Split Second

The next day King left Wrightsburg early, fought northern Virginia morning rush hour traffic and arrived in Reston, Virginia, around ten. The ten-story office building was relatively new and now about half-leased. A dot-com company had rented the entire space several years ago and despite having no products or profits, decorated it lavishly and then, astonishingly, ran out of money. The area was very nice with shops and restaurants at the nearby Reston Town Center. Well-dressed consumers slipped in and out of pricey stores. People struggled to get where they needed to go on the congested roads. It all had a high-energy, upscale feel to it. Yet King simply wanted to accomplish what he'd come to do, then retreat to the bucolic environs of the Blue Ridge.

The top floor of the building was now occupied by a firm known simply as the Agency, a name it had actually trademarked for commercial use, probably much to the chagrin of the CIA. The Agency was one of the premier investigative and security firms in the country. King rode up in the private elevator, waving to a surveillance camera that was eyeballing him, and was met in a small waiting room off the main lobby by someone who looked armed and ready to use his weapon. King was searched and had to step through a metal detector before he was allowed to proceed to the lobby. It was tastefully appointed and had no one in it other than a watchful woman at the front desk who took his name and dialed her phone.

He was escorted back by a stylishly dressed young man with broad shoulders and curly dark hair, wearing a headset and displaying an arrogant manner. He opened the door and motioned King through and then left, closing the door behind him. King looked around the office. It was a four-window corner unit, the glass all heavily tinted and reflecting from the outside, though on the top floor the only things capable of peeping in would be birds, or folks in dangerously low-flying planes. The whole feel of the place was quiet, understated yet undeniably prosperous.

When a side door opened and she walked in, King didn't know whether to say hello or knock the woman over her desk and strangle her.

"I'm very touched that you'd brave the traffic to come and see me," said Joan. She was dressed in a dark pantsuit that was flattering to her figure, not that many clothing choices wouldn't be. Yet the sleek cut of the suit and her three-inch spikes gave her the impression of height she really didn't have.

"Thanks for seeing me."

"Only fair considering how much of me you've seen recently. But I really was very surprised to hear from you."

"Well, now we're even. Because I can't tell you what a shock it was to find out you weren't with the Service anymore."

"I didn't tell you that when I came to your house?"

"No, Joan, that one you somehow forgot to mention."

She sat down on a small leather sofa set against one wall and motioned for him to join her. On the table in front of her was a coffee service. While King sat, she poured.

"You can hold the eggs, toasted bagel. And lace panties," he added. He was very surprised when the woman reddened at his remark.

"I'm really trying very hard to block that out of my mind," she said quietly.

He took a sip of coffee and looked around. "Wow, look at this place. At the Service did we even have desks?"

"No, because we didn't need them. We were either driving really fast in cars…"

"Or pushing till our feet gave out," he finished for her. "Pushing" was Secret Service shorthand for being on duty, usually standing at a post to secure it.

She sat back and looked around her office. "It is nice, but I'm not really here that much. I'm usually on a plane somewhere."

"At least you get to fly commercial or private. Military transport is hard on the back, butt and stomach. We flew enough of those."

"You remember going on Air Force One?" she asked.

"Anyone who has never forgets."

"I miss that part."

"But you make a lot more money."

"I guess you do too."

He shifted his weight and balanced his cup in the palm of his hand. "I know you're busy, so I'll get down to it. A U.S. deputy marshal named Jefferson Parks came to see me. He's heading up the investigation on Howard Jennings, the murdered WITSEC. He was the one who came for my gun while you were there."

Joan looked interested. "Jefferson Parks?"

"You know him?"

"Name sounds very familiar. So they took your gun. And ballistics cleared you?"

"Actually no. It was a match. My gun killed Howard Jennings."

King had thought over this phrasing very carefully on the drive up, because he wanted to test the woman's response to it. She almost spilled her coffee. Either she had really boned up on her acting skills or it was a sincere reaction.

"That can't be right," she said.

"That's what I said. But fortunately the marshal and I saw eye-to-eye on the method that someone could have used to make my gun the murder weapon while I thought I had it on me."

"How?"