Circle of Bones by Christine Kling

behind them. 
    She knew better than to argue with a conspiracy nut. When she faced forward again, she said, “Listen, Bob, we’re about to enter the anchorage, so I’d appreciate it if you’d sit still and keep quiet until the anchor’s down.”
    She had given him a tropical print sarong along with an old, extra-large military-issue T-shirt. His fingers rubbed at the cloth of the olive drab shirt. “You military?”
    She kept her eyes trained on the channel ahead. “Marine Corps.”
    He nodded as though that somehow explained something. “Never met a woman Marine before.”
    She drew in a deep breath. “ Former Marine. And I told you to sit down and be quiet.”  
    Riley was trying to decide if he looked adorable or ridiculous in her knee-length sarong when he pivoted around, leaned his back against the side of the cabin and put his feet up on the cockpit seat, his legs bent at the knee. She looked away. Peering ahead, out through the windows of the dodger, she could feel his eyes on her. On top of that, after his hours in the sun, he smelled of male sweat and testosterone. From the corner of her eye she could see he hadn’t moved, and she stared straight ahead, determined not to smile.
    Behind the freighter, a wide, high-speed catamaran ferryboat was also trying to crowd her out of the channel. These French didn’t seem to have very good manners. Like her passenger. He was still grinning at her. 
    “What do you find so amusing?” she asked without looking his way.
    “You.”
    Her eyes flicked for a second in his direction, then away. He still hadn’t changed his position. She said nothing.
    “Don’t you ever smile, Magee?” he asked.
    “I told you to be quiet. And stop calling me that.” 
    He made a big show of pantomiming zipping his lips closed and throwing away the key.
    She looked at him, not letting her line of vision stray lower than his chin. “While you’re at it,” she said, and though it took some effort to keep a straight face, she managed.  “When you’re wearing a skirt, you might want to keep your legs closed, too.”

CHAPTER NINE
     
    Washington, DC
    March 18, 2008 
    4:47 p.m.
     
    Diggory Priest stood at the center of the star on the floor of the Capitol Crypt and checked his watch for the second time. Most of the tour groups had finished for the day. There were a couple of stragglers on the far side of the large room, teenagers, giggling in front of a glass case that held a model of an earlier design for the Capitol. The Crypt was located on the first floor of the United States Capitol building, directly under the Rotunda. Though the room over Priest’s head had sometimes hosted the lying in state of dead presidents and other luminaries, he’d been told the Crypt, in spite of its name, had never been used for funerary purposes. Now, the large columned space only housed artwork and exhibits about the history and architecture of the building. Diggory thought the man he was meeting had quite a sense of humor to have chosen this location. He checked his watch again. He had not ever known him to be late to a meeting, but given the vagaries of political emergencies, he would give him five more minutes.
    It was only after the gigglers had disappeared that Diggory heard the tapping of leather shoes crossing the polished stone floor. The man who approached him was wearing an elegant charcoal suit, white shirt, and red tie. The suit looked good on his lean frame, and he carried a buttery soft and worn Italian leather attaché case. He extended a hand as he approached Diggory.
    “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long?”
    “Not a problem, sir. It’s always a pleasure to see you,” Diggory said. He was uncertain of the protocol for names in this particular situation — much depended on the nature of his assignment. Traditionally, members called one another by the names they had taken on the night of their initiation,