Black Wolf

2

You are invincible.

The man they called Black Wolf heard the voice in his head, the words playing on an endless loop. He tried to block them out but could not. They were always there, part of an inner voice he could not control.

But there were many things he could not control.

You are invincible.

He was not invincible at all, nor was he a demigod, though some treated him as one. On the contrary, he knew very well the limits of his abilities, and had constant reminders of his mortality.

But he didn’t care much for what other people thought of him. He didn’t care much for other people at all.

The Black Wolf had obligations which he could not escape. He had duties and assignments. But he considered himself separate from them, separate from everything. They called him Black Wolf. He called himself… nothing.

The man they called the Black Wolf moved up the stairs to the balcony of the Konzerthaus Berlin, the famous orchestra house in eastern Berlin. A large crowd had come to hear a young Czech prodigy play a selection of Mozart, Vivaldi, and Bach with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. Barely fifteen, the pianist was already famous and celebrated; it was said his music would move stones to tears. But a good part of his fame — or was it notoriety? — came from theatrical touches.

He dressed as a pseudogoth. His head was shaved, and while he wore black tie to the concert, he could generally be counted on to pull off his jacket and shirt at the end of the show and toss it to the crowd. Sometimes he would throw his trademark black T-shirt as well, and take his final bows bare-chested.

Witnessing such a spectacle, a reviewer for Le Monde had recently counted five tattoos in various spots on the pianist’s upper body. The prodigy had responded in a Facebook posting that he would gladly show her the rest at a private concert.

This wasn’t particularly adventurous stuff in other genres, but it was a revolution in classical music. The young man’s shows were always sold out, and generally attracted a much wider ranging audience than the typical symphony concert.

Wolf found his seat in the balcony just as the lights dimmed. He listened impassively as the program started. A Mozart selection warmed up the audience. The notes darted back and forth in an intricate web, echoing themes, underlining them, then taking them apart. If many had come for the show, it was the music that transported them. The young man with the shaved head and tattoos played as artfully as anyone who had graced the stage since it was built. In his hands, the music became immortal.

The Black Wolf wasn’t interested in transcendence. He scanned the audience, looking for Helmut Dalitz. For Dalitz was scheduled to have his own reckoning with mortality before the program ended.

Helmut Dalitz was a wealthy international businessman. Once a banker, he now made his money by buying distressed properties across the world, fixing them or otherwise making them viable, and then selling them. He did this most often with apartment buildings, though he also did it on occasion with commercial properties.

It was one of the commercial properties that had brought Wolf here. For Helmut Dalitz, through a company that he owned, had bought a large, nondescript building in Rome, Italy, the previous year. The building, on Via Nazionale not far from the Termini train station, was a nondescript twelve story structure badly in need of maintenance.

There were many ways that maintenance could be done; since there were a number of vacant stores and offices, workers could have started with the vacant spaces, then gradually moved on, shuffling the existing tenants in and out of the different units like a game of musical chairs. Doing things piecemeal like that was common in Italy, where work tended to progress at a very leisurely pace, and disrupting old traditions for the sake of some new paint and a few daubs of plaster was antithetical to the national psyche.

But Helmut Dalitz was not Italian. More importantly, he disliked disorder, and the idea of slowly renovating his building did not sit well with him. It smacked of chaos and conflicted with his timetable for turning a profit. And so he had the building closed entirely, kicking out all of the existing tenants, something he was allowed to do by the terms of the sale and the tenants’ leases, even if these terms conflicted with the spirit by which most of the tenants had held their property.

Among the tenants he had kicked out was Giuseppe DeFrancisco, an eighty-year-old man who ran a small tobacco shop on the side street. The shop had not turned a profit in several years, and in fact the rent was paid now entirely by the man’s grandson. Unfortunately, the grandson had been concentrating on his business affairs in southern Italy when the first notice of the pending eviction came. By the time he realized his grandfather was going to be kicked out, it was too late to stop it — not that Helmut Dalitz or his minions would have listened to reason.

The thugs his minions hired were deaf as well. They hadn’t listened to the old man’s pleas, who begged them right up to the moment they placed him on the curb. They didn’t listen to his complaints, or even to his cry for help a few moments later, when he began suffering from a heart attack. A passerby called an ambulance when he found the old man on the ground a few minutes later; by the time the ambulance fought its way through the morning traffic, Giuseppe DeFrancisco was dead.

The men who had put him out wouldn’t be listening to anyone now. Wolf had taken care of them two weeks before on a trip to Rome. Now it was their employer’s turn.

Wolf cared little for the justifications of the murder, though they had been important to the old man’s grandson. While he could have used his own organization to extract revenge, the grandson considered this a matter of the heart rather than business, and deemed it wiser to keep the two separate. And besides, the Wolf and his employers were said to be even more efficient than the mafia.

Helmut Dalitz was sitting in the third box on the right of the stage. He was seated very close to the rail, listening intently to the music. Behind him sat two bodyguards, dressed as impeccably as he was; they were a sharp contrast to his daughter, who though not slovenly, could easily have afforded something more stylish than the plain black polyester pants and print silk shirt she wore.

She was alone. The Black Wolf had expected her boyfriend to be with her. This was not necessarily a problem for him — one less potential obstruction, perhaps — but he noted it nonetheless.

The night’s performance was grouped into three sections. As the first came to an end, Helmut Dalitz rose with the rest of the audience and applauded. And then, being a man of habit, he kissed his daughter on the cheek and told her he was going home.

Even with his superior hearing, the Black Wolf couldn’t hear the conversation. But he saw the girl shaking her head, and guessed what her father was saying. Helmut Dalitz habitually left the concert hall before the last intermission, and obviously he had decided to leave now.

Habits were a bad thing, especially when someone was aiming to kill you.

The girl would be pleading with him not to leave her alone. And he would suggest that she come with him.

She was torn. What would she decide?

To stay. She turned away abruptly.

Easier for him.

The Black Wolf waited to make sure that Helmut Dalitz was actually leaving, then turned and walked swiftly to the exit. He slipped easily between the people making their way down to the restroom and the large hall at the front of the orchestra house to stretch their legs. He moved quickly, almost lithely, despite the bulk of his legs and shoulders. His body had the fluidity of a much lighter and, it had to be admitted, younger man. While Wolf thought of himself as barely into his early twenties, he was in fact over fifty.

Not that anyone seeing him would have guessed that. On the contrary, he looked exactly as if he were in his twenties, just reaching his physical peak, with a bright future yet to come.

The Black Wolf reached the marble hallway at the front of the building, pausing near one of the elaborate columns. Helmut Dalitz would approach from the right, accompanied by his bodyguards; a third man would be waiting just outside, alerted by radio.

Taking him in the concert hall was tempting — there were so many people present that he could sidle right up to Dalitz and shoot him with the silenced gun. But getting away would be problematic. He wasn’t so much worried about witnesses as simply being able to slip quickly through the crowd. Outside would be easier.

A surge of people blocked his vision, and he lost Dalitz momentarily. The Black Wolf took a step in the direction he knew Dalitz would take, then stopped. He scanned the faces, looking.

One of the bodyguards was walking at the far end of the hall. Wolfe realized Dalitz must be in front of the man, though he couldn’t see him.

Why was he that far away? Had he changed his mind — was he going back to his daughter?

No. His escorts were simply trying to avoid the worst of the crowd.

It was too late to cut him off. Wolf took a step back, sliding toward the door on his left.

The worst thing to do was to rush. He had to move slowly and deliberately. If he did not kill Helmut Dalitz now, he would kill him later, or tomorrow, or the next day. Success was the only thing that mattered in this assignment, not timing.

The crisp Berlin air invigorated Wolf as he came through the doors. The square in front of the theater was yellow, lit by clusters of old-fashioned lamps at each of the corners. He paused, getting his bearings. Dalitz turned right, toward the Gendarmenmarkt. If he followed his usual practice — and being a man of habit, he surely would — he would walk up Markgrafenstrausse toward Französische.

Wolf started down the steps. The light in the square was dim, but he could see as well in the dark as most people could see during the day. He quickened his pace, turning parallel to his quarry.

Dalitz’s two bodyguards moved closer. Did they sense the danger?

No. They were just doing their job, closing up ranks, anxious to get to the next waypoint.

The Black Wolf put his hand into the pocket of his overcoat, gripping his pistol. The gun and its bullets were made completely of carbon composites. They wouldn’t trip the most finicky metal detector, yet the bullets were as fatal as Magnums at a hundred yards. The long, boxy barrel had a noise suppresser; the bullet sounded like a metal slug dropping through a vending machine, and was only a little louder.

The Black Wolf picked up his pace, moving closer.

He liked to be close, not just to ensure that he hit the target, but to viscerally feel the kill. It touched something inside, some primitive emotion. Nothing else he felt came close to that feeling. It was the feeling of life, as paradoxical as it seemed: only in someone else’s death could he actually live.

Helmut Dalitz turned the corner. Wolf notched up his pace even higher, careful not to break into a run.

The white Mercedes was waiting just ahead.

The two bodyguards were spaced three and a half meters apart, trailing their client by a half pace each.

Wolf was ten meters behind them.

Seven.

Five.

He pulled the gun from his pocket. The man on the right started to turn.

A single shot took him down. Wolf swiveled, his left hand grabbing his forearm to steady the gun. He caught the second bodyguard in the temple.

And then it was Helmut Dalitz’s turn.

The businessman turned, his face an expression of utter surprise.

The Black Wolf grinned, and squeezed the trigger.

3

“Good morning, Colonel Freah. How would you like your coffee?”

Danny Freah turned to the ceiling as the elevator car plunged down toward its destination. “How do you know I want coffee?” he asked.

“You always want coffee,” responded the voice.

“I can’t break the pattern?”

“Breaking the pattern would be unexpected.”

The elevator stopped and the door opened.

“Colonel Freah, you did not answer my question,” said the voice.

“Surprise me,” said Danny, stepping out into the wide hall in front of the elevator. The space looked like the bottom level of a mall parking garage. A spider work of girders, beams, and pipes ran through it.

They weren’t for show, exactly, but the overall look was definitely intentional. The insides of the nondescript building — known only as Room 4—had an ambiance that mixed high-tech functional and blow-your-mind weirdness.

Case in point was the gray wall facing Danny at the far end of the room. He walked toward it, then straight through it.

Danny Freah was still so new to Room 4 and the high-tech gizmos associated with it that it felt eerily cool to do that. But he was too professional to admit it — or give in to the temptation to do it a few more times for fun.

The wall was not an optical illusion, exactly. It could keep someone out if the security system didn’t want them in. The barrier was a physical manifestation of an energy array — a kind of force field in layman’s terms, though the man responsible for inventing it, Dr. Ray Rubeo, hated the term force field.

Absolutely hated it.

Danny knew, however, that Rubeo did have a sense of humor, which apparently he’d programmed into the automated assistant that had questioned him about coffee in the elevator. Sitting in the beverage center at the left of the desk as he entered was a steaming cup of cinnamon herbal tea.

Pretty much the last thing Danny would ever drink.

“Very funny,” he told the computer. “Coffee. The usual.”

“The system still has some kinks to be worked out,” said Danny’s boss, Breanna Stockard, who was standing over a nearby desk.

“No — it’s my fault,” said Danny. “I should have known better than to try to outsmart something Rubeo rigged up.”

The coffee, very strong and hot, spurted through the dispenser into a fresh cup. While the automated assistant and the beverage center were a brand new addition to Room 4, their presence in the high-tech control area wasn’t a surprise. Back at Dreamland, one of the technology section’s proudest achievements was a zero-gravity coffeemaker, which could keep the crews aboard Megafortresses and other large aircraft pleasantly caffeinated no matter what the combat conditions were.

“I’ll meet you inside,” said Breanna, waving a hand to dismiss the computer screen that had been floating in front of her. “Everyone else is here.”

“Gotcha.”

Danny waited for the last drops of coffee to settle into the cup, then raised it slowly to his lips, cooling it with a gentle breath. He’d only been working for Whiplash — the new Whiplash — for two months, and things still felt a bit… different.

A full-bird colonel, Freah had recently been assigned to the Office of Technology, a special direct-report agency that answered to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On paper, he looked like just another pencil-pushing staff officer, paid for his advice and experience. In reality, he headed Whiplash, one of the most exciting commands in the military.

A joint venture with the CIA, Whiplash aimed to combine up-to-the nanosecond intelligence capabilities with a covert action team. It was modeled on the Air Force’s Dreamland program that had so much success a decade and a half earlier, under Breanna’s father, Lt. Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian. Breanna had recruited Danny specifically to head the military end of the program.

They’d had one success so far, on a mission that had stretched from Africa to Iran. For Danny, it felt good to be back in the mix again; most of his assignments since Dreamland had been administrative and supervisory. This post got him back on the front lines with gusto. But it was also a lot of work. He’d spent the weeks since returning home recruiting people and trying to smooth out differences between the two halves of the team — military and active CIA. He was still working on the training routines they needed and filling in his command structure. He was inventing, improvising, and even stealing as the need arose.

He’d tapped another old Dreamland Whiplash hand — Ben “Boston” Rockland, now a chief master sergeant — as his main personnel guy, dealing with young bucks and their egos.

Bucks and does; it was a coed force.

Boston was in Florida at the moment, putting their recruits through their paces. They had twenty-four newbie “shooters” or Whiplash troopers, drawn mostly from active military commands, each with different specialties and strengths. Eventually Danny planned to have some forty-eight troopers to form the core of a covert strike force. They could be deployed as a group, or work in very small teams, depending on the assignment. Whiplash technology would increase their effectiveness exponentially.

Danny took a sip of the coffee — it was perfect, naturally — then walked down the hall to the conference room.

“Colonel, good morning,” said Jonathon Reid. Reid was the CIA director’s liaison to the project, Breanna’s equivalent in authority. As the lines of responsibility went, Reid was in charge of operations for the specific missions, while Breanna’s ultimate say was over strategic and funding issues. But as a practical matter, their responsibilities were shared. Reid had the immediate access to intelligence as well as the people who commissioned the ops. Breanna, as a member of the Pentagon, held sway over most of the personnel, and thus the means for completing the mission. Though in many respects they were opposites, they worked together remarkably well.

Danny took a seat at the conference table across from Nuri Abaajmed Lupo, nodding at him as he sat down. Nuri was a CIA officer who’d preceded him into the program — the first and for a short time only member of Whiplash. He was young but extremely capable, as he’d shown in Africa and Iran. Nuri did, however, have some difficulty dealing with the fact that Danny was the one in charge. He was also used to working alone.

“Now that we’re all here, we can begin,” said Reid. “Screen.”

A screen appeared above the center of the table. It was another projection.

“The man on the ground in a pool of blood is the deputy defense minister of Poland,” said Reid. His voice was dry and raspy. “You may remember seeing something about it in the daily intel briefings. That’s the ministry behind him. Yes, this murder was carried out in broad daylight, inside a secure facility.”

Danny studied the images as the screen changed, showing first the surroundings, then the autopsy photos. Finally he had to look away — something about seeing death treated that clinically turned his stomach.

“You’ll note that the deputy minister was shot in the forehead,” continued Reid. “That wasn’t a sniper shot. It was at close range, with a very distinctive bullet. Something like this.”

Reid reached down to his briefcase and removed a manila envelope. Holding it upside down, he shook out what looked to Danny like a model of a bullet, with a rounded top and in an unusual shade of brown.

“This is a bullet?” said Nuri, picking it up.

“Carbon composite,” said Danny. “Right?”

“Yes, Colonel,” said Reid. “There’s no metal. We imagine that it was fired from a weapon that also had no metal, as whoever fired it had to get past a metal detector.”

Nuri passed the bullet over to Danny.

“This killed him?”

“That’s not the actual bullet, no,” said Reid. “That’s something one of our labs was working on. The actual bullet is in Poland. This is another murder, more recent,” Reid went on, changing the slide. “Yesterday as a matter of fact.”

A new image appeared on the screen. A man lay on a sidewalk, blood around his face and mouth. This time Danny couldn’t see the bullet wound. The picture had been taken at night, and the flash glinted off an unseen window just to the right of the image area. Two other bodies lay on the ground nearby.

“The dead man is named Helmut Dalitz,” continued Reid. “MY-PID, please display Herr Dalitz’s professional dossier.”

The computer complied. MY-PID stood for Massively Parallel Integrated Decision Complex, and referred to the network of interconnected computers and data interfaces that were at the heart of the Whiplash project. Not only did the network of computers provide an integrated database and security system for Room 4, but it also could be used by field ops, who connected via a tiny interface device that looked like an MP3 player.

“This one is a businessman,” said Nuri. “And he’s German. What’s the connection?”

“The only hard connection is the bullet,” said Reid.

“So they were murdered by the same man,” said Danny. “I mean, person.”

“Maybe not the same person,” said Reid, as Breanna slipped into the room and sat down. “But it’s a good bet that the organization is the same. This image was captured by a surveillance camera near the Polish base. We think it’s the killer, or one of the people working with him.”

Danny looked at the photo. It wasn’t exactly much — a figure, estimated by the computer to be six feet one inch tall, approximately 220 pounds — stood sideways in the grainy distance. His face was covered by shadow.

“I don’t even see how you can tell if that’s a man rather than a woman,” said Nuri.

“Wait,” said Reid.

The computer began peeling away the layers, modeling what it thought the man looked like based on the shadow it had seen. It was a generic image, something like the computer-generated models used on online clothing sites when you wanted to buy semitailored clothes.

“So who is this guy?” asked Danny. “Or guys?”

“They’re called the Wolves,” said Breanna. “They’re murderers for hire, and they operate in Europe. The murder in Berlin was an anomaly. It was ordered by a mafia chieftain in Italy. His compatriots wouldn’t authorize the killing, and so rather than cause trouble with them, he reached out to friends in Russia. They have a business arrangement selling stolen vehicles there — he exports them, they sell them.”

Reid picked up the thread again, explaining that the Italian state police had the mafia member under surveillance; their phone taps recorded a conversation with one of his Russian mafiya partners asking for the hit. The price was unusually expensive, but success was guaranteed — three million euros to take down the businessman, and another two million to kill some of his associates.

“Not so coincidentally, the sum coincided with money the Russian owed the mafioso,” added Reid. “He didn’t even try to haggle. He was very angry — in his mind, the businessman had caused his father’s death, and the reluctance of his associates to authorize revenge added insult to injury.”

The Russian had then contacted someone outside of Russia with details. Unfortunately, information had been sent in at least three different messages, all via e-mail. Only one had been recovered — and that was by accident, part of an NSA program aimed at Russian intelligence. But it was enough to connect the murder definitively to the Wolves, even if the bullet hadn’t been recovered.

The Russian contact was subsequently placed under electronic surveillance.

“Unfortunately, he is no longer with us,” continued Reid. “The Italian was not the only person to whom he owed money.”

“So we’re going after criminals now?” asked Nuri.

“The assignment is a little more complicated than that,” said Breanna. “The Russians seem to be hoping to disrupt the NATO meeting in Kiev set for ten days from now. The ministers are supposed to vote on Ukraine’s membership, and the thinking is that this group has been hired to kill some of the ministers supporting the addition.”

“Or members of the Ukrainian government who support membership,” added Reid. “It’s not clear. They have been used for some political assassinations before. Most notably, Deng Pu’s death.”

Deng was a Chinese foreign minister who had opposed a new trade agreement with Russia. After his death — an assignation at his country house outside of Berlin — the treaty was signed.

“We’re still working through the intelligence,” admitted Reid after turning the projection image off. “Simply disrupting the meeting may be the Russians’ primarily goal. And it’s possible they’re not after the entire NATO board. They may just want the possible Ukrainian representatives to it.”

“What do the Ukrainians say?” asked Nuri.

Reid shook his head. “I haven’t a clue whether they’ve been told. I suspect not.”

“Apprehending the Wolves would be beneficial for a lot of reasons independent of NATO,” said Breanna. “They’re pretty dangerous assassins. Think about whom they’ve killed — a Chinese minister, a Polish defense official, a banker. And those are the murders we know about.”

“So where do we start?” asked Danny.

“Berlin,” said Reid. “Find out what information they have on the shooter and see if it can be added to our data. Anything is potentially of use, but a DNA sample would be useful.”

“How unique is the bullet?” asked Nuri. “Carbon fiber has been around for a while.”

“It’s a carbon-based composite, not a fiber,” said Reid. “It appears to be unique. The design is reminiscent of experiments the Soviets were doing roughly twenty years ago.”

Reid clicked up a fresh slide of the bullets, showing close-ups of the bullets. He then proceeded to a series of cross sections, and finally comparisons with different types. Danny found himself starting to tune out due to information overload. The amount of data the CIA could gather on things dazzled him sometimes, but it was also frustrating — they knew all this, yet what they didn’t know loomed much larger.

“One guess is that the bullets were left over from this old project,” said Reid, his voice increasingly professorial. “That would fit with the theory that the Wolves are a group headed or sponsored by former Russian KGB or military, now on their own. But there’s no hard evidence about that. And some of the murders we think they participated in didn’t have these weapons. The choice would be made to evade metal detectors,” he added. “They’re a versatile group.”

They spent the next half hour discussing logistics. Intelligence gathering wasn’t Danny’s forte, so he had no problem letting Nuri take the lead in handling Berlin. Danny would work from the other end, concentrating on Kiev and the upcoming NATO meeting.

For him, the key question was how closely to work with the security apparatus in Kiev. Close cooperation — under the cover of being a State Department security team — would mean immediate access to whatever intelligence NATO and the Ukrainian intelligence forces developed. But they would also put themselves in a position where they could compromise their own operation.

There was also a subtle conflict between the goal of protecting the NATO delegation and capturing the Wolves. As Nuri pointed out, it would be easier to identify the Wolves once they made an attempt on the NATO ministers. Ideally, once an assassin was identified, they could follow him and gather intelligence on the rest of the group. That meant letting him survive and even escape — or at least think he had. Anyone charged with protecting the NATO ministers wasn’t likely to let that happen.

“Neither should you,” said Reid. “Liaison with the security forces at the appropriate time. We’ll establish you as members of the State Department security team, assigned to guard the American delegates.”

“What’s our prime responsibility then?” asked Danny. “Protect the delegates or catch these guys? Which do you want us to do?”

“Both,” said Breanna. “We know it’s a hard job. That’s why you have it.”

“If these guys are so good, why don’t we just hire them over to our side and be done with it?” asked Nuri.

“As usual, Mr. Lupo, you have the logical solution,” said Reid. “Perhaps when you meet them, you will be in a position to propose it.”

4

With Nuri heading to Berlin, Danny needed someone on the team with experience in Europe — preferably the Ukraine. Hera Scokas, a CIA covert officer who’d worked with him in Africa and Iran, had been in Kiev a few times, but couldn’t speak the language fluently and didn’t have a deep knowledge of the city.

Had this been a standard CIA operation, an officer or two or three could have been siphoned off from the station, temporarily assigned to help. But Whiplash was isolated structurally from the “regular” CIA, and Reid wanted to keep the partition in place. So he suggested they use an operative who was currently on leave from the Agency, but whom he felt might be talked back into active service for the job.

“Her name is Sally McEwen, and she knows Kiev very well,” said Reid. “She was stationed there for years. She speaks the language like a native, and I suspect she’ll be more than willing to come back to work for you. But you don’t have to decide until you meet her.”

“Can I get her personnel file?” Danny asked.

“I’d rather you drew your own conclusions once you meet her. She’s the sort of officer you really have to meet in person. She is the right choice, Danny. I’m positive. But of course it’s up to you.”

“All right,” he said. “How do I get in touch with her?”

“Ah, that is the problem,” said Reid. “At the moment, she’s not reachable by phone. And obviously we’re not going to trust an e-mail or anything that’s not encrypted. I’m afraid you’ll have to contact her in person. She shouldn’t be hard to find. I’ll give you her address.”

Sally McEwen lived in a small hamlet just outside the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in southern Georgia. The hamlet consisted of a few houses, a church, a restaurant that served only breakfast, and a small shop that proclaimed itself a Notions Store. All but the last were located on the old county highway, which had been bypassed in favor of a straighter route some eighty years before. From the size of its potholes, Danny wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the last time it had been paved as well.

The Notions Shop sat on the hamlet’s lone side street, a narrow, muddy street that dead-ended in a thicket of punk weeds and a murky pond after twenty yards. There were no numbers on the building, but since it was the only building on James Road, Danny guessed it had to be 19—McEwen’s address. Except for the large sign along the roof that read NOTIONS in five-foot letters, it looked like a small ranch house. There was no driveway, or lawn for that matter — judging from the tracks, cars pulled into the muck between the road and house.

“What do you think happened to one through eighteen?” asked Hera, who’d come down with him.

“Probably sank into the swamp,” said Danny.

Danny maneuvered the car into a three-point turn and slid the car into the most solid spot he could find.

“Cripes, Colonel — are you sure the car’s not going to sink? All I see here is mud,” said Hera, opening the door.

“Get out on my side if you want,” said Danny. “Bag the colonel stuff for now, all right?”

“Aye aye, skipper.”

A dog began barking as Danny got out of the car. A small patch of bricks marked a stoop at the front door. He went to the door, then rang the bell.

“It’s a store — you can go right in,” said Hera behind him.

“It’s polite to ring the bell.”

“It’s a store,” she said, reaching for the screen door.

The barking increased in intensity, then suddenly changed to a howling cry.

“Hush now, Brat. Hush now,” yelled a woman in her early seventies as she opened the door.

She was short — perhaps five-two — and wore an oversized cotton sweater over a simple black skirt. Her shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a knot behind her head. She had the look of a slightly genteel lady who had fallen on more difficult times and had to support herself by muscle and ingenuity.

“Come on in, come on in, don’t mind the dog,” she said. “He gets lonely sometimes and wants to play.”

Danny stepped inside. The front room was crowded with tables featuring an assortment of items. Everything from handmade tobacco pipes to an old mechanics tool set was on sale, crowded next to each other in a mishmash. Most had small tags with handwritten figures. A few had two or three, each price different.

The room extended to the left, then to the back of the house in an el shape. The leg of the el contained an assortment of different paintings, watercolors and acrylic landscapes. Directly ahead of them was a small kitchen.

“Are you looking for anything particular?” asked the woman, her voice sweet with the old South. “We have many fine items for sale.”

“I wasn’t actually looking to buy anything,” said Danny.

“Well I’m sorry, suh, but the kitchen is closed today,” said the woman. A slight edge crept into her voice. “If you’re lookin’ for any liquid refreshment, I’m afraid you’ll have to move on.”

“I’m looking for a Sally McEwen.”

“Is that so?” answered the woman.

“You know her?”

“I might. Don’t touch any of those paintings, girl,” added the woman sharply. “Unless you’re fixin’ to buy one of ’em.”

“Sor-ry,” said Hera sarcastically.

“If you could tell me where to find Ms. McEwen, I’d be much obliged,” said Danny, borrowing one of his uncle’s South Carolina mannerisms and his accent.

“And if I did, who would be going to call on her?” asked the woman.

“Well, that would be me.”

“And you’re with what government agency?” the woman demanded.

“Well, uh, the Air Force.”

“The Air Force? Air Force? Not the Treasury?”

“Treasury?”

“I told you not to touch,” said the old woman, darting past Danny to Hera.

She was quick for an old bat, thought Danny. He followed her around the room to Hera, who was standing in front of a painting of a city.

“This is a very nice painting,” said Hera, who was holding the painting in her hands.

“Flattery ain’t gonna warm the skillet today, hon,” said the old woman. “You’re interested in buying, then you can put your paws on it. Otherwise, put it back.”

“How much?”

“For you?” The woman looked at Danny and then back at Hera. “Not for sale. I wouldn’t take money off a group of liars like yourselves. Pretending to be from the Air Force.”

“I’m not with the Air Force,” said Hera.

“Well, at least one of you values the truth.” She took the painting. “But I’m still not selling you the painting.”

“I was told that Ms. McEwen lived here,” said Danny. “I’d like to talk to her.”

“Well, you can’t. Who told you she lived here anyway?”

“Friend of hers named Jonathon Reid.”

The woman frowned, then put the painting back on its easel. She walked back to the front of the room, looking over the display of items.

“Did you hear me?” said Danny.

“Damn straight I heard you. Who the hell are you? Really?”

“I’m Danny Freah. I want to talk to Ms. McEwen.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. It’s kind of a personal thing. About a job.”

“A job?” The woman laughed.

“You’re her mother, right?” said Hera. “Or grandmother?”

“Whose mother, darlin’?” said the woman, laying her accent on thick.

“Listen, I’m sorry to bother you,” said Danny. He reached into his pocket and took out a business card. It had his name and rank, along with a generic Washington-area phone number that could not be traced. He took a pen out and wrote down his personal cell number. “If you could tell Ms. McEwen to give me a call, I’d appreciate it. Either number. My cell’s quicker. She could call or text me.”

“She don’t put much store in texting,” said the woman, taking the card. “And she don’t phone.”

“Whatever,” said Danny.

He reached for the door. The dog, which was somewhere downstairs, started barking again.

“I told you shut your trap, Brat,” yelled the woman.

She reached over and closed the door.

“I’m Sally McEwen, Colonel Freah.”

“No offense, but I’m afraid there must be a misunderstanding somewhere,” said Danny. “I, uh — I’m looking for somebody—”

“A lot younger,” said Hera.

“If Jonathon Reid sent you here, you’re looking for me,” she said. “He just neglected to give you all the details. Which is pretty much par for the course.”

Sally McEwen had worked in various jobs for the State Department and CIA for more than forty years before being eased out by the past administration.

Eased as in pushed, and none too gently. But she had not retired. She damn well was not going to retire, and in fact went to great lengths to keep her classified clearance in order. She was officially on leave.

The Agency allowed its officers to take leaves of absence for up to five years while they pursued interests in the private sector. The supervisors who had signed off on McEwen’s leave looked at it as a pleasant fiction for a field agent who was well past the freshness date but wanted to save face.

“I can have my bags packed in ten minutes,” she told Danny, who was still having trouble believing the woman was, in fact, the CIA op he’d come for. “We must be going to the Ukraine. It’s about the NATO thing, right?”

Hera whistled. “Good guess.”

“More than a guess, sweetie. Russia must be plotting to keep them out, right? Of course.”

“She’s sharp,” said Hera.

It didn’t sound quite like a compliment.

“I, um — I have to talk to Reid,” said Danny.

“I don’t have a phone,” said McEwen.

“That’s all right.” Danny took his sat phone out. “I’m going to just make the call outside.”

The dog started barking again.

“Don’t worry about him,” McEwen told Danny. “His bark is worse than his bite.”

Outside, Danny went over and leaned against the car before dialing.

“This is Reid.”

“Jonathon, this is Danny Freah. I found Ms. McEwen.”

“Is she willing to help?”

“She’s more than willing. But she’s — old.”

Reid didn’t answer for a moment. He wasn’t exactly a spring chicken himself. If anything, he was several years — maybe even a whole decade — older than McEwen.

“Let me ask you a question, Colonel. Why do you want Sally on the mission?”

“I don’t want her, not her per se,” answered Danny. “I need someone who knows Kiev, who can talk the language like a native, and who can help make arrangements.”

“And you think she’s too old for that?”

“Yeah. And she’s a moonshiner.”

Reid laughed. “I don’t think that disqualifiers her. Assuming, of course, it’s true.”

“Seriously—”

“Who you choose is up to you, Colonel. You know that. But I wouldn’t have recommended Sally if I didn’t think she could handle the job. You’re not asking her to jump out of planes, correct?”

“No.”

“She could probably do that.” Reid laughed. “I know she’ll pass whatever physical the Agency offers.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Your call.”

Reid hung up.

Danny put the sat phone back in his pocket. He thought of himself as pretty old. In fact, he’d questioned himself several times during the last mission, wondering if he was still up to the rigors of an operation.

But McEwen — she was at least seventy.

He walked back into the house, not quite decided what to do.

Hera and McEwen were back by the paintings. Laughing.

Hera, laughing? That was a first.

Danny found McEwen pointing to a building in one of the paintings. He hadn’t looked at it very carefully before; now he realized it was a street in Kiev.

“They had rented the flat out to a prostitute,” said McEwen, continuing her story for Hera. “The prostitute got evicted, and we got it. Of course, we didn’t know about the previous occupant. So here we are, trying to set up a safe house, and men knocking at all hours of the night, asking for Olga. Ulll-ga.”

“Olga,” repeated Hera, laughing hysterically.

She must be pretty good with people, thought Danny, to get Hera on her side so quickly. He’d had a lot of trouble winning her over.

“So what did Johnny say?” asked McEwen.

Danny had never heard Reid called Johnny by anyone. Reid didn’t seem like a Johnny. He seemed like a… Mr. Reid.

“He said that you know Kiev better than I know the back of my hand,” Danny told her. “And that you can help me make some arrangements there.”

“Damn straight. Let me get my bag.”

“What about your store?” asked Danny.

“Ah, I don’t get but two customers a year, except for the ones what want some old-fashioned.”

She disappeared down the hall.

“That’s the local White Lightning,” said Hera.

“No shit,” said Danny.

“She just sells it for her father’s cousin. He lives out in the woods.”

“She told you that?”

“We bonded.”

“You think she can do the job?”

“What? Rent hotel rooms, find us rental cars? Hell yeah. God, she’s perfect — who’d expect her? Little old lady a spy? No way.”

McEwen returned with her bag.

“I’m gonna have to stop at the hardware store on the way out,” she said. “ ’Cause I gotta leave a message for Cuz, but he don’t read.”

“You’re not going to tell him where you’re going, are you?” asked Danny.

“Colonel — I’ve been in this business since before you were in diapers. Credit me with a little common sense.”

“Cuz won’t worry that you’re gone?” asked Hera.

“He’ll be a little sorry that he’ll have to go back to cookin’ on his own, instead of coming around and mooching off me every night,” said McEwen. “But he’ll be glad that he won’t have to go splits on the profits. And that no one’s yellin’ at him to get his teeth fixed. Don’t worry about him. He’s not a bad cook when he puts his mind to it. Especially if you like barbecue on Christmas.”

“It shouldn’t be more than two weeks,” said Danny.

“I hope we’re going for a long time,” said McEwen. “Much as I love this place, I’m done with it for a spell.”

“I got a question,” said Hera as McEwen put the Closed sign in place on the front door. “What does it mean that this is a notions shop?”

“It means I sell anything I have a notion to,” said McEwen, closing the door behind her.

5

Breanna Stockard was just about to leave her office at the Pentagon when she got an urgent alert on her encrypted messaging system asking her to call Jonathon Reid. She reached for the phone and dialed, knowing that the meeting she was headed to was unlikely to break up much before seven, and she had promised her daughter she’d be home soon after.

Reid picked up on the first ring, his raspy voice practically croaking in the receiver.

“That was fast,” he told her.

“I have a meeting upstairs,” she said. “What’s up?”

“More data on the Wolves.”

“And?”

“There’s a Moldova link,” said Reid. “It may just be a coincidence, but I thought I’d better tell you.”

“What’s the connection?”

“Transactions. I’ve forwarded the report to your secure queue,” said Reid.

Breanna clicked the file open and waited while it was unencrypted. The system used a set of temporary, real-time keys, and occasionally the process of turning it from unreadable hieroglyphics to clear text could take several seconds.

The file opened. It was a listing of plane tickets that showed transit in and out of Moldova, a small landlocked country between Romania and Russia.

“Those accounts will be backtracked,” said Reid. “They’ll look for patterns, connections to other accounts. We may have more of a profile in a few days.”

“Moldova may simply have been chosen because of its banking system,” said Breanna. “The banking system is notoriously opaque to outsiders. Even insiders. And there are plenty of suspect mafia connections.”

“Always a possibility.”

Breanna looked at the data. None of the transactions were recent.

“These are all connected to the Wolves?” she asked.

“They’re connected to accounts that were associated with the Berlin activity,” answered Reid. “As I say, the Moldova connection is still tenuous.”

Activity. An interesting way to describe murder.

“Everything is tenuous,” said Breanna.

“Not everything,” said Reid. “As for the identity—”

“The DNA is suggestive, not conclusive,” she said.

Reid didn’t answer. It was his way of reproaching her — worse, she thought, than if he had argued or even called her a name.

Not that Reid would do either.

“At some point we will have to address this with Colonel Freah,” said Reid finally.

“We’ll keep it where it is for now,” said Breanna. “Until we have more information, I don’t see any point in going down this road with Danny. It’s still… far-fetched.”

“Admittedly.”

Breanna looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, I have a meeting.”

“I’ll keep you up to date.”

“Thanks.”

The meeting Breanna was rushing to couldn’t start until she arrived, which meant that a dozen generals and three admirals stared at her as she came in the door. While her civilian position as head of the Office of Technology put her on a higher administrative level than most of the people in the room, she was still a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, and not a few of the people in the room thought of her that way.

Sometimes she did, too.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, rushing in.

“Well, you’re here now,” said General Timothy “Tiger” Wallace. “Let’s get moving.”

Wallace gave her a tight grin, but the expression gave nothing away. He was the Air Force’s chief of staff — the top boss — and a difficult man for her to gauge. He’d served with her father, and claimed to be a great admirer of Dreamland and everything associated with it. He and Zen occasionally had lunch together during his visits to Capitol Hill. On the other hand, he frequently butted heads with Breanna’s boss, Deputy Defense Secretary Harold Magnus. The two had clashed when Magnus was in the Air Force some years before, and while they didn’t openly feud — Magnus wasn’t the type, and there was no percentage in it for Wallace — Wallace’s animosity was often subtly displayed, especially toward Magnus’s pet projects.

One of which Breanna had come to discuss.

“Thank you, General,” she said, sliding her laptop onto the table. “Everyone is aware of the Sabre UAV program and its present status.”

She nodded toward Steph Garvey, the two-star Air Force general in charge of the Sabre program. Garvey gave her a smile — genuine and easy to read.

“We have made good progress with the UM/F program in general,” continued Breanna. “Including the Navy variant.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” grumbled Admiral David Chafetz. There was no mistaking Chafetz’s attitude — he didn’t like anything even remotely connected to the Air Force, and was a skeptic of unmanned aircraft as well. That was two big strikes against the Sabre program.

Officially designated UM/F–9s, the unmanned aircraft had been developed as replacements for the Flighthawks, the robot aircraft that helped revolutionize aerial combat in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Though greatly improved over the years, the Flighthawks had a number of limitations, including range and speed. More importantly, their airframes were now well past their design age. Materials fatigue — both their metal skeleton and carbon-fiber skins — was starting to hamper their effectiveness. Internal fasteners had to be inspected before each flight on some of the high-hour aircraft — an onerous procedure that added several hours to the maintainers’ routine chores. It was time for a new generation of remote fighters to take over.

The Sabres were that fighter.

Nicknamed after the fighter that had dominated the skies over North Korea during the 1950s, the UM/F–9 was the first UAV capable of sustained Mach speeds. (Though technically the Flighthawks could fly faster than the speed of sound, they could not operate reliably in Mach-plus regimes for several reasons unrelated to their airfoil.) Long and sleek, the aircraft used a hybrid ramjet pulse engine to fly; an array of maneuvering nozzles and high-strength carbon-based alloys made twelve g-plus turns routine. Tests showed that it was more than a match for even the improved F–22C Block–150s that had recently joined the Air Force’s top interceptor squadrons.

But high speeds and maneuverability meant nothing if the aircraft could not be controlled. And this control system — called Medusa — represented the real breakthrough.

Like the Flighthawk, the Sabre was capable of “autonomous combat.” In other words, it could figure out on its own how to take down an enemy, then do so. Unlike Flighthawks, Sabres could work together against an enemy, employing section tactics without human intervention. Data from one aircraft was immediately shared with all of the aircraft in the same flight. Spotting a group of four enemy planes, for example, the flight could decide to break into two elements and attack from two different directions.

While the Flighthawks had small onboard flight computers to handle many of the basic tasks of flight, they relied heavily on a centralized computer and a human controlling them, generally from an EB–52 or modified B–1.

Medusa did not exist separately from the Sabres. It was, as the man who invented it liked to say with his droll puns, a true “cloud computer.” The interconnection of the units working together created the real intelligence.

But there had to be a human in the process somewhere. And that was what today’s meeting was about.

Actually, the man who invented Medusa didn’t agree that there should be any human anywhere in the process. It wasn’t that Ray Rubeo had no use for his fellow man or thought that human intelligence was an oxymoron, though charges along those lines had often been leveled at him. Rubeo simply saw no need for a human “to muck things up.”

“You don’t steer a Sidewinder to its target,” he had told Breanna on several occasions. “It’s fire and forget. Same with this.”

But the military was not ready to think about a squadron of aircraft as “fire and forget” weapons. And though Rubeo worked, as a contractor, for her, Breanna wasn’t ready to think that way either.

So where did the Medusa “control” unit go?

At a secure base far from harm, like those generally used for the Predator and Global Hawk? Or a plane, like the Flighthawk system?

A satellite control system with a ground base could be used, but there were problems with bandwidth, and the cost was considerable — much more than Medusa, let alone the Sabres.

Medusa’s range was roughly two hundred miles, a considerable improvement over the Flighthawks. Still, that was close enough that a savvy enemy could seek to locate and isolate the control aircraft. Simply making the plane run away would mean a cheap victory, as the Sabres would have to follow or lose their connection. That wasn’t much of an issue for a system like the Flighthawks, originally designed to protect a bombing package: their job was to stay close to the mother ship in the first place. But it would be disastrous for interceptors.

The Air Force was pushing for a new version of the F–35 to act as the Sabres’ controller. This would be a stretched, two-seat version of the stealthy lightweight fighter. There were considerable problems with such an approach, starting with the fact that the stretched F–35 couldn’t carry enough fuel to stay in a combat area for more than an hour, far less than the Sabre. There was also a matter of cost, which would be considerable for a plane not even off the drawing board yet.

The Navy had gone along with the plan, grudgingly, because it would allow the Sabres to operate from carriers for the first time. But as Chafetz’s demeanor made clear, their support was less than enthusiastic.

Breanna had come today to offer a different solution entirely.

“I should start by giving you all a bit of good news about the intelligent command system that flies the planes,” she said, flipping open her laptop. “We call it Medusa. It’s—”

“A Greek monster,” quipped Chafetz.

Breanna smiled indulgently. Her solution would actually help the Navy, but she didn’t expect to be thanked for it.

“The admiral knows his myths,” she said. “Medusa is six months ahead of schedule. In fact, as you’ll see at the demonstration next week — those of you who are going out to Dreamland — it’s completely operational. Or would be, if we had more Sabres.”

“We will have a dozen by the end of the year,” said General Garvey.

“And that program is on schedule and on budget,” Breanna offered quickly, not wanting to seem as if she was criticizing Garvey. “Along the way, we’ve made some improvements to Medusa’s human input unit. It’s now as compact as the units in Sabres. Which gave us an idea.”

While talking, she had booted up her laptop. The computer found the secure local network, signing itself on automatically. Breanna glanced down and double-clicked on a PowerPoint icon. A pair of video screens began to rise from the center of the conference room tables.

“We’d like to propose a new aircraft as part of the control solution. Some of you will be familiar with it.”

A jet came on the screen. It looked like a cousin of the F–22, perhaps by way of the YF–23 and a Bird of Prey. Black, with an oval double wing at the tail and stubby fins at its side, it was two-thirds the size of a Raptor, as the next slide demonstrated.

“The Tigershark?” asked Chafetz. “A Navy plane?”

Wallace cleared his throat.

“Actually, that began as an Air Force project,” he said. “But it’s dead. The company’s bankrupt. No more aircraft can be built.”

“At the moment, we have all we need,” said Breanna. “There are three aircraft. They could all be given over to the program. That’s one more than you need, at least for the next two years.”

Three Tigersharks had been built and tested three years before. The aircraft was seen first as a replacement for the F–22, and as a possible fifth generation fighter for the Navy.

One had even appeared at a pair of air shows, as its maker — a small company formed by former Boeing and Lockheed engineers — tried to convince the military and Congress to award a contract for its development. Unfortunately, the wheels of government moved very slowly. While everyone agreed the plane was a winner, it couldn’t win funding for production in the tight budget. While Congress promised to consider it the next fiscal year, the debt-ridden company had folded. Its assets were put up for sale to pay creditors.

At that point the Office of Technology had stepped in, purchasing the aircraft, some spare parts, and all of the design work. The Tigershark now belonged to the Office of Technology.

“How the hell do you see in that thing?” asked one of the admirals.

“Screens,” said Garvey. “They provide a better view than your eyes would.”

Breanna pressed the button on her pointer. A close-up of the body appeared, revealing lines for the cockpit access panel. The next slide showed a breakaway of the body, revealing the cockpit itself. The pilot’s seat was pitched as if it were a recliner.

“We needed a high-performance aircraft to help us test Medusa,” explained Breanna. “The Sabres weren’t ready, and of course there are always questions about unmanned airplanes in test regimes. In any event, one of the aircraft had been disassembled for some tests, and adding Medusa to the rebuild was not very difficult. We decided we would use it. The results have been so spectacular that it makes sense to show you what we have. You’re scheduled to view the system tests with us in Dreamland next week — this is just an added bonus.”

“Hmph,” said Chafetz. Although he sounded unconvinced, he also seemed to be calculating the benefits.

“Why not just put the unit in an F–22?” asked Wallace. “If I might play devil’s advocate.”

“That’s doable,” said Breanna. “Though we would have to completely gut and rebuild the plane.” She shrugged. “The Office of Technology doesn’t own any of those, and the subcontractor wasn’t in a position to commandeer one.”

That drew a few laughs.

“This looks like just a backdoor way of getting the Tigershark into the budget,” said Admiral Chafetz.

“It is one argument for it,” admitted Breanna. “No one has ruled out the plane. They just weren’t ready to fund it.”

“I’d like to see it make headway in this Congress,” said Wallace with disgust. Then he glanced at Breanna. “Present company and their relatives excepted.”

“I haven’t spoken to Senator Stockard at all about this,” said Breanna hastily.

“Well you should,” said Admiral Garvey. “Because it’s a hell of an idea. When is the demonstration again?”

6

During his relatively short career with the CIA, Nuri Lupo had worked with a variety of foreign agencies, sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially. He’d had varying degrees of success and cooperation, but by far his worst experiences had come when working with the FBI, which he’d had to do three times.

The Berlin assignment made four. The Bureau could not be bypassed for a number of reasons, all of them political.

Actually the most important wasn’t political at all: Reid had told him to work with the Bureau. Period.

“To the extent possible,” said Reid. “Which means you will, at a minimum, make contact. Before you arrive. If not sooner.”

FBI agents were, in Nuri’s experience, among the most uncooperative species on the planet, at least when it came to dealing with the CIA. The two agencies were natural rivals, partly because of their overlapping missions in national security and espionage. But sibling rivalry wasn’t the only cause of conflict. G-men — and — women — regarded “spy” as an occupation somewhere lower than journalist and politician. From the Bureau’s perspective, the CIA sullied every American by its mere existence.

It was also no doubt galling that Agency field officers had expense accounts several times larger than FBI agents.

Nuri tried to use the expense account to his advantage, but had to use all of his persuasive skills merely to get the FBI agent, a middle-aged woman whose gray pantsuit matched her demeanor, to have breakfast with him as soon as he arrived in the city.

“I’ve already had breakfast,” insisted Elise Gregor as they sat down in the small café a short distance from the airport. “And I don’t want any more coffee.”

“Have a decaf,” said Nuri, trying his best to be affable.

“Just tell me what you want.”

“I just need background,” said Nuri. He stopped speaking as the waiter came over, switching to German to order.

“Eggs with toast, American style,” said the waiter in English far superior to Nuri’s German.

“That’s it,” said Nuri.

The putdown was regarded as some sort of triumph by Gregor, who practically beamed as she told the waiter in German that she would have a small orange juice. Nuri considered whether he ought just to leave, but the FBI might be of some use at some point in the investigation, and closing the door now didn’t make sense.

Well, maybe it did. How much help could they possibly be?

“German’s not one of your languages, is it?” Gregor asked as the waiter left.

“I can speak a little.”

“Very little.”

I’d like to see you handle Arabic, thought Nuri. Or Farsi. Or maybe a subdialect of Swahili.

“So what do you want?” said Gregor. “Why are you here?”

“I want to talk to the investigator on the Helmut Dalitz murder case.”

“Dalitz? The banker?”

“Businessman. Do you have any information?”

She made a face. “That’s too local for us to get involved in.”

“You have nothing?” asked Nuri, surprised. The FBI had been briefed, to some degree at least, on the Wolves and the suspected connection to the murder. Was Gregor out of the loop? Or playing coy?

Coy. The word evoked images of sex kittens… a nauseating concept when connected with the woman sitting across from him.

“Why is the Agency interested?” Gregor asked.

“They don’t tell me everything,” said Nuri, deciding he could be just as hard to deal with as Gregor. “They sent me here to see what was going on.”

“They didn’t tell you why?”

“I think it has to do with money laundering,” said Nuri.

“That’s an FBI area of interest.” Gregor’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing like that has come up.”

“So you are following the case?”

“From a distance,” she said. “We’re somewhat interested — not involved.”

The orange juice and coffee arrived. Nuri took a sip of the coffee. It was surprisingly weak.

“I don’t see where he could have been laundering money,” said Gregor. “He was a respected businessman.”

“Yeah, it’s probably a total waste of time. That’s the sort of crap they send me on these days,” said Nuri.

Gregor frowned. “This is because of the connection to the Wolves, right?”

“Well, I—”

“All right. Let’s go,” she said, rising.

“But—”

“I have other things to do today,” she told him. “If you’re coming, come. And you better leave the waiter a good tip. They really like me here.”

The Berlin detective heading the investigation into Dalitz’s murder was a thirty-something woman who spoke English with a pronounced British accent. She was also among the most beautiful women Nuri had ever met.

She was so pretty, in fact, that if she and Gregor were combined and averaged out, the result would still be among the top ten or so models in the world. Nuri felt his head flush just meeting her; her handshake — firm, not too eager but not unfriendly — weakened his knees.

“I will be very happy to tell you what we know,” Frau Gerste said, leading them to her office in the upstairs of the municipal building. She worked for the national police even though her office was in the local police station; Nuri couldn’t quite grasp the relationship between the local, state, and national police agencies but decided it was irrelevant for now.

“I am afraid that it is not much,” Gerste continued, taking a seat behind her desk. This was unfortunate; it removed half of her body from view. “What we have does not seem to lead to much that is usable.”

Frau Gerste recounted the details of the crime, which had happened in a relatively popular part of Berlin, in an area that had been under communist control before the Wall came down. There had been few people on the street at the time, however, and apparently the assassin and any assistants had gotten away without being seen.

“We would believe he was waiting somewhere outside,” said Frau Gerste. “There are video cameras, but several blind spots. So he must have studied the area.”

“It was a professional job,” said Nuri.

“Very. The bullet was significant — undetectable by metal detectors,” said Gerste. “We imagine this was because the killer was in the music hall with him, or thought he might be. There were detectors at the door. His weapon, I assume, would have been undetectable as well. Very unusual.”

“Yes.”

“From what I understand,” she said, “the bullet is similar to one used in another murder, this one political. Do you have details on that?”

Nuri shook his head, trying not to make it too obvious that he was lying. It was terrible to lie to beautiful women.

“I have heard that there was an organization responsible for the political murder.” Frau Gerste smiled — it was as if the sun had come out after a winter’s worth of cloudy days. “Interpol’s information is very limited. A code name, the Wolves. That is why your interest, perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” said Nuri.

“Of course a professional committed the crime,” said Frau Gerste. “But why? Helmut Dalitz did have some enemies, but hiring someone to murder him?”

“You don’t buy the mafia connection?” said Nuri.

She made a face. “Revenge for a heart attack? Would you commit murder for a heart attack?”

“Well, I wouldn’t commit murder,” said Nuri.

“If you were the mafia, would you hire another killer?”

“If they owed me money or a favor,” said Nuri.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Frau Gerste preferred a more local motive — a jilted lover, perhaps, though the investigation had not produced one. There were rumors that the victim saw prostitutes and had a gay lover.

Gregor nodded vigorously as Frau Gerste proffered the theories — none of which had any firm evidence to back them up. But they would be more acceptable to a German, thought Nuri; they were signs of personal disorder, which would explain the external disorder of murder.

“Could the murderer have been working with someone on the inside?” asked Gregor.

“The inside?”

“Someone who was part of his business. Who would know where the video cameras were and the security arrangements. His daughter? I heard he was with his daughter and her boyfriend.”

“The daughter was there. The boyfriend is no longer a boyfriend. We did check that possibility,” said Frau Gerste, nodding approvingly. “That is something we continue to explore. Jealousy from the boyfriend. Perhaps he wanted a fortune.”

The look in Frau Gerste’s eyes — approval — would have melted Nuri on the spot had it been directed at him. It had a distinctly sexual tinge to it.

Aimed at Gregor, it seemed almost immoral, even sacrilegious. Nuri felt his stomach turning, just a little.

“Of course, with a little bit of planning, then it would be possible to compute the lines of sight at the square,” said Frau Gerste. “No sources would be necessary.”

“Maybe he is on the tape from a few days before,” suggested Nuri, finally finding his tongue.

“We have thought of that. The tapes are kept for only forty-eight hours. There was nothing overly suspicious in that time.”

Nuri found himself staring at Frau Gerste’s profile. She wore her blond hair in a bob. Ordinarily not a perfect choice, he thought, though in this case she pulled it off.

And her breasts…

She turned suddenly to him.

“So why are two Bureau of Investigations agents interested?” asked Frau Gerste.

She gave him the look. It wasn’t really approval. It was… something more basic. Nuri, blood thumping in his temples, was temporarily tongue-tied.

“He’s not with the Bureau,” said Gregor.

“No?”

“I’m a liaison with State,” said Nuri, preferring not to use the words Central Intelligence Agency if at all possible. “We — there may be a national security connection.”

“National security? Because of the Wolves? Ah. So you believe that?”

He had Frau Gerste’s interest. Maybe he should admit to being with the CIA. Some women liked the excitement it implied.

“These things have to be checked,” said Nuri apologetically. “But we do have a lot of resources. Perhaps they can be of help.”

“What sort of resources?”

“DNA sampling. If you have something from the scene—”

“Nothing. We have our own labs. But we found nothing.”

“Well, if we had access to billing done in the area, we might be able to find a pattern,” offered Nuri.

“Billing?”

“Credit card payments, that sort of thing. Restaurants. See if the place was under surveillance. The person or persons might have bought something in the area. It’d be a long shot.”

“German law makes that difficult to obtain,” said Frau Gerste. Indeed it did, which was why he had to ask; the credit card companies would not simply part with the information, even to their American counterparts. “And that would be a needle in the haystack, I think you say.”

God, she was beautiful, even when she was skeptical. What is it exactly, he wondered. Her blue eyes? They were set perfectly apart. Her nose — not too big, not too small. The lips were a little full, but that only sealed the deal.

Her face was unblemished and, surprisingly given her job, unwrinkled. And her breasts — not large, actually, but high and seemingly firm under her very proper blouse.

“Thank you for your time,” said Gregor, starting to rise.

“You said that someone may have checked the video cameras,” said Nuri. “I’d like to look at them myself. And the funeral. Was there anything unusual about the funeral?”

“Only the flowers.”

“Flowers?”

“The dead roses. It is not clear whether they were deliberate or not.”

“Would you happen to know the shop that sent them?” he asked.

A dozen black, withered roses had been sent to the funeral. The state of the roses wasn’t a matter of poor service — they’d been ordered that way.

Nuri talked Frau Gerste into taking him to the shop to see the owner. He was hoping Gregor would beg off because of her allegedly heavy schedule, but no such luck — she not only came, but insisted on driving. That left him in the back, slowly getting intoxicated on the scent of Frau Gerste’s perfume.

The scent was hard to describe. A kind of exotic lilac thing. Spicy, yet sweet.

Like her, no doubt. He wondered what kind of lingerie she preferred.

“It’s not the strangest order he’s ever had, especially for a funeral,” Frau Gerste translated as they interviewed the owner of the small shop. “One time he had to make a delivery with several mice’s heads. He doesn’t like to do it, but for the extra fee…”

“Can I get a copy of the invoice, or order, or whatever?” asked Nuri.

“I can’t order him to give it,” said Gerste.

“But he could give it to us voluntarily, right?” he asked.

“The laws regarded evidence in court—”

“But they apply to you,” said Nuri. “Not me. And if I then made a copy available to you…”

“I don’t know…”

“If the information came from the FBI,” suggested Gregor, “then it would be usable.”

“Hmmmmph,” said Frau Gerste.

The order had come through an e-mail system. The owner printed it out. Nuri took it, then asked if there was a small office where he could use the phone. He wanted privacy, not the line — he pulled the headset for the MY-PID out and connected to the computer network.

“Good morning, Nuri,” said the computer.

“Working on the personality modules again?” asked Nuri.

“Please repeat request.”

“I need this order tracked.” Nuri read in the particulars. The computer took several seconds before telling him that the order had come from a shop in Naples.

“Any known mafia connection?” asked Nuri.

It was another few seconds before the computer answered. The shop’s owners had been named in two different indictments related to La Costra Nostra.

When Nuri came out of the office, Frau Gerste and Gregor were nodding solemnly as the owner of the shop told them, in German, about the fine points of caring for freshly cut flowers. It was all in the water, he said, and in the angle of the cut.

Nuri would have been content to let the conversation continue — it gave him a good chance to watch Frau Gerste surreptitiously — but Gregor noticed him gawking and abruptly asked him if he’d discovered anything.

“Definitely a mafia connection with the flowers,” he said. “It reinforces the revenge theory.”

“Perhaps,” said Frau Gerste, sighing just a little.

7

“Senator, I hate to say this, but you’re going to be late for the White House. Again. I know you’re only going in Senator Tompkins’s place, but—”

“I’m on my way, Clarissa.” Senator Jeffrey “Zen” Stockard smiled at his appointments secretary, Clarissa Tomey. “But I have a reputation to maintain.”

“For being late?”

“You got it.”

“They blame me, you know,” said the secretary. “I’m sure they hate me.”

“Broad shoulders,” said Zen, wheeling himself past her desk. “Jason? Where the hell are you?” he said in mock anger. “You’re late. Late again.”

“Uh, Senator, I’m right here, sir,” said Jason Black, who was standing at the door. “I’ve been, uh, waiting.”

“No alibis, Jay. We all know it’s your fault.”

“Um, yes sir.”

Zen laughed. He loved teasing his staff, especially Black, who was only a year removed from college.

“Can I trust you at the White House?” Zen asked as he rolled his wheelchair down the hall. “Coming in with me?”

“Um, uh, yes, Senator. I, uh — my tie’s clean.”

“You like seeing the President, don’t you? Or at least that cute intern they have from the NSC that’s always winking at you when we go over there.”

Zen glanced up at Black, who was turning beet red.

“Hey, Zen,” said Senator Dirks, approaching down the hall. “Got a minute?”

“Damned if I don’t, but take it anyway,” said Zen. Dirks was from the other party, but the two got along personally and even on occasion voted the same way. In fact, Dirks had been one of the early supporters of Zen’s bill to establish a scholarship program reimbursing college graduates who joined the service as officers after graduation. The bill had just passed the Senate that morning.

“Have you heard what happened to Senator Osten?” asked Dirks.

“No,” said Zen. Al Osten was the ranking senator on the Foreign Relations Committee. “I’m on my way to the White House. He’s going to be there.”

“No,” said Dirks. “They just took him in an ambulance. I was right there. They think he was having a heart attack.”

“Wow.”

“The paramedics were here right away. Still, you don’t know at his age.”

“That’s terrible.”

Both men frowned. Even though Dirks and Osten were from different parties, as senators they were fellow members of the most exclusive club in the world.

“I was hoping we could grab lunch at some point,” said Dirks. “I wanted to talk about the Air Force appropriations for their new jets. Maybe sometime this week?”

“Sure. Have your staff set it up with Clarissa,” said Zen. “Better yet — the Nationals are in town. What do you say about a game?”

“Now we’re talking,” said Dirks. “I’ll check the calendar.”

“Don’t check too hard,” said Zen. “Thanks for your vote today, by the way.”

“It’s a good bill. Now all you need is House support. And your President.”

“I’m working on it,” said Zen. The President was anything but his President. Even though they were from the same party, Christine Mary Todd and Zen often found themselves at loggerheads.

Which made him a little suspicious an hour later, when she seemed overly profuse as he entered the Oval Office with Jason Black in tow.

“Here is Senator Stockard,” she said, without a trace of sarcasm. “Fresh from his victory on the floor.”

“Congratulations, Zen,” said Secretary of Defense Charles Lovel. “It’s a good bill.”

“Thank you,” said Zen. “Thank you, Ms. President.”

Zen nodded at Secretary of State Alistair Newhaven and National Security Advisor Michael Blitz, who were seated in a semicircle in front of the President’s desk. Zen wheeled himself next to Newhaven, while Black joined the aides near the side of the room.

“Have you heard anything about Senator Osten?” asked the President. “His staff told us he was taken to the hospital as a precaution.”

“That’s more information than I have,” said Zen. “I only just heard that he had a heart attack.”

Todd nodded grimly. Before she could say anything else, her phone buzzed.

“That should be General Danker,” said the President. “I’ll put him on speaker.”

Danker was the American representative to NATO. He was currently in Germany, touring facilities there. Zen had met the Army general when he was an aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff a decade and a half before. Danker was more a politician than a tactician, which made him perfect for the NATO post.

Zen watched the others as they exchanged small talk with the general. Each had a different style and personality. Blitz leaned forward in his chair, eyes squinting slightly, a very serious look on his face even as he asked the general how his wife was. Newhaven fidgeted — he always fidgeted. Lovel was his usual easygoing self, making a joke about German beer.

President Todd, meanwhile, seemed impatient — also completely in character.

“So — the NATO meeting in Kiev,” she said, bringing the brief how-are-ya session to an end. “Can we have an update on it?”

“The Russians oppose it, of course,” said Newhaven, launching into a brief recap of the political situation.

Russia had long opposed Ukraine’s addition to NATO. They were not politically in a position to do much about it — with the drop in energy prices, the Russian economy had slumped to its lowest state since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But they certainly weren’t happy about it.

“There’s intelligence that they might attempt to disrupt the sessions,” said Newhaven. “Very good intelligence.”

“I would say that physical threats to the participants cannot be ruled out,” said Blitz. “They should be expected.”

“I concur,” said General Danker over the speakerphone.

They discussed the threats briefly. Such intelligence reports and warnings were much more common than people thought, but the fact that this had been connected to a legitimate government made it unusual. Still, there was no chance that NATO would call off the meeting, or that any of the members, including the U.S., would decline to attend. Terrorist-type threats had become an unfortunate fact of life in the post–9/11 era.

President Todd moved the discussion back to the importance of having Ukraine join NATO. She saw Russia’s objections as a sign that the policy was a good one, though not everyone in Congress agreed. That was an important issue, since the new NATO membership would be part of a revision to the NATO charter and subject to Senate ratification.

“Senator Osten’s illness could be a major problem for us,” she said. “He was scheduled to be at the conference. If he’s had a heart attack, I’m afraid that will complicate matters.”

“Someone from the committee will go,” said Zen. “It may even be me.”

Todd pressed her lips together. “Senator?”

“I’m next in line. And I’m the only other one who supports the measure on the committee. In our party, anyway.”

“It would be helpful if you attended, and then were able to persuade your colleagues upon your return,” said the President.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been to Kiev,” said Zen.

“There will be impeccable security,” said Danker over the phone.

“I’m not worried,” said Zen.

8

Nuri felt the weight of Frau Gerste’s sigh all the way to Rome.

He also felt the weight of Gregor’s shoulder, as they sat next to each other on a Euro C Flight direct from Berlin.

The C, Nuri was sure, stood for “cheap.” The seats were so narrow a mouse would have felt crowded.

Gregor had insisted on coming, following a call from her supervisor. Apparently the Bureau was now worried that the CIA would crack the case and they wouldn’t get any credit. On the bright side, she managed to get an appointment with a member of the Office of Special Magistrate, the antimafia police, that afternoon. Hence the flight.

She was uncharacteristically quiet for much of the flight, and Nuri tolerated her presence, if not her bad breath, until just before they were landing, when she began talking about Frau Gerste.

Why, she wondered, had Nuri found her attractive?

“Who says I found her attractive?” he asked.

“You were practically leering. ‘Frau’ means she’s married, you know.”

“I’m sure.”

“She had a wedding ring.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Because you were too busy staring at her boobs. I hate it when men do that. Treating women like sex objects. It’s disgusting.”

You have nothing to worry about, Nuri thought to himself, but he kept his mouth shut, concentrating instead on the dossier MY-PID had provided on the man who apparently ordered the murder in Berlin.

The Italian newspapers had played up the tobacco shop owner’s death, calling Giuseppe DeFrancisco one of the “grand old men of Rome,” an appellation that not even his most faithful customers could ever remember hearing during his lifetime. Established in 1956, his small shop had been a dusty holdover from an era that had passed as surely as the Caesars and chariot races. But his untimely death transformed it into a symbol of all Italy, which was being overtaken by the rapacious thieves of international finance, who cared not a wit for the ability of an Italian to buy a good cigar and catch up on the latest gossip of the neighborhood, be that neighborhood in an obscure Abruzzi town or Rome itself.

Giuseppe’s connection to his mafia grandson was not mentioned in any of these feature stories. The obituary contained only the broadest hint: Giuseppe had only two surviving grandchildren, one in the U.S. and the other in Naples. Neither was named.

The grandson was Alfredo Moreno, a mafia chief well-known enough in Interpol circles to have a nickname — the Car Thief. He had not lived in Naples for more than a decade, preferring to spend most of his time at his hilltop estate thirty miles away in a town named Fuggire. So small it didn’t show up on most maps, the town consisted of three buildings at an intersection of two rugged roads, an abandoned monastery building, and Moreno’s hilltop property.

The estate had once belonged to a religious order, willed to them by a wealthy cardinal who had established the monastery. It had passed back into private hands somewhere in the sixteenth or eighteenth century. Sometime after that it had become the family home for the Morenos, and was passed down on Alfredo’s father’s side of the family for at least eight generations.

Its connections with the mafia were well-known and documented in the media. Alfredo had, of course, made all of the pretenses of going “straight,” supposedly denouncing his mobster roots and becoming in the Italian phrase, uno mano moderno—a modern hand.

Alfredo was indeed modern, but then so was crime. Where his forebears had depended on handshakes and backroom conversations, he preferred encrypted BlackBerries and pay-as-you go cell phones.

He made a great deal of money importing and exporting — he brought in olive oil and other goods from Turkey, Syria, and Libya, and exported cars to northern Africa and occasionally the Middle East. The cars were stolen; the oil and food were generally mislabeled and occasionally transported in defiance of various international sanctions, such as those requiring inspections and others forbidding trade with places like Iran, which Libya was particularly good in circumventing.

Alfredo also supplemented his income by importing heroin from Afghanistan; it was a small amount of his overall business, but it did pay for the annual Christmas and Easter parties he threw in the town at the foot of his hilltop. It went without saying that he did not pay much in the way of taxes, though in Italy this was merely a sign of his smart business sense.

Nuri realized that while many Italian magistrates would have loved the headlines that would come from arresting a mafioso, they could not stomach the obituaries that would inevitably follow. But he wasn’t counting on an arrest. He was hoping he could interest the Italian antimafia police in a visit to Alfredo’s estate, at which time he might talk to Alfredo about the Wolves — a conversation he assumed would go nowhere — but also borrow whatever home computers he had in his house. For the intercepts that had yielded the conversations led to other conversations indicating he was making financial transfers via the Internet; one of them was surely going to the Wolves’ account. With the murder so recent, there were likely to be traces of the payoff somewhere in the computer.

With Western countries under pressure from the U.S. and the UN to do something about the Afghan heroin trade, which had thrived despite the apparent demise of the Taliban, Nuri decided to use that as his opening. He focused on the evidence connecting Alfredo to the trade and skipping any mention of the murder in Berlin, which he guessed the Italians weren’t too likely to care about.

A tall, thin man in his mid-thirties met them at the ministry. He introduced himself as Pascal La Rota, the magistrate who specialized in the Naples-area mafia. He had a military air — close-cropped hair, wide chest, and a nose that seemed to have been broken when he was a young man. He offered the two Americans caffè—in Italy, this meant espresso — then began looking at the evidence Nuri had brought along.

In the Italian justice system, a magistrate was closer to an American district attorney than a judge. They had a wide range of investigative powers and could be extremely unpleasant when crossed. Those who worked in the antimafia commission were reputed to be among the toughest in the nation — or the craziest.

La Rota impressed Nuri as neither. His manner was mild, almost studious. He put on a pair of glasses and began reading the information Nuri had brought, while Gregor spooned sugar into her coffee.

MY-PID had collected ships’ manifests and various information on different shipments connected to Alfredo’s empire. It showed that a middle-level heroin dealer in Florence who supplied a British network received yearly deposits into an Austrian bank account from one of Alfredo’s companies. It connected a truck stopped at the French border with a hundred kilos of heroin to another of Alfredo’s firms. And best of all, it included the transcripts of three phone calls between Alfredo and two contacts in Iran referring to shipments of flowers, which circumstantial evidence indicated was a code word for heroin.

The transcripts were clearly the smoking gun, a direct link between the mobster and the drugs. They had been recorded nearly eighteen months before, as part of an NSA program collecting raw intelligence from Iran. But they weren’t of sufficient priority for even a computer transcription, let alone to trigger a human review. MY-PID had found them listed along with three thousand other files that it judged might have a connection to the heroin trade and Italy, and had done the brute translation work itself.

As valuable as they were, they proved a sticking point for La Rota.

“Interesting,” he said, leafing through the papers. His English was good enough that he could read the summary sheet in the original without referring to the translation that had been prepared for him. “But, as far as this is concerned for evidence — I must tell you, Italian laws are very strict about wiretaps.”

“When they want to be,” said Gregor.

Nuri shot her a glare he hoped would laser a hole through the side of her head. He’d told her to say absolutely nothing.

A smile flickered in La Rota’s long, pale face, and the hairs in his thin goatee rustled. But his tone was almost scolding.

“Whatever you and I may think of the law,” he said, focusing on Nuri, “we must observe it.”

“True,” said Nuri. “Which is why the Libyan government filed its own indictments. The conversations were recorded in its jurisdiction.”

He unfolded a letter from the Libyan justice ministry indicating not only interest in the case, but promising that an arrest warrant would be issued by the appropriate authorities by the end of the day.

In Libyan time, “end of the day” meant within the next three months, a fact La Rota was clearly aware of.

“I have dealt with the Libyans before,” he told Nuri. “On several occasions.”

La Rota took off his glasses and began cleaning them.

“Still, this is very persuasive,” he told Nuri. “I believe I will be able to get my superiors to consider action on its basis.”

“I thought you were in charge,” said Nuri.

“Oh I am, of course.”

“Then can’t you authorize a raid?”

The magistrate blanched. “A raid?”

“A visit, I mean,” said Nuri. “An interview. To speak to Mr. Moreno?”

“You don’t understand the situation, I’m afraid. One does not simply speak to Mr. Moreno.”

“Arrest him, then.”

“Perhaps we will be able to do that,” said La Rota. “Once the commission reviews the evidence.”

“How long will this review last?” asked Gregor.

Nuri glared at Gregor again, even though he would have asked the question himself had she not interrupted.

“A while,” said La Rota indulgently.

“That’s how long?”

“It is very difficult to predict.”

“By the end of the day?” said Nuri, as suggestively as he could.

“A day? For something like this?” La Rota laughed.

“Not next week,” said Nuri hopefully.

“Oh no, not next week. Something like this — a case has to be made. The way must be prepared.”

“You’re talking months,” said Gregor.

La Rota held out his hands in a gesture that meant if that.

“Is there any way to speed up the process?” Nuri asked.

“Usually not.”

“What if he murdered someone?” asked Gregor.

“Oh, I’m sure a man like Alfredo Moreno has been responsible for murdering many people,” answered La Rota. “You would be surprised. These men are animals. They murder for pleasure, for business, for many reasons.”

“If it was an important murder, in a prominent case?” said Nuri, grasping at straws.

“In that case, perhaps by July.”

“I told you the Italians were impossible to deal with,” said Gregor as they walked out of the building. “It’s a complete waste of time.”

The FBI agent had said no such thing — just the opposite in fact: she’d expressed optimism that they would be inside Moreno’s compound by nightfall. But Nuri was in no mood to argue.

“We can interview him ourselves,” she continued. “I can get someone from the local office to act as a translator—”

“We’re not interviewing him,” said Nuri sharply.

“You’re just going to drop it?”

“It’s not my call,” said Nuri noncommittally.

He nodded at the Italian policeman at the foot of the steps of the justice building, then walked in the direction of their car. One thing he had to say for the Italians — they didn’t skimp when it came to police stations. The ministry was a veritable palace, with an exterior as grand as anything Nuri had ever seen in the States.

“We can arrest him on an American warrant,” said Gregor. “I can arrange—”

“You and what army?” said Nuri.

Gregor had made quite a lot of progress in less than eight hours — first she was a wet blanket, now she was Wyatt Earp.

Nuri had rented a small Fiat, which put him uncomfortably close to the FBI agent once they got inside the car. She smelled as if she’d had salami for lunch.

“I’ll drop you off at the airport,” he said, programming the GPS. “You want Euro C, right?”

“Let’s drive there,” said Gregor. “It will only take us a few hours. We can scout it out.”

“No, I have to get back to Berlin,” said Nuri. “There are a few more things to check out up there.”

“Drop me off at a rental place, then,” said Gregor.

Had she guessed what he was up to and called his bluff? Or was she really intending on going there herself?

Either way, he couldn’t take the chance of her interfering.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to just drive around the estate,” said Nuri. “Don’t you have to clear your activities with your Rome office?”

“Not on this. My boss gave me carte blanche.”

Nuri wracked his brain for ways to keep her at bay. He drew a blank.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Gregor. “I’ll go with you to the airport and rent the car there. You have to turn this one in, right?”

“What would you do?”

“I give them a credit card—”

“What would you do with Moreno?” snapped Nuri.

“I’ll just talk to him,” she said.

“No one will ever see you again,” said Nuri.

“I’ve dealt with these types of cases before,” said Gregor. “And with people like Moreno. They’re so full of themselves that they’re easy pickings. They think the law doesn’t apply to them, so they ignore the most basic precautions.”

“I’d figure a guy like this would have his guards shoot first and ask questions later,” said Nuri.

“They’re not going to shoot a lost tourist.”

“Maybe I will go,” he said, finally giving up. “Just to see what the hell his place looks like.”

“I thought you had a lot to do,” said Gregor with mock innocence. It wasn’t bad enough that she won — she had to rub it in.

“Yeah,” said Nuri. “See if you can program the address into the GPS so we can at least find out what highway to take.”

9

“Purpose of visit?”

“Tourism.”

“How long are you staying?”

“A week.”

The Ukrainian customs official inspected Danny’s passport, flipping it back and forth in his hand to make sure the holographic symbols were displayed. Danny and the others were traveling with standard passports rather than using diplomatic cover, trying to maintain as low a profile as possible.

Sally McEwen had warned him that their entry at Boryspil Airport, about eighteen miles east of Kiev, would almost surely be recorded by the Ukrainian secret service, which was still run like an offshoot of the KGB. A video camera above the passport control desk was undoubtedly taping him, while the clerk’s computer was running a check against his name. The Ukrainian technology was relatively old, however, and even if Danny was flagged as a suspicious American, it would take weeks for a file to be prepared with his photo. By then the operation would be over.

It was possible they would tell the Ukrainians that they were here. But for the moment the Ukrainians weren’t to be trusted. No one was. It was the old CIA prejudice — we don’t exist, and if we do exist, which we don’t, you never heard of us.

Danny’s own prejudice was the opposite: be honest and tell people what was going on. It was a military mind-set.

“Enjoy Ukraine,” said the customs clerk, handing his passport back.

Danny saw McEwen and Hera waiting a short distance beyond the stations.

“How’d you guys get through so fast?” he asked.

“You have to pick the right line,” said McEwen. “But it helps to look like a little old lady.”

“The secret to your success,” said Hera.

“Don’t be jealous, dear.”

There were two rentals waiting for them at Hertz, so-called mid-sized Fords, which would have been considered subcompacts back in the States. Hera rode with McEwen, while Danny followed. McEwen might have been old, but she drove with a lead foot — he lost her before they’d gone two miles, and had to use MY-PID’s GPS to find the hotel. By the time he got there, the two women had already checked in.

“Ready for a tour?” McEwen asked as Danny finished registering.

“Love to,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

The hotel was in an old building in the business district. While the facade was boring and plain, the interior had been renovated recently and the place still smelled of paint. The design mixed old-style plaster details with occasional chrome and sleek marble. It wasn’t retro and it wasn’t modern, but it somehow caught Kiev’s spirit, at least as espoused by the chamber of commerce: “The future building on the past, moving ahead with expediency.”

More than three million people lived in Kiev, making it one of Europe’s largest cities. Besides being the capital of Ukraine, it was looked on as the center of opposition to the Russian bear, both politically and culturally, the counter to Moscow’s notoriously heavy hand. That had both good and bad aspects — while it helped draw a vibrant class of artists and entrepreneurs, it also made it the focus of Russian resentments. There was a sizable Russian spy network in the city, McEwen warned; they should always proceed under the theory that they were being watched or about to be watched.

The city was slightly cooler than Washington had been, though not unpleasantly so; the average high for May was just under 70 Fahrenheit, and though it was still only mid-morning, the temperature had just topped 72. Danny could have gone around in shirtsleeves, but took his light leather jacket, where it was easier to keep his MY-PID.

The NATO meeting was to be held in the Kiev Fortress, a historic complex near the center of the city. A good portion of the fortress had been turned into a museum, open to the public; the rest consisted of government buildings. McEwen started there, taking them on a quick tour of the general area, driving Lesi Ukrainky Boulevard, a thick artery that paralleled the Dnieper River on the city’s western half.

The road had just been paved, and unlike most of the city’s streets, was smooth and pothole free. It was tree-lined, with an island through much of the middle; driving down it, Danny got the impression of an area that was sophisticated but slightly sleepy, as if it still belonged to the early nineteenth century. This was in contrast to the rest of the city, which over the past two or three years had undergone rapid growth. New buildings were everywhere along the river.

McEwen was surprised by the amount of change that had occurred in the past twelve or thirteen months; she kept marveling at the different buildings she said had sprung up since she last visited.

“We can take a tour of the fort tomorrow,” the CIA officer recommended. “It’ll be better to see the general layout of the city first, and set up some of the logistics. We need a place to operate out of.”

“What’s wrong with the hotel we just checked into?” asked Danny.

“What’s the expression, Colonel?” said McEwen. “You don’t shit where you live.”

Hera laughed. “Do you kiss your grandkids with that mouth?”

“I don’t have any grandkids. Or children, for that matter. We’re going to want a place convenient to the museum where you can have people coming and going,” added McEwen. “Someplace where a half-dozen Americans wouldn’t seem odd.”

“Minnesota would be perfect,” said Hera.

“That might be a little far,” said Danny. He hadn’t remembered Hera being so jovial on their last mission, and she was downright taciturn at home. But she’d clearly taken a liking to McEwen.

“I know someone who owns a restaurant in that row of buildings there,” McEwen told him, pointing to a row of one-story storefronts. “It’s not a very popular place, which is a positive for us. We could probably use their back room. For a price, of course.”

“You trust them?” asked Danny.

“To an extent. Never trust anyone, Colonel. Not with your life.”

McEwen took them over, parking along the street about a block away. Danny saw instantly why she liked the area — it had a view of the museum’s entrance, but seemed somehow invisible to it, or at least to the tourists who were mostly arriving by bus. There were four other storefronts; two were empty, and the other belonged to a tailor whom McEwen said only worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

It was just about dinnertime, but the restaurant had only two customers — a young man and woman with backpacks — who sat at a table next to the large plate-glass window in the front. They were staring at the menu as Danny and the others passed outside, talking in whispered tones as they came in.

If the place had ever had a heyday, this wasn’t it. The tables and chairs were made of wood and looked to be about thirty or forty years old, their finish worn down by use, though the thick legs looked and felt sturdy enough. The walls were painted a yellow that had probably been bright when fresh but was now a kind of dull backdrop to the assorted paintings of Kiev that hung across them in a straight line, almost frame-to-frame, on both sides of the room. The paintings were in a variety of styles, by different artists, but were all the same size. They showed different landmarks in the city, along with a few from the countryside.

A waitress came out of the back. Dressed in a light blue skirt with a checkered blue and white blouse, she was twelve or thirteen, just at the age between child and young woman. About five-two, a little chubby, and nearsighted, she squinted when she saw them, pushing her head forward on her neck as if she were a gopher coming out of her hole.

Then she squealed.

“Sal!” she said, rushing toward them. “How are you?”

McEwen folded her arms around the girl. She said something in Ukrainian. The girl replied, then stepping back, said in English that she must only speak English.

“My English has became bad since I haven’t saw you,” said the girl. “I have to practice.”

“Of course we’ll practice,” said McEwen. “These are my friends,” she added, gesturing toward Danny and Hera. “Can we get something to eat?”

“Of course. Wait — mama is in the back.”

“Sit,” McEwen told Danny and Hera. She pulled out a chair, but instead of sitting, went over to the young couple in the front of the room. Danny watched as she asked them, in English, if they were having trouble with the menu, which was in Ukrainian. By the time the cook emerged from the back, she had made several recommendations and told them how to pronounce what they wanted.

The cook was a slightly larger version of the waitress. Her large red cheeks were puffed with a smile. She had flour on her forearms and just a daub of it in her hair. Her white apron, which was pulled so tight against her body it looked as if it would burst, was spotless.

“Sal, Sal, so long we’ve not seen you!” she said.

They embraced.

McEwen introduced them. The cook was the owner; her name sounded like “Nezalehno” to Danny. She promised to fix them a nice dinner, then disappeared with the waitress into the back.

“You’re everybody’s friend,” said Danny.

“That’s my job,” answered McEwen. “Or it was.”

“Can we trust them?”

“I keep telling you — we don’t trust anyone. Not completely. But yes, to the extent we trust anyone.” She lowered her voice. “Her husband died shortly after Kira was born. Kira’s our waitress. She’s the youngest of eight children.”

“Eight?”

“They all worked here, at one time or another,” said McEwen before continuing her explanation. “The father was killed in an auto accident with a man who turned out to be a Russian army major in the city on unofficial business. He seems to have been drunk at the time. It wasn’t clear exactly what he was doing, but the end result was that he went back to Russia, and no compensation was paid to the widow. There was no trial, of course. So, Nexi and her family don’t particularly like Russians.”

“And they need money,” said Danny.

“You’re catching on, Colonel. But they’re nice people besides. If I could pick someone to help, and who could help me — Nez would be a perfect fit.”

“Are some of those yours?” Hera asked, pointing to the paintings.

“The one all the way to the right, over there,” said McEwen, beaming.

“You had a lot of time to paint when you were here?” asked Danny.

“It was part of the job,” said McEwen. “A way to meet different people, to circulate. It makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it, Colonel?”

“Painting?”

“It doesn’t fit with your stereotype of what a spy does. And I don’t look like one. That’s what you’re thinking,” she said, her voice just loud enough for Danny to hear. “People get certain notions in their head, and they operate on them without really examining them. They feel a certain way about something before they even have a chance to experience it or see it. And that preconception colors everything. So you don’t think that an old lady who paints—paints! — could possibly be gathering intelligence, persuading people to betray their country, or at least help another one. Right?”

“I guess.”

“Who better to be a spy?”

After they ate, Danny had McEwen take them around to different hotels where she thought the Wolves might stay if they needed to rent rooms. The hotels were third and fourth tier establishments, places Ukrainians on a budget or small businessmen paying their own way might stay. The staffs, while friendly, spoke limited English. Asking about a concierge would have made them laugh. There were dozens of such places in the city, and keeping them under complete surveillance would have been impossible, even with MY-PID’s help.

“We could plant a video bug near each entrance,” suggested Hera. “That would give us at least some idea of who’s going in and out.”

“That might work,” said Danny.

“If you don’t mind my saying, Colonel, I’m not sure video surveillance would be anything more than a shot in the dark,” said McEwen. “And it could even work against us.”

“Against us how?”

“We can’t possibly cover every place. They could stay outside of the city just as easily as in. Putting the video bugs in might give us a false sense of security — we’d focus on those sights.”

“Good point,” said Danny.

“I’m not suggesting we ignore them entirely, but if we have limited resources…”

“Where would we put the bugs?”

“The airport for starters. Train station. Obviously the area around the fort. If we have bugs left over, then we can think about the hotels. If I was planning some sort of action here,” McEwen continued, “then I would be casing the area. That’s the person we should look for. The team that would do the assassination wouldn’t be here yet.”

“When would they come?”

“Not until the day before. Maybe not even until that day. Unless there was a reason for it.”

Danny nodded. He wasn’t comfortable with the espionage aspects of the mission. Covert action tended to be relatively straightforward, even when extremely difficult — here’s the target, hit it. This was considerably more nebulous — find assassins whom no one knows, stop them from killing anyone, and then apprehend them.

This wasn’t a classic Whiplash mission, he thought.

Then again, what was the classic Whiplash mission? He was thinking about the old days, when everything seemed more straightforward. This was the new Whiplash, in a much more complicated world. Alliances shifted every day, technology improved seemingly by the second.

Maybe he was just a little too old to keep up.

But age seemed like a ludicrous idea with McEwen around. She was as enthusiastic and energetic as Hera.

They continued on their tour of the city, driving by the U.S. embassy and Ukrainian government buildings, walking through Maidan Nzalezhnosti, the square and monument in the city center, and getting more of a feel for the place. McEwen was just about to take them on the metro when Danny’s sat phone rang.

It was Nuri.

“I ran into a roadblock with the Italians,” Nuri told him. “They say it’ll be months before we can get in to talk to this mafia guy, Moreno. By that time, any data will be off his computer.”

“How much did you tell them?”

“Enough to put him away for life.”

“And they still won’t move?”

“They’ll move. They may even arrest him. But it’ll be at Italian pace. Next year or so. I have another idea.”

“Shoot.”

“I want to go into the estate and steal the computer.”

“What happens if you’re caught?”

“Bad things,” replied Nuri. “I’ll just have to make sure I don’t get caught.”

“You need backup?”

“I can handle it. I talked to Reid and we’ll have real-time infrared surveillance, so I’ll know where everybody is.”

Danny checked his watch.

“Flash is flying in from the States with a layover in Frankfurt,” he told Nuri. “If I can get ahold of him, we might be able to change his plans and get him down to Naples tonight.”

“All right. I like Flash.”

Flash was John “Flash” Gordon, a former Special Forces soldier who’d teamed with Nuri during their first mission. He tended to be quiet and efficient — a rare but winning combination.

“Hera and I can come out as well,” Danny added. He glanced at his watch. “We may not be able to get there until tomorrow, though.”

“It’s OK. It’s not a hard job. I checked the place out. There are only two guards around the perimeter. The guy lives like a prince,” added Nuri. “But he’s way overconfident. Everyone’s so scared of him nobody even tries to get up there. I’m sure the house is wired, but it shouldn’t be too hard to get inside. There’s only one slight complication.”

“How slight?”

“The FBI is helping me.”

Just from Nuri’s tone, Danny understood that wasn’t a good thing.

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Only if I kill her. But it may be worth it.”

10

As a CIA officer, Nuri was generally in the habit of getting other people to do his dirty work. Things like breaking into a mafia chieftain’s home, bugging his office and his computers, were considerably safer when done by someone other than himself. But such arrangements took time, and in this case might very well be impossible. Besides, Nuri liked going places where he wasn’t supposed to be. And this place didn’t look nearly as well protected as it could have been.

He had done a few similar jobs before. As long as he didn’t get caught — admittedly a singular caveat — they were relatively straightforward. He’d sneak in, sprinkle a few bugs in strategic places, kick on the computer and load a virus that would dump all of its information to a Room 4 server the next time it accessed the Internet. Bypassing the computer’s security protocols was child’s play, and if there was a local area network, it was easy to scoop everything up from a single computer.

To get to the computer he had to get into the estate, but that wouldn’t be difficult either. A Reaper drone would provide real-time imaging through MY-PID, telling Nuri where the two outside guards were with the help of a synthetic imaging radar. The radar could penetrate the earth to roughly one hundred feet; it would have no trouble seeing into the house. The aircraft also had a small cesium magnetometer and an electronic field sensor aboard; the devices were sensitive enough to detect burglar alarms and computers, even when off — in effect telling Nuri not only what to avoid, but where to go.

Vineyards and olive groves surrounded the estate on three sides. A small booth near the top of the driveway about two hundred feet from the house looked to be the only permanent guard post. The two men who watched the place came out of the hut every thirty to forty minutes. Though their schedule was unpredictable, their route wasn’t: one walked around the house to the west, one went east. They met at the back veranda, continuing onward back to the hut.

Approaching through the eastern olive grove would be the easiest; hedges blocked most of the view from the post, and a pair of farm buildings near the house would make for a natural jumping off point.

The house was an old stone structure, at least six or seven hundred years old. It had three stories aboveground and one below. A portico ran along the east and north of the building, a kind of two-story porch flanking the kitchen and main living area. A pool was located on the northwestern side. Nuri wouldn’t know where the office was until the Reaper made its first overflight, but he suspected it was somewhere on the second floor, very possibly near the mafioso’s bedroom.

Or in it.

Given that possibility, he decided he wasn’t going to let insomnia jeopardize his mission: he armed himself with several syringes of an etomidate derivative, a powerful anesthetic that would put Moreno into a deep slumber almost instantaneously.

He was tempted to use one to get rid of Gregor. She clung to him like glue when he went to Naples International Airport, Ugo Niutta, to pick up Flash and the gear he needed, which had been flown in from the States via the Aviano air base.

In one breath she would say she didn’t want to do anything illegal, in the next she would ask how they were getting onto the estate. Nuri kept the details to himself. He didn’t need her, now that Flash was with him. The question was how to ease her from the picture.

A cliff would have done nicely.

Flash was flying on a diplomatic passport, and brought in a “pouch” of weapons and backup com gear. “Pouch” was a diplomatic misnomer — it was actually a small metal crate, securely locked. To carry it, they had to each take a handle at the side and walk out to the car.

“You could open the trunk for us,” Nuri grunted to Gregor as they approached the rented Fiat.

“You didn’t give me the keys,” she said.

True, but somehow it felt like it was her fault. They packed up the car, then went off for something to eat.

Flash had been in the Army for just over ten years before deciding to work with a private security contractor. That gig, three months in an African hellhole, hadn’t worked out the way he had hoped. He told Nuri in Iran that he’d spent his time guarding the brother of an African “president”—aka dictator for life. The man had a thing for guns, and liked to fire them at all hours of the night, and not always in appropriate places or directions. This wouldn’t have been so bad if Flash had been paid as promised. In the end he had to take matters into his own hands, bartering for his pay — diamonds for his employer’s life.

This might have complicated Flash’s future, except for the fact that the president was overthrown a week after Flash left the country. He and his brother were executed by the new government. Flash held a private memorial service at a bar he liked in Oklahoma. He was the only attendee.

Nuri found a small restaurant on the outskirts of the city, far enough away from the crowded, medieval streets at the center of town where he could park the car without having to watch it. He was fluent in Italian — he’d spent some of his childhood here — and took charge of the ordering, sticking to basic spaghetti so heartburn wouldn’t be a factor later on.

“So what’s our plan?” asked Gregor after the waiter left.

“Eat,” said Nuri.

“I mean later.”

“The plan is, you go into the city, find a nice hotel with a good bar, and wait for us.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

The waiter returned with water and bread. The inside of the bread looked almost gray in the restaurant’s dim light.

“I’m not going to a hotel,” said Gregor.

“You don’t want to do anything illegal, right?”

“You don’t need backup?”

Flash stayed quiet, slowly sipping the water.

“What happens if something goes wrong when you break in?” asked Gregor. “Who’s going to rescue you?”

“You’re not coming in with me,” Nuri told her. “Flash isn’t either. This is a one-man gig.”

“Your radio tells you what to do?” said Gregor. She was apparently referring to the MY-PID control device.

“No,” said Nuri, a little louder than he wanted. He recalibrated his voice as he continued. “No one is telling me what to do. Flash is going to liaison between the Reaper and me. He’ll be near the estate, down the hill.”

“Who’s going to watch his back while he’s watching yours?”

“Here comes the spaghetti,” said Flash, glancing at the waiter.

Nuri considered what to do while the waiter put down the platter of pasta and served family style. Gregor might be helpful; in any event, it was safer to keep her with them than have her in the city if he couldn’t trust where she’d end up. Most likely she wouldn’t screw him up, but there was always that distant chance that might come back to bite him.

“If you do exactly what Flash says,” Nuri told her once the waiter retreated to the kitchen, “you can watch his back.”

He thought he saw a look of pain pass over Flash’s face, but maybe it was just a reaction to the spaghetti.

“It won’t be illegal, right?” asked Gregor.

“If it is,” deadpanned Flash between bites, “we’re blaming it on you.”

Nuri’s mother’s side of the family came from Sicily, and counted a number of relatives with low-level associations with the Men of Respect, as the mafia was generally known there. The Sicilians and the Neapolitans got along only rarely, but they were alike enough as a general species for Nuri to form a sound dossier on what Moreno would be like: brutal in his dealings with the outside world, but completely complacent and lazy within the confines of what he considered his safe and untouchable haven. Calling him full of himself wouldn’t begin to describe him. It was very likely that the two men watching his estate were related to him, drawing the assignment as a kind of family work program.

The Reaper was due to come on station precisely at midnight. Nuri wanted to be ready to get into the house by then; that would give him plenty of time to get in and out before dawn. If things went well, in fact, he should be out before the last bars closed.

The first sign of a complication came when he drove up the town road to familiarize Flash with the area. It was a little past eleven, and the few people who lived in the hamlet had long since retired; there were no lights on in any of the buildings. But as he drove toward the turnoff for Moreno’s estate, he saw a dark Mercedes E class sedan parked in the center of the road. Nuri slowed down but didn’t stop.

“Two guys inside,” said Flash, who was sitting in the passenger seat. “Didn’t look too friendly.”

“They weren’t there earlier,” said Gregor.

“Is there another way up?” asked Flash.

“That’s the only road. But we can get up there through the vineyards down around the bend here. Just a longer walk, that’s all.”

Nuri drove down the road, showing Flash how the road cut into the side of the hill. The old monastery was to their right, just below the vineyards. They could stash the car near the ruins.

“You two wait here,” Nuri told Flash after pulling down the dirt driveway that led to the ruins. “I want to see if I can figure out what’s going on. I’ll sneak back behind the car and see if I can pick up anything from their conversations.”

“You sure you don’t want backup?” asked Flash.

“It won’t be a problem. One is quieter than two. Test your radio and make sure we have a good signal.”

Nuri got out of the car. He put on his Gen 4 night glasses, fixing the strap at the back of his head. While the glasses were slightly more powerful than the generation 3 glasses that were standard issue in the military, their real value was in their size — they were only a little thicker than swimming goggles, and weighed barely a pound.

Nuri rolled down the thin wire that ran from the right side of the goggles and plugged it into the MY-PID control unit, allowing the computer system to see what he was seeing. He checked his pistol — a Beretta fitted with a laser-dot pointer and a silencer — then did a quick check of the rest of his gear in the fanny pack he had around his waist. He’d taken a small can of mace and two of the hyperemic needles, but in truth he knew if he needed either, he might just as well use the gun.

He walked a few yards farther up the hill, moving through the trees as he approached the intersection where the guards were.

He was about fifty feet away when the dome light inside the Mercedes came on. He held his breath and went down to one knee as a Fiat approached from the main road. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a small microphone that was tuned to gather sounds from a distance. His fingers fumbled as he connected it to the radio headset.

The guard who’d been sitting in the passenger seat of the Mercedes got out and walked to the Fiat as it stopped. Nuri tuned his mike, but the Fiat’s muffler was broken and the car drowned out whatever they were saying.

The guard straightened and waved. Nuri froze, sure that the man was waving at him. But he was only signaling his companion in the Mercedes, who backed out of the way to let the Fiat pass.

He strained to see into the car as it passed but couldn’t see through the bushes.

“Computer, identify the occupants of the car.”

“Query: which vehicle?”

“The Fiat.”

“Unknown. One occupant. Driver. Unidentified female.”

“Female?”

“Affirmative.”

The Mercedes resumed its position blocking the road. The man who’d gotten out walked back over to the passenger side and got in.

“Can you identify the man who just got into the Mercedes?” Nuri asked the computer.

“Negative. Subject is approximately thirty years old. European extraction. Six feet three inches tall. Appears armed with a handgun in a holster beneath his jacket.”

Nuri angled to his right, trying to get a better line of sight on the intersection when they stopped another car. He settled into another clump of brush about twenty feet from the road and waited.

Ten minutes later a second car came up the road. This one was a Ford. He had a clear view into the windshield, despite the headlights. There were two women in the front seat; the back seemed empty.

The driver rolled down the window as the guard approached. The two women were laughing, giggling.

“The party,” she said in Italian.

The guard waved the Mercedes out of the way, and the car passed. Nuri retreated back to the old ruins.

By the time the Reaper was on station, there were a dozen people at the estate. Most were by the pool, though there were two in front of the house, near the cars. Nuri assumed they were guards and that the others were revelers.

“We’ll wait for them to get good and loaded,” he told Flash.

“How long is that?” asked Flash.

“Couple of hours.”

“You’re gonna wait that long?” asked Gregor.

“I can wait as long as I have to.”

At two-fifteen Nuri decided he’d waited long enough. “All right, we’ll go up together,” he told the others. “We’ll go up to that hedge line near the house. You guys wait for me there while I go in. Capisce?”

“We got it,” said Flash.

“Anything you say,” said Gregor.

“No questions,” added Nuri.

“No questions,” she said.

They got out and started up the hill, moving easily through the vineyards.

“Nice goggles,” said Gregor. “They’re starlight goggles, right? Cat’s eyes.”

“You weren’t going to ask any questions,” said Nuri sharply.

“Oh come on. That was harmless.”

“I could strangle you here and no one would ever know,” snapped Nuri.

Just as they were approaching the barns, MY-PID warned that a woman was coming down in their direction from the house. Nuri stopped at the edge of the vineyard, waiting to see where she was going. A minute or so later one of the guards slipped from the guard house, a good ten minutes earlier than the normal schedule dictated. He walked in her direction; they met in a small garden about thirty yards from the house, whispering before finding each other in the moonlit shadows.

“They’ll be busy for a while,” Nuri told Flash. “I’m going to circle around. Watch what’s going on with the MY-PID screen and let me know.”

“Got it.”

A few minutes later Nuri felt short of breath as he pulled himself onto the portico at the eastern end of the house. He knelt near one of the columns, catching his breath. Using the data from the Reaper, MY-PID had analyzed the circuitry inside the house and deduced that there were no alarm systems. It had also located the office on the western side of the house. He moved around the back, working his way toward the office.

Large French windows lined the exterior rooms on the first floor. He passed a large dining room and a living room before coming to the edge of the house.

Music was playing in the back; it was an Italian version of hip-hop, an odd blend of rhythms. Nuri slipped down to the bottom of the wall and peeked around. There were two or three girls in the pool, splashing each other and drinking out of champagne glasses. A man, presumably Moreno, was floating on a raft, his back to Nuri.

Let’s go, Nuri told himself. Get it on.

He moved back to the French door and tried pulling it open. It was locked. A thin shiv took care of the simple latch, and it gave way easily. He slipped in behind the light curtains, walking into the mafioso’s lair.

He got three feet when he heard the dog coming.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Nobody told me about dogs.”

11

The thirst was overwhelming. His whole body ached. His hands shook. He curled his fingers into a fist and put them under his legs. He tightened his stare at the woman at the desk across from his chair near the door to the examining rooms and offices inside.

The drugs. He needed the drugs.

The clinic waiting room was nearly full. He willed the other patients away. The doctor had to see him now.

Now!

An intercom buzzed at the desk.

“Mrs. Gestau?” said the receptionist, looking down the list of patients. “Dr. Nudstrumov will see you now.”

A middle-aged woman sitting near him got up. She walked as close to the opposite wall as possible, clearly sensing his displeasure that she had been called ahead of him.

He waited a few more seconds. They seemed like hours. He had to do something. He leaned forward — then got up, practically rolling into motion.

“When am I going in?” he said to the woman at the desk.

“The doctor is very busy today. But I’m sure as soon as—”

He didn’t need to hear the rest. He stepped to his left and pushed through the door. The hallway seemed darker than normal, the walls closer together. Very close — they seemed to push against his shoulders as he strode toward the doctor’s office at the end of the hall.

“Wait!” the receptionist called behind him. “Wait — you can’t just barge in here. Wait!”

Her voice fell back into a deep pit far behind him. He stopped at the first examining room, threw open the door. A man in his sixties sat on the examining table in his underwear, feet dangling off the side.

The doctor wasn’t there. He turned and walked to the next room.

“Stop!” said a nurse. “What are you doing?”

“It’s OK,” said Dr. Nudstrumov, appearing at the end of the hall. “I was just going to send for Herr Schmidt.”

“The examining rooms are full,” said the receptionist.

“Herr Schmidt and I can use my office.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Herr Schmidt, please,” said the doctor, extending his arm. “So good to see you today.”

He walked into the office. Without waiting for an invitation, he pulled off his shirt.

“You’re shaking,” said the doctor, closing the door behind him. “It’s getting worse.”

“Give it to me,” he said tightly.

“A year ago you only needed the shots every six months. Now it is every six weeks.”

“I don’t care to hear my entire medical history.”

“I suppose not.”

The doctor took a stethoscope from the pocket of his lab coat. The coat seemed almost gray, though he knew that the doctor habitually wore them bright and freshly starched.

“My heart is fine.”

“I’m listening to your lungs,” said Dr. Nudstrumov, an edge creeping into his voice. He was in his sixties, short and bald. He’d gained a considerable amount of weight in the decade and a half since they had known each other, to the point that he was now fat, rather than skinny.

But that was the least of the changes. He’d gone through several different names, so many that even the Black Wolf didn’t know which was real. He even used “corporate” names — common aliases that were supposed to belong only to the Wolves.

“Breathe, please.”

He took a deep breath and held it.

“Again… one more time.”

“Enough with the damn breathing!” he yelled, slapping the doctor’s stethoscope away. “Give me the shots!”

The doctor stepped back, surprised, frightened.

Where did the bastard keep the drugs? He could get them himself.

He needed the serum, and the pills. The pills were for every day; the injections lasted longer.

There were other doctors who would supply him; he knew there were. It was only because of the perverse machinations of the Directors that he had to come to Nudstrumov.

A reminder of who was in control. As if he needed one.

Dr. Nudstrumov stepped over to his desk and pulled open the bottom drawer. He placed a metal case on the top of his desk and opened it. There were three hypodermic needles inside.

“Roll up your sleeve, please,” he said, taking one of the needles.

There was a knock on the door.

“Everything is fine,” said the doctor. “Please see to the patients.”

“Doctor?” said one of the nurses.

“It’s fine. Please see to the patients.”

The doctor took a small antiseptic wipe and cleaned a spot on his arm. A second later the long, thick needle plunged through his skin.

Warmth began spreading through his body immediately. By the time the third shot had been administered, he was back to his old self.

Not his old, old self, whatever that was. Back to what passed for normal now.

The doctor said nothing for a few minutes, returning the needles to the box, then tossing his gloves into a waste can at the side of the room.

“Do you think about the changes?” the doctor asked, sitting down.

“I don’t think at all.”

“The progression. It’s a downward slope. There’s going to come a point…”

Dr. Nudstrumov’s voice trailed off. He stared at the man he knew by many names, though he called him only Herr Schmidt.

“Do you shake when you take the pills?” the doctor asked finally.

“They have no effect.”

“I’m going to give you something to calm the shakes, and the pain.” Dr. Nudstrumov pulled over his prescription pad. “It’s not — it won’t have the effect on your metabolism that the shots have. It won’t restore you. But when you feel things getting bad, you can have some relief. It’s a sedative. You should be careful driving.”

He took the prescription without comment.

“I remember that first week,” said the doctor, his voice tinged with nostalgia and pride. “How we had to fight to keep you alive.”

“I don’t appreciate your sentimentality,” said the Black Wolf, rising and striding toward the door.

12

Nuri had barely enough time to pull out the mace as the dog charged into the room, saliva lathering from its mouth. His fingers were misaligned and much of the spray shot sideways. The dog’s teeth clamped around his left arm.

Nuri sprayed again, then smacked the dog in the snout. The animal let go, howling.

Off balance, he grabbed at the animal and fell to the side, tumbling against an upholstered chair. He reached into the fanny pack for one of the syringes. The dog tried to push itself away, snarling and shaking its head, crying, disoriented, and hurting at the same time.

It was a large mastiff. More pet than watchdog, it lacked a true killer’s instinct — fortunately for him. He grabbed a syringe, pulled the plastic guard off with his teeth and plunged the needle into the animal’s rump.

It whimpered, then crumpled over on its side.

Nuri swung his legs under him and grabbed for his pistol, sure the commotion would bring one of the mafia don’s guards in any second. He could feel his heart pounding in his throat.

He heard something squeaking behind him. He spun quickly before realizing the noise was coming from the earphone, which had fallen out.

No one was coming, or if they were, they were taking their time.

“What’s going on?” hissed Flash.

“I’m OK,” said Nuri.

“What happened? I heard you grunting.”

“There was a dog.”

“MY-PID didn’t say anything about it.”

“Are you looking at the image?”

“This screen is so small — I can see it now.”

“Tell the computer it has to scan for dogs — for anything living,” said Nuri, realizing he’d been too precise when he gave it the earlier instructions. “It’s only looking for people.”

“Shit.”

Nuri looked down. As powerful as the gear aboard the Reaper was, it had its limits.

This was why you always got someone else to do the dirty work, he reminded himself. He got down on his hands and knees, searching for the cap to the syringe. He found it under a marble table. He stuffed it back into his fanny pack, then pulled the dog under the table.

The scent of mace was pretty heavy on the animal, and undoubtedly in the room. There was nothing he could do about it now, he told himself.

Change your plan. Grab the computer and get the hell out. Now!

Nuri got to his feet and walked quickly to the door, pausing near the opening. The music was loud enough to vibrate the floor slightly — a good thing, he thought, slipping down the hall.

The hall led to an outside patio above the pool. Along the way there were two rooms on the right; the office was farther down on the left.

Neither of the doors on the right were closed. Nuri leaned in, glancing around. Both were richly furnished bedrooms. No computers, no people, and most importantly, no dogs.

The office was on the left. The door was locked.

A good sign, he thought.

Until Flash warned him that someone was coming from the pool toward the door.

He slipped back to the first open room on the right, just ducking out of the way as the outside door opened. It was one of the girls; he heard her humming to herself as she walked past him down the hall.

“Coast is clear,” said Flash.

Nuri started out of the room, then stopped as he heard the humming get louder. He slipped back, waiting for the girl to pass. She seemed to take forever, changing her song three times before finally coming past.

He waited another two or three minutes before easing toward the door again. Once more he had to stop mid stride as MY-PID alerted him that another girl was coming in. He stepped back against the wall a few feet from the threshold, holding his breath until she passed — then holding it again as she came back and went outside.

The long day had started to wear on him. He crossed the corridor, mentally cursing everyone — the Italians, the bureaucracy, Gregor, Moreno, even himself. Damned if he wouldn’t have been better just shooting his stinking way inside the compound. The hell with the goddamn Italians and their corrupt justice system, the hell with Reid telling him to work with the FBI, the hell with everything and everybody.

The office lock was easily manipulated with his small pick and spring. He opened the door and slipped inside, ducking down to avoid the window, which was visible from the pool area.

A leather couch divided the room roughly in half. A desk sat on the opposite side, at the very back of the house. Filing cabinets lined the left wall of the office; an open bottle of wine sat on a small bar next to the window on the far side.

A computer screen sat on a low table to the right of the desk. It was attached to an HP computer below the table.

Nuri crawled over on his hands and knees. When he reached the computer, he took out the USB thumb drive with the virus program and pulled the machine out to locate the USB port. He plugged it in, then turned the power on.

If Moreno found the dog drugged, he’d realize there was a break-in. At that point he would most likely assume the office and computers were bugged and tear them apart. Most experts would miss the virus that he was installing, but there was a chance they wouldn’t. And besides, Moreno might easily decide to take no chances and simply trash the entire computer.

Which meant he would have to start the upload now.

He got back on his hands and knees and looked for the phone line, aiming to tap in and avoid Moreno’s router, which could slow down the transfer. He found the line, and realized the office was wired with an optical line — something he hadn’t expected, but not a problem. He found the small connection box and went to work, carefully unscrewing the cover and pulling the jack out to expose the wiring. He hooked his own in, then ran it up to the computer’s Ethernet port.

A cursor blinked steadily on the screen. Nuri tapped the six digit access code and the rogue program went to work, flexing the computer’s hard drive at a few hundred megabytes a minute.

He considered the dog problem while the hard drive churned. If he could make it look as if the dog had been poisoned, then the mess in the other room and the dog’s sleeping would seem natural.

Not poisoned, but inebriated.

The bottle of wine. The smell might dissipate the scent of the mace as well.

Nuri glanced at the computer screen. The virus needed another twelve minutes to finish.

He went over and grabbed the wine. The bottle was only about a quarter full, but that would do; the dog was already drugged, after all.

Crouching down next to the desk, watching the computer count down, his anger dissipated. He held the bottle of wine to his nose. It was earthy, a fresh red — probably grown and bottled right here.

Nuri felt himself relaxing, just a little. Things were going well. He’d been right about the mafia don letting his guard down. The party complicated things, but only barely. And the dog — the dog was a chance to show his ingenuity.

The computer beeped. The program was done, and sooner than he’d expected.

Leaning to his right over the desk, Nuri looked through the window toward the pool. Moreno was still floating in the middle of the water, a girl hanging on either side of him.

Not a bad life, Nuri thought. Smuggle some dope into the country from time to time, hire international killers to avenge your grandfather, then float the nights away drinking wine and getting laid.

Nuri pulled over the keyboard and typed a new set of letters and numbers: stndby334*.* The hard drive churned again, implanting the virus deep into the operating system. It would send out fresh information each time the computer was booted. Assuming, of course, that Moreno didn’t realize he’d been bugged.

Curious about what had been uploaded, Nuri followed the command with one for a listing of programs on the hard drive. There were dozens, including a shareware encryption program that he had encountered before. He paged through to the e-mail program and fired it up. It wasn’t even protected with a password.

Then again, how many home computer e-mails were?

Nuri flipped through the most recent bunch. They seemed to concern business, but the details were vague — a ship that would leave port, an airplane flight number, nothing of immediate help. There was also a surprising amount of spam — ads for working at home, better erection pills, and invitations to join dating services.

Spam? Or messages disguised as spam? MY-PID would have to sort it all out.

Nuri closed the program and looked at the Internet cache, examining the list of recent sites Moreno had surveyed. For a guy who could pay for whatever real pleasures he wanted, Moreno sure liked his porn. The cache was filled with images.

“How’s it going?” asked Flash.

“Almost done.”

He paged through, looking for bank account screens. He didn’t see any. But he did find a range of search queries on banks and post offices in Moldova.

Did Moreno have business there?

If so, it wasn’t obvious. The pages left in the queue looked almost random, as if Moreno had been thinking about visiting and was just looking for information.

“Guards are moving around in the little building,” warned Flash. “I think we’re up against a shift change.”

Nuri flipped off the computer. He resisted the impulse to look inside the desk or file cabinets and began crouch-walking toward the door.

He was three-fourths of the way there when he realized he’d forgotten the wine bottle. As he went back for it, he looked through the window and saw one of the girls pulling herself out of the pool.

She wasn’t wearing a top.

She was also heading for the house, as Flash warned a few moments later.

He scooped up the wine bottle and went back to the door to wait for her to pass. But instead of going up the hall as the other girls had, she stopped at the office door and tried the knob.

“Fredo, Fredo,” she called. “La porta—the door is locked.”

She tried the door again.

“MY-PID, locate Alfredo Moreno,” said Nuri.

“Subject is in the pool.”

“Tell me if he moves.”

“Subject is swimming to the western side of the pool.”

Shit.

Nuri reached over to the lock and undid it.

Try it again, he willed the woman outside. But she didn’t.

“Subject is approaching the house,” said MY-PID.

Nuri took out his pistol. The hell with subtlety. He’d just shoot the damn son of a bitch and be done with it all.

“Nuri?” whispered Flash.

“Stand by,” whispered Nuri.

“C’e cosa?” said Moreno, coming into the hallway. The music was blaring behind him. What’s wrong?

“I want more wine,” said the woman.

“You’ve had enough I’m sure.”

“Don’t be a prude.”

Nuri raised the gun. He heard a loud slap outside the door.

Then the woman laughed. Moreno laughed. The woman giggled.

The door opened. Nuri stood against the wall, holding his breath as the pair came into the room. He could smell the chlorine fresh on their bodies.

They went straight for the couch, tumbling over the back.

The girl giggled. Moreno told her that she was beautiful and needed to be made love to. She asked for more wine. He told her first he would fill her up with something more intoxicating. He pulled off her bikini bottom and went to work.

Gun pointed in their direction, Nuri squeezed out from behind the door and backed into the hallway.

The dog was snoring beneath the table where he’d left him. It jerked upward as he poured the wine over its muzzle, but then slipped back down to sleep.

He paused when he reached the French door to leave.

Wouldn’t he be doing everyone a favor going back and plugging the son of a bitch and his whore?

Maybe not the woman, but definitely the mafioso. Who the hell would care?

Only Reid, really. Maybe not even him. The Italians certainly wouldn’t raise a fuss.

The dog stirred.

Time to go, Nuri told himself, and he slipped outside.

13

Zen and Breanna Stockard were one of Washington’s power couples, and while few people would literally trade places with them — Zen, after all, had spent two decades in a wheelchair — they were still envied by many, not least of all because they seemed to have an excellent, even perfect marriage. They supported each other’s careers and worked together to take care of their daughter Teri. While they were only sporadically seen on the political cocktail-dinner circuit, they did get around — Zen had box seats for the Nationals, and Breanna’s position on the board of directors of the Washington Modern Dance Company meant they often attended shows there.

Not a few of which Zen was reputed to sleep through, though no videos of him snoring had yet been posted on the Internet.

But even so-called power couples still took out the garbage: a task Zen assigned himself tonight while Breanna was working on homework with their daughter. Teri’s English Language Arts class was studying Shakespeare, specifically The Merchant of Venice. The language had been scaled back and the theme watered down to make it appropriate for third graders, but it was still an ambitious project.

Teri had won the role of Portia. Two other girls were sharing the part, and to really shine, she needed a judge’s costume to die for. Breanna had many talents, but sewing wasn’t one of them. Still, she was giving it a good try, and not cursing too much, at least not loud enough for her daughter to hear.

Zen wheeled himself outside with the garbage. He loved his daughter dearly, but there were plenty of times when he wished he had a son as well. He could have made a cool sword for Basanio.

Zen wrestled with the plastic top of the can. It never seemed to want to unlatch when he needed it to. That would be an asset, undoubtedly, in a rural area where there were raccoons or even bears prowling for midnight snacks, but in the wilds of the Washington suburbs, it was more than a little annoying. When he finally got it open, he felt as if it was yet another triumph on the day — nearly on par with the passage of his legislation.

Breanna was waiting in the kitchen when he returned.

“How now, fair queen?” Zen asked. “How goeth the princess?”

“The princess is off to bed, awaiting your kiss.”

“Her costume is done?”

“Such as it is.”

“You know we could—”

“Zen, we are not going to hire a seamstress to make it.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” said Zen. He was fudging: he’d been thinking of Anthony, his tailor.

“You spoil her,” added Breanna.

“That’s my job,” said Zen, rolling down the hall to Teri’s bedroom.

Most senators had two homes, one near Washington, D.C., and one back in their home state. Since he represented Virginia, Zen was lucky enough to need only one — though he saw the value in a ready excuse to leave town.

“Hey, Portia, you done for the night?” he asked his daughter as he rolled into her room.

“Uh-huh,” she murmured. “It’s a good uniform.”

“I think they call them judges’ robes.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever,” he mimicked, bending over and kissing her. “Say your prayers?”

“Uh-huh.”

“See you in the morning, all right?”

Her head popped up as he started to roll himself backward.

“Are you taking me to school?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Sometimes Mom does.”

“Sometimes Mom does. Not tomorrow.”

“Can we do my lines in the car?”

“You haven’t memorized them already?”

“I need practice.”

“We’ll practice. Sleep now.”

Breanna took the bottle of champagne out from the bottom of the refrigerator and got two glasses down from the cupboard. It had been a while since they used them, and they were covered with dust.

She ran them under the water in the sink to clean them. They’d gotten them for their wedding, but now she wasn’t sure who’d given them.

“Champagne?” said Zen, startling her.

The glass slipped from her hand and fell on the floor, shattering.

“Damn,” muttered Breanna.

“You OK?” Zen asked.

“Oh, I’m fine.”

She picked up the stem and the largest fragment, dropping them into the garbage bin.

“What are we celebrating?”

“Your law,” she said, going for the broom. “Today’s vote.”

“It’s not a law yet. Still a bill.”

“It will be a law. It should be a law.”

“Tell that to the President.”

“I will.”

“I think she’ll sign it. Hell, I’m going to Kiev for her.”

“Kiev?”

“Well, not really for her. Did I tell you — Al Osten had a heart attack.”

“Senator Osten?”

“Yeah, he’s OK. They got him to the hospital in time, thank God.” Zen swung around to the cabinet and got out another glass. “He was supposed to go to the NATO meeting next week in Ukraine. I’m going to pinch hit for him. I called him at the hospital to see how he was doing — you know that’s all he wanted to talk about? He wanted to go himself.”

Breanna felt something stick in her throat. She swept up the fragments of broken glass and dumped them into the garbage. By the time she put the broom and dustpan away, Zen had poured them both some champagne.

“You’ve got a juice glass,” she told him as he handed her the flute.

“Can’t reach the fancy stuff. Tastes the same. Here’s to us.”

“To your bill.”

They clicked glasses, then each took a small sip.

“Not bad,” said Zen.

“Why are you going to the NATO meeting?” asked Breanna.

“Your President needs someone she can count on.”

“That’s you?”

“Not really. But Tompkins can’t go. She sure can’t send someone from the other party. And we need someone important there. So that leaves me. I suggested it,” he added, shrugging.

“Jeff — there have been threats.”

“Yeah, I know, Bree. There’s always threats. The security people will do a good job.”

Breanna took another sip of the champagne, a deeper one this time. She had thought the days of worrying about her husband were long over.

“I don’t…” she started.

The words died on her lips. What was she going to say? She didn’t want him to go? But she couldn’t prevent him.

“There are always intelligence reports about people who want to break these things up,” said Zen. “Remember last year, the OPEC meeting? The CIA was convinced there was going to be a bomb attack. Nothing happened. Nada.”

“I know.”

“Come on. Let’s go sit inside. Bring the bottle.”

Breanna watched as Zen carefully positioned his glass between his useless legs and wheeled himself toward the living room. How much different would their lives have been if the experimental operations had been a success? she wondered.

How much different if he’d never had the accident?

Breanna sat in the green chair opposite the fireplace, wondering how much to say. Zen turned on the music, sliding the volume low to make sure they didn’t wake Teri. He fiddled with the control screen, bringing up a play list of jazz that included most of her favorites.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said when he turned back around. “I want you to stay home.”

“I’m sorry, babe. It’s too late for that.” Zen took a sip of his champagne. His casual smile was gone now; he looked as serious as if they were back at Dreamland, outlining a mission. “What’s up?”

“I think it’s dangerous.”

“Something else is bothering you. Something big.”

She’d never been able to keep secrets from him. Breanna drained her glass, then reached for the bottle.

“The intelligence is very good,” she told him. “The Russians want the meeting disrupted.”

“So? They going to bomb it?”

“We believe they hired a group of assassins to disrupt it. They’re pretty nasty folks. The idea would be to kill some of the ministers, and make it look like a terrorist attack. Or simply to stop the meeting from taking place.”

“Hired assassins?”

“It’s a group called the Wolves. Have you heard of them?”

“No. Should I have?”

“Not necessarily. Whiplash is involved.”

“Oh, really. Why wasn’t the oversight committee notified?”

“No action was endorsed. This is being undertaken as part of a joint task force project lead by the CIA. There’s an NSC finding.”

“A thin white sheet of paper to cover everyone’s behind.”

“Are we talking as husband and wife, or senator and Tech Office head?”

“Both. What’s Whiplash’s involvement? You’re providing security?”

“Not necessarily, Jeff. Don’t ask me.”

“Don’t ask you?”

“I have to draw the line.” Breanna got up.

“Whoa, whoa, what do you mean, you have to draw the line? Wait just a second there, Bree.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said defensively, even though she had started for the kitchen.

“Tell me about what you’re doing,” demanded Zen.

“I can’t, Jeff. You know that. There’s a line.”

Zen took one of his exaggerated, I’m-holding-everything-in deep breaths.

Breanna hated when he did that.

“You’re not talking to a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,” he said finally. “You’re talking to your husband.”

She remained silent.

“All right, so the Wolves are assassins,” said Zen. “Why should I be more afraid of them than run-of-the-mill Russian spies?”

“You shouldn’t,” she said.

“Good.”

Zen took another sip of his champagne, a bigger one this time.

“Should I be worried?” he asked.

“I don’t think you should go.”

“Because of the Wolves.”

“Just because. Just because.”

Zen let it rest for a while, drinking silently. But he knew there was more to her concern — Breanna didn’t worry easily. She’d show concern over his missions back when he was in the service, but she didn’t show outright fear.

She’d never, ever, told him not to do something.

He brooded on it through another glass of champagne. How far should he press? And was he pressing as a matter of national security or as a concerned husband?

Both.

“Well, I don’t want you to break the law on secrecy,” Zen told her after he refilled both of their glasses. “But you can’t just let that hang out there and not expect me to ignore it.”

“You should ignore it.”

“What’s bothering you, Bree?”

“Jeff — there’s more to the Wolves than I can go into right now.”

“More than I can get in a security briefing?”

“I’m sure you can get a full briefing if you go through channels. You’re on the intelligence committee.”

“How full will the briefing be?”

“Oh, Jeff.”

It stayed there, simmering for the next half hour. Breanna felt the pressure building inside.

She couldn’t keep a secret like this from her husband. Not now. Not under these circumstances.

And yet she felt as if she had to.

If he hauled her before his committee, what then?

That would be silly and petty. Ridiculous.

The bottle of champagne was empty. It was still early, but she decided she would get ready for bed.

Zen caught her arm as she rose.

“Hey,” he said. “What?”

“Jeff…”

She had to tell him.

“This is between you and me, do you understand?” she asked. “Husband and wife — not senator.”

“Go ahead.”

“We think they’re enhanced.”

“Huh?”

“Biologically enhanced,” said Breanna. “Using drugs and implants. We have scattered evidence, but nothing solid. We think they’ve been operated on, and given drugs, and different biomechanics.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. Reid has pieced together a lot of different strands of intelligence.”

“And all that makes them, what? Superhuman?”

“I don’t know,” said Breanna. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. That’s our mission.”

“These are the people who are going to attack at Kiev?”

“We think so, yes.”

“You’re not going to let them, are you?” Zen asked.

“No. Not at all. Not if we can help it.”

“That’s it?” Zen asked.

“No. No. We think we know who one of the assassins is.”

“Does that matter?”

“It should. It’s Mark Stoner.”

Zen felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Stoner?” he said finally. “The Mark Stoner?”

“Yes.”

“The CIA officer who worked with us.”

She nodded.

“He died,” said Zen.

“Maybe not.”

“The hell he didn’t. I was on that mission, Bree. I remember — my Flighthawks — I couldn’t get there in time. We weren’t supposed to cross the border. Stoner’s helicopter went into the swamp.”

“His body was never recovered,” she told him.

“There’s no way he could have lived. What? They rebuilt him?”

“Something like that, maybe. We don’t know.”

“Shit. No way.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too — it’s like science fiction. A crash like that — there were bodies recovered,” he said, remembering. “There were definitely bodies.”

“Not his.”

“You can’t rebuild a human being. Look at my legs. They’re still useless. All those experiments—”

“Those just didn’t work. Maybe the experiments with him did.”

“No.” Zen shook his head. He simply didn’t believe it.

“Who would have believed an airplane could fly by remote control twenty years ago?” Breanna asked.

“I would believe it.”

“That’s because you were working on the project. Science fiction becomes reality pretty quickly these days. Ready or not.”

“You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

“Does Danny know?” asked Zen. “Is he involved in the mission?”

“I’m not discussing operational details with you. I can’t.”

“Come on, Bree. Danny’s our friend. Stoner was a friend of his, too.”

“Mark saved my life,” blurted Breanna. “Don’t tell me about friends.”

“You didn’t tell Danny, did you?” said Zen calmly. “He doesn’t know.”

“Jeff, I’m sorry I said anything.” She sighed. “I will tell him if it’s important. When it’s important.”

God, she screamed at herself inside. Why did you say that?

“You have to tell him, Bree.” Zen wheeled around to look into her face. “You have to.”

“You just said it was science fiction. He probably won’t believe it either.”

“But you do.”

“Yes. I do.”

“You have evidence?”

They had what they thought was a partial DNA match, if the computer records were right. But they might not be. And there were other explanations — long shots, but maybe no more implausible than this.

Still, she was convinced.

“You don’t know what the situation is.”

“If what you’re saying is true, which I don’t know that I believe,” added Zen, “but let’s say, for argument’s sake, that it is. Let’s say it is Mark Stoner, somehow, resurrected from the grave or hospital bed, whatever. Then that’s his friend who’s hunting him down. Who’s probably going to kill him.” Zen rolled his wheelchair close to her. “Is that why Whiplash is involved? So Danny can see if it really is Stoner?”

“Jeff—”

“That’s why you sent him. Because you think Stoner will recognize him, and hesitate. Or come over to our side. Somehow.”

It was part of what they were thinking, at least at the beginning. But then new evidence had seemed to contradict the conclusion that it was Stoner. Breanna had decided not to tell Danny — it would only confuse and complicate the issue. When the time was right, when they had more evidence, then she would tell him about the possible DNA match, and the rest of the theories. For now, the job was simple — find out who these people were.

Whiplash was the best group for the job, with or without the old Dreamland connection.

“You have to tell him,” Zen said.

“I thought you didn’t believe it.”

“But you do,” he answered. “You have to be honest with him.”

“Don’t tell me what I have to do. You don’t know what the pressures are.”

“What does this have to do with pressure, Bree? This has to do with basic honesty.”

“Honesty? Honesty? What the hell are you talking about, honesty? You lie to people all the time.”

“I don’t lie.”

“You’re a politician. Tell me you don’t lie.”

It was the worst fight they’d had in years. The only fight they’d had in years. There’d been disagreements, debates maybe, but nothing approaching this. This was a nuclear explosion, a blowout so severe it left them both trembling.

Maybe it had been a long time coming. Maybe they were just due. Maybe at its heart, the fight had little to do with Mark Stoner and Danny and who should know what.

Maybe at its heart, Breanna was worried about him and didn’t want to lose him. And he…

He wasn’t sure what he was worried about. He knew he was angry, over a lot of things, none of which had anything to do with his wife, not really.

Losing his legs most of all. Even now, even after all these years without them. He wanted them. He wanted them so badly he would trade anything for them.

Not his daughter. Not his wife, not even tonight in his anger. But anything else.

Zen stayed in the living room while Breanna went to the bedroom. He went into the kitchen and got himself a beer, then sipped it slowly, thinking back to his days at Dreamland.

He didn’t believe it could possibly be true. It wasn’t the question of whether Stoner had survived. He’d seen worse crashes — hell, his own for starters.

But to be rebuilt?

Science fiction bullshit.

The phrase was familiar. Zen looked down at his legs, trying to place it.

Oh yeah, he thought, remembering. It was what the Air Force secretary had said the day he arrived at Dreamland to review the Flighthawk project.

The day of his accident, when one of the Flighthawks cut too close to his tail.

The Air Force secretary had said it with a smile on his face, laughing, really, shaking his hand before the flight.

Science fiction bullshit, that just happened to be true.