The Rapids

“Little unsteady on your feet there, Agent Spencer?”

Dunnemore. He didn’t bother to speak in a whisper. Maggie recognized his Southern accent even before she swung around and saw him coming through a pew from another aisle.

Obviously he’d been in the cathedral long enough to have seen her trip on the kneeler.

That meant he’d also seen her chase William Raleigh.

“Just a little,” she said with an edge of sarcasm. “Have I been longer than twenty minutes?”

“I don’t know. I gave you a two-minute head start before I came after you.” He stood very close to her, not much charming about his manner right now. “The raw herring wasn’t that appealing.”

She flexed her ankle, easing out any stiffness. “I should have remembered you track people for a living.”

“Probably should have. Who was the old man?”

“William the Conqueror.”

He held his suit jacket over his shoulder with one finger, his shirtsleeves rolled up. He hadn’t had a particularly good day, either. Maggie felt herself softening as he looked her up and down. “You hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head, wondering if he might be exaggerating his accent just to throw her off balance. “How did you find me?”

“You said you were off to pray. This is the biggest church in the whole damn country. I figured it was a good place to start.”

“You shouldn’t swear in here.”

“You’re right. We can go outside, and I’ll swear out there.” His eyes—they were a dark gray in the dim light of the cathedral—fixed on her. “And you can tell me about the old guy in the madras shirt.”

They found a table in the shade at an uncrowded café near the market square. “Get two of whatever you’re ordering,” Maggie said. “I’m not picky. I don’t even know if I can eat.”

Rob ordered two bowls of the soup of the day, which seemed to involve chicken, and coffee for himself, a Heineken for Maggie. He’d do the driving back to The Hague.

Their waiter brought the drinks first. Maggie touched a finger to the foam of her beer. She’d had a miserable day, and she looked more shaken than she’d want to admit, worse now that she’d finished with the investigators and the questions—and now that whatever her mission at the cathedral had been was over.

“The old guy looked like he planned to take you out with that walking stick,” Rob said.

“For all I know, he thought it was tipped with ricin.”

“Is that a joke?”

She sighed. “An attempt at a joke.”

Rob lifted his small coffee cup. “I’d say cheers, but it wouldn’t sound right today.”

“I suppose not.” She picked up her beer, hesitating, as if pushing back an intrusive thought, before taking a sip. “It’s been a long week. Nothing about it’s been normal.”

Including having him thrust upon her, Rob thought, drinking some of his coffee. It was very strong, but he figured a jolt of caffeine wouldn’t hurt. He was hot from chasing after Maggie, negotiating the narrow, unfamiliar city streets in the late August heat. “Your rendezvous with the old guy at St. John’s. That’s why we’re in Den Bosch today?”

Maggie stared at the disappearing foam on her beer. “I shouldn’t drink—”

“Go ahead. I’m sticking to coffee. I’ll drive.” He smiled, trying to take some of the edge off her mood and maybe his own. “It’s okay. I can handle a Mini.”

She raised her eyes from her drink. “I know what it must have looked like back there. Just forget about it, okay?”

“Not okay. The old guy’s an informant?”

“A wanna-be, I think.”

“Any relation to Kopac?”

“I don’t know that much about him.”

Rob sat back in his chair. “That’s an evasive answer.”

“Maybe it’s a polite way to tell you—” She stopped herself. “Never mind. It’s been a lousy day for you, too.”

But she obviously wanted to tell him what happened in St. John’s was none of his damned business. “Better to evade than to lie outright. Okay. I get that. You don’t know anything about me except that I’m a marshal, I was shot four months ago and my family knows the president.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t trust me, either.”

“It’s not a question of trust.”

Then what else was it? But he didn’t ask. “This guy’s contacted you before?”

“First time.”

“What’d he do, call, e-mail, send a carrier pigeon? Come on. Throw me a bone. Let me think you’re starting to trust me a little.”

She didn’t smile. “He called.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“So, after I got here.”

Their soup arrived in heavy bowls. Cream of chicken and fresh vegetables. It was steaming and substantial, which, despite the heat, Rob welcomed.

Maggie shifted around in her chair. “I wouldn’t make too much of this. The timing’s bad, I know, but I’m not all that sure he’s playing with a full deck.” She picked up her beer with such force, some of it splashed out onto her hand. “It’s quiet, don’t you think? Especially for such a beautiful afternoon. People must be worried after this morning. I guess I don’t blame them.”

“They’ll decide it’s an American thing and go on with their lives. In Central Park in the spring, people decided it was a marshals thing. It helped them get past the idea of a sniper on the loose. Someone wasn’t picking off people at random.”

Maggie took a drink of her beer, then set down the glass and blew out a sigh. “Tom’s family must know by now what happened to him. It’s an awful experience to go through, having someone come to your house and tell you—well, you know what I mean.”

“I called my sister from Central Park so she wouldn’t have to find out that way or, worse, see me on television.”

“Did you know you were in bad shape?”

“I don’t remember what I knew.”

She looked away. “You didn’t need what happened today.”