Invasion of Privacy

1

“Felix will be there in ten.”

“All clear?”

“Nothing out here but tumbleweeds and horseshit.”

“Welcome to Texas.”

Special Agent Joe Grant of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stared out the window of the Chevrolet Tahoe. The ground was barren, scrub sprouting here and there out of the dirt. Across the yard stood an old windmill, the kind with the tiller and the spoked wheel. Farther down the road he spied a telephone pole strung with wires. Beneath it sat the rusted carcass of an ancient tractor. He sighed. The place had probably looked the same in 1933.

“Stay back a ways once he pulls in. Don’t want to spook him.”

“Now you’re even talking like a cowboy,” said Fergus Keefe, a supervisory special agent from the Cyber Investigations Division and his colead on the case. “That ought to go over big in D.C.”

“Ain’t there yet.”

“If half of what Felix says is true, this is your ticket to the show.”

“I’ll believe it when I’m holding the plane ticket in my hand.”

Sacramento’s the last stop, they’d promised him. You’ll get to D.C. straight after that. But that was before Semaphore came around. Semaphore threw a wrench into everything. If he wasn’t so good at his job, Joe thought, he’d be in Washington right now, looking at the dome of the Capitol Building and giving briefings on the Hill. Instead he was parked in the questionable shade of a cedar tree on an abandoned cattle ranch smack dab in the middle of Texas Hill Country. D.C. might as well be on the far side of the moon.

“Felix is turning onto RR 3410,” said Keefe.

“Roger that. Wait right there. He sees that dust behind him, there’s no telling what he’ll do. He’s nervous enough as it is.”

“Felix” was the confidential informant’s code name. For Felix Unger, the OCD half of the Odd Couple.

“I’m pulling over,” said Keefe. “He’s all yours. And don’t take any chances.”

“You think he’s packing? Felix? A PhD from MIT? The guy’s annual 401(k) contribution is bigger than my entire salary.”

“I prefer to think of him as a pill-popping drunk with two DUIs and a reckless endangerment under his belt.”

“Point taken.” Joe laid a hand on his Glock. Tell an agent to be careful and he’s going to check that his piece is where it should be-in Joe’s case, holstered on his waist, butt facing out for the cross draw. He forgot about the weapon and switched off his phone, staring at the picture of Jessie and Grace on his wallpaper. He ran a fingernail over their faces, but it didn’t bring them any closer. Getting so big. He said it every time, just like he said he’d be home more often and he’d stop letting “the job” take precedence over his job as a father.

Someday…

Joe drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The exterior temperature gauge read 102, but it felt hotter. Across the yard a clump of tumbleweed rustled. He leaned forward, eyes glued to the windmill. Come on, he whispered. Give us a breeze. The windmill shuddered but did not turn.

Times had changed. You didn’t need a windmill to pump water out of the ground. And you sure as heck didn’t need wires to send a voice from one person to another. Joe knew all about phones and cables and all things telecommunication. He knew more about digital technology than he’d ever wanted to. Semaphore had taken care of that.

Officially it was Operation Semaphore, and it had brought him to Austin two months earlier. For the record it was a routine transfer, a lateral move from Sacramento to shore up the Austin residency’s glaring manpower shortage. He came billed as an agent who knew his way around municipal corruption cases, with a stint overseas policing piracy of intellectual property.

But the record didn’t say everything.

There were rumors about a chronic inability to follow orders. People said that Joe Grant was a cowboy who left a trail of wreckage in his wake. They said that Austin was his last watering hole and that he couldn’t retire soon enough. And whatever you do, don’t partner up with him.

The rumors were bullshit-disinformation designed to give him leeway to act on his own. No one knew about Semaphore except Joe, Keefe, and the task force in D.C.

The sound of an engine made him sit up straighter. He caught a flash of red in the rearview. It was Felix’s Ferrari. Joe believed the model was called a LaFerrari, and it retailed for a cool million five. It was also the most conspicuous car on the face of the planet. He felt certain the boys up in the space station could see it right now with just their eyes.

Felix parked close behind Joe’s car. A scrawny man with a mop of dark hair climbed out and hurried over. The door opened and Felix slid into the seat, eyes bugging, sweat rolling down his forehead. “You’re going to need a bigger boat,” he said.

“Relax,” said Joe. “We’re safe here.”

“Safe. Yeah, right. You got no idea.” Felix spun and peered over his shoulder. His eyes were red-rimmed and sagging with fatigue. He might have just pulled an all-nighter banging out code at the office, but Felix didn’t bang out code anymore. Felix’s real name was Hal Stark, and Stark was senior vice president for special projects at ONE Technologies, the biggest tech company in the United States. ONE was a player in everything: software, hardware, online sales, wireless communications; a gargantuan cross of Oracle, Google, Cisco, and AT &T.

“Why don’t you take a breath, chill for a second. Then you can give me an idea.” Joe pulled a pack of Juicy Fruit from his pocket. “A stick of gum makes you hum.”

“What’s that from?”

“What movie? I don’t know. My wife says it sometimes. Have a stick.”

Stark pulled out two and folded the chewing gum into a double-thick square before ramming it into his mouth. A moment later he was checking over his shoulder again.

Joe lowered both windows. “Hear that?”

“What? I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. This is Dripping Springs. Austin is twenty-five miles in the other direction. No one’s on your tail. We’ve been watching you the whole way out. You didn’t bring your phone, did you?”

“What do you think?”

“Okay, then. We checked your car earlier. It’s clean. As far as anyone knows or cares, you left the office for a doctor’s appointment. You’re safe.”

“All right, then. I believe you. I’m safe.”

Joe put a hand on Stark’s shoulder. “You have any problem getting it out?”

Stark pepped up. “They didn’t take a second look. The security guard had it right there in his hand. He had no idea he was holding the crown jewels.”

“What did I tell you?” Joe looked at the Ferrari’s nose in his rearview mirror. “Is there anything about that car that’s inconspicuous?”

“That’s the point,” said Stark. “Nothing’s run-of-the-mill on that car.”

“Anyway, thank you, Hal. On behalf of the United States government, we are grateful. Now give me the goods, let me tape you swearing that you downloaded the information of your own free will, and we’ll cut you loose. No one will ever learn about your cooperation.”

“My ass,” said Stark. “What about you? You get the DUIs off my record?”

“Expunged is the word,” said Joe. “And yes, both have been expunged from your record.”

“That was cheap,” said Stark. “Preying on a man’s weaknesses like that.”

“A guy like you can’t afford to hire a driver? That’s the second time you were popped in the past twelve months. And next time make sure your date isn’t a minor.”

The DUI was their way in, the chink in the enemy’s armor. Stark was right. It was cheap, but Joe had to use what he was given. He’d yet to meet an informant who volunteered his services of his own free will.

“The pressure,” said Stark. “You have no idea. He’s relentless. Always more. Always better. Always faster. He’s not human, I swear it. He’s some kind of superman. No…a supermachine. Men have feelings. He says he’s beyond feeling. He’s proud of it. He says he’s ‘becoming.’ Can you believe that? Becoming what?”

“Okay, Hal. Let’s calm down. Just begin at the beginning. You’ll feel better once it’s off your chest.”

“And you expunged the felony, too?”

Yes, Joe said. He had.

Hal Stark sat up straighter. “All right, then, the first thing you need to know is that you don’t know the half of it. What you guys found-the reason you came after me-that’s the tip of the iceberg…no, no…the tip of the tip.”

Joe took this in without comment. He felt the hackles on his neck stand up as they always did when he was about to get the goods. “Go on.”

“The incursion…well, you know that wasn’t the first time, don’t you?”

The incursion referred to a hack of the FBI’s mainframe eight months earlier that had triggered the red flags and gotten Semaphore off the ground.

“Of course,” Joe lied. “Exactly how long has it been going on?”

Stark laughed. “You didn’t know. Well, like I said, he’s a supermachine. Amazing you found it in the first place.”

“We’re no slouches ourselves.”

“You might want to reserve comment until I’m done.”

Joe looked away, drawn by the rustling of the large tumbleweed. Finally a breeze. He glanced at the windmill, but the wheel didn’t budge. He looked back and the tumbleweed was still.

“What is it?” asked Stark.

“Nothing,” said Joe. “Keep going.”

“It’s all about the company we just bought. The one that caused all the headlines.”

“Merriweather,” said Joe.

“Yeah, it builds the fastest supercomputer in the world, called Titan. He’s got plans for it.” Stark shook his head. “You won’t believe it.”

“We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

“You sure as hell are,” said Stark.

Joe kept his eyes on the tumbleweed. He decided the heat was playing tricks on him. Nothing moved without wind pushing it. There was no wind, so the tumbleweed couldn’t have inched closer. He razzed himself for being paranoid. Once a sniper, always a sniper. Dripping Springs was not Iraq. Smiling, he looked back at Stark and saw it: a thin column of dust rising into the air five hundred yards behind them. Someone was approaching on the inbound road.

“Everything okay?” asked Stark.

“Shut up.” Joe picked up his phone. “Boots, that you?”

“Boots” was Keefe’s nickname, earned God knows how or when.

No one responded.

“Boots, come back.”

Stark turned halfway around in his seat to peer out the back window.

“Get down,” said Joe, as he drew his weapon and thumbed the safety off.

“What’s going on?” asked Stark, eyes locked on the pistol. “I thought you said no one followed me.”

Joe started the car. “Buckle your seat belt. The ride may get a little bumpy.”

Stark muttered something, then elbowed the door open and threw himself out of the car.

“Get back here,” said Joe.

“I can take care of myself.”

“Get inside.”

Stark looked around the clearing. “Government never protected anyone. I can take care of myself.”

“Give me the drive.”

“Go screw yourself. I was an idiot to trust you.”

“Hal!”

“I’m out of here.” Stark took a step toward his car, then hopped back toward Joe. “Hey,” he said, “I got it. Where that line about the gum came-”

Stark’s head exploded in a spray of blood and brain and he dropped to the ground.

Joe caught a muzzle flash from inside the tumbleweed. No rifle report. A sniper like him.

Desperately he slammed the Tahoe into drive. The windshield shattered. He threw himself flat onto the seat and a second bullet struck his headrest. He drove blindly for a few seconds, then raised his head. A bullet hit the steering wheel, cracking it. Another hit the engine block. Steam escaped from beneath the hood. The car ground to a halt.

Joe lay still. His phone had fallen into the footwell. He picked it up and dialed. “Answer,” he whispered feverishly. “Pick up. Please.”

He heard a car stop behind him. Doors opening. Male voices. The unmistakable metal crunch of a clip being loaded into an automatic weapon.

Joe held the phone to his ear. “Come on. Pick up.”

The phone answered. “Hi. This is Mary. I can’t take your call right now, but if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Have a great day.”

Joe closed his eyes. “Babe…where are you?”

2

“Not today,” Mary Grant whispered, grasping the steering wheel harder. “Do not make me late today.”

It was four o’clock, and traffic on Mopac was blocked solid as far as she could see. Rush hour started early in Austin.

“Everyone doing okay?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

Grace gazed out the window, sipping her Sonic limeade, her thoughts a million miles away. Jessie sat beside her, headphones on, eyes glued to Mary’s phone, fingers ferociously tapping away.

“Jess, hon, what are you doing with Mom’s phone?” asked Mary.

Jessie didn’t answer.

“She can hear you,” said Grace. “She just doesn’t feel like answering.”

“What’s she doing?”

“I don’t know. Probably Instagramming.”

Mary watched Jessie’s fingers go pat-pat-pat on the glass surface. More like writing an article for the encyclopedia, she thought. She could feel the throbbing bass of the music assaulting her teenage daughter’s eardrums, an angry voice shouting something she knew she’d rather not understand. “Jessie?”

The cars in front of them began to move, and Mary forgot about the phone. She drove fifty yards before traffic came to another halt. At this rate they’d be lucky to make it home by five.

Today was her and Joe’s seventeenth anniversary. Mary couldn’t quite believe it. All those clichés about the years going by too fast turned out to be true. She glanced in the mirror. Her eyes were a little more tired, her skin not as taut as it once was, but if she smiled and kept her features alive, she did a pretty good job of keeping the years at bay. She’d even managed to lose six pounds so she could fit into her favorite little black dress. One hundred twenty-five pounds wasn’t bad for a five-foot-four-inch, thirty-nine-year-old mother of two.

She began to think about the night ahead. A dirty martini at the hotel bar to get things started. Dinner at Sullivan’s. There was no stopping her once she set foot in a good steakhouse. She couldn’t just have the steak. She needed all the trimmings. Creamed spinach, garlic mashed potatoes, and a big ol’ wedge of chilled iceberg lettuce with plenty of blue cheese dressing. She wondered how she would fit into her dress after eating a bone-in cowboy rib eye.

After dinner they’d head back to their room at the Westin, overlooking Lady Bird Lake, a reservoir on the pretty green river that snaked through downtown. She and Joe needed the night. He’d been preoccupied with work lately and away even more than usual. There hadn’t been any arguments, at least not any big ones. Still, the tension that came from not being able to share each other’s lives adequately was building between them. Tonight was for remembering why they were meant to be together. Joe had promised to be on time and on his best behavior, which meant no phone, no work talk, just them. The little black dress would do the rest.

The car in front of her inched forward. Mary saw her prompt arrival going up in smoke.

It was her fault, trying to pack in so much when she knew she had a big evening planned. She had to make dinner for the girls, shower, dry her hair, do her makeup, then drive right back downtown by seven. Not gonna work.

Mary started revising her plans. Chicken strips instead of spaghetti. Fries instead of broccoli. Maybe her hair would be fine without a shower. She caught Gracie looking at her in the mirror. Was her anxiety that obvious?

“We’ll be home soon. You can lie down and take a nap.”

“I want to go to the park and play soccer.”

“It’s a little warm to play outdoors, don’t you think?”

Grace shook her head.

“You can take your medicine, then rest a little before going out. I’ll make you a milkshake.”

“I don’t want a milkshake. I want to play soccer. I don’t care about the bruises.”

“You’ll be able to play next year. You wait and see.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” Mary’s white lie was rewarded with a broad smile. “Anyway,” she added, “you have another two weeks of vacation.”

“Two weeks,” said Jessie. “BFD.”

“No cursing, Jess,” said Mary.

“BFD isn’t cursing.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I told you she could hear,” said Grace.

“Shut up, brat,” said Jessie.

The fingers went pat-pat-pat on the glass.

“Jess, my phone.”

“Just a minute. I’m almost done.”

“Done with what?”

“Can you turn up the radio?” asked Grace.

Mary upped the volume a notch. A young woman sang mournfully about lost teen love. Grace sipped her drink and looked out the window

“I hate Taylor Swift,” said Jessie, leaning over the seat and switching the radio station.

“You’re not even listening,” protested Grace. “You have your Beats on.”

“I can still hear her. She sucks.”

Mary shot Jessie a mean glance. “That’s enough, young lady.”

“You always take her side,” said Jessie.

A phone rang. “Is that mine?”

“I don’t feel good,” said Grace.

Jessie made a face and moved away from her sister. “Mom, I think she’s going to be sick.”

“Mommy, I need to get home.” Grace’s complexion had gone from pale to translucent.

The phone rang again. “Jess, is that your dad?”

“I can’t tell.”

“What do you mean? It’s there on the screen.”

“Yeah…but,” said Jessie.

“But what?”

“Mommy,” said Grace plaintively.

As if someone threw a switch, traffic began to move. Slowly at first, but then faster, leaving a gap in front of Mary.

“Mom, go!” said Jessie.

Mary returned her attention to the highway and accelerated. The car jumped. Grace moaned. There was a retching sound.

“Mom!” said Jessie. “She’s being sick.”

“No, I’m not,” said Grace.

The phone rang again. “Is it…,” Mary began. “Oh, forget it.”

Like that, they were cruising at sixty-five, the freeway was as open and uncluttered as a Sunday morning. Mary relaxed a notch. “You okay, mouse?”

“Maybe,” said Grace. “I want to be home.”

“Got it!” Jessie shouted. “I unlocked it.”

Mary jumped in her seat and Grace squealed.

“Unlocked what?” Mary asked.

“Your phone. Now you can use whatever carrier you want to.”

Mary caught Jessie’s wide-open grin. From grim to giddy in two seconds flat. “Is that legal?”

“It’s your phone,” Jessie explained. “Who says you have to use one of the big phone companies? Now you can hook up with one that’s like a hundred times cheaper. Isn’t that great?”

“Is it? If you say so, hon. Does it still work?”

“Of course. I’m saving all the settings. Oh, and that call was from Dad. He left a message.”

“He did?” Mary felt a pang of worry. Joe wouldn’t cancel. He knew what it meant to her. If it was important, he’d have called back by now or texted. He was probably just letting her know that everything was fine and that he’d see her at seven. “Give me the phone,” she said pleasantly.

Jessie crossed her arms. “You can’t listen and drive. Do you want me to listen to it?”

Mary knew what kind of messages Joe liked to leave. Definitely NSFW, which meant “not suitable for work.” Or, in this case, children. “I’ll wait till we get home. Just put the phone on the seat.”

Jessie laid it on the front seat, a proud smile firmly in place.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” said Mary. “You can tell me exactly what you did later.”

“Mom, the exit!”

Mary saw the sign ahead, checked the rearview mirror, and yanked the car into the right lane, barely managing to make the exit ramp. “That was close,” she said, laughing it off.

“Why don’t you pay attention?” said Jessie. “We’ve lived here for two months and you still always miss it.”

Mary bit back a stinging rebuke. If she’d said something like that to her mother, she’d have received a slap across the face. She had sworn when she had Jessie to be as kind to her children as her mother was mean to her. Getting angry only brought her down to Jessie’s level.

She made the turn onto Spicewood Springs. In a minute they were driving through their new neighborhood. The houses were big and bold, each on an eighth of an acre. She turned onto Pickfair Drive and zipped into their driveway. She loved their home, a two-story Spanish-style with a stately live oak shading the lawn and a terracotta fountain next to the front door. “Home again, Finnegan,” she said, as she put the car into park.

Jessie jumped out as if the car were on fire. Grace remained in her seat, her cheek pressed to the window. Mary got out and opened her daughter’s door. “You okay, mouse?”

Grace mumbled something and vomited.

Mary jumped back, then immediately felt guilty for having done so. She put an arm behind her daughter’s back and helped her from the car. “There, there. Let’s get you inside and all cleaned up.” At the front door, Mary craned her head and yelled up the stairs. “Jessie, get some towels.”

“Did she puke?”

“Please, Jessie.” Mary led Grace into the laundry room and helped her take off her shirt and jeans, then stuffed them straight into the washer.

“Here.” Jessie stood in the doorway, holding out a dishcloth.

“It’s in the car, sweetheart. There’s not much.”

Jessie didn’t budge. “I don’t do floors or windows.”

“Come on, sweetheart. It won’t take long.”

Jessie shook her head. “N. O.”

Mary yanked the towel out of her hand and without a backward glance took Grace upstairs. Jessie followed, pounding up the stairs and slamming the door to her room.

It took thirty minutes to get Grace settled. The doctor hadn’t mentioned that the new medication would cause nausea. Either the drugs were stronger or Grace’s system was growing weaker. Cancer sucked.

The clock read 5:30 when Mary walked into her bedroom to change after cleaning the car.

Joe’s message. How could she forget?

She snatched the phone from her dresser. Just then it vibrated in her hand and began to ring. Joe, she said silently, I’m sorry.

But it wasn’t Joe. There was no name on the screen, just a number she didn’t recognize. She didn’t have time right now to take a call from someone she didn’t know. The phone rang again, and she realized that the first three digits were the same as Joe’s.

A premonition flashed through her. A cold streak that rattled her spine for the briefest of instants. She hit the Answer key. “Hello.”

“Mary, this is Don Bennett. Joe’s been hurt. You need to come to the hospital right away.”

3

Mary rushed out of the parking garage, following the signs to the emergency entrance. She walked crisply, chin up, shoulders pinned back. Stressful occasions were to be handled calmly and without excessive emotion. She was the daughter of a rear admiral and a lifelong member of the Junior League. She’d been born with a rule book in her mouth.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Hello, Mary.” Don Bennett, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Austin office, stood outside the emergency room doors. He was stocky and humorless, twenty pounds overweight, with brown eyes and a motorcycle cop’s mustache. “Let’s go inside.”

“Right here is fine. How is he?”

Bennett put a hand on her arm. “Joe’s in a bad way. Let’s go inside and sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit,” said Mary, pulling her arm clear. “Is he alive?”

“Yes,” he said. “He’s alive.”

It was a hesitant yes, and Mary was too afraid to ask anything more. She followed Bennett through the automatic doors into the waiting room. A cluster of Joe’s fellow agents had staked out a corner for themselves. Ten capable, clean-cut men in dark suits and two women who looked even more capable. All eyes turned to Mary. The suffering spouse. The weaker vessel. A civilian. She hurried past them, determined not to let them see her worry.

Joe’s been hurt.

Mary had imagined the words, or something similar, a thousand times. And a thousand times she’d dismissed them. Not Joe. He was a specialist in electronic surveillance. He bugged phones and got warrants for wiretaps and spent days inside vans, watching and listening. His targets were mayors and city councilmen and treasurers who siphoned off money from public coffers. Joe didn’t do dangerous. He’d promised her after they had Grace, and he’d renewed his promise after she got sick.

But the truth was, she didn’t know what he did every day.

Bennett led her to a quiet corner. “Here’s how it is,” he said. “Joe’s been shot. He lost a significant amount of blood. He’s in surgery right now. That’s all I can tell you.”

“How bad?”

“Bad. The bullet may have nicked his heart. He was in cardiac arrest when they got to him.”

“He was dead?”

“Clinically.”

“Is there another kind?”

“I’m sorry.”

“How long had his heart stopped before they were able to get it going again?”

“I don’t know. The paramedics or the surgeon may be able to tell you. Joe was brought in on a STAR Flight from Dripping Springs.”

“Where’s that?”

“Twenty-five miles west on 290.”

“He told me he was working a case in Bastrop. That’s southeast of town.”

Bennett averted his eyes. “Come on, Mary. You know the rules. I can’t talk about an investigation.”

“Why was he there?” Mary shouted. All faces turned toward them.

“He was meeting a CI,” said Bennett, aware of the attention, leaning closer. “A confidential informant.”

“I know what a CI is.”

“Joe was working alone. I don’t have the details, but from all appearances it looks like the debriefing went sideways. The informant was armed and-”

“Stop,” said Mary. “We’re talking about Joe, not some greenhorn fresh out of Quantico. He’d never let a man he thought was dangerous near him without checking if he was armed.”

“All I know is that Joe got into a car with an informant and neither of them got out.”

“So the informant is dead, too?”

“Jesus, Mary.” Bennett looked away angrily, as if he’d been tricked. “I’ve said too much already. I’ll tell you more when I get the all-clear. Right now let’s concentrate on getting Joe through this.”

But Mary was in no mood to wait. She looked at Bennett, at his tired brown eyes, which wouldn’t quite meet hers, at his perfectly tied necktie and his lovingly shined shoes. She knew when she was being brushed off. “Who’s giving you the all-clear, Don?”

“Mary, please.”

“Who?”

“That’s just an expression. I can’t tell you about something I don’t know. Joe is my friend, too.”

Mary closed her eyes and drew a breath. She was thinking about the call. “He knew before.”

“Pardon me?”

“Joe knew something was wrong.”

Bennett shifted on his chair, alert. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”

“He called me. He let me know he was in trouble.” Mary began to cry. There was no stopping it. No amount of will or anger or shame or anything could arrest her tears. “I missed the call, but he left a voicemail. I think he wanted me to help him.”

“He called you to say he was in trouble?”

“It’s my fault. I didn’t take the call.”

“Don’t say that. You’re not to blame.”

“I could have-”

“Joe knew what he was doing.”

The comment offended Mary. Six words to transfer the blame onto her husband’s shoulders. Six words to wipe the FBI’s hands clean of all culpability. “Yes,” she said. “He did. And he’d never put himself into a compromising position with someone who was armed. Not when he was alone. Would you?”

Bennett started to answer, then bit back his words. “This isn’t the time.”

“Who was his backup?”

“He didn’t have one.”

“So who called the ambulance? Who found him? What aren’t you telling me?”

Bennett ignored her question. “What did the message say?”

“Listen for yourself.” Mary looked inside her purse but didn’t see her phone. “I left it in the car.”

But she didn’t need the phone to recall the message. Snippets of Joe’s words still rang in her ear.

Mary. It’s me. Pick up. Please. You there? Oh, Christ. It’s my damn fault. It never made sense coming all the way out here. Listen to me. Everything’s copacetic, baby. You hear me? If you get this, call Sid. Tell him I didn’t get it. Tell him it’s key that he keeps trying. He’s one of the good guys. He needs to know. I love you, Mary. I love you and the girls more than anything. Tell the girls. Tell them…ah hell-

The message ended abruptly and without a goodbye.

“Mary?” Don Bennett stood closer, his gentle voice unable to temper his demanding glare.

“He said that it didn’t make sense coming out there, that he didn’t get it, and that he loved me and the girls.”

“Get what?”

“He didn’t say.”

“That’s it? You said he knew something was wrong.”

Everything’s copacetic, baby.

Copacetic. It was their secret word for when everything was going wrong, when things were not what they were supposed to be, when everything was, as Joe liked to say, FUBAR. Fucked up beyond all recognition.

Mary laughed, a bubble of joy punching through her sorrow as she remembered when he’d first used the term. It was on their honeymoon, a three-day high-speed adventure in Jamaica. They’d arrived at their hotel only to discover that Joe’s reservation had vanished, and so had his wallet, somewhere between the airport and the hotel. Mary had her debit card, but it was good for only $200. They’d ended up at a rundown B &B in Montego Bay, sharing a single bed and a bathroom without towels and dining on mangos and papayas from the roadside vendors, with a few Red Stripes thrown in to help them forget their hunger. Instead of sun there was rain. Halfway through their second day, the manager kicked them out for making too much noise…laughing, not the other kind. She had a picture permanently framed in her mind of Joe standing by the highway next to their pile of bags, thumb out, hitchhiking to the airport in a driving Caribbean downpour. And his words accompanied by a big ol’ shit-eating grin. “Everything’s copacetic.”

Mary’s smile faded. There were other times he had used the expression. Times when things hadn’t been copacetic for either of them.

She came back to the present. There was no mistaking his meaning this time. Fear. Desperation. Anxiety.

“Do you know anyone named Sid?” she asked. “Or Sidney?”

“Did Joe mention that name?”

Mary didn’t like the eagerness in Bennett’s eyes. “I’m confused. It’s something else. I’m sorry.”

“You were saying,” prodded Bennett. “He knew he was in trouble. How’d he know?”

Mary decided that she’d said enough. “I could just tell,” she fibbed. “He sounded scared. That’s all.”

“He didn’t say anything specific?”

“No,” said Mary. “You can listen for yourself later.”

“If it’s not too much of a problem, I’d like to listen now.” Bennett shifted his eyes over her shoulder. “Well, maybe after. The doc’s here.”

Mary turned to see a tall man wearing surgical greens approaching from the hall. There was a splash of blood on his lower leg.

“Mrs. Grant?”

“Yes.”

The doctor looked at Bennett for a second too long, then returned his attention to Mary. “I’m Dr. Alexander. Come with me.”

4

Mary followed Dr. Alexander down the hallway and into the elevator. She listened carefully as he spoke to her of Joe’s injuries and the surgery and his chances for survival. She asked questions. She was the calm, rational wife even as the horizons of her life shrank and her prospects grew bleak, for while she was listening, she was thinking of herself, her past, and how she’d prepared for this moment.

–

“Mountains don’t get smaller for looking at them,” the admiral had said.

Shying away was not an option. But Mary had never shied away from a challenge in her life, or from anything else, for that matter. Her mother liked to brag that Mary lived “with her elbows out.”

Her youth was a record of plucky survival or divine miracles. She fell off her first pony at age seven. The pony’s hoof caught her in the head, slicing her forehead from port to starboard and leaving her unconscious for God knows how long. When she stumbled into the kitchen, her mother screamed so loudly that the neighbors called 911, certain that someone was being raped, robbed, or tortured with a sharp instrument.

In the hospital afterward, the admiral pinned one of his Purple Hearts on her hospital gown and admitted he’d never seen so much blood in his life, and that included his time running PT boats up the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

Mary’s next brush with mortality came at twelve. While sailing the family Razor on Chesapeake Bay, she misjudged a change in the wind and was knocked clean off the boat by a wild boom. It was December. The ocean was 42° and the current was running strong. By the time she hauled herself back into the boat and returned to the dock, her body temperature had plummeted to 94° and she was shaking like…well, like she was shaking right now. A bout of double pneumonia followed, accompanied by a 106° fever. At some point a priest was brought to her, though Mary had no recollection of any of it. She only remembered the Bible she found at her bedside when she woke up, the ribbon placed at the Twenty-third Psalm.

Later there was a bike accident, a broken leg playing soccer, and concussions playing lacrosse. Mary never considered any of them a big deal. The gash on her forehead was a scratch. The two weeks spent in the hospital, a cold. The priest who came to administer last rites, parental hysteria. She lumped them all together as proof of her invincibility. She’d suffered so much and overcome so many obstacles that she could no longer summon up any situation that might frighten her.

Queen Mary the Lionheart.

All that changed with Grace. The past two years had used up all that confidence and then some. There were only so many nights a mother could spend by a bedside, only so many prayers she could utter. Sooner or later even the most stalwart faltered.

And now Joe.

This was one challenge too many. One mountain she was not equipped to climb.

She was not ready to be a widow. Not now. Not with Grace and her illness and Jessie and her attitude, not with so much of life still in front of her requiring her efforts, so many days to be gotten through.

Stand fast, girl. One hand for the boat and an eye on the horizon.

The elevator reached the fifth floor. The door opened, but Mary didn’t move. She remained where she was, her father’s baritone loud in her ears.

Order refused, Admiral.

Mary was no longer invincible.

Queen Mary the Lionheart was ready to give up her throne.

–

She saw Joe through the window-the sole patient in the ICU, eyes closed, respirator protruding from his mouth, more tubes than she could count running in and out of his body. An army of machines monitored his vital signs. There was a heart monitor. An automatic sphyg-momometer to measure blood pressure. An electroencephalograph for brain function. And many more, all of which Mary knew by name.

“Do I need a gown or mask?” she asked, eyes never leaving her husband’s inert form.

“That won’t be necessary,” said Dr. Alexander.

Mary stepped inside the room and approached the bed. “Joe,” she said softly, as if there were others there she might disturb. “It’s me. I came as soon as I heard. You doing okay?”

Dr. Alexander had been forthright in his explanation of Joe’s injury and his prognosis for recovery. He’d been shot in the chest by a high-caliber weapon. The bullet missed his heart by an eighth of an inch, nicked an artery, then struck the spinal cord before exiting his back. Paralysis below the neck was a foregone conclusion. The bigger issue was loss of brain function because of oxygen deprivation from the prolonged cardiac arrest.

“The paramedics estimate that your husband’s heart had stopped for thirteen minutes when they found him. It’s a miracle he’s alive at all.”

To every profession a code, thought Mary. The FBI had its own vocabulary. Debriefings went sideways. Snitches were CIs. And families didn’t have a “need to know.” Doctors were no better. They spoke of prolonged cardiac arrest and cerebral oxygen deficiency and significant tissue damage. Mary spoke their language, too. She knew the doctor meant that Joe was brain-dead, unable to breathe on his own, and that he had a hole in his back the size of a softball.

What were you doing in Dripping Springs? she inquired silently as she ran a hand through his hair. Why did you call me instead of Don Bennett? Who’s Sid?

A married couple has its code, too. Everything’s copacetic, baby. Meaning “I’m in deep shit and need your help.”

Mary pulled a chair close to the bed and sat. “I’m here, baby,” she whispered in Joe’s ear. “Me and the girls, we know you love us. Take your time. Rest and get better.”

In the elevator she’d asked Dr. Alexander a question: “How many patients have ever come back after being dead for thirteen minutes?”

“None that I’m aware of.”

Mary didn’t like the answer, but at least there was no BS.

She threaded her arm through the protective railings and took her husband’s hand. She looked at the EEG. The gray line ran flat. Pulse: 64. Blood pressure: 90/60. She listened to the wheezing of the respirator.

“But if you need to go, I understand,” she went on. “I’ll make sure Jessie gets to MIT or Caltech or wherever geniuses like her learn all that stuff. You know, she unlocked my phone on the way back from the hospital today. Where does she learn that? And I’ll take care of Gracie. The doc said the spike in white blood cells was just temporary. The blasts haven’t come back. He’s not sure why, but he said we shouldn’t worry. She threw up on the way home. It might have been carsickness. Jessie wouldn’t help clean up. She said she didn’t do floors or windows. That girl knows how to push all my buttons. You two couldn’t be any more alike. Anyway, three more years and Grace is over the hump. Maybe you can give me a hand and watch over her.”

Joe’s hand squeezed hers.

Mary jumped in her chair. “Joe!”

Her eyes locked on the EEG monitor. She willed the gray line to move, to assume its jackhammer pattern, but it remained flat. There was no spark of electrical activity in Joe’s brain. His heart rate didn’t budge, nor did any of the other vital signs register so much as a blip. Mary squeezed his hand, but it was limp to the touch. It had been a spasm. Some last reflexive and wholly unconscious response.

She gazed through the window into the corridor. Dr. Alexander and Don Bennett were deep in conversation. The resigned expressions on both their faces spoke volumes.

For another hour Mary held her husband’s hand. She told him about the first time she saw him walking across Healy Lawn at Georgetown. He’d just completed his second summer of Officer Candidates School at Quantico. His hair was high and tight and his muscles were practically bursting out of his sleeves. He was one good-looking slab of All-American meat. I want me some of that, she’d told herself.

That fall they had shared a theology class called “Jesus in the Twentieth Century.” Lots of essays by Karl Rahner and Martin Buber. And she saw that Mr. Joseph Grant wasn’t some dumb jarhead. He was smart, and funny, too. And like her, he believed in some higher power. Not believed. He knew. Rahner called it love. She was good with that.

She told Joe that marrying him was the happiest moment in her life, and she asked if he remembered holding Jessie an hour after she was born, all of her fitting neatly on his forearm. He’d called her Peanut, because that’s what she had looked like all swaddled, her face so red and wrinkled. And she said that they’d have to put off their anniversary celebration until another time. She wanted to say “until you are better,” but Mary was a no-bullshit girl and Joe liked getting the truth straight, no chaser. Honesty was their bond. They did not lie to one another.

“I looked pretty good in that LBD,” she said. “Don’t know what you’re missing.”

Joe’s hand remained slack.

The EEG didn’t budge.

His chest rose and fell with the respirator.

“Goodbye, hon,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Joe’s body jumped as if he’d been given a jolt of electricity. An alarm sounded. Code blue. Mary stood. Her eyes locked on the heart-rate monitor as the numbers dived and nurses rushed into the room.

“Don’t do anything,” she said. “Let him go.”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said one. “You’ll have to leave.”

Dr. Alexander was there a moment later. Mary looked at him, pleading, and he nodded.

Outside the ICU, she placed her palm against the glass and searched out her husband’s face. A nurse wheeled the defib cart to the bed and took hold of the paddles, raising them above Joe’s chest. Dr. Alexander stopped her, giving a firm shake of the head.

For a moment Mary caught a glimpse of her husband, the proud profile, the raised chin. She closed her eyes, wanting to see him as he was, as she remembered him when he was away.

It was in Samui. Joe walked ahead of her on the beach, Jessie and Grace to either side. He kicked water at them and they kicked it right back. She heard him call their names and laugh. A happy man.

Mary opened her eyes to say goodbye.

“Safe journey.”

5

It was the third lap and Ian Prince was falling behind.

He curled the fingers of his left hand around the throttle of the P-51D Mustang and eased it forward, keeping one eye on the rpm’s, the other on the panorama of earth and sky that wrapped itself around the Perspex canopy and the planes flying above and below him. His right hand gripped the stick lightly as he approached the third pylon, a red-striped oil can set atop a fifty-foot telephone pole. The plane whipped past the pylon, Ian pushed the stick over, and the plane banked sharply, wings tilting to ninety degrees, the Nevada desert an adobe blur. He clamped his mouth shut, holding his breath and tightening the muscles of his core. He was pulling five g’s through the turn, shoulders digging into the seat, jaw burrowing into his neck. The engine whined magnificently, a buzz saw cutting hard lumber. He completed the turn and leveled the wings, the g’s easing, shoulders freed from gravity’s grip.

Ian focused on the tail of the bird in front of him. It was Gordon May’s bird, the Battleax, a P-51D like his. Stalwart of the Second World War. Packard piston engine. Four-bladed propeller. May had painted the plane fire-engine red, his company’s logo covering every inch of the fuselage: MAY MICROCHIPS.

By contrast, Ian’s plane looked factory-new, silver steel skin without a blemish, the Stars and Stripes of the United States Army Air Corps decorating the wings. It had looked no different in May 1945, when George Westerman, a pilot with the 477th Fighter Group, had flown it above the fields of Bavaria and shot down fourteen German aircraft.

Ian had rescued the machine from a scrap-metal yard and, after extensive reconstruction, renamed it Lara, after his mother, which was a nicer name than she deserved. Like his mother, Lara the plane was a mean, hot-tempered bitch who’d kill you as soon as look at you.

Ian feathered the throttle and scanned the instrument panel. The temperature gauge was running high. He looked at the white needle tickling the red. To hell with the heat. He couldn’t wait any longer or May’s lead would be insurmountable.

Ian didn’t like Gordon May.

He disliked losing more.

He pushed the speed back up to 400 knots. The plane shook, reverberations rattling his spine. He held the stick steady. He had thick wrists and large, strong hands. His grip surprised people. Executives in the information technology industry were not renowned for being fit. Somehow it had been ingrained in the public that there was an inverse relationship between IQ and strength. Ian confounded the perception. He was nothing like what people thought he should be.

A fat, slow Grumman Bearcat slipped below him to his left. A relic. A Commodore to his Cray. The comparison pleased him. A smile formed beneath Ian’s goggles and helmet. The smile hardened when he saw May’s tail flash in the sun, only a second or two ahead.

Ian was gaining.

Approaching the last pylon, he brought the plane down to fifty feet, low enough to see the faces of the crowd below. Twenty thousand people had gathered in the high desert north of Reno for the race. The course measured eight miles, an extended oval around ten pylons. Eight times around determined the winner. Pedal to the metal all the way. A sky full of screaming eagles.

Ian had won two and lost two, both losses to Gordon May.

“Not this time,” he said aloud.

He executed a hairpin turn around the outermost pylon, the colorful oil drum threatening to tear off the canopy. Nearer he drew to May, and nearer still. If he could just reach out…

He zipped past the control tower.

Lap four was complete.

Ian held his position through the next two laps, content to hang on May’s tail. The temperature needle had moved firmly into the red. There was nothing to be done. The engine would make it or it wouldn’t. He would win or he wouldn’t. It was a binary universe.

Yet even as he raced and part of his mind swore victory, another part was focused on business. Today was momentous for a number of reasons, of which the air race was the least important. On this day twenty years ago he’d sold his first venture, ONEscape, for $200 million to U.S. Online. And it was exactly a year ago that he’d begun his quest to acquire Merriweather Systems. The deal hadn’t been without a hiccup, but he’d taken the necessary measures to emerge victorious. The acquisition had brought the value of ONE Technologies to a wafer over $200 billion.

Ian completed lap six. Battleax’s flaming red tail remained a plane’s length out of reach, but May was played out. If he had any juice left, he’d have used it by now.

Ian pushed the throttle forward, Lara’s nose nipping at Battleaxe’s tail, twenty feet separating them. He eased himself closer, and closer still, his plane bucking in the slipstream.

Faster, he dared May, the taste of victory on his tongue, filling his mouth.

Ian pulled the stick right, going for the pass. May took his plane outside in an effort to block. Ian feinted right as if trying to go abreast; May kicked out again. It was a reckless move, inviting disaster. Ian saw it coming and ducked to the inside, pushing the engine as hard as it could go. His airspeed jumped to 450 knots. He cruised past May, buzzing his aircraft, essentially leapfrogging him. May’s plane juked in the wake. To save himself, he pulled out of the loop and flew high and clear.

May was done.

Ian never looked back.

He won the race by ten seconds.

–

Ian Prince walked across the tarmac, helmet in hand. He was nearly six feet tall, forty years of age, narrow-beamed but sturdy, with Ray-Bans hiding his eyes, at ease in his flight suit.

“Hey there,” shouted Gordon May, running to catch up. “Prince, you bastard. Hold up. You almost killed me.” He was fifty, a fiery bantamweight with red hair and a complexion like mottled leather.

Ian didn’t break stride. “I could say the same.”

May laid a hand on Ian’s shoulder. “You passed on the inside. That’s against the rules. I’m going to file a complaint with the stewards.”

Ian stopped. “I had no choice,” he said calmly. “You kicked out twice. It was pass inside or collide. I think the stewards will see things my way.”

“Is that right?” said May. “Or else what? Not all your rivals crash and burn.”

“Excuse me?” Ian said.

“I’m talking about Titan. John Merriweather wouldn’t sell you his company if it was the last thing he did. Those machines were like his children. Merriweather was a genius. Not some one-hit wonder who cashes in, then spends the rest of his life on a shopping spree, taking credit for everyone else’s achievements. He was a visionary.”

“Yes,” said Ian. “He was. We’ll honor his legacy.”

“Now that you forced his heirs to sell.”

“I made them an offer. They accepted. I completed the deal out of respect for John. The company isn’t the same without him.”

“Maybe they were afraid their plane might go down, too.”

A crowd had gathered. Ian was careful with his words. “Be quiet, Gordon.”

“Crash and burn,” said May accusingly, enjoying his audience, the chance to make Ian squirm. “Without John there was no one left to oppose you.”

Ian grabbed a fistful of the pilot’s flight suit. He felt the rapt eyes on him, sensed their violent ardor. He could not walk away. Not after what May had said. “You’re out of line.”

“Is that what you said to John Merriweather when he refused to sell?”

A fit, ruddy-faced man wearing a tan suit broke through the bystanders and took hold of May’s shoulder. “That’s enough,” said Peter Briggs, Ian’s chief of security. “You have a problem, take it up with the stewards. Mr. Prince is otherwise occupied.”

Still May held his ground. “The race is on tape,” he said, jabbing a finger at Ian. “You can’t buy your way out of this one. No one cares about your money here. No senators, no congressmen to smooth your way.”

“Goodbye, Gordon.”

“Last race is next week. I’ll see you there. Crash and burn, buddy. Just you try something.”

Ian didn’t respond as May stalked off toward the control tower.

“Miserable prick,” said Peter Briggs.

“I need to get cleaned up.”

6

Mary Grant sat in her car, bathed in the gloom of the parking lot. She had signed all the paperwork and collected Joe’s belongings: his wallet, watch, belt, and tie clip. His suit had been cut off him by the paramedics, and it was hinted that she might not wish to see the ruined garments. The phone was government property. She had thanked Don Bennett and all the other agents from the Austin residency who’d come to the hospital. She had looked for a Sid, but none of the agents present had that name. She had cried and was done crying. And when Bennett asked if she’d like an escort home, or to have someone stay with her, she had declined his offer, politely but firmly.

Everything was copacetic.

The married couple’s code.

Mary took her phone from the dash tray and accessed her voice messages. She needed to hear Joe speak to her one last time. She needed to believe for one more minute that he was still alive. She recalled her daydreaming in the car earlier that afternoon. Dinner at Sullivan’s. A night on the town to celebrate their seventeenth anniversary.

Stop, she ordered herself. It was too easy to fall into the abyss.

She glanced at the screen. The first voice message listed belonged to Jessie and came from that afternoon at 1:55.

“Mom, I’m waiting by the fountain. You’re late. Where are you?”

Actually, she’d been on time. Jessie’s summer school class in computer programming at UT ended at two. The second message was from Carrie Kramer, her next-door neighbor, confirming that she’d be over at 6:30 to babysit. Several more followed. From friends, from the new school, from the doctor’s office.

But nothing from Joe.

Mary sat up straighter. Joe’s had been the last message she had received. It should stand at the top of the list. She felt a pang of anger as she accessed the deleted voice messages. How could she have been so careless?

Again there was no record of Joe’s message.

She popped back to the home screen and checked all recent calls. Joe’s number popped up at the top of the list. Call received at 4:03. Duration: 27 seconds. There it was.

Back to voicemail.

Nothing.

The message was gone.

Mary shifted in her seat, assiduously reviewing her actions. She’d left the phone in the car the entire time she was in the hospital. She’d listened to the message twice before that: once as she’d left home and a second time prior to running into the hospital.

Again she checked the call log. Again she confirmed that Joe had called, before she jumped back to the screens showing current voicemails and deleted voicemails, then back to the home screen.

No message.

Mary lowered her head, fighting a raw, physical urge to scream. It was impossible. The message couldn’t be gone. For it to be truly erased from her phone, she would have had to first delete it from the current messages, then delete all the previously deleted messages. She had done neither. So where was the message?

Dread took hold of her. Joe was gone. Forever. She’d never hear the last words he spoke to her again. Loss pooled inside her. Her breathing grew labored. The abyss beckoned. She dropped the phone onto the seat next to her and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Red-eyed. Frantic. Losing control. Queen Mary the Lionheart was nowhere in sight.

Someone rapped on the window, and Mary jumped in her seat.

“I’m sorry,” said Don Bennett, kneeling beside the car. “You okay?”

Mary wiped at her eyes before rolling down the window. “You surprised me.”

“I know it’s a tough time and I hate bothering you, but I was wondering if I might hear that message.”

“I don’t have it anymore,” said Mary. “It was here-I mean, it was on my phone. I listened to it twice earlier and now it’s gone.”

“Did you delete it?”

“No.”

“It might be in the deleted messages file. I do that all the time.”

Liar, thought Mary. “I checked,” she said. “It’s not there.”

Bennett pursed his lips, the handyman who just might have the right fix. “Do you think I could take a look at your phone? Maybe you missed it.”

“No,” said Mary. “I looked everywhere. It’s not there anymore. It’s not anywhere.”

Bennett thrust his hand through the open window. “Please.”

“No!” Mary recoiled and turned her body away from Bennett, clutching the phone against her body.

Bennett withdrew his hand. He remained on his haunches, face-to-face with her. “Mary, this is a serious matter. There’re going to be a lot of questions about what happened to Joe out there. I’d be grateful for anything that might shed light on it.”

“I’m not an idiot. I know how to use my phone. If I can’t find it, you can’t.”

Bennett nodded, then smiled easily. It was his patronizing, “I’m in the FBI and know better than you” smile. Joe had one, too, and it drove her crazy when he flashed it. “Maybe if you let us take the phone to our lab,” he said, “we can get a closer look. Often something you think is deleted isn’t actually permanently erased.”

“I already told you what Joe said. It was more a feeling than anything else.”

“He didn’t say anything specific about what was wrong?”

“He just said he didn’t like being out there, he thought it was a bad idea, and that he loved us.”

“He didn’t tell you anything more-maybe something about who he was with or what exactly was troubling him?”

“Don’t you know who he was with?”

“I’m just wondering if he might have given you any details.”

“No.”

“Even so, I’d like to take a look. There might be something you missed.”

“I said no.”

“I could subpoena that fuckin’ thing,” said Bennett, eyes pulsing, his face flushed, seemingly a size larger.

“What did you say?”

Bennett eased back from the car. “I didn’t mean that. I’m upset about Joe’s death, too. I just want to do everything I can to find out what really happened.”

Mary jumped on the words. “Don’t you know what really happened? You said the informant shot him. Who was Joe meeting?”

“I can’t go into that. I’m sorry…” Bennett stood, shoulders slumped, hands upturned. “Sorry to trouble you. If there’s anything we can do-me, the office-anything…let us know.”

Mary watched Bennett walk away. He might have asked to see the phone tomorrow, or even in a few days. What kind of a man threatens a grieving woman with a subpoena?

It came to her that Bennett didn’t know what had happened to Joe. Or for that matter who Joe had been meeting. For some reason Don Bennett was frightened.

As Mary started the car and eased it out of the garage, she could think of no other reason that he wanted the message so badly.

Joe, she asked silently, whose business were you looking into?

7

Ian Prince stepped inside his race headquarters, a sixty-foot RV outfitted to his needs. Peter Briggs followed him inside, closing the door behind them.

“That Mick has it in for you.” Briggs was a blunt-faced South African with heavy pouches beneath his eyes and blond hair shaved to a stubble. “Think he’ll make trouble?”

“Gordon May is upset because his is the only company in Silicon Valley I never tried to buy.” Ian unzipped his flight suit, opened the fridge, and grabbed a plastic bottle filled with amber liquid. His recovery drink: water, glucose, guarana, and ginseng. “You see my pass?” he said after guzzling half the bottle. “Only thing I could do.”

“You were in the right, boss,” said Briggs. “The stewards will see things your way. May’s just a bad loser.”

“Maybe.” Ian never forgot a slight, and May’s words had come perilously close to slander.

He finished the bottle and chucked it in the trash. An office occupied a compartment behind the driver’s bay. Personal quarters were to the rear and included a bedroom, bathroom, and rejuvenation center. He hit a switch on the wall, activating the anti-eavesdropping measures. The RV was now a SCIF, a “sensitive compartmented information facility.” Whatever he said in Reno stayed in Reno. “Any news?”

“Problem resolved.”

“Too bad it had to end that way.”

“It had to end. Period.” Briggs had grown up deep in the veldt, and his English carried a thick Afrikaans accent.

“Agreed,” said Ian. “So it’s all tied off?”

“To the very top. Bank it.”

“Banked,” said Ian.

–

After his shower, Ian Prince sat naked in the salon chair as a tall, muscular woman clad in tight black pants and a T went about her business. Her name was Dr. Katarina Fischer, and she was his private longevity consultant.

“Can’t you hurry things, Kat?” Ian asked the Berlin-born physician. “Copter’s coming in an hour. Back to home base. The big test’s tomorrow. Titan. It’s what’s made me such a grump these last months.”

“You are like an impatient little boy. First your vitamins.” Katarina handed him a tray filled with thirty vitamins and other supplements. There were the usual: B12, D, E, Omega-3s, antioxidants. And there were more exotic ones: alpha-lipoic acid, chromium, selenium, CoQ10. Ian swallowed them five at a time.

“Now you will live forever,” said Katarina. She was more handsome than beautiful, her thick white-blond hair cut above the ears, blue eyes couched behind rimless glasses, a broad jaw and broader shoulders.

Ian extended his arm. “Do your worst.”

Katarina drew a vial of blood for analysis. He knew his good cholesterol and his bad, his lipids and his liver function. Recently he’d had his exome sequenced, the portion of his DNA that contained his protein coding. It showed markers for Parkinson’s disease and diabetes, meaning that he was at greater risk than others of contracting them. He had a lesser chance of cancer. And still less of heart disease. The results of today’s blood work would be uploaded to his mailbox in an hour.

“And now your magic potion,” she said, capping the vial.

“Not magic,” said Ian. “Science. Keeps the cells new. Key to aging is the telomere. My ‘magic potion’ stops the ends from chipping off. Like shoelaces. Keep the tips intact and you can live forever.”

“Quatsch,” said Katarina, who knew about these things. Nonsense.

Ian laughed. When Katarina was an eighty-year-old Hanseatic hag with boobs drooping to her buckled knees, he would be climbing mountains, flying his P-51D, and preparing for his next eighty years.

Katarina wheeled the IV stand closer. She swabbed rubbing alcohol on his arm, then slipped the needle into his forearm and slapped on surgical tape to keep it in place. “No moving,” she said. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”

“Zum Befehl.”

Ian looked at the clear solution seeping into his system. His “magic potion” was a substance called phosphatidylcholine and it was a primary ingredient found in human cells, more specifically cell walls. It took the human body one year to regenerate all its cells. Ian wanted each and every one as healthy and robust as an adolescent male’s. One liter of phosphatidylcholine twice a week did the trick. To that he added his daily regime of ninety supplements, four liters of alkaline water, and a Mediterranean diet high in fish oils, nuts, and fruit.

His thoughts turned to Gordon May and his public accusations of Ian’s having a hand in John Merriweather’s death. By all accounts Merriweather’s plane had gone down in bad weather over the Owens Valley near Lone Pine, California, an area notorious for wind shear and turbulence. No evidence of foul play or tampering was ever uncovered. Ian reviewed his actions in the affair from inception to closure. He had nothing to worry about. Everything was tied off. “Banked,” in Briggs’s word.

Ian combated his anxiety by turning his attention to business. Work: the universal healer.

“Pending,” he said, and a list of topics appeared in outline form superimposed on his vision: 1. Titan 2. Bluffdale 3. Clarus.

In his right eye he wore a prototype of an augmented-reality contact lens integrated with newly invented optoelectronic components, including LEDs, microlasers, and the smallest antenna ever created.

He focused on Titan. The font darkened and grew larger. He blinked. The file opened. There, hovering in the middle distance in crisp three-dimensional form, stood the design of John Merriweather’s creation: the Titan supercomputer.

Ian and his team had shrunk the machine as much as possible, yet it was still the size of a refrigerator. Size, however, wasn’t the problem. Heat was. After an hour of operation, temperatures inside the machine surpassed 200° Fahrenheit, wreaking havoc on the circuitry. To solve the problem, Ian had written a software patch to reprogram the cooling system. The first test of the Titan supercomputer under maximum operating conditions was set for the next morning at ten o’clock. By this time tomorrow he would know if the cooling system worked.

Ian noticed that he was picking at his fingernails. He stopped immediately. Thirteen all over again. Well, not quite. The fat was gone, as were the overbite and the Coke-bottle eyeglasses. He had a bit more money in his wallet, too.

He blinked twice, closing the file.

The bag of his magic solution was only half depleted. Ian visualized the substance cleansing his cells, buffing his telomeres to a spit shine. He imagined himself in fifty years and he looked more or less the same as today, save a gray hair here and there. He didn’t want to be a freak, after all.

He opened his eyes and stared at his figure in the mirror. Here is what he saw:

Hair: black, thick, combed back from his forehead. Eyes: one brown, one hazel. Ethnicity: Cosmopolitan. His father was British, an Oxonian by way of Newcastle, tall, square-jawed, blue-eyed, hair black as a raven, skin pale as a day-old corpse. His mother was a platinum-haired beauty from Kiev, her Mongol blood evident in her sloe eyes and razor-sharp cheekbones. Ian wasn’t sure what that made him. His skin was the color of honey, his nose as aquiline as a Roman emperor’s. Other parts had long since been replaced or improved, and as such were no help either.

Ian had given up a flag to claim as his own long ago. Born in London, he’d spent his childhood skipping across Europe as his father advanced rung by rung up the endless hierarchy that was the British Foreign Office. It was a tour of second-rate diplomatic backwaters, with Sofia, Tallinn, and Leipzig the shining lights among them. Still, until he was fifteen, he had considered himself the Queen’s proudest subject, as loyal as John Bull himself.

And then, in an instant, everything changed.

It was a rain-soaked Monday morning in Bruges, no different from any of the dismal January days preceding it. A family breakfast of eggs, beans, and sausage, or as close to a “fry-up” as his Russian mother could manage. Looking back thirty-odd years later, Ian saw the scene as if he were living it. There was the usual banter about football matches the day before. And then it was time for goodbyes. Peter Prince left first, as work demanded. Father and son rose from the table. It was their daily ritual. A handshake and a kiss on the cheek. His father was dressed no differently than on any other day. Navy pinstripe suit. Maroon silk tie. Hair parted with a razor-straight slash. Satchel in his left hand.

“ ’Bye, son.”

A last look over his shoulder. A door closed. And he was gone.

Never to be seen or heard from by any living being again.

Not dead. Not imprisoned. Not kidnapped. Not any one of a thousand explainable disappearances.

Peter St. John Prince simply vanished into thin air.

And so began the second half of Ian’s life.

The unknowing.

All this Ian saw when he looked into his own eyes.

He’d never stopped searching for his father. And now-if the cooling system worked-he had the tool to help find him. Titan.

Ian snapped back to the present. He focused on the second topic. Bluffdale. He blinked and the file opened. He drew up the latest photographs of the massive facility. It was alternately called the Utah Data Center, and it belonged to the National Security Agency, the United States’ most secretive intelligence organization.

Sitting on 240 acres of land above the Jordan River in the northernmost part of the state, the Utah Data Center had one goal and one goal only: to collect the combined traffic of everything that passed through the Internet: e-mails, cell-phone calls, web searches. Everything.

The NSA had chosen the world’s most powerful supercomputer for the task.

In two days Ian was set to fly to the East Coast for a meeting with Titan’s most important client. The meeting was at Fort Meade, Maryland. The client was the National Security Agency. The United States government would not be pleased to learn that it had purchased a supercomputer that had a tendency to melt when operating at full capacity.

Ian closed the file.

The bag of his magic potion was empty.

He pulled the needle from his arm and stood, making sure to place a wad of gauze over the puncture.

He looked at himself in the mirror.

So who was he, then?

In the end, Ian preferred to think of himself in terms of numbers. Height: Five feet ten inches. Weight: 175 pounds. Body fat: 16%. IQ: 156.

There was a last number he liked best: 58.

As of this unpleasantly hot day in July, Ian Prince was worth $58 billion.

8

It was a quiet night in Pedro’s Especiale Bar and Grill in Austin, Texas.

Tank Potter sat atop his favorite stool, elbows on the bar, eyes glued to the envelope placed in front of him. Pedro kept the joint as dark as a Brownsville cathouse, and Tank had to squint to read the words typed across its face: Henry Thaddeus Potter. Personal and Confidential.

Only a few of the regulars were in. Dotty and Sam, the swinging septuagenarians, were swilling margaritas at one end. French and Bobby had taken claim of the TV and were cursing at ESPN at the other. Tank’s stool was in the middle. He called it his “umpire’s post,” because from it he was able to adjudicate any disagreements that might break out. He was hard to miss no matter where he sat. At forty-two years of age, he went six-four, two-fifty, with forty-six-inch shoulders. There was also the matter of his hair, which was thick, brown, and unruly and defied the best efforts of his brush. To combat any impression of carelessness, he made a point to dress neatly. This evening his khakis were pressed, his Oxford button-down starched so that it could stand on its own. As always, he wore Nocona ropers to remind him that he was a Texas boy, born and bred.

“Pedrito,” he called, raising a hand to give the place a little excitement. “Uno más, por favor.”

A chubby middle-aged man with slicked-back hair and a Pancho Villa mustache poured him a shot of Hornitos in a clean glass. “Good news or bad?”

“What do you mean?”

“You been staring at that envelope for the last hour. You going to open it or what?”

“Already did.” Tank tapped the envelope on the bar, feeling the single sheet of paper slide from side to side. He was a journalist by profession, and he was hard put to come up with ninety-six words that more concisely conveyed the message on that page.

“And?”

“Buggy whip,” said Tank.

Pedro opened a Tecate and placed the bottle next to the tequila. “What is a leather crop used to hit a horse to make it pull a carriage or one of them hansom cabs in Central Park? Buggy whip.”

“Wrong,” said Tank, with a polite tilt of the bottle before he took a swig. “And you don’t have to repeat the word at the end. This isn’t a spelling bee.”

“What do you mean, wrong? What do you think a buggy whip is?”

“Technically, you’re correct,” Tank conceded. “But it wasn’t a question.”

“You trying to make some kind of point?”

“You asked about the envelope.”

Pedro leaned against the bar. “Okay, then. Shoot.”

And so Tank told Pedro the story.

At the turn of the twentieth century, everyone rode horses to get around. Wagons and carriages were the most popular means of transport for groups of people traveling any kind of distance. You couldn’t have a carriage without a buggy whip. Buggy whips were everywhere, and so were the companies that made them.

Then one day automobiles appeared. They were regarded as marvels and quickly became objects of envy. But for many years they were too expensive for regular folk. Still, little by little the price of this newfangled invention fell. Each year more people bought automobiles and fewer people rode in horse-drawn carriages.

“What do you think happened to buggy whips?” asked Tank in conclusion.

Pedro drew a finger across his throat.

“Exactly. The second cars got cheap, demand for the buggy whip collapsed. The buggy-whip manufacturers tried everything to improve their products and make them less expensive, but it didn’t matter. People couldn’t care less whether a buggy whip looked sharper or lasted longer. They were driving Model T’s, Chryslers, and Chevrolets. No one needed a buggy whip, no matter how nifty it was. Until finally one day no one was riding in a carriage at all.” Tank downed his shot and banged the glass on the bar as a fitting endnote. “Goodbye, buggy whip.”

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Pedro.

“Because you’re looking at one,” said Tank.

“A buggy whip? I thought you were a reporter.”

“Same thing. You’re looking at a living, breathing example of technical obsolescence. A walking anachronism. Like the abacus or the typewriter or the fax…and now the newspaper.”

“How’s a buggy whip like a newspaper?”

“It’s like this: a reporter is to a newspaper as a buggy whip is to a horse-drawn carriage. Follow?”

Pedro’s face lit up. “Now I know what’s in the envelope.”

“Well, you don’t have to look so stinkin’ happy about it.”

Pedro frowned and retreated to the end of the bar as Tank finished his beer. He put down the empty and swiveled on his stool, looking at the piñatas hanging from the ceiling and the velvet black-light paintings of Selena and Jennifer Lopez.

Tank’s real name was Henry Thaddeus Potter. He’d started life as Henry, then Hank, then Hank the Tank, by virtue of his playing fullback on a state championship team at Westlake High. After four years as a Texas Longhorn, he was just Tank. It made for good copy. He was stuck with it.

His phone rang and he checked the caller. “Yeah, Al.”

“You at Pedro’s?” demanded Al Soletano, managing editor of the Austin American-Statesman, Tank’s employer for the past sixteen years. “Betty said she saw your car there. I need you to come in.”

“I already got my envelope.”

“You read it all the way through? The new management is itching for an excuse to fire you for cause. It would save them a lot of dough. You have thirty days until the deal clears. Keep your nose clean until then. In the meantime, we got a breaking story. An FBI agent got himself killed in Dripping Springs. Thought you might want to handle it. You know-a last hurrah.”

“My beat is state politics.”

“This one’s in our backyard. I’m not giving it to a wire service. I’ve still got my pride.”

“You mean you’re short a crime reporter.”

“Press conference is at nine at the Federal Building.”

“In the morning?”

“Tonight. Don’t be late. And Tank-no more cocktails.”

Tank hung up and asked for his tab. Pedro put the bill on the counter, concerned. “Leaving already? The señoritas aren’t here yet.”

“Duty calls.”

The bartender flashed his most optimistic smile. “So you’re not fired?”

Tank slapped the envelope on the bar. “Buggy whip, Pedro. It’s only a matter of time.”

9

Tank crossed the street and climbed into his ’98 Jeep Cherokee. The engine turned over after a few tries, no buggy whip needed. His first task was to roll down the windows. The air conditioning was DOA and the fan had as much power as a fruit fly’s wings. This accomplished, he reached under his seat for a backstop and took a two-second swizzle of Cuervo. Soletano had said no more cocktails. He hadn’t mentioned pick-me-ups.

The FBI residency was off Ben White in South Austin, no more than a fifteen-minute drive. Tank made a U-turn against traffic and headed north. To the west the sky was flaming red. A wavy black line rose from the river and climbed east into the purple dusk. A gust of warm, fetid air washed through the car and he grimaced.

The bats.

Each spring a million bats migrated north from Mexico to Austin to nest beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge. Every evening they left the damp, cool recesses of the bridge and flew east to scour the countryside for insects. The air was thick with their musty, throat-clawing odor.

Tank continued on Lamar, skirting the south shore of the Colorado River, the skyscrapers of downtown Austin to his left. He spotted Potter Tower, built by his grandfather in the late 1980s. To answer Pedro’s question, yes, there was money in the envelope. Or at least the promise of money. More money than Tank was likely to see again in one lump sum.

The Potter family money was a thing of the past. Oil dried up. Real estate crashed. Besides, his mother wasn’t the first Mrs. Potter and he wasn’t the first male heir to carry on the family name.

Tank arrived at the FBI’s office ten minutes later. The lot was half full and he parked in a far corner. He scoped out the place and took a quick snort from his backstop. It was just 8:30, and he chided himself for leaving Pedro’s so quickly. A car pulled into the lot and he spotted a slim, eager-looking man in short sleeves and a black tie hustling inside. It was the AP stringer out of Dallas. The enemy. No small-market paper could afford a full complement of reporters these days, not with circulation down 50 percent in the past ten years.

A minute later two dark sedans pulled into the lot, braked dramatically by the double glass doors, and disgorged several men in business suits. He recognized Don Bennett, the agent who headed up the Austin residency. Another ten minutes remained before the press conference was scheduled to begin. God knew they never started on time.

Hurry up and wait. It was a reporter’s life.

Tank sipped from the Cuervo and turned up the music. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys sang about lost loves and ruined lives. The night had cooled, and Tank leaned his head back and gazed out the window at the darkening sky. He remembered his own cheatin’ wife, gone these past five years. There hadn’t been anyone serious since, just the floozies from Pedro’s…though he did enjoy their company. He thought he saw a shooting star. He relaxed a notch.

Damn if it wasn’t a beautiful night.

–

Tank woke with a start.

He grabbed the steering wheel and pulled himself upright, then wiped away a lick of drool that had dried on his cheek. It was 10:45. He’d passed out for almost two hours. He looked around, still getting his bearings. The lot was empty. The press conference was over.

He bolted from the car, ran to the front doors, and banged furiously. A young hotshot came down the hall and opened the door a crack. “Yeah?”

“I need a summary from the press conference.”

“And you are?”

“Tank Potter. Statesman.”

“Press conference ended an hour ago.” The hotshot was hardly old enough to have his first hangover, with a fresh high-and-tight and his sidearm high on the hip. A real greenhorn.

“Just give me your write-up, okay?” said Tank. “Don’t be a dick about it.”

The hotshot gave him a look, then smiled. “Sure. Wait here.”

“Thanks, bro.”

Tank retreated down the steps and lit a cigarette. He checked his phone and saw that Al Soletano had left ten messages. Tank swore under his breath. They couldn’t dismiss him for missing a press conference.

The hotshot came outside and handed him the summary. “Headed out?”

“Yeah,” said Tank. “Bedtime.” In fact he was hoping to get back to the office, file his story, and make it to Pedro’s by midnight.

“I’ll walk you. That you in the corner?”

“The Jeep? That’s it. Got two hundred thousand miles on the original engine. A real trooper. You with the Bureau?”

“APD. Detective Lance Burroughs. Liaison.”

“Really? Detective? Didn’t know they were promoting right out of college.”

“I’m thirty-two.”

Tank tried to read the release, but his eyes sucked and the light was too low anyway.

“Did I miss anything?”

“You’ll find everything we have there. There’ll be a follow-up conference sometime tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.” Tank reached his car and Burroughs opened the door for him. Tank looked at him for a second, then climbed in and closed the door. “Thanks again, detective. Appreciate it.”

“Say, Tank, where do you live?”

“Tarrytown,” he said as he started the engine. “Why do you ask?”

“You may not be making it home tonight.”

“What do you mean? Car runs fine. Secret is to change the oil every two thousand miles.”

The hotshot had stepped away from the car and stood with hands on his hips. “Sir, would you turn the car off?”

Tank dug his chin into his neck. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Just do as I say, sir. Turn off your engine and step out of the vehicle.”

“But…” Tank looked down. It was then that he saw the fifth of Cuervo lying on the seat beside him.

“Now, Mr. Potter. You’re under arrest for driving while intoxicated.”

10

It was late when Mary returned home. She parked in the front drive and stayed behind the wheel after she cut the engine. Through the front window she could see the girls watching television. For the rest of their lives they would remember that they were watching Survivor when their mother came home and informed them of their father’s death.

Mary got out of the car and managed a few steps toward the house before stopping. The front door was twenty feet and a mile away.

Mountains don’t get smaller for looking at them.

Mary listened to the buzzing of the cicadas, the murmur of the television, the cycling of the air conditioning on and off. One more minute of innocence. One more minute of not knowing. One more minute of not feeling like she did.

Jessie spotted her car and jumped up from the couch. Grace rose, too. Both hurried to the front door, eager to learn why she was home so late. Their children’s sense had warned them that something was wrong. They had no idea.

Jessie opened the door. “Mom, what were you doing just standing there?”

Mary started up the walk. “Coming, peanut.”

Grace pushed her way in front of her older sister. “Where’s Daddy?”