me the recording of Claire's murder on the CrackerJack: the moment when she stuffed her phone behind the seat.

Yeah, that nothing from Valerie?

It was definitely something.