Nobody was more avid for publicity than a senator without seniority. That was why Senator Kenneth Cahill, a freshman from Nebraska, fit the bill perfectly. During the campaign he doubtless received plenty of ink in the local papers; once he was elected, he and his staffers would have been maddened by the ensuing dome of silence. People who run for public office seldom relish silence.

The gambit was childishly easy. When “John Miles” from the Associated Press phoned his office, requesting an interview on the subject of a “key provision” Cahill had supported in an Interior Appropriations bill—half a million dollars for upgrades to the Littleton Wastewater Treatment Plant, and county-wide improvements to the storm-water collection system in Jefferson County—the senator had responded just as Belknap had predicted. Cahill’s staffers had practically offered to send a car for him.

Nor did Belknap choose his affiliation randomly. Associated Press reporters, he knew, were generally anonymous, and, as an additional precaution, he had made it clear that he wasn’t a Washington reporter, so none of the staffers would have expected to know him. The AP had almost four thousand employees in two hundred fifty bureaus; saying you were from the AP was like saying you were from New York. Even a fellow reporter wouldn’t expect to recognize a colleague. Not that anybody at Cahill’s office would be scrutinizing his bona fides. To a junior senator, publicity was oxygen, and Cahill, who ranked second to last in seniority in the august body to which he had just ascended, was starved for it. “Miles” made an appointment to visit at three o’clock.

Belknap appeared in the lobby of the Hart Building at five before the hour. He had a yellow lanyard around his neck holding a thick plastic badge with a magnetized strip. The word “press” appeared in bold capital letters above the name John Miles, the assignment verification code, his institutional affiliation and nationality, and a passport-size photograph. It was good work. The guard had small, squashed features, heavy-lidded eyes, and, despite his squinty, suspicious gaze, was about as fierce as an unweaned puppy in Belknap’s quick appraisal. He had the visitor write his name on a sign-in list and waved him through. Belknap was wearing a pair of tortoiseshell glasses along with a jacket and tie, and carried a briefcase that was rolled swiftly through a metal detector unopened.

Around him was a scattering of people who were obviously Hart Building regulars: K Street lobbyists, Senate aides and pages, reporters and messengers. He took the elevator to the seventh floor.

As he got off the elevator, he placed a quick call to the Nebraskan’s press secretary. He had been delayed—another interview had run long, the story was more complicated than he had realized; he’d be there as soon as he could.

Then he made a left turn down a long, windowed hall and walked into the anteroom to the impressive duplex suite belonging to Senator Kirk, a man who had all the seniority that the Nebraskan lacked and was putting it to startling use. Belknap knew that Kirk would be in his office; he had a committee meeting an hour earlier, had another coming up in forty-five minutes.

“I’m here to see Senator Kirk,” he said to the weathered-looking blonde who sat at the reception desk. Primly dressed in a dark-green jacket and high-necked blouse, she looked less like a praetorian guard than a prep-school headmistress—the hair was colored to a deep-hued honey blond; nothing brassy, nothing frosted—but was no less intimidating for that. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything on the senator’s schedule. What did you say your name was?”

He paused. Why was this so hard? Follow the plan, he exhorted himself. Roll the dice or you’re not in the game.

“My name,” he said, swallowing hard, “is Todd Belknap.”

“Todd Belknap,” she repeated. The name meant nothing to her. “I’m afraid the senator is a very busy man, but if you’d like to try to schedule an appointment at some point, what I’d suggest is that—”

“What I need you to do is convey a message. Tell him my name. Tell him—I’m assuming that this is a privileged conversation—that I’m a senior officer at Consular Operations. And tell him that I’ve come to talk about Genesis.”

The woman looked confused. Was this man a religious zealot or a source within the intelligence services? “I can certainly deliver the message,” she said uncertainly. She gestured toward a row of worn brown leather chairs on the wall adjoining the door and waited for him to take his seat before she picked up her handset and spoke in a low voice. She was not speaking to the senator, he was certain, but to a senior aide. It was as he expected. Then she glanced behind her, to the closed door that separated the reception area from the rooms where the work of the senator’s office was done.

In less than a minute, a bald, squat man with nails bitten to the quick bustled out of the inner door. His fishbelly-white face wore a breezy, unconcerned smile; only a small facial tic betrayed the tension he was at pains to conceal.

“I’m Philip Sutton,” the man said. “The senator’s chief of staff. What can we do for you?” He spoke in a low voice.

“You know who I am?”

“Todd Beller, was it? Or Bellhorn—was that what you said to Jean?”

“I’ll save us both some time.” The operative’s voice was calmly disabused, not reproachful. “You just ran a computer check from your office or you wouldn’t be talking to me. I’m betting you pulled up records from the State Department database. What did you find?”

“I’m glad to hear of it.”

“Owing to the nature of the commission hearings, there have been various threats.” Sutton was no longer smiling.

“I passed through metal detectors on the way in. You can search me if you like.”

Confrontation glinted in Sutton’s eyes. “But there’s no record of your having come into the building,” he said fiercely.

“Would you prefer that there were?”

Sutton’s gaze met his for a long moment. “I’m not sure.”

“Will the senator meet me?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“You mean you haven’t decided.”

“Yes,” the portly aide replied, his pale eyes alert. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

“If you’re certain we have nothing to discuss, just say the word. You’ll never see me again. But you’d be making a mistake.”

Another long moment elapsed. “Look, why don’t you follow me? We’ll talk in my office.” In a louder voice he said, “Fact is, lots of people misunderstand the senator’s views on agricultural price supports. I welcome the opportunity to clarify them.”

That was happening now; analysts were replaying the video feed and comparing it to the reference faceprint. There seemed little doubt. The computer could not be fooled by glasses or alterations of facial hair; the facial indices it analyzed were virtually unchangeable: cephalic, nasal, orbital. The angle of the chin, the distance between the eyes—such metrics could not be changed with hair dye or eyewear.

“It’s a match,” said a slack-bellied operator, who spent much of the day in a darkened room munching on corn chips, with a rhythmic hand-to-mouth motion that sometimes went on, nearly uninterrupted, for hours. He wore an untucked Hawaiian-style shirt and cargo pants.

“Then you click on that red box, and that’s it.”

“Then everyone’s notified?”

“Then whoever needs to be notified is notified. Depends on the guy. Like, sometimes it’s a matter for the lobby guards and the D.C. cops. Sometimes, though, it’s someone the CIA or the FBI just wants to keep tabs on, like a foreign national, and they definitely don’t want to alert the target. They play it how they play it. That’s not our call.”

“Just click on the red box.” He returned a finger-clutch of Fritos to the bag and stared at the screen.

“Just click on the red box. Feels good, doesn’t it? Click, and they’ll take care of everything.”

The man in the Stratus coupe had a last sip of his coffee, then gripped the cup lightly in his fingers. It was an Anthora-style paper cup, the blue ersatz-Greek letters proclaiming IT’S OUR PLEASURE TO SERVE YOU. He crushed it into something wrinkled and shapeless and tucked it between the cushions of the seat beside him. He always left his rental cars as dirty as possible; sometimes he would sprinkle sand and ash from a cigarette receptacle on the seats. That way the rental company would be sure to vacuum it carefully, to wipe it down, and leave less of him.

He watched the woman leave the motel, relishing the incongruity: an expensive-looking bird leaving a cheap-looking nest. The woman wore no makeup and seemed to have chosen clothing that disguised her figure rather than flattered it, but you could tell she was pretty. Justin Colbert found himself smiling. But that was out of line. One didn’t mix business with pleasure. Not usually.

The order of business was different with this woman, anyway. A higher degree of difficulty was involved. There could not be another slipup. Not this time.

That was why they’d called in the best. That’s why they had called in Justin Colbert.

Now he powered down the driver’s-side window and fluttered a road map. “Ma’am,” he called to her. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to get back onto Route 495, and…” A helpless shrug.

The woman looked around warily, but she was unable to resist Justin’s helpless look. She walked over to the car.

“You just get onto 66,” she said. “A couple blocks north.”

“And which way is north?” Justin asked. The timing was right: They were unobserved. His wrist brushed against her forearm.

“Ouch,” she said.

“My watchband—sorry about that.”

The woman gave him a strange look: a small flare of puzzlement, giving way to suspicion, giving way finally to stupor and incomprehension and the loss of consciousness.

It’s my pleasure to serve you, he thought, chuckling to himself.

Colbert was already out of the car when she started to collapse; he caught her by her elbows. Four seconds later he had positioned her in the trunk of his coupe and closed it gently. The plastic tarp would keep any messy body fluids from wetting the carpet-lined trunk. Five minutes later he was on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. He would check on her in an hour or so, but there would be enough oxygen to sustain life during the trip.

Andrea Bancroft was more valuable alive than dead. At least for the time being.