Target: Alex Cross

Chapter 1

Snow fell as Sean Lawlor slipped into a narrow alley in Georgetown. A ruddy-skinned man with a salt-and-pepper beard and unruly hair, Lawlor was dressed in dark clothes, gloves, and a snap-brim cap with the earflaps down. As he moved deeper into the alley, he knew he was leaving tracks in the snow but didn’t care.

Forecasts were calling for six inches before dawn, and he planned to be finished and gone long before the storm ended.

Lawlor padded to the rear gate of a beautiful old brick town house that faced Thirty-Fifth Street. After a long, slow look around, he climbed the gate and crossed a small terrace to a door he’d picked earlier in the evening after bypassing the alarm system.

It was four fifteen in the morning. He had half an hour at most.

Lawlor shut the door quietly behind him. He stood a moment, listening intently. Hearing nothing to disturb him, he brushed off snow while waiting for his eyes to adjust. Then he put blue surgical booties over his boots and walked down a hallway to the kitchen.

He pushed aside a chair, which made a squeaking noise on the tile floor. It didn’t matter. There was no one home. The owners spent their winters in Palm Beach.

Lawlor went to a door on the other side of the kitchen, opened it, and stepped down onto a set of steep wooden stairs. Shutting the door left him in inky darkness. He closed his eyes and flipped on the light.

After waiting again for his vision to adjust, Lawlor climbed down the stairs into a small, musty basement piled with boxes and old furniture. He ignored all of it and went to a workbench with tools hanging from a pegboard on the wall.

He shrugged off the knapsack he carried, traded his leather gloves for latex ones, unzipped the bag, and retrieved four bubble-wrapped packages, which he laid on the bench.

Lawlor cut off the bubble wrap and stowed the pieces in the pack before turning to admire the VooDoo Innovations Ultra Lite barreled action in 5.56x45mm NATO. A work of art, he thought.

He fitted the barreled action to a five-ounce minimalist rifle stock by Ace Precision and then screwed a SureFire Genesis sound suppressor onto the threaded crown of the barrel. Picking up the Zeus 640 optical sight, Lawlor thought, A thing of beauty.

He clipped the sight neatly into place. Overall, he was pleased with how the gun had turned out. He had ordered the components from U.S. internet wholesalers and had them shipped to the same nonexistent person at four separate UPS stores in and around the District of Columbia.

Lawlor had arrived at Dulles International two evenings ago on a flight from Amsterdam using a fake British passport. He’d picked up the components at the UPS stores yesterday morning, relying on a fake Pennsylvania driver’s license he’d also bought online. He’d sighted in the gun yesterday afternoon in the woods of western Maryland. It was uncannily accurate.

It’s the right tool, he told himself. The perfect one for this job.

Chapter 2

Lawlor put the knapsack over his shoulder, took the gun up the basement stairs, and shut off the light before opening the door to the dark kitchen. He stepped out, pushed a button on the side of the sight, and raised the rifle.

The Zeus 640 was a thermal unit, which meant it allowed the user to see the world as heat images. When Lawlor peered through the scope, the interior of the house looked like it had been cast in pale daylight. Except for the heat registers. They showed in much brighter white.

The Zeus scope had been developed for hog hunters, and it had cost Lawlor more than eight thousand dollars. He thought it worth every penny, far superior to the kinds of rifle optics he’d been using just a few years ago.

Lawlor kept the gun stock pressed snug to his shoulder, climbed the stairs to the second floor, and entered the master suite at the front of the house. He ignored the antique furnishings and crossed to the window.

He lowered the rifle, opened the window sash, and looked outside. He saw the shadows of oak branches waving against the snowy background and the silhouette of a line of distinguished old townhomes across Thirty-Fifth Street.

He raised the gun again, peered through the sight. The snow-covered street and brick sidewalks turned dull black.

The heated town houses, however, were revealed in extraordinary detail, especially one to his right and down the street. A brick Georgian, it looked brilliant in the scope. The thermostat had to be turned up to seventy-five in there. Maybe eighty.

Lawlor swung the gun toward the front door of the hot house and studied the area, figuring he’d have four seconds, maybe less, when it counted. The brief time frame didn’t faze him. He was good at his trade, used to dealing with short windows of opportunity.

Lawlor fished in his inner coat pocket and drew out a microchip that he fitted into a slot in the scope in order to record his actions for posterity. Then he relaxed and waited.

Ten minutes later, a light went on in the house to his far diagonal right, the hot one. He checked his watch. It was 4:30 a.m. Right on schedule. Disciplined.

Fifteen minutes after that, a black Suburban rolled up the street. Also right on time.

The wind was blowing stiffly down Thirty-Fifth from north to south. He would have to account for slight bullet drift.

The Suburban pulled over by the curb across from the hot house. Lawlor flipped the safety off and settled in, aiming at the front door and the steps down to the sidewalk.

The passenger, a large male wearing dark winter clothes, got out of the Suburban, ran across the street and sidewalk, climbed the steps, and rang the bell. The door opened, revealing a woman in a long overcoat.

Lawlor couldn’t make out her features or determine her age through the thermal scope, and he didn’t want to. He had seen several recent pictures of her, but through the Zeus 640, she was a pale white creature in a cold dark world, and he rather liked it that way.

Keeps things impersonal, like a video game, he thought, moving the crosshairs as the woman raised her hood and stepped out into the storm. He aimed at the right edge of the hood to account for drift. She followed the big guy, hurrying down the stairs, across the sidewalk, and into the street, eager to be out of the snow and get to her early yoga class.

Too bad, he thought as he pulled the trigger. I heard yoga’s good for you.

The rifle made a soft thudding noise. The woman’s head jerked and she crumpled on the street behind her bodyguard. Lawlor’s instinct was to flee, but he stayed on task, moved the crosshairs to her chest, and shot her again.

He pushed down the sash and never looked back. After finding his spent brass, he rapidly disassembled the gun and placed three of the components back in the knapsack. He kept the thermal scope and used it so he could move fast back through the house.

After Lawlor slipped out the rear gate, he turned off the scope and pocketed it. Hearing the wailing of sirens already, he ducked his head and set off into the storm.

Too bad, he thought again. Husband. Five children. Six grandkids. A real shame.

Chapter 3

Bree and I arrived in Georgetown shortly after dawn that first day of February. It was snowing at a steady pace with five inches on the ground already.

DC Metro patrol cars had blocked both ends of the street on Thirty-Fifth. We showed our IDs to the officer.

He said, “There’s U.S. Capitol Police, FBI, and Secret Service already up there.”

“I’d imagine so,” Bree said, and we went through the barrier and up the street, noticing many anxious residents looking out their windows.

FBI criminologists were setting up a tent around the victim and the crime scene. Yellow tape had been strung from both sides of the town house, across the street, and around the Suburban, where a big man in a black parka was engaged in a shouting match with a smaller man in an overcoat and ski cap.

“This is our case,” the big man said. “She died on my goddamned watch.”

“U.S. Capitol Police will be part of the investigation,” the smaller man barked. “But you will not, Lieutenant Lee. You are compromised, and you will be treated as such.”

“Compromised?” the big guy said, and for a second I thought he was going to deck the smaller man.

Then FBI special agent Ned Mahoney appeared from behind the tent.

“That’s enough,” Mahoney said. “Agent Reamer, please do not assume in any way that you are in charge of this investigation. The FBI has complete jurisdiction.”

“Says who?” Agent Reamer said.

“President Hobbs,” Mahoney said. “Evidently, your new boss doesn’t have much faith in the Secret Service these days. He talked with the director, and the director talked to me. And here we are.”

Agent Reamer looked furious but managed to keep his voice somewhat under control as he said, “The Secret Service will not be cut out of this.”

“The Secret Service will not be cut out, but it will do what it is told to do,” Mahoney said, and then he saw us. “Alex, Chief Stone. I want you both part of this.”

Quick introductions were made. U.S. Secret Service special agent Lance Reamer had worked Treasury investigations for the past ten years. The big guy was U.S. Capitol Police lieutenant Sheldon Lee. Lieutenant Lee had served on the victim’s security team for six years.

With the snow and the wind, Lee hadn’t heard the shots or the sound of sixty-nine-year-old U.S. senator Elizabeth “Betsy” Walker falling to the ground behind him.

“I ran ahead and opened the rear door of the Suburban like I always do,” Lee said. “I looked back and there she was. Lying in the snow, bleeding to death.”

His voice choked. “My God, I had to go wake poor old Larry, her husband, to tell him. He’s in there calling his children and... who the hell would do this? And why? That woman was a great person, treated everyone just right.”

That was true. The senator from California could be tough when she was fighting for a cause, and she had a first-rate mind, but she was one of those genial and compassionate women who had never met a stranger. Walker was also the second-most-senior member of the GOP in the Senate and a highly respected politician.

“Can we see the scene?” I asked as the snow slowed to flurries.

Agent Reamer said, “Why exactly are you here, Dr. Cross?”

“Because I asked him to be here,” Mahoney growled. “Dr. Cross used to be with the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico, and he has more than two decades of exceptional service as an investigator. He’s under contract to advise us on cases like these because the FBI thinks highly of him.”

Bree nodded. “So does DC Metro.”

Chapter 4

Reamer looked like he’d tasted something disagreeable and threw his hands up in disgust.

Mahoney called by radio and was told we could look at the crime scene from the flaps of the tent. We went as a pack of five past Lieutenant Lee’s Suburban and around the other side of the shelter.

Inside, a team of Quantico’s finest were working in baggy white jumpsuits pulled over their winter gear. Senator Walker lay twisted on her side in the snow. Her hood was half off her head, revealing a bullet hole beneath her right cheekbone.

“What do you know, Sally?”

Sally Burton, the chief FBI criminologist on the scene, stood up from beside the victim. “The snow’s making it tougher than tough, Ned, but so far, it looks like she was hit twice. The head shot killed her instantly. Shooter put a second round into her chest after she fell.”

“Like someone filled with hate would,” Lieutenant Lee said. “A fanatic.”

“Or a professional,” Agent Reamer said.

“Or both,” I said. “Who had reason to hate her?”

“Good question,” Mahoney said, and he looked back to Burton. “Got an angle for the shots yet?”

The criminologist made a sour expression. “The snow and no witness to her falling make the first shot tough to call, but by the chest wound, I’m saying it’s roughly this angle,” she said, gesturing high into the corner of the tent.

Mahoney thanked her, then turned to Lieutenant Lee. “You have good rapport with the senator’s husband?”

“Excellent rapport, sir. Larry’s a sweet old guy, a real friend. Smart as they come too. He used to be a trial judge in San Francisco.”

“Go inside and talk to him frankly. Find out who didn’t like or had a grudge against his wife for whatever reason. Names. Phone numbers if he’s got them.”

“Wait,” Agent Reamer said. “Lieutenant Lee is compromised.”

“He knows the family,” Mahoney said. “Better than any of us. That helps.”

“But—”

Mahoney hardened. “Do you honestly think Lieutenant Lee could be involved?”

“Well, no, but it’s... it’s gotta be against protocol,” Reamer sputtered.

“I don’t give a damn about protocol,” Mahoney said. “He’s in.”

The lieutenant nodded. “I can also get you a log of threatening calls and letters. Even Betsy got them from time to time.”

“Were they turned over to the FBI?” Mahoney asked.

“A few. They’re in your files.”

When Lee left, the Secret Service agent said, “Okay, then what am I doing?”

“Take several of your men, go to Senator Walker’s offices, seal them, and then sit on them and her staff until we get there,” Mahoney said. “Dr. Cross, Chief Stone, and I are going to figure out where the hell those shots came from.”

It didn’t take us long.

We knocked on the doors to the two town houses across and down the street that seemed likely candidates and found the residents home and upset. One, a prominent patent attorney, said her next-door neighbors Jimmy and Renee Fairfax were at their winter home in Palm Beach and had been for more than two months.

We called Mr. Fairfax’s Florida residence to get permission to enter his house but got no answer. But when we found snowed-over tracks coming out of the rear terrace and discovered the rear door unlocked and the alarm system bypassed, Mahoney felt he had more than enough just cause to enter.

There was water in the hallway, probably melted snow, and smaller droplets crossing the floor to a door to the basement. There was no sign beyond that, certainly not of the footprints I’d expected to find, given that the shooter came in out of the weather.

We looked out the front window and decided the shooter had to have been higher, upstairs. We found a clear line of sight in the master bedroom, some hundred yards down the street from the evidence tent in front of Senator Walker’s house.

“He was right here,” I said, looking around. “Probably shot from his knees, using the windowsill as a rest.”

“No brass,” Bree said. “The place is clean.”

Mahoney nodded. “Either a fanatic or a professional.”

“Or both,” I said.

Chapter 5

I had to leave at quarter to nine to make an appointment with a new patient, an attorney at the Justice Department. In addition to my law enforcement work, I have a PhD in clinical psychology and practice on a part-time basis out of an office in the basement of our house on Fifth Street in Southeast DC.

In the northern United States or out west, six inches of snow is no big deal. But in the nation’s capital, it usually creates a state of emergency and near gridlock. I somehow managed to catch a cab, but I had to get out at the bottom of Capitol Hill and walk the rest of the way home.

The storm was clearing but a raw wind bit at my ears as I hustled along and thought about the late Senator Walker. Given her committee assignments — chairman of Energy and Natural Resources, and prominent seats on Appropriations and Agriculture — I was leaning away from the idea that a fanatic professional was behind the assassination.

As a matter of fact, I was tilting away from the idea of a fanatic at all. The entire thing felt surgical, or at least highly organized. Though I wasn’t completely dismissing the idea of a terrorist, I was thinking a pro was responsible.

But why? Why a professional assassin? What had Senator Walker done to get gunned down in cold blood in front of her house? Who had she crossed or destroyed?

Was the fact that she was shot outside her home meant as a statement, like a Mafia killing? Or was it merely a zone of opportunity?

I decided it was the latter. Before I left the crime scene, Lieutenant Lee had told me that the senator attended a yoga class Monday through Thursday. Every morning. It helped her clear her mind, he said.

It also helped her killer, I thought. The shooter knew about the pattern through personal observation or because he had been told about it.

Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax had been down in Palm Beach for two months. Mahoney believed it was possible the killer had been inside the house scouting Senator Walker multiple times and for extended periods. He had called for a second forensics team to comb the bedroom for DNA and microfibers, but I doubted they’d find much.

Making repeated trips inside the Fairfaxes’ residence felt unprofessional to me. If I were a gun for hire, I’d want to spend as little time as possible in the kill zone. Whenever a human brushes up against something, he or she leaves tiny bits of skin and hairs that people like Sally Burton can gather and analyze. A trained assassin would know that.

No, I thought as I turned down Fifth Street and saw people out shoveling their sidewalks. The killer went in there based on someone else’s intelligence, so maybe once or twice, no more than—

“Dad!”

I started, looked up, and saw a snowman in front of our house. Ali was beside it, excited and waving. I grinned. My youngest child had a real passion for life. Whatever he was into at the moment, he was fully there and usually having a heck of a good time.

“Nice one,” I said.

“I built it just since breakfast!”

“No school?”

“Snow day,” he said, beaming. “I get to play.”

“Well, your dad gets to work. Have fun and don’t get wet. You’ll catch a cold.”

“You sound like Nana.”

“Maybe there’s hope for me,” I said. I rubbed the top of his wool cap and went around the side of the house in fresh untracked snow up to my ankles to steps that led down to the basement door.

I used a key to open it and pushed the door in. Snow fell inside on the mat. So did a folded piece of paper.

I picked it up, unfolded it.

I turned it over. Nothing.

Behind me, in a trembling voice, a woman said, “Dr. Cross?”

I pivoted to find a very attractive woman in her thirties looking down at me through the open door. Wearing a knit cap and mittens and hugging herself in her baby-blue down coat, she had fresh tears on her cheeks. Her posture was hunched, which I read as more despondent than distressed.

“Yes, I’m Alex Cross,” I said, smiling. I stuffed the note in my jacket pocket and gestured her inside. “I’m sorry about not shoveling the path in. Ms. Davis?”

Nina Davis smiled weakly through her tears as she passed me.

“I rather like all the snow, Dr. Cross,” she said. “It reminds me of home.”

Chapter 6

Nina Davis had been born and raised in Wisconsin, outside Madison, and she had always thought of snow as a bandage.

“You can’t see the wounds and scars when there’s snow falling,” she told me. “I loved it as a child.”

We chatted while she filled out paperwork. Davis was thirty-seven, bright, attractive, and committed to her career at the U.S. Justice Department, where she was a supervising attorney working on organized-crime prosecutions.

“Once upon a time I was with the FBI,” I said.

“I know,” Davis said. “It’s why I sought you out, Dr. Cross. I figured you might understand or at least be sympathetic to my position.”

I smiled. “I’ll try to do both.”

Davis returned the smile without conviction. “I don’t know quite where to begin.”

“Tell me why you wanted to see me.”

She looked at her hands in her lap, shoulders slumped, and sighed. “I don’t think I know how to love, Dr. Cross.”

“Okay,” I said, and I settled in to listen, really listen.

Davis told me that in her entire life, she’d felt love for only one person: her father, Anderson Davis, a small-town attorney who had spent lots of time with his sole child. Katherine, his wife, had emotional problems and wasn’t much interested in things physical. But Nina’s father loved to hike and roam around the Wisconsin countryside.

“He called those walks tramps,” she said wistfully. “He’d say, ‘Come on, Nina, time for a tramp up to Beech Ridge.’”

Davis blinked and wiped at a tear. “Even now, I miss tramping with him. I was thirteen when he died.”

Tough age, I thought, and I made a note before saying, “How did he die?”

“They were in the car, and my mother was driving. She was yelling at him about something, took her eyes off the road, and ran a red light. He was killed instantly.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been hard.”

Davis breathed in deep, pursed her lips, and shrugged. “My dad was gone, and my mom killed him. What can you say?”

I absorbed that, then said gently, “So you blame your mother?”

“Who else?” she said. “She’d kept her eyes on the road, my dad would’ve lived to a ripe old age. She’d kept her eyes on the road, and I wouldn’t have had a series of creepy men living in the house when I was a teenager.”

Davis had gone cold, and I decided to leave the statement for another time.

“She alive, your mother?”

“Last I heard.”

“When was that?”

“Three weeks ago, when I signed the monthly check that pays for her assisted-living facility back home.”

“I’m hearing a lot of conflicted feelings,” I said. “You blame her for all these things, and yet you stay involved in her care.”

“Yes, well, there’s no one else to do it,” Davis said as another tear formed and slipped down her cheek.

The timer dinged. She looked disappointed.

“I promise you our next talk will be longer,” I said. “When you’re a one-man shop like I am, first sessions get taken up as much by paperwork as by real substance. And I charge your insurance for only a thirty-minute session rather than the hour. I can see you for a full hour tomorrow morning.”

Her knitted brow eased. “That works.”

“Before you go, and just until we speak at our next appointment, I want you to remember those times when your mother made you happy, those times, maybe before your father’s death, when you were grateful for her rather than resentful.”

Davis’s laugh was short and sharp. “I’ll have to dig deep for memories like that.”

“I’d expect no less,” I said gently. We fixed a time for the next appointment, then I stood and opened my office door.

She walked through somewhat uncertainly, and I wondered whether she would ever return. I’d found over the years that a fair number of clients believed that they were going to get to the root of their problems in a session or two. When they realized that the process was less about cutting and more about peeling, some of them gave up. I never heard from them again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” I asked as she opened the basement door.

“I’ll be here, Dr. Cross,” she said, but she did not look back.

“I very much look forward to it, Nina,” I said, and I shut the door and the cold wind behind her.

Going back into my office, I wondered at the human brain’s ability to seize on some terrible personal event and let that event define and control every action for years, decades, even lifetimes. I—

Three short, sharp knocks came at the basement door.

I was puzzled. I wasn’t supposed to have another client until early afternoon.

When I opened the door, Ned Mahoney was standing there. Mahoney and I used to work together at the FBI, and he was normally as stoic a man as you’d find. But he was clearly upset as he came inside and shook snow off his pants legs.

I shut the door, and he looked at me. “There’s some kind of shitstorm brewing, Alex. We’re going to need your help on this one, and more than part-time.”

Chapter 7

Mahoney stared at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“I have just a few clients at the moment, Ned,” I said. “The rest of my time is yours. Senator Walker’s case?”

He hesitated before digging in an inner pocket of his coat. “You’ve signed a recent nondisclosure form with us, the Bureau?”

“It’s in the formal contract, but I’m happy to sign again if you think it’s necessary.”

“No, no, of course not,” he said, pulling out his phone. “It’s just that this is sensitive in the extreme. You can’t tell anyone, Bree and Sampson included.”

“John’s on vacation in Belize, and I’ll keep this close until I hear otherwise.”

“Good,” Mahoney said, and he looked at his phone. “This was caught on a Dulles security cam a little more than two hours ago.”

He showed me a video still of a severe, dark-haired woman, more handsome than beautiful, who looked to be in her late thirties. She was dressed in denim, from her jeans to her blouse to her jacket. A shopping bag printed with a painting of the Eiffel Tower dangled off one arm. A leather knapsack hung from her other shoulder. She was pulling a carry-on roller and was in full stride.

“Who is she?”

“We believe her name is Kristina Varjan,” Mahoney said. “A Hungarian-born freelance assassin.”

My mind raced. An assassin at Dulles International at 8:30 a.m., roughly three hours after Betsy Walker was shot?

I held up my hands. “Wait. You believe this is Kristina Varjan?”

Mahoney paused, thinking, and then told me that two hours and twenty minutes before, a highly regarded and experienced CIA field agent was moving through crowded security lines en route to London and spotted her walking by. The agent had evidently had an up-close-and-personal run-in with Kristina Varjan in Istanbul several years earlier and had almost died as a result.

Having heard about the killing of Senator Walker, the agent got out of the TSA line and tried to pursue the woman to make sure. But the woman had vanished.

The agent missed the flight, made calls, pulled strings, and spoke to the Dulles security people. Camera feeds were rewound fifteen minutes, and they quickly found Varjan passing by the security lines. They tracked her, using footage from other security cameras, until she went outside into the snowstorm and walked off.

“So the agent had them track her backward,” Mahoney said. “Turns out Varjan came off a Delta flight from Paris at eight a.m. That picture was taken in Customs. She’s traveling using a Eurozone passport under the name Martina Rodoni.”

I studied the picture a long moment, then looked up at Ned. “Which means she couldn’t have killed Betsy Walker. The timing is off.”

“Correct.”

“Which means there are two professional assassins in the Greater DC area, one of whom killed a sitting U.S. senator.”

Mahoney nodded.

“Second assassin, second target?”

“I can’t believe Varjan’s here to see the monuments.”

“Put her picture in the hands of every cop within a hundred miles of DC.”

Mahoney looked conflicted. “The director wants to keep this in-house with a full-court press to locate and pick her up for questioning.”

I cocked my head. “He give you a reason?”

“National security,” Mahoney said though he didn’t like it. “Something about CIA intelligence-gathering methods. All above our pay grade. He did get the president to order heightened security for all members of Congress. In the meantime, you and I are supposed to find Varjan and bring her in.”

I thought about that a moment. Me and Ned in the field again. That felt good, so good that I put aside the questions about national security that kept popping into my head and turned to the task at hand.

“Can we get a file on Varjan? Something to help us put together a profile?”

“I can do you one better,” Mahoney said. “We’re going to talk to the CIA agent she almost killed.”

Chapter 8

On the way to the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, I called Bree to tell her that the FBI had optioned my contract.

“Senator Walker’s case?”

“Can’t talk details.”

“The FBI’s gain and Metro’s loss,” she said. “Remember, the game’s tonight.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Promise?”

“Absolutely.”

Bree paused, then said, “Got to go. The chief wants me in his office in ten minutes.”

Our connection died just as we pulled into the parking lot outside the CIA’s security facility, a rectangular block built of bulletproof glass next to two solid steel gates that rose out of the ground to prevent unauthorized vehicular access.

We presented our credentials. The guards seemed to have been alerted to our arrival beforehand because, with no further ado, one of them took our photographs, printed visitors’ badges with our faces on them, and clipped them to our jackets.

“Main entrance,” he said. “Wait in the lobby. Someone will meet you there.”

“Someone,” Mahoney said after we passed through screening devices and were walking toward the main building. “Do you think they always say that?”

“Makes sense.”

“I suppose.”

The wind picked up and blew granular snow at us, so we hustled to the entry. We entered a vaulted lobby with a large CIA seal set into the black-and-gray polished granite floor. We stood near the seal and watched as academic-looking folks in suits and others who were buff and more casually attired passed us.

“Analysts and operatives,” I murmured.

Before Ned could reply, a woman said, “Special Agent Mahoney? Dr. Cross?”

We turned to find a trim, unassuming brunette woman in her thirties wearing a frumpy blue pantsuit walking across the lobby to us. She squinted at us through nerd glasses perched on the end of her nose, and she did not extend her hand.

“Would you follow me, please?”

She didn’t wait for an answer but spun on her heel and marched off with us following close behind. We went down a long hallway, passing doors that had no identifiers. There were a lot of them, so I had no idea how she chose the right door to stop and use her key card on.

There was a soft click, and she turned the door handle and led us into a nondescript conference room with an empty table and chairs. She went around the table, took a seat, and folded her hands.

She squinted at us again. “What can I tell you about Kristina Varjan?”

That surprised me. I thought she’d been taking us to see the spy.

Mahoney’s eyebrows rose. “You’re the operative who spotted her this morning?”

“I am. You can call me Edith.”

“You look more like a soccer mom than a spy, Edith,” I said.

“That’s the point,” she said dismissively.

Mahoney said, “Tell us what we need to know to catch Varjan.”

“Catch her?” Edith said, and she laughed caustically. “Good luck with that, gentlemen. God knows I tried. Here’s what she gave me for my troubles.”

She took off her jacket and tugged a red sleeveless T-shirt off her left shoulder to reveal a nasty scar like interwoven spiderwebs below her collarbone.

Edith said she’d gotten the scar three years ago when the CIA began to suspect that Varjan had been responsible for the murder of two U.S. operatives in Istanbul. Edith’s assignment had been to lure Varjan in, subdue her, and see her brought to an interrogation facility in Eastern Europe.

“I found her, and I thought I had her cornered entering an apartment building near the Bosporus,” she said. “I was armed. She was not, or at least, not with a gun.”

Varjan surprised Edith and stabbed her repeatedly with a sharp pottery shard.

“I should have known better,” Edith said, shaking her head and crossing her arms. “Varjan’s an improviser. Invents weapons of the moment. Kills without hesitation.”

She told us that INS records showed that Varjan had entered the U.S. that morning on a Eurozone passport under the name Martina Rodoni, a woman born in the former Yugoslavia who was now a resident of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her occupation was listed as “fashion consultant,” and she said she had come on business.

“Count on not finding her under that identity,” Edith said. “She’ll have shifted to another by now.”

“Then how do we figure out where she is?” I said. “And what she’s here to do?”

The CIA operative twisted her head to one side and pursed her lips a moment.

“I wish I could say I knew a habit of hers, a hotel chain she frequents or the kind of meals she likes to eat, but Varjan is a chameleon. She speaks eight languages and changes identity constantly. She knows it’s her best defense.”

“So we’ve got nothing to go on?” Mahoney said.

“Well, you could do what I did to find her.”

“And what was that?” I asked.

“Figure out who she’s here to kill and then lie in wait for her.”

I thought about that. “Does she ever target politicians?”

“Dr. Cross, Kristina Varjan will target anyone if the price is right.”

Chapter 9

Bree walked up to the closed double doors on the fifth floor of police headquarters downtown and knocked.

“Come in,” a familiar male voice called.

Bree opened the door and stepped inside the office of chief of police Bryan Michaels. The chief, a fit man with a thick shock of steel-gray hair, was on a cell phone, listening intently and nodding.

“I’m hearing you,” Michaels said in a firm tone. “Loud and clear.”

He hung up, reached over to shake her hand, and gestured her to a chair. “Where are we on Senator Walker’s death?”

“Fourth in line, sir,” Bree said, taking the chair. “FBI’s got jurisdiction, with Secret Service and Capitol Police in support.”

He didn’t seem to like that. “So we’re not even in the game?”

“I offered Ned Mahoney anything he needed from Metro PD,” Bree said. “I’ll be briefed on a daily basis.”

The chief said, “I’m getting heat on this one, Bree. From the commissioner, the mayor, and the congressmen. They’re all wondering how we’re not out front on a murder in our own backyard. I’m wondering too.”

That surprised Bree. Chief Michaels was by nature a pragmatist, and he knew the command structure in a situation like this as well as she did.

Before she could reply, he said, “Where’s Alex in all this?”

“FBI snapped him up. I don’t know exactly what he’s working on.”

“Course not,” the chief said, shaking his head. “I don’t know if this consultant thing’s going to work. It’s...”

“Sir?”

“When Alex was on board full-time, I could count on Metro PD being out front no matter the case,” Michaels said.

“He’s that kind of detective, sir,” Bree allowed.

“He is,” the chief said, and then he leaned across the desk. “But he’s unavailable. So I need you to step up, Bree. I want my chief of detectives to be hungry. Not a paper pusher. Not a caretaker. I want you to be bold, to take action, stand for something in the community. I mean, for God’s sake, a U.S. senator was assassinated in our jurisdiction and we’re not breaking ground?”

“Chief, again, and with all due respect, the FBI—”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the FBI or the Secret Service or the Capitol Police. This is my city, and you are its chief of detectives, Stone. Prove you still should be.”

Bree was taken aback for several moments before lifting her chin. “And how exactly do I prove that, sir?”

“You find Senator Walker’s assassin and deliver his head to Mahoney on a plate.”

Chapter 10

Hands clasped behind his back, Sean Lawlor paced through a comfortable Airbnb apartment some five blocks from where he’d seen to the end of U.S. senator Betsy Walker.

Within hours of a successful strike on such a sensitive target, most other professional killers would have tried to leave the area, if not the city, if not the country. But Lawlor wasn’t like most professionals. He was an elite practitioner, and he prided himself on thinking and acting outside the norm.

Given Senator Walker’s stature, he had no doubt that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would be looking for people entering and leaving the country on a very short turnaround. That would have brought scrutiny he didn’t need.

So Lawlor had decided to stay in Washington for three days before going to New York, where he planned to spend a long weekend. He would return to Amsterdam through Newark the following Monday.

He went to the kitchen and checked a laptop computer open on the counter. It showed a heavily encrypted internet browser linked in real time to one of his bank accounts in Panama. Nothing yet.

What the hell is taking so long?

Then again, Lawlor had sent an encrypted copy of the thermal-imaging scope’s memory file only three hours ago. He didn’t know why that was necessary. Walker’s death was all over cable news. It should have been enough.

He felt a buzzing in his pocket. He dug out a burn phone, checked the caller ID, and allowed himself a smile.

“I’m here, Piotr,” Lawlor said in Russian.

“Sergei,” Piotr replied. “You’ve made my world happier.”

“I don’t see the results in my account.”

“Large transfers take a while these days if you want them to move anonymously. In the meantime, are you free to meet and discuss your future?”

Lawlor checked his watch. “If it’s this evening.”

“That works. George Washington Hotel rooftop bar. Eight p.m. And you’ll soon be receiving a token of appreciation for a job well done.”

Lawlor smiled, said, “Thoughtful of you.”

“Even wolves have moments of kindness.”

Lawlor hung up and went to the bathroom to shower and shave.

When he was done, he padded back through the apartment, towel around his waist, and heard a ding.

He loped over to the laptop and was more than pleased to see that 1.4 million euros had just landed in his Panamanian account.

I like that, Lawlor thought. I like that a lot.

And who knew what Piotr had in mind for him now?

Someone in the lobby buzzed his apartment.

Lawlor stiffened. Very few people knew he was in the United States, let alone in Georgetown, let alone in this apartment. Other than Piotr and the blokes he’d rented from, of course, and—

The buzzer went off again.

He shut the laptop cover, went to the front hallway, and pressed the intercom.

“Yes?” he said. “Who is it?”

A woman with a Southern accent drawled, “A gift from your happy agent.”

A gift from his happy agent? This kind of tip was unexpected but not unheard of in an assassin’s line of work, especially if the strike had been of a sensitive nature, which this one had been. Still, he felt more than a little uneasy.

“Well?” the woman purred. “Are you going to accept? Or should I go away and tell him you weren’t interested?”

Lawlor hesitated, then thought: How long has it been? Three weeks? No, at least four.

He thumbed the buzzer, said, “Third floor, end of the hall.”

Chapter 11

Excited but cautious, Lawlor hurried to the bedroom and pulled on dark slacks and a black V-neck T-shirt. He crossed to a suitcase and got out a small knife in a sheath hanging off a strap. He put it around his ankle, then found a small Ruger nine-millimeter pistol that he stuck in his waistband at the small of his back.

A gentle knock came at the apartment door. He slipped on running shoes, padded to the door, peered through the peephole, and saw a very chic woman in her thirties wearing a long black faux-fur coat that went well with her jet-black hair, high cheekbones, ruby lips, and pale skin.

Spectacular, he thought as he turned the door handle. Bloody work of art.

She stepped in. Lawlor smelled her perfume and her own intoxicating smell.

He closed the door, took her hand, spun her around, and pushed her firmly against the wall.

“Hey!” she protested, though she didn’t struggle.

“Hands up against the wall,” he said. “I need to check your purse and pockets.”

“For what?” she said, raising her hands.

“Things I don’t like.”

He took the purse from her and set it aside. Then he patted her down from behind; he found nothing.

“Turn and open the coat.”

She sighed, pivoted, and undid the two hooks holding the coat shut.

The flaps fell away, revealing a very fit body in lacy black lingerie, stockings, stiletto heels, and nothing else.

“Surprise,” she said, smiling.

“Sorry, my sweet,” Lawlor said. “Old habits.”

“You were a cop?” she asked, looking nervous.

“Soldier,” he said before picking up the purse and opening it.

“Where are you from?”

He didn’t answer as he went through the purse, finding a cell phone, two condoms, a black elastic hair band, a small bottle of lubricant, a pair of thin latex surgical gloves, a small lint brush, a shower cap tucked in a sleeve that advertised the Willard hotel, a container of breath mints, and a tube of lipstick.

“Gloves?” Lawlor said.

She smirked. “Some gents enjoy a little prostate massage.”

Lawlor grunted. “None of that.”

She shrugged. “Are we done or do you want to do a full strip search?”

“We’re done,” he said, handing her the purse.

“You’re not much for setting the mood,” she said, taking it.

“Give me time.”

She grinned saucily at him.

He gestured toward the hallway, said, “Can I take your coat?”

“It’s part of the show,” she said, and she giggled pleasantly as she headed down the short passage into the sitting area. “Nice place.”

“Airbnb,” he said.

“No kidding?” she said, sounding impressed. She looked around before walking to the thermostat. “Mind if I make it... hot in here?”

“By all means.”

She fiddled with the gauge and then turned to regard him. She seemed to like what she saw. “You work out?”

“I do. You?”

“Every day. You’re British?”

“Long time ago. You?”

“Florida. You an actor now or something?”

Lawlor cocked his head.

“Your ‘happy agent’?”

“Oh, he’s more like a broker. I do security work. He sets me up with the gigs.”

“Sounds dangerous,” she said, crossing the room to a small leather club chair and setting her purse on an end table. “Stressful.”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Can I get you a drink? Vodka?”

She smiled as she patted the chair. “This is about your stress, not mine, baby. Be a doll, now, sit right here and let me take care of every little thing.”

Lawlor looked at her, thought, Gotta be four weeks at least.

He went and took the seat. She tugged off a lace-and-leather glove with her teeth, got out her cell phone, and tapped at it until Ariana Grande started to sing “Love Me Harder.”

She set the phone down on the side table, slipped the glove back on, and danced with the music, gliding her hips from side to side, gripping the lapels of the fur coat, and teasing him with more glimpses of what he’d already seen. She straddled his legs and ground ever so softly against him while leaning in for a kiss.

Under her weight, Lawlor felt his pistol press into his back, and he shifted slightly before letting her lips meet his. When she drew back, the assassin was already aroused. She ran her leather-clad fingers down his chest, stopped above his waist, then stood again, her humid eyes on him as the music picked up.

Singing the chorus, she took a few steps back and let the coat fall open. “Like what you see?”

“I’d have to be an imbecile to not love what I’m seeing, lass.” He chuckled.

She liked that. She danced over, trailed her hands across his chest again, then slipped around the back of the chair. She leaned over and nuzzled his neck, letting her hair fall against him.

“This is going to feel so good,” she whispered in his ear. “So good.”

He shivered when she ran the tip of her tongue along the top of his ear. “It is good right now.”

“Just you wait, doll,” she murmured, then she straightened and flipped a loop of piano wire over his head.

Chapter 12

During his search, Lawlor had not detected the length of piano wire that had been slipped into the lining of the right sleeve of Kristina Varjan’s coat. But the instant Lawlor felt the wire touch his throat, he seemed to know what he was in for.

Like the professional he was, Lawlor did not thrash or reach up and try to grab at the wire as Varjan cinched the loop tight and wrenched it back. Instead, he arched hard in her direction.

Gun at the small of his back, Varjan thought, remembering the way he’d shifted when she’d straddled him. Gun now!

Lawlor’s left hand came up with a small Ruger pistol; he twisted it her way and fired a split second after she flung herself to her right, still holding on to the wire. The pistol barked. The muzzle blasted so close to her ear, she thought her eardrum had ruptured.

Years of training forced her to swallow the pain and fight. As Lawlor choked and tried to aim at her again, Varjan let go of the wire with her left hand and used it to chop savagely at the curve of his neck, right where it met his shoulder.

The blow stunned his whole arm. The pistol went off a second time, but the bullet flew well wide of her. She chopped again and again until Lawlor dropped the pistol.

Varjan grabbed hold of the piano wire with both hands this time and threw her knee into the back of the chair; she heard Lawlor choke hard, and then the slick sounds of the wire cutting through his skin and into muscle.

Lawlor arched again, came up with a knife from somewhere, and tried to stab her. He missed.

She stepped away from the blade and wrenched and twisted the wire as hard as she could, then heard a noise like melon rind separating as the garrote broke through Lawlor’s trachea. He made gurgling and gasping noises, stopped trying to stab her, dropped the knife, and began to thrash and try to dig the wire out of his neck with his right hand.

Every movement made the wire cut deeper; the struggle made the end come that much quicker. Thirty seconds later, Lawlor collapsed and died.

Varjan let go of the wire and fell to her hands and knees, chest heaving, her fingers numb, sweat boiling off her brow. She stayed that way, panting, for several moments before her instincts kicked in.

The gunshots had changed everything. She was aware of time and of the impending threat. She glanced at her watch: 4:12 p.m.

Still breathing hard, she went to her purse, which had fallen to the ground in the struggle, and retrieved the latex gloves and the shower cap. She stripped off the leather gloves as she hurried back to the apartment door and put on the latex gloves and the shower cap while taking glances out the peephole and listening. No doors had opened. No one was in the hall looking. But what if people downstairs had heard? What if they’d made a call?

She looked at her watch again. A minute and forty seconds had passed since she’d checked, and it had been perhaps a minute before that when the pistol was shot twice. She left the door, crossed to the drapes, and looked out; she saw a few pedestrians on the sidewalks below but heard no sirens.

Just in case, she pushed up one of the sashes so she could hear the street and returned to stand in front of Lawlor, who was bent over to his left, his eyes dull and bugged wide, his face a pallid blue.

The piano wire had severed his carotid at the end. The blood was all down the front of him, pooled in his lap.

She used the lint brush to quickly remove any strands of hair or flakes of skin she might have left on his clothes. Then she went to the sink cabinet and found kitchen garbage bags.

Varjan plucked out two and left one on the counter. She brought the other one to Lawlor’s side, removed the piano wire from his neck, and bagged it.

She went to the front door and looked out the peephole. Nothing. She listened at the window. Quiet.

She found an abrasive cleanser with bleach in the bathroom, and she used it and a damp sponge to wipe down the places she’d touched the dead assassin, even those places already covered in blood. She also wiped the rug where she’d knelt and sweated, then she put the sponge in the bag with the piano wire.

Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since the shot, and still she heard no sirens.

Emboldened, Varjan quickly searched the rest of the apartment and found a high-dollar thermal-imaging rifle scope in the nightstand drawer. She put it in her purse along with Lawlor’s cell phone and passport. She examined the contents of his wallet, took five hundred in cash, and left the rest.

Varjan was about to put Lawlor’s laptop in the other garbage bag but decided to raise the lid first. To her surprise, the screen showed not a password prompt but a bank account in Panama that held more than one million euros and a million British pounds.

When she realized the link to the account was open and active, Varjan almost laughed out loud. Within five minutes, she had emptied the account and transferred the funds to an account of her own in El Salvador.

When she figured in the payment for killing Lawlor, it was easily the most profitable day of her career.

Her cell phone rang. She started, but answered.

“We are good?” Piotr said.

“We are good,” she said, dropping the Southern accent as she signed out of the bank’s website and erased the history. “I’m just about to leave.”

“The phone? His laptop?”

“Already packed. I’ll drop them where you left the coat.”

“I like that.”

“Piotr, should I be looking over my shoulder now?”

“I do not understand.”

“Of course you do. He wasn’t just here for fun, and I pay attention to the news.”

“You were strictly cleanup, and there’s no reason to clean up the cleanup.”

Varjan didn’t trust Piotr because she didn’t trust anyone, but she let it slide. “Payment?”

“Within the hour?”

“Fine.”

He cleared his throat. “Are you committed to leaving the States, or would you consider other proposals?”

She thought about the money she’d just looted from Lawlor’s secret account, the money she’d receive within the hour, and the money she had stashed in various places around the world.

“Depends on the time frame,” Varjan said. “And the money.”

“Four days from now, seven-figure payday, specifics to follow,” Piotr said. “I am sure you can amuse yourself somewhere on the East Coast in the meantime?”

She smiled and headed toward the door. “Yes, this I am sure of.”

Chapter 13

As a crowd of people moved past us toward the Verizon Center in Gallery Place, I looked incredulously at Bree.

“You’re kidding me,” I said. “Michaels actually told you to solve Walker’s murder in order to prove you were worthy of being COD?”

“I’m supposed to serve his head to Ned on a platter,” Bree said, upset. “I don’t get it. I thought I’d been doing a solid job.”

“You’ve been doing a great job.”

“I think he wants me to replace you, and you’re irreplaceable.”

“Well, thank you for that, I think, but you’re a damn fine investigator, Bree. If he’s redefining your job, go with it.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to find Walker’s killer?” she said, crossing her arms. “Charge in, tell you and Ned and the FBI and the Secret Service and the Capitol Police, ‘Butt out, Chief Stone is here’?”

I grinned. “I could actually see you pulling that one off.”

“Big help you are,” Bree said, and she looked so forlorn I hugged her.

“We’ll get through whatever comes our way,” I said, rubbing her back. “As long as we’re together, we’ll be—”

“Dad, c’mon! The game’s gonna start!”

I looked up the sidewalk toward the Verizon Center and saw Jannie in a blue down parka waving at me.

“Be right there!” I said, and then I put my knuckle under Bree’s chin. “Let’s set this aside for the next hour and a half, okay? Our boy’s in town.”

Bree nodded and smiled. “And I’m grateful for that.”

“Me too,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder.

We walked to the Verizon Center, a massive athletics complex in Northwest DC, and gave the ticket taker our tickets. Pounding techno music poured out of the speaker system. We found Jannie, Nana Mama, and Ali sitting in a cluster in the tenth and eleventh rows above center court.

“How’s it looking?” I asked, taking a seat beside my grandmother, Bree sitting down behind me with Jannie and Ali.

“Davidson versus Goliath,” said Nana Mama, who’d been a basketball fan forever. “And I hate to say it, but with a few notable exceptions, Davidson wasn’t looking too strong during warm-ups.”

“Where’s the faith, Nana?” Jannie said, sounding irritated. “We could see the breakthrough tonight. Anything’s possible once things start.”

“The way Georgetown’s been playing?” said Ali, who watches a lot of basketball with my grandmother. “Davidson’s going to get stomped.”

The music changed, the recording taken over by a live pep band playing, “Final Countdown.” Members of the Georgetown University Hoyas men’s basketball team charged onto the court with a full light show in progress.

The local crowd went wild, clapping and stomping their feet while the Hoyas went through a few last-minute layup drills.

“Here come the Wildcats!” Jannie said.

The Davidson College team ran out in their sweats and started their own final warm-up drills. As Nana Mama had said, with a few notable exceptions, the Wildcats looked nervous.

My oldest child, Damon, was one of the exceptions. A six-foot-five guard and three-point specialist who usually came off the bench, he entered the court looking all business and ready.

Damon had played at Division II Johns Hopkins, my alma mater. He played so well in a summer league that he attracted the attention of a Davidson coach, Jake Winston, who offered him a walk-on slot if he transferred.

Under Coach Winston’s guidance, Damon had blossomed into a solid NCAA Division I player.

“C’mon, Damon!” Jannie cried as he dribbled in and made a nice jump shot. She whistled and clapped, and that made me happy.

My older son’s basketball abilities came late and had been hard fought for. Athletically, Damon had long been overshadowed by Jannie’s track exploits. He was the sixth man on a team ranked fifth in the Atlantic Coast Conference. She was being recruited by the top track schools in the nation.

So it was nice seeing my boy get his chance in the spotlight. It was even better seeing how much his little sister was supporting him.

Chapter 14

NEAR DUPONT CIRCLE in Washington, DC, a man calling himself Pablo Cruz, a fit man with hawkish features wearing a Washington Nationals hoodie, jeans, and work boots, adjusted the shoulder straps of the heavy, black dry bag on his back.

He ambled down New Hampshire Avenue, then made a right on M Street. Near the bridge into Georgetown, he took a right onto Twenty-Sixth Street and went to the dead end.

Cruz glanced around before hurrying past a sign that said Rock Creek Park was closed after dark. Twenty yards downslope, he left the path, cut to his right, and peered up at the lights in the nearest apartment building, focusing on two windows on the third floor on adjacent walls of a corner.

When he got the angle on that corner right, still watching those two windows over his shoulder, he backed down the slope woods. He shuffled his feet through the leaves and wondered if his read of the city’s drainage schematics was correct.

His left heel found the edge of the corrugated drainpipe, and he smiled. Cruz got around and below it. He felt for the edge of the cover, found it, and retrieved a hammer, a chisel, and a headlamp from the dry bag.

Cruz turned on the lamp’s soft red light feature and waited until he heard a bus crossing the M Street Bridge over the park before attacking the spot welds that held the cover in place. Twenty minutes later, he pried the cover off and set it aside.

He turned the lamp off and returned it, along with his tools, to the dry bag, then sealed the bag and put it inside the drainpipe a few feet back. Then he replaced the cover and tamped it into place.

Done, he climbed above the pipe and looked at those windows on the third floor of the apartment building again. Cruz fixed the image in his mind.

He left then, angling back across the slope to the path up to Twenty-Sixth Street and telling himself he could find his way here again, even in the pitch-dark, even under the threat of death.

Chapter 15

As both teams lined up at center court inside the Verizon Center, the overall height disparity was clearly in favor of Georgetown, then in first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference and ranked fourteenth in the nation.

The overall muscle disparity went the Hoyas’ way as well.

Georgetown’s center had two inches on our six-foot-seven pivot man, and he easily swatted the ball to one of his guards, who passed across the court to an attacking power forward, who went all the way in for a resounding slam dunk.

The Davidson players looked flat-footed in comparison to the Georgetown team. Damon was sitting on the bench when Kendall Barnes, the Wildcats’ starting point guard, took the ball.

Barnes was as quick a young man as I’d ever seen. But coming up-court and cutting to his right, he failed to pick up a Hoya defender, who slashed in and fingered the ball out of Barnes’s control.

The Hoya went the length of the court and let go with another thunderous slam dunk that threatened to shatter the backboard.

The people in the Verizon Center crowd went nuts, giving each other high-fives and taunting the Davidson players, who looked dazed. Coach Winston wisely called a time-out to try to calm his team. I twisted in my seat.

Ali said, “This isn’t David versus Goliath, Dad. It’s more like prisoners fighting lions in ancient Rome.”

Jannie punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You know too much.”

Ali shot her a superior look. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

Bree said, “Anyone hungry?”

After getting a manageable order of hot dogs, chips, and sodas, Bree got up and left just before the teams retook the court.

“Damon’s in!” Jannie said.

I looked out and saw she was right. Damon had been subbed in at guard to play opposite Barnes. Coach Winston had also replaced one of the starting forwards for a lanky true freshman from Missouri named Tanner Ott.

Barnes had the ball again. He acted as if he was going to make the same forward charge and cut right. When he feinted that way, the Hoyas bought it and shifted. Barnes flicked the ball behind him to Damon, who was set up in three-point range.

Damon received the ball, set, and sprang into his release.

“Nothing but net!” Jannie screamed before the ball even reached the hoop and swished through.

We were all on our feet cheering as Damon spun in his tracks, pumping his fist.

The Hoyas guard brought the ball up-court and tried to flick it to his center. But Tanner Ott intercepted the pass and drove the length of the court to an easy layup.

“We’re ahead by one!” Jannie cried, leaping to her feet and clapping.

That lead went to four when Damon dropped another three-point bomb, and the Hoyas called their own time-out.

Things got uglier for Davidson after that.

The Hoyas sank five straight field goals and then a three-pointer before Barnes worked to Ott, who drew a foul scoring inside. From then on, it was a real pitched battle.

Coach Winston had taught his Davidson team to use their superior speed to swarm on defense and to stay aggressive enough with their bigger opponents to draw fouls on offense. The Wildcats took a physical beating, but the free-throw shooters and Damon’s third three-pointer kept the score a respectable 43 to 37 at the half.

“I can’t believe the score’s that low,” Ali said.

Jannie said, “I bet Georgetown’s thinking the same thing.”

“Davidson has a good defense, I’ll grant you that,” Nana said between bites of the hot dog Bree had brought her.

“Think they can keep it up?” Bree asked me.

I smiled and shrugged. “I think they can consider it a victory to be only six points behind a nationally ranked team at the half.”

Ali said, “So you’re saying if they lost by twelve points, it would still be a victory?”

“Okay, an achievement,” I said.

“It is an achievement,” Bree said. “I’m impressed by their poise.”

The second half was harder fought than the first. Georgetown came onto the court trying to put Davidson away for good. But through the third quarter, the Wildcats chipped the Hoyas’ lead to four and then to one when Damon fed to Barnes, who sank from three-point land.

Two of Georgetown’s best players fouled out early in the fourth quarter. You could see the concern in the faces of the Hoyas when their coach called time-out. You could feel it in the crowd too.

The Wildcat players looked out of their minds, especially Ott, Barnes, and Damon, who was as pumped up as I’d ever seen him. Winston kept my son in the game and Damon delivered, dropping two more three-pointers, three field goals, and a free throw in the fourth quarter.

The game was tied with a minute left, and even skeptical Ali and Nana were on their feet cheering wildly for Davidson. The Hoyas scored on their first possession, an easy layup. Then Barnes fed Ott in the paint, and he laid the shot in and drew a foul.

His free throw dropped with twenty-nine seconds left. Down by one, Georgetown called its last time-out.

“I’m going to faint if this goes on much longer,” my grandmother said.

“We’ll hold you up,” Jannie said. She took one of her hands and Ali took the other.

Bree’s cell rang. She answered and listened.

“I’ll be right there,” she said and then hung up.

“You can’t leave now,” I said.

“I have to. Murder in Georgetown five blocks from where Walker was shot.”

“That was hours ago.”

“I’m looking for straws to grasp at.”

“Need company?”

“Can’t; you’re under FBI contract. Michaels would have my head if I let you in. Text me what happens?”

I nodded and kissed her. “Be safe.”

She slipped down the aisle and disappeared before the referee blew his whistle. Georgetown brought the ball out-of-bounds and up-court in three long and precise passes. But the Wildcats’ pesky defense kept them from getting an immediate shot.

When the Hoyas passed a fourth time, Barnes darted forward, intercepted it, and passed to Ott, who slammed the ball through Georgetown’s hoop with eighteen seconds on the clock.

“We’re up by three!” Ali squealed.

Neither team had time-outs left. Georgetown tried to break quickly up-court, but Barnes and Damon kept pressing the Hoyas.

When they tried to come inside with a lob pass to their center, Ott sprang and batted the ball. The Hoyas’ guard snatched it up before Ott could steal, however, and passed it to Georgetown’s best outside shooter.

He set to release, and I thought for sure we were heading into overtime. But Damon came leaping laterally and windmilling his right hand.

After the shot, my son’s fingers brushed the ball just enough that it caromed off the rim and into Barnes’s able hands. He dribbled away from the Hoyas chasing and trying to foul him.

He was just too quick. The buzzer went off, and the Wildcats went crazy.

“Upset of the year!” Jannie cried, and we all cheered as if Damon and Davidson College had made the Final Four.