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“Duty. Of course.” Jenou rolls her eyes with a deliberate lack of subtlety, like some silent movie star.

Rio draws Jenou’s attention downward to see the raised middle finger discreetly by her leg. Both women grin hugely as a way to avoid giggling like misbehaving children in church.

The speeches end, and it is time now for the moment.

“Oh my God, I’m going to cry,” Jenou says.

“Don’t start that or . . . just don’t.”

But there are tears in both their eyes when Francine “Frangie” Marr of Tulsa, Oklahoma, walks up onto the stage to receive the piece of paper that now, finally, after time out to have children, after delays getting through college, after the grueling years of medical school, finally means that she is now . . .

“Doctor Francine Marr,” the presenter says. Frangie doesn’t quite skip across the stage, but she sure looks like she wants to.

Just a few rows ahead of Jenou and Rio is a gray-at-the-temples Walter Green, Walter Jr., age fourteen, George Green, age twelve, and Alicia Green, age ten. They all stand and applaud wildly, as does an absurdly tall Obal Marr, who helps his arthritis-crippled mother to stand as well and see her daughter’s impossible dream become reality. Harder stands beside his wife and his own two children.

It is not until they begin to file out of the auditorium that Rio spots the woman standing at the back.

Rainy Schulterman wears clothing just short of expensive, in the most conservative of styles, in the least noticeable of colors.

“Rainy!” Rio cries. “I haven’t seen you since . . . well, since. What the heck are you doing with yourself? Come on, we’re going to see if anyone serves beer here in Iowa. We’re supposed to meet up at Walter and Frangie’s house in an hour.”

Rainy shakes hands with the soldier and the best-selling author. “I couldn’t miss Marr graduating. I always felt a bit guilty about browbeating her into staying in after the Silver Star. Wanted to see how it all came out.”

“Ah,” Rio says. “Not worried about guilting me into it, just Marr.”

Rainy smiles. “Who guilted you into West Point? And Korea?”

“What are you doing nowadays?” Jenou asks.

Rainy shrugs and sighs and makes a little smile. “I’m just a lowly bureaucrat, I’m afraid. I work for the Department of Commerce as a very junior foreign trade attaché.”

Rio might still be sufficiently naive not to know that Cat is a lesbian, but she’s not naive enough to buy this story. For one thing, Rio’s car is not the only dull, four-door government sedan parked outside. And Rainy’s driver does not look like the sort of fellow employed by the Commerce Department.

But Rainy sticks to her story with all the tenacity and subtle lies one might expect of the deputy director of central intelligence.

Even after beer DDCI Schulterman will talk only of her work as a special trade envoy to various countries she manages to avoid naming. The one personal detail Rainy will divulge is the name of her husband: Halev.

“Kids?” Rio asks, when they are seated on the screened porch of Frangie and Walter’s pleasant if chaotic home.

“No,” Rainy says. “You?”

Rio shakes her head. “I think Frangie

has the nurturing personality.” She smiles at young Alicia, who leans against the doorjamb eyeing the three of them.

The girl takes the smile as an invitation—she’s already at age ten as tall as Frangie—and she comes over.

“My mommy says you were in the war and were really brave.”

“Does she?” Rio says. “And what does she say about herself in the war?”

“Oh, she wasn’t really in the war,” Alicia says waving a dismissive hand. “She just took care of people who got hurt. She was only a medic.”

“Only a medic?” Rio says. “Well, you may not know it, and I guess your mom is too modest to tell you, but I have known a lot of brave soldiers. Your mother was as brave as any of them. Come here. Sit down. Let me tell you about your mother.”

Later, after the party breaks up and the last good-byes are said, Rainy Schulterman is driven to Chicago, where she will catch a flight back to Washington. She has her burly driver up front and her assistant beside her.

“I want you to get me some information on a British subject,” Rainy says. “Jack—which may be a nickname for John—Stafford.”