1 Chapter 1
Washington, DC12 November 2010Ian
IT WAS FRIDAY, it was early November, it was rainy and cold, and I was thoroughly miserable as I walked across the Georgetown University campus from my tiny office in the history department to M Street, then through the heart of Georgetown to Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington Circle, and finally 23rd Street until I arrived at the Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro Station. I wished for the hundredth time that I’d elected to drive to work that morning, and a poem by the nineteenth century poet Thomas Hood began running through my brain:
No sun—no moon!
No morn—no noon!
No dawn—no dusk—no proper time of day—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!—
No-vember!
WHEN I WAS IN the station, safely underground and out of the weather, I inserted my fare card in the slot at the turnstile and, when it popped back out, made my way to the appropriate platform, and waited patiently for the next outbound Orange Line train, which at that time of the day was a very short wait. Once I was on my train, I settled down, and by the time it stopped at the Virginia Square-GMU station in suburban Arlington, my gloomy demeanor had somewhat brightened. That change in mood was short-lived, however, and went into an immediate downward spiral once I emerged from the station and contemplated the weather—it had gotten progressively worse during my subway ride.
As was typical for that time of day and that kind of weather, a number of taxis were queuing up outside the station, so I decided to splurge rather than walk a few blocks in the rain. The eager cab driver became considerably less so when I gave him my address, and he managed to make it clear that a trip of only a few blocks was hardly worth his time and trouble. I gave him a taste of what my students referred to as ‘the look’—and it proved to be as successful in intimidating him as it was with my students in the fifteen years I’d been teaching, and he ceased his muttering. When the taxi stopped in front of our house, I dashed up the walk, onto the porch, and out of the rain.
As I opened the storm door to unlock the front door, I sensed motion at my feet and looked down. What appeared to be a FedEx overnight envelope was lying at my feet—it had evidently been propped against the front door. I picked up the envelope, tucked it under my arm, and unlocked the front door.
Inside the house, the silence was deafening, except for the beeping of the alarm, which I quickly silenced. The boys had started their first year of college as roommates at The Citadel in September, and even after two months, it still felt odd to come home to a house that wasn’t filled with the noise of two teenagers and their friends.
In the master bedroom, I quickly spread my damp suit on the bed to dry and pulled on a set of warm-ups. Grabbing my briefcase and the FedEx envelope, I headed downstairs to the basement, after a quick detour to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine.
The house occupied a lot that sloped quickly down from street level and ended at the edge of a rather deep ravine. This meant that the basement, as well as the two-car garage underneath the house, was at ground level at the rear of the house. I went into what was ostensibly a storage room and walked over to the built-in shelves along one wall, where I pressed a hidden button. A section of the shelves swung out on silent hinges, revealing an armored door protected by an electronic keypad. I unlocked the door, stepped onto the landing beyond, and pulled it shut behind me, knowing that when I did so, the section of shelves would automatically swing back into place.
At the bottom of a short flight of steps was our private study, which we called the safe room, because it was totally secure from prying eyes and ears. My partner and I needed that level of safety because he worked with high-level security matters at the Pentagon and often brought paperwork home with him. In addition, I had a clandestine secondary career as an analyst for one of the so-called ‘alphabet’ agencies that dealt with security matters. No, it’s neither the CIA, the FBI, nor any of the other agencies with which you might be familiar. The group for whom I work part-time is so secret that only a half-dozen people in DC are even aware of its existence.
