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other. The man in the nice suit was grey-haired, tanned, with deep frown lines ingrained in his forehead. The man in the cheaper suit was very tall, with a barrel chest and gorilla hands. He had thick, black hair and looked to be about fifty. He must have been a soldier at one point, but years of inactivity had packed on the pounds. Quarrel did a double-take when they entered, then stood up and held out his hand to the older, well-dressed man.
    “Senator Anderson. It’s nice to meet you.”
    The senator shook his hand, eyebrows climbing up his forehead. “You know me?”
    “Sure. Senior senator for Ohio. Fifth term. You sit on several funding committees who hold closed-door meetings people aren’t supposed to know about, and more publicly on the Armed Services Committee. I’m not really surprised you’d be in a place like this.”
    The senator looked at Milton. “This kid’s not bad.”
    Milton spoke up, “Kid, this is Mr. Hinkston of the Central Intelligence Agency, and I see you already know who the good senator is. Now sit down.”
    Hinkston shook Quarrel’s hand, his massive fingers engulfing Quarrel’s right hand, while he also slipped a business card into Quarrel’s left. Quarrel sat down, but Anderson and Hinkston stayed on their feet. The card had a CIA logo on the back, and on the other side it simply said HINKSTON and a phone number. Milton picked up the conversation.
    “So Carol liked you, which means you got something going for you. But I gotta be honest, kid, you don’t look like much.”
    “A good spy should never look like much. Much is conspicuous.”
    Milton chuckled. “Damn right.”
    Milton pulled open a drawer and fished around. Quarrel noticed that the old man’s computer monitor (a big old VGA monitor, not a modern flat screen like in the other offices) was turned off and covered in dust. Milton found what he was seeking and tossed a photo at Chris. It was a generic-looking man of about thirty. Short hair, brown eyes, clean shaven, Caucasian. It was just a headshot, so there was no way to judge his height or build. Milton waited for Chris to size the man up. Quarrel shrugged.
    “What you are looking at is the least conspicuous man in America. His name was Matthew Crowe. He was the best.” Quarrel had never heard the name. Milton continued, “Crowe was a master of disguise. He could become anyone. Young or old, any language, any level of fame or notoriety, Crowe could assume the identity so completely that not even the subject’s own mother would know. And last week somebody killed him. Twelve hours later they hit your office.”
    “Did his identity get leaked?”
    “Don’t know if anyone knew his real name, but his cover was definitely broken. Crowe was in the middle of a deep-cover mission posing as a Russian businessman. Somebody knew. And they had him taken out.”
    “How do you know it wasn’t just a hit on the Russian he was playing?”
    “The killer left us a note. He drew a picture on the wall of the room where Crowe’s body was found.” Milton handed over another photo. It was a finger-painted letter F, written in blood.
    “F. The sixth letter of the alphabet. Like in the letter to the CSIS-2 postbox that I opened.”
    “CIB has a specific mandate. We protect American agents from things like this. It’s one thing for us to investigate a dead CIA agent, but it’s exceedingly rare that one of our own ends up dead.”
    Hinkston spoke now, “We need to sort this thing out, Mr. Quarrel. I’ve been pushing for an agent from outside the CIB to take point on Crowe’s murder.”
    “You’ve been pushing for one of your lackeys to take point on this,” said Milton. “And I refuse to let them know the inner workings of my organization.” He turned back to Quarrel. “But I agree, CIB is too small a family to let any of my guys run this investigation. I could easily wind up tasking the traitor to find himself. I need someone from outside,and someon e no t answerable to