Kitty Goes to Washington

"I'd love that. But—" I wanted to pull my hair out. I couldn't believe I was going to turn down Luis to go play Mission: Impossible with Cormac. "But I can't. I set up a meeting and I can't miss it."

"Something for your show?"

"Yeah, something like that." It wasn't an outright lie. Most everything ended up on the show eventually. But Luis looked at me sidelong, like he knew I wasn't being entirely truthful. He could probably smell it on me, or sense the twitchy nervousness through my body.

He said, "The full moon is coming soon, in just a few days. Do you know where you'll be?"

I knew the full moon was coming soon. I couldn't forget. "No. I usually scout out a place to run, but I haven't had time."

"Come with me. There's a park about an hour outside town, a few of us drive there. It's safe."

Full moon night with friends. It had been a long time since I had anyone watching my back.

"I'd really like that. Thanks."

He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. "Then it's a date."

When one lycanthrope said to another, "run with me," it was usually a euphemism. I certainly hoped so.

"I should let you get to your meeting."

"Yes."

"Then until I catch you again." He touched my cheek, kissed me on the corner of my mouth, lingering for just a moment as if he'd draw the breath from me, then pulled back. He stepped away, gri

He turned and continued down the street, hands tucked in his trouser pockets.

So where were all the seductive Brazilian hunks when I had time on my hands?

I picked up a visitor's badge, found my way to the Clinical Center building, and kept walking, like I was going to Flemming's office again: down the hall, around the corner to the elevators. At this point, I had no idea what I was doing. Cormac said he'd be watching for me.

It was easy for him to talk about sneaking into government buildings. He hadn't been accosted by Men In Black on his arrival in town. He wasn't having paranoid delusions about the hallway in the Senate building being bugged so that some security goon heard all our plans and was waiting for us to make the first move and catch us red-handed.

I clung to the wall, glancing around with wide eyes, convinced someone was following me.

I scented Cormac—his light aftershave and the faint touch of gun oil that never left him—just before he stepped around a corner and grabbed my arm. I still gasped and had to swallow back a moment of panic. This isn't danger, I'm not in danger. He put his hand against my back and guided me forward, so that we continued down the corridor, walking side by side, like we belonged here. He'd left his guns at home this afternoon.

We stopped by the elevators. Cormac pushed the button. No gloves, I noticed. Maybe that came later.

I leaned close and whispered, "I have to ask, aren't you worried that maybe somebody heard us? That maybe the FBI or something knows we're here and is watching us? I mean, we pla

"Norville, the thing you have to understand is, the government is a big bureaucracy, and the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing most of the time. The fact that it gets anything done is a miracle. Nobody's paying attention to us. But they'll start if you keep acting like you're up to something. Stop looking around."

We didn't much look like we belonged here. Cormac was still wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I was only marginally better in slacks and a knit top. But he acted like we belonged here, and that was the key. Keep quiet, don't spend too much time looking around like you needed directions, and know where you're going.

The elevator opened, we stepped inside, after letting the few occupants exit: a couple of people in white lab coats, a woman holding a flower arrangement. She was dressed about like I was. Cormac was right. No one paid attention to us.

He pushed the button to send us to the basement, carrying on like we had an appointment with Flemming. By the time the doors opened to spit us out, my stomach was doing somersaults.

"We can't walk right into his office," I whispered at him, hoping I didn't sound as panicked as I felt. "What if he's there?"

"He won't be. I sent him on a wild goose chase."

"You what?"

He looked down his nose at me, the long-suffering stare that made me feel like an a

"I called him from a pay phone, said I knew him from the army and had information about his research, but I had to talk to him in person. I told him I was in Frederick." He pursed his lips in a wry smile. "He'll be gone for a couple of hours."

Frederick, Maryland. Some thirty-five miles away. Close enough for Flemming to think that following the lead was worthwhile, far enough away to keep him busy for a couple of hours. Flemming would be gone all afternoon, assuming he took the bait. Considering Flemming was more paranoid than I was, I could assume he had.

That was hilarious. I was begi

Now, Cormac put on gloves, made of thin black leather. I followed suit, though mine were cheap knit ones I'd dug out of my car. Not nearly as cool as his. By the time we got to the door of Flemming's office, he'd pulled something out of his pocket: a card key.

"Where'd you get that?" I hissed.

"Janitor," he said. "Don't worry, I'll give it back."

Oh. My. God.

The lock clicked; the door slipped open.

I followed Cormac into the office. He closed the door smoothly behind me.

The office was dark. Cormac made no move to turn the lights on. Enough ambient light showed through the frosted window in the door to find our way around the room. My sight adjusted quickly. Quicker than Cormac's—I headed toward the paper shredder in the corner while he was still squinting.

The bin under the shredder was empty. So was the counter next to it. All those papers, gone. Of course they were, he'd spent the morning shredding them.

I started working my way through the remaining stacks of documents piled around the desk and bookshelves. They were all medical journals, published articles, photocopies of articles, dissertations, and the like. Some of them I'd dug up on my own. At first glance, none of them offered insight into Flemming's research. It was all background and supporting documentation. The bread, not the meat at the middle of the sandwich.

Cormac went to the desk to fire up the computers. After they'd booted up, the screens coming to life, he shook his head at me. "Password protected," he said. "Hacking isn't my strong suit."

No, he was a stolen key and .45 revolver kind of guy.

I wasn't prepared for serious digging. I'd assumed—wrongly—that in all this mess I'd find something just lying around, even with all the shredding going on. I studied the bookshelves, hoping for a spark of inspiration. The physiology reference books butted up against the folklore encyclopedias amused me.

I sighed, on the verge of defeat. "Let's see if we can get into the next room."

The second door also had a frosted window in it, but the other side was dark. I couldn't see anything through the glass. Cormac took out his trusty stolen card key, slid it through the reader, and popped the door open. The door swung away from him. He straightened and gestured me inside.

"After you."

I felt like I was stepping into an ancient Egyptian tomb. The place was so still, I could hear my blood in my ears, and it was cold with the kind of chill that seeped through stone underground. I could see well enough in the dark. The linoleum floor continued, and like the office this room had walls of shelves. It also had lab benches, sinks and faucets, and a large metallic refrigerator that hummed softly. Also, Flemming had here a good collection of the medical equipment I'd expected to find in his laboratory: racks of test tubes, beakers, Bunsen burners, and unidentifiable tabletop appliances plugged into walls. They might have been oscillators, autoclaves, the kind of things one saw on medical dramas on television, or in the dentist's office. Again, the place had more of the atmosphere of a college biology laboratory than a clandestine government research facility.