Liar's Market

by Taylor Smith

  Life had given Karen Ann Hermann an unusual appreciation for silence. The only child of parents who were both profoundly deaf, her early childhood had been spent in a world as still and serene as it was warm and loving. Karen had no hearing deficit of her own, but long before a preschool tutor had been brought in to help bring her speech up to par, she’d been signing fluently, and she still moved easily between the hearing and non-hearing worlds. Every summer since the age of thirteen, she’d worked at a camp for hearing-impaired youngsters, first as a volunteer, then as a paid counselor.

  Karen’s parents had never been encouraged to cultivate a sense of adventure themselves, but a couple of those kids their daughter worked with, they’d been astonished to discover, had traveled around the world. They skied and scuba dived and parasailed, and got downright snippy if you suggested there was anything surprising in that. Times had definitely changed. The Hermanns had never even been on bicycles for fear they might be struck by an unheard car coming up on them from behind. And though they now ran a small but moderately successful home-based Web site management business, neither had ever traveled beyond a sixty-or-so-mile radius of Washington, D.C.

  Karen was already determined to help give the next generation of hearing-impaired kids more opportunities than her parents had had. She was even considering pursuing a doctorate and then teaching at Gallaudet University, the only one in the country dedicated to the needs of deaf students. Now there, the Hermanns thought, was a hot-bed of militancy. Both were Gallaudet graduated, but would a hearing-enabled professor, even one as sign-fluent and accomplished as Karen, be welcomed there these days, when so many students insisted that hearing people couldn’t relate to the issues they faced? They didn’t want their precious daughter targeted by reverse discrimination.

  It was a source of constant worry, but they comforted themselves with the realization that Karen’s final career decisions were some way off.

  In the meantime, she’d gotten it into her head to do some traveling. Having passed her freshman year at the University of Maryland with flying colors and the start of her summer job still a month off, she’d been eager to join two girlfriends on a spring vacation in England. She was a good kid, an honor roll student who’d never given them a moment of worry. What’s more, she was an adult now, for all intents and purposes, and she’d saved the money for the trip herself from the part-time tutoring she’d done all year. How could her nervous parents forbid her from going, much as they wanted to?

  Before they would agree, though, they’d gone onto the Internet to do their homework. The State Department Web site posted travel warnings to Americans traveling abroad, but Britain, they were relieved to see, fell into a low-risk category. Fair enough. The IRA seemed to prefer negotiation to bombs these days, and London was as security-conscious as Washington where other hot-button populations were concerned. If their daughter must go abroad, England was probably as safe a bet as anywhere.

  Still, the State Department Web site did advise U.S. travelers to register with the embassy on arrival in a foreign country so that they could be notified in case of emergency. If the advice was rarely heeded in the more popular tourist destinations, the Hermanns didn’t know that.

  Afterward, they would bitterly regret extracting the promise that took Karen to the embassy that day. Had they been a little more worldly, they might not have, but Mr. and Mrs. Hermann had never been out of the country themselves.

  Thus it was that Karen Ann Hermann came to be outside the American Embassy that dark and rainy London afternoon when all hell broke loose.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TOP SECRET

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  FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

  INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

  (continued…)

  So when you arrived for the reception that afternoon, Carrie, you didn’t know you wouldn’t be attending the ambassador’s dinner?

  No. Apparently Drum had left messages for me on my mobile and at home, but for some reason, I hadn’t gotten either of them. I gather he’d also asked the Gunny to watch out for me—that’s the Gunnery Sergeant, head of the Marine Guard detachment.

  Sergeant Jenks, yes. He’s been interviewed on several occasions. We’ve got his full testimony covering that day.

  Right. Well then, you know he was on duty in the lobby. He was tied up when I came in, so it was Drum’s secretary who took me upstairs to the reception. She was also the one who told me I wasn’t needed at the dinner.

  Would it surprise you to learn there’s no record your husband ever called your cell phone that day?

  He said he did. I thought the voice-mail system must have been down.

  It was working just fine, according to company records. And although the phone at your apartment did receive one call at about…let’s see…12:27 p.m. GMT—

  That’s when he called to tell me I was invited to the reception and dinner.

  Right. According to your home-phone records, that was the only incoming call that day.

  So, what are you saying?

  I’m saying he lied. Your husband’s real purpose was to lure you out that afternoon.

  Lure me out?

  Yes. That’s why he didn’t bother calling back when the dinner requirement disappeared. He made a special point of going down to the lobby and telling Sergeant Jenks he’d called you to try to cancel, but we think he was just covering his tracks.

  You make it sound like he was laying a trap for me. What are you—

  Let’s just carry on with that day, Carrie. Did you see anything out of the ordinary when you arrived? Anyone who seemed to be watching you as you went in?

  No. Not that I would have noticed, probably. It was a horrible day, pouring rain. I was hunched down under an umbrella and so was everyone else in the street.

  Did you take a taxi?

  No, it was just a few blocks. I probably should have, but I didn’t realize how hard it was raining. I walked over.

  So you weren’t approached by a taxi or anyone else in the street? Didn’t notice that you were being followed?

  Not that I recall. I talked briefly to the Marines at the front gate when I got to the embassy. I knew them, of course. And then, the receptionist at the front desk, who called up to say I’d arrived. That’s when Drum’s secretary came down to take me up and told me about the cancellation.

  And how did your husband seem when you saw him?

  I don’t know. Fine. Normal, I guess.

  He didn’t seem surprised that you’d actually made it over? You didn’t notice anything unusual about his reaction?

  Not really…unless…I don’t know…

  So there was something?

  I’m not sure. It was a busy day for him. High profile, you know, with the senators in town and him responsible for their program while they were in London. And it was a tense time for everyone, of course with the heightened security climate since September 11.

  But there was something else. What was it?

  I’m not sure. It’s hard to put my finger on it.

  Try. Tell me about that afternoon, Carrie. What happened when you attended the reception for those visiting politicians?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  American Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London

  5:41 p.m.

  Carrie’s facial muscles were beginning to ache from the effort of so much forced smiling. Her feet, perched on impractical three-inch heels, were wet and cold, and as she shifted her weight on the thick pile carpet, she felt water squishing in the toes of her strappy black Manolos. She’d probably ruined her most expensive shoes, wearing them out on such a rainy afternoon, but Drum had told her to “spiff it up” when he’d called unexpectedly and pressed her to put in an appearance at this late afternoon reception and the dinner to follow.

  Now, it turned out she wasn’t needed at dinner.

  The expendable chair-filler, that’s me, she thought, dodging the frond of one of the tall,
potted palms that dotted the perimeter of the long room. She kept finding herself backed into the thing, wedged into a corner by two of the reception’s more garrulous guests, and it felt as if a persistent spider were landing on her bare neck every few minutes. It was beginning to get really irritating.

  She took a dangerous sip from her wineglass—dangerous because she was starving and now there wasn’t even the prospect of a good meal to fill her empty stomach. Not that the wine did anything to improve her mood, which was becoming grumpier by the minute, knowing she’d trudged out in the pouring rain for nothing more than a tepid glass of mediocre California Chardonnay and yet another chance to observe the diplomatic version of that ancient male ritual, the pissing contest.

  In this environment, it meant feigning to possess more insider access than the other guy—with “feign” being the operative word here, Carrie decided, watching her two companions over the rim of her wineglass. One was an ambitious young Bostonian, who had to be fresh out of college, with that thick, shining mop of Ivy League hair and those darting, nervous eyes that belied a self-promoting line of patter. Carrie had already forgotten his name. David? Douglas…something? He was a junior aide to one of the visiting senators. She was guessing it was his first official trip abroad.

  The other was Nigel St. John (pronounced “Sin-jin,” she had to keep reminding herself, like that actor who always insisted that “Ralph” was really “Rafe”—God, but some Brits could be pretentious…). St. John was a minor British Foreign Office functionary who always seemed to latch on to her whenever she was dragooned into attending one of these official cocktails.

  Carrie would have been happy to leave the two of them to their own devices, now that she’d done her duty and made introductions and a little small talk, except that Nigel kept clutching her arm and drawing her back into the circle of their conversation every time her gaze drifted over his shoulder in search of some avenue of escape.

  The embassy’s top-floor reception area was a large, open room painted a pale antique yellow, with cherry wainscoting and crown moldings imported from the Carolinas and deep blue broadloom woven in the carpet mills of Georgia. Occasional chairs, chests and tables scattered around the room were eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Philadelphia Hepplewhite and Chippendale pieces. An ever-changing array of canvases by contemporary American artists lined the gallery-like walls.

  This was where America put its best foot forward in the British capital. Guests were expected to do no less.

  The scent of hot seafood canapés and expensive colognes drifted over the assembled crowd of sixty or so guests invited to meet the visiting senators this afternoon. Tinkling glasses provided a high counterpoint to the deep drone of mostly male voice holding forth from every part of the room, punctuated by the occasional eruption of mock-hearty laughter.

  As she looked over the room, seeking out her husband, Carrie recognized a number of faces belonging to the usual crowd of Brits and officials from other friendly embassies who regularly showed up at these functions and hosted their own in return. One or two returned Carrie’s glance with acknowledging nods that ranged from merely polite to downright lascivious—the latter from a randy Australian charge who smirked as he checked her out from head to toe and back up again, with pointed pauses at breast level. Carrie was tempted to offer a stiff-fingered salute in return, but that would have been considered poor protocol and, in any case, took more nerve than she possessed.

  Instead, she turned away from him, and as she did, she spotted Drum over by the tall, arched windows with Senator Watkins, head of the Senate’s select intelligence committee.

  Her husband’s raised eyebrows when Carrie had first walked in the room, followed by a quick smile and nod, told her she’d probably passed muster—maybe even exceeded his expectations. Well, fine. With the exception of an ambassador’s spouse, whose role as chatelaine made her something of a social force to be reckoned with, nobody on the diplomatic circuit paid much attention to a mere “wife of.” After seven years of marriage, the last three spent here in the British capital, she’d long since resigned herself to the fact that her primary job at these affairs was to serve as ornamentation.

  She’d worn a green silk wrap dress that Drum said turned her gray-green eyes catlike. Her long, coppery hair was clipped up in a loose twist impaled by a jeweled stick. There hadn’t been time to do much else with it, given the last-minute nature of this command performance. In any case, it had seemed the safest bet to survive the sleety rainstorm she’d had to brave to get over here from their Kensington town house. A few soft tendrils had shaken loose in the bluster.

  “Don’t you agree, Carrie?” St. John asked out of the blue.

  Carrie shifted her focus back and offered what she hoped was a convincing nod. She’d dropped the thread of the conversation, which seemed at the moment to consist of the usual complaints about the fickle French. Her two companions were so busy upping the ante of their mutual indignation that she knew they sought her input only as a matter of courtesy.

  “No doubt,” she said. She had no idea what she’d agreed with, but it didn’t matter. They required only an appreciative audience.

  Her gaze shifted back to her husband. She could have tried begging off this reception when he’d called at the last minute like that. She had work of her own to finish, pulling together the bibliography on her master’s thesis, which was almost ready to be shipped back to her advisor at Georgetown, if only she could quit her nervous tinkering. If he thought it was ready to defend, she’d finally complete the program she’d abandoned six years earlier when her son was born. And then…well, first finish the thesis, she told herself. One step at a time.

  The lowering clouds outside had added another disincentive to coming out this afternoon, plus the fact that she liked to be home when the embassy van brought Jonah home from kindergarten. In the end, though, she’d done what Drum asked, as she always did. After all, this was an important occasion for him and it wouldn’t kill her to be amiable.

  Like all intelligence officials abroad, he operated under cover in a milieu where “Spot the Spook” was the favorite game of bored diplomats. Officials in the know sometimes referred to Drum archly as the post’s “resident intellectual,” but his cover story said he was a commercial counselor. As his wife, Carrie was required to maintain that charade, while at the same time taking special precautions not to compromise his position or station operations. Most of the carefully selected guests to this particular reception, of course, knew what his real function was, but she’d long since learned that the safest path in all situations was to neither confirm nor deny anything.

  The delegation of American politicians had arrived in London that morning, their first stop on a whirlwind fact-finding tour in the latest round of the war on terrorism. Drum would be leading them through their briefings with his intelligence contacts in MI-5 and MI-6, as well as the Foreign and Prime Minister’s offices and the Ministry of Defense.

  His present companion across the room was the head of the delegation. An overweight, blustering power-house from Arizona, Senator Watkins was obviously in lecture mode at the moment, but Carrie knew there was no need to worry about Drum. He’d lived his entire life among powerful movers and shakers. Not only had his father been a five-star general and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the MacNeil family had been wealthy and influential Virginia landowners, businessmen and community leaders for generations. Drum could hold his own with anyone.

  His body language now, as he leaned a shoulder against a leaded glass window frame, told Carrie he was just waiting for the senator to run out of breath. His bespoke Savile Row suit, a soft, dove gray pinstripe, draped his tall, lean body beautifully. His shirt and silk tie were likewise understated but elegant. His silver hair was slightly tousled, as befits a busy man, but it gleamed in the glow of the dropped crystal chandeliers that lit the high-ceilinged reception room.

  Carrie knew from old photographs that Drum’s hair had once been
nearly blue-black, but he was twenty years her senior and it had already been more salt than pepper when they’d met. They’d married after a whirlwind courtship in East Africa, where she’d been working with the Peace Corps and he’d ostensibly been an embassy aid official. It was only after they were married that he’d confessed his real profession.

  Would it have made a difference if she’d known before? Carrie often wondered. Hard to say. She’d been a different person then, and Drum had seemed to exude a self-confident, protective strength sorely needed in that difficult period of her life. She wasn’t that frightened young girl anymore, however.

  Still, there was no question that he was still, at forty-nine, a very attractive man, with a high forehead, even features, and intense, cobalt-blue eyes that seemed to mesmerize men and women alike. Watching the hint of a smile playing at the corner of Drum’s lips, Carrie knew that Senator Watkins was about to feel the full force of that determined Southern charm. She almost pitied the man. Before the evening was over, the senator would be spouting the MacNeil view of the world as if it were gospel, and he wouldn’t even know he’d been co-opted.

  Through the tall windows behind Drum and the senator, the lights of London were already beginning to twinkle, daylight driven out early by the dark, heavy-laden clouds that had loomed over the city all week. Taking care not to spill her wine, Carrie took a discreet peek at the thin platinum watch on her left wrist. Five-forty-five. Surely this would be winding up soon. The congressmen would want to go back to their hotels and freshen up before the cars came to take them to the residence for the ambassador’s working dinner.