Free Banquo's Ghosts by Richard Lowry

without saying. Have you decided who you’re going to bring along?”
    “No, not yet.”
    “Marjorie wrote me today. Says she’s getting fat . And doesn’t like it.”
    “She wrote you?”
    “Of course, she always writes me.” Banquo inhaled the fragrance. “For all its flaws, the United States Postal Service is the single best way to keep a secret. If you’ve learned nothing all these years with me, learn that!” The man contemplated his drink for a moment, then took a draught. “And if you’ve learned nothing about women, learn this. Their weight—good, bad, or indifferent—is always a secret.” He took another deep satisfying drink.
    “Now stop twiddling and answer me,” he said. “What do you think? Is Johnson really with us? Can he do it?”
    Wallets took his glass to the clean office window and looked out onto Fifth Avenue. So many people swooshing by who had no idea these sorts of conversations took place—let alone so close to the imperial windows of Saks Fifth Avenue. He frowned and shrugged. Murder was always a nasty business. Assassination, executive action, termination—call it what you like. But call it unpredictable.
    “It’s always the same, Banquo. Unless you want to hire a sniper or shoot a commercial airliner out of the sky . . . you never know.”
    All that time to prepare the patsy. Now the only truth: you never know.

CHAPTER SIX
    The Patrician
    A few hundred miles south of New York City in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the highway lights were coming on along Old Dominion Road—the broad artery that passed before the entrance to Langley Air Force Base and many other military and intelligence operations on the southern corner of the Chesapeake Bay. In a seventh-floor office nearly identical to the one in Rockefeller Center the double wooden doors were marked:
    DEDCI: Deputy Executive Director Central Intelligence
    The office of Trevor Andover. Nicknamed by friends and foes alike “DEADKEY,” as if this were a real codename. It wasn’t. His codename was a random series of letters and numbers.
    Director Andover was a pale, trim man with something of a bloodless undertaker about him. The aptly named DEADKEY stared out a window at the passing suburban traffic. Behind him an ever-present plasma flat screen flickered with images. He turned from the passing evening traffic to catch the latest offering on his Eye Spy global scope. The satellite’s name: Long Eye; longitude and latitude: 33˚ 54’ N 35˚ 28’ E; time: 15:45Z; place: LEBANON Beirut. A city square as seen from space. Caption: “Hezbollah ‘Celebration’ South Beirut: 15:45Z.”

    The scene showed a hundred thousand people in a Beirut city square, a sea of yellow flags. The crowd chanted: “ Allah Akbarh , God is Great.” But what they were celebrating was anybody’s guess—no elaboration on Long Eye, no explanation.
    Climbing onto a stage draped over with a giant yellow cloth, Sheik Nasrallah, the Hezbollah warlord, appeared in his usual black turban, followed by his retinue and security men. Three of his retinue’s turbans flashed yellow “here we are!” as they headed onto the stage, then disappeared against the bright yellow cloth. Yellow on yellow didn’t show up, a glitch—the color of the marker should automatically change. He’d have to talk to Bryce about that. Another damn glitch. But what troubled Deputy Director Andover was the great man himself. Nasrallah’s turban was not yellow. The carefully marked turbans were getting spread around to the wrong heads. And Nasrallah’s headgear wasn’t blinking.
    Andover went back to the window, disgusted. He’d have to talk to Bryce about that too. See if they could plant a blinking turban on the great man’s head. What was the bloody point if the turban didn’t blink? Ahhh—the young lad himself knocked and entered without waiting.
    “You wished to see me, sir?”
    “Yes, Bryce, take a chair.” His assistant sat. Bryce was of slender build. He wore