Sixty Days and Counting

Frank nodded. ‘Speaking of which, we were supposed to be going to try iceskating down here, when the river froze over.’

‘That’s right, we were. But now we’ve got this so-called heat spell.’

‘True. Return of the Gulf Stream.’

‘That is so crazy. I bet we will get freezing spells just like before.’

‘Yes. Well, until that happens maybe we can just walk the shore then, and see where you could rent ice skates when the time comes.’

‘Sure. I think the Georgetown Rowing Club is going to do it, we can go check it out. I read they’re going to convert to a skating center when the river freezes over. They’re going to put out floodlights and boundary lines and everything.’

‘Good for them! Let’s go take a look after dinner.’

And so they finished the meal cheerfully, moving from one great Levantine dish to the next. Even the basics were exquisite: olives, hummus, dill – everything. And by the time they were done they had split a bottle of a dry white wine. They walked down to the Potomac arm-in-arm, as they had in Manhattan so very briefly; they walked the Georgetown waterfront, where the potted shrubs lining the river wall were lit by little white Christmas tree lights. All this had been overwhelmed in the great flood, and they could still see the high water mark on the buildings behind the walk, but other than that, things were much as they had been before, the river as calm as a sheet of black silk as it poured under the Key Bridge.

Then they came to the mouth of Rock Creek, a tiny little thing. Following it upstream in his mind, Frank came to the park and his treehouse, standing right over a bend in this same creek – and thus it occurred to him to think, Here you are fooling around with another woman while your Caroline is in trouble God knows where. What would she think if she saw you?

Which was a hard thought to recover from; and Diane saw that his mood had changed. Quickly he suggested they warm up over drinks.

They retired to a bar overlooking the confluence of the creek and the river, on the Georgetown side. They ordered Irish coffees. Frank warmed up again, his sudden stab of dread dispelled by Diane’s immense calmness, by the aura of reality that emanated from her. It was reassuring to be around her; precisely the opposite of the feeling he had when –

But he stayed in the moment. He agreed with Diane’s comment that Irish coffee provided the perfect compound of stimulant and relaxant, sugar and fat, hydration and warmth. ‘It must have been invented by scientists,’ she said. ‘It’s like made to a formula to hit all the receptors at once.’

Frank said, ‘I remember it’s what they always used to serve at the Salk Institute after their seminars. They’ve got a patio deck overlooking the Pacific, and everyone would go out with Irish coffees and watch the sunset.’

‘Nice.’

Later, as Frank walked her back up through Georgetown to her car, she said, ‘I was wondering if you’d be interested in joining my advisory staff. It would be an extension of the work you’ve been doing at NSF. I mean, I know you’re planning to go back to San Diego, but until then, you know … I could use your help.’

Frank had stopped walking. Diane turned and glanced up at him, shyly it seemed, and then looked away, down M Street. The stretch they could see looked to Frank like the Platonic form of a Midwestern main street, totally unlike the rest of D.C.

‘Sure,’ Frank heard himself say. He realized that in some sense he had to accept her offer. He had no choice; he was only in D.C. now because of her previous invitation to work on the climate problem, and he had been doing that for a year now. And they were friends, they were colleagues; they were … ‘I mean, I’ll have to check with my department and all first, to make sure it will all be okay at UCSD. But I think it could be really interesting.’

‘Oh good. Good. I was hoping you’d say yes.’

The next morning, at work his doorway darkened, and he swung his chair around, expecting to see Diane, there to discuss their move to the Presidential science advisors’ offices –

‘Oh! Edgardo!’

‘Hi, Frank. Hey, are you up for getting a bite at the Food Factory?’ Waggling his eyebrows Groucho-istically.

‘Sure,’ Frank said, trying to sound natural. It was hard not to look around his office as he saved and shut the file he was working on.

On the way to the Food Factory, Edgardo surreptitiously ran a wand over Frank, and gave it to Frank, who did the same for him. Then they went in and stood at a bar, noisily eating chips and salsa.

‘What is it?’

‘A friend of mine has tracked down your friend and her husband.’

‘Ah ha! And?’

‘They work for a unit of a black agency called Advanced Research and Development Agency Prime. The man’s name is Edward Cooper, and hers is Caroline Churchland. They ran a big data mining effort, which was a combination of the Total Information Awareness project and some other black programs in Homeland Security.’

‘Wait – she didn’t work for him?’

‘No. My friend says it was more like the other way around. She headed the program, but he was brought in to help when some surveillance issues cropped up. He came from Homeland Security, and before that CIA, where he was on the Afghanistan detail. My friend says the program got a lot more serious when he arrived.’

‘Serious?’

‘Some surveillance issues. My friend didn’t know what that meant. And then this attempt on the election that she tipped us to.’

‘But he worked for her?’

‘Yes.’

‘And when did they get married?’

‘About two years before he joined her project.’

‘And he worked for her.’

‘That’s what I was told. Also, my friend thinks he probably knows where she’s gone.’

‘What!’

‘That’s what he told me. On the night she disappeared, you see, there was a call from a pay phone she had used before, a call to the Khembali embassy. I take it that was to you?’

‘She left a message,’ Frank muttered, more and more worried. ‘But so?’

‘Well, there was another call from that pay phone, to a number in Maine. My friend found the address for that number, and it’s the number of your friend’s college roommate. And that roommate has a vacation home on an island up there. And the power has just been turned on for that vacation home. So he thinks that’s where she may have gone, and, as I’m sure you can see, he furthermore thinks that if he can track her that well, at his remove, then her husband is likely to be even faster at it.’

‘Shit.’ Frank’s feet were cold.

‘Shit indeed. Possibly you should warn her. I mean, if she thinks she’s hidden herself –’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Frank said, thinking furiously. ‘But another thing – if her ex could find her, couldn’t he find me too?’

‘Maybe so.’

They regarded each other.

‘We have to neutralize this guy somehow,’ Frank said.

Edgardo shook his head. ‘Do not say that, my friend.’

‘Why not?’

‘Neutralize?’ He dragged out the word, his expression suddenly black. ‘Eliminate? Remove? Equalize? Disable? DX? Disappear? Liquidate?’