Christmas break and spring vacation were the only times they came together now with any regularity. The crush of classes, part-time jobs and social obligations monopolized their time, as work had eaten up so many hours of Brognola's life while they were growing up. Instead of looking back on other seasons with regret, Brognola cherished every infrequent moment that they had together these days.

The three-day weekend was their private time before Jeff caught the southbound flight for Lauderdale, before Eileen and friends departed for a week in Provincetown. Brognola had avoided asking any questions, loath to pry, and equally afraid, perhaps, of what their honest answers might reveal. The big Fed hadn't spent his youth in a monastery, and he understood the modern trend toward free-and-easy sexuality, but it wouldn't do to know too much about his children's private lives. A man with few illusions left, he clung to the mirage of their eternal innocence. He chuckled to himself, imagining that when Eileen was thirty-five with children of her own, he would be cherishing the myth of virgin birth.

The parking lot was nearly empty, bureaucrats decamping early on a Friday afternoon, deserting desks and filing cabinets for the beach, the mountains, anywhere away from claustrophobic cubicles and jangling telephones. Brognola aimed his Buick toward the exit, spent another moment checking out with gate security then merged with weekend traffic, outbound, leaving Wonderland on the Potomac behind. He traveled west on Constitution Avenue, across the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge into Arlington, on past the endless graves of heroes, catching Highway 211 west toward Rappahannock County and the Blue Ridge Mountains.