Settling into the backseat of the car, I mentioned to the attractive young lady seated beside me, "That's a lovely pistol you're carrying."

No reply.

"The accessorized holster's nice, too."

"Well… they're FBI issue."

"No kidding. Ever shoot anybody with it?"

"Not yet." She gave me a brief glance. "You might be my first."

From her accent she was from the Midwest, Ohio, someplace like that. From her tone and demeanor, she meant it. Neither she nor the gentlemen in the front smiled, offered hands, or appeared in any way pleased to have me as a passenger.

So to break the ice, I said, "I'm Sean Drummond."

She said, "Keep quiet."

"Nice morning, isn't it?"

She gave me an annoyed look and stared out the window.

"Where are we going?" I asked her.

"I'm trying to think. Shut up."

"That's not what I asked."

"Well… you're not paying attention to the answer you're getting."

We were in the backseat of an unmarked black sedan with two plainclothes types in front. I said, "You guys know where we're going?"

The one in the passenger seat glanced sideways at his partner. "Yeah."

As I mentioned, I'm Sean Drummond, an Army major and a JAG attorney, and for all I knew these three were goombahs and we were on our way to the nearest marsh for a quick whack. Well, probably not-though I think the lady was tempted. We had just departed the front gate of CIA headquarters and turned right onto Dolley Madison, headed west toward McLean. No lights or sirens were turned on, but the driver kicked it up to about seventy, which I regarded as interesting fact number one.

I knew the lady's name was Jennifer Margold; I knew she was a special agent from the D.C. Metro Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and probably she wouldn't be in the backseat of this car were she not good at something. Early to mid-thirties, shoulder-length coppery hair, slender, and as I mentioned, attractive-not beautiful, more like pretty in an interesting way.