Until You

Conor trotted up the marble steps of the building that housed the Committee's offices, walked through the doors as they opened soundlessly and made his way across the lobby. He bypassed the bank of public elevators for three others that were tucked away in an alcove, keyed in the code that opened one of them and stepped inside. The doors shut and a disembodied electronic voice asked him to place his fingertips against a glowing panel in the wall. He did, and the same toneless voice asked him to select a floor.

"Seven," he said.

The elevator rose noiselessly.

On the other hand, he wasn't going to tell any of that to Harry Thurston.

For one thing, it was all speculation. For another, he absolutely, positively had no intention of getting drawn into an investigation that was none of his business. The elevator doors opened and he stepped out onto the seventh floor. There was no reason to get drawn in. The Winthrop thing was in the FBI's lap, not CIA's, not the Committee's, and surely not—

"You're late, Mr. O'Neil."

Conor sighed. For all the electronic and digital coding that guarded the inner workings of these offices, it was still a human being who decided who got through the last set of doors. Sybil Aldrich, Harry Thurston's plump, fiftyish and formidable P.A., guarded her boss's lair with unwavering ferocity.

Conor looked at the old-fashioned clock that hung on the bilious green wall beside Sybil's desk. It was 8:03. He'd phoned Harry from the plane and told him he'd be in to see him around eight.

"Did you hear me, Mr. O'Neil? I said, you're late."

"And good morning to you, too, sweet Sybil."

"Mr. Thurston expected you promptly at eight."

"He expected me

whenever I showed up." Conor paused at Sybil's desk, bent towards her and took a dramatic sniff. "Mmm. What wonderful, exotic fragrance are you wearing today, I wonder?"

"It's Ivory soap. And you should know by now, your nonsense doesn't impress me."

Conor smiled. Theirs was an old routine. At least, it was a routine on his part. He was never quite certain if Sybil played at being a junkyard dog or if she really was one.

"Try and remember I take my coffee with sugar and cream this time, will you, Sybil, love?"

"Try and remember that asking a Personal Assistant for coffee is a sexist act."

"Two lumps, okay? And make sure you use cream, not that powdered stuff you pawn off on the peasants." He shot her a smile, opened the door and stepped inside Thurston's office.

The head of the Committee was seated behind his government-issue tan metal desk, his swivel chair turned so that his back was to the room and he was facing the window and the grey, steady rain. Conor walked to the desk and sat down in one of the leather chairs that faced it. The chair was government-issue, too, which meant that it was almost as uncomfortable as it was unattractive.

"Your kind of day, Harry?"

Thurston chuckled as he swiveled his chair around. He was a slender, fine-boned man of indeterminate years who would have looked more at home as a professor at an Ivy League university than as head of a group that few people inside government, and no one outside it, knew existed.

"It's a brook trout's kind of day, my boy. I was just wishing I could take the morning off and head up to a little pool I know in the mountains." Harry folded his hand on his desk. "How was your weekend?"

"Great."

Harry sighed dramatically. "It must be wonderful to be young, single and a shoe-in for the next James Bond."

Conor smiled. He dug into his pocket, took out the note Hoyt Winthrop had given him and tossed it onto the desk.

"Only if Bond's an errand boy, Harry. There's your note."

"And here's something to keep you busy, while I read."

Thurston pushed a slender file folder across the blotter. Conor picked it up and flipped it open. Inside was a summary of the background checks that had been done on Hoyt and Eva Winthrop. He skimmed the notes on Hoyt but there was nothing there he didn't already know. The man was Old Money, through and through.

The stuff on Eva was only a little more interesting. She'd been born in Argentina, where she'd met and married a young Marine named James Beckman who'd been assigned to the American Embassy. When his tour of duty ended, Beckman took Eva home with him to the States. He'd died in a car crash shortly after their daughter, Miranda, was born. Eva had gone on to cleverly parlay a door-to-door cosmetics business into a multi-million dollar company.

Conor closed the file folder and dropped it on the desk.