Threat Level Black

Chapter 1

Blitz couldn’t stop himself.

“How? How?” he demanded, pacing back and forth in the secure communications center below the Pentagon. “How?”

“I sure as shit would like to know that myself,” said Pierce.

Actually, they had just been told how it had happened — or rather, the sequence of events that had followed Howe’s landing at Misawa in northern Japan. According to the colonel who had made the report, a dozen men — obviously North Koreans — had infiltrated the base sometime after the Berkut had taken off. Wearing Japanese uniforms, they had killed the two American crewmen assigned to ride out to the Berkut when it landed and had taken over their truck. They had then diverted Howe to the abandoned area, where they knocked him out and spirited his passenger away. The Japanese unit tasked as escorts had been delayed, apparently with false orders. As it was, an American backup team had narrowly missed grabbing the scientist — or whoever he was — and may have saved Howe’s life.

Had the Koreans somehow learned of the operation and then managed to thwart it? Japan was said to be filled with North Korean spies, but it didn’t seem possible.

Blitz thought there was a more logical if equally outrageous explanation: The operation had been planned to get the passenger out of Korea. There were sketchy reports of intrusions at other bases and airfields as well, and while the information was vague, he thought this meant that the North Korean had tried to cover as many contingencies as he could without knowing all of the details of the operation. He must be fairly important, obviously, and thought that he would be recognized once in American custody. But who the S-37/B had transported remained a mystery.

In the meantime, the situation in Korea had dramatically changed. There had been a coup, and apparently in mistaken and unordered retaliation — or at least there was no intelligence indicating that orders had been given — two artillery units had fired on Seoul.

The American reaction had been swift and fierce. Within a few minutes ninety percent of the artillery tubes in the DMZ area had been bombed, shelled, or hit by missiles. The North Korean warheads had been destroyed by B-2s, and a phalanx of Tomahawk cruise missiles had destroyed command centers, barracks, and weapons depots deep inside the country.

And last but certainly not least, a Cyclops airborne laser had wiped out a medium-range intercontinental missile that had managed to get off the ground from a heretofore unknown base, blasting it out of the sky as it headed toward Japan.

It had not yet been determined whether the missile was armed with a nuclear weapon or not. It was irrelevant, in Blitz’s mind: just so much more piling on in the geopolitical calculus.

American troops had taken over two military airports in the southern portion of the country. The President had ordered the Joint Chiefs to proceed with a plan dubbed Righteous Force, cooperating with the South Koreans to secure the area near the DMZ and protect South Korea from further attack. In the meantime two different North Korean army commanders had proclaimed that they were in control of their capital. Depending on the report, North Korea ’s dear leader Kim Jong Il had either been killed, fled the country, or was fighting back from one of three strongholds.

Blitz stared at a computer screen, where a fresh casualty report had just been flashed up. Three thousand South Koreans had died and about twice that number had been injured.

Could that number be true? It was a ridiculously small price to pay — absurdly small.

The first reports were always wrong, he told himself. The first rumors from the field at Manassas proclaimed a great Union victory. But with a relatively low number of casualties — horrible as any deaths were — the U.S. might yet achieve the goals Blitz and the President envisioned without the catastrophe that everyone, Blitz included, had feared.

Should he be happy? Their hands were tied; they’d had no choice but to respond. The fact that the plan had gone off so well — assuming the reports were true, assuming there weren’t other surprises — that was cause for celebration. Serious cause.

And yet, it felt sacrilegious. He wasn’t a warmonger — the opposite in fact. He hated it. But ironically that made it necessary, at least in some circumstances.

“Sir, did you want to send a message regarding Colonel Howe before you left for the White House?” asked an Army captain. The young man had been tapped as a liaison to keep Blitz up-to-date.

“Just that I hope he’s all right,” Blitz told him. He turned to the defense secretary. “Myron, are you coming?”

“Yes,” said the secretary of defense. “I don’t know how you manage it, Professor.”

“ ‘Manage it?’”

“To come out smelling like a rose when the rest of the world goes to shit.”

Chapter 2

The Japanese doctor was speaking English, but Howe couldn’t understand a word.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Really. Except for my ego.”

The doctor patted the back of his own skull and repeated what he said earlier: This time Howe caught the words concussion and rest and what he thought was observation. The man’s English was actually quite good, but between his accent and the pounding pain in Howe’s head he couldn’t process it.

“I will rest,” he told the doctor, standing unsteadily. “Honest. I will.”

The physician frowned and shook his head. Howe took a few steps from the bed, pulling back the white curtain that separated the area from the rest of the small emergency-room suite. The doctor told him to wait. Howe waved his hand no but then saw that the physician was holding out a small envelope of pills; Howe took them, though he didn’t know what they were.

His eyes hurt with the hard white glare of the lights as he walked toward the double doors at the end of the curtained corridor. Howe had no idea where he was, either in the hospital or even Japan. He pushed through the door, wondering if he was supposed to sign some sort of form or other paperwork and maybe pay. He had a credit card in his wallet and wondered if that would be good enough — and even if it was, whether his credit line would cover whatever his treatment cost was.

There was a desk just ahead, and beyond it a set of glass doors that led outside. He decided his best bet was to keep his head down and simply walk out and keep going until he was clearly beyond the hospital’s care, then try to find a taxi or something back to the airport where he’d landed. But before he reached the doors a group of men in business suits poured into the passage.

“Colonel Howe, you’re all right?” asked a short, bald man.

Howe stopped; the accent was American.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Pete McCormack. I’m with the embassy. We’d like to talk to you about what happened.”

“I think I’m supposed to check in with someone,” said Howe.

“That would be us,” said one of the others. Tall and thin, the man’s cheeks were so hollow, he looked more like a corpse than a live person.

“We’re in touch with Dr. Blitz,” said the first man. “And General Jacobs.”

Jacobs was the Air Force commander who had made the arrangements for refueling and looking after the S-37/B. On paper he would appear to be Howe’s boss, though he was actually working for USSOCCOM, the special operations command.

“We want to debrief you,” added the man. “We want to know what happened.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Howe. “You guys got a car?”

Chapter 3

In an inspired if somewhat misguided bid at camouflage, the task force’s chemical surveillance truck had been painted to look like an exterminator’s vehicle, complete with a giant mouse cowering from a man wearing a respirator. Fisher thought Kowalski had posed for both images, though the mask made it difficult to tell.

“You’re a barrel of fucking laughs,” said the DIA agent, who was wearing a hazmat suit and standing in Mrs. DeGarmo’s kitchen. Two specially trained investigators were downstairs going over the basement with chemical detection gear. Two others were working upstairs in Faud Daraghmeh’s apartment.

“Listen, if you’re not going to do anything, why don’t you go and start interviewing some of the neighbors,” suggested Kowalski.

“Waste of time,” said Fisher. He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee.

“How do you know it’s a waste of time?” asked Kowalski.

Fisher shrugged.

“You ought to be wearing a suit,” said Kowalski.

“I am wearing a suit,” said Fisher.

“You know what I mean.” He began fiddling with the respirator unit.

“This is one hundred percent natural fibers,” said Fisher, pulling at his sleeve. “Protects against anything. I could pour this cup of coffee on the pants and never even feel it.”

“Go right ahead,” said Kowalski.

He was just pulling on the mask when one of the two men who’d been upstairs came down through the front hallway.

“Nothin’,” said the expert.

“Shit,” said Kowalski.

“What’d you expect?” asked Fisher.

“What’d I expect? You’re the one who called the team in. Jesus, Fisher.”

Expecting Kowalski to process more than one piece of information at a time clearly violated the principle of chemical osmosis.

“Well, let me take a look,” Fisher told him, starting for the hallway.

“Don’t screw up the place. We need photos first,” said the DIA agent.

“What for, a spread in House and Garden?”

Fisher found the other investigator in the bathroom, where he was reinstalling the trap under the sink.

“I’ll be out of here in a minute,” the man told Fisher.

“Take your time,” the FBI agent told him. He went to the medicine cabinet. Mrs. DeGarmo’s tenant was a Gillette man and preferred Bayer over the generic brands. Faud Daraghmeh couldn’t seem to settle on an allergy medicine, however: He had a dozen, from generic store brands to Sudafed. No prescription medicines, though. And nothing more revealing.

“They find anything in the basement?” the investigator asked as Fisher closed the medicine cabinet.

“Not that I heard. How about you?”

“Used ammonia to clean.”

“That mean anything?”

“Not particularly. I did think of one thing.”

“What’s that?” asked Fisher.

“He didn’t brush his teeth.”

“Maybe he just took his toothbrush,” said Fisher. He went back to the medicine cabinet. “He shaved.”

“Yeah?”

“You found hairs around?”

“Oh, yeah.”

The bedroom had a small, single bed with a pair of sheets and a thin blanket. A small desk and chair were the only other pieces of furniture; the drawers were empty except for a paperback dictionary. The closet had a few shirts and pants in it, and two suits that looked as if they’d come from a thrift shop. There were no papers that Fisher could find in any of them.

“Damn it, Fisher. I told you we want to photograph the place,” said Kowalski. He was still wearing his suit but carried the respirator and face shield in his hand. “And we’re going to dust for fingerprints. Don’t touch anything.”

Fisher resisted the temptation to smear the doorknobs and walked back out through the apartment. The living room furniture — it was included in the $1,093 a month rent, according to Mrs. DeGarmo — consisted of a pre-World War II couch, a marble coffee table that had once moved around on miniature wheels but was now propped off the floor with matchbooks, and a two-year-old thirty-two-inch Sony television. The lab people had taken the cushions off the sofa: The foam in them was so old it was degenerating into formaldehyde.

A phone line ran along the front wall. It had been cut open, slit as if for a splice, though Fisher couldn’t see any or a box for an outlet. He bent down to the floor, looking at the line.

“What are you doing?” Kowalski asked.

“Matchbooks,” said the agent, pointing to them.

“Clues, huh?” Kowalski scowled. He went to the coffee table and lifted it. “Sucker’s heavy.”

“I’ll bet,” said Fisher, standing up.

“Jesus, Fisher, aren’t you grabbing the matchbooks?”

“Nah.”

“But you just said they were important.”

“No, I just pointed them out. Once upon a time, the person who lived here smoked. Or had access to a smoker.”

Kowalski pushed the coffee table a few inches from its spot and put it down with a thud. He picked up the matchbooks, which bore Marlboro logos.

“So he was a smoker,” said the DIA agent triumphantly. “All scumbags are.”

“Those are the landlady’s,” said Fisher. “And they’re at least five years old. Why do you think he shaved?”

The men working in the basement had several possible hits on two small saucers that had been placed near the boiler.

“Something like strychnine, probably,” one of the men told Fisher after they’d finished going over the place.

“Like strychnine.”

“We’re going to have to do tests back at the lab. But it makes sense. Rat poison. She had a rat problem, right? Or mice.”

“So you don’t really know what it was?”

“Not until the tests.”

“And you checked the sink?” asked Fisher.

“Cleaned thoroughly. Bleach.”

“Bleach?”

The expert pointed to a set of bottles under the large tub. “It all checks out. Clorox. We’ll double-check.”

Fisher walked to the back of the long, narrow room; there was an outside door leading to a small garden courtyard. A crime scene technician was just setting up to see if he could get prints from the door and doorknob.

“Mind if I go outside?”

“Hang on a second,” said the man.

Fisher stepped to the side, looking at the shelves of stacked flowerpots. There was a bag on the floor of potting soil.

“You check the dirt?” he asked the chemical expert.

“Yeah. It’s dirt.”

Fisher looked at the bag. Unlike the pots, it was very new.

“Could you use the dirt for lab work?” he asked the expert.

“Nah.”

Fisher took the bag with him outside. While there had obviously been a garden here once, it was now overgrown with weeds. He emptied the bag of dirt on the small strip of concrete once used as a patio next to the house.

“Whatcha looking for?” Macklin asked, coming out from the basement.

“Here he is, the Homeland Security commander himself,” said Fisher, “come to oversee the troops.”

“So, what are you doing?”

“I always like to find the dirt in a case,” said Fisher. He looked for something to sift through the soil with, but there was nothing nearby. He went back inside to the shelves where the pots were; an old watering can with tools sat on the floor. It was dark in the corner; he brought the tools out with him and sifted through the dirt with a small hand cultivator, a three-pronged tool that looked a bit like a cross between a miniature rake and a claw.

“Something?” asked Macklin.

“Nada,” said Fisher. He started to toss the cultivator back into the can, then got another idea and dumped it out on the ground.

In the pile of shovels and sticks lay two new and loaded autoinjectors.

“Now, those are worth dusting,” said Fisher, pointing to them. “And then we have to figure out what they are.”

Chapter 4

Kuong asked himself the question over and over: Why had his second pistol misfired when he tried to kill the pilot in Japan?

Kuong thought of the moment again and again as he traveled in the hold of the cargo plane to his next stop in the Philippines. It haunted him, as all his faults haunted him, mocking him again and again even as he vowed to correct it.

Had he lost his nerve? He remembered pulling the trigger twice, then looking at the gun, then firing again.

He remembered it but he couldn’t trust the memory. Why would his pistol misfire?

If the American had not thought to make him get rid of his first gun, he would not have needed his backup weapon. That was cleverness on his enemy’s part. And yet, Kuong had foreseen that possibility, and prepared for it.

Had Fate played a hand? Was it mere bad luck — or something beyond? He could think of no other pistol failing him, at least not a gun that he had cleaned and loaded himself. He had used the weapon a short time before to dispatch the traitor, Dr. Park. Surely it could not have broken or even fouled in the meantime.

Fate, then. Luck: the other man’s. There was nothing to be done about that. Or rather, there was nothing that could have been done at that moment. The man himself would have to be dealt with. To leave a witness — even one who was in the dark about what had taken place — was very dangerous.

Kuong knew the man’s name: Colonel William Howe. He could not be difficult to find, especially in Japan or South Korea. And there were friends in America who could find him as well.

The Muslims could not be trusted with it. They were allies of convenience, and he could not even be sure if they would strike at the proper moment as planned in New York. Their strike would be welcome, but their real use was the money they had paid for the gas. He would not have dealt with them otherwise, and had risked much by simply allowing them to suggest a date and time.

Kuong could take his time. Clearly, Howe did not suspect who he was, and it was unlikely that he had seen the shed or realized what was kept there. The hangar with the two craft would have been obliterated by now in any event, and from past experience Kuong knew that the Americans were too arrogant to decipher the many hints they had of the threat.

He would be patient, as he had been with the traitor. He had been stunned two months before when his aides had brought the e-mail to his attention. The precautions against stealing information from the factory were many, and Kuong had to admit he thought it impossible at first; he did not know Dr. Park personally but it seemed inconceivable that anyone who worked at the factory would betray his country and the Dear Leader in such a way. Obviously the man had been tempted by sex and money, the great vices of the Americans.

Kuong’s first impulse had been to kill the scientist with his own hands. But then his more contemplative nature took over: He realized he might be able to use the scientist to mislead the Americans. He might allow the scientist to pass more information to them that would make them think the weapon wouldn’t work.

And then, with the government collapsing and his avenues of escape closing down, he had an even better idea — more brilliant, more delicious. He had sent Dr. Park to Moscow to add to his legitimacy, intending to have the kidnapping foiled exactly as it had been. Dr. Park — actually, the general himself, with the help of one of his security aides and another scientist — would then send new documents claiming he was angry and had no hope of defecting any longer. But the deteriorating situation in North Korea, and the Americans’ own lust for a traitor, had convinced him to take a chance on using them to get out. Ironically the Americans could accomplish what he could not; he was too well known and disliked by his own country’s army as well as the South Koreans to slip by them. Only the arrogant Americans would assume they were too clever to be fooled.

Kuong had a packet of documents with him: the false ones prepared about the E-bomb, and a story that he was Dr. Park’s coworker prepared in case his identity had been challenged at the airstrip. But they weren’t necessary.

The o-koan had predicted they wouldn’t be. The bones had told him that morning luck would come to him… if he could be patient.

It had taken considerable time to punish the scientist for his treachery, but Kuong’s patience had been richly rewarded, not merely with the moment of triumph he felt when he personally killed the pathetic little man, but with this escape. Kuong had used his enemies’ own cleverness against them for a rich triumph. Now he must be patient once more. He would have his revenge against the Americans for destroying his country. And he would remove Howe, the only man who remained alive who might be able to give him away.

It would not be long to wait.

Chapter 5

Howe settled his hands on the ends of the chair’s arms, intending to pull himself upright, but somehow he felt too exhausted even to move. He had now told the story of his trip in and out of Korea four times, most recently during a conference call with Dr. Blitz and the defense secretary. He was tired and his head hurt.

But he also realized he was lucky. He could have been killed.

Why hadn’t he?

The CIA agents who had debriefed him had several theories. One was that his passenger felt grateful for his rescue. It was possible, too, that the approach of the small American team and the Japanese security people had scared the men on the ground, or at least encouraged them to move quickly.

Or maybe he was just lucky.

“Colonel, the ambassador wanted to talk with you,” said a young woman.

Howe had been introduced to her earlier but couldn’t remember her name or position now, beyond the fact that she was a member of the embassy staff. Howe pushed out of the chair and her followed down the hallway, his feet sinking deep into the carpet as he walked.

The ambassador was a holdover from the last administration, a political appointee who had turned out to be an extremely popular figure in Asia as well as Japan. A touch of gray at the temples gave his severe face a dignified air; his Montana accent had a slow, dignified beat. He came out from behind his desk as Howe was shown into his study. He clasped Howe’s hand firmly, then gestured for him to sit in one of the armchairs at the side of the room.

“Colonel Howe, thank you for seeing me. I know you’ve been through a great deal.”

“Sure,” said Howe.

“ North Korea is falling apart at the seams. More to the point, it has fallen apart.”

“Yes, sir,” said Howe.

“Do you have any idea who your passenger was?”

“No,” said Howe.

The ambassador nodded. He was in shirtsleeves, but his tie was tight at his collar.

“I have a theory,” said the ambassador. He took a long pause between each sentence, as if waiting for the words to line up in his mouth. “I believe it was a high-ranking North Korean. That’s not much of a guess. I think it was one of Kim Jong Il’s sons, or some other close relative.”

“Why would he need me to help him escape?”

“Because, with only a few exceptions, he’s hated worse than his father. The units that began the mutiny offered a reward for his capture. And he can’t be located.”

“What about the E-bomb?”

“I think it was merely a ruse to get us interested,” said the ambassador. “If they had that sort of weapon, they would have used it — or tried to use it, rather, against Seoul.”

Howe agreed, but when he started to nod, his head pounded.

“The Japanese police are searching throughout the country for your passenger.” The ambassador rose, indicating the interview was over. “The situation is very delicate.”

Howe got up slowly. It sounded to him as if the ambassador was hinting that he shouldn’t talk about what had happened, but if so, such hints were unnecessary. Even if Howe hadn’t been naturally inclined to keep his mouth shut, the incident didn’t make him look particularly good.

“You know, I saw some aircraft in that hangar near the end of the strip where I turned around,” said Howe.

“MiGs?”

“No, they were pretty small. UAVs, I think. Or maybe ultralights.”

“You think that is significant?”

“I don’t know, really.”

“We’ll arrange for a flight back to the States,” said the ambassador, gently touching Howe’s arm.

“Actually, I have my own plane to look after,” said Howe. “What I need is a ride back to the airport. The S-37 is an NADT asset.”

“Yes, of course,” said the ambassador. “You’ve done a very good job, Colonel,” he added. “A very good job.”

Howe nodded, though he didn’t agree.

It was only in the car on the way back to the airport that Howe realized what he’d said — or rather, what he’d thought.

His asset. He wanted the NADT job. Not for the money or the power, but because it was where he belonged. He had the ability to do it, and the will to do it right.

And it was his duty to do it. Or at least to try.

Chapter 6

Blitz could hear the buzz of the press corps in the East Room of the White House down the hall. The President stood next to Blitz, going over the most recent bulletins and handing each page back as he did. The press conference was already running about three minutes late, but that made it early by President D’Amici’s standards.

The President’s press adviser had suggested something less formal, perhaps remarks off-the-cuff as he boarded Marine One, the helicopter that flew him around the country. But the President sensed this was a historical moment, and he wanted to use the White House setting to emphasize not only its importance but the fact that America was in control of the situation.

And it was. Almost.

The North Korean army had collapsed. While on paper it was one of the most ferocious fighting forces in the world, the reality had proven considerably different. As American and Korean troops came across the border following the missile launches and artillery strikes, most of the soldiers had fled. Roughly a dozen strongholds remained in North Korean hands, as did the capital and the area close to the Chinese border. But not even the most optimistic Pentagon scenario envisioned such a swift collapse. The remaining units were dangerous, surely, but negotiations were already under way with most of them for a peaceful surrender. The real problem now was to plan for the peace.

The President handed Blitz the last page, then checked his hair in a mirror held by one of his aides.

“Last thoughts?” the President asked Blitz.

“Only that we can’t trust the Chinese.”

“Agreed. But they seem to have been taken by surprise.”

“That’s why we can’t trust them.”

The Chinese had moved two fresh divisions to the border area, saying that they were to help with refugees. There were refugees; nonetheless, the troops and China in general had to be watched very carefully. The President planned on mentioning their involvement as peace brokers in the speech, praising their cooperation and mentioning his three phone calls with the country’s leaders.

“What was the latest with Colonel Howe and the E-bomb plot?” asked the President as one of his aides appeared in the hall, gesturing that all was ready.

“Still trying to figure out who we helped escape,” said Blitz. “The ambassador thinks it was one of Kim Jong Il’s sons.”

“A very good guess.”

“I think it’s Paektu,” said Blitz, meaning the number two man in the security police agency, Hwang Paektu Jang. “He’s the sort who would think this up.”

“Hopefully we’ll find him soon.”

Blitz didn’t answer. With that well-thought-out a plot, he felt it unlikely.

The national security advisor listened to the President’s opening remarks from the hallway. He had to give D’Amici credit: The President managed to communicate his personal vision in a speech meant for the masses. Blitz knew that D’Amici’s model for the presidency was Eisenhower, but in his ability to speak he was closer to Reagan, though D’Amici lacked the folksy, casual touch Reagan could muster without any apparent effort.

Historically, however, D’Amici’s vision seemed more like a blend of Teddy Roosevelt with some Woodrow Wilson thrown in, assuming one could remove some of the naiveté from Wilson ’s vision of world peace.

That was probably a bum rap on Wilson, Blitz thought; Wilson ’s private papers showed he was hardly naive, and while he’d been snookered in Europe, it would have been difficult if not impossible to get the French to do the right thing after the bloodbath of World War I anyway.

And to be honest, it only became apparent what the right thing was long after that indecisive war.

There were no real parallels, Blitz thought as the President summed up and started taking questions. They were in completely new territory.

Someone grabbed Blitz’s shoulder. He turned around and found the press secretary, who seemed nearly out of breath.

“The AP is reporting that P’yongyang has been declared an open city,” he told Blitz. “The war is over.”

“Now comes the hard part,” said Blitz, walking out to tell the President personally.

Chapter 7

“Atropine mixed with oximes. Classic antidote for sarin gas,” said Macklin.

“But no trace of sarin in the basement on anything,” said Kowalski.

“Maybe they were neat,” said Fisher.

“Or maybe they never brought it there,” said Macklin.

“No, they must have,” said Fisher. “The landlady smelled something.”

“Sarin would have made her pretty sick,” said Kowalski. He got up from the table and began pacing at the back of the room.

“She smelled the bleach, most likely,” said Fisher. “He used it to clean up any traces of the chemicals.”

“That’s going pretty far,” said Kowalski. “Not to mention that there might have been a reaction.”

“But there wasn’t,” said Fisher.

“We’ve looked at his phone records,” said Macklin. “He only made a few calls.”

Fisher leaned his head back on the chair. Sarin gas — of which there was as yet no real evidence — represented a serious left turn in the investigation. But left turns were often useful. If you kept turning right, you would end up in the same place you started.

“The landlady’s phone — did you check that?” he asked.

“The landlady?”

“Maybe he cut into her line,” said Fisher. “There’s probably some sort of connection to the Internet, something along those lines.”

“Subpoenaing the landlady’s records isn’t going to make us look very good,” said Macklin.

“She’ll give them voluntarily,” said Fisher. “Just tell her we’re looking for a billing error and rave about her sauce.”

Macklin frowned.

“The problem is, we’re not getting any closer to the E-bomb,” said Kowalski. “This is just a diversion.”

“Maybe there is no E-bomb,” said Macklin. “That’s the latest thinking from the CIA.”

“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Kowalski. “They’re covering their butts because they blew it so badly on Korea. They didn’t realize the country was going to collapse the way it did.”

“What do you think, Andy?” asked Macklin. “Connected to the E-bomb case, or a red herring?”

“Definitely not a red herring,” said Fisher.

“So, what is it?”

“Damned if I know.”

“We got to break this,” said Macklin.

“I agree,” said Kowalski.

“I guess it’s time for desperate measures,” said Fisher.

“What are they?” asked Macklin as he got up out of his chair.

“Time to get a full night’s sleep,” said Fisher.

As a general rule, sleep didn’t particularly agree with Fisher, nor had it ever led directly to any particular insight, much less helped solve a case. But during the eight hours he stayed away, the others followed up a number of possible leads, including Mrs. DeGarmo’s phone bills.

There were calls to an Internet provider, and Macklin was now following up with a subpoena to see if they could come up with data on the account. The intelligence wizards had their fingers dancing on the computer keyboards, trying to pull up data from a myriad of sources.

Fisher stuck to the old-fashioned methods. He signed out the soil bag — just the bag, not the dirt — from one of the heated garages that was serving as the task force’s evidence locker. Then he took Metro North to Grand Central and hopped the subway to Queens, walking to the apartment from Grand Street before exploring the neighborhood back around Steinway. It took three tries before he found what he was looking for: a hardware store that sold Agfarma potting soil.

“I’m looking for someone who bought a bag of potting soil probably about two months back,” said Fisher. The store owner listened as he described Faud Daraghmeh, Mrs. DeGarmo’s tenant.

The store owner shrugged, as Fisher knew he would.

“This guy would have bought a whole bunch of Clorox bottles, probably at the same time,” the FBI agent told him.

“Like a dozen?”

“About that,” said Fisher.

“That I remember. He cleaned me out.”

“How did he carry them?”

“Had one of those two-wheel folding carts. You know the kind? Made two trips.”

“You wouldn’t have a name, would you?”

“You don’t have to give a name to buy bleach.”

“Maybe he used a credit card,” suggested Fisher.

The man went to his computer. His inventory program allowed him to search transactions, and he was able to come up with the date of the purchase: February 23. But apparently he had paid cash.

“There’s a couple of other times — twice, actually — when someone bought a lot of bleach,” said the store owner. “One of them is a credit card. Both in February.”

Fisher took the account number and the dates. There was nothing to tie the credit card transaction to Faud, however, which meant getting a subpoena to check that credit card account was highly unlikely. He walked back to the apartment, hoping inspiration would strike him somewhere on the way.

As usual, it didn’t.

Mrs. DeGarmo had gone to stay with her granddaughter on Long Island. Fisher went first to the detail watching the house from a car across the street and asked for the key and a volunteer.

“Volunteer for what?”

“I want to look for a receipt in some bags,” he told them.

The other detective, who obviously hadn’t seen Mrs. DeGarmo’s pantry, got out of the car.

“Jesus,” said the man when he opened the pantry door. “You sure there’s not a body in here?”

“If there is, it’s not our case,” said Fisher. He went upstairs and was still studying Faud’s closets when the detective came up with a collection of receipts. Unfortunately, they didn’t include any of the transactions involving bleach.

But there was one with the same credit card number.

“Thin,” said Macklin when Fisher showed it to him and laid out the logic.

“Come on. I’ve built whole cases out of weaker links. All we need here is a subpoena.”

“I don’t know, Andy. You sure this isn’t the landlady’s credit card?”

Fisher had naturally checked that first but let the potential slight to his common sense pass without comment.

“Your theory is that he used the credit card twice?” said Macklin.

“My theory is he used it more than twice,” said Fisher. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth checking.”

As it turned out, the credit card had only been used four other times: once more at the hardware store to buy twenty-eight dollars’ worth of mouse poison, once at a nearby florist to buy a forty-eight-dollar bouquet, and twice for cash advances at an ATM.

Much more interestingly, the account had been stopped as the result of an investigation into identity theft by the FBI.

Fisher got a list of other account numbers and transactions and gave it to Macklin, who passed it over to the task force members tracking down the other credit card data. If time allowed, they’d try and run down everyone who had used a phony card.

That looked to be quite some time. There were over a thousand accounts.

“Maybe if we just look at the purchases in New York City,” suggested Fisher.

“That’s still three hundred cards,” said Macklin. “We’ll check them all if we have to, but it’s going to take forever.”

Macklin’s office at the former drug dealers’ home had been one of the bedrooms. It was more than big, probably twice the size of Hunter’s back at FBI headquarters. The only problem was that the drug lords who’d owned the place had, for reasons best guessed at, covered the ceiling with mirrored panels, and Macklin hadn’t gotten around to taking them down. It was difficult to resist the temptation to watch Macklin’s reflection as he spoke; he’d begun to develop a bald spot, and it wrinkled whenever he opened his mouth.

Fisher saw the reflection of his own watch in the mirror. It was after four o’clock.

“I have to get going,” he said.

“Where to?” asked Macklin.

“Buy some flowers.”

Steve’s Florist was located four blocks from Mrs. DeGarmo’s building in a short row of buildings that seemed to be waiting for a demolition crew. The stores themselves, however, seemed busy, and inside the florist shop Fisher found himself at the back of a chaotic line. He drifted toward the back, watching the two clerks as they checked people out and occasionally dashed from the register to the refrigerated area where the flowers were kept. One was a middle-aged woman with bright orange hair and a miniskirt that stopped well above the thigh; the other was a twenty-something male whose white button-down shirt failed to hide a torso’s worth of tattoos. A third man was working in the back, loading up a van for deliveries; he left before Fisher got a look at him.

Fisher got the middle-aged woman.

“So, is Steve around?” Fisher asked.

“Steve?”

“The owner. It’s Steve’s Florist?”

“There is no Steve,” said the woman. “The owner’s name is Rose. She’s only in Monday mornings. I’m the manager.”

Explaining that he was with the FBI, Fisher laid a copy of the receipt and an artist’s sketch of Faud on the counter. The information meant about as much to them as Macklin’s pool on the Final Four meant to Fisher.

“He lived a couple of blocks away,” said Fisher.

“There are a lot of Arab men in the neighborhood,” said the woman, whose name tag read Mira. There was a note of challenge in her voice, as if she expected Fisher to flay his suspect when he caught him.

He wasn’t normally the flaying type, but nonetheless liked to keep his options open.

“I’m not really looking for other Arab men,” Fisher told her. “Just him.”

“Maybe Harry knows him,” said the young man. His name tag said his name was Pietro, though the kid looked Scandinavian, even with his tattoos.

“Who’s Harry?” asked Fisher.

“Works here on Sundays,” said Pietro. He took the receipt and looked at it. “Yup: Look. This was a Sunday.”

“Harry around?” Fisher said.

“It’s not Sunday,” said Mira.

“How old is he?”

“Thirty-five, forty,” said Pietro.

“What’s his last name?”

“Spageas or something like that,” said Pietro. “Something Greek.”

That narrowed it down to three-quarters of the residents of Astoria.

“You have an address or a phone number for him?”

Mira shook her head. Pietro just shrugged. Fisher rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on the paper tacked to the bulletin board behind the counter. But he was standing too far away to see if Harry’s name was listed there.

“So, what would my friend have bought for $48.50?” asked Fisher.

Pietro thought it was probably a small grave bouquet, though the price didn’t quite work out right. Mira had no opinion.

“If you see Faud again,” said Fisher finally, “have him call me.” He slid a business card with a special sat phone number onto the counter, even though he was pretty sure it would be thrown into the garbage after he left.

He was wrong about that. Mira ripped it in half before he made it to the door.

Chapter 8

The first thing Howe did when he got back to the D.C. area was check into an inexpensive hotel and sleep.

When he woke up eight hours later, it was a little past four A.M. He decided he would call Blitz and leave a message on his voice mail telling him that he had changed his mind and that, if the job was still open at NADT, he wanted it.

Much to his surprise, Blitz picked up the phone himself.

“Dr. Blitz?”

“Who is this?”

“Bill Howe.”

“Colonel. How are you? Are you all right?” Blitz’s voice was tired and a little hoarse.

“Yes, sir. A little, uh, embarrassed.”

“Nonsense. We’re the ones who messed up: There should have been more people at the airport. Due to the circumstances in Korea — well, I don’t want to make excuses.”

“Is that job at NADT still open?”

Blitz didn’t answer.

It’s all right, Howe thought to himself. My own fault.

“It absolutely is,” said Blitz, his words practically gushing. “You’ve changed your mind?”

“If that’s acceptable.”

“Of course it is. That’s great. That’s great. Where are you?”

“Actually, I’m not far from Andrews, in a motel.”

“Can you come over to my office? There are a couple of hurdles — just little egos to gratify, really. But believe me, this is great. Really, really great.”

“I’ll be over as soon as I shave, sir.”

If he’d been less tired, Blitz might have jumped up and done a little war whoop when he hung up the phone. Instead he merely got up and went over to the credenza where he had placed his coffee earlier. A full NSC meeting had been scheduled for seven A.M., and he needed to have a good handle on his recommendations for an interim North Korean government by then. Iraq stood as an important example: You had to get way out ahead of the curve on this, take advantage of the initial confusion and elation, and make the hard choices. The public would follow.

He was also supposed to talk about Israel and the Palestinians, whose latest peace talks had stalled.

His life lately seemed the embodiment of the ancient curse: May you live in exciting times.

He took his coffee mug and went to see if he could find any drinkable coffee down the hall.

Though it was ostensibly several hours before “regular” government business began, Howe found a good number of staffers on duty when he arrived at the West Wing. Security certainly hadn’t been relaxed because of the hour: He was wanded and had his iris scanned for ID even though one of the men at the post recognized him. Upstairs he found Blitz sitting at his desk amid a variety of papers and reports.

“Colonel, thank you for coming over,” said Blitz, who practically jumped from his chair to shake his hand. “You’re making the right decision.”

“Thanks,” said Howe, sitting.

“I’d offer you coffee, but the only place to get it is down the hall in the chief of staff’s office. They make it pretty strong.”

“I don’t really want any, thanks,” said Howe.

“I haven’t had much sleep. I’m sorry if I look a little beat.”

Howe shrugged.

“I’ve made a list of people whom you’ll want to talk to,” continued Blitz, digging through the papers on his desk. He came up with a yellow pad. “Wait until after twelve, though. I’ll have spoken to a few myself by then, and the word will be around.”

Blitz continued talking, digressing into the legal separation between NADT and the government, a matter he had already gone over at least once before and a subject that Howe himself already knew. But the national security advisor’s words had a certain momentum to them once he got going; it was difficult to stop him, even as he reviewed basic history. The arrangement was meant to help expedite the development and testing of cutting-edge weapons; while it had started out for only one project — a high-energy-beam weapon known as a rail gun that, ironically, had been abandoned — the previous administration had found NADT extremely useful for a wide range of projects and encouraged its continued existence. Under unique legislation, the President of the United States could select three of the private company’s seven board members. Those three votes could be counted on for Howe, and Blitz had already sounded out three of the other four board members; all would back Howe gladly.

“I’m sure it will go fine, Dr. Blitz,” Howe managed finally. “I know you’re busy—”

“Yes,” said Blitz. “Why don’t you tell me about North Korea? I’ve seen the report, but I would like to hear it from you.”

Howe summarized what had happened. Once again he remembered and mentioned the small aircraft, which he thought were UAVs.

“I’m not really sure I’m following you there,” said Blitz. “UAVs?”

“Unmanned aerial vehicles, like Predator and Global Hawk,” said Howe. “No report that I’ve seen says that North Korea had them.”

“I see.”

“These were fairly big. They’d have a good-sized payload. You might target them,” said Howe.

“I’m sure they’ve been targeted,” said the national security advisor.

“Well, good, then,” said Howe, not quite sure that Blitz understood. But obviously the man had a lot of things on his mind.

“Check with me at the end of the week. In the meantime you ought to find a house or something to rent.”

Howe realized he hadn’t even thought of that. He shook Blitz’s hand again, then left to find some breakfast.

Chapter 9

It wasn’t as if Tyler had disgraced himself. On the contrary, the ground part of the mission had gone off as well as could be expected given the circumstances, and certainly there was nothing to be ashamed of. But he couldn’t get the feeling of failure to leave him. It felt like a heavy, oppressive thing, a monster sitting on his shoulder.

Tyler and his team had been picked up by Osprey as planned and flown to Kunsan Air Base, also known as K-8, near the western coast of the country well south of Seoul. But rather than the rest they expected, the soldiers were all ordered back to their parent units, which were preparing for a mission to look for refugees from the dictatorship near the Chinese border. Tyler was asked to join an evaluation team being put together by the Pentagon and the CIA; its primary task was to prepare estimates on the capacity of any insurgent groups to mount an offensive within a six-to-eighteen-month time frame.

He had to find his own transportation to a highly classified facility near Wonjun in central South Korea. Distance-wise it wasn’t that far, but the entire country was under what amounted to a lockdown because of the war. Just finding a car and getting gasoline into it was a major endeavor.

The Korea Joint-Mission Evaluation Group had space in a bunkered facility originally built as a backup command center by the CIA but occupied most recently by the South Korean army. It was therefore in scrupulously good repair and so clean that, before descending the double-wide concrete steps that led from the main entrance to the work areas downstairs, Tyler felt obliged to knock the dirt from the sides of his shoes. The masonry walls gleamed, and a visitor might be forgiven for thinking that he or she was descending into a chip fabrication plant or high-tech lab where clean suits and respirators were de rigueur.

Security was being provided by the U.S. Army, and the MPs made everyone show ID and submit to a weapons and bug search. Handguns had to be stowed in a locker under the security team’s control.

Cleared through, Tyler walked down the hallway and turned to the right, descending another set of stairs before reaching a ramp that opened into the operating center. Within a few hours he found himself sitting at terminals in a computer center, tied into various secure information networks so he could update himself on the situation in the North.

Inevitably, doubt about the mission began to haunt him as the hours went on, second and third guesses about his actions and then not even his actions but what he might have done in other circumstances, all seemingly designed by his conscience to convince him he was a failure. It was stupid and ridiculous, but he couldn’t get rid of the voice that nagged at him, calling him a failure.

Tyler read an account of a fierce tank battle about ten miles beyond the DMZ that had taken place on the first night of the war; a squad of American soldiers had become separated from the main body and found themselves confronting a Type 63 light tank. The men calmly and efficiently called in an A-10A, which within a few minutes (eight according to the report) obliterated the tank with its 30mm cannon. Tyler saw himself in the situation and began wondering if he would have handled it as smoothly.

Any objective observer would have laughed at such a ridiculous question. Of course he would have, if he hadn’t found a way to deal with the tank himself. He’d proven himself under fire countless times. Yet, he couldn’t seem to convince himself.

Tyler worked his way through a number of assessments, doing his best to focus on his task. By the time of his group meeting at three, he had a good enough handle on the situation to know where he had to look to get the data he needed. Arriving early for the session, Tyler sat and filled two pages of a yellow pad with questions that would be important to answer; he was starting on a third when the head of the group, a CIA officer named Clarissa Moore, came in with most of the rest of the members. There were several new faces, including a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff J-5 planning department and an Air Force historian who had been added to provide a broad context to the situation. The historian was dressed in civilian clothes and Tyler gathered that he was a retired colonel; his name was George Somers and he certainly looked the part of a historian, with white beard and hair around his balding head, and a heavy tweed sports coat even though it was quite warm in the bunker.

Moore made the introductions and then briefly summarized the situation in North and South Korea, along with some of the developments in nearby countries including Japan and China. She then turned to the group’s latest instructions from Washington. The NSC had asked them to prepare a report no later than the end of the week — and to base that report on “firsthand inspection of the situation on the ground.”

“Basically, they want to see the dirt under our fingernails,” said Moore.

She tapped her right hand on the conference table. Her own nails were clipped so tightly, there was no chance of any dirt hiding there. The CIA officer was about forty, with a trim body but a face that showed her experience. She wore no jewelry save for a simple set of earrings that peeked out amid the lower strands of her hair.

“So we need to put an itinerary together,” she said, “determine where we have to go, what we have to see, people to talk to. A lot of this will be the obvious, of course. And then I’ll need a small group of volunteers and someone to coordinate.”

“It’s pretty early to be going north,” said Colonel Yorn, an Army officer with extensive experience in both intelligence and artillery. “The situation there is hardly stable. I doubt there’s much to be gained from seeing it up close.”

“Should we discuss this?” asked Moore.

“I’d just like to hear the argument in favor of going up there,” said Yorn. “We’ll simply be diverting resources and attention from people who probably already have their hands full. It’s not a question of safety,” he added. “It’s a question of usefulness.”

“ Tyler?” asked Moore.

“I’ll go,” he said.

“That wasn’t quite the question,” said Moore. “Will we get useful information?”

Tyler’s thoughts wouldn’t focus. He wasn’t an intelligence expert and wanted to say that; on the other hand he understood the importance of actually being on the ground so you knew what was going on.

“It makes sense to see what we see,” he managed finally.

“I agree with the major that it would be worthwhile,” said Somers, sitting next to him. “Colonel, you’re right that it’s pretty chaotic up there right now. But I’d like face-to-face time with some of the soldiers on the scene. Not just the commanders, mind you: You can’t get an accurate assessment from just the officers. No offense.”

“It is a point,” admitted Yorn.

They discussed it awhile more. Tyler didn’t take part in the discussion. It seemed moot with Washington pushing it, but as a screw-up he really didn’t feel he had anything to add. When the debate ended, the consensus was that the trip would be more useful than not. Moore turned to him.

“Would you coordinate the trip?”

“Of course,” he said, without hesitation.

Chapter 10

Howe bought the newspaper but found the classifieds useless for finding an apartment. The listings were sparse near NADT’s Virginia headquarters, and it occurred to Howe that he wasn’t even sure what he could afford. General Bonham had lived in a gated condo community with its own security people; did he need a place like that?

He decided he would ask around the NADT campus to see if anyone had any ideas, and a little past nine A.M. he was about a mile from NADT when he spotted a small real estate office set back on a hill off the county highway that led to the campus. The building itself was an old Victorian-style farmhouse similar to the one where his mother lived, though in much better shape. Howe pulled up the long, winding driveway and parked in the gravel lot off the macadam. Inside he found a receptionist who bore an uncanny resemblance to his hometown librarian, complete with pink-rimmed bifocals and tightly wound curls.

“Yes, dear?” asked the receptionist.

“I’m looking to rent either an apartment or a condo,” he said.

Before she could answer, the phone rang. Howe stepped back from the desk, his gaze wandering to the left side of the foyer. An old-fashioned steam radiator stood in front of the wainscoting, its thick gold paint glowing. The woodwork behind it had several sets of reveals as the panels stepped back to the wall. Whoever had restored the house had done a painstaking job; all of the original details shone through. Howe thought of his friend Jimmy’s business and felt a stab of guilt, as if his decision to take the NADT job meant he was letting him down.

“Are you being helped?”

Howe turned and found himself staring at a woman about thirty years old. She wore a black sleeveless top and a matching skirt that came nearly to her knees; her light-brown hair had a gentle wave in it as it fell just behind her shoulders. She had a few freckles on her face, which was one of those that seemed naturally inclined toward smiles rather than frowns. Her eyes were blue, and she raised the brows as she waited for him to answer the question.

Howe found himself suddenly tongue-tied.

“I, uh, I’m looking for an apartment or a condo, I guess. Something not that big.”

“Married?”

When Howe didn’t answer right away, the woman smiled and held her hand out to him. “I’m not trying to pick you up,” she told him. “Just find out how big a place you need.”

“No, I know. I’m not.” Howe stifled a sudden urge to smack himself on the side of the head. “I’m single,” he added, still fumbling to explain. “I’ve just taken a government job, actually; it’s a job with a company that does a lot of work for the government, but it’s not actually a government agency per se.”

“Per se?” Where the hell did that come from, he asked himself.

“I’m Alice Kauss,” said the woman, holding out her hand. It felt warm and slender in his, yet the grip was firm. “Come on into my office and let me take down some information. Then we’ll see what we can come up with.”

She spun on her heels and walked into what would have been the parlor area when the house was first built. Howe followed across the parquet floor to a sleek metal desk that sat before a covered fireplace toward the back. Somehow the ultracontemporary furnishings looked perfectly at home in the old-fashioned setting.

Not that Howe was able to pay much attention to his surroundings. As they worked through the basic questions, he tried desperately hard not to stare at Alice ’s cleavage and found himself folding his arms over his own chest.

“How much?” she asked.

“I’m sorry?” His eyes met hers. The blue irises glimmered in the light from the halogen on the desktop.

“Your price range?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted.

Howe realized he had to do some more thinking before he was ready to rent a place, but now that he was here he couldn’t just get up and walk out.

“Well, how much do you make?”

He smiled at her.

“We haven’t settled on a salary yet,” he said.

Alice put down her pen. “So you’re more in the exploratory mode right now,” she said.

“Yeah. I— listen, I do need a place. I’m just not sure exactly what I need. It shouldn’t be too expensive or that big, but on the other hand, I mean—”

“You don’t want to live in a slum.”

“Right.”

“And you want to rent or buy?”

“Rent. I think.”

There were people in the front hallway. Alice ’s phone buzzed but she didn’t answer it.

“I have an idea, William.”

“You can call me Bill, really.”

“Bill.” There was that smile again, this time full force — not phony, and definitely disarming. “I have a closing in about fifteen minutes. I think that’s them out there, a little early. And then I have a full slate for the rest of the day. But if you come back around four-thirty, say, I can take you to a few condos and you can get an idea of the market. If you can afford it, you’ll probably do a lot better buying. What do you think?”

“Of buying? I don’t know. I guess.”

“Because of the market. But we can talk about it.”

“Great,” he said, standing. “Real great.”

NADT had been envisioned more as a think tank than a weapons development company, and those roots showed in its headquarters buildings. The ultramodern buildings were located well back from the road behind manicured lawns and gardens. A range of security sensors, from cameras to motion detectors, maintained constant surveillance of the grounds, but to the naked eye the place seemed deserted until you passed a row of evergreens a few hundred feet off the road. At that point a pair of security guards and the small kiosk appeared a few feet ahead.

Howe had been told that devices were planted in the roadway a bit farther along that could paralyze car engines with an electromagnetic pulse, and he had seen firsthand some of the weaponry the NADT security force had at its disposal. But for all that, the guards appeared almost nonchalant, unfailingly courteous, and friendly; indeed, they were tested and graded on these qualities, with the overall goal of presenting an image to the world — or, more specifically, visiting politicians and high-ranking military people — of absolute self-confidence and efficiency.

Unfortunately, that image had been largely that: an image. The security staff had not exactly covered itself with glory in the Cyclops One fiasco. While the problems at NADT had been caused by Bonham and some of the investors, not the security people or the engineers and scientists and grunts who did the real work, one of his first tasks would be to determine if anyone else should be sacked because of it.

A difficult task. Just about everyone he knew here was dedicated and hardworking, serious and proud of the job they did. A lot were ex-military people, though of course that wasn’t a carte blanche endorsement, either.

“Colonel, good morning,” said Nancy Meile, meeting him just as the two gate men cleared him and his vehicle to proceed. Meile, about forty and a former partner in a private security firm, was the security director. “Rumor true? You’re taking the job?”

“A few hurdles left,” he said.

“I hope you take it.”

“Why?”

The question seemed to take her by surprise, and she didn’t answer right away. “I think you’ll do a good job.”

As an officer advanced through the ranks of the military, he or she couldn’t help but become aware of the various political games that were played. For Howe, the gamesmanship was a severe negative: In his opinion it detracted not just from the mission he and his comrades had to accomplish, but from the bedrock duty and loyalty to one’s oath and the country itself. The relative lack of games in the development projects he’d gotten involved in with NADT, as a matter of fact, was one of the attractions.

As head of NADT he’d have to devote considerable energy to playing those political games. But not with his staff.

“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment,” he told Meile. “I want simply to understand what needs to be done.”

His words felt a bit too stiff in his mouth, but he at least got the thought across; he could see it register on her face.

“I’d be happy to talk with you at length when you think it’s appropriate,” she said.

“I’ll take you up on that,” said Howe, putting the car in gear.

He drove to the main building, a low-slung, modernist affair whose main floor served merely as a reception and processing center for the offices located in the bunkered floors below. Because of its unique relationship to the government, NADT was considered a possible target for a hostile government, and the protections against attack and, perhaps more importantly, spying were diverse. A copper sheath surrounded the different sections, rendering eavesdropping devices useless. Sixty feet of earth and concrete would keep any but the most powerful American bunker-buster bomb from damaging the heart of the complex.

The vice president for operations was a cherubic man named Clyde Delano; he had worked for various government agencies under both Republican and Democratic administrations for close to thirty years before coming to NADT. A chemist by training, the years had magnified his academic demeanor. As he took Howe on a tour to meet some of the scientific and research staffers, he launched into a discussion of World War I, apparently because he’d been rereading Keegan’s history of the war over breakfast. He asked Howe what he thought would have happened to Europe if America had not entered the conflict but remained neutral.

“Never really gave it much thought,” said Howe.

“Very different world,” said Delano. “Maybe Germany wins. Maybe the stalemate goes on for a decade.”

Howe tried changing the subject — he wanted to know what Delano thought needed to be done at NADT — but the vice president for operations simply demurred, claiming he hadn’t given it much thought. Howe found a similar reluctance to speak freely among the upper-level scientists he met, who failed to loosen up even over lunch in the company cafeteria, a facility that would rival many a D.C.-area restaurant. Meals here were free, a perk that helped compensate for the long hours and stringent security measures and discouraged people from taking off-campus breaks.

After lunch, Howe went over to the president’s office, which had been vacant since the disgrace of General Bonham. All of Bonham’s personal belongings had been removed, leaving the shelves and desk bare; the only things that remained were a few yellow pads and an old-fashioned Rolodex phone directory. Howe idly flipped through the directory: There was his name, along with a long list of contact numbers and addresses.

He took out the list of phone numbers Dr. Blitz had recommended he call. But instead of picking up the phone, he found himself thinking about Delano, who had functioned as Bonham’s second-in-command. Clearly they were not going to be a good match; he needed someone else to take his place, someone he could trust.

Bringing someone else in from the Air Force would send the wrong signal, he thought; and besides, he wanted someone with better contacts with the administration and Congress, his weaknesses; someone in the service wasn’t likely to have them.

He thought of Harold McIntyre, the former NSC assistant for technology, whom he’d worked with before. Though McIntyre could be a bit of a playboy and partyer, he had a good feel for who was who among the contractors and his standing with the administration was impeccable. He also liked Howe — not surprising, since Howe had led the mission that rescued him from India after war broke out there. McIntyre had left government following that incident, and that was a complication: Howe thought he might have had some sort of emotional collapse because of the stress he’d undergone.

McIntyre’s name was in Bonham’s directory, with his phone number listed. Howe picked up the phone, hesitated a moment, then punched in the numbers.

An answering machine picked up.

“This is McIntyre. Leave a message.”

“Mr. McIntyre. Bill Howe here. How are you? Listen, I’ve been offered a job and, uh, well, I wanted to—”

The line clicked and a tone sounded.

“Colonel Howe?” said a distant voice.

“That you, Mac?”

“Yes, sir. How are you?”

There was a slight tremor in his voice, the sort of quality a freshly minted lieutenant might betray when he chanced to come face-to-face with the base commander. Very unlike McIntyre, Howe thought, though it was definitely him.

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“Not that well, actually.” McIntyre laughed. “I, uh… well, they have me on Paxil.”

“That a painkiller?”

McIntyre laughed again. It was a light, self-deprecating laugh. “Antidepressant. Supposedly, I have some sort of, uh, like, uh…”

“Delayed stress?”

“Yeah, something like that. Combined with depression.”

Howe tapped on the desktop. He didn’t want to subject the poor guy to more pressure.

“I heard you were up for that job over at NADT,” said McIntyre. “Bonham’s job. Head of the whole shebang.”

“That’s right,” Howe told him.

“You ought to take it,” said McIntyre.

“That’s the reason I’m calling,” said Howe. “I’m trying to get opinions on the place.”

“Colonel, I’ll give you a whole rundown if you want. Anything you’re looking for. I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me, Mac.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

McIntyre spoke as if he were a junior officer, though during McIntyre’s time in the government — which was only a few months ago, after all — he’d been the one with more authority. He would be absolutely loyal if he took the job. But Howe couldn’t offer him the post; the poor guy would feel obligated to take it, and then he’d fall apart.

Still, Howe could pick his brain.

“Maybe you could give me some background,” said Howe. “Informally.”

“You bet. When? Now? This afternoon?”

“I’m kind of tied up today. How about tomorrow — lunch, maybe?”

“You got it, sir. You got it.”

They made an appointment for noon at an out-of-the-way Italian restaurant near McIntyre’s condo.

“What do you think of this Korea thing?” asked McIntyre.

“You’re following it?” asked Howe.

“Oh, yeah.” He laughed again. “I get a kick out of some of these commentators. CNN even called me.”

“You went on TV?”

McIntyre’s laughter roiled into something almost vicious. “No way.”

“Let me ask you something,” said Howe. “Do the North Koreans have UAVs?”

“UAVS? I don’t think so. I mean… well, in theory you can use just about anything as a UAV. Crop duster even. I forget the last assessments. You talk to Thompson over at the CIA?”

“Actually, no.”

“They have the last force estimate. He’d know because he would’ve worked on it. He’s the guy to ask. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“ Dalton would have a handle on the technology if you’re looking to get up-to-date on UAVs in general,” said McIntyre. He was referring to the head of NADT’s technical aviation section, Mark Dalton. “I’d talk to him.”

“You sure they were robot planes?” the scientist asked when Howe described what he’d seen. “In North Korea?”

“Pretty sure. There were no cockpits, and the fuselages were fairly narrow.”

Howe took the small pad of Post — it notes from the top of Dalton ’s computer screen and sketched out the craft. It had gull wings that extended well to the rear.

Dalton shook his head. “You sure?”

“Yup.”

“Like that or like this?” He took the pen and modified the wings, making them droop more in the rear.

“Might have been like that, yeah. That’s what attracted my attention.”

Dalton went online and pulled up some schematics of American projects. Howe thought he saw some similarities with a Boeing project dubbed Bird of Prey that had flown in the mid-1990s. It was a manned, jet-propelled craft that tested a variety of capabilities.

“But not an exact match,” said Dalton.

“No.”

“How big were they?”

“I don’t know.” Howe didn’t feel he could tell Dalton everything — like the fact that he’d been in an airplane when he’d seen them.

“Well, let’s think about this. You saw two abreast in a hangar. How big was the hangar?”

“It was small, designed for a small plane, maybe an early-generation MiG. There was some space on either side and between the planes.”

Dalton estimated that the aircraft might have a wingspan from ten to fifteen feet; by contrast a MiG-21, itself relatively small, would span about twenty-three and a half feet. Payload, range, speed, and other capabilities would depend on any number of factors, but Dalton envisioned a several-hundred-mile range with good endurance.

“Low radar profile,” said Dalton, explaining that between the plane’s small size and angles, it would probably produce a radar cross section down toward 6- or 7/10,000 of a square inch. That was not quite as good as the best American stealthy designs, but it was extremely small, and a good deal smaller than the early F-117A, which had a cross section of approximately 8/10 of a square inch on normal radar, about that of a very small bird.

“Pretty capable aircraft, if they have them. No match for a manned fighter,” said Dalton, “but potentially capable.”

“What would you use it for?”

“Reconnaissance. Stealthy attack. Hell, put a bomb in it and you have a long-range cruise missile.”

“Thanks,” Howe told the scientist.

Chapter 11

The credit card Fisher had found had been used for cash advances from several ATMs in Queens, running through the daily limit of five hundred dollars with a series of small withdrawals. With no other leads, Fisher spent nearly an entire day looking at where they were, trying to find a common link. He decided that they were all within six or seven blocks of R train stops, though what that meant if anything was difficult to say.

On the other hand, there was a significant correlation with decent coffee places; while such a fact could not be undervalued in terms of its contributions toward solving a crime, it was not, in Fisher’s experience, of much use in the courtroom.

“So he probably doesn’t have access to a car, but he’s being supplied with credit cards,” said Macklin after Fisher returned to the compound and they marked out the ATMs on a large map of the city. “He’s trying to disguise where he is, so he makes withdrawals from all over the place. He has the antidote for Sarin poisoning in his basement, where he’s obviously playing chemist, though we’re not sure why. He buys a lot of Clorox: That eliminates biological traces, you know. If he was playing with some sort of bacteria, that would kill it.”

“It also cleans the toilet and whitens underwear,” said Fisher. “There’s a problem with connecting Faud to these ATM withdrawals.”

“What’s that?”

“They were made when he should have been at school.”

“You don’t think he had perfect attendance, do you?”

Fisher went to the computer where the task force’s information was fed. An investigator had spoken to his teachers and yes, Faud Daraghmeh had decent attendance. They hadn’t asked about particular dates. Fisher scrolled about halfway through the interview notes when he realized he’d missed the obvious.

“The card and the money were delivered by the guy who made the cell calls,” Fisher told Macklin. “Look at the dates. They’re the same.”

“So?”

“How long would five hundred dollars last in New York?”

Macklin shrugged. “Twenty minutes, if you spent it right.”

Fisher pulled up Faud’s and then Mrs. DeGarmo’s phone records — they’d gone to the phone company and gotten incoming as well as outgoing — and tried to find a pattern. A number repeated every few weeks, but to the landlady’s phone.

“We check these all out?” Fisher asked Macklin.

“Not enough time to look at her numbers yet.”

Fisher called the number, even though he figured it would be a relative. But the call wouldn’t go through. When they checked it, the number turned out to belong to a telephone booth near the subway station near the Washington Heights apartment.

So the courier would call — preferably though not always from the phone booth — before going to Queens. The calls were always around four in the afternoon, after Faud got home and while Mrs. DeGarmo was watching the last of her “stories” before making dinner, at least as she had described her day to Fisher. Something had caused him to deviate from that schedule once — the time they had been able to trace originally — but this was the more usual routine.

“You think he answered them in his apartment?” Macklin asked.

“You’re starting to get ahold of this investigating thing,” Fisher told him. “Let’s look at some more phone numbers, okay?”

The phone booth was in Staten Island, within walking distance of the ferry but not in the station. Four calls had been made on the same day as the calls to the Astoria apartment, though roughly three hours before those.

“So your theory is, he calls ahead to make sure his people are there, then comes along?” said Macklin as they walked from the booth to a nearby pizza joint for dinner.

“Probably that’s just a signal for them to meet him somewhere. If you’re just going to show up at the apartment, why call ahead?” said Fisher.

“He’s a courier, then.”

“Maybe, or maybe more important than that,” said Fisher. “He got off the ferry that one day the cell phone calls were made. The question is, why was he in Staten Island? But then again, that is one of the great unanswerable questions of all time.”

After two slices of killer anchovy pizza, Fisher and Macklin took a walk, crisscrossing an area roughly eight blocks from the phone booth, looking for anything the courier or whoever had made the calls had been interested in. The area was half-commercial and half-residential, and while not the busiest in the city there were plenty of people on the streets. They didn’t see any mosques.

While Staten Island was part of New York City, physically it was much closer to New Jersey, which loomed to the west and north and was visible over many of the buildings they passed. Three roadways connected to New Jersey; the only way to the rest of the city was either by the ferry or the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which led to Brooklyn.

“Boat,” said Fisher.

“Boat?”

“It’s easier to get here by boat than by car.”

“Okay. How does that help us?”

“It doesn’t,” said Fisher.

“A lot of docks and slips and stuff back that way, the other side of Front and Bay Streets.”

“Yeah,” said Fisher, changing direction.

“Where we going?”

“Get some smokes. And a map of the train line.”

“There’s a train on Staten Island?”

The Staten Island train line ran down the eastern side of the island, from St. George to Tottenville. It ran far less often than the subways did, however. It connected to the ferry stop, and Fisher saw that it was unlikely their man had taken the train: With one exception, he made his phone calls before the train arrived at the terminal.

The bus system, on the other hand, was extensive; the possibilities led almost literally all over the island. So Fisher returned by necessity to his first theory: that the courier had made the call after walking from the area on foot.

“We’re not getting anywhere,” said Macklin after they walked around a bit more.

Fisher did what he always did when he couldn’t figure something out: He lit a cigarette.

Actually, he did that when he could figure something out too.

“It’s okay, Andy. You can’t break every case, and you can’t always be right. Staten Island ’s just a red herring,” said Macklin.

Fisher took a long draw and wondered if Camel had altered its blend, or if cigarettes just tasted different on Staten Island.

“Even the best gumshoe comes up dry sometimes,” added Macklin. “Let’s head back.”

Fisher, starting to feel cold, agreed. They were waiting for the ferry when Macklin’s cell phone rang.

“Going to take us a while to get there,” Fisher heard Macklin say after he answered.

Then he added, “Oh.”

“What’s the deal?” asked Fisher.

“It was Kowalski. They tracked one of the calls to a warehouse and they want to put a team together to raid it.”

“Where is it?”

“Three blocks from the pizza parlor.”

Chapter 12

“The granite counter is a dead giveaway,” said Alice, swinging her hand across the room. “When you see it in an ad, it means the place is going for over three thousand a month. But it also tells you you’ll get other amenities, like the whirlpool, which isn’t always mentioned.”

“Like a code, huh?” asked Howe, following her as she walked through the large kitchen into a much larger dining room. She led him back out into the hallway, showing off the unit’s third bathroom. A chandelier strung with crystal beads hung down in the center at about eye level in front of the mirror. It was so bright that Howe had to look away when Alice turned the light on.

“They’d have to fix that,” she said.

“Make it less bright?”

“No, raise it. It’s down to make it easier for cleaning.”

“A lot of places have chandeliers in the bathroom?”

“It’s a half-bath,” she said, as if that were an explanation.

Howe gave a mumbled “Mmmph.”

“Five-five a month,” she said, leading him back to the living room.

“As in five thousand five hundred?” he asked.

She nodded. “They might come down a little.”

Howe and the real estate agent had spent the past three hours working their way up the price chain. While he had some rough ideas now of what things cost, in truth he was no closer to knowing what sort of place he wanted to live in.

Except that this wasn’t it.

“I don’t know about this place,” he said.

“Well, is the price range okay?”

It seemed outrageously high, but everything did. Using the base salary figures that Blitz and the others were throwing around, though, he could easily afford it. But did he want a place with a crystal chandelier in the bathroom?

“It’s not so much the price as—”

“It’s too ostentatious,” she said, finishing his sentence.

“Yeah. I’m not that formal. I’ve spent most of my time in the military, and, uh, not that I don’t appreciate nice houses or anything…” he said, flustered again. “What kind of place would you live in? This?”

“Here?” She laughed. “I couldn’t afford this.”

“Let’s say you could. Where would you live?”

“Tell you what, I’m hungry,” she said. “Let’s get something to eat and we’ll think about it some more.”

“Great,” said Howe.

They were just getting out of her car when Howe’s cell phone rang. He fumbled getting it out of his pocket, then thought maybe he shouldn’t answer; this wouldn’t be a good place to get into a discussion with a senator or one of the other influential people he’d called to sound out about the post. But habit and duty conspired to make him snap it open.

“Colonel, stand by for Dr. Blitz,” said Blitz’s assistant.

“I have to take this,” Howe told Alice.

“I’ll wait.”

“It’s kind of—”

“Your girlfriend?”

“No, I’m not — It’s business.”

She had a smirk on her face; Howe thought she hadn’t believed what he’d said about it not being a girlfriend. “I’ll be inside,” she told him. Howe watched her walk away as Blitz came on the line.

“Sorry it took so long to get back to you, Colonel. What’s up?”

“I’ve been talking to people about those UAVs I saw in Korea,” said Howe. “I think they’re significant.”

“UAVs? What, at the base?”

“In the hangar there. I mentioned them. And they should be in the reports. I was talking to Mark Dalton over at NADT, and to Howard McIntyre.”

“How is Mac?”

“I think he’s fine.”

“He’s a good man. We have to get him back to work.”

“I’d like to talk to the CIA about what I saw,” said Howe. “According to Dalton, the aircraft would be pretty potent. And we don’t seem to know about it.”

“Tell you what, Colonel. There’s an evaluation group at the Pentagon working with some of my staff and coordinating with the intelligence community. Why don’t you talk directly to them. My assistant will make the arrangements. Have you spoken to Senator Elwell yet?”

“About this?”

“No, about NADT. You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Listen, I’m going to see Elwell tonight. I’ll make sure he calls you tomorrow. Thanks.”

Blitz snapped off the line.

Chapter 13

“You’re just a guest, Fisher,” said Kowalski. “If we want your advice, we’ll ask for it.”

“I’m just saying that the thing to do would be to wait and watch for a while, see who shows up,” said Fisher. “We don’t have any other leads.”

“We will once we’re inside,” said Kowalski.

“Maybe. Or maybe the place is rigged to blow up when someone walks in the front door.”

“See, that’s where we do things differently than the FBI,” said Kowalski. “We’re blowing a hole through the sidewall.”

“That’s different,” said Fisher.

“We don’t screw around.”

“Kowalski’s right, Andy,” said Macklin. “We can’t afford to sit on this. We have to find out what’s inside.”

“I’m not saying sit on it.” Fisher wouldn’t have liked to admit it, but he was a bit miffed at being called a guest. He prided himself on the fact that he hadn’t been invited to anything since his best friend’s bar mitzvah twenty years ago. “If you want to go in, go through that second-story window up there. Then you can check the place out, make sure there’s no explosives, and get in through the doors.”

“Take too much time,” said Kowalski.

“You already know from the radar it’s empty,” said Fisher. The DIA people had brought in a radar unit that scanned the interior of the building. In addition, they used an infrared viewer and found nothing except for two cats. “And sneaking in would give you the option of setting up a sting.”

“We can still set up a sting,” said Kowalski. “And besides, the DIA doesn’t sneak in anywhere. Neither does Homeland Defense. Right, Macklin?”

Macklin looked at Fisher, then back at Kowalski. “I guess you’re right.”

Sneaking in would have been difficult in any event, as the task force safety officer insisted that the first team in wear full protective gear, in case they actually found something. Fisher thought he detected a certain healthy skepticism in the officer’s remarks, something he hadn’t seen much of from the rest of the task force.

The special tactics people borrowed from New York City took out the door on the loading dock by shooting out the hinges with solid lead shot. Fisher had actually never seen this done and was kind of curious about it, but the protocol called for him to stay far away until the warehouse was actually secured unless he was willing to wear a hazmat suit himself. Since that would have made it difficult to smoke, he passed on the opportunity, contenting himself with watching the team from the video feed in the van. The door seemed to pop off the building, and the men disappeared inside. Ten minutes later it was all clear. Fisher got out of the van and walked the half-block to the place, arriving as the garage-style overhead door at the front of the building was rolled upward.

“There,” said one of the men, pointing to a row of large canisters against the side wall. “That looks like it.”

The tanks were the sort used to hold seltzer water in large soda fountain setups. Fisher walked over and started to inspect one; Macklin, who was wearing a respirator, grabbed him.

“Preliminary hit says they’re filled with liquid sarin,” said Macklin. “A lot worse than that coffee you’re always drinking.”

“Not necessarily,” said Fisher, but he backed away anyway.

Chapter 14

“This is my dream place.”

Alice opened the door and stepped through the landing. Howe followed. The living room to the left was open to the second story, with large windows covering two walls. The woodwork was stained a dark walnut that matched the inlaid pattern in the oak. He followed inside the kitchen — another granite counter — which looked into a breakfast nook and a family room. A large fireplace sat at the far end.

The wine they’d had over dinner, not to mention the conversation, had left him in a mellow mood. Howe followed her through the house: It was a house, not a condominium, and it was for sale, not rent. Her voice echoed through the empty room like faint music, luring him onward.

And her perfume. That, too, was light, almost a suggestion of a scent rather than the smell itself. A flower tickled by the wind.

God, Howe told himself, let’s not go overboard. She’s just showing me apartments.

And houses. One house. Her dream house.

There were four bedrooms upstairs.

“Master bedroom, kids’ room, guest room,” said Alice. “Assuming there’s kids.”

“A lot of rooms.”

Jesus, what a dumb thing to say.

“What do you think? Isn’t it great?” she said when they reached the downstairs landing.

“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t trust his tongue anymore.

“Want to know the price?”

Howe shrugged. “It’s kind of big.”

“He’ll come down, I know.”

He shrugged again.

“One point two.”

“How much?”

“A million two hundred thousand. But he’ll come down. He built it on spec.” She flicked her hair back from her shoulder. “I don’t represent him, so I can tell you this. I know he’d come down a lot.”

“A million dollars. God.”

“Payments would be about what the condo was. Less, depending on the down payment.”

“I don’t know if I have a down payment.”

Alice made a face. “Your company could always loan you the money.”

Howe didn’t answer, though he realized she was probably right.

“Oh, I know, it’s my dream not yours,” she said, waving her hand at him. “I have to get back.”

“Date?”

“Oh, God, no. I always stop by and see my dad on Wednesdays. Should we set up another appointment?”

“I’d like to.”

“Tomorrow at four?”

“Tomorrow at four. Sounds good. Your office?”

“My office.”

On the way back to the real estate parking lot where he’d left his car, Howe decided he wanted to kiss her. But somehow he couldn’t find the right chance. He smiled, waved, and got into his car to drive back to his motel.

The light on Howe’s phone blinked steadily as he came in, indicating he had a message. The motel’s voice mail system was tricky to use, and Howe finally had to call down to the desk for help. The call was from a man who said he had some questions about something Howe had told a mutual friend. The man spoke so quickly on the phone that Howe had trouble making out the phone number he left, and couldn’t entirely decipher his name; it sounded like “Woeful.”

It was past nine o’clock. Howe thought he’d try the number anyway; maybe if the caller had an answering machine or voice mail he’d get at least an idea what this was about.

“Wu,” said the voice on the other end of the line, picking up right after the first ring.

“This is Bill Howe.”

“Colonel Howe, thank you for calling me back. Where are you now?”

Howe hesitated but then told him he was in his hotel.

“There’s a diner about two miles down the highway if you take a right out of your driveway,” said Wu. “Can you meet me there in half an hour?”

“What’s this about?” said Howe.

“I’ll have to talk to you in person.”

“Does this have to do with NADT?”

“I have to talk to you in person,” repeated Wu.

Howe thought back to his tour of the NADT scientific sections earlier that day, trying to connect the man’s voice and name with a face. But there had been too many people he either didn’t know at all or had met only once or twice.

“Half hour. Sure.”

Wu hung up before Howe could ask how he would recognize him.

Chapter 15

It turned out to be surprisingly difficult for Tyler to arrange transportation across the Korean border. Inspection teams simply weren’t afforded the priority that supplies and humanitarian aid were; what’s more, the group’s connection to the Pentagon seemed to work against it. When Tyler found four spaces on a Navy helicopter that had to stop nearby, he practically jumped up in glee, even though it would mean leaving behind half the team and all of the people they were taking for security. Tyler hustled to the airfield with Colonel Yorn, Somers, and a CIA paramilitary officer named Jake Dempsey. They just barely made the helicopter, and had to squeeze in amid extra medical supplies the corpsmen were transporting. Things were so tight that the pilot told them they were five pounds under their permitted takeoff weight.

“Good thing I didn’t have much breakfast,” said Somers.

The flight took several hours and was punctuated by a stop near the DMZ to refuel. No one spoke the whole way, and expressions grew more somber as they flew. Tyler had experienced this during combat: Even the most hardened veteran and shameless wiseass tended to focus on the job ahead as zero hour drew near. But to him, this was an easy gig; he hadn’t even considered the possibility that they might be fired at.

And yet, that was a real danger. From birth, North Koreans had been taught to hate Americans, and while their army and government had collapsed, their hatred surely percolated just under the surface. Two American soldiers with M16s and grenade launchers patrolled near the runway as the helicopter put down. Seeing them reminded Tyler that they were deep in enemy territory and heavily outnumbered.

A pair of Hummers waited to take them to the forward headquarters of the division hosting them. Tyler got into one with Somers, listening as the historian talked with the driver and escort. Both men started out taciturn but within a few minutes Somers’s easygoing style had them relaxed and, if not quite loquacious, at least speaking in sentences and paragraphs rather than single words.

“They’re curious,” said the corporal behind the wheel. “I get the feeling they think we have two heads and they’re looking to see where we’re hiding the other.”

Tyler watched Somers as he carried on similar conversations with the staff at the headquarters and then later at their billet, a villa that had apparently been vacated by a high-ranking government official during the coup. While Tyler had initially wondered whether to take the older man along, he saw now it had been a good move. In just a few hours the historian had probably done the work of a dozen toiling analysts and poll takers, eliciting candid, off-the-cuff remarks. The consensus among American service people was clear: The North Koreans would be willing to go along with things for the short term at least, so long as there were reasonable measures to both keep them safe from retribution and to feed them.

“Hungriest people I ever saw,” one of the lieutenants told them.

That seemed to be the bottom line, and Tyler made sure to repeat it several times during their conference call with Moore at the end of the day. After the call, he thought maybe that was his problem as well. A full meal, a bit of rest, and he’d be ready for whatever happened in the morning.

Chapter 16

Howe was on his second cup of coffee when the tall man stopped in front of his booth. His round, Asian face had been marked by a double scar along the right cheek, as if he’d been scratched there by a two-fingered claw.

“Are you Howe?” asked the man.

The question took him by surprise: If Wu worked for NADT, as he’d thought, he wouldn’t need to ask. And Howe didn’t remember meeting anyone with a scar so prominent on his face.

If he suggested they go anywhere, Howe told himself, he’d resist.

Wu slid into the booth. The waitress came right over and he ordered a decaf coffee. When she left, he reached into his pocket and took out a thin wallet.

“I’m with the CIA,” said Wu, showing his credentials. “I’m sorry to make such a production out of this. I couldn’t trust your phone at the motel, and I have to have the report together in a few hours.”

“Which report?” asked Howe.

“Someone on the NSC staff mentioned that you saw UAVs on the airstrip in North Korea.”

Howe nodded. Wu took out a small notepad. He’d written a brief summary of one of the reports Howe had made earlier. They went over it quickly.

“That’s basically what I saw,” said Howe when he finished. “I didn’t get that close to them.”

“But they were definitely there?”

“Yes, sir, they were.”

Wu nodded. He waited as the waitress arrived with his coffee, then took a few sips before continuing.

“The Koreans aren’t known to have any sort of craft like this,” said Wu.

“So I’ve heard.”

“You didn’t take a picture or anything?”

Howe laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how much you know about what I was doing there and what happened.”

“I had to ask.”

“I’m sure of what I saw, but only of what I saw. Whether those aircraft were real airplanes, UAVs, whatever, I don’t know. I talked to someone at NADT who made some guesses about how they’d be powered and that sort of thing. I can have him get in touch with you tomorrow.”

“That’s all right. I think really I have enough.” Wu sipped his coffee. Obviously he had access to any number of experts. “One last question: Would you agree that these aircraft should be secured and examined?”

“Absolutely.”

The CIA analyst nodded, then got up and reached into his pocket for his wallet.

“I got it,” Howe told him. He stayed in the booth for a while, sipping his coffee and looking at a real estate magazine he’d grabbed on the way in. He left the waitress a nice tip and headed back to the motel.

Chapter 17

It was Thursday, and Blitz and the CIA director always met for breakfast. The Korean crisis didn’t change that, but it did make them move up their schedule and change the location of their meeting: Blitz found himself walking up the path to the director’s home at five in the morning, accompanied by an aide and two NSC security escorts, Army Delta troopers in plainclothes on special assignment. He was met at the door by one of the director’s own security people. Inside the kitchen he found the director’s wife, Jean, presiding over a pan of home fries and another of sausage.

“Well, if I had known we would have such a good cook on duty, I would ask to meet here more often,” said Blitz.

Jean gave him a good-natured but tired smile, then asked what sort of omelet he wanted.

“I told you, load him up with cholesterol,” said Jack Anthony, entering from upstairs. He smelled as if he’d just come from the shower, though he was fully dressed and looked considerably more awake than his wife.

“Would you like blue cheese and mushrooms?” asked Jean.

“That would be fantastic,” said Blitz. He’d meant the compliment. This was shaping up as the best meal he’d had in weeks.

Blitz and Anthony had a very complicated relationship. Professionally, the men couldn’t stand each other: They were bitter rivals for power and influence, and they had come to their positions by entirely different paths. Blitz had been in and out of government and academia, and while he was acknowledged as one of the country’s foremost experts on international relations, he had been appointed largely because of his long-term relationship with the President. Anthony, on the other hand, had spent his entire adult life working for the government. Much of that experience had come at the CIA, but he had also worked for the NSA, the Pentagon, and briefly the State Department. He professed to be apolitical, though his congressional connections were strongest with members of the other party.

Personally, though, the two men got along very well. Not only were they baseball fanatics, they were both Yankee fans — a minority in Washington, D.C. Anthony had been a guest speaker for Blitz several times when Blitz was teaching, and had even informally reviewed one of Blitz’s books before it was published, giving him a dozen pages of useful notes.

“Let’s talk for a minute,” said Jack, pointing Blitz toward the nearby family room. The oldest Anthony daughter lived nearby and had recently had a baby; a playpen was set up in the corner of the room. Blitz sat on the sofa next to it, listening as Anthony quickly ran down the important points in a CIA analysis of unaccounted — for North Korean weapons. The report would be delivered as an unofficial memorandum later that morning to the NSC, which would use it to make a recommendation on further Korean operations.

“We’ve now accounted for all but one hundred of the fuel tubes from the reactor,” said the CIA head, focusing on the most important finding.

“A hundred? That’s a hell of a lot to lose.”

“We haven’t lost them, we just haven’t found them yet,” said Anthony. “That’s a big difference. We’re not even one hundred percent sure they’re gone.”

The material had been at Yonbyon, the nuclear facility roughly sixty miles north of the capital. A large number of the fuel rods had been recovered or accounted for, but even a few dozen could present a serious threat. While processing their fuel into a bomb would probably be beyond the capabilities of all but a handful of governments, the material could be used in a so-called dirty weapon, spreading radioactive waste in a high-value site.

“These weren’t used for another bomb?” Blitz asked.

“We haven’t completely ruled that out,” said Anthony. “But we have a handle on the bomb facilities and it seems unlikely.”

“Accounting for the fuel tubes has to have the highest priority,” said Blitz.

“Agreed.”

They broke for breakfast, the conversation turning to the new grandchild. Jane stayed for a few minutes, then excused herself to go take a shower. When she was gone, Anthony and Blitz resumed their discussion of what to do next in North Korea. All of the ballistic missile sites had been secured, and separate teams had already completed preliminary reports on the technology. According to Anthony, there were no surprises: American intelligence had already done a decent job of psyching out the capabilities of the weapons.

The Koreans’ small store of cruise missiles — primitive weapons based on a Russian antiship missile — were all accounted for. Several stores of chemical weapons that had not been listed on reports prior to the coup had been found. As of yet, records to check the inventories had not been located.

“What about the E-bomb?” Blitz asked.

Anthony shook his head. “Still looks like they snookered us on that. Two members of the Korean security police were arrested in Japan last night, and it’s possible one of them was Colonel Howe’s passenger.”

“I doubt that,” said Blitz. “Too low-level.” His main candidate was the head of the DPRK intelligence, who had not been heard from since twelve hours before the coup. “Colonel Howe mentioned seeing some UAVs, or possible UAVs,” added Blitz, remembering his conversation with Howe.

“One of our people checked into that. He’s recommending a check at the site.”

“As a CIA operation?”

“We don’t have the resources at the moment,” admitted Anthony.

“Perhaps we should run a military operation through the NSC,” suggested Blitz.

“Might be an idea, if you can arrange it.” Anthony took a sip of his coffee. “Is Howe going over to NADT?”

“He’s the top candidate,” said Blitz.

“I wonder if Howe is the right man for the job,” said Anthony. “He’s an outsider to Washington. And he was only a colonel.”

“He’s had a good deal of experience. He was responsible for the Velociraptors and has worked with NADT.”

Blitz wondered if Anthony saw Howe as a potential political threat. The CIA did not deal with NADT on any sort of regular basis, but whoever took over as head of the agency would be at least a potential power in Washington.

“Is there something else about Colonel Howe I should know?” Blitz asked.

Anthony shrugged. “We’re initiating an intelligence review in connection with the Korean operation.”

“How does that affect him?”

“Just that he was part of it.”

“He had nothing to do with the intelligence,” said Blitz.

“It’s odd that he was connected with that, and with a plot to steal one of America ’s most advanced weapons.”

“He’s not connected at all,” said Blitz.

The matter was of more than passing importance, since it represented a potential scandal: He could just imagine what an unfriendly congressional committee would do with the information that the U.S. government had helped a Korean villain escape. Howe’s involvement could be especially problematic; Blitz wondered whether his appointment should be delayed until they had captured the man.

The doorbell rang: Anthony’s driver and aides had arrived. The conversation turned to more generic, benign matters. Blitz fretted about what to do. A review of the Korean matter could easily take months.

A way would have to be found to shortcut the process. In the meantime…

In the meantime?

One of the aides had the morning news summary with him, a compilation of important items prepared for the President and other top members of the administration. For a change, the item leading the roundup wasn’t from Korea: A joint task force headed by Homeland Security and the DIA, with help from the New York City Police Department and a long list of others, had found a cache of sarin gas in a warehouse on Staten Island.

Anthony pointed out that the discovery had been made by the group originally put together to investigate the E-bomb rumor.

“So it wasn’t a total waste after all,” he said. “Keystone Kops stumbled onto the real thing.”

Blitz made a mental note to call Jack Hunter at the FBI and congratulate him — and see whether the connection was just a coincidence as it appeared.

As the others went out to the car, Anthony held Blitz back for a second.

“About that review,” said Anthony. “We’ve suspended security clearances for everyone involved.”

“What?” said Blitz.

“It’s routine.”

“Like hell,” said Blitz.

“Don’t get mad, Professor. The review isn’t going to take that long.”

“Are you trying to torpedo Howe’s appointment?”

“Absolutely not.”

Blitz knew a lie when he heard one, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.

Chapter 18

Fisher had a prime seat for the press conference: back near the coffee and doughnuts laid out for the media types. That meant he couldn’t get a good view of Macklin and Kowalski as they smiled for the cameras: another plus.

It was a crowded podium. Besides Macklin and Kowalski, the city mayor, the police commissioner, the local federal attorney, the governor, and the district attorney from Staten Island were all on the stage at Gracie Mansion in Manhattan to announce the triumph. So much for setting up a sting.

They had, at least, made an arrest on the person who had leased the warehouse. He was an Egyptian émigré who’d been in America for four years. His name was Said Ahmet, and he claimed he had rented it to people who wanted to store auto parts. The story was so lame that Fisher was tempted to believe it. In the meantime, warrants had been arranged for several business associates of Ahmet, and city detectives were out looking for them. Faud, who had not been connected to the warehouse except by Fisher’s roundabout logic, was now on a list of people to be apprehended but his name and description were not being released to the press.

If Fisher had had his way, nothing would be released to the press, and there would be no press conference at all. But at least the cheese blintzes were good.

“Andy, it’s been great working with you,” said Macklin after the TV cameras shut down.

“You going on vacation?”

“No. The case is closed.”

“No it’s not,” said Fisher.

“Well, yeah, we have to wrap up loose ends and such. But Jeez, Fisher, don’t you ever relax? We celebrate today, take off a long weekend, then come back and kick down doors Monday.”

“Whose doors?”

“It’s a figure of speech. Besides, you’re out of here.”

“How do you mean that?” asked Fisher, shaking out a fresh cigarette.

“Your assignment only lasted until we broke the case. I’m supposed to give you back to the Bureau as soon as I can. The case is closed. We’ll be turning it all over to the U.S. attorney anyway and disbanding the task force. So thanks.” He held out his hand.

“Who says we broke the case?”

Macklin just about crossed his eyes.

“We still don’t understand the connection between the E-bomb and the sarin gas.” Fisher hated stating the obvious, even to a fellow investigator, but there seemed no other choice.

“There is no connection. God, you’re the guy who figured that out. You said—”

“That alone ought to be enough to bother you,” said Fisher, walking away.