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prove.”
    “Fuck being careful, Senator. There are no cameras in this room. I want to know what you guys are going to do to get to the bottom of this.”
    “I’ll speak to all the senators who attended your briefing,” Rackman said. “And I’m sure John will talk to folks in the House.”
    “The staff weenies, too,” LaFountaine said. “And there was some damn kid serving coffee, although I’m sure she wasn’t in the room when I was talking.”
    “We’ll talk to everybody,” Rackman said, “but you made it clear the day you were over here that if anybody talked about Diller, one of your operations could be affected. I just can’t believe that …”
    “It wasn’t just Mahata who was killed,” LaFountaine said. “She had a network over there, four people who helped her. They’re all missing and we’re pretty sure they’re dead, too. And we think they were all tortured before they were killed because one of them gave up Mahata’s escape route.”
    Mahoney grimaced.
    “I’m sorry,” Rackman said, “but…”
    “You guys have no idea how valuable that woman was to this country. We developed a perfect background for her, placed her in Iran, and basically told her to fuck her way into a position where she could obtain information. She was a beautiful woman, and as repulsive as it must have been for her, she did what we asked. It took her three years but she eventually became the mistress of a high-level guy in their defense department and landed a job as a translator. You can’t even
imagine
the information she provided.”
    “Has the reporter said anything since they put her in jail?” Rackman asked.
    Neither Rackman nor LaFountaine noticed but Mahoney glanced away when the reporter was mentioned.
    “No,” LaFountaine said. “That bitch hasn’t had a story like this in twenty years. I heard they almost dumped her when the paperdownsized last year, but they didn’t want to get caught up in some feminist, EEO, lawsuit bullshit. And now she’s a fucking star, sitting in that cell, playing the intrepid reporter.”
    LaFountaine smiled. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
    “But I found some things out about her. She’s borderline claustrophobic so I got her put in the smallest cell they had. She’s also addicted to painkillers, and I’m making sure she doesn’t get her pills until she’s almost out of her mind. I’m thinking about replacing the pills with placebos.”
    “Jesus,” Rackman said. “Why in the hell would you tell me something like that? I can’t know that you’re…”
    “Tough shit,” LaFountaine said.
    LaFountaine stood up. “I’m not screwing around here. One of your people leaked that story and if you don’t find out who it was, I will. And when I find out, I’m not going to give a good goddamn about whatever political problems it’ll cause you.”
    Rackman stood up, too. “I won’t be spoken to in that manner and I don’t like being threatened. I may have a talk with your boss.” Rackman meant the president.
    LaFountaine snorted. “Go ahead. If Whitmore doesn’t give up her source pretty soon, I’m going to ask him to assign a special prosecutor and he’ll question your folks under oath. And then I’ll get whoever did this for perjury as well because I know the son of a bitch will lie.”
    After LaFountaine left, Rackman asked Mahoney, “Do you think he’s right, John? Do you think somebody in Congress could have been Whitmore’s source?”
    “I dunno,” Mahoney said.
    Mahoney wasn’t
exactly
lying. He wasn’t positive that he knew who had leaked the story—but he had a pretty good idea who it might have been.

Chapter 8
     
    DeMarco was playing hooky.
     
    What he was supposed to be doing was figuring out why a Republican congressman from Arkansas kept flying to Minnesota every weekend. Mahoney knew the guy was up to something, and he wanted to know what. If all the young congressman was doing was having an affair, then Mahoney—a man who had had