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Masters filled me in on this guy that, I’d just been told completely out of the blue, she was going to marry; the one she’d apparently met in this city; the one she was seeing five minutes after we had stopped seeing each other. Or maybe I was being generous: it seemed to me there could have been a period of overlap. I felt Masters owed me that much, and I wanted to collect. ‘So what did you make of the show put on for our benefit?’ I asked instead.
    ‘At the consulate-general?’
    ‘Been to any other shows lately?’
    She shrugged. ‘The Ambassador’s charming, the local cops are barely adequate, Captain Cain seems on the ball, those CID guys gave me the creeps, and the Attaché’s missing a few components.’
    ‘Where was CIA?’ I asked.
    ‘CIA? Why did they need to be there?’
    ‘Lots of reasons?’
    ‘Name one.’
    ‘Portman was an appi-8.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘An A-P-I Eight,’ I said, spelling it out.
    ‘I didn’t see that in his file.’
    ‘It wasn’t in his file. I went online before we left Andrews. I was hunting around for background.’ The acronym API was short for Aircrew Position Indicator, a term used by the bean counters to describe flying status within the fighting machine collectively known as the United States Air Force. An API-1 was a pilot assigned to a squadron. An API-8, or ‘appi-8’, was an officer above wing level staff who was permitted to maintain a basic level of currency, which allowed him or her to fly a particular type of aircraft.
    ‘So what was he current on?’ Masters asked.
    ‘Eagles.’
    ‘He flew F-15s?’
    ‘He had a loose attachment to the Grim Reapers, the 493rd. They let him out in the sports car every now and then.’
    Masters gave the kind of nod that indicated she was impressed, just as I’d been. The McDonnell Douglas F-15C Eagle was a hell of a weapon. In the right hands, it was capable of killing the enemy in any number of ways. In the wrong hands, it would more than likely just turn around and kill the pilot. It was a very fast and very lethal front-line fighter that required a lot of skill to fly. Portman was pushing fifty and there weren’t many his age allowed in an Eagle’s driver’s seat. Yeah, Colonel Portman was special.
    ‘You’re thinking that CIA would have had a guy like Portman working on something?’ Masters enquired.
    ‘I’d put money on it.’
    The waiter arrived with breakfast and we ate in silence. It wasn’t a comfortable silence.
    ‘So,’ I said, deciding to warm things up a little, ‘heard the one about the attorney driving down the highway in his brand new Mercedes?’Masters gave me a blank look. ‘He loves it so much he’s even making up songs about it. “I love my new Mercedes. Mercedes, Mercedes, Mercedes . . .”’
    ‘Do I really want to hear this?’ Masters asked.
    Yes, she did. ‘The guy gets so caught up in how much he loves this new automobile of his that he forgets to take the corner. He goes over the embankment, hits a tree and smashes into a boulder. Luckily, the attorney’s thrown clear just as the car bursts into flames. Meanwhile, the guy who was driving in the vehicle behind screeches to a stop, gets out and runs down the embankment. He makes it to the lawyer and finds him on his knees, sobbing, “My new Mercedes! My beautiful new Mercedes!”
    ‘Horrified at the sight of the crash victim, the guy says, “My god! You’ve lost an arm!” The lawyer looks down and notices for the first time that he has indeed lost his whole arm. He then starts screaming, “My new Rolex. My new Rolex!”’
    Masters didn’t say anything for a moment, just glared at me with those turquoise eyes of hers. And then she said, ‘If you’re going to tell bad lawyer jokes, at least do ones I haven’t heard.’
    I shrugged. ‘Then I guess you also know the one about the scientist who goes to the brain store to get some brain to complete a study?’
    Masters gave me another burst of silence, which I took as