CHAPTER 7

LEAMING, black BMW motorcycle squeezed en the low fieldstone gates of the Washing ton Day School. The driver was I.D.'d, then the bike sped down a long narrow road toward a gray cluster of school buildings. It was eleven o'clock.

The BMW streaked to sixty in the few seconds it took to get to the administration building. The motorcycle then braked easily and smoothly, barely throwing gravel. The rider slid it in behind a pearl-gray Mercedes stretch limousine with diplomat's plates DPIOI.

Still seated on the bike, Jezzie Flanagan pulled off a black helmet to reveal longish blond hair. She looked to be in her late twenties. Actually, she'd turned thirty-two that summer. Life was threatening to pass her right by. She was a relic now, ancient history, she believed. She had come straight to the school from her lake cottage, not to mention her first vacation in twenty-nine months.

That latter fact helped to explain her style of dress

40 that morning: the leather bike jacket, the faded black jeans with leg warmers, thick leather belt, the red-and black checkered lumberman's shirt, and the worn engineering boots.

Two D.C. policemen rushed up on either side of her. “It's okay, officers,” she said, “here's my I.D. ” After eyeing the identification, they backed away quickly and became solicitous. “You can go right in,” one of them said. “There's a side door just around those high hedges, Ms. Flanagan.”