arm around his wife. “I’m sorry to get so wound up, but my feelings about Dan seem to overshadow everything else.”
“I can’t blame you. I’l miss my cousin every day,” Aly lamented. Alan held her a moment. Eventual y he took a deep breath and said, “Let me ask you a tough question. Let’s say you had positively identified the terrorist responsible for Dan’s death. And let’s say you had him square-ly in your gun sights. Would you pul the trigger?”
Aly let the magnitude of this remarkable hypothesis settle on her. Then she shifted slightly in her seat and looked Alan directly in the eye. In a voice firm and resolute, she replied, “Yes.”
GREENWICH VILLAGE, N. Y.
BRIAN HALL HAD chosen the intimate corner table for two in Café Lyon on purpose. His meeting with Marie Chavez may have been couched in business, but Brian wanted to think that the potential for a relationship had a far better chance of taking root if the atmosphere spoke of romance. Marie hadn’t resisted. If fact, the first words out of her mouth as they were led to their seats were,
“Nice, Brian…very nice. What are you planning?”
Brian had been a widower for three years now. For a man of fifty-five, he stil looked good. He had kept his six-foot-three frame as trim as a man with limited exercise time could, and looking across the flame of a single candle at Marie reminded him that al the normal instincts were stil functioning quite wel . He wasn’t much good with words, however, and he fumbled something about “two hard working souls deserving a bit of opulence.”
Marie Chavez laughed her rich, husky laugh, and Brian realized how easy it was to relax in her company. It also didn’t hurt that Marie had the radiant smile of a model and the fair skin of a woman half her age.
“Okay, I admit it,” Brian said, his British accent winning him points with each word. “It’s got me a trifle excited, this prospect of working with you on Alan’s project. There you go––cards on the table.”
“I like a man who puts his cards on the table,” she admitted. She knew Brian had been hard at it today organizing his presentation for the meeting with Alan tomorrow, and she had been busting it just as hard herself. “And with that in mind, I think we should do our best to unwind tonight, don’t you?”
“You have my vote. Anything particular in mind?” Brian asked.
“Dinner at this very quaint restaurant, a short walk, and an after dinner drink at my place? And I have no etchings. Sound al right?”
“You read my mind.”
DALY’S BAR AND GRILL, N. Y.
HERB BENTZ WAS sitting down with two former col eagues and longtime friends at a favorite watering hole of his across from Grand Central Station. Warren Dye drank Irish whiskey, Jameson’s by choice, and Don Evans, nine years and fourteen days sober, took a long draw on a club soda and lime. They talked of sports for a time. They had to since Dye was an Ohio State Buckeye graduate, and no conversation was worth conducting without some evaluation of the coming footbal season. This made for a serious bit of jousting since Don Evans had played three seasons at Florida State and both teams were national y ranked. Herb preferred pro footbal to the col ege game every day of the week, and this incensed his buddies no end.
“Okay, fine, now that you’ve heard us both, you’d better get to the boring stuff,”
Evans said. “To business, Mr. Bentz.”
Herb got serious pretty quickly, and his fel ow CIA col eagues got the message. He said, “Here’s the lay of the land. I have this consulting gig. The client has energy interests in the Middle East, and he’s sustained some substantial losses due to a couple of terrorist groups no one seems to want to take on.”
“Big surprise, that,” Evans said.
“So here’s the thing. My guy’s has serious dough. How serious? He’s positioning his firm to hire and train espionage agents, American Muslims