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Paul assumed that the Deacon was right, that bus terminal employees around the country had probably been sent his photo. But he wasn’t going to hop a freight train. He had a better, simpler plan.

Stephen Lucas had offered to accompany him to Concord, New Hampshire, the nearest big city, a distance of around sixty miles. That would be a journey of several days on foot, though, and Paul didn’t want to delay any further.

He had to reach Ambassador John Robinson Gillette as soon as possible. Ambassador Gillette was the only person who could help, Paul believed. He was intricately connected to some highly placed people in government. And because of his son, J.R., he owed Paul a favor.

By midday, he and the Deacon had arrived at a “welcome center,” a rest stop on I-93 South. There Paul saw several trucks parked outside the main building, sort of a tourist information center combined with a deli and a pizza place. When one of the drivers returned to his truck bearing a tall cup of coffee and a sandwich wrapped in white paper, Paul intercepted him. He offered to pay the truck driver fifty dollars for a lift to Boston. Boston was where the driver was headed anyway, so he gladly took the fifty bucks.

*

In Boston, where the bus terminal was crowded, Paul asked a homeless man to buy him a bus ticket to Lenox, Mass. He tipped the man twenty bucks.

On the bus, he thought about Ambassador Gillette.

The ambassador was the father of his college classmate J.R. Gillette, a friend whom Paul had sung with. Paul had met the father a few times, when he came to visit his son at Reed and once for drinks after an a cappella concert in D.C.

In their junior year of college, J.R. Gillette had what used to be called a “nervous breakdown.” He was suddenly paralyzed with depression, stayed in bed all the time, sleeping or trying to sleep. He stopped going to classes, didn’t do any of the reading. Paul dragged him, almost literally, to Health and Counseling Services. He secured a same-day appointment, waited with him until the appointment, and waited for him to be finished. J.R. was diagnosed as bipolar and given a prescription, which Paul made him take. Within a week, J.R. was partway to normal. Within two weeks, he was himself again. Paul went with him to see the associate dean of students and got J.R. an incomplete for the semester so he wouldn’t fail all his classes.

J.R.’s high-powered father was grateful to Paul for taking care of his son. Gillette Senior had once been the director of the FBI, after serving as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He’d also served for a few years as CIA director. Earlier, he’d been ambassador to the Netherlands. He was the most connected person Paul knew. Deeply versed in international relations, Ambassador Gillette was a highly intelligent, gentle, and soft-spoken man. A legendary D.C. power player, he was an advisor to six presidents. The ultimate insider’s insider.

And given Paul’s connection to his son, he’d help. Paul was sure of it.

The ambassador had retired to a big old house in or near Lenox, in the western part of the state. He’d retired there because he loved Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Having grown up on Beacon Hill, in Boston, Gillette had gone to concerts at Tanglewood most of his life.

Paul had Gillette’s address but not his telephone number. But that was fine. He wanted to surprise the man and not give him the chance to set him up the way Lou Westing had.

He was learning as he went along.

The ride took about three hours. He got off the bus at the Village Pharmacy in Lenox and proceeded on foot to Ambassador Gillette’s house.

*

In the late nineteenth century, the area around Lenox, Massachusetts, had been the summer home for the rich from Boston and New York who wanted someplace quieter than Newport. There in Lenox and Great Barrington and Stockbridge they built great, lavish country mansions they called “cottages.” Many of the houses had names. Most of these estates had long ago been turned into spas or museums or performing arts summer camps or headquarters for think tanks. But a few of the Gilded Age estates had remained in private hands, including Ambassador Gillette’s home, Colworth Hall. It was an English manor house with twenty-two rooms, set on forty acres. It had been in the Gillette family since the ambassador’s industrialist father bought it from the original owner’s descendants in the nineteen fifties. Paul had visited it once, during college, with J.R.

The entrance to Colworth Hall was a wrought-iron gate flanked by stone pillars. Mounted to the right-hand pillar was a security camera and a call box. Paul considered his options. Press the button and maybe, if he was lucky, talk via video link with the ambassador.

And say what? “I’m a friend of your son’s, and I need to talk with you”? The ambassador would surely say, “Hold on,” then right away call his son and ask about someone named Paul Brightman, and the son would say, Paul Brightman disappeared five years ago, probably killed on orders of a Russian oligarch in the years before the war in Ukraine, when New York was still one of their playgrounds. Because that was the prevailing theory. Paul knew this because he had googled himself.

And maybe the ambassador would invite him in, keep him occupied while the FBI scrambled a team from Albany to arrest him. That was a risk he didn’t want to take. So he had to surprise the man, assuming the ambassador wasn’t afflicted with senility. And ask his help, his advice.

He moved away from the security camera and walked down the road, along the fenced border of Colworth Hall’s grounds. He was fairly sure there would be a service entrance, which might not be covered by a security camera. Maybe that was a way to get in without being detected.

It was late afternoon, around five, and the sun hadn’t yet set. He walked the length of a city block, turned a corner, and saw an entrance . . . with its own security camera in place.

There was another option.

He would ring the house on the call box, and if he was able to speak directly to the ambassador, he would introduce himself and see how the man reacted. If there was anything suspicious in his behavior, Paul would simply get the hell out of there.

He returned to the front entrance. There, he rang the call bell. Half a minute went by, and then a video image appeared on the intercom. It was a red-haired woman in her fifties dressed in a black housekeeping dress with white collar. “May I help you?”

“I need to see Ambassador Gillette,” he said. “I’m a friend of his son’s.”

“I see. Will you wait a moment?”

“Of course.”

The video screen went gray blue. He’d been put on hold.

When an image came back on, it was of Ambassador Gillette’s face. He looked much older than the vigorous, seventy-something man Paul had met during college. He’d been notably older than most other fathers of his classmates. The years had taken their toll. “Uh, who’s there?” the ambassador said. “You’re a friend of J.R.’s?”

“Yes. From Reed. We’ve actually met a few times, you and I.”

“I’m sorry, and you are . . . ?”

“Paul Brightman.”

“The hell you are. Paul Brightman is dead.” So he already knew about him.

“Not yet, I’m not,” Paul said. “That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

“What—what’s my son’s favorite sport?”

“Favorite sport?” Paul was stumped. “He hates sports.”

“Where did he live freshman year?”

“McKinley.” The ambassador’s eyes widened.

“Good Lord! I thought you’d been killed by Arkady Galkin’s goons. Come in, come in.”

The screen went blue again, and the cast-iron gate swung inward. Paul heard the electric swing gate operator’s motor hum.

He walked up a long white flagstone driveway toward the mansion. Colworth Hall was spectacularly beautiful, built entirely of stone with chimney stacks and high-pitched gable rooflines. It was surrounded by an immense green lawn like a golf course, and in front of the house burbled a marble fountain.

By the time he arrived at the portico, the double entrance doors were coming open, antique dark-brown walnut, beautifully carved. Standing there when the doors opened fully was the uniformed housekeeper.

“Welcome,” she said. “The ambassador is in his library. May I get you a drink?”

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” Paul said, though he needed one.

Ambassador John Robinson Gillette was wheelchair-bound now, Paul saw. “Paul Brightman?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Come on in. Take a seat. Did Noreen take your drink order? I’m having a martini. Noreen makes excellent martinis. Can I offer you one as well?”

“Scotch rocks would be excellent,” Paul said.

The ambassador’s wheelchair was parked before a big, roaring fire in a fireplace with carved stone surrounds. The floor was a highly polished mahogany. The walls were wood-paneled. Exposed beams crisscrossed the ceiling.

At ninety, Ambassador Gillette was a patrician figure who spoke with a precise mid-Atlantic accent. His silver hair and eyebrows contrasted dramatically with his dark-brown skin.

“You are indeed Paul Brightman?” he said.

“I am.” Was the ambassador senile, or was he still testing him?

“Sang with J.R., too, as I recall.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s the name of the a cappella singing group you both sang in?”

“The Herodotones.”

Gillette grinned. That was another test. “How Reed is that? From Herodotus, of course. Mr. Brightman, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for helping out J.R. in college.”

“He was my friend,” Paul said. “But I’m ashamed I haven’t been in touch.” For the last five years, of course, it had been dangerous for him to reach out to any college friend. “How is he?”

Gillette shrugged. “He’s been better. He’s been able to keep a job, but I still worry about him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Please give him all my best.”

“You were a wonderful friend to him. So I imagine you have a story to tell.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I don’t know what I can do to help. I’ve been retired for quite some time. But anything I can do, I’m here for you.”

Paul knew it wasn’t quite true that Gillette was retired. He continued to serve as an emeritus advisor to presidents. He didn’t fly to Washington, D.C. They called him in Lenox.

Noreen entered the study bearing a tray holding two full cocktail glasses. The ambassador preferred his martini in a highball glass.

Paul took the Scotch and thanked Noreen.

Then he told the ambassador his story.