Invasion of Privacy

29

At seven a.m. the sun bore down on the tarmac of Ben Gurion Airport on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. It had been a hot summer in the eastern Mediterranean. The last rain had fallen one hundred days earlier. In the north, the olive groves of Judea were withering. The River Jordan had dwindled to a trickle. The forecast for the days ahead offered no relief. Once again in its tortured history, the state of Israel was under siege.

Inside the private air terminal, a group of ten men milled freely in the air-conditioned lounge. Most were in their forties and fifties. All were slim, tanned, and fit. They dressed similarly in dark blazers, open-collared shirts, and pressed slacks. The habit of wearing a uniform was too deeply ingrained to discard altogether. They spoke in hushed tones, never raising their voices. This, too, was a habit. In the secret world, even a whisper could be too loud. The men knew a thing or two about listening.

The transit bus arrived. The men filed out of the building and climbed aboard. None availed himself of a seat as the bus drove across the airfield, darting in between Lufthansa jumbo jets and El Al 787s taxiing for takeoff. All stared intently out the windows, as if memorizing the surroundings.

The bus continued to the southern edge of the field. Its destination was a gleaming white Boeing 737 parked at the far corner. The plane bore no insignia apart from a stylized Roman numeral I painted on its tail. A blond flight attendant welcomed the men aboard with a broad smile and a personal greeting. “Good morning, General Gold…Colonel Wolkowicz…Major Aaron…”

The men were impressed, even if no one commented. It had been years since they’d been addressed by their rank, and never by a buxom blonde with a pleasing Texan drawl.

Once aboard, all were free to sit where they chose. The plane offered thirty seats, two to a row. Each seat was its own private sleep station, with a recumbent lounger, desk, and entertainment center. Aft was a lounge with couches, desks, a kitchen with gourmet food, and a fully stocked bar.

The flight attendant passed through the cabin taking orders for preflight libations. Nine of the men ordered orange juice-again the habit of lifelong soldiers. Only David Gold ordered a beer, but he was the group’s leader and not subject to group norms. The beer was a Lone Star. Of course it was.

Gold looked around him. At Aaron and Wolkowicz. At Stern and Silverman. The past seemed to well up around him. He saw them as they’d been in their newly issued khaki uniforms, hair shorn, standing at attention inside the barracks at Glilot. How long ago was it? Twenty years? Thirty?

Even then they had been brilliant. Top graduates of his country’s university’s electrical engineering and computer science programs. He had not been able to spare them the rigors and indignities of basic training. Nor had he wished to. Though they would never lift a weapon in their country’s defense, they required toughness nonetheless. The task of listening demanded unimagined stamina.

“You are now members of Unit 8200,” he had announced all those years ago, “the most important unit inside the Israel Defense Forces. It is your job to keep our country safe.”

Started in 1952 with a roomful of surplus American radio equipment, Unit 8200-also known as the Central Collection Unit of the Intelligence Corps-was responsible for every aspect of the nation’s signals intelligence operations. It was the unit’s job to monitor all security-related intelligence from television, radio, newspapers, and, more recently, the Internet. In the United States, the National Security Agency performed a similar function. In Great Britain, the surveillance corps went by the name GCHQ, the Government Communications Headquarters.

No one, however, could spy like the Israelis. In terms of engineering skill, operational creativity, and sheer audacity, they had allies and enemies beat by a mile.

For years Gold had led the unit, turning raw recruits into the savviest band of surveillance artists the world had ever known. But that was then. A man had to make a living. He had to support a family. A life on a government salary held little appeal.

So when David Gold left the army, he took his recruits and their skills with him and founded a company to sell those skills to the highest bidder. He named the company Clarus. And it flourished.

The flight attendant closed the forward door. Minutes later she requested that they all take their seats and attach their safety belts. The plane trembled as it began its transit to Runway 29er. The captain welcomed his esteemed cargo aboard and announced that flying time to Austin, Texas, would be seventeen hours, including a refueling stop in Tenerife, Canary Islands.

The plane was lightly loaded and took off steeply into a royal-blue sky. The men gazed out the windows and took a last look at their home, the land of Isaac and Abraham. The plane banked to the west and in minutes was cruising at an altitude of 41,000 feet over the Mediterranean Sea.

The executives from the Clarus Corporation relaxed and retreated deep into their thoughts. They would not be coming home for a long while. Yet not one regretted his choice.

They were all about to become enormously wealthy.

30

Up at first light.

Mary was a sailor’s daughter, trained to rise without lingering. By the time her feet hit the floor she had a dozen tasks lined up and ranked in order of importance. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and combed her hair. She avoided her eyes. It was not a day for soul-searching and self-pity. Joe wouldn’t have it. It was a day for action.

Finished in the bathroom, she padded down the hall and checked on the girls. Jessie lay on top of her sheet, legs splayed, phone within reach of her hand. She was like a secret agent who never slept without her gun hidden beneath her pillow.

Mary left the room and continued down the hall. Grace lay solemnly beneath her sheet, her breathing measured, her position unchanged from when Mary had tucked her in.

Squirm. Struggle. Knock off the sheets.

If she wanted Jessie calmer, she prayed that Grace be more forceful. One child fought too much, the other not nearly enough.

Gently she pulled back the sheet. She saw it and her breath caught. There on Grace’s thigh, where she’d hit the side of the trampoline enclosure, was a bruise the size of a tennis ball. Or was it something else? Something that had weakened Gracie’s system so that she had vomited when she’d taken her new medicine?

The disease was known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL. In its most basic form it was a cancer of the white blood cells. Some mutation in Grace’s DNA caused her body’s bone marrow continually to produce malignant immature white blood cells, which crowded out the normal blood cells in the marrow before spreading to other organs. The overall cure rate in children was 80 percent, but the doctors worried that Grace might have a more aggressive variety of the disease, one that had the potential to go crazy really fast and be fatal in weeks or even days. Though the illness had been under control, Mary could never stop worrying. Every bruise was a cause for concern. The perpetual uncertainty was a mother’s worst nightmare.

Mary rearranged the sheet as it had been. Grace didn’t move a muscle.

Mary kissed her fingers and touched her daughter’s forehead. “Love you, mouse.”

–

In the kitchen Mary brewed a pot of coffee, then powered up the desktop and entered the address for the local paper. She was anxious to learn what new information the FBI had revealed about Joe’s death and in particular whether they’d released the name of the informant. To her bewilderment, there was no mention of the shooting on the front page. She had to go all the way to page nine to find an article about Joe, and even then it was unsatisfying. There was no news about the informant’s identity. The only new material discussed Joe’s career at the FBI. One line in particular gnawed at her. “Grant was passed over for promotion to headquarters earlier in the year and transferred from Sacramento to aid in the Austin residency’s criminal investigations.”

Mary fumed. Who were they to say Joe was passed over? Again she felt Don Bennett’s hand at work. She shifted in her seat, recalling his pat explanation: “The investigation is closed. I told you what happened.”

Liar.

Mary checked the New York Times and Washington Post websites. Neither offered further insight into her husband’s death. Worse, both carried the same line about Joe’s being passed over for promotion. It was a smear, pure and simple, a purposeful effort to besmirch his reputation and shift blame for the shooting away from the Bureau and onto him.

Mary opened her drawer and took out the boarding pass stub for the flight from Austin to San Jose. In the past Joe had traveled frequently with a fellow agent named Randy Bell. Randy had been over to the house dozens of times. He was a kind, avuncular man ten years Joe’s senior. It was only then that she realized that Randy hadn’t called to offer his condolences.

She still had his number programmed into her phone. Six a.m. in Austin meant four a.m. in Sacramento. She made a mental note to call him in a few hours.

She spent a few minutes reading e-mails, checking her bank balance. Thoughts of the future elbowed their way to the front of her mind. Worries about money, about Grace, about…well, everything.

A knock on the sliding glass door made her jump. Carrie Kramer stood in her running gear, pointing at her watch. Six a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays was their designated run time. Once the sun rose above the treetops, it grew too warm for anything but a brisk walk.

“Not today,” said Mary as she unlocked the sliding door.

“What do you mean? It’s six. Let’s motor.”

Mary thought of Grace and the blasts and the boarding pass and the call she needed to make to Randy Bell. “I can’t. There’s too much-”

“Three miles before it gets hot. Come on. You need to do this.”

Mary put aside the iPad. Carrie was right. Running cleared her mind and kept her sane. Today she needed that respite more than ever. “Give me a second.”

She returned in five minutes. She looked at Carrie and laughed. Both were wearing blue shorts, white T’s, and white caps, ponytails pulled through the hole. “Twins,” she said.

“And the girls-still sleeping?”

“No one opens an eye until eight,” said Mary lightly, refusing to worry about Grace until she got back. “You’re right. I need to do this. Let’s go out the front.”

“Twenty-nine minutes,” said Carrie.

“You’re on.”

31

“We’ve got some action,” said the Mole.

He and Shanks sat in the work area of the Mercedes Airstream. The interior was a hive of high-definition monitors and state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. The van was engineered for use by law enforcement and built by Guardian TSE (“technical surveillance equipment”), one of hundreds of companies owned by ONE Technologies. Images from the camera the Mole had installed the day before lit up the screen. The men watched the women leave the house and start their run.

“Which one you want?” asked Shanks. “Me, I like the one with the yellow shoes and the nice ass. You can have the one with the big rack.”

“Not my type,” said the Mole.

“Ah, yeah. I forgot. You don’t like ’em that way.”

“What way is that?”

“Ripe.”

Another screen listed all online activity performed by the computers inside the house on Pickfair Drive, each device identified by its specific fifteen-digit IP number. The Mole checked the recent sites visited. Austin American-Statesman. New York Times. Washington Post. He clicked on each and was rewarded with links to the articles Mary Grant had read, the time spent on each site. It appeared that she was checking on her husband. Nothing mysterious about that.

Afterward she’d accessed her e-mail account, but the site was encrypted and he was unable to see whose mail she read or to whom she’d sent messages.

So far this morning, Mary Grant was being a good girl.

The Mole stood and moved into the driver’s seat.

“What are you doing?” asked Shanks.

“We’re taking a ride. I’m not going to sit inside this van forever.”

The Mole left the parking lot and drove past the Grants’ house, stopping a half block farther on. Shanks put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.”

“Move your hand before I cut it off.”

“If Briggs finds out-”

“If?” said the Mole. “That’s the point of this exercise.”

Shanks looked at the Mole. Little guy. Five-eight, tops. One hundred and fifty pounds dripping wet. He could tear a runt like that apart limb by limb. Yet the Mole sent a shiver down his spine as surely as if it were the Reaper staring him in the eye. He pulled his hand away. “All you, man.”

The Mole chuckled, his tongue dashing over his lips.

–

The sliding door at the rear of the house was unlocked. The kitchen appeared empty. The Mole slid the door on its track and stepped inside. Head cocked, he listened. He loved this moment most: the thrill of trespass. He crossed the room and peered around the corner. He saw no one. He turned and made a circuit of the kitchen, an eye open for Mary Grant’s cell phone. He picked up a tablet, but it was locked and would take far too long to break into.

Another scan of the countertops. No phone.

He returned to the hall. A bowl by the front door held car keys, chewing gum, mints, but nothing of interest. He climbed the stairs. A door on either side of the hall. The nearest was ajar. He nudged it open. A blond head peeked from beneath the covers. Golden hair. Flushed cheeks. His breath hitched. It was the younger girl, Grace.

Half against his will, he stepped inside, forgetting all about Mary Grant’s phone. He wanted a trophy. He held his phone in front of him, slipped his knife free, the stiletto. He moved his hand into the frame, making sure the tattoo was visible, and began filming.

The hand moved the blade toward the girl’s cheek, her ruby lips, her fluttering eyelids. He smelled her breath.

Across the hall, a footfall. The floor groaned beneath a person’s weight.

The Mole hurried out of the room. A look toward the master bedroom. He saw a phone on the nightstand. Inches away, a shadow passed beneath the door. It was the other daughter.

Still, the Mole did not flee. He clutched the stiletto tightly, asking himself if the moment had come. If, finally, he would act on his desires. His fingers tingled with anticipation.

All she had to do was open the door.

The shadow moved and he walked down the stairs and left the house.

32

“You won.”

Mary bent over, hands on her knees, breathing hard. Sweat dripped from her brow onto the ground.

“Today doesn’t count,” said Carrie, bent over double right next to her.

“Thanks.”

“Was I right?”

Mary stood up, finally catching her breath. They’d done three miles in twenty-eight minutes. Not their best, but far from their worst. “Yes,” she said. “You were right. I needed that.”

“What time do you leave tomorrow?”

“We’re not. They’re keeping Joe longer to do an autopsy.”

“Oh?” said Carrie. “Is that normal?”

“The funeral home director says it is. There’s nothing I can do about it. To tell you the truth, I’m relieved. The girls don’t love Boston.”

Mary walked up the front path and entered the house. In the kitchen she poured them both a glass of water. Carrie drank hers down and set the glass in the sink. “Have you started thinking about what’s next for you and the girls?”

“Not yet.”

“Did Joe leave much?”

“There’s his pension and life insurance.”

“What about savings?”

“With two kids, on a government salary? At least we’ll still get his health coverage. Either way, I’m going to have to go back to work.”

“What about med school? You told me you wanted to be a doctor. This could be your chance.”

“Four years before internship and residency. Yeah, right.”

“So you’ve thought about it?”

“Long enough to know it’s not going to happen.” Mary looked at Carrie, then looked away. She would consider her options at a future date. After she figured out what had happened to her husband.

“If you need something in the meantime…you know, something to tide you over. Mark’s making bank these days. Maybe he can get Jess something at Apple next summer. You know, an internship.”

“That’s sweet, but we’re okay.” Mary gave Carrie a hug and squeezed her tight for a long time. “Thanks.”

Carrie checked her watch. “Gotta run. You okay?”

Mary nodded and gave her bestie another hug. Carrie left through the sliding door.

Mary went upstairs and showered, reminding herself to call Randy Bell as soon as she got out. She remembered he liked his scotch. Maybe she’d catch him hungover and in a mood to spill about his and Joe’s trips to San Jose.

Finished, she towel-dried her hair. Once or twice she heard a faint noise and stopped to listen, but then it was gone. She brushed her hair and got dressed for day two of widowhood. No black for her. She chose tan shorts and a navy T. Joe would have liked it this way. She went into the bedroom and heard the noise again. Someone was moaning.

Grace.

She ran down the hall and opened the door to her daughter’s room. The girls lay on top of the bed, Jessie pointing at the bruise on Grace’s thigh and laughing. “She looks like a Minion, Mom. All yellow with a big black dot in the middle.”

Grace knocked her sister’s hand away. “Tell her to stop teasing me.”

Jess kept pointing. “No, not like a Minion. It’s like grackle poo. Even worse.”

Grackles were loud, obnoxious birds the size of crows that clustered in the hundreds at shopping malls and parking lots around the city.

“Jess, please,” said Mary. “Be nice.”

“Grace has grackle poo on her leg.”

“Mom.”

“Jessie, stop bothering your sister.”

“She called me fat.”

“I did not. I was just watching a video when Jess came in and started bothering me.”

Mary sat on the bed beside Grace. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” said Grace. “It’s nothing.”

Mary fetched an ice pack from the freezer. When she returned the girls were friends again, shoulder to shoulder, watching a video on the laptop. Gingerly she placed the ice pack on Grace’s leg, but Grace paid no attention.

“What are you guys doing up so early?” asked Mary.

“You woke me up,” said Jessie without looking at her. “I heard you walking around Grace’s room.”

“You did?”

“Then I heard you shut the sliding door.”

“But Carrie and I went out the front.”

“Whatever.” Jessie turned her attention back to the video playing.

Mary dismissed Jessie’s comment as…well, just Jessie. She craned her neck to look at the computer. The girls were watching some kind of animal in a crib. It had its paws on the railing and seemed to have a silly expression on its face. “What in the world is that?”

“A sloth,” said Jessie.

“A what?”

“A two-toed South American tree sloth,” said Grace between giggles. “Isn’t he cute?”

Mary turned away to wipe at a tear, drawing a breath and telling herself to relax. When she looked back at the laptop, she was smiling. “Yes, he is cute,” she said, trying to get in the spirit of things. “You just want to cuddle him, don’t you?”

Jessie sprang up onto an elbow. “Can we get one? Please!”

33

After Mom and Jess left, Grace looked up sloths on Wikipedia. She was fascinated to learn that they slept twenty-three hours a day and that it took them an hour to walk one hundred yards. They really were as slow as everyone said. She decided that she loved sloths, even if her mom had said that there was no way on God’s green earth they were ever getting one.

Grace closed the laptop and sat up. The sudden movement made her wince. Her leg felt as if it were glued to her hip. It didn’t want to move. She looked toward the door to make sure it was closed and no one was watching, then she stood up. It took her a while, and it hurt a lot. She was glad no one could see.

She went into the bathroom and pulled up her nightgown. She prodded her thigh and gasped. Bruises didn’t usually hurt so badly. Maybe it was the other thing. The thought frightened her so much she wanted to cry. She bit on her finger to stop. It wouldn’t be fair to Mommy to tell her. Not now, with Daddy gone. Mommy had enough problems.

Grace limped back to her bed. She spent a minute talking to her father, asking if he was all right. He didn’t answer. She thought that was because he wasn’t in heaven yet. She didn’t really believe in heaven. At least, not like in the Bible. She believed in something else. Something just as good. It was warm and welcoming and somewhere up in the night sky. She knew her dad was there and he’d talk to her when he could.

Grace needed to ask him about the bruise. The doctor said she was all better, but Grace had read lots about the disease that had tried to kill her. She knew that not all girls got cured. Someone had to be one of the two out of ten who didn’t make it.

She took another look at the bruise. She told herself it was from the trampoline. It wasn’t cancer. God wouldn’t do that to their family. Not after taking Dad.

She decided not to tell Mommy about her leg. She didn’t think she could take it right now.

34

“Mine.”

Fort George C. Meade sat on five thousand acres of rolling Maryland countryside twenty-six miles northeast of Washington, D.C. First opened in 1917, it was chosen as the home of the National Security Agency in the 1950s because of its proximity to the nation’s capital. With the Cold War at its peak and the Cuban missile crisis fresh in American minds, Fort Meade was deemed close enough to Washington for easy commuting and far enough away to survive a nuclear attack. Now Fort Meade was home to more than forty thousand employees, many of whom held a top-secret security clearance.

The fort had its own post office, fire department, and police force. Electrified fences ran the length of the installation’s perimeter. Security cameras and motion detectors covered every square foot. To block any electromagnetic signals from escaping, protective copper shielding wrapped every one of the more than 1,300 buildings inside the compound.

Waiting at the checkpoint as his identification was examined, Ian Prince looked through the rows of fences at the rectangular black glass office building a half mile away that housed the headquarters of the nation’s most secretive intelligence organization.

“Mine,” he repeated to himself.

It was the NSA’s mandate to collect and analyze all signals communication and data relating to foreign intelligence, by overt and clandestine means. Thirty years ago that meant intercepting suspicious radio, telephone, and satellite traffic. Today it meant all that plus policing the Internet, not just monitoring all forms of online traffic for clues to evil intent but protecting all United States government communications and information systems from foreign interference and disruption. On this sunny, humid day, Ian and his colleagues had come to offer ONE’s assistance with both objectives.

“Here you are, sir,” said the guard, returning Ian’s ID and those of his passengers, Peter Briggs and Dev Patel. “Welcome to Fort Meade.”

Ian noticed the guard’s quizzical gaze. “Anything wrong?”

It was not his first trip to Fort Meade, or his second, or even his tenth. Since October 2001 he’d been secretly visiting three or four times a year. Each time he got the same dumbfounded look.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be driving,” said the guard. “I thought you’d have a chauffeur.”

“I always drive,” said Ian, giving a salute.

“Yessir. Have a good day.”

The gate rose. Simultaneously the steel Delta barrier sank into the ground. Ian headed down a long winding lane toward the black building, officially known as OPS2A. He remembered the feeling of awe he’d experienced on his first visits, the visceral thrill of being so close to the most powerful data-collection apparatus in the world. It was then that the idea had first come to him.

Over time his awe had tempered as he and ONE became the NSA’s partner, albeit a silent and secret one. Today, as he closed in on his dream, as the changing of the guard grew near, he felt only pride. A father’s pride. One day soon this would all be his.

–

The Emperor was waiting inside the conference room when Ian arrived.

“Good to see you, Ian,” said General Terry Wolfe of the United States Air Force, director of the National Security Agency, chief of the Central Security Service, and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. He was known throughout the intelligence community as the Emperor. “Has it been six months?”

“Seven,” said Ian. “December, I believe.”

Wolfe greeted Patel warmly, addressing him as Dr. Patel. Briggs waited outside.

“Time flies,” said Wolfe, leading them to the table. “Must have been before all that Merriweather nonsense.”

“It was,” said Ian. “That’s all behind us, I take it.”

The “nonsense” was the lengthy investigation conducted by the FBI into allegations of bribery and extortion surrounding ONE’s acquisition of Merriweather Systems. The same allegations Gordon May had made two days before on the airstrip in Reno, though there had never been any mention of complicity in the plane crash that took John Merriweather’s life.

It was in response to these charges that Ian had deemed it necessary to hack into the FBI’s central computer system. He’d been able to gather enough information to put a stop to the FBI’s queries. But the price had been high. His work had not gone unnoticed by the Bureau’s Cyber Investigations Division and Special Agent Joseph Grant.

“The FBI says it is. Who am I to argue?” Wolfe took his place at the head of the conference table and motioned for Ian to sit at his right.

The director of the NSA was of medium height and medium build, with thinning hair, a puffy, pleasant face, and timid blue eyes that blinked often behind rimless eyeglasses. Not so much an emperor as a middle-aged father who’d been up late the night before helping a child with his homework. In his tenure at the helm of the NSA, he had turned a once sleepy, unheralded intelligence agency into the nation’s most vaunted fighter of terrorism. When General Terry Wolfe wanted something, both Congress and the military came running, checkbooks at the ready.

Ian opened the bottle of mineral water placed before him, waiting for any mention of Semaphore. The word was not spoken.

With Wolfe was Bob Goldfarb, director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the nation’s foremost computer research hub. Goldfarb was old and gnomish, with as much hair sprouting from his ears as on top of his mottled head.

“Hello, Bob,” said Ian. “Long time.”

“Exaflops,” whispered Goldfarb. “Can it be?”

Ian answered with a cryptic smile. All good things to those who wait.

“Shall we get down to brass tacks?” said Wolfe. “Are we to understand that you’ve solved the heating problem?”

“That’s correct,” said Ian.

“And none too soon,” said Goldfarb. “Cutting it close, are we?”

“We can’t risk another incident,” said Wolfe diplomatically. “Bluffdale is our number-one priority these days. We have a lot invested in the demonstration.”

Bluffdale, Utah, was home to the Utah Data Center, soon to be the world’s largest intelligence collection and storage site, where six months earlier the NSA had installed two hundred Titan supercomputers. It was billed as “a state-of-the-art facility designed to support the intelligence community in its mission to enable and protect national cybersecurity.” In reality the Utah Data Center was a vacuum cleaner designed to suck up as much of the world’s communications traffic as technologically possible. It collected traffic from undersea cables and underground fiber-optic cables, from satellites high in the sky and dishes on firm ground. Its servers were so large that they measured contents not in gigabytes or terabytes or even petabytes. They measured their take in yottabytes, where one yottabyte equaled 500 quintillion (500,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text.

It was the Utah Data Center’s primary mission to gather and store all communications traffic generated by the entire world for the next ten years.

“And ours, too,” said Ian. “But that was six months ago, immediately after we took over the project from John Merriweather. As you’ll see, we’ve made some improvements.”

“Frankly, the boys at Oak Ridge are skeptical,” said Goldfarb. “A few of us are more than that.”

“Until yesterday I was doubtful, too. I can promise you that the specs are accurate.”

“Exaflops,” said Goldfarb. “Really?”

Patel chimed in. “It was our team’s primary consideration when we took over management of the project. Speed’s the primary factor when executing algorithmic strategies.”

The strategies Patel referred to involved decrypting encoded messages, or, in the vernacular, “breaking a code.” There was only one reason the NSA wanted the world’s most powerful supercomputer. It was during an initial test that Titan had overheated. A second demonstration was scheduled for the following morning, with many high-ranking government officials set to attend, including the vice president. It would be Titan’s second and final chance.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to judge for ourselves,” said General Wolfe, playing the peacemaker. “So? The test?”

Ian nodded at Patel, who distributed a set of bound notebooks to the NSA men. No one spoke as the government officials studied the detailed results of the prior day’s test. The men finished reading. Their eyes met each other’s, then Ian’s. Ian imagined that Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers must have looked much the same way after Robert Oppenheimer informed them of the successful test of the atomic bomb in May 1945.

“Exaflops,” said Goldfarb.

“Exaflops,” said Ian.

“Exaflops,” said General Wolfe, taking ownership of the word.

“Two hundred degrees Fahrenheit,” said Goldfarb. “Sounds low.”

“Two hundred six, actually,” said Ian. “Then the cooling system kicked in.”

“At which point Titan’s internal temperature decreased to one hundred eighty degrees,” added Patel.

“How?” said Wolfe. “It’s a gosh-darned miracle.”

“Just a little tinkering,” said Ian. “An extra fan here and there.”

“Whatever you did,” said Wolfe, “we want Titan on-site at Fort Meade.”

“I believe that’s another contract,” said Ian.

“Soon you’ll have a monopoly,” said Wolfe. “There won’t be a network in D.C. that doesn’t come from ONE.”

“Maybe one day,” said Ian.

Bob Goldfarb’s skepticism had vanished. His dark eyes sparkled greedily as he placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “How soon can we install it?”

“Dev can work with your people to install the software patch today. If all goes as it should, we can keep to our plan for the demonstration tomorrow morning.”

“That’s cutting it close,” said Wolfe. “You’re sure?”

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

“Tomorrow morning it is.” Wolfe moved to a table at the end of the conference room and poured glasses of sparkling apple cider. Beltway bubbly, he called it as he offered round the glasses.

“To Titan,” said Wolfe.

“To Titan,” the others chimed in.

Ian touched glasses with each man in turn and drank his cider.

–

Afterward Peter Briggs took Ian aside and offered a handshake. “The king is dead,” he whispered. “Long live the king.”

“You mean the Emperor,” said Ian.

35

Mary called Randy Bell at eight on the dot. He answered on the first ring, sounding chipper and alert. So much for her plan of catching him hungover and with his defenses down. Her career as an investigator was not off to a promising start.

“Randy,” she said. “It’s Mary Grant.”

“Gee, Mary, I’m so sorry about Joe. Did you get my message?” Bell had a high, youthful voice. He was in his midfifties, with hair white as snow, but on the phone he sounded like a twenty-year-old.

“E-mail? I haven’t had time to look through them all, but thanks all the same. Sorry if I woke you.”

“It’s nine o’clock,” said Bell. “I’ve been up two hours.”

“In Sacramento?”

“I’m in D.C.” Bell paused, then added, “Just visiting the old crew. Gosh, Mary, I don’t know what to say. I’m crushed. I can’t believe what happened. None of us can. How you holding up?”

She told him that she was fine and that the kids were going to make it through. She took a breath, suddenly nervous, not sure how to begin. “Randy, I know you and Joe were buddies,” she said. “When was the last time you talked?”

“June. Right after the playoffs.”

“How’d he sound?”

“Like Joe. A little crazy ’cause the Celtics lost. But he sounded good.”

“And work? You guys talk shop?”

“I’m retired six months now,” said Bell. “I’m out of the loop.”

“Still, Joe thought a lot of you.”

“He was a good kid.”

That’s twice he’s avoided the question, thought Mary. She walked into Joe’s office. The yellow legal pad was on the desk where she’d left it. She stared at her husband’s writing, at the funny little flags all over the page, wondering how she was supposed to lead Randy Bell subtly to the question of Joe’s trips to San Jose.

“What was that case you two were working-the one he was always going on about, about the Asian syndicate pirating those jet designs?”

“Pricks were hacking into Boeing’s mainframe, downloading designs for the new wing it’s building, and selling them to China.”

“And the other case,” she went on. “You know, the one where you guys were always flying down to San Jose. I forget who Joe said you were seeing.”

Randy Bell didn’t answer.

“Randy…you there?”

“Why are you asking about this?”

“Just trying to tie up some loose ends.”

“What kind of loose ends?”

The cat was officially out of the bag. Mary gave up all effort at pretense. She was no investigator. She was just a wife who wanted to know the true circumstances surrounding her husband’s murder. “Sixteen trips. That’s how many times Joe went to San Jose without telling me. You guys were partners for at least eight of those. He kept flying out there even after we moved. I’m guessing that’s why we came to Austin, so he could continue to work that case, only from out here. I’m guessing that’s what got him killed.”

“I can’t talk about this, Mary.”

“There’s something fishy about the explanation of Joe’s death. It isn’t right.”

“Did you hear me? I can’t discuss this.”

“Come on, Randy. We’re talking about Joe. You were like an older brother. Can you see him getting into a car with an armed informant? Can you?”

“Mary, please-”

“They’re painting it like it was his fault. But it wasn’t. Joe knew he was in trouble. He was scared. A scared man doesn’t get into a car with someone whom he believes might want to hurt him.”

“Mary, stop. How do you know he was scared?”

“He called me before he was killed. I didn’t speak with him, but he left me a message. He knew something was wrong. He told me to find someone named Sid. Do you know who that is?”

“No. Can’t say I do.”

“What about a Judge Angelo Caruso? Travis County Superior Court?”

“Where are you getting this stuff? Last I looked, Joe’s casework was confidential.”

Mary shook her head, staring at the notepad, running a pen over the silly blue flags. One more stonewall. She wondered if Don Bennett had gotten to Randy, too. “Sure you don’t know someone named Sid?” she asked again. “Joe said he was one of the good guys.”

“Please, Mary. Stop asking these questions.”

Mary stared at the little flags that Joe had drawn all over the page. It dawned on her what they were. Of course. It was obvious.

“Semaphore,” she blurted.

“What did you say?”

“Semaphore. Why?”

“Shut up, Mary.”

“Excuse me? Did you tell me to shut up? Randy…are you there?”

“I’m here. Whatever you do, don’t say that word again.”

“What word?”

“Never. Do you hear me? Goodbye now.”

“Randy?” she said, but the connection had ended.

She called back and the phone went to message. “Randy. What did you mean about not saying that word? What word? Semaphore?”

36

“She’s in danger,” said Randy Bell. “We need to pull her in.”

“And do what with her?” said Dylan Walsh, chief of the FBI’s Cyber Investigations Division. “Shall I put her up at my place? And the girls, too?”

“Maybe Keefe can help.”

“He’s on the bricks for three days. Can’t come near the office until he visits the company shrink.”

“We’ve got to do something,” Bell argued. “Between Mason and Prince, she won’t last a minute.”

“Calm down,” said Walsh sternly. He was tall and handsome and sturdy, forty-two years of age, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon with an advanced degree in computer science. Dressed in a dapper blue suit, his brown hair combed perfectly, he was an exemplar of the new FBI. “I understand your concern, and I appreciate your loyalty to Joe’s family. I don’t want anything to happen to Mary any more than you do. But we need to look at all the pieces here.”

Bell nodded a grudging agreement. “You’re the boss.”

Walsh patted Bell on the shoulder. “All right, then. Run this by me one more time.”

“She said it: ‘Semaphore.’ Just like that-out of the blue. It’s not exactly a word used in everyday conversation.”

“You have a point there.”

Dylan Walsh ran a hand across the back of his neck as he paced his office on the fifth floor of FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Semaphore had been a small operation to begin with. Just four fulltime agents, including himself. The number was limited by necessity. You didn’t raise a red flag when you wanted to investigate the man who had hacked into the Bureau’s mainframe. Not when that man was Ian Prince. That went double when your biggest rival in the organization was in Prince’s back pocket.

The Cyber Investigations Division had been formed five years earlier to help combat threats to national security through computer strikes, namely illegal attempts at intrusions-hacks-into mainframes belonging to the government and private enterprise. To that end, Walsh oversaw his team’s cooperation with all members of the U.S. intelligence community (CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, and so on), as well as state and local law enforcement agencies. In those five years, a ten-man “fire team” had grown into one hundred dedicated agents, nearly all with master’s degrees in computer science, tasked with stopping computer and network intrusions, identity theft, and Internet crime.

Inside the Bureau, the Cyber Investigations Division went by the moniker CID, pronounced “Sid,” to differentiate it from the standard CID, the Criminal Investigative Division.

“Still,” Walsh went on. “Her saying it doesn’t mean anything of itself.”

“She knows Don Bennett is covering something up. That’s enough. I know her, Dylan. She won’t give up until she finds out the truth about her husband’s death.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

Bell sipped from a mug of coffee. “Any word from Mason?”

“Flew down there yesterday to oversee matters. A show of the Bureau’s concern for one of our own.”

“As if.”

“Ed Mason keeps peddling the same moonshine. He believes that if anything bad happens to ONE, or to Ian Prince and that supercomputer of his, it’ll jeopardize the NSA’s ability to do their job. Our job isn’t to stop the bad guys from snooping on our computers only to let Mason and the Emperor do it at their will.”

“Don’t know about that,” said Bell. “I do know that if we believe Mary Grant’s going to keep looking, then so does Ian Prince.”

“Exactly,” said Walsh, walking to the window and looking out across the Mall at the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian Building. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

37

“I can’t just stay here,” said Jessie, standing with her mother in the kitchen. “It’s depressing. I missed class yesterday. I can’t miss again today.”

“You need to be here with your sister.”

“Grace is fine. She can go over to the Kramers’ and play.”

“Jess, please.” Her mother’s face hardened, her lips tightening over her teeth. “Not today.”

“But…” Jessie tried to act like Grace. She held her arms at her side and didn’t slouch. It was harder keeping her voice all upbeat and chirpy. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll stay if you need me.”

“Thanks, sweetie. That’s nice of you. I appreciate it.” Mary tilted her head. Her mouth softened, and a weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. “Come to think of it, Grace will be fine.”

“Sure? I don’t have to go.”

Mary smiled and checked her watch. “Class starts at eleven, right?”

“Eleven to one. But I can hang around afterward.” Jessie winced at her choice of words. Parents thought “hanging around” meant looking to score weed or commit a jailable offense. “I mean, I can stay and talk to the teacher. He’s wicked smart.”

“Professor Gritsch?”

“No, the TA, Linus. He teaches the class.”

“Linus? Don’t hear that one much. Like Linus and Charlie Brown.”

“Yeah,” said Jessie agreeably, all singsongy like Grace. “Like that.” Her mom looked at her, and she thought she’d gone too far. But then her mom picked up her car keys.

“You ready?”

Jessie nodded, trying hard not to appear too excited. “Good to go,” she said. It was one of her dad’s expressions from when he was in the army or Marine Corps or whatever.

“I’ll tell Grace.” Mary stopped when she was nearly out of the kitchen. “Jess?”

“Yeah, Mom?” Here it comes, thought Jessie, her heart sinking. She’s going to change her mind.

“Do you think you could stay at school until two? It’s pretty far for me to drive there and back, and I have some errands.”

Jessie forced herself to count to three before answering. “I guess that might work.”

“Good. I won’t be a minute later than that.”

–

The classroom was full when Jessie arrived. She slid her pack off her shoulder and scooted through the aisle to her seat. She felt all eyes on her. She wasn’t just the youngest student in the class, but also the only girl. Most of the others were a bunch of rejects or kissy-ups headed straight for Redmond. Except for Garrett. She saw him out of the corner of her eye. He was almost cute, if you liked the Abercrombie type-straight blond hair hanging in his eyes, tall, always smiling and talking to everyone. She noted that he was wearing a Mumford & Sons shirt. Dork.

Linus, the TA, walked into the room, carrying a coffee. Technically he was Dr. Jankowski, but he told everyone to call him by his first name. He was short and had a beard and wasn’t cool at all. Still, the class shut up the second he walked in.

“So, you guys,” said Linus, dumping his satchel onto the table. “Before we get started, Mr. Clark wanted to say something. Go ahead, Garrett.”

Jessie kept her eyes on her desk, only partially seeing him stand out of the corner of her eye.

“Umm…yeah,” said Garrett. “Jessie, we know this is a hard time for you. We all wanted to say we’re really sorry about your dad. We think you’re pretty awesome just for being in here in the first place. You’re, like, fourteen. It’s amazing. And you’re really brave to come back to school so fast. So, anyway, um…hang in there. It’ll get better.”

Jessie tried to say thanks, and that actually she was fifteen, but the words caught in her throat. She didn’t dare look at the others. She couldn’t or she’d cry. A few people offered condolences. She nodded and kept her eyes on the desk. Mostly she could feel Garrett staring at her. He probably hated her Zeppelin T-shirt as much as she hated his Mumford & Sons.

Linus announced that the topic for today was breaking encryption algorithms. He lectured for ninety minutes, filling up all the whiteboards with code. At 12:45 he dropped his marker on the desk. “For the last fifteen minutes we’re going to have a test. No, not a test-let’s call it a race. We’re going to see who can figure out a cool hack the fastest. Or, I should probably say, whether anyone can figure it out at all.”

Linus explained the rules as he wrote the challenge on the whiteboard. “Root the box with admin privileges and capture the flag. Simple enough. Winner gets a Heineken. You guys have fifteen minutes. Go.”

Jessie looked around the room. Everyone was already hard at it, heads down, tapping away at their keyboards like mad. Garrett glanced up from under his brow and saw her looking at him. He raised his eyebrows and made a horrified face, as if this were the hardest problem in the world. Jessie looked away. She thought about the chunk of code she’d found on her mother’s phone. No one in the chat room had had any idea what it was or what it was supposed to do. They did say, however, that it wasn’t NITRON. Whatever it was, it was unique.

After a minute Jessie turned her attention to the problem. She was good at rooting the box. She decided to give it a shot. What did she have to lose?

–

“Time’s up.”

Linus Jankowski surveyed the room, chuckling to himself as if he knew no one had gotten it right. “Who’s got my answer?”

Five students raised their hands, mostly the buttoned-up guys headed to Microsoft or Oracle. Linus called on them one at a time, displayed their answers on the whiteboard, and one at a time shot them down, sprinkling in comments like “Thanks, propeller-head, but no,” “Couldn’t be more wrong,” and “Seriously, that’s as good as you got?” When he’d finished tearing them apart, he took up position in the center of the classroom. “Anyone else?” he asked. “Don’t be shy. Abject humiliation and embarrassment await.”

Jessie kept her head down, her hands covering her answer.

“Garrett? Got something for me?”

“I could only crack five of the six hashes.”

“There are a dozen websites that could have gotten you the last one.”

“Sorry, Linus, maybe next time.”

Linus moved down the aisle. “Jessie? Anything? Anything at all?”

Jessie winced at the sound of her name. She felt Linus’s eyes on her and shifted in her seat.

“Nothing?” Linus prodded. “No one?” He chuckled some more, looking way too pleased with himself. “Okay, then.”

“Umm,” said Jessie.

“Miss Grant.”

Jessie raised her head. All the other students were staring at her.

“We’re waiting…”

Jessie met their eyes, accepting the challenge from each, something inside her growing strong.

“You’ve got our attention,” said Linus.

“It’s easy.” Jessie flashed her answer onto the whiteboard and went to the front of the class to set forth her solution. “There,” she said when she’d finished. “Captured the flag.”

Linus examined her work. “You’ve never seen this problem before, have you?” he whispered, his beard close enough to scratch her cheek.

Jessie shook her head.

“Swear?”

“Swear.”

“Okay, then. We’re done here.”

Jessie returned to her seat, dejected. She’d been sure she had the right answer.

Linus opened his satchel and took out a bottle of Heineken. He popped the cap with his teeth and guzzled the beer. He belched, then walked down the aisle and set the empty bottle on her desk. “Congratulations, Miss Grant. You nailed it.”

The class broke into applause. Garrett hollered her name.

Jessie kept her eyes straight ahead as her chest swelled with pride and her cheeks suddenly felt as hot as the sun.

Linus leaned down and whispered, “I didn’t say the beer would be full.”

38

“I hereby declare this closed hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence in session.”

Ian took his seat at the witness table and adjusted his necktie. His attorney sat beside him and patted his arm as if Ian were the accused and needed reassurance. Ian figured the arm patting was included in the attorney’s $700-an-hour fee. Peter Briggs sat behind him, along with three of the attorney’s assistants. The assistants billed at $400 an hour. Maybe for that much, they’d hold Briggs’s hand.

“We are here to conduct our semiannual review of our cooperative assistance program with ONE Technologies,” said Senator Bailey Fisk of Tennessee, subcommittee chairman. He was old and vigorous and unrepentant about the steel-wool toupee he’d worn for the past twenty years. “Representing ONE Technologies is Ian Prince, founder and chairman. For the record, may I express our profound thanks for your presence here today and our recognition of your long-standing cooperation with the United States government. Welcome, Mr. Prince.”

“It’s my pleasure,” said Ian. “Had to do something to earn my passport, didn’t I?”

Ian gazed at the four men and two women facing him on the elevated dais. He knew each of them personally-in fact, far better than any of them realized. Both Senator Fisk and Senator Bowden were ONE Mobile customers. As a matter of course, he recorded their every conversation and catalogued all photographs and texts made from their phones.

He knew, for example, that Senator Fisk was carrying on an affair with a twenty-one-year-old male staffer (sexts, photos) and that Senator Bowden had refused to seek treatment for alcohol and prescription drug addiction. He’d recently been privy to a conversation between the senator and her husband in which she’d drunkenly informed him that enjoying two bottles of cabernet a night was her right and that the “American people could screw themselves” if they thought she was a drunk.

Ian had no plans to use any of the material…for the moment. He considered it money put aside for a rainy day. It paid to be a saver.

“Our agenda today is composed of four items,” said Fisk. “Obelisk, Lynchpin, Rosetta, and Prime. We’ll start with Obelisk.”

Ian smiled benignly. There was public Washington and private Washington. The first acted for the benefit of the media and the unknowing citizenry. The second did what it deemed necessary, critics be damned.

Public Washington chastised the intelligence community for its overzealous nature and the infringements it made on the individual’s right to privacy in the name of policing international terrorism and transnational crime. At the same time it accused corporate America (Ian and his counterparts at the country’s largest technology companies) of acquiescing to the intelligence community’s demands too quickly and too willingly.

All the while, private Washington contrived greater and more sophisticated means to continue collecting any and all intelligence that might serve to protect its citizens, and got down on its bruised and bleeding knees to beg the private sector’s cooperation.

“If I may,” said Ian, “I would like to once again refuse the government’s generous offer to repay us for services rendered. As a global citizen, ONE is happy to absorb all legal and compliance costs stemming from our in-house attorneys and support staff who oversee Obelisk.” It was his turn to pat his attorney’s arm. “Thank goodness they’re not as pricey as my private counsel seated with me today.”

Senator Fisk barked out a laugh and threw a hand on the table. He and Ian were two good ol’ boys who understood each other just fine. The only thing missing was a bottle of sourmash from his home state (though of course Ian didn’t drink).

“Obelisk,” said Senator Fisk. “Where do we stand?”

Obelisk, formerly known as Prism, was a program permitting the government access to ONE’s central servers, and those of every other major Internet provider. The government placed filters on all Internet traffic, both domestic and foreign, to search for keywords that might indicate pending acts of terrorism or individuals and/or organizations unfriendly to the cause-“the cause” being anything remotely related to the national security of the United States of America.

Once a keyword was spotted, the government presented ONE with a warrant requesting copies of all e-mails and/or other communications linked to the offending account holder, including but not limited to Skype, Internet queries, wireless communications, and so on. A single red flag often triggered an avalanche of private information.

“Which brings us to Lynchpin,” said Fisk.

Lynchpin involved ONE’s software division. Ian’s engineers inserted a back door into all software for overseas sales and export-word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database-allowing any party with a “skeleton key,” or password, full and unfettered access.

A recent example of Lynchpin dealt with ONEWord, a word-processing program licensed to the German Ministry of Defense. Upon signature of the contract, Ian had dutifully informed the Pentagon of the transaction, and the Pentagon in turn had requested that Ian insert code into the software that automatically copied every document written and saved by the German military establishment and sent it to Washington.

In the past twelve months, this type of custom tailoring had been done on software sold to institutions in India, Pakistan, Poland, the Netherlands, Indonesia, Singapore, France, and Japan. Only Ian Prince held the password to all.

“Rosetta,” said Fisk.

Rosetta trafficked in a similar concept, but for hardware: ONE’s servers, routers, switches, laptops, tablets, and the like. Every device-no matter its intent or end user-was manufactured with a back door somewhere in its DNA. When it was sold to a customer designated “of interest” to the government, Ian shared how to exploit it.

“…which brings us to the last item on our agenda,” said Fisk. “Prime.”

Ian sat up straighter. The last two hours had been strictly warmup. This was the main event.

Fisk looked at his colleagues on the dais. “Is the subcommittee prepared to offer its recommendation regarding the purchase of ONE hardware and software for the new intranet being developed for the Central Intelligence Agency?”

Prime was the name of the top-secret communications network (an intranet) being developed for the CIA to enable the agency to bypass the open-format Internet. Coupled with the NSA’s use of Titan in Utah, Prime would give Ian access to the entirety of the United States’ intelligence networks.

Peter Briggs placed a hand on Ian’s shoulder. “Wrap this up, boss. We have a problem.”

Ian raised a concerned finger. “One minute, Senator Fisk.”

“Of course, Mr. Prince.”

“What is it?” Ian whispered through a clenched smile. “Not Gordon May, I hope.”

“No,” said Briggs. “The woman.”

There was no need to ask which woman. These days there was only one. “What now?”

“She’s asking about Semaphore.”

“How’s that?”

“It is. That’s all that matters.”

Ian turned back toward the dais. “Please go on, Senator.”

He answered the remaining questions as succinctly as he knew how. It was the longest hour of his life.

39

Tank Potter checked the address painted on the curb and killed the engine. Without thinking, he reached beneath the seat for his backstop. An exposed coil stabbed his finger. “Ouch!”

Old habits died hard.

Chastened, Tank walked to the door. A steady hand rang the bell. Though he had the Grants’ number, he hadn’t called in advance. The first rule of journalism: never let them see you coming.

A pallid girl dressed in leggings and a T-shirt opened the door. “Hello.”

“Hello,” said Tank. “Is your mom around?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Tank Potter. I’m a reporter. You guys get the Statesman?”

“What’s that?”

“A newspaper. Ever seen one?”

“My mom reads the New York Times. Online. We subscribe to People.” The girl extended her hand. “My name’s Grace. Nice to meet you.”

Tank’s hand swallowed hers. “Nice to meet you.”

“You’re big.”

“My mom wanted to make sure nobody missed me.”

“It worked. My mom’s not here right now. She’s taking my sister to summer school. Did you come to ask about my dad?”

“I did. I’m sorry about what happened.”

“We can’t understand how someone so smart could let a bad guy get close enough to shoot him.”

“Did your mom say that?”

“No. I did. She’s still upset about losing Dad’s voicemail. She’s blaming my sister, but Jessie swears she was only unlocking the phone and didn’t erase it.”

“I see.” Tank smiled as if he knew what she was talking about. “Do you know when your mom will be-” The squeal of an automobile turning tightly into the driveway cut short his words. He turned to see a late-model Nissan come to a halt at the head of the walkway.

“There’s Mommy,” said Grace.

Tank waved shyly. He didn’t want to appear menacing, but there was only so much you could do when you were his size.

A trim, attractive woman got out of the car and rushed up the walk. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Grant? Tank Potter. I’m with the Statesman.”

“It’s a newspaper,” said Grace.

Mary Grant stopped a foot away, checking over his shoulder that her daughter was fine before fixing him with a decidedly unhelpful look. “Why wasn’t there anything new in the paper today about Joe?”

“I came here to talk to you about that. First, may I offer my condolences?”

“Thank you.” She pointed a finger at him. “Potter? You didn’t write the article yesterday.”

“I was on another story.”

Mary stepped around him to address her daughter. “Grace, go inside. Give me and Mr. Potter a minute.”

“His name is Tank,” said Grace, rolling her eyes.

“Shut the door, sweetheart,” said Mary.

“Bye, Tank,” said Grace as she closed the door.

“And so,” asked Mary, “what took you so long?”

“Excuse me?”

“To figure out the FBI is lying. That’s why you’re here, right?”

Tank nodded tentatively. It was his job to assume the FBI was lying. He wondered what had convinced Mary Grant of the fact. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” She stepped forward. “Are you feeling all right, Mr. Potter?”

“I’m fine.” Tank cleared his throat and stood taller. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead, his tongue dry as felt. “Can we talk inside?”

“After I see your press credential.”

Tank flashed his Statesman ID. Mary Grant clutched his hand to bring the pass closer. “Henry Thaddeus Potter.”

“Are you a football fan?” he asked as she compared his face to the picture on the pass. “I played at UT.”

“I went to Georgetown. We prefer basketball. Come in.”

–

“She’s got a visitor,” said the Mole.

Shanks kicked his feet off the control console and sat up to study the monitor. “Big fella, ain’t he?”

“What do you think?” asked the Mole. “Family? Friend?”

“Friend. Doesn’t look like any of them, that’s for sure. You get a read on his license plate?”

“Forget the license. We have his face.” The Mole duplicated the last sixty seconds of images transmitted from the hidden camera and replayed the loop on a second monitor. He and Shanks watched as the Jeep pulled to the curb and the tall, florid man climbed out of the car. For an instant the visitor stared directly at the hidden camera. “Gotcha.”

The Mole froze the image and uploaded it to PittPatt. “All right, baby,” he said. “Go to work.”

Short for Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition, PittPatt was an advanced facial recognition software program developed at Carnegie Mellon University to help hunt terrorists in the days following 9/11. ONE had purchased PittPatt a year earlier and tweaked the technology for a different purpose. It planned on licensing the technology to merchants of every stripe, who would use it to identify their customers and, based on past purchases and publicly available personal information-age, sex, zip code, credit history-send news of sales, discount coupons, or the like directly to their smartphones. The only terrorists it was interested in finding were those with a credit score of 700 and an American Express Gold Card.

“Image captured,” said an officious female voice. “Mapping completed.”

Shanks and the Mole waited as PittPatt conducted a search of every public database on the Net for images that matched the visitor. It searched Facebook and Instagram and Google Images. It searched Tumblr, YouTube, Match.com, Picasa, and a thousand more like them.

It also searched private databases. These included the National Crime Information Center; the Department of Public Safety and its equivalent in all fifty states; the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System; and Interpol.

Images filled the screen, six to a line, the lines rapidly scrolling down the page. The first picture to appear was of a football player running down the field.

“Tank Potter,” said the Mole, reading the caption. “Never heard of him.”

“He was almost famous.”

“Let’s go deeper.” The Mole requested that PittPatt search for more detailed and personal information. The name Henry Thaddeus Potter led to property records showing him to be the owner of a home in Tarrytown and the former owner of homes on Blanchard Drive and Red River Street. Mention of a Potter family trust was found in a bankruptcy filing for a Mrs. Josephine Willis Potter which listed a sole son, Henry Thaddeus, and gave his date and place of birth.

PittPatt did all this in.0005 second.

“Still waiting on the jackpot,” said the Mole. “Got it!”

Potter’s name coupled with his place and date of birth helped the program find batches of Social Security numbers issued in Houston on or around his birthday. Time and again an algorithm paired Potter’s name with a probable Social Security number. Though the algorithm had a tiny chance of success on each try, it continued to run through all possible numbers until it found a match, in this case a credit report that listed the last four digits of his Social Security number.

The Mole read to the bottom of the list. In ten seconds he had learned more about Henry Thaddeus “Tank” Potter-impoverished heir to a once-great fortune, All-State football star, washed-up college athlete, divorced father of two children who lived with their mother in Arkansas, and journalist-than Mr. Potter’s closest friends ever would.

“Not a friend of the family after all,” said Shanks. “A reporter.”

A final picture appeared on the monitor. It was Tank Potter’s mug shot from two nights before.

The Mole smirked. “And a drunk.”

40

Class was over.

Jessie took her time putting away her laptop, keeping an eye on the front of the room, where the older students were talking to Linus. Normally she liked to be first out, but today she had a reason to wait.

“That was amaze-balls,” said Garrett, taking the seat next to her, swiping his blond hair out of his face. “We haven’t even talked about that stuff. How did you do it?”

“Just figured it out, I guess.”

“Maybe you can explain it to me. You want to get a hamburger or something for lunch?”

“I ate earlier,” said Jessie.

“How about a coffee? I can give you a ride home, too, if you want. I’m eighteen. It’s okay.”

“My mom’s getting me.”

“Well, um…,” Garrett stammered, and Jessie almost felt sorry for him.

“Miss Grant.” Linus Jankowski stood in front of her desk. Garrett stood, giving a wave and a “See ya” before shuffling out of the classroom.

“Hi, there,” said Jessie.

Linus sat down. “So, young lady. Mind telling me how you did it?”

“I already explained it.”

“I mean how you came to possess that kind of knowledge.”

“It just seemed kind of obvious.”

“Really? That’s not usually a word I’ve heard attached to advanced encryption algorithms, but okay. So why didn’t you speak up when I asked the first time?”

“I don’t like attention,” said Jessie. “It creeps me out.”

“Humility. What a concept.” Linus trained his eyes on Jessie. “Do you know the last person to solve that hack? It was Rudeboy at DEF CON last summer. He did it to win Capture the Flag.”

“Rudeboy solved it?”

“He wasn’t the only one, but he was the quickest. Five minutes flat. I came in third. Three minutes behind. You, Miss Grant, needed thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds.”

“But…how did you know that I’d-”

“I was watching you. None of the other propeller-heads in class stood a chance.” Linus stood and picked up his satchel and his endless cup of coffee. “I’m gone tomorrow. See you after that.”

“Yeah, sure. See you.” Jessie watched helplessly as he walked out of the classroom. “Linus,” she called, rising from her chair and running into the hall. “I need your help with something.”

“Homework?”

“Not exactly. It’s kind of private.”

“Not now.”

“But-”

“Tonight. Crown and Anchor. Nine o’clock.”

The Crown & Anchor was a pub on San Jacinto Boulevard. “No-ten.”

“Even better. Ten.”

Jessie left the classroom and headed downstairs. Outside she sat by the fountain. She put her hand in the cold water, asking herself what she’d done. Meet Linus at a pub at ten? Was she crazy? She wasn’t allowed to leave the house on her own at night. Even if she managed to sneak out, how was she supposed to get all the way downtown…and then back again? And what about going into a pub? Could she even do that?

She took a fruit roll-up from her pack and ate it. How could someone smart enough to solve the hack that won Capture the Flag be so stupid?

“There you are.”

Jessie looked up as a flash of blond hair sat down next to her. “Hi, Garrett.”

“Lucky I ran into you.”

And then it came to her. The solution was in front of her all the time.

“Yeah, lucky coincidence.” Jessie smiled. “Did you say something about having a car?”

41

Ian ran up the stairs of ONE 1 and entered the cabin of his jet without looking back.

“Christ, I hate that place,” he said. “Like the Inquisition without the party favors.”

A flight attendant took his jacket and handed him a bottle of Penta water.

Peter Briggs followed him into the aircraft, pulled the door closed, and locked it. “Activate the ECMs,” he said.

The flight attendant moved to a control panel and turned on the plane’s electronic countermeasures.

Ian collapsed into a chair. “What the hell is she doing now?”

Briggs sat in the chair opposite. “She’s asking about Semaphore. Said it by name in a conversation with her husband’s former partner, Special Agent Randall A. Bell.”

“How is that possible?”

“How do I know?” Briggs’s face was redder than usual, his pale blue eyes brooking no challenge. “Maybe her husband left the case file open on his desk. Maybe she reads his e-mails. Maybe he whispered it to her while he was banging her the night before he died. Does it matter how? She said it. Listen for yourself.”

Briggs set his phone on the table and played the recording of Mary Grant speaking to Randy Bell.

“Sounds like it was a shot in the dark,” said Ian.

“No such thing.”

“But she called Bell back to ask which word she wasn’t supposed to repeat. If she was certain it was Semaphore, she wouldn’t have needed a confirmation.”

“Well, thanks to Randy Bell she has it. He might as well have attached a homing beacon to the word. After the call she performed searches for the word semaphore alone and in combination with FBI, CIA, cybercrime, pirating, you name it.” Briggs banged a fist on the armrest, index finger extended for good measure. “Mason told us she was a pain in the ass. He said she wouldn’t quit.”

“Ed Mason thinks that everyone who doesn’t work for him is either a pain in the ass or a risk to national security.”

Deputy director of the FBI Edward G. Mason III was either his best friend or his worst enemy. Ian walked to the front of the cabin to make sure that none of the attendants were listening. “What else has our intrepid widow been up to?”

“See for yourself.”

Briggs handed Ian a printout of the surveillance data collected from the Grant home. Ian looked over a list of online activity. Someone in the house liked to watch videos of cute animals on YouTube. Kittens, puppies, and sloths. Sloths. Despite his ill temper, he smiled. His own sons spent hours watching cute animals on YouTube. Ian didn’t mind. It beat spending hours watching less cute videos of men and women that were as easily available. Twelve-year-old boys didn’t watch kittens playing the piano forever.

“We’ll deal with this when we get back. Till then-”

Briggs raised a hand. He had his phone to his ear and his face had gone from red to redder. “What did you say?…A who?…What?…Oh, Christ. Fuck me.”

“What is it?” asked Ian.

Briggs dropped the phone onto the table. “She’s got a visitor. A newspaper reporter. Still want to wait till we get back?”

42

Tank sat with Mary Grant at her kitchen table. He was grateful to be out of the heat. And more grateful for the iced tea she’d offered. He knew she wasn’t from the South because the tea didn’t have enough lemon or sugar. But it was cold and wet and he drank down half the glass before he knew it.

“Well, then,” he said, setting down the glass. “Why do you think the FBI is lying to you?”

Mary Grant sat on the edge of her chair, anxiety radiating from every pore. “According to them, it’s an open-and-shut case. Joe let an armed informant get into a car with him and the informant shot him.”

Tank set his phone on the table and asked permission to record their conversation. Mary nodded and went on. She described a voice message she’d received from her husband (Tank assumed that this was the voicemail Grace had referred to) and her fractious interactions with Don Bennett. “First he wanted to take my phone, then he didn’t want anything to do with it. He point-blank refused to help me find the message. Why?”

“Maybe he knew what was on it.”

“The whole thing didn’t make sense,” she continued, more calmly. “The doctor said that the bullet that killed Joe struck his spinal cord. He would have been paralyzed instantly from the chest down. He couldn’t have shot anyone after that. I just don’t get it.” She sighed and looked Tank in the eye. “Mostly, Mr. Potter, I just know they’re lying. I know Joe and I know he wouldn’t get himself into that situation. Your turn. Why are you here?”

Tank finished his iced tea. He wasn’t sure how much to tell her. She didn’t need to know that he too had questions about who shot whom. It was a cardinal rule of reporting to keep your ideas close to your vest.

“I share your opinion that the FBI has been less than forthcoming about the case,” he said. “If we could just find out who the informant was, we’d be a lot closer to figuring things out. Can you tell me anything about what your husband had been working on lately?”

“Supposedly we came to Austin so that Joe could work a municipal corruption case, but it was a lie. There was no corruption case.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” She hesitated, then said, “He was working on something else. A case that had begun in Sacramento.”

“Really? And how long ago was that?”

“Nine months. Maybe ten. Last October or November.”

Gold. He could sense it. Tank knew better than to push. It was a matter of letting her air her own suspicions. She poured him more iced tea, then turned back to get a glass for herself. Tank’s heart jumped a beat. She was going to spill.

“This is what I know,” she said, sitting down and fixing him with determined blue eyes. She described in detail her actions since her husband’s death: searching his clothing; finding the boarding pass; discovering his secret trips to San Jose, which had begun all the way back in November and continued through the past week; finding out about her husband’s contact with Judge Caruso; and finally hearing the bizarre reaction evinced by her husband’s former partner, Randy Bell, when she said the word semaphore.

“Does any of this make sense?” she said in closing.

“I don’t think it’s uncommon for an FBI agent to work a confidential case. Still, if you think there’s something wrong, there probably is.”

Tank looked away, not wanting to be a party to her hopes. He glanced at his hands, noticing how lousy his nails looked. Probably like the rest of him. He glanced up to find Mary Grant still staring at him. His problem had always been that he was a sucker for honesty. Straight talk was the chink in his armor.

“I visited the medical examiner’s office last night,” he said. “I was trying to get the lowdown on the informant. I didn’t, but I saw something that convinced me in no uncertain terms that the FBI is being untruthful. It’s not a pleasant matter.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Potter. I consider myself forewarned.”

As gently as he knew how, Tank gave his opinion that the wounds suffered by Joe Grant and his informant, identity unknown, could not have been inflicted with a handgun, and as such did not jibe with the FBI’s official explanation.

“What are you trying to say?” asked Mary.

“That doctor in the hospital was telling you the truth. Your husband couldn’t have shot the informant. I don’t think the informant shot him, either. It’s my opinion that your husband and his informant were murdered by a third party, and that they were shot with a rifle, not a handgun.”

Mary Grant sat back. He could see her working through what he’d said, coming to the conclusion, almost against her will, that her suspicions were accurate. The FBI was lying. Her husband had been murdered. Someone was orchestrating a cover-up. Her eyes watered, and for a moment he thought she was going to break down. She looked away and drew a tremendous breath. He thought it was as if she’d swallowed a kind of stone, as her features hardened into a grim mask.

“Have you shared this with the paper?” she asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Why not?”

“It’s important for me to have corroborating evidence first. My opinion isn’t enough.”

“But you saw the bodies…”

“Even so. I need proof.”

“Did you take pictures?”

Tank lied without blinking. “Not allowed.”

“Won’t the autopsy reveal what kind of bullet killed my husband?”

“In principle, yes.”

“I spoke with Mr. Feely at the funeral home last night. He said the FBI is keeping my husband’s body a few days longer. The results should prove that what you said is true.”

“Actually, the postmortem isn’t going to be performed here. Your husband is being sent to the FBI’s forensic lab at Quantico. The autopsy will be performed there.”

“Is that normal?”

“Not to my knowledge. Postmortems are performed in the county where the death took place.”

“So they’re stealing his body to cover up what happened.”

“Slow down,” said Tank, though he shared the same conviction. “We have no idea why they want to send the body to Quantico. There could be a dozen other reasons to perform the autopsy there.”

“When are they transporting my husband’s body?”

“Sometime after twelve p.m.”

“Today?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mary bolted to her feet and threw her purse over her shoulder. “Grace,” she shouted upstairs, “I’m taking you to Carrie’s house. We need to go. Now.”

Tank stood as Mary scooped up her car keys and shepherded her daughter outside. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“Downtown. To the medical examiner’s office. I’m not letting them take Joe without a fight.”

43

Mary paused before climbing into her car. “Aren’t you coming?”

Tank Potter stood watching her, hands in his pockets, tousled head cocked at an angle. “It’s not my job to confront the FBI,” he said.

Mary placed her foot inside the car. She realized she’d gone too far. He was after a story. She was after much more. “I don’t expect your help, Mr. Potter, but I wouldn’t mind a witness.”

Potter made no move to join her.

Mary got in the car and started the engine. With dismay, she noted that the gas was on reserve. “Don’t go yet,” she called as Tank was climbing into his Jeep. Elbowing the door open, she jumped out and ran up the street. “Tell me you’ve got enough gas to get me downtown.”

–

Five minutes later the Jeep was barreling down Mopac, the speedometer pushing 75. Mary sat with one hand locked on the armrest, her feet positioned on either side of a gaping hole in the floorboard, praying that they wouldn’t run over a loose rock or stray branch.

“Are you all right, Mr. Potter? You were looking a little pale before.”

“I’m good.” Potter offered an anemic smile. If she hadn’t thought he was hungover before, she did now.

Midday traffic was light. In ten minutes they were zipping past the Arboretum. Potter swung the Jeep east onto 183, skirting the gargantuan new Apple campus, National Semiconductor, IBM, and, finally, ONE Technologies. Mary thought of Jess, her own little Bill Gates…No, who did she say was the greatest programmer? Her own little Rudeboy.

“We’re making good time,” said Tank. “Hopefully they won’t have moved your husband yet.”

“Hopefully,” said Mary. “Anyway, thanks.”

“For what?”

“For asking questions.”

“It’s my job.”

“Even so. It means something to me.”

“I’m a reporter. I’m not doing you any favors.”

“You didn’t have to drive me.”

Tank looked at her, narrowing his eyes. “Do you really think you can stop them from sending your husband to Virginia?”

“No. But at least they’ll know we’re keeping an eye on them.”

“Lady, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

Mary noted the warning in Potter’s voice. It reminded her of Randy Bell’s admonition never to say semaphore again. It came to her that she was putting her nose where it was not wanted and that her inquiries might not be taken lightly. Still, it was the FBI. Joe’s FBI. They might be angry with her, but nothing more. She was a citizen. She had a right to ask questions.

“I have to make a call to my buddy,” said Tank. “This whole thing may be a wild-goose chase.”

–

One half mile behind the battered Jeep, the Mercedes Airstream rolled down the highway, maintaining a similar speed.

Shanks drove while the Mole sat in the work bay, monitoring surveillance. Though the Jeep was out of sight, there was no chance of losing it. Along with the dozens of pictures of Tank Potter, PittPatt had turned up his phone number, found easily enough on the employee profile page of the Statesman’s website. A cross-check of the number showed that Henry Thaddeus Potter was a ONE Mobile customer.

“You’re mine,” whispered the Mole as he ordered a real-time tap on the number. A live feed was beamed to the communications console. Potter’s position as defined by the GPS transponder in his phone was denoted by a pulsing blue dot on a mixed terrain/traffic map.

Next the Mole uploaded a blanket surveillance app onto Potter’s phone. The process was similar to updating the phone’s operating system, only he didn’t need Potter’s consent. The app essentially cloned Potter’s phone, copying all his e-mails, his call log, his voicemails, his browsing history, and everything else stored inside its forty-seven apps. For all intents and purposes, the phone belonged to the Mole. Potter was only borrowing it.

The Mole had a final trick up his sleeve. Worming his way into the captive phone’s settings, he activated the built-in microphone so that it would pick up everything being said inside the car. In effect, he’d turned the phone into a bug.

The Mole played the audio over the speaker. The quality was spotty. He guessed that Potter had the phone in his pocket. Even so, with only minor digital enhancement, he could hear Rascal Flatts singing “Fast Cars and Freedom” loud and clear.

“Looks like he’s headed downtown,” said Shanks.

“Isn’t the paper there?”

“South side of the river.”

“Quiet,” blurted the Mole. “He’s making a call.”

The phone number Tank Potter dialed appeared on the screen. Then, a moment later, the name of the account holder. “Cantu, Carlos. 78 Sagebrush Road, Buda, TX.” A picture of Cantu flashed onto the screen, and on an adjacent monitor a map showed the address and coordinates of the phone’s location: 1213 Sabine Street, Austin, TX. Travis County medical examiner.

The Mole hit the Record button.

“Carlos, it’s Tank.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m calling about those bodies. You know-the Fibbie and the informant.”

“What about ’em?”

“They still there?”

“Yep. We’ve got ’em packed up and loaded. Bennett and his boss are completing the paperwork. Only thing left to do is box up the blood and fluid samples.”

“How long till they take off?”

“An hour, maybe longer. They don’t appear to be in any hurry.”

“All right, thanks, Carlos. Appreciate it.”

The call ended.

“What was that all about?” asked Shanks.

“Don’t know,” said the Mole. “But I can tell you where they’re headed. Twelfth and Sabine.”

–

Thirty-five thousand feet above the earth and eight hundred miles away, Ian Prince and Peter Briggs were also listening to Tank Potter’s conversation with Carlos Cantu.

“Stand by for instructions,” Briggs said to the Mole after Potter had hung up.

Ian crossed the cabin and sat down at his work console. A live map of Austin pinpointed the location of Potter’s vehicle traveling south along Interstate 35. He slipped on a pair of earphones and opened a channel to Briggs’s men on the ground.

“Why the morgue?”

“Don’t know,” said the Mole.

Ian had his own ideas, and they centered on the probability that Potter had discovered that Bennett’s version of the events in Dripping Springs differed significantly from the actual record. “Bring up Potter’s call history.”

A list of phone numbers appeared on the monitor. Ian scrolled through and noted that Tank Potter had spoken to Carlos Cantu, the man he’d phoned minutes earlier, the night before.

“Potter send any texts?”

“One,” said the Mole. “Transmitting now.”

The text appeared on the screen in a pop-up window. It read: “Here. Waiting out front.” The timestamp showed 21:07.

“Dig down and get me a GPS fix on that text.”

“Sent from 1213 Sabine. Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office.”

Peter Briggs stood beside Ian. “Potter must have visited the morgue last night. According to the after-action report, Grant and Stark were each killed with a single shot from a sniper’s rifle. If Potter examined the bodies, he knows that Bennett’s version of events is incorrect. No wonder he visited Mary Grant. He thinks he has a story.”

Ian took off the headphones and moved to a quiet corner of the cabin to place a private call.

“Mason.”

“Hello, Ed. You’re about to have some visitors.”

“What’s going on?” asked Edward Mason.

“Mary Grant and a reporter from the Statesman are headed your way. She’s not too keen on your moving her husband to Quantico.”

“How the hell does she know anything about that? For that matter, how do you?”

“Give us some credit. We’re the ones that hacked into your mainframe. Just get used to the idea that we know everything.”

“Limey prick.”

“What was that, Ed? I didn’t quite catch it.”

“Nothing.”

“I suggest you hurry up your business. Mrs. Grant is currently moving into the right lane of I-35 to take the Twelfth Street exit. I estimate that you have six minutes.”

44

Tank parked across the street from the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office, a large white two-story building running the length of the block. “Go in,” he said. “Tell them that you’re the next of kin. You have a right to view your husband’s body.”

Mary got out and walked around the front of the Jeep. As she crossed the street, a dark Ford sedan pulled out of an alley and accelerated sharply, forcing her to jump back a step. A van belonging to the Medical Examiner followed closely behind. Before she could cross, another Ford sped past. The driver looked hard at her. She recognized the gleaming dome, the accusing eyes. The Ford braked, tires screeching, and backed up. Don Bennett rolled down the window.

“What are you doing here, Mary?”

“Why are you taking Joe to Virginia?”

“It’s not your concern.”

“He’s my husband. Of course it’s my concern.”

Another man sat in the passenger seat. He was older, well groomed, bristling with authority. She’d seen his face in one FBI publication or another, but his name escaped her.

“Go home,” said Bennett. “We’ve got everything under control.”

“You said that two days ago. I still don’t believe you. What are you hiding, Don?”

Bennett rolled up the window and drove down the street. Mary ran alongside for a few steps, banging her fist on the glass. “What is it, Don? What’s Semaphore?”

The Ford accelerated, leaving Mary behind as it barreled past a stop sign and disappeared from sight. Mary ran back to the Jeep and jumped into the passenger seat as a third Ford left the medical examiner’s parking lot.

“I asked him about Semaphore.”

“It rattled him. He took off like a bat out of hell.”

Tank made a U-turn and set off after the FBI convoy.

“Where are you going?” asked Mary. “We can’t keep up with them in this wreck.”

“We don’t need to,” said Tank.

–

Edward Mason smoothed his necktie and settled into the passenger seat for the drive to Bergstrom International Airport. “Mrs. Joseph Grant, I take it.”

“Yes,” said Don Bennett.

“You didn’t mention that she was so attractive.”

“Does it matter?”

“Or so forceful,” Mason added. He thought Bennett looked anxious, ill-at-ease.

“You asked if she’d give up. I said no. Does that qualify as forceful enough?”

Edward Mason registered his subordinate’s anger. He was beginning to wonder if Bennett was entirely with the program.

“Damn,” said Bennett. “The Jeep just got onto the freeway a quarter mile back.”

Mason swiveled to look out the rear window. He caught a flash of blue paint six or seven cars behind them. “I don’t want any record of our transferring Grant’s body to Quantico. If the public is made aware that we’re taking anything other than absolutely standard measures with regard to this case, they’ll demand to know why. Are we clear, Don?”

Bennett nodded. “Yessir.”

“Impress me.”

–

The Jeep was doing seventy on the interstate, the engine whining, the steering wheel shaking as if it had dropsy. Don Bennett and the medical examiner’s van were somewhere far ahead.

“Your husband never mentioned having to head out to Dripping Springs?” asked Tank.

“I would’ve remembered Dripping Springs, and I certainly would have remembered the Nutty Brown Cafe. We would have had a laugh.”

“And Semaphore? You never heard him mention it?”

“I told you already. I was looking at these doodles my husband had made on his legal pad and the word just popped out.”

“Out of the blue? Boom…semaphore? Just like that?”

“Yes-all those signal flags. When I figured out what he was drawing, the word flew out.”

“So all we have is Semaphore, secret trips to San Jose, and a receipt from the Nutty Brown Cafe,” said Tank.

“Don’t forget Judge Caruso,” said Mary. “And the fact that you think Joe wasn’t killed by a handgun, which means the informant didn’t kill him.”

“I don’t ‘think’ it,” said Tank. “I know it.”

He guided the car off I-35 onto 290 east. Mary looked out the window. A sign read, AUSTIN-BERGSTROM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT 8 MILES. The city had vanished. Untended fields spread to either side of them, dotted with corrugated-tin warehouses, broken fences, rundown farm equipment. She caught a flash of black out of the corner of her eye. “Watch out!” she shouted as a Chevy Tahoe cut in front of them.

Tank hit the brakes and Mary lurched forward, the seat belt preventing her from striking the dash. Tank honked. “Watch it, asshole!” Then, to Mary: “Excuse me, ma’am.”

“Watch it, fucker!” shouted Mary. She looked at Tank’s wide eyes and the two shared a nervous laugh. “Excuse me, sir,” she said.

Tank moved into the left lane and the Tahoe mirrored him, blocking his progress. “Okay, funny guy, we get the picture. Now get out of the way.”

“Pass him,” said Mary.

“I can’t. There’s someone in the next lane.”

Mary looked to her right. Another SUV filled the lane beside them, maintaining the same speed as the Tahoe, effectively boxing them in. “Slow down,” she said. “Go around him.”

Tank slowed to fifty. The Tahoe blocking them slowed too, as did the SUV to their right. “There’s someone behind us, too.”

Mary looked over her shoulder. A third dark SUV sat behind them. The driver wore a suit and sunglasses. She looked at the car to their right. Also a white male in a dark suit with sunglasses. The car looked familiar, too. Joe drove the same model from the FBI’s motor pool.

“Bennett has his men surrounding us,” she said. “I recognize one of them from the hospital. Forget it, Mr. Potter. We’ve made our point. Let’s go home.”

“It’s our chance to get pictures of Bennett moving your husband to Quantico.”

“I’m not sure what good they’ll do.”

“Leave that to me.”

Mary glanced at her watch. It was two o’clock. Jess. “I’ve got to get my daughter from school,” she said. “I’m late already.”

“She can wait.”

“But…” Mary stifled her worries. Jess was fine. The fact of the matter was, she was used to waiting.

Tank continued to drive below the speed limit. Traffic was stacked behind them. He slowed and put on his turn signal. His intention was clear. He was giving up the chase. After a few seconds the SUV to their right accelerated, granting them room to scoot over. Tank changed lanes as they passed beneath a sign that read: AIRPORT FREIGHT ½ MILE.

The lead Tahoe accelerated. The SUV behind them broke off as well. In seconds the FBI’s vehicles disappeared from view. The pent-up traffic rushed ahead, passing them as if they were a rock in a stream.

“Seat belt on?” asked Tank.

“Yes. Why?”

“Hold on.” Tank yanked the car to the left as he downshifted into third gear and rammed the accelerator. Behind them, tires squealed. Horns blared. The Jeep bounded across two lanes of traffic and hit the dirt shoulder, its front tires leaving the ground before landing with a spine-jarring thud. Tank steered down the embankment and up the other side. Both oncoming lanes were empty. He cut across the highway and down the on-ramp.

“Look out!” shouted Mary.

Fifty yards ahead, a big rig was barreling straight at them. All Mary could see was its enormous chrome grille and the headlights, which she swore were staring right at her. The air horn sounded. Mary gripped the armrest and braced for impact. Tank slotted the Jeep left, his door striking the safety barrier, sparks flying. The rig passed within an inch, close enough that the change in air pressure made her ears pop.

Mary covered her head and screamed.

And then the rig had passed. They were down the ramp, turning right and shooting across the underpass and onto the frontage road.

“What was that?” asked Mary, pinned to her door.

“Highway chicken. Old college game.”

“You’re serious? You mean you’ve done that before?”

“I saw it all the way. We weren’t in danger for a second.”

“And the truck?”

“You got me there. Kind of came out of nowhere.”

Mary let go of the armrest as anger replaced fear. “Why did you do it? We’re too far behind to catch them anyway. They’re probably already aboard the plane.”

But Tank appeared unfazed. For the first time that day he didn’t appear as if he were about to throw up. “Trust me, Mrs. Grant. We’ll beat them there.”

45

The FBI’s convoy idled at the entry to the private aircraft concourse at Bergstrom International Airport as the gate rolled slowly open.

“We’re too late,” said Mary.

Two hundred yards separated them. Tank Potter had chosen to use the old construction road running across the back of the airport complex. The route was longer, but there were no traffic signals and few vehicles. She watched nervously as the gate continued on its track. The Tahoe and the other SUVs that had hemmed them in on the freeway pulled up behind the sedans. The last vehicle backed up and turned in order to block both lanes of traffic. They’d been spotted.

Driving much too fast, Tank rounded a last curve and turned into the private aircraft entry. Instead of stopping at the improvised roadblock, he swung the Jeep left, mounted the curb, and accelerated across an expanse of grass before swinging back onto the road.

The gate was three-quarters open. The first sedan nosed forward.

“Slow down,” said Mary.

Tank kept the Jeep on a collision course with the Ford.

“Stop,” said Mary. “You’re going too fast.”

“This may get ugly. Hold on.” Tank braked hard. The Jeep skidded before colliding with the front left wheel well of the Ford.

FBI agents swarmed from their vehicles and surrounded the Jeep, weapons drawn and aimed at Tank and Mary. Don Bennett strode toward them. “Out of the car.”

Tank climbed out, hands high. “It was an accident.”

“Shut up, Mr. Potter,” said Don Bennett. “Consider yourself under arrest.”

“You know me?” said Tank.

A younger agent approached from his rear and slugged him in the kidney. Tank dropped to a knee. The agent yanked his hands behind his back and cuffed him.

Mary confronted Bennett. “I’m not letting you take him.”

“Back off, Mary, or I’ll cuff you, too.”

“Everyone, let’s calm down.” The slim, authoritative man approached, buttoning his jacket. “Holster your firearms, gentlemen,” he said, turning in a circle, waving his agents’ guns down. “Mrs. Grant, I’m Edward Mason, deputy director. May I offer my sincerest condolences, both personally and on behalf of the Bureau?”

“I know your name.”

“I have to admit that I’m not used to having my car rammed.”

“And I’m not used to being blocked in on the freeway.”

Mason’s lips tightened in something between a grimace and a smile.

“I’m sure Don Bennett explained everything to you on the ride over,” said Mary. “Why are you taking Joe to Quantico?”

“The law requires us to perform a postmortem on your husband, and it’s our policy to carry out the procedure in Virginia with our own trusted team of physicians.”

“That’s not true,” said Tank.

Mason continued, unruffled. “I understand it’s your wish that Joe be buried in Boston. Naturally we’ll make sure that he’s sent to you as quickly as possible.”

“How soon might that be?”

“I can’t promise, but a week should be sufficient. Ten days at the outside.”

“To perform an autopsy?” Tank stated. “It should have been done already. Joe Grant and the informant he was meeting with were each killed by a single shot from a high-caliber rifle. Why are you trying to keep that fact a secret?”

Mason put a hand on Mary’s arm, gently turning her away from Potter and Bennett. “Mrs. Grant-Mary-can we speak privately?”

Mary looked over her shoulder at Tank Potter, arms bound behind his back, forced to his knees. “Yes,” she said.

Mason led her to his car. The two climbed into the rear seat. The engine was running, and the interior was cool and comfortable. “So,” he said with an emphatic sigh. “How in the world did we get here?”

“Don Bennett lied to me about the circumstances surrounding Joe’s death. Now you’re moving Joe’s body out of Austin so that you can lie about the results of the autopsy. It’s my intention to find out how and why my husband was killed. I’d say that summarizes things.”

“Well put,” said Mason. “Clear. Succinct. None of the bullshit I usually get.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I didn’t mean to. I guess I’d want to know the same thing. Don told me you’d received a call from Joe indicating that he was in some kind of trouble.”

“That’s correct.”

“Can you give me details about what he said?”

“Are you admitting that you lied to me and the press about Joe’s death?”

“I’m suggesting that you and I might be working toward a common goal.”

Mary considered this. If she wanted to hear his side of the story, she owed him hers. “I can’t remember all of Joe’s words. He called to tell me that he was in danger. He feared for his life.”

“He said that?”

“In so many words.”

“But nothing specific about the case he was working on?”

“No.”

“Or the man he was meeting?”

“Don’t you know who he was meeting?”

“We know, but it’s important that neither you nor anyone else does…at least for the time being. Let me be honest with you-and please, what I say remains between us.”

“You mean I shouldn’t say anything to Mr. Potter.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“All right.”

Mason drew a breath. “Joe was working a sensitive case. Confidential doesn’t begin to describe it. I can’t go into details, but I will tell you that his work involved the highest levels of national security. Joe delayed taking his promotion to D.C. to continue working it. One day soon you’ll read about it in the papers. You’ll learn everything. But for now we need to keep it locked down. That includes guarding the identity of the informant. Should his name be revealed, it would adversely impact the investigation. I’d go so far as to say it would shut it down. I know you wouldn’t want to jeopardize something that Joe gave his life for.”

Mary looked closely at Edward Mason, the grave, officious face of the government. She noted the neat gray hair cut an inch above his collar, the steady blue eyes, the crisp button-down shirt and dark necktie. Mason was the Bureau’s number-two man, and he carried the power of office easily. He exuded the steady, reassuring demeanor associated with airline pilots or astronauts, or movie stars charged with carrying out desperate missions in the face of daunting odds. One of Joe’s fellow Marines, judging by his tie clasp. A man’s man. Joe would gladly have followed him into battle.

And Mary? What about her? She was a good citizen. Loyal. Patriotic. Daughter of a family with a proud naval tradition. Who was she to question the actions of the FBI? Who was she to doubt Edward Mason’s word? To refuse his earnest request?

And yet…

“What about what Tank Potter said?” she asked.

“About the gunshot wounds?”

Mary nodded.

“I wouldn’t put much stock in Mr. Potter’s words.”

“He’s a reporter. It’s his job to get the truth.”

“Not exactly,” said Mason. “He used to be a reporter.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mr. Potter was arrested two nights ago for driving while intoxicated. He no longer works at the Statesman. From what I understand, he’s a very sick man. You might consider the possibility that Mr. Potter manipulated you to drum up a story so he could get his job back. It’s a reporter’s job to lean on their sources until they spill, so to speak.”

“But he has pictures.”

“Pictures? Of your husband-”

“And the informant. A pistol doesn’t do that. At least, that’s what Mr. Potter said.”

“Maybe it would be wise to have an expert look at them.”

“Maybe,” said Mary.

Mason fixed her with his steady eyes. “For now, all you need to know is that Joe died heroically in the service of his country. The United States will be a safer place because of his work. I’ll see to it that his pension is based on the salary he was to receive after his promotion to the Senior Executive Service. When this is all over, you and your family can expect a commendation from the president.”

“The president?” said Mary, but all she was thinking about was the enormous impact on the family’s finances that a promotion to the Senior Executive Service would bring.

“The highest levels of national security, Mary.”

Still, her curiosity demanded one thing. “So what is Semaphore, then?”

Mason cocked his head. “What was that, Mary?”

The hint was plain enough. She heard Randy Bell ordering her never to say that word again. “Nothing,” she said. “I must have misheard something.”

Mason placed his hand on her arm. “Mary, you’re a civilian. Our work can be dangerous. May I have your word that we won’t be running into you again…for your sake?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“Promise?”

Mason extended his hand and she shook it, looking directly into his eyes. “Promise.”

“Thank you for your cooperation. I can see that Joe was a lucky man.”

Mary reached for the door handle.

“And Mary,” Edward Mason said, in an entirely different voice. Her kind uncle had been replaced by the admiral in one of his black moods. “Vehicular battery is a serious offense. A felony. Add to that interfering with a federal investigation. You and Mr. Potter nearly got into a lot of trouble. I don’t think your children need to see their mother in a federal penitentiary on top of losing their father.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mason.”

“Ed-please.”

Mary stepped out of the car. During their tête-à-tête, someone had extricated the Jeep from the Ford. Despite the impact and the deafening noise of the collision, there appeared to be little damage to Tank Potter’s car. The Ford wasn’t as fortunate but looked drivable.

Mason came around the front of the sedan. “Cut Potter loose,” he said.

“But…,” Don Bennett protested, hurrying toward his superior.

“Do it,” said Mason.

Tank Potter got to his feet and stood patiently as an agent cut the plastic cuffs. Mason approached him and whispered a few words that Mary couldn’t hear, but the effect was to make Potter wince repeatedly. She imagined he’d gotten the same warning as she had, but without the sugar coating. Keep your nose out of the FBI’s business or your ass is getting thrown in jail.

“You’re free to go, Mr. Potter,” said Edward Mason. “I’d get those brakes checked if I were you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mason. I’ll be sure to have my car looked at immediately.”

Tank watched Mason head back to his car, then walked over to Mary. “What did he tell you?”

“Is it true?” She was surprised at the anger she felt toward him. More than Bennett or Mason, he had manipulated her. Their actions, however mercenary, were on behalf of their country. Potter’s were strictly for personal gain.

“The DUI? Yeah, it’s true. But that doesn’t-”

“And you no longer work at the Statesman?”

“Technically…”

“Do you or don’t you?”

“No, ma’am. I’m no longer an employee.”

“So you visited me to drum up a story to get your job back. You came to my house to lean on me and see if I spilled?”

“To ‘lean on you’? Where’d you get that? I’m a reporter. We interview people. We ask questions. It’s our job. I wasn’t leaning on you.”

“You used to be a reporter,” said Mary, her voice, her body, trembling with rage. “Now you’re just an unemployed drunk who pressures widows into divulging private information.”

“It’s not like that. I’m not making any of that stuff up. Ask Mason. He knows it’s true. Why do you think they’re moving the bodies?”

Mary pinned her shoulders back and raised her chin. “I don’t have anything more to say to you, Mr. Potter. I’d appreciate it if you left my family and me alone.”

“What kind of Kool-Aid did he give you, lady?”

“Just the truth. Next time you’d be well advised to do the same. Goodbye.”

Mary walked to Edward Mason’s car and tapped on the window. “Would it be possible for one of your agents to give me a ride home?”

“Our pleasure.”

“I apologize for any inconvenience. It won’t happen again.”

46

As ONE 1 began its initial descent into the Austin area, Ian stood in his personal quarters, humming a song from a favorite musical. ONE 1 was essentially a bespoke 737-900ER designed to his requirements. There was a screening room and a fitness room, an office, and a bedroom. His quarters took up the rear of the plane. The office was identical to his offices in Austin, Palo Alto, Guangzhou, and Bangalore, if on a smaller scale: dark carpets, birch furnishings, minimal, spare, efficient.

“You wanted me?” asked Briggs.

“Come in,” said Ian. “Shut the door.”

“Did you ask to see me so we could sing show tunes?”

“Do you know any?”

Briggs regarded Ian as if he were mad. “What are you so damned happy for? We have a problem and we need to tie it off.”

“I thought you already told me it was ‘banked.’ Once-or was it twice?”

“Call me a gentleman. I have a soft spot for women.”

“And your suggestion?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Didn’t you hear what Mason said? Mary Grant apologized for damaging the investigation. She promised not to disturb things further.”

“You believe her?”

There was no point in answering the question. Belief was subjective. Ian trafficked in certainties. “Show a carpenter a nail and he hits it with a hammer.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re the carpenter,” said Ian. “An excellent carpenter, to be sure, but a carpenter nonetheless. Sometimes a more elegant solution is called for.”

“The woman has to go. How’s that for elegant?”

Ian walked to his desk and sat. He’d spent the past half hour sorting through the angles. Eliminating an FBI agent was one thing: a single, orchestrated act with all pieces in place to control any possible damage. Eliminating the agent’s wife was something else entirely. Her death only days after his would not go unnoticed. Questions would be asked. The story had all the makings of a tabloid sensation. Edward Mason was a powerful official, but he had no means of controlling the investigation into the murder of a private citizen, or the press coverage it would garner.

There was more. Ian refused to orphan two young girls. He knew about growing up without a father. He hadn’t wanted to get rid of Joseph Grant, but in the end there had been no other choice. Grant was too tenacious, and Hal Stark had far too much information. In the end it was Ed Mason’s decision as much as his.

“About the reporter,” said Ian. “The one with the pictures. What’s his name again?”

“Potter. Tank Potter.”

“Yes, about Mr. Potter and his indiscreet friend at the medical examiner’s office…”

“Cantu.”

“Yes, Mr. Cantu.” Ian drummed his fingers on the desk. “Those two are nails. Feel free to use your hammer.”

Briggs appeared happier: a horse given his reins. “And the pictures?”

“Tell the Mole to make them disappear. I believe that’s well within his skill set. Let me take care of the woman.”

“You’re sure about this elegant solution?”

Ian spun in his chair and gazed out the window.

“All right, then,” said Briggs. “We’ll do it your way.” He paused at the door. “What’s that song, anyway? I think I’ve heard it.”

Ian kicked his feet onto the desk and sang aloud. “How do you solve a problem like Maria?”

Briggs looked away, sickened, and hurried fore.

Ian shook his head. Of course Briggs hated The Sound of Music. No one was killed in it.

He continued singing, his voice growing louder, his hands moving theatrically. “How do you catch a moonbeam in your hand?”

He had the answer.

Sloths.

47

Tank Potter made a beeline across the newsroom to Al Soletano’s office. “I’ve got proof,” he said, holding his phone above his head. “I told you I had a story. Here it is. Proof.”

The few reporters at work popped their heads above their cubicles to see what the commotion was all about. A few called his name. Tank paid them no heed. His wrists burned from the flex cuffs. His back ached from the kidney punch. But worst was the injury to his professional integrity.

“Al!” he shouted. “You there? Come out of your hobbit hole.”

Soletano emerged from his office, a sheaf of paper in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. “What are you doing here, Potter?” he asked wearily.

“I was right about the story-about Joe Grant.”

“I don’t want to hear.”

“Proof,” said Tank, brandishing his smartphone.

“Take it somewhere else. You no longer work for this newspaper.”

“The FBI was stonewalling. I knew it all along.”

“Did you hear me?

“I have pictures showing that Grant and the informant weren’t killed by a handgun. They directly refute Bennett’s official account.”

“Sorry, Tank. Can’t help you.”

“Did you hear me? Pictures. Evidence.”

“Did you hear me? Get lost.”

“Fine. I’ll take them over to AP. I’m sure the Associated Press will be happy to look at them. And when they do, it’ll be their story.”

Soletano stared at him a second, then inclined his head in the direction of his office. “In. Sit. Talk.”

Tank entered the office and sat down. “By the way, do you have a glass of water? I’m dying of thirst.”

“Look who’s the smartass,” said Soletano, following him in and closing the door. “One day without a drink and you think you deserve a medal.” He perched on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his belly. “I’m listening.”

Tank struggled to fit his bulk into the chair. With painstaking detail, he described his visit to the medical examiner’s office the night before and his certainty that both Joseph Grant and the informant had been killed not with a handgun but with a high-powered rifle. Before showing Soletano the photographs of the corpses, he recounted his interview with Mary Grant that morning, beginning with the troubled voice message left by her husband (then mysteriously erased) and ending with her call to Randy Bell, Joseph Grant’s former partner. “She thinks the case her husband and Bell were working on was called Semaphore.”

Finally he gave Soletano a blow-by-blow narrative of his visit to the medical examiner’s office three hours earlier and the race to reach the airport before the FBI in order to chronicle its shipment of the corpses to Quantico.

“You rammed your Jeep into the FBI?” said Soletano.

Tank nodded.

“And they didn’t arrest you?”

“I’m here.”

“You got balls, Potter. I’ll give you that. It’s a wonder you’re not in jail.” Soletano pushed himself off the desk. “Let me see your proof.”

“You can show the photos to a forensic pathologist. No way a handgun did this. Wounds this size come from a rifle.”

Tank opened the photo roll. The pictures of Joseph Grant and the informant were the last he’d taken, and as such should have been the first he saw. Oddly, the pictures weren’t there. “Just a sec,” he said. “I’m getting them.”

Soletano looked unimpressed.

Tank closed the photo app, then reopened it. The last picture taken was always visible in a frame placed in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. He double-tapped the image and got a topless picture of Jeannette, a buxom blond favorite from Pedro’s.

“Any time now,” said Soletano.

Tank went back to the photo roll.

Nix. Nada. Zip.

The pictures he’d taken at the medical examiner’s office were no longer there. Tank was a master at jumping to conclusions. First Joseph Grant’s voice message had been erased from his wife’s phone. Now it was Tank’s turn. In the time it had taken him to drive from the airport to the Statesman, someone had hacked into his phone and deleted the photographs.

But who?

No one knew about the pictures except himself, Mary, and of course Carlos Cantu. The FBI might infer that he had pictures from the fact that he had admitted to seeing the corpses, but they had no proof. Unless Mary Grant had told Mason. Either way, they didn’t have his phone number or the unit’s IP address.

Or did they?

Tank recalled Mary Grant asking him if he’d “leaned on her to spill.” If the words sounded familiar, it was because he’d e-mailed a buddy from the paper earlier that he was heading over to her house to do exactly that. And why had the FBI been tearing out of the ME’s building when Carlos Cantu had told him barely fifteen minutes earlier that they didn’t appear to be in any hurry? Somehow they’d known he was coming. Even before Tank and Mary reached the airport, they’d been listening in.

All this came to him in a second.

“Well,” said Soletano, “are you going to show me or not?”

Tank put down the phone. “Actually…not.”

“What do you mean? Let me see ’em.”

Tank shook his head. “You know what, Al? You’re right. I’m not sure I do have a story.”

“You bullshittin’ me? You get me all hot and bothered, and now you’re giving me nothing?”

“Sorry, Al. My bad. I’ll be back when I’m sure.”

“Don’t bother. You’ve wasted enough of my time as it is. Now get out.”

–

On the ground floor, Tank stopped in the break room and bought a can of Coke. The loss of the photographs didn’t discourage him. On the contrary. The fact that the FBI-or another interested party-was hacking into his phone and listening in on his conversations was a tonic. You didn’t destroy evidence unless there was a crime. Tank was on the right track.

He looked at his phone.

Traitor.

There was only one punishment for treason.

Outside the building, Tank walked briskly back to the Jeep. Crouching, he placed the phone beneath the rear tire, wedging it between asphalt and rubber. Once behind the wheel, he put the Jeep into reverse. He heard a crunch, and then another as the tire passed over the handset. Still he wasn’t satisfied. Phones were tough little bastards these days. He’d dropped his a dozen times, and though the screen was cracked and the case was chipped, it still worked.

Sliding the transmission into park, he stepped out of the car and examined the handset. The phone was crushed but looked more or less intact. He imagined that somewhere inside it a battery was still connected to a transmitter that still emitted a signal that someone somewhere with the proper technology could track.

Tank dug his heel into the metal and glass and ground it into the asphalt. Finished, he picked up the phone. He had to marvel at its design. It just didn’t look dead.

He had an idea.

Tank threw the phone onto the passenger seat and drove around to the front of the building. Twenty yards away flowed the green, fast-moving waters of the Colorado River. He got out of the car, strode to the riverbank, and threw the phone as far as he could. He watched the handset tumble end over end, sparkling in the sun, before dropping silently into the water.

Let ’em track that, he thought.

Satisfied that he was alone-really and truly alone-and that no unseen witness was tagging along beside him, keeping a record of his every word and movement and reporting them to his master, he returned to his car and accelerated out of the lot.

It was almost five.

Happy hour.

There was only one place he wanted to be.

48

“Do you know who Odysseus is?” Ian asked Katarina as he entered the spa. ONE 1 had landed a while ago, but he needed to stay at the airport to greet the Israelis.

“A Greek,” said Katarina. “Was he a god or a man?”

Ian closed the door and disrobed. “Man. A warrior. The chap who led all the others inside the Trojan Horse.”

Katarina was wearing shorts and a tank top, her admirable biceps on display. She handed him his third batch of supplements. No magic drip today. After taking his pills, Ian lay down on the massage table. Katarina disrobed and when she was naked began to massage him, concentrating on the shoulders and neck, kneading his muscles with her strong fingers.

“Why do you ask about Odysseus?”

“Just curious.”

Katarina found a knot deep down and applied pressure to it for a full minute. Ian sucked in air through clenched teeth. The pleasure was excruciating.

“You are never curious,” she said. “Why are you thinking about the Trojan Horse?”

“Ah, Katarina, you’re too smart by half.”

The German moved her hands lower, working each arm, then his chest, then lower still. Ian gasped. The hands moved expertly, clinically, one professional working with another. He closed his eyes and let the pleasure engulf him. He was not thinking about a woman or a man or anything remotely physical. He was thinking about Odysseus. Not the warrior, but the software of his own creation, and it was far, far sexier.

Odysseus was malware, a piece of software designed to take control of a computer independent of its user. He’d written it to perform three tasks-to surveil and transmit every keystroke of its host; to copy and transmit the contents of the host’s hard drive and any attached flash drive, backup drive, or auxiliary memory device; and to grant Ian complete control of the platform so that he might roam around it at will and edit, amend, copy, steal, or otherwise corrupt things as he saw fit.

Upon landing, he’d shut himself inside his private quarters and spent much too long surfing the Net in an effort to find the most amusing video of an animal he could. He looked at Zen kittens, talking puppies, dancing fish, laughing giraffes, and a dozen other cute, cuddly, and altogether adorable creatures.

Of course he also looked at the clip of the sloth. The sloth wasn’t the cutest by a long shot, but according to their browser log, the Grant girls must have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Ian quickly found three additional clips of sloths that he found particularly irresistible. Irresistible was the key word in this endeavor. Finally he chose the one he thought the girls would like best.

The trap was simple enough. E-mails would arrive in the mailboxes addressed to Grace and Jessie Grant carrying the header “Cutest Sloth Ever!” Opening the mail, the girls would be presented with a link to the video Ian had selected. The success of Ian’s ploy rested on one of the girls clicking on the link. Once they did, the video of the sloth would begin playing. Attached to it, ready to crawl into the deepest, darkest crevasses of the Grants’ computer, was Odysseus, as stealthy and cunning as the Greek warrior of ancient lore.

Katarina’s fingers stroked him expertly, dispassionately. His back arched and she put her mouth on him. Ian allowed himself release, lips pressed together to stifle any escaping sound.

Katarina cleaned him quickly and neatly. “Ian, may I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to Odysseus?”

“No one knows. He died, I suppose. Everyone must.”

Katarina laughed, fixing him with her cold blue eyes. “Yes, Ian, everyone must. Even you.”

Ian slapped her. “Don’t ever say that again.”

49

“He went dark,” said the Mole.

“How’s that?”

“Signal vanished.”

“But you just had it.” Shanks glanced over his shoulder. The Mole sat at his console, headphones draped around his neck, eyes glaring at the monitor. Shanks returned his attention to the road. Rush hour, and traffic on I-35 was slow. “Find it?”

“There’s no ‘it’ to find,” said the Mole. “One second he’s blasting in the clear. The next he’s dark. A ghost.”

The Mole recommenced the search protocol by entering Tank Potter’s mobile phone number. The handset’s corresponding eleven-digit alphanumeric identification appeared on the screen. Potter was a ONE Mobile customer and theoretically easy to locate. The Mole requested that the number be pinged. A signal was broadcast to the handset in order to establish its real-time location as measured by the internal GPS chip standard in all cell phones. Two minutes earlier the phone, and presumably Tank Potter, had been inside the premises of the Austin American-Statesman at 305 South Congress Avenue. Now the pulsing red dot denoting his location had vanished.

“He knows,” said the Mole.

“About time. You wiped his photos an hour ago. His story just went up in smoke.”

“Continue to his last known location. Let’s hope for a visual.” Shanks pulled into the Statesman’s parking lot five minutes later. “A rusted-out Jeep Cherokee shouldn’t be hard to spot.”

The Mole slid into the front seat beside him and scanned the parked cars.

“No joy,” said Shanks after he finished a circuit of the lot. “You sure he was here?”

“GPS doesn’t lie.”

“He’s gone now.”

“I give him a ten-minute head start.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Shanks. “We lick our finger, stick it into the wind, and guess where he’s headed?”

“Pull over and be quiet.”

Shanks slid the Airstream into a spot at the back corner of the lot. “Better be quick. Briggs wants this guy taken care of.”

The Mole began feverishly typing commands into the console. It wasn’t a matter of guessing where Potter was headed but of analyzing his past actions to predict where, statistically, he was most likely to go, the pertinent question being, where could Tank Potter usually be found at five p.m.?

First the Mole asked ONE Mobile’s servers to provide a history of Potter’s movements between the hours of four and six p.m., based on GPS readings transmitted from his phone. For a data range the Mole chose the past fifty-two weeks, with data points chosen randomly four times each hour. A jumble of nearly three thousand dots clogged the screen. It was immediately evident that he spent the preponderance of his time at or close to the Statesman headquarters.

The Mole narrowed the search parameter to Thursdays while keeping the time period constant. Approximately four hundred dots remained and only confirmed that Potter rarely left a two-square-mile area surrounding his office. The problem was that many of the coordinates had been taken while Potter was driving and failed to offer an establishment where he might be found. Still, there were four smaller but statistically significant clusters of dots at defined locations other than the Statesman.

The Mole accessed a record of all text messages sent from Potter’s phone on Thursdays between four and six p.m., winnowing the time frame to the past six months. He was not interested in the messages themselves but again in Potter’s geographic location when he sent them. A sample set of two hundred dots appeared. The four clusters were now just two, not counting the Statesman.

The Mole activated the map’s tagging feature. The names of all nearby banks, restaurants, boutiques, and gas stations appeared. Potter had sent 107 texts from inside a single 50-square-meter perimeter.

The Mole sampled several texts randomly, the messages appearing on an adjacent monitor.

At P’s. You coming?

Billy boy, get down here. The joint is jumping!

Hi darlin! Hanging at P’s. When can I expect you?

All three had originated from 16415 Barton Springs Road. Pedro’s Especiale Bar and Grill.

The Mole brought up the website on his monitor. The screen filled with a picture of a black velvet painting of Salma Hayek in a bikini. “Throwback Thursdays. Happy Hour 4-8.”

“Good news,” said the Mole. “We got him.”

50

“Well,” said Jessie. “What was that all about?”

Mary waved as the Ford pulled out of the driveway. “I needed to talk with some of Dad’s colleagues.”

“Why didn’t you drive?”

“Someone else gave me a ride.”

The front door opened. Grace stepped outside. “Where’s Tank?” Mary hesitated and Jessie pounced. “Who’s Tank?” she asked, dark eyes instantly suspicious, darting between Mary and Grace for any sign of treachery.

Mary smiled. “Let’s go inside, Jess. It’s hot out here.”

Jessie had been too awed at seeing her mother being chauffeured by a young, handsome FBI agent to ask any questions on the ride home from UT. She’d been in surprisingly polite form the entire way and spent the trip talking about how she’d been the only one in her class who’d solved some kind of challenging problem. “A hack,” she’d called it.

“Rudeboy did it in five minutes,” Jessie had explained. “Okay, I’m not him. I needed thirteen minutes, but at least I did it, Mom. I did the Capture the Flag hack. I’m as good as Rudeboy, and he’s the best.”

Mary shut the front door and walked into the kitchen, her daughters following like a lynch mob.

“Who was driving that car, Mom?” asked Grace.

“The FBI,” said Jessie. “Now be quiet. Mom didn’t answer my question yet. Who’s Tank?”

“He’s a reporter,” said Grace.

“For the Statesman,” said Mary, adding inadvertently, “kind of.”

“Kind of? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Grace giggled. “He’s really tall and he has messy hair.”

“Shh,” said Jess, her eyes never leaving Mary.

“He had some questions about your father. That’s all.”

“Was it about Dad’s voice message?”

There it was: the reason for Jess’s worry. Mary had been foolish to think her soothing words would allay Jessie’s fears that she’d been the one responsible for erasing Joe’s voice message.

“No,” she said, trying to sound light, breezy. “Just about his work. Nothing that concerns you two guys.” She took a bottle of orange juice from the fridge and poured two glasses. “Here you are. Why don’t you find something for all of us to watch on TV?”

Jessie didn’t budge. “Mom, something’s wrong. We can tell. You’re not acting normal.”

“Yeah,” said Grace. “I heard you talking to Tank before.”

“He was here?” demanded Jessie. “In the kitchen?”

Grace said, “What really happened to Daddy? What did he mean when he said that they were lying about what kind of gun shot him?”

“Who was lying?” Jessie looked from Mary to her sister. “Grace, what did the reporter say?”

“I’m not sure,” said Grace. “But he didn’t want them to take Dad to Virginia. That’s why Mom went with him downtown.”

“Mom, you need to tell us what’s going on. We’re old enough to know.”

Mary looked at her daughters. Chalk and cheese. She was at a loss for words. How much should she explain? Were they old enough to share her concerns? She felt cornered. She wished Joe were there to help.

“Tell us the truth,” said Jessie. “This is about Dad. We have a right to know.”

“What’s Semaphore?” asked Grace.

Mary snapped, “Shut up, Gracie.”

At once Grace’s eyes welled up.

“Mom!” shouted Jess. “You shut up.”

“Don’t talk to your mother that way,” Mary retorted.

“Both of you, stop.” Grace looked between them, crying. “Don’t argue with each other. I hate it.”

Mary wrapped her arms around Grace. “Come now, mouse. It’s all right. I didn’t mean it. Mommy’s just upset. I’m sorry.” She kissed Grace’s blond head and saw a shadow of resentment cross Jessie’s face. Mary opened her arm and motioned Jessie closer. “Come here, peanut.” Jessie shook her head, arms crossed.

“Please,” said Mary.

Jessie remained rooted to the spot, glaring at her mother. Mary sat down with Grace at the table and held her until she stopped crying. She noted that Grace had winced a few times since she’d come home. “What is it, mouse?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Grace.

“You’re sure?”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Jessie. “She said she’s fine. Stop doting on her. She’s not some fragile piece of china.”

“I’m fine, Mommy,” said Grace with a smile, wiping her eyes.

“Really?”

“Promise.”

Jessie shrugged her shoulders and sighed dramatically. The only thing missing was a roll of the eyes. “Tell us about Dad.”

“First of all,” began Mary, “you have nothing to worry about.”

“Who said we were worried?”

“That’s enough, young lady,” Mary snapped, fire in her eyes. Jessie swallowed and appeared to shrink an inch. Mary drew a breath and spoke calmly. “After your father was killed, I had some questions about exactly what happened. Mr. Potter had some questions, too, but he and I aren’t going to be talking about it anymore. This is something only I can figure out.”

Jessie pulled out a chair and sat. “What do you think happened?” she asked, no longer the antagonist.

“I’m not sure. Just-”

“Did they take Dad to Virginia?”

“Yes.” Mary related her conversation with Edward Mason, making sure to pass along his words about their father’s heroism. She had no doubt that Joe had acted heroically, no matter the exact circumstances of his death. Still, she felt disingenuous.

“Sounds like bullshit,” said Jessie.

“No curse words, young lady.”

“Or what?”

Mary leaned forward and patted her leg. “Or I’ll wash out your mouth with soap.”

“Gross,” said Grace. “Soap tastes like poop.”

Mary smiled. Even Jessie laughed.

“So what are you going to do?” asked Grace.

“Mr. Mason told me that your father was working on an important case to help keep our country safe. He said we’d find out all the details soon. Your father is going to receive a commendation from the president.”

“Wow,” said Grace, beaming. “That’s amazing.”

But Jessie pursed her lips as if she’d chewed on a lemon rind. “You believed him?”

Mary looked at her older daughter, hair hanging in her face, eyes staring like lasers right through her. The problem was that Jessie was too smart. She never accepted a word as the truth until she could prove it herself. Her cynicism had come at a price. She’d heard too many doctor’s promises, seen too many medicines that didn’t work, sat by her sister’s bed too many days. Life had taught her to believe in deeds, not words.

“Maybe,” Mary answered finally. It was as close to a declaration of her own feelings as she was willing to make in front of the kids.

The answer satisfied Jessie. She nodded and her frown relaxed. Distrust was a safer place from which to view the world, and Mary realized that for now, anyway, she shared that same dark promontory.

“I’ll make dinner,” she said, standing, rubbing her hands together. “I’m starving.”

“Chicken fingers,” said Grace. “With French fries and mustard.”

“Barf,” said Jessie. “I want a hamburger.”

“Dog barf,” said Grace.

Mary smiled, happy for even that small measure of relief.

Order was restored.

For now.

51

Shanks slowed the van as it passed Pedro’s Especiale Bar and Grill on Barton Springs Road.

“Is he there?” The Mole poked his head from behind his work console.

“Like clockwork.” Shanks stared at the blue Jeep Cherokee parked in front. The lot appeared full. He turned at the corner and continued down the street. To his dismay, cars occupied every inch of curb space.

“Must be a popular place,” said the Mole. “Looks like half of Austin’s here.”

Shanks continued to the end of the street and turned around. The alley behind the restaurant was likewise packed. He stopped behind the bar’s back entrance. “Any cameras?”

“None outside. We’re good.”

“Take the wheel. I’m going to go in. Make sure our man is there.”

“Don’t make a scene.”

“If the opportunity presents itself, I’m not going to let him get away. The matter is time-sensitive. That stiletto of yours goes in real easy. A little poke through the ribs, nick his heart. The man will be dead before he knows what got him.”

The Mole slipped his knife from its sheath on his calf. “Make it quick.”

Shanks slid the blade up his sleeve. “Lightning.”

–

Tank sat on his favorite stool and raised a hand. “Long day, Pedrito,” he called. “Una cerveza, por favor.”

He’d made it through a day without a drink. Or almost a day-not that anyone was counting. If Mary Grant didn’t want him investigating, that was fine by him. He could take his time, dig up more evidence about what Edward Mason and Don Bennett were covering up. Good stories required patience. How long had Woodward and Bernstein needed for Watergate? A year? Two?

Pedro set a bottle of Tecate on the bar and poured a generous shot of tequila, the amber liquid overflowing the edges. “Throwback Thursday, man. You forget to bring your jersey?”

“Left it at home.”

“No one’s going to know who you are without it.”

“Thanks,” said Tank, wrapping his fingers around the beer. “Appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“Got you something,” said Pedro.

“A bottle of La Familia?”

“Nah. Something we were talking about.” Pedro reached beneath the bar and came out with a braided leather quirt. “Not exactly a buggy whip, but pretty close. It’s yours. Help you figure out what to do now that you’re not a journalist anymore.”

Before Tank could respond, Pedro left to help another customer. Tank set the riding crop on the counter and lifted the beer to his lips. Who said he wasn’t a journalist anymore? Al Soletano? Mary Grant? Edward Mason?

If you’re a journalist, what are you doing in Pedro’s?

Tank looked at the crop. A journalist tracks down sources and gathers evidence. He digs out the truth, no matter how cleverly it’s hidden. He doesn’t give up until he has his story. A journalist has a sacred obligation to the truth.

Once he’d believed all that garbage.

And now?

He ran his fingers along the crop, waiting for an answer.

–

Shanks slipped into Pedro’s through the back entrance. The dining room was dimly lit and he needed a few moments for his eyes to adjust. The first thing he noticed was the colorful plastic fish hanging from the ceiling. Then the velvet paintings of Hispanic stars. Real class. Only a few tables were occupied. None of the diners matched Potter’s description.

A din was coming from the bar area. He crossed the room and ducked his head around the corner. The place was a madhouse. Students, young professionals, even a few oldsters. Many wore dated clothing and sported old-school hairstyles. He noticed a sign advertising THROWBACK THURSDAY and BEERS $1.

Shanks edged his way through the crowd, keeping low, eyes scanning the faces. He was intent on finding Potter. This was his chance. He didn’t have the gift like the Mole. He wasn’t an electrical engineer or a code pounder, or in any way technically gifted. He hadn’t gone to Harvard or MIT. But he wasn’t dumb.

William Henry McNair-Shanks to his friends-was a proud graduate of King College Prep on Drexel Boulevard in Chicago. And not just a graduate, an honors graduate. His diploma had the words cum laude printed right below his name. With distinction. That didn’t matter much when your mother was loaded all day and your father was doing time in Joliet. No one in his family had even thought about college.

Shanks didn’t want to follow his brothers onto the street. He was a good kid, with only two smears on his rap sheet. The day after graduation he was on a bus to Parris Island, South Carolina. The Marine Corps Recruit Depot. He saw action in Iraq, made sergeant in three years, and was offered a slot in Officer Candidate School. By then, though, the headaches had begun, and he decided he’d had enough of the Corps. While he liked the idea of getting his butterbars just fine, the prospect of earning $100K a year was more appealing, and that was what his brother had promised.

His brother had lied. Instead of $100K, he got a ten-year sentence for armed robbery. He served six, but six was more than enough. Shanks was done working with thieves. He liked having a real job with a real company with a real salary and real benefits. As of this fine day he was pulling down ninety-four grand a year, with health, dental, and a 10 percent kicker to his 401(k). He aimed to keep it that way.

It was lighter in the bar area and he had a good view of everyone’s face. He made a circuit of the room, keeping his eyes peeled for a tall, shaggy guy with drooping cheeks and sad eyes. He saw no one, and after double-checking the dining room, he made a second tour of the bar. There was a single unoccupied stool. A $10 bill was tucked beneath a full bottle of beer on the counter. Whoever had left the money had left a shot of tequila, too.

And something else. A fancy braided leather riding crop.

Where in the world was Tank Potter?

Shanks hurried out the front entrance.

The Jeep was gone.

–

“Get out of my seat.”

Shanks slammed the door and handed back the stiletto.

“You missed him.”

“He left.”

The Mole moved to the work bay and took his place at the console. “Briggs is going to be pissed when he finds out you let him get away.”

“I told you, he left,” said Shanks. “Anyway, we have another nail to take care of. You know how to get to Buda?”

52

Time to make money.

Carlos Cantu hurried in from his car and ran upstairs to his bedroom. He couldn’t believe it was already six and he was only now getting home. Buda was a good thirty miles south of Austin, and this evening traffic had been snarled owing to an overturned fertilizer truck.

Carlos threw off his sweat-stained scrubs and jumped under the shower, keeping the water on full cold, which at this time of year was no better than 80°. As he washed, he thought of only one thing. Money. He wanted $35,000 for the watch. Not a penny less.

Finished showering, he dressed in shorts and a Longhorns T-shirt, then opened his nightstand and picked up the evidence bag containing the Patek Philippe watch he’d lifted yesterday. Now that he was clean, he tried it on. The gold sparkled dully. The second hand swept smoothly across an ivory guilloche face. The crocodile strap complemented his skin.

Carlos returned the watch to the evidence bag for safekeeping. If it weren’t worth so much, he’d be tempted to keep it for himself. But $35,000 would go a long way. It would pay off his mother’s medical bills, help his sister with college, and, hopefully, leave enough to buy himself a new car.

He didn’t like stealing from the dead. He preferred to look at his action more as “purposeful misplacement.” Things got lost all the time between the crime scene, the hospital, and the morgue. If they happened to find a way into his pocket, all the better.

–

Downstairs, he set up camp in the dining room. A coffee and a frozen Snickers bar counted as dinner. He logged onto eBay. At the moment he had a single auction running. A photograph of the Patek Philippe watch filled the screen. He’d received three bids so far, all for well below his asking price. He checked the bidders’ identifications. Two were watch dealers in Florida. The third was a private individual in Seattle. All of them seemed legit. He frowned. He wouldn’t accept less than thirty. Thirty was the magic number.

His phone chimed. He saw it was a text from Tank Potter asking to come over.

“Not again.” Carlos picked up the phone, unsure whether to respond. He’d already done Tank enough favors. The problem with reporters was that they always wanted more. Then he remembered how Edward Mason had screamed at him to hurry up and load the bodies into the van when they weren’t even ready. The man had a serious attitude problem. Carlos decided he’d be happy to help his buddy, if only to screw the officious little turd.

He texted Tank to come over when he wanted and added that he should enter through the back door.

“See you soon,” Tank texted back.

Carlos put away the phone and returned his attention to the auction. There was a new bidder.

Twenty-five thousand or nothing.

It was his final price.

53

“Do you believe him?”

Mary stood inside her walk-in closet, eyeing the racks of clothing.

Blue blazer.

Navy slacks.

White shirt.

She selected the garments with care, setting them on the bedspread like she used to lay out her Sunday best for church. At the moment, however, she did not entertain any angelic thoughts. The Lord’s Prayer, “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and the Twenty-third Psalm were the furthest things from her mind.

Mary Grant was angry. She was sick of being pushed around, and sick of being lied to and manipulated. Mostly, though, she was sick of not knowing the truth.

Joe had not called her to say goodbye. He’d called to tell her that something was profoundly wrong with his current situation. He’d called to give a shout for help, even if he knew she could not render the assistance he needed.

He did not call Randy Bell.

He did not call Don Bennett or Edward Mason.

He didn’t call anyone from the FBI.

He called his wife, a civilian twenty-five miles away driving on a crowded freeway with her two daughters, doing nothing more hazardous than navigating the ordinary, mundane vicissitudes of everyday life.

Joe had called his wife because she was the only person he could trust.

Mary put on her slacks and shirt, tucking in the tails so the fabric pressed across her chest. She slipped on a pair of sensible brown loafers she’d worn exactly twice. Finally she put on her blazer. In the bathroom she brushed her hair and drew it into a ponytail. With a warm washcloth she wiped away a bit of her mascara, scrubbed the foundation off her cheeks, and removed her lipstick.

She appraised herself in the mirror.

Stand straight.

Shoulders back.

Don’t smile.

Still, something was missing.

She opened Joe’s drawer and rummaged through his things. She raised her chin as she pinned the American flag to her lapel. She looked the part but didn’t feel it. She lacked a certain gravitas, an air of authority. She was a mother heading out to address the PTA or the secretary of the neighborhood homeowners’ association. She was not a seasoned law enforcement officer.

Mary returned to the closet. Kneeling, she slid aside Joe’s trousers to reveal a squat black safe a little bigger than a minifridge and ten times as heavy. Joe’s gun locker. She knew the combination, and within seconds she’d opened the door and removed a Glock 17, a box of shells, and a holster.

Mary took the gun into the bedroom. Like any good military brat, she knew her way around weapons. She knew you always chambered a round and kept the safety on, and that when you drew, you fired. She hadn’t taken a shot in years, but that didn’t matter. She had no intention of using the pistol. Joe’s gun gave her the swagger she needed to pull off her masquerade.

She returned to the bathroom and took up her position in front of the mirror.

She looked the same but felt entirely different.

Forty-eight hours ago she was a grieving widow a breath away from becoming a basket case. As of this moment she was an FBI agent investigating the murder of Joseph Grant.

“Do you believe him?”

No, Mary admitted to herself. She did not believe Edward Mason.

Not for one second.

54

Tank made the turn off the highway, grumbling as the Jeep bucked and groaned down the dirt road. He’d bent the axle ramming the Ford, and the steering was pulling to the left. There was a hatchet-sized dent in the front fender, too, but it blended in with several others. It was the axle that needed fixing.

A gray clapboard house appeared around a curve, half hidden beneath a perilously sagging willow tree. Two dingy windows bracketed a door with paint so chipped and flaking that the door looked like a hedgehog. Weeds had overtaken the lawn years ago. The house looked all but abandoned. The only sign of an occupant was Carlos Cantu’s ancient Honda parked out front.

Tank honked and pulled to a halt. Grimacing, he climbed out of the car, his back aching from the kidney punch he’d taken. “Anybody home?” he called. “Carlos-it’s me.”

He made a trail through the waist-high weeds toward the door. The drive to Buda was a crapshoot. As of two hours earlier, he had officially adopted radio silence. That’s what you did when someone hacked into your phone. In fact, more than hacked into it, took over the entire device. Bodysnatched it.

No more efficient spying device had ever been invented by mankind than a smartphone. It allowed you to speak with one friend or a dozen, and to see their faces. It could access any piece of information in any public database in the world within seconds. It took pictures and movies so clearly they appeared lifelike. It informed you of your location within ten feet anywhere on God’s green earth and then told you every kind of store and business that was around you. The problem, Tank had learned firsthand that afternoon, was that it could be used to spy on you, too.

Tank rapped on the door. “Surprise visit. It’s me, Tank. Open up.”

He listened for the floorboards to creak as Carlos came to the door. The place had been built in 1920, and he was sure it still had every last original plank and nail. He knocked again, and when no one answered, he took a step to his right and yelled through the open window. “Carlos, you in there?”

No sound at all came from the house. The silence made him nervous.

As a reporter, Tank had done plenty of things to piss people off. It was practically a requirement of the job. Either the cops, the DA, or the perp objected to something you wrote. Over the years he’d received his share of threats, bodily and otherwise. This was the first time, however, that someone had actively interfered with his investigation by destroying evidence.

“Carlos?”

Tank scooted closer to the window. It was then that he saw it and his stomach turned.

He retreated to his car. A search beneath the front seat turned up no liquid courage. Breathing hard, he leaned against the Jeep, looking at Carlos’s house, seeing the overturned chair, the unmoving feet, wondering what to do.

It was on him. There was no way around it.

Steadying himself, he began a slow walk back to the house. The front door was locked, so he walked past the horseshoe pit and around to the back. He stepped onto the porch, the planks groaning beneath his weight. The kitchen door was ajar. He saw something dark in the passage leading to the dining room, something dark and viscous and alive. Against his better instincts, he stepped inside. The smell of cordite stopped him in his tracks. He stared at the pooled blood and the flies busily gorging themselves.

A coward runs, but who stays? An idiot? Certainly not a hero. A hero didn’t get his friend in trouble in the first place.

A journalist stays.

Tank passed through the kitchen and entered the dining room. Carlos Cantu lay on the floor facedown, a bullet hole at his temple. Tank knelt to check for a pulse. His friend was dead.

For a minute Tank remained crouched, doing his best to piece together what had happened. A cup of coffee and a half-eaten candy bar sat on the table next to an open laptop. The mug was still lukewarm. Coffee and a Snickers bar were not his idea of a last meal. A phone lay on the floor a few feet away.

When the ache in his arthritic knees became too great, he stood, his joints cracking like a couple of brass doorknockers. From all appearances, Carlos had been working when someone sneaked up behind him and shot him in the head. The gunshot had toppled him from his chair. His eyes were open. He had died unawares, or at least without putting up a fight. But who could walk across this rickety floor without making a noise?

It was Tank’s fault. He knew this at once. It was Tank who’d called Cantu en route to the medical examiner’s office and, later, Tank who’d voiced his brash and all-too-public accusations that neither Joe Grant nor his informant had been killed by a handgun. There were texts. E-mails. And, of course, the pictures. All of it pointing to his coconspirator’s identity.

It was suddenly very important to know who had done this.

Tank picked up Carlos’s phone and checked the call log. He recognized the prefix of the last call Carlos had received, approximately an hour earlier. He thumbed the screen and the phone connected him to the number.

A harried man answered on the fourth ring. “Don Bennett. How you doin’, Mr. Cantu? I hope you’re not calling to weasel out of your interview Monday morning.”

“No,” said Tank. “I’ll be there. Just wanted to confirm the time.”

“Nine a.m. Everything okay?”

“Just fine, sir. I forgot to write down the time.”

Tank hung up. Hearing Bennett’s voice provided a measure of relief. In his rattled state, he was not beyond believing that the FBI had had a hand in killing Cantu. The good news was that you didn’t schedule an appointment with someone you were going to kill. The bad news was that if the FBI hadn’t slain Carlos, the party or parties responsible for killing Joe Grant and his informant had.

Tank rubbed his forehead. Was it more dangerous to stay or to leave? He pulled up Carlos’s texts. The last exchange had taken place at 6:15. It read: “Hey, Carlos, you at home? I’d like to come by. It’s about the pics.”

Cantu: “At home. Come whenever. In for the night.”

“See you in a few.”

Cantu: “Come around back. Front door broken.”

Tank stared at the texts, feeling something close to vertigo. What he saw didn’t make sense. According to Carlos’s phone, it was he, Tank Potter, who had sent the texts. The screen showed his name and his number. The problem was that Tank had thrown his phone into the river two hours earlier.

Radio silence.

His first reaction was anger, then incredulity, then fear. Hacking into a phone to destroy some pictures was one thing. Sending texts from his number-after he himself had destroyed his phone-was a whole different level of magnitude.

Yet despite his fear, he couldn’t help but rejoice just a little. “Oh yeah, Al,” he whispered to himself. “We got ourselves a story.”

He turned his attention to the laptop. He hit the Return key, and a listing on eBay appeared, showing an eighteen-karat gold wristwatch with a crocodile strap. The starting bid was $35,000. The seller was CC Austin Timepieces. “CC” for Carlos Cantu.

Tank spotted the watch in an evidence bag placed on the sideboard, with an identification tag attached to the strap. He removed the timepiece from the bag. The ID tag showed the initials of the owner and the date taken: “H.S. 7/30.”

Carlos had stolen the watch from the morgue the day before. The day after Joseph Grant and his informant were killed.

Tank thought of the body he’d seen lying on the tray. Ample belly, soft hands, manicured fingernails. It was a rich man’s body.

He picked up the watch. A Patek Philippe. Real gold, judging by its weight. A chronograph with day and date. It was a rich man’s watch.

He flipped it over and noted that the case was inscribed “To H.S. Thanks, I.”

Tank replaced the watch in the bag. Who was H.S.? And why had I. given him a wristwatch worth $35,000? More importantly, was H.S. the informant?

Tank didn’t know, and he didn’t think it wise to do his thinking while standing next to a guy with his brains oozing out of his head.

He gave a last look around. The journalist had completed his work. It was time to leave.

–

He saw the shotgun on his way out. It sat on top of a cupboard in the kitchen, the long steel barrels extending over one edge. He took it down and held it in his hands admiringly. Heavy. Weighted to the front to counteract the kick. A double-barrel twelve-gauge as old as the house itself. He broke the chamber and saw that it was loaded. Fresh shells.

Outside, Tank tossed the gun onto the backseat of his Jeep. He owned three shotguns and a variety of handguns and kept them locked up safely. But he wasn’t going anywhere near his home.

On the highway he kept his foot to the floor, urging the Jeep to pick up some speed. The world looked different to him somehow. Clearer, maybe. Less confused. Certainly more dangerous.

He sneaked a look toward the backseat. The sight of the shotgun reassured him, but not for long. Over and over his mind came back to the same fact: whoever killed Carlos Cantu wanted Tank Potter dead, too.

55

ONE 7 touched down on American soil at 7:01 p.m., sixteen hours and forty-seven minutes after departing Israel.

Ian Prince paced back and forth at the foot of the mobile stairwell, watching the plane approach. Until now all had been planning. The acquisition of Merriweather Systems, the upgrading of the Titan supercomputer, the agreement with the National Security Agency, the purchase of Clarus and the wooing of its senior leadership-each action constituted one iteration within a larger plan, no different from a line of software code within an application.

The arrival of the Israelis marked the turning point. Planning was over. The program had been written. The machinery was in place. It was time to hit Return and execute.

Founded in 2002, Clarus was a developer and manufacturer of surveillance systems designed to collect all types of electronic data from the Internet. Its primary product, Clarus Insight, was a supercomputer capable of intercepting voiceover IP (VoIP) calls through services such as Skype, phone and mobile communications that passed through the Internet. Clarus’s proprietary software utilized deep packet inspection to sift through the vast quantities of information traveling over the Internet and permit IP providers and network managers to inspect, track, and target content from users of the Internet and mobile phones as it passed through routers. A company press release stated that the Clarus Insight Intercept Suite was “the industry’s only network traffic intelligence system that supports real-time precision targeting, capturing, and reconstruction of webmail traffic…including Google Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and AOL mail.”

And now it belonged to Ian.

The plane reached its parking spot and stopped. The stairwell docked with the fuselage. The door opened inward. The executives of the Clarus Corporation descended the stairs eagerly, faces turned toward the sun, taking deep breaths of the fresh Texas air.

Ian greeted each warmly as he set foot on solid ground. “David,” he said, gripping the hand and arm of David Gold, the firm’s founder and CEO. “Welcome to the new world.”

“Ian, we are pleased to be part of your team.”

“Not team,” said Ian. “Family. Are you ready to make history?”

Gold nodded, but there was no mistaking the fervor in his eyes. Like Ian, he was a true believer.

“You’re sure about the decision?”

“To the core.”

Next came Menachem Wolkowicz, the company’s chief technology officer, a man considered by many to be the world’s leading cryptologist. “Menachem, so good to see you again. I’m honored by your presence.”

“The honor is mine.”

“Are you sure about your decision? There’s no going back.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

And so on, until all ten men had deplaned and climbed into a fleet of luxury SUVs.

The vehicles transported the group to the customs hall. Formalities were handled briskly. Passports were examined, stamped, and returned to their owners. Bags passed directly to their owners without search.

Ian wished the men a pleasant ride and informed them that he would join them for a welcoming dinner that evening. He waited until the last man had stowed his luggage and the final SUV had left the airport grounds before walking back into the terminal and continuing to his own mode of transport: a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter.

–

The Visitors’ Lodge at ONE headquarters was a four-story building modeled on London’s famed Connaught Hotel. Inside his suite, each man found a chilled bottle of Cristal champagne, a tin of Beluga caviar, toast points with chopped egg and onion, as well as a platter of cold meats, sweets, and a selection of mineral waters.

An engraved invitation reminded the Israelis that dinner was at nine p.m. Formal dress requested.

The last instruction caused great consternation. None had brought a dinner jacket. Several had forsworn business suits altogether. What did Ian Prince mean by “formal dress requested”?

The men went to hang up their jackets and pants. Each one gasped as he opened the closet and beheld what was inside.

Years ago they had been soldiers.

Tonight they would be soldiers once again.

56

“One nail hammered,” said Peter Briggs.

Ian Prince entered his office, trying to conceal his anger at finding Briggs perched on the corner of his desk. “Which one?”

Briggs shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“And the other?”

“Don’t worry about that for the moment. We’ve got something else.”

Ian glanced up. The tone said everything. Her again. The woman.

“You’ll want to take a look,” said Briggs.

Ian stood alongside his chief of security and watched the twenty-second video clip taken outside the Grant home. In it, Mary Grant left the front door dressed in business attire and climbed into her car. Briggs froze the picture as she unbuttoned her jacket and slid behind the wheel. “See anything?”

Ian took the phone in his own hand to study the freeze frame. “She has a gun on her belt.”

“Does that look like a mother staying at home to care for her little ones? Or like a woman setting out to get into trouble?”

“Have her followed.”

“I already know where she’s going. Someplace called the Nutty Brown Cafe, on the way to Dripping Springs. She looked up driving instructions ten minutes ago.”

Ian put down the phone. His eye wandered across the office to the black satchel resting in its place in the far corner. For a moment he saw his father staring back at him. Peter Prince shook his head. The message was loud and clear.

“Follow her,” said Ian. “And that’s it. Send your man…”

“Shanks.”

“Yes, Shanks, the one who did such a fine job the other day. Have him follow her, but that’s all. I’ll take care of her later.”

“You’re playing with fire.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Tell you the truth,” said Peter Briggs, “no.”

“Anything else to report?”

“About the Israelis?” Briggs shrugged. “They liked the grub. No one opened the bubbly.”

“Anything I should worry about? Doubters? Anyone looking to jump ship?”

“They’re with us lock, stock, and barrel. Bloody well should be, all the dough you’re paying them. Just don’t tell me I have to call them General Gold and Colonel Wolkowicz.”

“Only if I do, Sergeant Briggs. Coming to dinner?”

“Need a shower first. Maybe a short kip.”

“Don’t forget we leave at six in the morning.”

“You never give up, do you?”

“It keeps me sharp.”

“How many years in a row is it now?”

“Seven,” said Ian.

“Lucky number.”

–

After Briggs left, Ian walked to the window and gazed across the Meadow. The sun rested in the lower quadrant of the western sky, its rays warming the stone ramparts of Magdalene and Brasenose. Normally this was his favorite time of day. The hard work was behind him. He could catalogue progress made and chart progress to come. By rights he should be ecstatic. The NSA had signed off on the demonstration of Titan early next morning. (It worked!) The Senate was in his pocket. The deal to build out the CIA’s new intranet was a formality. And the Israelis had arrived.

He could report progress on all fronts.

Instead he felt unsettled. And not just that, but something more troubling. An emotion he had not experienced in a long time. He felt powerless.

All because of one woman.

He poured himself a glass of acai juice, then moved to his desk, where he checked his agenda, confirming that he had scheduled a call with his sons, Trevor and Tristan.

He placed the call, and after a few seconds a floor-to-ceiling monitor blossomed, showing the kitchen of his new home in Bel-Air. His wife had seized on the acquisition of Allied Artists as reason to move the kids to California for the summer and, Ian suspected, longer.

“Your stock price is in toilet. Earnings are down six percent since April. Ten hedge funds have dropped ONE from their core portfolio holdings in last year. What fuck is going on?”

Wendy Wong Prince sat on a high stool at the kitchen counter, Bluetooth in her ear, lululemon tights and T showing off the best body that Bikram yoga and the good doctors of Austin, Manhattan, and Beverly Hills could sculpt. She was a tall, striking Asian, Cantonese by birth, a Harvard MBA by way of Hong Kong and Vancouver, with a PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in her back pocket for good measure.

Ian sighed. All that education and she still dropped the definite article. “And good evening to you.”

“So?” Wendy continued. “Did you close Titan deal?”

“On a conditional basis,” said Ian.

“Conditional? Ian Prince doesn’t do conditional.”

Ian smiled. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she was on his side. “This is a little different from our usual work with the government.”

“I know, I know,” said Wendy. “It’s confidential.”

“Above top-secret, actually. One day, sweetheart, I’ll fill you in. I don’t want to jinx anything.”

Wendy’s face darkened. “Is that what I am now, jinx? Your wife, jinx?” She let fly a stream of Cantonese vitriol. Ian fired back his own, if anything more insulting.

“Now I know why I married you,” she said. “You’re only man who swear better than me.”

“You married me, darling, because I was worth ten billion dollars, you received a prenup guaranteeing you a hundred million once the boys are out of the house, and you agreed that we never have to fuck.”

Wendy’s smile evaporated faster than a Hong Kong rain shower. There was a stirring at the far end of the kitchen. The boys ran into the kitchen, followed by their nannies.

“Hi, Dad,” they said.

Trevor was fourteen and Tristan eleven. Trevor was tall for his age, strapping, and a gifted athlete. Tristan was short for his, chubby, and preferred playing his ONEBox to any real-world activity.

“Boys. How was your day?”

“Mom’s not letting us miss any Chinese lessons,” said Trevor. “I’m sick of it. I want to go to the studio. They’re shooting the new James Cameron movie.”

“Can’t you go after your Chinese?”

“I have golf lessons at Bel-Air Country Club. Afterwards I get a massage.”

“What about you, Tristan?”

“I like Chinese. Mom taught me how to say dew neh loh moh. Do you know what that means?”

“That sounds like Mom.” Ian kept his smile in place. Dew neh loh moh meant “Go fuck your mother.” “Hey, Premier League starts next week. We’re flying over to catch the opening match. Arsenal’s playing West Ham.”

“Arsenal will destroy them,” said Trevor. “Are we sitting with the coaches?”

“We own the team, don’t we?”

Ian had purchased Arsenal Football Club, one of England’s oldest and most prestigious, three years earlier and thrown in a sponsorship deal that put the ONE logo on the football players’ jerseys.

“I don’t want to go all the way to London for a stupid soccer game,” said Tristan. “Can’t I stay here and look after the animals?”

Since moving to Los Angeles, the boys had assembled a veritable menagerie. There was a chinchilla, two hamsters, a cat, a boa constrictor, and a three-legged rescue mutt named Howie.

“We’ll see, Tristan. I’d love to have you in the cockpit with me. I’ll even let you land the plane. What do you say?”

Tristan shrugged, uninterested. “Maybe.”

“I’ll land it,” said Trevor. “Just as well as you, Dad!”

Ian laughed. “Gotta run, fellas. Take care of Mom. And Tristan, no more animals.”

He hung up, feeling lonely. He loved the boys dearly, and he didn’t see them nearly enough. He walked to the rear of his office and entered a large dressing area accessed through a revolving bookcase. He showered and changed for dinner, dressing in black slacks and a form-fitting black dress shirt. He gave himself a final check in the mirror and froze in horror. It couldn’t be. Not already. He brought his face closer to the glass. And yet…there it was.

A gray hair.

Not gray, white. As bleached as a snowflake.

He found a pair of tweezers, plucked out the offending hair, and dropped it into the sink, where it disappeared, blending with the porcelain.

Mortality was the one concept he could not grasp.

57

Peter Briggs walked down the High toward his own quarters. Sergeant Briggs. Ian had some cheek. Of course, he was the boss and was allowed. Still…

He lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke bitterly. Always the NCO, never the officer. So be it, then. He walked around the corner of the building and looked out across the Meadow toward the River Isis, or whatever name Ian had given to the dried-up excuse for a stream. Oxford in Texas. What nonsense. And yet Ian had done it. He had commissioned an architect. He had imported the stone. He had spent two years and more than $1 billion building a damn-near-perfect replica of one of the world’s oldest universities. And Peter Briggs had been at his side the entire time.

A batman.

That was the term they’d used in the Boer War for an officer’s noncommissioned adjutant. The batman took care of all his officer’s affairs. He arranged his clothing, shined his boots, prepared his meals when necessary, looked after his mount, tucked him in at night, and gave him a bloody kiss on the cheek. And after all that, he fought at his side.

Like it or not, Briggs was Ian’s batman. It was his job to look after his officer’s welfare, and that meant undertaking actions the officer might not realize were in his own best interest. The actions Briggs was considering regarded Mary Grant.

He called Shanks. “The woman. She’s on the move.”

“The Mole told me. I’m on my way.”

“I’m impressed. Now let’s see if you can impress me some more. This is what you’re going to do. Listen closely.”

It took him less than a minute to describe the actions he wanted Shanks to take in regard to Mary Grant. “Everything clear?”

“Crystal,” said Shanks.

Peter Briggs hung up. Satisfied that he had taken the necessary steps to protect his officer, he set off to shower and dress for the gala dinner.

A loyal batman would do no less.

58

DRIPPING SPRINGS 20 MILES.

Mary pressed the accelerator, keeping the speed a hair under 80 miles per hour. Joe had a rule. No cop ever gave a speeding ticket if you kept the needle below 80. Eighty to 84, you were taking your chances. Above 85 you were toast.

It was 8:15. The sun hung directly in front of her, dirty dancing with the horizon. The sky was ablaze, the burnt orange of the Zane Grey westerns the admiral had so dearly loved. The road rose and dipped over and over again as it cut through the Texas scrub. Ten minutes outside the Austin city limits she felt isolated and apprehensive, a pioneer in strange, endless land. Any confidence she’d had looking in the mirror, safe in the confines of her home, was gone. Joe’s pistol had lost its ability to inspire. It hung like a dead weight on her belt, reminding her of her folly.

And Joe? What would he do?

He’d do what she was doing. He’d pound the pavement and burn some shoe leather. He’d get out there and ask some questions. He’d shake the tree and see what fell to the ground.

The thought consoled her, but not as much as she would have liked.

She picked up her phone and called home. “Hey, Jess, just checking in. How’s it going?”

“Fine.”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Same thing we were doing half an hour ago.”

Mary had left the girls at home, with Jessie in charge. One look at their mom in a suit was enough to stifle any objections. “I’m going out,” she’d said. “I’ll be back by eleven, and you’d both better be in bed.”

For once Jessie hadn’t protested, and Mary had stood there dumbstruck, wondering if Jess was finally growing up-if maybe, as her daughter might put it, she was ready to “do floors and windows.”

“And your little sister?”

“She’s right here. Want to talk to her?”

“Just tell her Mom says hello.”

“ ’Kay. Bye.”

Mary hung up and tossed the phone onto the seat. Optimism might be premature. She should just be happy that Jess had accepted her assignment without mouthing off.

She entered the city limits of Cedar Valley, a small farm community. She passed the local Sonic and a gas station before spotting the twenty-foot neon cowboy tossing his lasso in the air and welcoming her to the Nutty Brown Cafe.

A signboard advertised that Gary Clark Jr. was playing that evening. The dirt lot was packed with cars snaking up and down the alleys. Parking spilled into two adjacent fields. She circled twice, settling for a spot at the far corner between an oak tree and an old VW van.

She locked the car and started toward the restaurant. Around her the last arrivals were making their way to the outdoor amphitheater behind the restaurant. Music from a blues band filled the air. She felt stiff and overdressed, wildly out of place. She had no idea what she was thinking, carrying a sidearm. She slowed, then stopped altogether. She looked at the entrance to the restaurant a hundred feet ahead and tried to work out what she was going to say. Nothing came to her. She turned and looked back at her car as the band kicked into an up-tempo number. The music gave her a little ’tude. She continued toward the café. She’d think of something when she got inside.

–

The black Ford F-250 pickup rumbled into the parking lot a minute after Mary had arrived. The driver was a big man with broad shoulders, skin the color of milk coffee, and a weathered USMC garrison cap on his head. He put his foot on the brake and scanned the lot, his eyes quickly locating the blond woman in business attire, staying with her as she picked up her gait and entered the café.

“Hello, Miss Mary.”

Shanks put the truck into gear and cruised the lot until he found a spot with a clear line of sight to the entrance. He raised a hand in the shape of a gun and took aim at the door. Give him his old Remington sniper’s rifle and one round. From this distance it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

He put down his imaginary rifle and placed a call. “She’s here.”

“Of course she is,” said Peter Briggs. “Do this and you can count on a promotion.”

Shanks opened the center console and removed a brass cigarette case. He had some time to kill and didn’t know a better way. A flick of his thumb opened the case. He selected a slim, tightly rolled spliff and lit it. Shanks didn’t touch alcohol or most drugs, but he did allow himself a taste of some fine kush now and then. He took a drag and flicked the cherry out the window. He held the smoke in his lungs, feeling his eyes water, his chest expand, his head grow warm and fuzzy. This particular strain was called Triple A, for “awake, alert, and aware.” It got you mellow, took the edge off things, but gave you a little kick in the ass so you could remain sharp, on point.

He exhaled.

“Oh yeah,” he said, seeing a rainbow arc across his vision. He blinked and the colors vanished. “That’s the ticket.”

Shanks considered taking another hit, then thought better of it. One was more than enough. He didn’t know what Joseph Grant had wanted with Mr. Prince. He imagined it had had something to do with the Merriweather deal last winter. It had been a stressful time for everyone at the company. Mr. Prince had ridden the troops hard to make sure ONE completed the acquisition. And Briggs had ridden his boys in security harder. There was lots of B &E work, strong-arming, that type of thing. It was around then that the Mole had started making his creepy Vines.

Since then Shanks had moved steadily up the ladder. Briggs made it clear that it was his job to protect Mr. Prince and his company. He talked about ONE as if it were a country, not a corporation. Shanks liked that just fine. He was a man who gave his allegiance wholly, and ONE represented everything he admired. It was powerful, influential, admired, and, best of all, color-blind. ONE was a meritocracy. It was all about ability.

If his job called for him to shoot a federal agent, fine. He looked at it as killing the enemy, a task no different from taking out an insurgent in Iraq. You were either with ONE or against it. Besides, Shanks had suffered at the hands of the FBI. To him, the job was a chance for some payback-to balance the scales of justice, so to speak. And if his job called for him to take care of another kind of problem, he was fine with that, too.

He checked the time and noted that the Grant woman had been inside the café for an hour. This was not a positive development. He had an educated idea of what she was doing in there, and he was certain Mr. Briggs would not be happy when he learned of it.

Shanks opened his glove box to check for his real gun, a Beretta 9mm, ten-shot clip plus one in the barrel, modified Python ammo. He didn’t need a rifle tonight. This job would be up close and personal.

He closed the glove box and settled down to wait.

He was already rehearsing what he was going to say to Mary Grant before he killed her.

59

“My name is Mary Grant. FBI. I’d like to speak with the manager.”

The hostess glanced at Mary’s badge. “Yes, ma’am. Please wait right here while I find him.”

“Thank you.”

The hostess disappeared into the back of the café. Mary kept her hands at her sides, her posture its best, as she waited. If this was the kind of response a badge got, she planned on carrying it more often.

A minute later a tall, thickset African-American man of about fifty wearing a denim shirt approached. “Cal Miller.”

Mary introduced herself and presented Joe’s badge. “Is there somewhere quiet we can speak?”

“Can I ask what this is about?”

“Two days ago an agent was shot and killed at the Flying V Ranch up the road. The agent ate here just before. I’d like your help in finding out who he may have been with.”

“My office is in the back.”

Miller led the way to the rear of the restaurant, through a door marked Private and into a cluttered office the size of a broom closet. Posters of past acts covered the wall: Vince Gill, Bruce Hornsby, and Willie Nelson. Miller wedged himself behind his desk while Mary moved a stuffed armadillo off an armchair. As she sat, she unbuttoned her jacket just enough to allow him a glimpse of Joe’s Glock. It was only then that she noticed he was wearing a sidearm beneath his shirt, too, something very big and very shiny.

She handed him the receipt she’d found in Joe’s wallet. “Is the server here? I’d like to ask her a few questions.”

“That’s Mindy. She pulls a double Mondays and Thursdays. Let me get her.”

Miller left the office. Mary took a breath and tried to relax. She’d passed the bullshit test. All she had to do now was keep calm and authoritative and act like Joe.

Miller returned, trailed by Mindy, the waitress. She was a short, curvy redhead approaching middle age, with too much makeup and boobs spilling out of a tight black tank top.

“How do you do?” Mindy said, offering a hand. “Cal told me why you’re here. I’m real sorry ’bout what happened to your friend. Do you have a picture of him? It might help.”

“Yes,” said Mary. “Of course.”

Mistake one. She didn’t have a picture ready at all.

She fumbled for her phone and embarked on a search for a picture of Joe to show the waitress. In every one Joe was either with the girls or with Mary. There wasn’t a single snap of him alone. Finally, she selected a picture of Joe with the girls taken at Christmas last year. At least he was wearing a suit, and with a wrenching start, she realized it was the one he’d been wearing two days ago.

“Here he is.”

“Those his daughters? Poor girls. They’re real pretty.”

“Yes, they are,” said Mary, too quickly.

“Burger, fries, and a Coke. I remember him.” She looked up and smirked. “The other guy-he was a piece of work.”

“Go on.”

“He’d just had an operation, something with his heart. He couldn’t eat anything with too much fat or cholesterol. He was worried about how we cook our food. No vegetable oil. No trans fats. You know, all that New York City nonsense. Hello…we ain’t the Four fuckin’ Seasons.”

“How do you know he was from New York?”

“He had an accent, that’s all. He sure as heck wasn’t from around here.”

“Do you recall what he looked like?”

“Fat, red face. Kinda piggy, I guess. Hair combed over. Not someone you’d find on the cover of GQ. But the other one, the one in the picture, he was a dish.”

“He’s married,” said Mary.

“I noticed,” said Mindy, as if the fact didn’t mean a thing to her or her lusty ambitions. “Is there anything else? I’ve got five tables that are probably having a conniption fit about now.”

“That should cover it.”

“I’m sorry about your friend. I can see you’re real torn up.” Mindy stepped closer and put a hand on Mary’s arm. “Guess you didn’t care he was married either.”

“I was his-” Mary cut herself off. She had no reason to say anything more.

“Boots,” said Mindy, halfway out the door.

“Excuse me?” said Mary.

“The good-looking guy called the fat one Boots. They looked like they were friends. Just sayin’.”

Mindy closed the door behind her.

“Anything else I can help you with?” asked Cal Miller.

“There is.” But Mary didn’t know what. There had to be something. She hadn’t driven twenty-five miles just to find out that Joe had eaten his last lunch with a fat FBI agent nicknamed “Boots” with a heart condition and a New York accent. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a clue who Boots might be, and she didn’t think Don Bennett, Randy Bell, or anyone else at the FBI would appreciate her asking. Certainly not Edward Mason. Not after her promise to keep her nose out of Joe’s business and his none-too-subtle threat to jail her if she didn’t. Besides, she didn’t want to jeopardize the nation’s security.

National security. The twenty-four-carat unimpeachable excuse for any and all government actions. Question at your peril.

“Ma’am?”

Mary sighed and stood up, knowing that she was forgetting something but not knowing what. “Thank you,” she said finally as she squeezed past the stuffed armadillo and the desk.

Cal Miller opened the door. “If you’re hungry, I’ll be happy to get you whatever you’d like. On the house. We’re famous for our chicken fried steak.”

National security. And then it came to her. What about the Nutty Brown Cafe’s security?

“Cameras,” she blurted. “You have security cameras, don’t you?”

Miller nodded. “Like everybody else, but I’m not sure they’ll be any help.”

“How many do you deploy?”

“Deploy?” said Miller. “We’ve got twenty-five cameras on the premises. The insurance company demands that we keep every square foot of the place covered.”

“So there’s a camera inside the restaurant?”

“Two. On the front door and the cash register. And of course there are several on the parking lot. That’s where the trouble usually takes place. Fistfights, altercations, the like. The rest of the cameras are over in the outdoor pavilion. But it might be too late. The disk records over itself every two days.”

“I’d like to take a look anyway.”

“All yours.”

“Let’s start inside.”

60

Jessie spotted the headlights pulling into the driveway. Hurriedly she took a last vape from her e-cigarette. “B rt thr,” she texted.

Backpack. Laptop. Pepper spray. Jessie made sure she had everything she needed, then ran downstairs. Grace sat on the sofa, waving the remote. “Can we start now?”

Jessie left her backpack by the front door and plopped down next to her sister. The TV was tuned to Survivor. “I’ve got to go out, mouse.”

“But it’s the finale. We have to see who won.”

“I know, but this is more important.”

“You’re supposed to look after me. Mom left you in charge.”

“Sorry, but I have to. It’s for Dad.”

“Out where?”

“Out out. That’s all you need to know.”

“When will you be back?”

“I’m not sure.”

“More than an hour?”

“Who are you, Mom?”

“I don’t like being here alone. It’s creepy.”

Jessie shifted on the couch. She’d tried to be patient and understanding, but it wasn’t working. Little kids only thought about themselves. “Lock the door and watch TV. Pretend I’m in my room like I always am anyway. Either way, you need to be in bed asleep by the time Mom comes home. You’ll be okay. I promise.”

“But you’re not in your room.”

Jessie stood. “Grace, you’re almost twelve. You’re going into seventh grade in a few weeks. Grow up.”

“You have to at least tell me what you’re doing.”

“I want to figure out how Mom lost Dad’s message. I think someone hacked into her phone. I’m going to talk to my TA to see if he can help.”

Grace considered this. “You going with Garrett?”

Jessie looked out the window. She could see the blond head, the spiky, carelessly combed hair, at the wheel of the old VW bug. Maddeningly, her heart skipped a beat. “Maybe.”

“You’re wearing makeup.”

“Am not.”

“And perfume. You smell like Mom.”

“Stop being a pest. I have to go.”

Grace followed her sister to the front door. “What if I get scared?”

“You won’t. And besides, Mom will be home before you know it.”

“She’ll know you’re not here.”

“How? She’ll look in my room and think I’m asleep.”

“Sometimes she comes in and sits on my bed. What if she does that to you?”

“I’m fifteen. Mom doesn’t come into my room anymore.”

Grace grabbed her sleeve. “If they hacked into Mom’s phone, they might be watching us.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would anyone watch us? Dad’s dead.”

“Why would anyone hack into Mom’s phone?”

Jessie crossed her arms and blew out a frustrated breath. She’d asked herself the same question a dozen times and hadn’t been able to come up with an answer. Which made it all the more important for her to figure out who’d done it. You couldn’t know why without first knowing who. “I’m going. If you tell Mom, I’ll kill you.”

“I won’t.”

“Don’t!” Jessie leaned down and gave Grace a peck on the cheek. “Wish me luck, mouse.”

“Good luck, peanut.” Grace watched her sister run down the walk and climb into the car. “For what?” she shouted after her. “The phone or Garrett?”

61

A child’s bedroom.

Morning. Sunlight streaming through a crack in the curtains.

A girl sleeping in her bed. Blond hair fanned across the pillow. Pink cheeks. An angel.

A tattooed hand brings a razor-sharp blade near the child’s face.

The blade passes over the girl’s chin, her nose, her eyes.

As vipers writhe from the skull tattoo.

One mile away, in the parking lot of a minimall that housed a Papa John’s, a 7-Eleven, and a Green Mesquite BBQ, the Mole sat alone inside the command van, watching the Vine he’d made earlier that morning of Grace Grant.

His angel.

A movement on the primary monitor drew his attention and he put down his phone. It was a VW Beetle pulling into the Grants’ driveway. The Mole sat up straighter, watching the older girl run down the walk and jump into the car. Behind them, framed by the foyer’s light, a thin blond girl stood in the doorway.

The Mole zoomed in on the girl. He saw a rustle of blue nightgown, a sheaf of blond hair, and then the door closed.

He leaned back in the chair, his heart pounding, his eyes unable to leave the monitor.

His angel was alone in the house.

62

“Gentlemen, welcome. I congratulate you on the momentous step you’ve taken I’m grateful for the faith you’ve shown in me personally, and for your belief in my vision for the future. Thank you.”

Ian Prince allowed his words to sink in as he looked out over the executives from Israel sitting among his own lieutenants at dining tables running the width of the room. Graves Hall was a cavernous space with heavy wood paneling and stained glass windows set high on the walls. Candles burned from wrought iron chandeliers. Life-sized portraits of Cerf, Jobs, Berners-Lee, and, of course, himself, stared down from the walls. To Ian’s eye it was a cathedral, a sacred place for worshipping the great minds who had launched the digital revolution.

“We live in a bold new world,” Ian continued. “A world of opportunity. A world where a beggar in Mozambique has access to the same knowledge, the same expertise, the same compendium of information as a billionaire in Manhattan. We live in the era of the super-empowered individual, in which each of us is capable of unimaginable feats. A doctor in Atlanta can ‘print’ human tissue from a single cell. A scientist in São Paolo can alter DNA to eliminate faulty genes. A husband in Tokyo can speak to his wife in Quebec and not only hear her voice but see her picture…on his watch. It is the stuff of comic books and science fiction novels and old-time radio serials. Every day we reach into the future and harness it to the present. And none of it would be possible without the means to instantaneously access, respond to, and transmit information. All of which are the pylons on which ONE is built.”

Ian paused. The room was so quiet he could hear a microchip drop. Faces looked up at him, eyes lit with ambition.

“Twenty years ago,” he continued, “I had an idea about how to gather information from a nifty new creation called the World Wide Web. That idea turned into something called ONEscape.Back in that medieval time, we called it a web crawler. Today ONEscape is the world’s most popular search engine.”

He smiled, enjoying his colleagues’ laughter.

“I didn’t stop with ONEscape. I moved on to create a company that wrote software, and another that manufactured the hardware that made up the Internet’s backbone. I built a company that designed smartphones and tablets to use that backbone, and most recently I purchased a company that produces content that passes through our hardware to be enjoyed on those smartphones and tablets. Still, that isn’t enough. I have a greater responsibility, and that is to oversee this magnificent organism called the Internet-to guard it on behalf of the beggar in Mozambique and the billionaire in Manhattan. And then one day I discovered Clarus. And I knew at once that Clarus would give me this ability.

“I first took note of Clarus when I learned that it was your equipment that my friends at Fort Meade had chosen to collect all signals traffic coming into this country. I looked closer at Clarus when I was told that a certain country had used your equipment to shut down an enemy’s entire air defense system. But it wasn’t until I learned that a virus you engineered brought an unnamed country’s nuclear development program to an abrupt and nearly catastrophic halt that I decided we must work together. Can anyone remind me of the name of that virus?”

Heads shook. Fingers waved, indicating that this was not a suitable topic of conversation. Ian expected as much from men who made their living from trafficking secrets.

He left his place at the table and walked down the aisle. “As all of you know, my purchase of Clarus was not an ordinary transaction. I did not just buy assets, orders books, and technical know-how. I wanted more. I requested that you gentlemen present here tonight come to my side and act as my Praetorian Guard. It will be your task to protect everything we have built to date and to protect the rest of the world against those who seek to do us harm. Only by having access to every facet of this magnificent organism can we maintain its health. Only by seeing the entirety of information coursing through its veins can we identify the viruses and parasites that threaten our existence and ruthlessly eliminate them. It is truly all or nothing.”

Ian raised a glass. The assembled guests stood, crystal held high.

“And so tonight I formally welcome you to the ONE family, as together we transform ONE from a corporation into something more-something the world has yet to see.”

63

Mary knew him.

She knew Boots.

She stepped outside the café as Cal Miller wished her good night and locked the door behind her. It was past ten and the parking lot was deserted. The show had ended thirty minutes earlier, and the establishment had a strict policy of rapidly vacating the premises. It was dark, and the lot looked different with so few cars. Several times she stopped to orient herself before finally spotting her car at the far corner of the adjacent lot, a few hundred yards away.

She walked briskly, thrilled at her good luck. Cal Miller had gone back fifty-eight hours to Monday at 12:30 (with only ten minutes to spare before the DVR taped over the pictures), but he’d found them. The security cameras filming the parking lot and front entrance both showed Joe entering the café, followed a minute later by a stocky man with a ruddy complexion and a comb-over. “Boots,” according to Mindy’s colorful description. More accurately, “SSA FK,” according to the name on the receipt.

The security cameras were ten years old, their grainy images a far cry from HD. Still, Mary had no doubt that she’d met him. She just couldn’t recall where or when. She suspected he’d been to their house, because that was the only place she ever met any of Joe’s colleagues. But which house? And dammit, what was his name?

She placed her hand on her pocket, feeling the DVD that Miller had burned with the sequence showing Joe and Boots. She’d have plenty of time to review it at home. Meanwhile she dredged up memories of parties, searching for a glimpse of the pear-shaped man with the red face and wiry brown hair. Sooner or later it would come to her.

“Hey there.”

Mary looked up, startled. An imposing man stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets, a garrison cap drawn over his eyes. “Hello,” she said, keeping her pace, steering a path around him.

The man stepped in front of her. “You have something for me?”

Mary stopped. “Excuse me?”

“The disk sticking out of your pocket. Please hand it to me.”

Mary took a step back, and the man advanced a step toward her. He was broad and muscular and bristling with aggression. Scream and he could be on her in a second. She looked around. There was no one nearby. The café was fifty yards behind her. A black truck was parked to her left, but the cab was empty. She checked over her shoulder. Cal Miller was nowhere to be seen. Her decision to park at the farthest point from the café suddenly seemed ill-considered.

“Who are you?”

“Never you mind. The disk. Now.”

“Why do you want it?”

“Same reason you do.”

Mary took another step back and the man took a longer step forward, narrowing the distance between them. She felt the Glock pressing against her waist.

“Stop right there,” he said, his voice quiet and authoritative. “Or I’ll have to quit being so polite.”

The man lifted his head, and she saw his eyes in the moonlight. Pale, determined, ruthless. A chill shook her spine, and she had the certainty that he was going to kill her.

“Fine. I’ll give you the disk.”

“Slowly, now. Don’t think I can’t tell you’re packing. Remember who you are, Miss Mary. You’re just a mom.”

He knew her name. Which meant he knew Joe.

Mary handed him the disk. “What was he investigating?”

“Something he shouldn’t have been.”

“I imagine someone always thinks that’s the case.”

“I imagine so.”

“Who do you work for?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Try me.”

“You know what they say-‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’ ”

“So you’re not going to kill me?”

The man slipped the disk behind his belt. When his hand came back up, it was holding a pistol. “I didn’t say that.”

Mary ran. She made it two steps before he had her, an arm wrapped around her waist, lifting her off her feet, the other clapping a hand over her mouth. He spun and carried her toward her car as if she were no heavier than a sack of groceries.

“Mary, Mary, Mary,” he whispered. “Always looking where you’re not supposed to. Didn’t they tell you to give it up?” A squeeze for emphasis. “Didn’t they? But no, you had to keep on digging. You had to be a snoop like your husband. Don’t you know we’re the ones who do the snooping?”

Mary squirmed and struggled. She felt like an infant in a giant’s arms. Every effort to free herself was countered by one twice as forceful. The man continued past her car, climbing a berm bordering the lot and carting her into the wide-open scrub beyond. In moments they were surrounded by clumps of mesquite and tangled brush, a wilderness of vegetation as tall as she. A hundred yards along, he set her down. When he stepped away, she saw that he had Joe’s Glock, too.

“They’ll know it was you,” she said. “I saw the security camera feeds. They’ll have your truck coming in, pictures of you leaving.”

“Put on a suit, stick a gun in your belt, and you think you’re a real Fibbie, eh? How’s this, Miss Mary? The images won’t even exist.”

“Of course they’ll exist. The cameras record everything.”

“They could have infrared cameras filming me picking you up, carrying you out here, and shooting you dead, and it wouldn’t matter. We’ll just erase it. Cedar Valley’s our territory.”

“What do you mean, your territory?”

“The security system’s hooked up to the Net. That means it all goes through our pipes. We own it.” He tucked the Glock into his belt while his own pistol hung loosely in his hand. “Besides, no one asks any questions about suicides.”

Mary held her ground. “I’d never kill myself.”

“What about the note you left?”

“I didn’t leave any note.”

“But we will,” he said. “Mommy’s goodbye, sent from her own e-mail.”

“You can’t do that. You don’t even know my e-mail.”

“Really? Then how did we know you’d be out here tonight, or that you were rushing to the morgue this afternoon, or that you had a visit from that reporter who got himself a DUI two nights back?”

“Who are you?”

“We’re the future.” Carefully he affixed a fat cylindrical tube to the pistol’s snout. A noise suppressor. She’d seen Joe toy with one at home.

“Please,” Mary pleaded. “I’ll stop looking. You have the disk. What else do you want?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, I am. Now come on over here. I’ll make it fast. You won’t feel a thing.”

“This isn’t necessary. Like you said, I’m a mother. I know that now. I’ll stop looking. I’ll stop snooping.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, yes. I promise.”

“No, I promise.” The man stepped toward her, his arm rising, the pistol aimed at her face. Mary stood tall, defiant, eyes wide.

Out in the darkness was a rustle in the bushes, a footfall, a grunt. She saw a shadow behind him. The man angled his head toward the noise. There was a splash of color in the moonlight, a mountainous figure crashing through the brush. The man spun and fired his pistol-once, twice-and then there was a mighty roar, a blinding flash of light, and the man was not standing beside Mary anymore.

Mary stumbled backward, tripping over her feet, landing on her behind. The gunshots rang in her ears. The man lay a few feet away, arms sprawled, eyes open, unblinking.

“You all right?” asked a familiar voice.

She propped herself on an elbow and gazed up as the shadow took form. “You?”

64

The Crown & Anchor Pub was located on San Jacinto Boulevard across from the university. It was long and narrow and dark and smelled of stale beer and burned hamburgers. A wooden bar ran the length of the room. Taps for a dozen beers protruded from fake barrels in the wall behind it.

Jessie made her way down the row of tables, searching for Linus Jankowski. If the smell was bad, the music nearly made her puke. Old English sea shanties blared from the sound system. She was six all over again, seated on the admiral’s knees as he sang “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” to her.

She found Linus seated at a round table in the back, just past the dartboards. Six or seven men were with him. Jessie recognized two propeller-heads from class. The others were TAs she’d seen around school, PhD candidates, or postdocs like Linus.

“You made it,” said Linus. “Take a seat.”

Jessie scooted around the table to the last open chair.

“Um, I’ll just stand here,” said Garrett, hands dug into his pockets.

Jessie nodded, wishing he weren’t there. It had been an awkward ride downtown. Garrett had talked the entire time as if they were on some kind of date, asking what they should do after meeting up with Linus. All the while Jess was growing more and more concerned about Grace. What if she was right about the people who’d hacked into their mom’s phone and they really were watching? Jessie had never been given responsibility for someone before. Not real responsibility concerning their safety and all that. The thoughts weighed heavily on her, and Garrett’s incessant yapping made it worse. Finally she’d had to tell him to “just shut up and drive.” Things were better after that. She’d come to the conclusion that boys liked being told what to do.

“Am I even allowed in here?” she asked, taking her seat.

“Technically, no,” said Linus. “But who’s checking?” He smiled, but she could tell from the way he made no effort to introduce her around that he wasn’t too excited to see her.

“I found something on my phone,” she said nervously. “Actually it was on my mom’s phone. But I copied it, so now it’s on mine. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Slow down, Miss Grant,” said Linus. “Start over.”

Jessie scooted her chair closer, aware of the stares coming her way. She stared right back, reminding herself that none of these guys had solved the Capture the Flag hack in thirteen minutes.

“Okay,” she said, looking Linus in the eye. “It’s about my dad.”

“Your dad? FBI, right?”

“Yeah,” said Jessie. “Before he died, he called my mom and left her a voice message. I don’t know what he said. I think it was important, but she didn’t tell me, because she thought I’d get all depressed and upset. Anyway, what matters is that someone deleted the message from my mom’s phone.”

“Someone who wasn’t your mom?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?” asked Linus, with the same dismissive tone she’d used with her mom.

“That’s what I said. My mom’s nice, but she’s a prole. I thought for sure she’d deleted it. But she didn’t. Someone hacked into her phone and wiped the message. Only that message. Everything else was still there.”

“And you want me to find it?”

“No,” said Jessie. “I mean, yes, for sure, if you could…if that’s even possible. Right now I just want you to look at the tracks I found.”

“And figure out who hacked into your mom’s phone?”

Jessie nodded. “Whoever did it killed my dad,” she said. “I mean, right?”

By now conversation at the table had all but died. Linus’s friends were paying close attention.

“Show me,” said Linus. “Not here. Outside. Away from these propeller-heads.”

Jessie pushed back her chair and stood. For some reason she grabbed Garrett’s hand and led him outside. The pub was on the main drag that ran adjacent to UT, a neighborhood of bars, bookstores, and clothing boutiques. At ten-fifteen, it was packed with pedestrians.

Linus directed them around a corner to a quieter spot. Jessie brought up the screenshot of the code she’d found on her mom’s phone. “Here it is. Tell me what you think.”

Linus took the phone and studied the snippet of code. “See this?” he said immediately, pointing to a section near the end. “This comes from way up the food chain. You and me, we’re minnows. This shit’s from a great white shark. Someone who gained access to your mom’s wireless carrier. And I mean deep access.”

“So it’s not from the carrier?”

“Not a chance. They don’t need a skeleton key. That’s what we’re looking at. Whoever broke in was from outside the loop.”

“So the message might still be somewhere?”

“Possibly. Carriers keep voice messages for a couple weeks on their main servers.”

“Can you trace it?”

“Trace what? I mean, look. There’s nothing here. All he left behind was a single line of code. Whoever did this is a pro. We’re talking rocket scientist. I kid you not.”

“Smarter than you?”

“Much.”

“Maybe your friends can have a look,” suggested Garrett.

Linus frowned. “I don’t think they’d be too keen on getting into the middle of an FBI investigation.”

“At least you can show them,” said Garrett.

“Please,” said Jessie.

“Look, Jessie. I’ll be honest. I have a bad feeling about this. Those fingerprints have me spooked. Why don’t you just let it go? What’s done is done.” Linus checked his watch. “I’m sorry about your dad, but I can’t help you. It’s late. Garrett, you should take Jessie home.”

With that, Linus started up the block. Garrett put a hand on Jessie’s shoulder. “He’s right. We should go. But it’s not that late. How ’bout we grab a Coney Island dog and a limeade slush at Sonic?”

Jessie knocked Garrett’s hand away and ran. She caught up to Linus as he turned the corner. “Stop,” she said, grabbing his sleeve, yanking him to a halt.

“Hey,” protested Linus. “What the-?”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “He was telling my mom something important and I screwed it up. It’s on me.”

Linus stopped. “How did you screw up?”

Jessie dropped her eyes to the ground, then forced herself to look up, to look at Linus and own up to what she’d done. “I was unlocking my mom’s phone when my dad called. It was because of me she missed his message.”

“So?”

“Don’t you get it? I killed him. My dad was calling to ask for help, and my mom missed the call because I was trying to show off how smart I am. I killed my father.”

Linus stepped closer, his face knotted with indecision. “Give it to me,” he said, grabbing the phone out of Jessie’s hand before she could answer. “Wait here. This may take a while.”

Jessie watched him stalk up the street and turn the corner. She lowered her head, embarrassed at her outburst. Garrett took her hand. “You okay?”

“Yes. I mean, no. Actually, I’m not okay. In fact, I’m pretty much the opposite. Is that all right?”

“Sure. That’s all right.”

She looked at Garrett-tall, blond, way too handsome. He’d changed the Mumford & Sons T-shirt for a vintage Aerosmith jersey. At least that was a step in the right direction. She saw his blue eyes staring at her in a way she knew her mom would call “adoringly,” and she wondered for about the hundred thousandth time what he could possibly see in her. “You can hug me if you want,” she said, pulling him closer. “But don’t even think of kissing me.”

–

Twenty minutes later, Linus Jankowski came around the corner. One look at his face and Jessie knew he’d failed.

“You’re in trouble,” said Linus.

“You couldn’t do it,” said Jessie. “None of you?”

Linus shook his head. “There’s only one person who can do this…and that’s still a maybe.”

“Who is it?” said Jessie. “Where is he? Do you know him?”

“Not personally, but I know where he is.”

“Where?”

“DEF CON. This is the week of the conference.”

Jessie shook her head. “Him?”

“Rudeboy.”

65

Tank Potter stood over the body. He held a shotgun in his hands, smoke curling from both barrels. His face was flushed, and in the dark it shone like the devil’s. “You okay?”

Nodding, Mary pushed herself to her feet. “Is he dead?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Potter. “I’ve seen dead before. That’s it. You know him?”

“No. But he knew me. He wanted the disk.”

“What disk is that?”

Mary found the transparent sleeve a few feet away. “This one,” she said, picking it up. “I had it burned in the manager’s office. It shows Joe meeting his contact at the café. I’ve met him. The waitress said Joe called him Boots. I can’t remember his real name, but if I look at him long enough, I’m sure it’ll come to me.”

“Good news.”

Mary brushed the dust from her palms. She felt faint and queasy, and her breath was coming too fast. She stepped toward Potter and her knees buckled. The reporter moved swiftly and caught her. “He was going to kill me,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. I believe that’s what he does.”

“Thanks for catching me,” said Mary. “And also for…well, you know.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Same thing as you. When Mason let me go after ramming his car, he couldn’t have hoisted the red flag any higher.”

“Didn’t he threaten you with prison if you continued to interfere?”

“So? I’ve lost my job, my pension, and my reputation. Going to jail can’t be any worse. You have more to lose than I do.”

“You asked me what kind of Kool-Aid Mason gave me. It was the kind about endangering national security and damaging all the hard work Joe had put in.”

“That’s their standard line. And here I was thinking you were a true believer.”

“I am,” said Mary. “Or else I wouldn’t be here.”

She looked down at the body, then swiveled her shoulders left and right, checking the landscape around them. Everywhere lurked silhouettes and shadows. It was difficult to see more than forty feet. A steady wind blew, bringing sounds of passing traffic from the highway and the eerie stillness of the plains.

“I ought to call the police.”

“That’s the right thing to do.”

Mary punched in 911 but stopped before hitting Send. “He said he knew everything about me. He said that he knew I’d be here and that we were going to the morgue earlier and that you had visited me to ask about Joe.”

“They were listening to us.”

“How?”

“My phone, for one. When I called my buddy at the ME’s office-the guy who let me take the pictures of your husband and the informant-he told me that Mason and Bennett were getting your husband ready to go. He didn’t expect them to roll out of there until two or so. Do you remember how fast they were hauling ass when we arrived? The first sedan almost ran you over.”

“What’s your point?”

“Someone told Mason we were coming.”

“Him?” Mary looked at the dead man.

“Or the people he works for.”

“Then it means…” Mary didn’t want to finish the sentence. It didn’t seem possible that there could be a connection between the killer lying at their feet and Edward Mason.

“You still want to call the police?”

“We have to.”

“Your husband didn’t call the police when he was in trouble.” He paused. “Or the FBI.”

Mary considered this. She wondered what you called it when everything you’d spent your entire life believing was true and inviolate turned out to be false and manipulative. And you knew that you were alone. Absolutely alone.

After a moment she knelt beside the corpse and searched him for identification, grimacing as her fingers touched flesh and viscera and other things she didn’t care to imagine. “Just what did you shoot him with?”

“Twelve-gauge. It does the trick.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Javelina. Wild boar. This is my first man. I felt worse for the animals.”

Mary handed Potter the dead man’s phone and returned Joe’s Glock to her holster. She felt something hard and angular in the man’s pocket. Car keys.

“Phone’s locked,” said Potter. “You get anything else?”

“No wallet. Just the keys.”

Tank handed Mary his shotgun and crouched, his ruined knees sounding like millstones colliding. He pulled off the man’s cap and used the phone’s flashlight to read the name inscribed in Marks-A-Lot on the sweatband. “McNair,” he said. “It’s a start.”

Mary gave him a hand to get to his feet. The knees cracked again, and she winced. “Sounds bad.”

“I’m asking Santa for a knee replacement. I’m still waiting to see when the concussions kick in. My head took as many hits as my body.”

“Drinking isn’t going to help.”

“No, it isn’t. By the way, I was already fired. Laid off, actually. The DUI just hurried up the process.”

The hour had gotten to 10:40. The moon was a sliver high in the sky. Stars punched through the canopy like machine-gun bullets. She looked back at the corpse. A man had been killed. The incident needed to be reported. She was the admiral’s daughter, and the admiral did everything by the book. “We have to call the police.”

“Mason will have us in jail by midnight,” said Potter. “National security.”

“They’ll find us anyway.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. In the meantime we’ll figure this thing out. Maybe it’s them who’ll be running.”

“Big words.”

“I’m a journalist. I like ’em big.”

The dead man’s phone made a pinging noise. “Incoming text from someone named Briggs. Take a look.”

Mary glanced at the phone. The text read: “Done?” “That big enough for you?”

“We need to go,” said Tank.

Mary gave Potter back his shotgun and tossed him McNair’s car keys. The two jogged across the flat landscape, winding their way around clumps of mesquite. They mounted the berm and ran down the other side to Mary’s car. The Jeep was parked next to it. Halfway across the lot was McNair’s pickup.

No lights burned from the café. Even the neon cowboy had gone dark.

“Fifty bucks says the truck’s registered to him.”

“Don’t even think about it. Whoever sent that text is probably waiting a mile up the road. I don’t want to be here when he comes to check why McNair didn’t answer him.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Be quick.”

“Lady, quick is not an adjective that belongs anywhere near my name. But I promise to be thorough and I’ll try to be swift.”

Potter half ran, half hobbled to the truck. A minute passed, and another. She tapped her foot, wishing he would come back, her eyes on the highway and the access road feeding into the lot. She thought of calling the girls to reassure them. It was late. She was sure they were asleep by now-Grace at least. Instead she texted Jessie: “Home in forty minutes. Turn off the computer now and go to sleep. Love U.”

Finally Potter left the truck and jogged back to her.

“Well?” she asked.

“Found some weed,” said Potter, tossing a clear pouch to the ground. “Also found his automobile registration and insurance cards. His name is William James McNair.”

“Anything else?”

“Wallet. Driver’s license.”

“Does he have a business card?”

“Didn’t see one. We can check the rest later.”

“That truck was here three days ago. I saw it on one of the surveillance feeds. It was parked close to the entrance when Joe left the café.”

“He must have been watching Joe,” said Tank.

“You think that’s all he did?”

Just then Mary’s phone vibrated in her hand. Text from Jessie: “Night, Mom. Love you.” Mary breathed easier. “Love you too, sweetie,” she replied. “On my way.”

“Everything okay?” asked Potter.

“It’s Jessie, saying good night.”

“She’s at home, right?”

“Looking after Grace.”

“Good.”

Only then did Mary register Potter’s worried expression. “Why?”

“I didn’t come out here only to see Cal. I came to find you. I drove by your place earlier, and when I didn’t see your car, I figured you probably had the same idea as me.”

“And?”

Tank drew a breath and related the details of his visit to Carlos Cantu’s house. Mary felt cold and alone.

“This isn’t over,” he said. “They want you, me, and Carlos dead, and they’re not going to stop until they succeed.”

“I need to get home.”

66

Thump!

Grace heard the noise coming from upstairs and muted the television. She sat frozen, breath locked inside her chest. The noise sounded heavy and hollow. Like a footstep.

The hackers had come. It was the people who had broken into Mom’s phone. Now they were here. They were upstairs.

Thump!

Grace jumped in her skin. It was a footstep, and it came from the room directly above her. Jessie’s room. She called her sister, but Jess didn’t answer. “Come home,” she texted. “Someone’s in the house.”

She clicked on her mom’s number but didn’t call. Not yet. Jess would kill her.

Grace rose from the couch and as quietly as possible walked to the base of the stairs. She stood there looking up, heart pounding. The hall lights were on. She thought she saw a shadow up there. She called Jess again. Again there was no answer.

The hackers were blocking her calls.

Grace began to tremble. She reasoned that she had three choices. Call Mom. Run to the Kramers’. Or go upstairs and confront whoever was there.

She couldn’t call Mom. Going to the Kramers’ was also out. Carrie would call her mom in a second, and Jess’s secret would be out of the bag. She remembered Mom saying that problems don’t get any smaller if you just stare at them. If Dad were here, he’d already be upstairs checking out what was making the sound. He wasn’t afraid of hackers or anyone else.

“I’m coming up,” she shouted. “If anyone’s there, go away. I’m warning you!”

She started up the stairs, pausing at each one to listen. It was quiet. The hackers were hiding, waiting. She didn’t know how anyone could get inside, let alone all the way upstairs without her hearing them. Still, everyone knew that thieves and murderers were clever and athletic, and it was hackers who had killed her dad. If they wanted to get in and kill her, they could.

Her phone made that whistling noise. Jessie texted back: “No one’s there, scaredy-cat. Go to bed. Mom will be home soon.”

Grace didn’t bother answering. She swallowed and climbed another stair.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Grace took off up the stairs. The noises weren’t footsteps. Something was buzzing around, hitting the wall over and over. Hackers wouldn’t do that. They were sneaky and bad, but they didn’t buzz.

She reached Jessie’s room and opened the door. Something big and green shot through the air at her. She ducked, barely able to keep from screaming.

Thump!

The big green glob bounced off the wall and kept flying. She retreated into the hall and watched the cicada going crazy. Stupid Jess had left her window open and the bug had flown inside. She watched it zigging and zagging around the room. It wasn’t one cicada but two, one on top of the other as if they were glued together.

Yuck, thought Grace, they’re doing it.

She hurried across the room and opened a second window and ran around waving her arms. Finally the mating cicadas flew outside. She closed the windows and ran downstairs. She was too creeped out to stay upstairs.

In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of milk and took two Oreos out of the bag. She sat at Mom’s alcove and went on the computer. As always, she checked her e-mails first. She had four new messages. Her eye caught the third one down. “Cutest Sloth in the World! Watch this!”

Grace opened the message. The text read, “Watch this and die laughing. He is sooooo adorable!” A hyperlink was printed below it.

Grace positioned the cursor over the hyperlink but didn’t click right away. Jess was always warning her and Mom about getting dangerous stuff in their e-mails. Never open an attachment, she told them, if you don’t know who sent it to you. Something inside it could mess up your computer.

But a video about sloths? They watched tons of videos on YouTube about sloths.

Grace double-clicked on the hyperlink and was taken to the video. She watched, giggling as a baby sloth did its best to crawl out of a child’s crib, gripping the slick wooden slats, climbing up a little, then sliding back down to the mattress and lolling on its back. The camera zoomed in as the sloth yawned, and Grace burst out laughing. A teenage girl reached into the crib, picked up the sloth, and cradled it to her chest. The sloth laid its head on her shoulder, eyes staring at the camera, wet nose sniffing contentedly.

Grace thought about Fluffy, her hamster. He’d been a climber, too, though he didn’t yawn. Still, her heart ached for him. Jessie said Fluffy was only a furry rodent and he didn’t have a personality, but Grace had loved him all the same.

She watched the video again and then once more after that. She decided she wanted a sloth. A three-toed South American tree sloth.

Before logging off, she forwarded the video to Jessie. Smiling, she went upstairs and crawled into bed.

Even Jessie would love the sloth.

If she ever got home…

67

“Do you know him?” Jessie asked.

“Rudeboy”? Linus scratched his beard. “Why should I?”

“I mean, do you at least know who he is? Like his name?”

“He’s Rudeboy. That’s all. No one knows his name. I imagine his parents do, and his close friends, but to us…no clue. That’s how he’s able to do what he does. You know, making service attacks on Amazon, shutting down the navy’s mainframe for two hours, wiping half the hard drives of the biggest oil company in Saudi Arabia.”

“Then how do you know he’s at DEF CON?”

“He’s won Capture the Flag seven years running. He has to defend his title. Of course he’s there.”

Jessie pulled up the DEF CON website. It showed a skull-and-crossbones pennant and gave the place and dates. “Crap,” she said. “It ends tomorrow.” She looked at Linus. “When do they play?”

“Play what?” asked Garrett.

“The last day,” said Linus. “Capture the Flag begins at eight in the morning. They want to make sure everyone’s still hungover.”

“How long does it take?”

“As long as it takes. Eight hours. Ten. Depends on who has the strongest team.”

“But you said that Rudeboy solved the hack in five minutes,” Jessie retorted.

“Yeah, the hardest one, but there’s a bunch more.”

“Why didn’t you go this year?”

“I’m teaching. I can’t just cop out and fly to Vegas.”

Jessie pulled up the website for Bergstrom International Airport and checked the flight schedule. “The last flight to Las Vegas leaves at eleven. It’s already ten-thirty.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Linus, waving a concerned hand. “You’re not going to Vegas.”

“Who says?”

“Yeah,” said Garrett. “Your mom isn’t going to let you just go there alone.”

Jessie shot him a venomous look.

“It’s not that,” said Linus. “You’re not signed up for DEF CON. You have to register for the conference, and then you have to qualify to play the game. They don’t let just anyone into the competition. You have to be part of a team.”

“How much is it?” asked Jessie.

“I don’t know,” said Linus. “I think I paid eight hundred bucks last year. But that’s beside the point. Didn’t you hear what I said? You don’t have a team.”

“What about yours?”

“I told you, I’m not playing.”

“Don’t you know anyone who is?”

“Sure. But-”

“Call them. Tell them to let me play with them.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Jessie double-clicked on the flight number to bring up all the details. Her heart jumped. “It’s delayed!”

“What’s delayed?” asked Linus.

“The flight.” Jessie realized she was shouting and told herself to get a grip. It was hard to be calm. For a second she believed that it all might just work. She would go to Vegas. She would play on the team with Linus’s friends. She’d help them win it and afterward meet Rudeboy, who would solve the mystery of the unknown code in the drop of a hat and tell her who had hacked into her mother’s phone. Jessie would figure out who had killed her father. “I’ll pay the fee,” she said. “I’ll pay for your ticket. All you have to do is come with me and introduce me to your friends.”

“I can’t go, Jess. I’m sorry.”

Jessie held out her phone. “Call them. Please. I won’t embarrass you.”

“Jess, your mom will kill you,” said Garrett.

“Fine,” said Jessie. “As long as it’s after we win.”

Linus continued to shake his head. “How long is the flight delayed?” Jessie swallowed. He was considering it. Linus was actually considering it. “It doesn’t say.”

“Jess, you’re not serious,” said Garrett.

“Shh.” Jessie called the airline and navigated as quickly as possible through the automated directory. It took two minutes before a human being picked up. “I’m calling about Flight 2998 to Las Vegas. I see it’s delayed.”

“That flight is closed. Boarding is about to begin.”

Jessie turned away from the others, bowing her head. She began to cry. “My father just died. His name is Joseph Grant. He’s in Las Vegas and the police need me to help them answer some questions. They think he was murdered. Please, ma’am. It’s a family emergency. I have to get there. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Hold one moment.”

Jessie lifted her head and stared at Linus, her cheeks dry. “Half of being a good hacker is social engineering, right?”

Linus nodded.

The airline representative returned to the line. “Hello, miss. There are two seats remaining. Will you be traveling alone or with any family members?”

Jessie covered the phone. “If I beat him, he’ll have to meet me.”

“You can’t beat him,” said Linus.

“Why not?”

“No one beats Rudeboy. That’s why. Besides, you don’t even have a hacker name.”

“I do, too.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

“Tuffgurl. Two f’s and two u’s.”

Linus walked in a circle, talking to himself. Finally he threw up his hands. “She’s crazy,” he said. “Two f’s and two u’s. Crazy.”

“Linus, please.”

Linus Jankowski sighed. “I’m not going, but I’ll make the call. I can’t promise anything.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Garrett. “I mean, if you want me to.”

“Yes,” said Jessie. “I’d like that.” She put the phone to her ear. “Two seats,” and she rattled off her debit card number, committed to memory long ago.

“The flight is scheduled to leave in forty-five minutes. If you can get to the airport by eleven, we’ll do our best to get you aboard. We’re very sorry for your loss.”

“We’ll be there.” Jessie hung up, her eyes imploring Linus. “On you now.”

Linus walked up the street and Jessie heard his raised voice over the thrum of the passing automobiles. He returned five minutes later, shaking his head dispiritedly.

“Well?” asked Jessie, sensing bad news, already working on another way to get to Rudeboy.

“It’s your lucky day,” said Linus. “They have a spot open. One of their team members drank too much and is too sick to play.”

“And they’ll let me take his place?” Jessie had known too much disappointment to believe him right off.

“But you have to pay the entrance fee.”

“Done.”

“Okay, then. You better get going.”

Jessie rose on her tiptoes, allowing herself a moment’s joy, a few seconds of triumph. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Thanks is fine.”

“Thanks.” Jessie rushed forward and kissed him on the cheek. His beard was softer than she’d expected. She turned to Garrett. “Don’t just stand there. Move your butt.”

Garrett took off at a jog. Jessie hesitated for a moment before following.

“You won’t win,” said Linus.

68

The malware entered the Grants’ desktop computer like a virus entering a host’s blood. Freed from its confines inside the video clip, it spread through the machine’s silicon arteries at the speed of light. Its primary target was the operating system, where it branched out to all applications, probing each for weaknesses, vulnerabilities, flaws in the code that would allow it to gain entry.

Like any parasitic virus, the malware attacked multiple spots at once. It found the machine’s permanent memory and set about copying every keystroke ever made. In batches of 100,000, it transferred the data to Ian Prince’s computer, where it was plugged into an algorithm designed to identify usernames and passwords. Though nothing to match Titan, the computer employed next-generation microchips capable of performing a trillion operations a second. In the time it takes to blink an eye, the algorithm had ferreted out the ten most commonly used pairs of names and passwords.

Simultaneously the malware identified the most frequently visited websites requiring usernames and passwords and began plugging in the pairs. It was a simple process of trial and error. The malware was tireless and continued until it had successfully logged on to over sixty sites and gained access to the Grants’ most confidential information.

Another arm of the virus took control of the computer’s camera and microphone. The Grants’ desktop was now a hot microphone and a secret surveillance camera.

Yet another arm allowed Ian to control its keyboard remotely.

In less than ten seconds, the computer and everything on it belonged to Ian Prince.

69

Dinner was over. Ian had finished his speech. The assembled executives had moved from the dining hall to the salon, a smaller, cozier room, for after-dinner digestifs. Instead of a butler in tails pouring snifters of brandy and cognac, there was a buffet offering coffee, tea, and Fernet Branca. The atmosphere was one of carefully contained excitement, all buzz and chatter about the imminent, possibly dangerous, and undoubtedly groundbreaking events to come.

Nearby stood a half-dozen engineers clad in navy jumpsuits, the word Orca embroidered in yellow stitching on their breasts. On the wall behind them was a photograph measuring four feet by six, taken from high over an elliptical island. The island was one mile long and half as wide, and its symmetry was astounding. Orca, the island’s name, was printed in block letters at the bottom of the photograph.

“We’ve located the office campus at the southwest corner of the island,” said Ian, pointing to a grouping of more detailed photos showing sleek low-rise buildings set amid fields of grass and lush vegetation. “We dispose of five million square feet of office space, more than enough to enable us to consolidate global management functions across business sectors in a single location. I know you’ll appreciate the design. Koolhaas, Foster, Gehry are just a few of the architects we enlisted…oh, and I can’t forget Calatrava. Moreover, between solar arrays and our own on-site nuclear plant, we’re energy independent.”

Ian moved to another group of photographs. “Here on the north side of the island is the residential sector. We offer both apartments and townhouses. For those of you hoping to spend your earnings building an estate to rival Mr. Gates’s or Mr. Ellison’s, I’ve just saved you three years of headaches, countless arguments with your general contractor, and a hundred million dollars. You can thank me later. The quarters can comfortably house up to six thousand men, women, and children. And best of all, they’re free.

“Adjacent to the residences is our recreational sector.” Ian pointed out the numerous sports fields, swimming pools, tennis courts, and the fitness center. “At the lee side of the island we’ve put in a beach that will rival anything in Thailand, Hawaii, or the Caribbean. Palm trees, hammocks, a nice clubhouse, and without any annoying natives trying to sell you a puka-shell necklace.”

Ian returned to the overhead shot of the island. “To make sure work doesn’t come home, you’ll note that a rather large hill runs across the center of the island. I’d like to call it a mountain, but even my ego isn’t that big.” He smiled to let everyone know he was just one of the boys and that rumors of his self-seriousness were overblown. “Ideally, everyone will walk to work, but for the lazy ones among us there’s a high-speed rail that will take you the entire thousand meters in about thirty seconds.

“Now here at the far southwest corner is where we’ve built our industrial sector-manufacturing facilities, warehouses, shipping, docks, the like. With a runway of just under four thousand feet, we can accommodate pretty much any aircraft except a fully loaded jumbo jet.”

–

From across the room, Peter Briggs watched all this with a mixture of awe, admiration, and disdain. He’d forgone wine in favor of Wild Turkey, neat. He sipped from his glass, watching Ian work the room. He was too anxious to hear back from Shanks to pay close attention. For the tenth time in ten minutes, he checked his watch. Still not a word.

Ian had traded his salesman’s spiel about the virtues of Orca for his “no boundaries” talk. “The world no longer has boundaries…old ways obsolete…our identity once defined by our tribe…”

Briggs could practically parrot the words of Ian’s impassioned argument.

“We had no choice who we were…later it was a shelter, a castle, or a fortress…after that a piece of land bordered by a river or mountain range or an ocean and guarded by soldiers living within those geographic borders. We went from clans to cities to principalities to countries. But what is a country today?”

Briggs’s phone vibrated. Thank God. It was time Shanks checked in. He slipped the phone from his pocket, only to discover that it wasn’t Shanks but the duty officer. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but we have a code black.”

“Code black” referred to an employee fatality.

“Give me a minute.” Briggs left the salon, took the stairs to the ground floor, and proceeded outdoors to the esplanade. The last employee to die had been an SVP who’d dropped dead of a heart attack in Mumbai, brought on by eating the world’s hottest chili peppers. “Who’s the poor devil?”

“It’s Bill McNair.”

“Shanks? You’re sure?”

“Yessir. We’re all pretty shaken up.”

Briggs walked to the balustrade overlooking the Meadow, wanting to be certain that he was alone. “What happened?”

“He was off-duty, so it’s all pretty sketchy, but it looks like he was shot after going to a concert out in Cedar Valley.”

Briggs ran a hand over his scalp, trying to make sense of the news. “Go on.”

“His RFID coordinates put him at a place called the Nutty Brown Cafe. He was stationary for ninety-three minutes, then thirty minutes ago he moved a short distance. Five minutes later his data cut out. No heart rate. No blood pressure readings. It was so sudden we thought for sure it was a glitch. We called him immediately. There was no response.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Briggs jogged across the Meadow, entered Brasenose, and took the stairs two at a time. A four-man skeleton crew was on duty. “Did you send a team?”

“Yessir. They located him in a field behind the venue.”

“Only McNair? There was no one with him?”

“No, sir.”

“Is the team still on-site?”

“Yessir.”

“Put them onscreen and bring up McNair’s bio data on monitor two.”

A concerned Caucasian male appeared on the screen. Briggs asked for a complete rundown.

“We arrived and found his vehicle parked in the lot. The doors were unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. We had to call HQ to get a read on his physical coordinates. We found him three hundred yards away, lying in the middle of some scrub. There’s no indication what he was doing out here, but he had his weapon drawn.”

Briggs knew precisely what Shanks was doing out in the middle of the scrub. “Go on.”

“The cause of death was a shotgun blast to the chest and neck. He still has his phone on him, but we can’t find his wallet. Tell you the truth, I’m confused.”

“Show me the body.”

The security officer trained his camera on the prone, inert body of William “Shanks” McNair.

“All right,” said Briggs. “Any sign of law enforcement?”

“Nothing.”

“Good. Clean up the scene. Get him out of there. Bring his vehicle here. Do not contact the sheriff, understand? This is an internal matter.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said the duty officer. “But McNair was off-duty at the time. His wallet was missing. It may be a case of rob-”

“Do as I say. That is all. And get his vehicle out of there.” Briggs directed his attention to a smaller screen displaying McNair’s vital data as recorded by his bio bracelet. McNair’s heart rate appeared to have been steady at sixty beats per minute, accelerating slightly in the last minutes of his life. His blood pressure increased similarly over the same period. Both readings were consistent with an elevated level of adrenaline in the system. Excitement, not fear.

And then…nothing. All readings plummeted to zero. No last-second spike in heart rate. No surge in diastolic pressure. Shanks died instantly and without foreknowledge. Death as brought on by a shotgun blast delivered at close range. He was bushwhacked.

“Let me know when everything’s cleaned up.”

“Yessir.”

Briggs left the Ops Center. By the time he reached his car, he had a good idea what had transpired. His phone rang again as he left ONE’s campus. It was the Mole, and he sounded as perplexed as Briggs was angry.

“Mary Grant just came home.”

“Shanks encountered some difficulties.”

“He let her get away?”

“Have some respect for the dead.”

“Dead? Shanks? But how?”

“Just keep an eye on the home,” said Briggs. “Let me know if you see any movement in or out.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I should have done a while ago. Take care of this matter once and for all.”