“I guess Sir James was grooming me all that time. Right schools, right training, right contacts. It seemed inevitable.”
“In spite of what you wanted, you mean?”
She took a sip of the beer, holding it in her mouth a moment before swallowing. “I ask myself that from time to time.”
“And what’s the answer?”
“It changes. And maybe I’m right where I need t
o be. Maybe I can even find out what really happened to my poor dad.” She pushed her plate away and sat back, put her feet up on the porch railing. “What about you? You and Sir James obviously go way back. And he knows things about you I guess I never will.”
“They would mean nothing to you.”
“What did it feel like, to do what you did?”
Stone rose and stared out at the tombstones in the fading light. The weather in D.C., miserably hot and humid in the summer, and uncomfortably raw in the winter, could suddenly evolve to times like this, when the climate was perfect and you wished the day would never end.
She stood next to him. “Look I won’t push it,” Chapman said quietly. “It’s really none of my business.”
“It got to the point where I didn’t feel anything anymore,” Stone said.
“But how did you get out?”
“I’m not sure I ever did.”
“Was it your wife?”
Stone turned to her. “I thought your boss was more discreet.”
“It wasn’t him,” she said hastily. “I just made a guess based on my own observations.”
“What observations?” Stone said sharply.
“Of you,” she answered simply. “Of things that matter to you. Like friends.”
Stone turned away. “Good guess,” he said.
“So why did you come back in the fold? After that?”
“I guess I could say I had no choice.”
“I think someone like you would always have a choice.”
Stone didn’t speak for a long time. He just kept staring at the graves. A breeze rippled over them and Chapman wrapped her arms around herself.
“I have a lot of regrets,” Stone said finally.
“So this is about making amends?”
“I don’t think I can ever make amends, Agent Chapman.”
“Please, just call me Mary. We’re off duty now.”
He glanced at her. “Okay, Mary. Have you ever killed anyone? Intentionally?”
“Once.”
Stone nodded. “And how did you feel?”
“Happy at first. That it wasn’t me dead. And then I felt sick. I’d been trained to do it, of course, but—”
“No training can prepare you for it.”
“I guess not.” She clenched the porch railing. “So how many people do you reckon you’ve killed?”
“Why does it matter to you?”
“I guess it doesn’t. And it’s not morbid curiosity. I… I don’t know what it is, exactly.”
Before Stone could answer his cell phone buzzed. It was Tom Gross.
“We’re back on duty, Agent Chapman,” said Stone.
Gross took another swallow of his coffee, his brow a mass of wrinkles.
“Something else?” prompted Stone, who was studying the man carefully.
When Gross spoke he lowered his voice to a level where Stone and Chapman had to lean forward to hear. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think our side is watching us. Screwing with us, I mean. That’s why I asked to meet you two here.”
Chapman said, “Our side? Why do you think that?”
Gross looked at Stone warily. “I know you’re with NSC, and frankly I’ve pulled too many years to blow my career, but I’m also not going to sit pat and pretend everything is fine either.”