The Camel Club

CHAPTER

35

“NO ONE SEEMS TO BE HOME,” Tyler Reinke said as he watched the front of Milton’s home from the car outside. He glanced at a file on Milton Farb. “Threatening to poison President Reagan’s jelly beans sort of tanks your career opportunities,” Reinke added wryly. “That may be why they didn’t come forward. Because of his record.”

Peters said, “What I want to know is, what was he doing on Roosevelt Island in the middle of the night?”

“I say we wait until later and then go exploring. If he’s in hiding, chances are he left something behind at his house to show us where he is.”

“In the meantime I think we should take another trip to Georgetown. Somebody might have seen something that night that could be helpful,” Peters said.

“And it might not hurt to take another look at the boat while we’re there,” Reinke added.

Captain Jack adjusted his hat and rubbed a finger against the yellow rose sticking out of his lapel as he surveyed the inside of his new property. The garage was large with three expansive work bays. However, the place was empty now except for one vehicle that was receiving the complete attention of his “mechanics.” Ahmed, the Iranian, wiped his brow as he came up out of the oil pit cut into the floor of the garage.

“How’s it coming?” Captain Jack asked.

“We’re on schedule. Have you talked to the woman?”

“That piece is in place and ready,” Captain Jack said. “And don’t ask again, Ahmed,” he added, looking stonily at the man. The Iranian nodded curtly and swung himself back down into the pit. Soon the sounds of power wrenches filled the space, and Captain Jack stepped out into the sunshine.

Ahmed waited a few more minutes, and then he reemerged from the pit, walked quickly to the worktable and slid out a long-bladed knife from an oily cloth that he’d hidden under some tools. He placed the knife under a piece of carpeting in the back of the vehicle and then popped the carpet back into place.

Outside, Captain Jack climbed into his Audi and drove to the apartment across from Mercy Hospital. One of the Afghans let him in.

“Are the weapons here?” Captain Jack asked.

“Carried them up piece by piece in paper grocery bags like you said to.”

“Show me.”

The man led him over to the large-screen TV set up in one corner of the room. Together they moved the TV out of the way, and the Afghan used a screwdriver to pry up the carpet, exposing the padding and subfloor. Here the subfloor had been cut away and replaced with plywood. Under the plywood Captain Jack could see that short lengths of rope had been attached to the floor joists in six-inch intervals. Lying on top of the ropes were two assembled sniper rifles with high-powered scopes.

“I’ve heard of the M-50s but I’ve never used one,” Captain Jack said.

“It’s got digital optics so no visible signature; it chambers the twenty-one-millimeter cartridge with environmental sensors built in, together with multithermal detection.” The Afghan knelt down and pointed to one part of the rifle. “It’s also got a neural feedback system that cancels muscle twitch.”

“I never needed that to do the job,” Captain Jack said matter-of-factly.

“And it’s coated with advanced Camoflex so it blends in with its surroundings with a push of this button. Its barrel is nanotechnology-refined and can place a round at less than .00001 minute of angle at one thousand meters. Overkill for this job, but so what. We’ve also got a couple of MP-5s with about two thousand rounds. ”

Early in his career Captain Jack had made the inexcusable error of inputting the barometric pressure after the adjustment for altitude had been made, the number typically given by weather forecasters. However, shooters needed the actual barometric pressure without regard to altitude adjustment. It had been a huge mistake because cold air was denser than warm, and the speed of sound was also lower in cold air, which was critical when one was chambering supersonic ammo. That mistake had caused his bullet to wound instead of kill, not an acceptable result when one was attempting to assassinate a head of state.

“Where have you hidden the ordnance?” he asked.

The Afghan went around to the back of the big-screen TV and unscrewed the rear panel. Neatly stacked inside were dozens of fully loaded MP-5 mags and boxes of M-50 rounds. “As you can see, we don’t watch much TV,” the Afghan said unnecessarily.

“How about the other two rifles and ordnance you’ll be using? They’re the most important of all.”

“They’re under the other floorboards. They’re ready to go. We’ve practiced over fifty hours with them. Don’t worry, we won’t miss.”

“The weather looks good for game day, but it can change quickly around here.”

The Afghan shrugged. “It’s not that difficult a shot at this distance. I’ve easily hit the target at three times this range at night with people shooting back.”

Captain Jack knew this was not mere bravado on his part, which was one of the reasons the man was here in the first place.

“But you’ve never done it quite this way before,” he said. “The range and flight path are a little different.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Captain Jack went into the bathroom and looked at his disguise in the mirror. He took off the hat and examined his thick hair shot through with gray and a mustache and short beard of the same coloring. He took off his tinted glasses, and blue eyes looked back at him. A small scar rested on the side of his nose, which was long and thick. In reality the beard and hair were fake. He was actually bald and clean-shaven with brown eyes and no scar, although his nose was long, but thin.

He put the hat and glasses back on. He’d disappeared many times in his life, sometimes while in the employ of others, including the government of the United States. Other times he’d been on his own, his shooting skill and nerve purchased by the highest bidder. But as he’d told Hemingway, his next disappearing act would be his last.

He drove out of town to the ceremonial grounds, barely ten minutes from downtown, and yet a lot could happen in ten minutes.

Captain Jack didn’t stop at the grounds but instead drove past them slowly, eyeing certain landmarks he’d long since committed to memory. The ceremonial grounds were framed by white rail farm fencing with only one vehicle entry point and numerous pedestrian entrances. Six-foot-high brick columns framed the car entrance, and the motorcade would have to pass through there going in and out. The Beast would find it a tight squeeze.

He eyeballed the surrounding tree lines, guessing at the placement of the American countersnipers that would be posted along this perimeter. How many would there be? A dozen? Two dozen? It was hard to tell these days, even with the best intelligence. They would be wrapped in their camouflage suits, blending in with their surroundings so perfectly you would step on them before you ever saw them. Yes, his men would most certainly die on these hallowed grounds. At least it would be quick and painless. Supersonic long-range ordnance, particularly to the head, killed you faster than your brain could react. The fedayeen’s death, however, would not be nearly as painless.

Captain Jack envisioned the motorcade coming in and the president exiting the Beast. He would wave, shake hands, pat some backs, give some hugs and then be escorted to the bullet- and bombproof podium as “Hail to the Chief” was played.

The reason the song was used when a U.S. president entered a room originated with President James Polk’s wife, who was furious that her diminutive, homely husband was often totally ignored when making an entrance. Thus, Sarah Polk ordered that the song be played whenever her husband came into a room. All presidents since had followed this imperious woman’s lead.

However, the origin of the song itself was even more amusing, at least to Captain Jack’s thinking. Set to the words of Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem The Lady of the Lake, it described the demise of a Scottish chieftain who was betrayed and then put to death by his archenemy, King James V. Ironically enough, the song that was used to herald the coming of the president of the United States actually chronicled the assassination of a head of state. In the last part of Canto Five, the poem summed up, in Captain Jack’s opinion, a query that all would-be politicians should give serious thought to: “O who would wish to be thy king?”

“Not me,” he muttered to himself. “Not me.”

The ex-National Guardsman settled himself in the chair and looked at his new hand while the two men watched him carefully.

“Now that we’ve added the pouch, let’s begin practicing the movements,” the engineer said.

The American moved his hand and wrist as he had been shown, but nothing happened.

“It takes practice. Soon you will be an expert.”

Two hours later they had made considerable progress. Taking a break, the men sat and talked. “So you were a truck driver?” the chemist asked.

The former soldier nodded, holding up his hook and fake hand. “Not an occupation you can really do with these because I also had to help unload the cargo.”

“How long were you in Iraq before it happened?”

“Eighteen months. I only had four more months to pull, at least I thought. Then we got orders extending our tour another twenty-two months. Four years! Before all this happened I was married with a wife and family and holding my own in Detroit. The next thing I know, I’m scrambling to get the money to buy my own body armor and GPS because Uncle Sam didn’t have the cash. Then a land mine outside of Mosul takes both my hands and a chunk of my chest. Four months in Walter Reed Hospital, and I get back home to find my wife’s divorcing me, my job’s long gone and I’m basically homeless.” He paused and shook his head. “I did my tour during Persian Gulf One and sucked in all the shit Saddam was chucking at us. After my discharge from the army I joined the National Guard so I could at least have some income until I got back on my feet. I did my Guard duty and then resigned and started driving trucks. Then after all those years the army knocks on my door and tells me my Guard resignation was never ‘officially’ accepted. I told them not so politely to go to hell. But they literally hauled me kicking and screaming away. Then a year and a half later boom, there go my hands and my life. My own country did that to me!”

“Now it’s your turn to repay them,” the engineer said.

“Yes. It is,” the very ex-National Guardsman agreed as he flexed his hand.

Adnan al-Rimi strode through the hallways of Mercy Hospital, his observant gaze methodically taking in all details of his surroundings. A minute later he returned to the hospital’s front entrance just as an elderly patient was wheeled in, a portable IV hooked to her arm.

Adnan stepped outside and breathed in the warm air. To the left of the hospital’s front steps was a ramp for gurneys and wheelchair-bound patients. Al-Rimi walked down the steps to the sidewalk that ran in front of the hospital. There were fourteen steps. He turned and walked back up them, silently counting time as he did so. Seven seconds at a normal pace, perhaps half that if someone was running.

He went back inside the hospital, his hand sliding down to his sidearm. It was an old .38 revolver, a piece of American crap, as far as he was concerned. Yet that was the only weapon the security firm he worked for had to offer. It didn’t really matter, he knew, but still, weapons were of paramount importance to Adnan. He had required them virtually his whole life simply to survive.

He walked back down to the nurse’s station and stopped at the fourth tile over from the exact center of the station. Then he turned around and walked back toward the front entrance. Anyone watching him would just assume he was making his rounds. He counted off his paces in his head, nodding to a pair of nurses who walked by as he did so. Near the front entrance he turned right, counted his steps down this hallway, turned, pushed open the door to the exit stairs, counted his steps down two flights and found himself in the basement corridor on the west side of the hospital building. This corridor ran into another that carried him north and then emptied out into the rear exit area. A wide asphalt drive was located here that sloped upward to the main road running behind the hospital. Because of the grade and poor drainage, it often flooded here after even a moderate rain, which was another reason why everyone preferred entering through the front.

As he stood there, Adnan visualized several times a particular maneuver in his head. Finished, he went over to a pair of double doors, unlocked them and stepped inside, closing the doors behind him. He was now in the hospital’s power room, which also housed the backup generator. He’d been coached on the basics of this room by the security firm, in case there was an emergency. He’d supplemented that coaching by reading the manuals for every piece of equipment in the room. There was only one that he was really interested in. It sat on a wall across from the generator. He opened the box with another key on his chain and studied the controls inside. It wouldn’t be difficult to rig it, he decided.

He locked up the power room and went back inside the hospital to continue his rounds. He would do this every day, until the day came.

A little while later Adnan’s shift ended, and he changed out of his uniform in the hospital’s locker room and rode his bicycle to his apartment about two miles away. He prepared a meal of flat bread, dates, fava beans, olives and a piece of halal meat that he cooked on the stovetop in his tiny kitchen.

Adnan’s family had raised livestock and grown dates in Saudi Arabia, no small feat in a country with only 1 percent of its land arable, but they had suffered great hardship. After his father’s death the al-Rimis fled to Iraq, where they grew wheat and raised goats. Adnan, as the eldest son, became the family’s patriarch. He began butchering meat in accordance with Islamic law so it was halal, and the additional monies that this endeavor provided had been very welcome.

Adnan sat in his apartment staring out the window and cradling a cup of tea, his mind drifting back to that time. Goats, lambs, chickens and cattle had met their end at the point of his very sharp knife. These animals had to be slaughtered from their necks while Adnan spoke God’s name. Adnan never struck the spinal cord while doing his butchering, for two reasons: It was less painful to the animal, and it allowed convulsive motions to remain, which hastened the drainage of blood, as required by Islamic law. Under that law no animal could witness the death of another, and the animals had to be well fed and rested. It was a far cry from the mass killings of the “stun and stick” method used by American slaughterhouses. Yes, the Americans were the best at killing lots of things quickly, Adnan thought.

As he sipped his tea, Adnan reflected still more on his past. He fought in the decade-long Iran-Iraq war where Muslim slaughtered Muslim by the thousands in some of the fiercest hand-to-hand fighting history had ever seen. After that conflict was over, Adnan’s life returned to normal. He married, raised a family and did his best to avoid giving the megalomaniac Saddam Hussein or his minions cause to harm him or his family.

Then 9/11 happened, Afghanistan was invaded and the Taliban quickly fell. Personally, Adnan had no problem with any of that. America had been attacked and it had struck back. Adnan, like most Iraqis, did not support the Taliban. Life went on in Iraq. And even with the international embargo on his country Adnan was able to earn a modest living. And then, the U.S. declared war on Iraq. Like all his countrymen, Adnan waited with dread for the bombs and missiles to start falling. He sent his family away to safety, but he remained behind because it was his adopted country and was about to be attacked by another nation.

When the American planes came, Adnan watched in silent horror as Baghdad became one continuous fireball. The Americans called it collateral damage, but to Adnan these were men, women and children blown apart in their homes. And then the American tanks and troops came. There had never been any doubt in Adnan’s mind as to the outcome. The Americans were simply too powerful. They could kill you from a thousand miles away with their weapons. All Adnan had ever had to fight with was his gun, his knife and his bare hands. And it was said that the U.S. had missiles that could take off from America and vaporize the entire Middle East minutes later. This terrified Adnan. There was no way to beat such a devil.

Still, after Hussein had been toppled, there was hope. Yet that hope quickly turned to despair as violence and death took hold and civil society simply disappeared. And when the American presence truly became an “occupation,” Adnan felt his duty was clear. So he fought against them, killing his fellow citizens in the process, an act that sickened him but one that he somehow rationalized away. He had killed Iranians during the war between the two countries. He had killed Arabs and Americans in Iraq. He had slaughtered animals using his knife. It seemed to Adnan that his whole life had been consumed with taking the lives of others.

And now his own life was the only one left. His wife and children were dead. His parents, brothers and sisters were all gone too. It was only Adnan still here on earth while his family resided in paradise.

And here he was in the United States in the palm of his enemy. This would be his last stand, his final act of a life spent attacking and being attacked. Adnan was tired; he’d lived eighty years in only half that time. His body and mind could not endure much more.

He finished his tea but continued to look out the window as a group of children ran around the playground of the apartment complex. There were black children and white children and brown children playing together. At that age, differences in color and culture meant nothing to them. Yet, unfortunately, that would change when they became adults, Adnan knew. It always did.

CHAPTER

36

“YOU WANTED TO SEE ME, SIR?” Tom Hemingway asked as he walked into Carter Gray’s office. This space was rumored to be the only square inch of the NIC facility that was not under electronic surveillance.

Sitting behind his desk, Gray motioned Hemingway in. “Shut the door, Tom.”

For a half an hour the two men discussed various geopolitical events coming up, the state of several world crises and Hemingway’s take on some key developments in ongoing intelligence operations in the Middle and Far East. Then the conversation turned to other matters.

“The Secret Service agents who were out here today?” Gray said.

“I fully cooperated with them, sir, at least NIC’s version of full cooperation. I hope I did the right thing extricating you like that.”

“You did. The agents they were meeting with initially that I spoke with?”

“Warren Peters and Tyler Reinke. Both good men. They were assigned to represent NIC’s interests during the investigation. I believe they were processing some evidence found at the scene for the Secret Service.”

“I spoke to the president about Ford and Simpson. I don’t think they’ll be back.”

“I understand that Simpson is your goddaughter?”

“Yes. Jackie is Roger Simpson’s only child. I was honored when he asked me to be Jackie’s godfather, although I’m not sure if I’ve been a good one.”

“She looks like she’s done all right for herself.”

“I love her like a daughter.” Gray looked a bit embarrassed by his words and quickly cleared his throat. “An internal audit is being conducted over Patrick Johnson’s death. The FBI will be involved.”

Hemingway nodded. “I think it’s a good move. I can’t believe there’s anything to it, but we have to cover the bases.”

Gray eyed him closely. “And why don’t you think there’s anything to it, Tom?”

“A house and cars he couldn’t afford? Drugs found in the house? Seems straightforward. It’s not the first time it’s happened.”

“It’s the first time it’s happened here,” Gray said. “Did you know Johnson well?”

“As well as I knew any of the data supervisors. By all accounts he was excellent at his job.”

“How did he strike you?”

Hemingway thought about this. “From my limited contact he was a man whose ambitions outstripped his opportunities.”

“A keen insight for someone you admittedly didn’t know all that well.”

“That assessment could apply to half the people here. Quite frankly, they want to be you. But they never will and it bothers them.”

Gray sat back in his chair. “I’ve taken a good look at Johnson’s file. There was nothing in there to indicate that he would be turned. Do you agree?”

Hemingway nodded.

“But then again, the same could be said of virtually all the people who have been turned against this country. It has more to do with psychology than bank accounts.”

“There are others here who knew Johnson better than I did.”

“I’ve spoken with them,” Gray said. “I’ve also spoken with his fiancée. She believes the drug business is absolute garbage.”

“Well, it’s not surprising that she’d defend him.”

“Tom, I recall that the centralization of all intelligence databases was completed four months ago. Is that correct?”

“Yes, with the proviso that we only recently completed integration of the Transportation Safety Administration’s files from their Screening, Coordination and Operations Office. That was due to some legal hang-ups with Homeland Security, among others.”

“Any more significant glitches in the system?”

“No. And as I’m sure you also recall, the TSA piece was fairly substantial. It had the Secure Flight, Registered Traveler and the US VISIT programs among others. The US VISIT program was particularly sensitive for us because it contained detailed backgrounds, digital fingerprints and photos of foreign travelers. However, the ACLU had a field day with that one, screaming profiling and big brother to every court that would entertain them. But it belonged here and we eventually got it. Before, this data was scattered over a dozen departments with no workable integration, incredible overlap and duplication, with the result that much of it was worthless.”

“Well, that failure was one of the chief reasons 9/11 happened,” Gray said.

“Speaking of, I understand the president asked you to attend the memorial event in New York tomorrow.”

“The office grapevine; it’s better than any spy network devised. Yes, he did and yes, I declined. As always, I prefer to hold a very private ceremony honoring those who lost their lives that day.”

“I also heard that you’re going up to Brennan, Pennsylvania.”

Gray nodded, opened his desk drawer and pulled out a book.

“How well up are you on your Bible, Tom?”

Hemingway was accustomed to swift changes in direction with Gray. “I’ve read the King James Version. Along with the Qur’an, the Talmud and the Book of Mormon.”

“Good. What’s the one similarity you find in all of them?”

“Violence,” he answered promptly. “People talk about the Qur’an inciting violence. They have nothing on the Christians. If I recall correctly, Deuteronomy was particularly full of fire and brimstone. Thou shalt smite this and that dead.”

“At least it’s consistent. And yet the Qur’an instructs its followers not to take their own lives, which does not reconcile with the concept of a suicide bomber. Indeed, it doesn’t promise paradise, but rather warns of condemnation in hell for taking one’s own life.”

“The Qur’an says this when the death is outside the cause of Allah; it doesn’t apply to those who die for the cause. And there are enough references to killing the unbelievers in the Qur’an, and also in writings and local laws and customs subsequent to the Qur’an that it’s possible to justify that killing oneself and unbelievers at the same time is authorized. And for those who die in the cause, it says they don’t really die, nor should their loved ones grieve for them. That’s a distinction between Islam and Christianity.”

“Correct. But there’s also another great similarity between the two religions.”

“What’s that, sir?”

Gray put away his Bible. “The resurrection of the dead.”

CHAPTER

37

THE SPACIOUS HOUSE THAT Captain Jack had rented in the suburbs of Brennan was set far off the main road with no other residences nearby. It also had a large home theater, a facility he was taking advantage of right now.

Captain Jack placed the DVD that Hemingway had given him in the player but did not turn it on yet, as the men who’d come here today took their seats. None of them were eating popcorn; no refreshments at all had been passed around. It was not that sort of movie night.

Captain Jack took a minute to survey his crew. They were good, capable men. They had been hardened by a life that had not included many moments of happiness or things that others took for granted, such as food, clean water, a bed and a life free from constant persecution and threat of violent death. Assembled here were his bomb makers and engineers, his shooters, his snipers, his fedayeen, his mechanics, his inside people and his wheelmen. Djamila was not here, however. Her mission was completely separate. And quite frankly, Captain Jack didn’t know how the males would react to a woman being such a critical part of the operation. Only a few of his company knew of her involvement, and the American knew it was best to keep it that way.

The men’s appearances had all changed. Hair cut or grown longer. Beards shaved off. Weight gained or lost. They all wore Western-style clothes. Some sported glasses, others had dyed their hair. While none of their “real” images remained on the NIC database, the operation was too important to become slack with the small but important details. Altered NIC photos notwithstanding, they might still be recognized by American intelligence operatives who’d seen them in the flesh years ago.

He walked to the front of the room and addressed them all by name as a sign of respect and camaraderie. He asked for progress reports, and each man reported back succinctly and knowledgably.

Captain Jack, Tom Hemingway and a third person had handpicked these men from a pool provided to them by this third party, a man they both trusted. They had not chosen the most violent and zealous Muslims among the group. Ironically, restraint was the quality they’d required above all.

The 9/11 hijackers had come from varied backgrounds. Fourteen of the fifteen hijackers who accompanied the four “pilots” on the jets were from Saudi Arabia. They were from middle-class families that were not particularly active either politically or in the Muslim faith. And yet these young men left their good homes and families, trained with Al Qaeda, became steeped in the practice of radical Islam and jihad and carried out their orders with military precision, no doubt with the hope of riding that flight path to paradise. The 9/11 hijackers had not had to make any decisions for themselves; all had been planned out. The situation developing in Brennan was far different. Each man would have a great deal of input in what would happen.

Thus, Hemingway and Captain Jack had sought out older, reasonably educated men who had once led normal lives. These men had not trained with Al Qaeda. They had not given their lives over to jihad for reasons typically associated with that mind-frame. And while several had had run-ins with American and European law enforcement, and their fingerprints and photos had been taken, necessitating the cover-up at NIC, none were at the level where their photos were plastered in newspapers everywhere. The youngest of them was thirty, the oldest fifty-two, and the average age was forty-one. These men, while they had experience with killing, were not eager in taking someone’s life. Every one of them had lost at least three immediate family members in wars and other conflicts over the years. Indeed, a half dozen had lost their entire families to such violence. They had volunteered for this mission for reasons other than those typically assumed to be at the core of the Middle Eastern terrorist mind. Indeed, all of these men considered themselves soldiers, not terrorists. That was the composition of the “holy warrior” Tom Hemingway had insisted on.

“Remember this,” Captain Jack told his men. “While we sit here planning this operation, in another room somewhere, there will be far more people planning how to stop us. They are excellent at what they do, so we have to be better than excellent. We have to be perfect.” He paused, making eye contact with each of them. “One mistake along the chain brings the whole thing crashing down. This is understood?”

All the men nodded in silent agreement.

Captain Jack went over the ceremony details again. The army of Secret Service and local police would have voluminous notebooks containing all the prep work for the president’s visit. Captain Jack and his team could afford no such luxury. One page lost could have catastrophic results. Thus, all details had to be memorized. To be absolutely clear, Captain Jack changed from Arabic to English and back again, depending on the subtlety of what he was trying to communicate.

“Before the president ever sets foot here, a Secret Service advance team will arrive in Brennan to begin their planning for the event along with the most elaborate and secure motorcade in the world. Typically, the motorcade consists of twenty-seven vehicles including local police escorts, a ‘Road Runner’ communications van, a press vehicle, VIP van, an ambulance, a SWAT vehicle carrying a counterassault team inside, and two ‘Beasts.’ One will carry the president and in the other, Secret Service agents. All roads leading from the airport to the dedication grounds in Brennan will be thoroughly checked and, on the day of the visit, sealed off.

“At the dedication grounds the president will enter from the right of the stage and exit in the same direction. When he’s speaking, he will be behind a bulletproof and bombproof glass podium known as the Blue Goose. Countersnipers will be positioned all along the perimeter tree line. When the president moves, he will be surrounded at all times by a wall of agents, hip and flank. Wherever the man is, is known as the kill zone, and the Secret Service takes that concept very, very seriously. The crowd will be very large, thus magnetometers will be set up at all pedestrian entrance points to the dedication grounds. We have the exact same magnetometers that will be used by the Secret Service and have tested them on the highest detection level.” He paused and added, “Shooters, you can pass through these points without fear.

“You must keep in mind that the Service will key on personal demeanors — namely, persons not fitting in, not participating in the ceremony, and those not relating to others in the crowd. Because you are Middle Eastern, they will give you extra scrutiny. They have an entire database on assassins that takes profiling down to the most insignificant detail. As you know, your photos are no longer on file with the Americans, and your appearances have been greatly altered, so risk of identification is very low. But that is no reason to be careless. Thus, your dress and behavior at the ceremony will be dictated to you, and you will adhere to every single detail, without exception. When you enter those grounds, you will look like doctors, lawyers, teachers, tradesmen, shopkeepers, respectable citizens in your adopted country.” Captain Jack paused and eyed each man.

“The video I’m about to show you will illustrate quite vividly how seriously the Secret Service takes its mission.”

He hit a button on the remote he was holding, and the screen jumped to life. Tom Hemingway had provided his colleague with a publicly available video on the Secret Service and their general protection techniques, rare footage of assassination attempts and, rarer still, a video of Secret Service agents training at their Beltsville, Maryland, facility. Beltsville was where agents learned to do J-turns with their cars, nail targets with their guns, and also practiced protection techniques over and over until fragile thought was taken out of the process and resolute muscle memory took its place.

The men watched mesmerized as footage was shown of attempts on the lives of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. The assassination of John Kennedy was not included on the DVD. Presidents no longer rode around in open cars. And every mistake that had been made in Dallas that day by the Secret Service and overzealous politicians had been long since corrected.

“You see,” Captain Jack commented, “that the agent’s actions are the same in each instance. The president is completely shielded and almost bodily carried away from the scene with the utmost speed. In Reagan’s case he’s shoved into the presidential limo and is gone within seconds. On 9/11 when it seemed a plane was heading for the White House, the Secret Service evacuated the vice president from his office there; it is said his feet never touched the ground until he was safely away. Speed. Keep that in mind. It is built into their training and thus their psyches. Acting in practiced routines without wasting time thinking. Nothing can override that impulse. And the most important impulse they have is to save the president’s life. They will sacrifice anything for that, including their own lives. We can count on that with certainty. We cannot possibly match them in firepower, manpower, training or technology. But we can understand the psychology of who and what they are and use it to our full advantage. Indeed, other than the element of surprise, that is the only advantage we have. And it will be enough if we are perfect on that day.”

He went through this part of the video again, breaking it down like game film, frame by frame, as his men committed all of this to memory. Questions were numerous, which the American always took as a good sign.

Next up on the screen was a diagram of the ceremonial grounds. Captain Jack, using a laser pointer, went grid by grid, pointing out general strategic items, entry and exit points and the positions of the Beast and other pertinent vehicles in the motorcade. “Note that the presidential limo is always parked at a spot with a completely unobstructed exit point. That is critical to our plans.”

He then assigned numbers to each of his men who would be on the ceremonial grounds that day and pointed out corresponding numbers on the screen that indicated each man’s position there. Next he pointed out the ambulance. “Above all, this vehicle must be disabled. All you men who are responsible for this, you must ensure that it is done.”

The next frame showed a slender white-haired man wearing glasses. Captain Jack said, “The president travels with his personal physician, this man here, Dr. Edward Bellamy. He will be on the podium with the president. He must be taken out first. He must be, without fail.”

The next frame showed a simulation of the rope line.

Captain Jack put his finger on the screen, using it to trace the rope very slowly and carefully, as though he were a surgeon making a precise incision into flesh. “This is the Secret Service’s worst nightmare. If it were up to them, they would never allow it, but it’s the lifeblood of a politician to shake hands and kiss babies,” Captain Jack explained. “It’s here, on the rope line, where he is most vulnerable. Yet it’s also a double-edged sword, because it is precisely here where the bodyguards are at their absolute highest alert.”

The next image on the screen was that of the ex-National Guardsman who had been given a new hand by Captain Jack’s men. He was in full-dress uniform. It was a slightly older photo and thus showed him with two hooks where his hands should have been.

Captain Jack said, “We will have no electronic communications capability at the dedication grounds because the Service will crisscross the area with jammers and interceptors. Thus, everything will be done the old-fashioned way, through eyes and ears.” He pointed to the man on the screen. “This is the person who you will key off. He will be wearing this exact uniform. But there will be others there with uniforms on, so you must not make a mistake. Each of you will receive a copy of this DVD and a portable DVD player. You must study it for four hours each day so that you can memorize his every feature and every other detail I am showing you tonight. However, this man you must spot early and never lose sight of where he is. The organizers of the event have arranged that all disabled American soldiers will be up front on the rope line as a way to honor them. It is very good of the town fathers to do this. And it certainly aids our plan.”

He looked at the engineer and chemist in the group who’d supplied the ex-National Guardsman with his new hand. “It has been confirmed that the desired effect will take less than two minutes.” The men nodded and Captain Jack continued. “When that happens, the pattern becomes immediately this.” He snapped his fingers as he talked. “Shooter sequence 1. Then fedayeen A and B. Then shooter sequence 2, followed by fedayeen C and D. Then shooter sequence 3. Then the final fida’ya. And then shooter sequence 4. As you know, each sequence has precise targets. If one target is not hit during its sequence, the next sequence must add that to its responsibilities. Every target must be struck, no exceptions. All agents will be wearing the latest-generation body armor, as will most of the police, so place your shots accordingly. Is this understood?”

He stopped and scrutinized each of them again, something he planned to do constantly tonight. One by one they nodded at him. He repeated the attack sequence again and again and then had each man repeat it to him exactly, also confirming what sequence they were in.

“Because of the limited range of your weapons, you’ll see on the position grid that each shooter is located no more than two rows back from the rope line, and in most cases only one row back. You will arrive at the event in assigned shifts and early enough to make your way to those spots.”

Captain Jack stopped talking and looked at his men for a long minute. What he was about to say next was, in many ways, the heart of the matter. “Each of you must realize that as soon as you fire your weapon, you almost certainly will be killed by the countersnipers. The proximity of the crowd will afford you some protection but probably not enough. Our information is that the countersnipers will be using the standard Remington 700 series bolt-action sniper rifle with .308 rounds. The American sharpshooters you will be facing can place a shot within a ten-inch circle at over a thousand yards.”

There was a murmur of appreciation around the room at the skill of their opponents. It was an interesting reaction in the face of what he was telling them. He couldn’t allow them to choose between life and death when the time came. Captain Jack simply wanted them to act, just as the Secret Service trained their people. And each man had to understand that the forfeit of his life was the price to be expected for being a part of this historic day for Islam.

“As you know, the bullets that hit you will instantly carry you to paradise. You will have more than earned such a reward.” He said this part to them in Arabic.

Captain Jack now looked at each of the fedayeen. He had given them that title as one of honor. The Arabic term was fida’i and originally meant “adventurer.” Now it usually referred to Arab guerrilla fighters or to “men of sacrifice.” It was likely that all of Captain Jack’s men on the ceremonial grounds would perish, and thus they should have all been called by that title. However, some of Captain Jack’s men would unquestionably die. And thus their colleagues had not begrudged them being referred to as the fedayeen during the course of this mission.

After the briefing Captain Jack led them downstairs to a room that had been soundproofed by its former owner and used as a recording studio. That was another reason Captain Jack had leased the house, although the weapons they would be using wouldn’t be making that much noise. Here a firing range had been set up, and the men were given their guns and ordnance. For the next two hours they practiced on their targets, with Captain Jack throwing in unexpected disruptions via sound and video equipment, because it would be complete chaos when the real firing started.

Although Adnan al-Rimi would not be at the dedication grounds, he’d attended this meeting because he was a man who insisted on knowing everything that had to do with a mission. He had fought side by side with Captain Jack in the Middle East, and the American trusted Adnan as well as he trusted anyone.

Adnan was standing behind the Iranian named Ahmed, who lived in the apartment with the two Afghans, across from Mercy Hospital, and was working on the vehicle at the garage. Ahmed wouldn’t be at the dedication grounds either but, like Adnan, he had insisted on attending the meeting tonight. Ahmed kept muttering to himself. Something he said caught Adnan’s attention but the Iraqi didn’t show surprise. He spoke to Adnan in Arabic.

“My language is Farsi,” Ahmed answered. “If you wish to speak to me, do it in Farsi, Adnan.”

Adnan didn’t answer him. He didn’t like the young man commanding him to speak “his” language. Iranians, Adnan had long ago concluded, were a very different breed of Muslims. He moved away from the younger man. However, his gaze continually returned to him, and his ear to the Iranian’s angry words.

A half hour after the last of his men had left, Captain Jack drove to downtown Pittsburgh. The man he was meeting was waiting for him in the lobby of the city’s priciest hotel. The gentleman looked a little jet-lagged after the long flight. They rode the elevator to a suite overlooking the city skyline.

Though the man was fluent in English, he opened the conversation in his native Korean. Captain Jack answered him, in Korean.

As Captain Jack chatted with his North Korean colleague, he thought of a quote from a man he much admired. “Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.” The Chinese general Sun Tzu had written those words in a book titled The Art of War. Though centuries old, the advice still held true today.

CHAPTER

38

STONE AND MILTON HAD TO look twice as the motorcycle pulled to a stop in front of them at Union Station. Reuben lifted up his goggles and rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

“Reuben, what happened to your pickup truck?” an amazed Stone asked.

“Found this baby in a junkyard, if you can believe it. Spent the last year fixing it up.”

“What is it?” Stone asked.

“It’s a 1928 Indian Chief motorcycle with sidecar,” Milton answered promptly.

“How the hell did you know that?” Reuben said, glaring at him.

“I read about it in an article six and a half years ago in Antique Motorcycle Magazine while I was waiting at the dentist. I was there for a crown prep.”

“A crown prep?” Reuben asked.

“Yes, it involves isolation with rubber sheeting and drilling to shave off the enamel, which leaves a post of dentin approximately two millimeters in diameter, but without exposing the nerve. The permanent crown is made of porcelain. It’s quite nice. See?” He opened his mouth and showed them.

Reuben said impatiently, “Thank you for the bloody dental lesson, Dr. Farb.”

“Oh, there’s hardly any blood, Reuben,” replied Milton, who’d entirely missed the sarcasm in his friend’s remark.

Reuben sighed and then proudly ran his gaze over the pin-striped candy-apple-red motorcycle with attached sidecar. “A thousand cc power plant, rebuilt transmission and magneto. The sidecar’s not authentic; it’s a fiberglass replica, but it doesn’t rust and it’s a lot lighter. I got most of the parts off eBay, and a friend of mine had some extra cowhide leather that I used to reupholster the sidecar seat. And it’s a left-mount sidecar, which is pretty damn rare. One in this condition would sell for north of twenty grand, and I’ve only got about a tenth of that in it. Not that I’m thinking about selling, mind you, but you never know.”

He held out a black crash helmet to Stone that had goggles attached.

“Where exactly do I ride?” Stone asked.

“In the sidecar, of course. What the hell do you think it’s for? A damn flowerpot?”

Stone put on the helmet and adjusted the goggles, then opened the small door, stepped into the sidecar and sat down. It was a very cramped space for the tall man.

Reuben said, “Okay, let’s go.”

“Wait a minute!” Stone exclaimed. “Is there anything I should know about the motorcycle?”

“Yeah, if the wheel on the sidecar goes off the ground, you can start praying.”

Reuben hit the kick-starter and the motor caught. He revved it a couple of times, waved good-bye to Milton, and they sailed away from Union Station.

Reuben steered the motorcycle west on Constitution Avenue. They cut past the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where war veteran Reuben gave a respectful salute to the wall, looped around the Lincoln Memorial and passed over Memorial Bridge, which carried them into Virginia. From there they headed south on the George Washington Parkway, which was referred to locally as the GW Parkway. As they raced along, they drew curious stares from people in vehicles they passed.

Stone found that if he angled his legs just so, he could nearly stretch them fully out. He sat back and gazed over at the Potomac River on his left, where a powerboat had just passed two crew teams racing each other. The sun was warming, the breeze inviting and refreshing, and for a few moments Stone allowed his mind a respite from the many dangers that lay ahead for the Camel Club.

Reuben pointed to a road sign and shouted over the whine of the engine. “Remember for years that sign read ‘Lady Bird Johnson Memorial Park’?”

“Yes. Until someone informed them she wasn’t dead,” Stone called back. “And named it after LBJ, who is.”

“I love the efficiency of our government,” Reuben cried. “Only took them about a decade or so to get it right. It’s a good thing I don’t pay taxes, or I’d be really ticked off.”

They both watched as a jet lifted off the runway at Reagan National Airport heading north and then did a long bank and eventually turned in the southerly direction they were traveling. A few minutes later they entered the official city limits of Old Town Alexandria, one of the most historic places in the country. It boasted not one, but two boyhood homes of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, as well as Christ Church, where the posterior of none other than George Washington had graced the pews. The town was chock-full of wealth, ancient but beautifully restored homes, rumpled cobblestone streets, wonderful shopping and eclectic restaurants, a vibrant outdoor life and an inviting waterfront area. It also was home to the federal bankruptcy court.

As they passed the court, Reuben said, “Damn place. Been through there twice.”

“Caleb knows people who can help you with your money. And I’m sure Chastity could provide valuable services to you too.”

“I’m certain sweet Chastity could service my needs, but then Milton would be really mad at me,” Reuben called out with a roguish wink. “And I don’t need help with the money I have, Oliver, I just need help with getting more of it.”

He turned left, and they pulled down a side street heading toward the river until it dead-ended at Union Street. Reuben found a parking space, and Stone extricated himself from the sidecar with some difficulty.

“What the hell happened to your face?” asked Reuben, who’d obviously just noticed these injuries.

“I fell.”

“Where?”

“In the park. I was playing chess with T.J., and then I was having coffee with Adelphia. I tripped over a tree root when we were leaving.”

Reuben grabbed his friend by the shoulder. “Adelphia! Oliver, that woman is mental. You’re lucky she didn’t drop a lethal Mickey in your java. Mark my words, one night she’s going to follow you to your cottage and slit your throat.” He paused and then added in a low voice, “Or worse, try and seduce you.” Reuben shivered, apparently at the thought of Adelphia as a seductress.

They walked past Union Street Pub and then crossed the street and headed toward a shop near the corner. The sign above the door read: “Libri Quattuor Sententiarum.”

“Where the hell did that come from?” Reuben asked, pointing at this plaque. “I know I haven’t been here in a while, but didn’t this place used to be called Doug’s Books?”

“That name wasn’t attracting the desired upscale clientele, so they changed it.”

“Li-bri Quat-tuor Senten-tiarum? That’s real catchy! What does it mean?”

“It’s Latin for ‘Four Books of Sentences.’ It was a twelfth-century manuscript by Peter Lombard that was cut up and bound around the 1526 edition of St. Thomas Aquinas’ lectures on the Epistles of Paul. Some scholars consider the Aquinas work to be the world’s rarest book. An even earlier work that was bound around that one might be even more special. Hence, it’s a very appropriate name for a rare book shop.”

“I’m impressed, Oliver. I didn’t even know you spoke Latin.”

“I don’t. Caleb told me about it. In fact, it was his idea to rename the shop. As you know, I introduced him to the shop’s owner. I thought it would be productive, given Caleb’s expertise with rare books. At first he simply advised on a few things, but now Caleb has an ownership interest in the place.”

They went inside the shop accompanied by the jangle of a bell attached to the arched, solid-oak door. Inside, the walls were equal parts exposed brick and ancient stone with worm-eaten wooden beams overhead. Tasteful oil paintings hung on the walls, and ornate bookshelves and massive armoires were bulging with ancient tomes that were all carefully labeled and housed behind glass doors.

In a separate room a pretty young woman was standing behind a small coffee bar making drinks for some thirsty customers. A sign on the wall asked customers not to enter the rare book area with their beverages.

A small, balding man came out from the back dressed in a blue blazer, slacks and a white turtleneck, his arms outstretched and a smile on his tanned face. “Welcome, welcome to Libri Quattuor Sententiarum,” he announced, the words rolling adroitly off his tongue. Then he stopped and eyed Reuben and looked at Stone.

“Oliver?”

Stone put out his hand. “Hello, Douglas. You remember Reuben Rhodes.”

“Douglas,” Reuben muttered under his breath. “What happened to ‘Doug’?”

Douglas gave Stone a prolonged hug and shook Reuben’s hand. “Oliver, you look, well, you look very different. Nice but different. I like the new style. No, I love it. Muy chic. Bellissimo!”

“Thank you. Caleb says that things are going well here.”

Douglas took Stone by the elbow and led them over to a quiet corner.

“Caleb is a jewel, a treasure, a miracle.”

“And here I was thinking he was just a print geek,” Reuben said with a smirk.

Douglas continued enthusiastically. “I can’t thank you enough, Oliver, for introducing Caleb to me. Business is booming. Booming! I started out selling porno comic books out of my car trunk, and now look at me. I have a condo in Old Town, a thirty-foot sailboat, a vacation house at Dewey Beach and even a 401(k) plan.”

“All through the power of the written word,” Stone said. “Remarkable.”

“Do you still sell the porn stuff?” Reuben wanted to know.

“Uh, Douglas, I need to look at my things, in the space Caleb arranged for me to use,” Stone said quietly.

Douglas’ face paled and he swallowed nervously. “Oh, of course, of course. Go right ahead. And if you want anything, just ask. In fact, we have some very fine cappuccino and wonderful scones today. It’s on the house, as always.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Douglas hugged Stone again and then hurried off to help a woman who’d entered the shop dressed in a full-length fur coat despite the balmy weather.

Reuben looked around at all the books. “Most of these writers probably died penniless, and he’s buying condos and boats and 401(k)s off their sweat.”

Stone didn’t answer. He opened a small door set off to the side of the shop’s entryway and led the way down a narrow staircase that emptied into the basement area. He headed along a short corridor and through an old wooden door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” He closed the door behind them and turned left down another hall. Then Stone took an old-fashioned key from his pocket and used it to open an arched door at the end of this hall, and they entered a small room that was paneled in very old wood. He flicked on a light and went over to a large fireplace that sat against one wall. While Reuben watched, Stone knelt down, reached his hand up into the inside of the fireplace and pulled on a small piece of metal attached to a short wire hanging there. There was an audible click, and a panel of the wall next to the fireplace swung open.

“Gotta love those priest’s holes,” Reuben said as he gripped the exposed panel and swung it all the way open.

Inside was a room about eight feet deep and six feet wide and tall enough for even Reuben to easily stand up in. Stone pulled a small penlight from his pocket and stepped in. Bookshelves lined all three walls. On each of these shelves were neatly stacked journals and notebooks, a few locked metal boxes and numerous cardboard boxes taped shut.

While Stone looked through the journals and notebooks, Reuben had a sudden thought. “How come you don’t keep all this stuff at your cottage?”

“This place has an alarm system. All I have guarding my cottage are dead people.”

“Well, how can you be sure that old Douglas doesn’t come down here and poke through your stuff when you’re not here?”

Stone kept examining the journals as he talked. “I told him that I’d booby-trapped this room and that no one other than myself could open it safely without threat of instant death.”

“And you think he believed you?”

“It doesn’t really matter. He has no personal courage, so he’ll never find out for sure. Plus, at my suggestion Caleb let some hints drop to Douglas that I used to be a homicidal maniac before my release from a hospital for the criminally insane solely on a technicality. I think that’s why he hugs me every time he sees me. Either he wants to stay on my good side or he’s checking for weapons. Ah, here we are.”

Stone pulled out an old leather-bound journal and opened it. The book was filled with newspaper clippings carefully glued to the pages. He read through it as Reuben waited impatiently. Finally, Stone closed the journal and then pulled out two other large books on a shelf. Behind these books was a leather case about eighteen inches square in size. Stone put this in his knapsack along with the journal.

On the way out Reuben got three scones from the attractive young lady in black.

“I’m Reuben,” he said, towering over her and holding in his belly.

“Good for you,” she said curtly before hurrying off.

“I think that young babe in there was rather taken with me,” Reuben said proudly as they got back to the motorcycle.

“Yes, I suppose she ran off like that to tell all her friends,” Stone replied.

CHAPTER

39

IT TOOK ALEX FORD ABOUT AN hour to decide what to wear on his night out with Kate Adams. It was a humbling and embarrassing sixty minutes as he realized how long it’d been since he’d gone on a real date. He finally decided on a blue blazer, white collared shirt and khaki pants with loafers on his big feet. He combed down his hair, shaved off his five o’clock shadow, dressed, chewed a couple of breath mints and decided the big, somewhat weathered lug staring back at him in the mirror would just have to do.

D.C. traffic had reached the critical stage where there was no good time or direction to be driving, and Alex was afraid he was going to be late. However, he lucked out after skirting an accident on Interstate 66 that left a clear field ahead. He took the Key Bridge exit, crossed the Potomac, hooked a right onto M Street and soon found himself cruising up 31st Street in posh Georgetown. It was a place named after a British king, and certain elements of the area retained that regal dignity that some might equate to outright snobbery. However, on the main shopping drag of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, the tone was decidedly funky and modern with gaggles of underdressed kids crowding the narrow sidewalks yakking on their cell phones and checking each other out. Yet in the upper regions of Georgetown where Alex was heading lived famous families with enormous financial portfolios and nary a tattoo or body piercing in sight.

As Alex passed one stately mansion after another, he started growing more nervous. He had guarded some incredibly powerful people over the years, but the Service prided itself as being an elite agency with a blue-collar nature. Alex was solidly in that mold and much preferred the lunch counter at the local IHOP to a three-star restaurant in Paris. Well, there was no going back now, he told himself.

The road he was on dead-ended at R Street near the massive Dumbarton Oaks mansion. Alex hung a left and continued on down R until he found the place.

“Okay, she wasn’t kidding about the mansion status,” Alex said as he stared up at the brick and slate-roofed behemoth. He pulled into the circular driveway, got out and looked around. The grounds were formal with the bushes all cut to the same height and shape and the late summer blooms presented in all their colorful and symmetrical glory. The moss was growing lushly around the stone slabs that led to an arched wooden door that accessed the backyard. Or with palaces such as this it was probably referred to as the rear grounds, Alex thought.

He checked his watch and found he was about ten minutes early. Maybe Kate wasn’t even here yet. He was about to drive around the block to kill some time when he heard a lilting voice calling out to him.

“Yoo-hoo, are you the Secret Service man?” He turned and spotted a small, stooped woman scurrying toward him, a basket of cut flowers hooked over one arm. She had on a wide-brimmed sun hat with white cottony hair poking out, beige canvas pants and an untucked long-sleeved jeans shirt; large black sunglasses covered most of her face. She seemed shrunken with time, and he put her age at around mid-eighties or so.

“Ma’am?”

“You are tall and cute. Are you armed too? With Kate you better be.”

Alex glanced around, briefly wondering if Kate was playing a joke on him and this odd woman had been hired as part of the gag. He didn’t see anyone and turned back to the woman. “I’m Alex Ford.”

“Are you one of those Fords?”

“Sorry, afraid there’s no trust fund in my future.”

She took off her glove, stuck it in her pants pocket and put out her hand. He shook it but then she didn’t let go. She pulled him toward the house. “Kate isn’t ready yet. Come on in, have a drink and let’s talk, Alex.”

Alex allowed himself to be led along by the woman because, frankly, he didn’t know what else to do. She smelled of strong cooking spices and even stronger hair spray.

When they reached the house and went inside, she finally let go of his hand and said, “Where are my manners, I’m Lucille Whitney-Houseman.”

“Are you one of those Whitney-Housemans?” Alex said, with a grin.

She took off her glasses and smiled back coquettishly. “My father, Ira Whitney, didn’t found the meatpacking industry, he just made a fortune off it. My dear husband, Bernie, may you rest in peace,” she added, looking at the ceiling and crossing herself, “now, his family made their money in whiskey and not all of it legally. And Bernie was a prosecutor before he became a federal judge. It made for some interesting family gatherings, I can tell you.”

She led him into a vast living room and motioned for him to sit down on a large sofa placed against one wall. She put the flowers in a cut crystal vase and turned to him.

“Now, speaking of whiskey, name your poison.” She went over to a small cabinet and opened it. Inside was a fairly complete bar.

“Well, Mrs. . . . uh, do you go by both names?”

“Just call me Lucky. Everybody does because lucky I’ve been, my whole life.”

“I’ll have a glass of club soda, Lucky.”

She turned and looked at him sternly. “I know how to make lots of cocktails, young man, but club soda ain’t one of them,” she said in a scolding tone.

“Oh, uh, rum and Coke, then.”

“I’ll make it Jack and Coke, honey, with the emphasis on the Jack.”

She brought him the drink and sat down next to him with her own glass. She held it up. “A Gibson. I fell in love with them after I saw Cary Grant order one on that train in North by Northwest. Cheers!”

They tapped glasses and Alex took a sip of his. He coughed. It tasted like she’d let the Jack run solo. He looked around the living room. It was about the size of his entire house and with far nicer furniture.

“So you’ve known Kate long?” he asked.

“About seven years, although she’s only lived with me for three. She’s wonderful. Smart as a whip, beautiful, a real pistol, but then, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Plus, she makes the best buttery nipples I’ve ever tasted.”

Alex nearly choked on his drink. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t get all excited, honey, it’s a specialty drink. Baileys and butterscotch schnapps. She is a bartender, after all.”

“Oh, right.”

“So are you one of the agents who guard the president?”

“Actually, starting tomorrow, I am,” Alex said.

“I’ve known every president since Harry Truman,” she said wistfully. “I voted Republican for thirty years and then Democratic for about twenty, but now I’m old enough to know better, so I’m an Independent. But I loved Ronnie Reagan. What a charmer. He and I danced at one of the balls. But of all the presidents I’ve known I have to confess that I liked Jimmy Carter best. He was a good, decent man; a real gentleman, even if he did lust in his heart. And you can’t say that about all of them, can you?”

“No, I guess you can’t. So you know President Brennan, then?”

“We’ve met, but he wouldn’t know me from Eve. I’ve long since passed my usefulness in the political arena. Although in my prime I had some sway. Georgetown was the place to be for all that. Kate Graham, Evangeline Bruce, Pamela Harrington, Lorraine Cooper, I knew them all. The dinner parties we had. The national policy we came up with sitting around drinking and smoking, although the ladies were often separated from the gentlemen. But not always.” She lowered her voice and looked at him with raised pencil-thin eyebrows that looked painted on. “Because the sex we had, oh, my Lord. But not any orgies or anything like that, honey. I mean you’re talking about government people, public servants, and it’s hard to get up early and work those long hours after sex orgies. It takes it out of you, it really does.”

Alex suddenly realized his mouth had opened wider and wider as he listened to her. He quickly closed it. “So, uh, Kate lives in the carriage house?”

“I’ve wanted her to move in here — the place has eight bedrooms, after all — but she won’t. She likes her space, all women do. And she can come and go as she wants.” She patted his leg. “So this is your first date with her. That’s sweet. Where’re you going?”

“I’m not sure. Kate picked the place.”

She gripped his hand again and looked directly into his eyes. “Okay, honey, let me give you some advice. Even the modern woman likes the man to take charge every once in a while. So next time you pick the place. Be decisive about it. Women hate men who can’t make up their minds.”

“Okay, but how do I know when else she wants me to take charge?”

“Oh, you won’t. You’ll just screw it up like every other man does.”

Alex cleared his throat. “So does she date a lot?”

“Okay, you want the 411 on Kate, don’t you, honey? Well, Kate only brings someone around every few months. Nobody’s stuck yet but don’t let that discourage you. She usually brings home some fancy-pants lawyer, lobbyist or big-shot government type. Now, you’re the first man with a gun she’s brought here,” she added in an encouraging tone. “You are packing heat, aren’t you?” she asked hopefully.

“Would that be a good thing?”

“Honey, all civilized women throw their underwear at dangerous men. We just can’t help ourselves.”

He grinned, opened his coat and showed her his gun.

She clapped her hands together. “Oh, that is so thrilling.”

“Hey, Lucky, get away from my man.”

They both turned around and saw a smiling Kate Adams standing in the doorway leading into the next room. She had on a pleated black skirt that ended midthigh, a white blouse open at the neck and sandals. Alex realized he’d never seen her legs before; she always wore pants at the bar. She gave Lucky a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“I have been entertaining your beau while you made yourself beautiful, my dear,” Lucky said. “Not that it takes that much effort for you. Oh, it’s just not fair, Kate. Not even the best plastic surgeon in the world could give me your cheekbones.”

“You liar. The men were always gaga over Lucky Whitney. And they still are.”

Lucky smiled at Alex and said in a very coy tone, “Well, I have to admit, this young man did show me his piece, Kate. I bet you haven’t had that pleasure yet.”

Kate looked surprised. “His piece? No, I haven’t seen it yet.”

His expression one of horror, Alex jumped up so fast he spilled some of his drink on the couch. “My gun! I showed her my gun.”

“That’s right, that’s what he called it. His gun,” Lucky said, smiling impishly. “Now, where are you two going for dinner?”

“Nathan’s,” Kate answered.

Lucky raised her eyebrows. “Nathan’s?” She gave Alex a thumbs-up. “That’s where she takes the ones with real potential.”

CHAPTER

40

“REUBEN,” STONE CALLED OUT from his perch in the sidecar. “We have some time yet. Can we stop in at Arlington Cemetery?”

Reuben looked over at the nation’s most hallowed burial place for its military dead and nodded.

A few minutes later they passed through the visitors’ entrance and walked past the Women in Military Service Memorial. They paused for a moment near the Kennedy graves, Arlington’s biggest visitor draw, with the changing of the guard at the Tombs of the Unknowns a close second.

Continuing on, Reuben stopped and gazed at a stretch of grass near Arlington House. It had once been Robert E. Lee’s home but had been confiscated by the federal government after Lee had chosen to lead the Confederate army against the Union.

“Isn’t that where you found me, stoned outta my head?”

Stone looked at the spot. “It was a long time ago, Reuben. You pulled yourself out of it. You fought off your demons.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you, Oliver.” He paused and looked around at all the white tombstones. “I was just so damn pissed off. I lost half my company from Nam to Agent Orange, and the army wouldn’t even admit they’d done it. And then the same thing happened with the Persian Gulf syndrome. I just wanted to come here and scream, make somebody listen.”

“It’s probably best that you passed out when you did. The secretary of defense was here that day; it might’ve gotten ugly.”

Reuben gazed curiously at his friend. “You know, I never asked you what you were doing at the cemetery that day.”

“Just like everyone else, I was there to pay my respects.”

Stone stopped at one area and silently counted down the rows of white headstones until he came to one near the middle. He stood, his arms folded across his chest, while the setting sun burned down into the horizon. Reuben checked his watch but seemed reluctant to interrupt his friend.

Stone’s solitude was finally halted by a group of men passing nearby. He watched as they headed toward the newest expansion of Arlington Cemetery and one that was not yet completed. It was the 9/11 memorial site that abutted the grounds of the cemetery. The site included a signature monument to the lives that were lost at the Pentagon, and a memorial grove.

Stone stiffened when he saw who was in the center of the wall of armed security. Reuben glanced over too.

“Carter Gray,” Reuben muttered.

“Here to see his wife, I would assume,” Stone said quietly. “Before the crowds come tomorrow.”

Carter Gray stopped at the gravesite of his wife, Barbara, knelt on the ground and placed a small bouquet of flowers on the recessed earth. Technically, the anniversary of his wife’s death was tomorrow, but the cemetery would be filled that day, and, as Stone had deduced, the man had no desire to share his grief with a mass of strangers.

Gray rose and stared down at where his wife’s body lay, while his security detail kept a respectful distance away.

Barbara Gray had retired from the army as a brigadier general after a distinguished career in which she set many firsts for women in the military. Barbara Gray had also been one of the most vocal advocates for members of the World War II-era WASPs, or Women’s Air Force Service Pilots, to be eligible to receive burial at Arlington with full military honors, something denied to them because they were summarily disbanded after the war. In June of 2002 a new regulation allowed a number of women’s military groups, including the WASPs, to at least be buried with the more limited funeral, instead of full, military honors. Unfortunately, Barbara Gray had not lived to see it happen.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Barbara Gray, then a civilian consultant, was meeting at the Pentagon on a project with two members of the army when the American Airlines flight slammed into the building, obliterating the room she was in. As an appalling footnote to this tragedy, the Grays’ daughter, Maggie, a government lawyer, had just arrived at the Pentagon to meet her mother. Her body was virtually cremated in the initial explosion.

As Carter Gray stood there looking at his wife’s grave, the image of that morning cut deeply into him. And then the waves of guilt followed, for he should have been in that building too. Gray was supposed to meet his wife and daughter at the Pentagon before they all headed out on a long-planned family vacation. He’d been caught in traffic and was running about twenty minutes late. By the time he got to the Pentagon, his family was gone.

As he finally pulled his gaze from the consecrated ground, Gray looked around and spotted the two men staring back at him from a distance. He didn’t recognize the large man, but there was something familiar about the other. Then he watched as the two men turned and walked off. Gray lingered by his wife’s grave for another ten minutes, and then, his curiosity getting the better of him, he headed to the spot where the two men had been standing. He realized this section of graves was familiar to him. He started looking at the headstones, his gaze moving swiftly down the neat rows of markers, until he stopped at one.

The next moment his security staff was hustling after Gray as he rushed down the walkway. As he drew closer to the exit, he stopped and bent over, sucking in huge amounts of air as his security team circled him, asking if he was all right. He didn’t answer them. He didn’t even hear them.

The name on the grave marker that had caused his pell-mell rush was pinballing around his mind. There was no body in the casket under that marker, Gray well knew. It was all a sham, all part of a cover-up. Yet the name on the marker wasn’t a fraud. It was a real man who, it was thought, had died in the defense of his country.

“John Carr.” Gray said the name, one he had not uttered for decades.

John Carr. The most accomplished killer Carter Gray had ever seen.

Nathan’s wasn’t that crowded yet, and Alex Ford and Kate Adams were seated at a table in a corner near the bar area and had ordered some drinks.

“Lucky’s a real pistol,” Alex said. “How’d you hook up with her?”

“Before I went to Justice, I was in private practice. I handled the trusts and estates work when her husband died. We became friends, and she eventually asked me to come live with her. I said no at first, but she kept asking, and Mr. Right had failed miserably to show up at my door in the meantime. I pay rent for the carriage house,” she added quickly. “Lucky’s a very interesting person. She’s someone who’s been everywhere, knows everybody. But she’s lonely too. Old age doesn’t go down well with someone like her. She’s so alive, and she wants to do everything she used to do; but she really can’t anymore.”

“From what I saw she’s doing a pretty damn good job of trying,” he replied. “So why’d you jump to the government side?”

“Nothing too original. I got burned out on the billable hour treadmill. And you’re not going to change the world doing T and E law.”

“So what do you do at Justice to change the world?”

“I’m into a fairly new thing actually. After Gitmo Bay and treatment of POWs at Abu Ghraib, the Salt Pit and other places, Justice formed a new group to enforce the civil rights of prisoners deemed to be of a highly political nature as well as foreign combatants, and to investigate any crimes against those class of persons.”

“Well, judging from what I read in the papers, you must keep pretty busy.”

“The U.S. overall has an excellent record when it comes to treatment of POWs and persons listed as foreign combatants, but the longer the war against terrorism goes on, the more tempting it is for our guys to stoop to the other side’s level. After all, they’re only human, and they might come to view the person sitting across from them as someone not worthy of any rights at all.”

“But that doesn’t excuse them breaking the law.”

“No, it doesn’t. And that’s where people like me come in. I’ve been to the various war zones six times in the last two years. Unfortunately, it’s not getting much better.”

“It looks like Carter Gray has started counterpunching well.”

Kate sat back and sipped on the glass of red wine she’d ordered. “I have mixed feelings about that. I feel for him personally and his loss on 9/11. I think that’s the only reason he came back into the government sector. But I’m not convinced it was a good thing. ”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked.

“I know he’s gotten extraordinary results. I wonder if he employs extraordinary means to achieve them. For example, we’ve had real problems with rendition.”

“I’ve heard that’s quite a political football.”

“It’s no wonder with the way the procedure works. Suspected terrorists are transferred from the U.S. to other countries or vice versa without any legal processing or access by the International Red Cross. When we transfer prisoners out to other countries, verbal assurances are first required from the receiving country that the transferees won’t be subjected to torture. Well, the problem is there’s no way to verify that torture doesn’t occur. And in fact, it seems clear that the torture often does happen. On top of that, because such torture in the U.S. is illegal, some think NIC and CIA are actively involved in rendering prisoners to other countries so that torture can be used as a tool to get useful information. They’ll even get the receiving country to trump up charges against a suspect so he can be jailed, interrogated and often tortured. That’s against everything that America stands for.”

“Well, after seeing the place firsthand, I believe NIC is capable of pretty much anything.”

“So I take it your looking into that man’s death isn’t going all that well?”

Alex hesitated and then decided it wouldn’t hurt to come clean. He told her about his uncomfortable “chat” with the director of the Secret Service and about being busted back to protection detail.

“I’m so sorry, Alex.” She reached over and touched his hand.

“Hey, I set myself up for it. Gray plays in the big leagues, and having your own partner rat you out doesn’t help. I guess I was outclassed.” He took a drink of his cocktail. “Your martinis are much better,” he said, smiling.

She clinked her glass against his. “I knew I liked you.”

His expression grew serious. “I should’ve stuck to my original plan: with three years to go to finish off my twenty, put it on cruise control and don’t rock the boat.”

“You don’t strike me as a ‘cruising’ sort of person,” Kate replied.

He shrugged. “Look, let’s cut the shoptalk. Tell me more about yourself. That’s what first dates are for.”

She sat back and picked at a piece of bread in front of her. “Well, I’m an only child. My parents live in Colorado. They’ll tell you we’re descended from the Massachusetts Adamses, but I’m not sure I buy that. My dream was to be a world class gymnast. And I worked my guts out for it. Then I grew six inches in one year, and there went that dream. Right after high school I decided I wanted to be a croupier in Vegas. Don’t ask why, I just did. I enrolled in a course, passed with flying colors and took off for Sin City. But it didn’t last too long. I had a teeny problem with drunken high rollers thinking they could grab my butt whenever they wanted. After a few of them lost teeth, the casino suggested I head back East. When I started college, I decided to bartend to pay for it, and then I continued pouring drinks when I went to law school. At least with that occupation you have solid wood between you and the resident animals. And as you deduced earlier, I also play the piano. I earned money teaching it to help pay for school. I don’t need to keep bartending, but honestly I like to. It’s an outlet for me and you meet a lot of fascinating people at the LEAP bar.”

“Gymnast, croupier, bartender, piano-playing defender of truth and justice. That’s pretty damn impressive.”

“Sometimes I think it’s far more dysfunctional than it is impressive. So how about you?”

“Nothing too exciting. I grew up in Ohio. Youngest of four and the only son. My dad was an auto parts salesman by day, but by night he was the second coming of Johnny Cash.”

“Really?”

“Well, he wanted to be anyway. I think he had the largest collection of Cash memorabilia outside of Nashville. Always dressed in black, played a wicked acoustical guitar, pretty good pipes. I learned guitar so I could play with him. We even went out on the road together, playing some of the best hole-in-the-walls in the Ohio Valley. We weren’t great but we weren’t bad either. It was a blast. Then his four-pack-a-day habit caught up to him. The lung cancer took him in six months. My mom lives in a retirement village in Florida. My sisters are scattered around the country.”

“So what made you want to play the human shield?”

Alex took another drink and his look became somber. “I saw the Zapruder film clip of Kennedy’s assassination when I was twelve years old. I remembered thinking that something like that should never happen again. I’ll never forget the image of Agent Clint Hill jumping on the limo, pushing Mrs. Kennedy back into her seat. A lot of people at the time thought she was part of the conspiracy to kill the president, or else condemned her because they thought she was just trying to get away from all the blood on her, even if it was her husband’s. What she was actually doing was trying to retrieve the piece of her husband’s head that had gotten blown off.”

He finished his drink before continuing. “I met Clint Hill at a Secret Service function. He was an old guy by then. Everybody wanted to shake his hand. I told him how honored I was to meet him. He was the only guy to react when it happened. He helped Mrs. Kennedy, and he put his body between her and whoever was shooting at them. I told him if the time came, I hoped I did as well as he’d done. You know what he said to me?”

He looked up to see her gaze directly on him; Kate Adams seemed to be holding her breath. “What did he say?” she prompted.

“He said, ‘Son, you don’t want to be like me. Because I lost my president.’”

There was a long silence and finally Alex broke it. “I can’t believe that I’m sitting here dishing out this depressing crap. I’m not really like that.”

“With the day you had I’m surprised you didn’t bag tonight.”

“Kate, the thought of going out with you tonight was the only thing that got me through today.”

Alex looked a little surprised at the frankness of his words and quickly looked down, studying the exterior of his remaining martini olive.

Kate reached out and touched his hand. “I’m going to further embarrass you,” she said, “by telling you that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

The conversation turned to more innocuous subjects, and time sped by. As they were leaving, Alex muttered an expletive under his breath.

Coming in the door were Senator and Mrs. Roger Simpson and their daughter, Jackie.

Alex tried to duck by but Jackie spotted him.

“Hello, Alex,” she said.

“Agent Simpson,” Alex replied curtly.

“These are my parents.”

Roger Simpson and his wife looked like twins: very tall and fair-haired. They towered over their petite, dark-haired daughter.

“Senator. Mrs. Simpson,” Alex said, nodding at them both. Roger Simpson glared back at him so menacingly that Alex was convinced Jackie must have told him the whole story in her own biased way.

“This is Kate Adams.”

“Pleasure to meet you both,” Kate said.

“Well, take care, Agent Simpson. I doubt I’ll be seeing you around.”

He walked out with Adams trailing him.

As soon as they were outside, Alex blurted out, “Can you believe, of all the restaurants in this damn town—”

He broke off when Jackie Simpson popped out of Nathan’s.

“Alex, can we talk for just a minute?” She glanced anxiously at Kate. “Privately?”

“I’m pretty damn certain we have nothing to say to each other,” he shot back.

“It’ll just take a minute. Please?”

Alex looked at Kate, who shrugged and moved down the street a bit, studying the clothing in a shop window.

Simpson drew closer. “Look, I know you’re upset as hell at me. And you think I ratted you out.”

“Well, you’re batting a thousand so far.”

“It didn’t happen like that. As soon as Carter Gray left us, he must’ve called my dad. Even before he called the president. My father called and gave it to me up one side and down the other. He said I couldn’t let some maverick wreck my career before it even got started.”

“How did the director find out about my ‘old friend’?”

Simpson looked miserable. “I know, that was stupid. My father can be overwhelming. He ground it out of me.” She sighed. “My dad’s one of the most accomplished people you’ll ever meet. And my mother was a Miss Alabama, which makes her a saint down there. So being a simple detective didn’t cut it with them. They wanted me to go into business or politics. I put my foot down and said I was a cop. But they kept pushing for me to go on to a bigger pond. Just to get them off my back, I joined the Service. Dad pulled strings so I got assigned to WFO. His dream is for me to be the first female director of the Service. All I ever wanted to be was a good cop. But for them that wasn’t enough.”

“So are you going to do what your parents want your whole life?”

“It’s not that easy. He’s a man that’s used to people obeying him.” She paused and looked up at him. “But that’s my problem. I just wanted you to know that I’m really sorry for what happened. And I hope I get a chance to make it up to you.”

She turned and walked back inside before he could reply.

When Kate rejoined him, he explained the gist of the conversation. After he’d finished, Alex added, “Just when you think you have somebody pegged and you’re justified in hating her guts, she pulls a fast one and complicates things.” He glanced across the street and his features brightened. “Please tell me you’d like to go get some ice cream.”

She looked over at the shop across the street. “Okay, but I have to warn you I’m a minimum two-scoop sort of girl and I don’t share.”

“My kind of woman.”

CHAPTER

41

AT UNION STATION STONE AND Reuben found Caleb and Milton in the B. Dalton Bookstore. Caleb was poring over a Dickens masterpiece, while Milton was firmly entrenched in the computer magazine section.

Stone and Reuben rounded up the pair, and they all boarded the Metro, taking it to the Smithsonian station, where they rode the escalator up to the Mall.

“Keep your eyes and ears open,” Stone cautioned.

They took a stroll past the major monuments as tourists flocked around taking pictures and videos of all the sights. The Camel Club eventually reached FDR Park, where the FDR Memorial, a fairly recent addition to the Mall, was located. It covered a large area of ground and was made up of various statuary depicting significant symbols from FDR’s reign as America’s only four-term president. Stone led his friends over to a secluded section that was shielded from wandering tourists by a Depression-era breadline immortalized in bronze.

After he’d glanced around for a few moments, Stone shook his head in dissatisfaction and led them back to the subway, which they rode to Foggy Bottom. They exited and started walking. At 27th and Q Streets, NW, Stone stopped. Staring back at them was the entrance for Mt. Zion Cemetery, where Stone was the caretaker.

“Oh, no, Oliver,” Reuben complained. “Not another bloody cemetery.”

“The dead don’t eavesdrop,” Stone replied curtly as he opened the gates.

Stone led them into his cottage, where the others looked at him expectantly.

“I’ve done some research that I believe is critical to our investigation into Patrick Johnson’s murder. Thus, I hereby call this special meeting of the Camel Club to order. I propose that we discuss the topic of the recent spate of terrorists killing each other. Do I have a second?”

“I second,” Caleb said automatically, though he glanced curiously at the others.

“All in favor say aye.”

The ayes carried the motion, and Stone opened the large journal he’d brought from the rare book shop.

“Over the last eighteen months there have been numerous instances where terrorists have allegedly killed each other. I found this to be so interesting that I started keeping all the articles I could find on the subject. The last such incident involved a man named Adnan al-Rimi.”

“I read about that,” Milton said. “But why do you say allegedly?”

“In each instance the dead man’s face was fully or partially obliterated, either by gunshots or explosives. They had to be identified by their fingerprints, DNA and whatever else was available.”

Reuben spoke up. “But that’s just normal procedure, Oliver. When I was at DIA, we did that too, although we didn’t have DNA tests back then.”

“And we know from Reuben that NIC now controls all terrorist-related information.” Stone added, “The same information databases which Patrick Johnson helped oversee were used to identify all these dead terrorists.” He paused. “Now, what if Mr. Johnson were rigging that database somehow?”

After a long silence Milton was the first to speak. “Do you mean he might have been manipulating data somehow?”

“Let me put it more bluntly,” Stone replied. “What if he substituted on the NIC database the prints of the men found dead in place of the fingerprints of the terrorists the authorities thought had been killed?”

Caleb looked horrified. “Are you suggesting that someone like Adnan al-Rimi isn’t actually dead, but as far as American intelligence is concerned—”

“He is dead,” Stone finished for him. “His past has been wiped clean. He could go anywhere and do anything he wanted to do.”

“Like a sterilized weapon,” Reuben interjected.

“Precisely.”

“But wait a minute, Oliver,” Reuben said. “There are safeguards in place. If I remember correctly, at DIA no file alteration was allowed unless certain steps were followed.”

Stone looked over at Caleb. “They have a similar procedure at the Library of Congress Rare Books Division. For obvious reasons the person buying the books can’t input them into the database, and the converse is also true. That’s actually what made me think of this possibility. But what if you had both people in your pocket: the gatherer of the intelligence and the one assigned to put that data in the system? And what if one of them was senior? Perhaps very senior.”

Reuben finally sputtered. “Are you suggesting that Carter Gray is involved in this? Come on, whatever else you say about Gray, I don’t think you can reasonably question his loyalty to this country.”

“I’m not saying it’s an easy answer, Reuben,” Stone replied. “But if not Gray, then perhaps someone else who’s been turned.”

“Now, that’s more likely,” Reuben conceded.

Milton spoke up. “Well, if this is all true, why was Johnson killed?”

Stone answered. “If the two men we saw kill Patrick Johnson are with NIC, then it seems to me — given his extravagant lifestyle on a modest government paycheck — that two things might have happened. One, whoever hired him to alter the files was afraid his newfound wealth would lead to an investigation, so they killed him and planted the drugs. Or else Johnson might have gotten greedy, asked for more money and they killed him instead.”

“So what do we do now?” Milton asked.

“Staying alive would be my priority,” Reuben answered. “Because if Oliver is right, there’s going to be a lot of powerful folks looking to make sure we’re dead.”

“And Milton’s identity and home have no doubt already been compromised,” Stone said. “As for the men after us, I propose that we turn the tables on them.”

“How?” Caleb asked.

Stone closed his notebook. “We have the home address of Tyler Reinke. I suggest we follow up on that.”

“You want us to go marching right into the man’s crosshairs?” Reuben exclaimed.

“No. But there’s no reason why we can’t put him in our crosshairs.”

Ice cream in hand, Alex and Kate strolled down to the Georgetown waterfront near the spot where hundreds of years ago George Mason operated a ferry. Kate pointed out three boulders that were barely visible in the center of the river north of the Key Bridge and across from Georgetown University.

She said, “That’s Three Sisters Island. Legend has it three nuns drowned at that spot when their boat overturned. And then the boulders sprung up to symbolize their deaths and warn others.”

“The Potomac’s current is deceptively calm,” Alex added. “Not that anyone would want to swim in it these days. When it rains hard, you usually get some sewer overflow.”

“When they built Interstate 66, they were also going to build a spur off it that included a bridge across the river at that point. They were going to call it the Three Sisters Bridge, but there were so many weird construction accidents they finally gave up. Some said it was the ghosts of the nuns.”

“You believe in stuff like that?” Alex asked.

“Stranger things have happened. I mean look at some of the conspiracy theorists in this town. Most are probably crazy, but some of them turn out to be right.”

“I know a guy who falls into the category. His name’s Oliver Stone. The guy’s flat-out brilliant, if a couple paces off the sidewalk of life.”

“Oliver Stone? You’re kidding.”

“Not his real name, of course. I think it’s just his little joke aimed at people who believe he’s a quack. One of the most interesting things about him is he has no past, at least that I can find.” Alex smiled. “Maybe he’s been on the run all these years.”

“Sounds like a man Lucky would like to meet.”

“So does she still throw her underwear at dangerous men?”

“What?” a surprised Kate asked.

“Never mind.” Alex ate a spoonful of ice cream and looked over at Roosevelt Island. Adams followed his gaze.

She finally said, “So would you care to talk about it? Bartenders are great listeners.”

Alex motioned her to join him on a bench near the riverfront.

He said, “Okay, here’s what’s bugging me. The guy swims to the island and shoots himself. Does that sound likely?”

“Well, it was the island where he and his fiancée went on their first date.”

“Right. But why swim to the island? Why not just drive to it or walk? There’s a footbridge that crosses over the parkway and empties right into the parking lot of the island. And so does a bike trail. Then you jump the gate, go over to the island, get stoned and blow your brains out without schlepping through the Potomac. They found his car a good ways upriver, which means it was a long swim, in street clothes and shoes and carrying a pistol in a plastic baggie. It’s not like the guy was Mark Spitz or Michael Phelps.”

“But his prints were on the gun,” Kate retorted.

“Forcing someone’s hand around a gun and pulling the trigger isn’t that easy or smart to do,” Alex conceded. “The last thing you want is to put a gun in somebody’s hand that you’re trying to kill. But what if you got him drunk first?”

Alex pointed to his feet. “And the bottoms of his shoes bothered me.”

“How so?”

“They had dirt on them as you’d expect from walking through the brush, but there wasn’t any dirt on the ground around him. You’d think that some of that red clay would’ve ended up on the stone pavers around him. And his clothes were too clean. If you’d hiked around that island, you’d have twigs and leaves stuck all over your clothes. There was nothing like that on him. And if he had swum to the island, he would’ve had to trek through that bramble to get to the main trail.”

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Kate admitted.

“And the suicide note in his pocket? It was barely damp and the ink hadn’t run.”

“He probably carried it in the same plastic bag he used for the gun.”

“Then why not leave it in the baggie? Why pull it out and put it in a soaking-wet pocket that might cause the ink to run and the message to be lost? And while Johnson was wet when he was found, if he’d really swum all that way I would’ve expected him to be soggier and grimier than we found him. I mean the Potomac can get pretty foul around here.”

“But he was wet.”

“Yeah, but if you wanted it to seem like someone had swum all that way, what would you do?”

Kate thought for a moment. “Dunk him in the water.”

“Right, you’d dunk him in the water. And then there’s motivation. No one I talked to knew anything about Johnson dealing drugs. Hell, his fiancée was so ticked she threatened to sue me for even suggesting it might be true!”

“Like I always said, Secret Service doesn’t miss the details.”

“But come on, it’s not like we’re inherently better than the FBI with this stuff. They should’ve seen it too. I think there’s a lot of pressure from up top to put this to rest the easy way.”

“If someone brought him to the island and they didn’t want to use a car for fear of being seen, what would they do?”

As they were talking, they saw a police boat slowly pass.

Alex and Kate looked at each other and said together, “A boat!”

“That’s not something that’s easy to hide,” Alex said slowly.

Kate looked up and down the waterfront. “I’m game if you are.”

They threw their ice cream containers in the trash and headed down to the water.

It took them a solid hour, but they finally found it when Kate spotted a tip of the bow sticking out from the drainage ditch.

“Good eyes,” Alex complimented.

She slipped off her sandals and Alex his shoes and socks. He rolled up his pants, and they scrambled down there as a couple of passersby watched curiously. Alex ran his gaze over the old wooden rowboat, stopping at one point and putting his face very near the hull. “That looks like a bullet hole.”

“And that could be blood,” Kate said, pointing to a small dark patch near the gunwale.

“Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless they killed Johnson in the boat and then took him to the island. It was foggy that night, so I guess it could’ve been done without anyone seeing.”

“So what do you do with all this?” Kate asked.

Alex rose and pondered this. “I’d like to see if the blood matches Patrick Johnson’s or if it’s someone else’s. But if the director finds out I’ve been poking around this case again, I’m going to end up in a brand-new Service outpost in Siberia. That is, if he doesn’t kill me with his bare hands.”

“I can nose around,” Kate offered.

“No. I don’t want you anywhere near this. Some of the thoughts going through my head are downright scary. For now we’ll just have to leave it alone.”

CHAPTER

42

CAPTAIN JACK LOOKED AT THE note that had just been delivered. The message was coded but he’d memorized the key and quickly deciphered it. It was hardly good news:

Gray met with me today. He accessed some files, but I can’t find out which ones because he put an override on. He mentioned the resurrection of the dead to me personally. I discovered he made the same statement to other senior people here. He’s obviously fishing, to see who would jump at the bait. That’s why I sent this by courier. Go ahead with plans. I will hold down this end. Communicate via Charlie One from now on.

The problem with trying to communicate in this day and age was that it was virtually impossible to do so in secret if you used modern technology. Spy satellites were everywhere, and faxes, computers, cell and hard-line phones and e-mails were all potentially monitored. It was no wonder terrorists had resorted to couriers and handwritten messages. Ironic, that modern surveillance technology was driving them all back to the Stone Age. Charlie One was simple to use: coded messages on paper delivered by a trusted messenger, with the paper destroyed after being read.

The Secret Service advance team would be arriving in Brennan very soon. Shortly after that, the president would fly into Pittsburgh on Air Force One, and the most heavily guarded motorcade in history would make its way to Brennan. There they would be confronted by what some would consider a ragtag army of mostly forty-something men and one young woman. Yet Captain Jack would bet on his crew. He took his lighter and burned the letter to ash.

After she’d said her final prayer of the day, Djamila stood in front of her bathroom mirror and studied her features. Today was her twenty-fourth birthday; however, she thought she looked older than that; the last few years had not been kind to her. There had never been enough food and not enough clean water, and there were far too many nights of sleeping without a roof over her head. And bullets and bombs dropping all around you aged you faster than anything else. At least she now had enough to eat. America was the land of abundance, she’d often been told. They had so much, she thought, and it was hardly fair. It was said that there were homeless people here and children who went hungry, but she didn’t believe that. It couldn’t be possible. That was just American propaganda to make people pity them! Djamila swore in Arabic at this thought. Pity them?

She was twenty-four years old, alone and halfway around the world from where she belonged. Her family was all gone. Murdered. She felt the lump in her throat growing. And a moment later she was choking back the tears. She quickly wet a towel and put it over her face, letting the cool fabric dry the tears.

Recovered, she grabbed her purse and van keys and shut the door to her apartment, being careful to make sure it was securely locked.

She had been told that there would always be one of Captain Jack’s men watching her van wherever it was parked. They could not afford to let the vehicle be stolen. There was not time to get another one like it.

Captain Jack was a strange man, she thought. An American who spoke fluent Arabic was not common. He seemed to know the customs and history of the Islamic world better than some Muslims. Djamila had been instructed that whatever he told her to do she must obey. It had not seemed right at first, taking orders from an American. Yet, after meeting him in person, there was an aura of authority around the man that she couldn’t deny.

Driving her van around the area in the evening had become a ritual for Djamila. It was as much to unwind after a long day of playing nanny to three energetic boys as it was to commit to memory the various roads and shortcuts necessary to her task. She drove into downtown Brennan and passed by Mercy Hospital. Adnan al-Rimi was not on duty, but Djamila wouldn’t have known him if she saw him. In the same vein she had no reason to look to the right and eye the apartment where, at that moment, a pair of camouflaged M-50 sniper rifles were trained on the hospital as part of a practice round.

Her path took her by the auto repair shop. Out of habit she drove down the alley past a set of overhead doors situated there, their windows painted black. Her route on that day would take her through the southern tip of the downtown area, and then she would head west on the main road leading out of Brennan. In thirty minutes’ time her part would be over. She prayed to God that his wisdom and courage would guide her.

She continued her trek and soon passed by the ceremonial grounds. All she knew was that the president of this country would be speaking here before a very large crowd. Other than that, the grassy piece of earth meant little to her.

Her travels had taken her past the home of George and Lori Franklin, her employers. It was a very pretty home, if you liked the traditional architecture of America. But what Djamila enjoyed best about the Franklins’ home was the backyard. It was full of green grass to run across and trees for climbing and places to hide when she was playing games with the boys. Having grown up in a desert climate, Djamila had to admit that America was a very beautiful country. At least on the outside.

Djamila’s route back to her apartment took her past the Franklins’ house once more. As the van glided by, Djamila instinctively looked to the upper dormer windows where the three boys slept in two rooms. She had found herself becoming more and more attached to them. They were fine children who would no doubt grow up as haters of Islam, of all that she believed in. If she could only have them for real, she would teach them the truths; she would show them the real light of her faith and her world. They might find that the differences between them were far outweighed by their similarities. Djamila pulled the van to a stop as she thought about this. For so long she had been told that America and Islam were not capable of being reconciled. And yes, that must be true. They are destroying my country, she reminded herself. They are a violent nation with an unbeatable army. They took what they wanted, whether it was oil or lives. And yet as she gazed around the peaceful neighborhood all that was hard to imagine. Very hard.

Alex looked around the interior of Kate Adams’ home and liked very much what he was seeing. Things weren’t too orderly, and there was clutter here and there. Alex himself was no neatnik and doubted he could long stand the company of someone who was. And there were books everywhere too, which was also a good thing. Never a reader in school, Alex had made up for that with a vengeance when he joined the Service. Long plane flights allowed for plenty of time spent between the pages. And she obviously wasn’t a snooty, highbrowed reader. While many literary classics were tucked on shelves, Alex noted a healthy dose of commercial-grade fiction there as well.

Family photos dotted tables and walls, and he took his time looking at Kate Adams as she evolved from a gangling, shy young girl into a lovely, confident woman.

In one corner of the room that took up most of the first floor sat a black baby grand piano.

When she came back downstairs from her bedroom, Kate had changed into jeans, a sweater, and was barefoot.

“Sorry,” she said, “I start to implode after a day in a dress and shoes.”

“Don’t let the thousand-dollar suits and impeccable grooming fool you, I’m a jeans-and-T-shirt kind of guy myself.”

She laughed. “Beer?”

“Always a good chaser to mocha mint ice cream.”

She pulled two Coronas from the fridge, cut up limes, and they sat on the couch that looked out onto the rear grounds.

She curled her legs up under her. “So what’s your next move?”

He shrugged. “Not sure. Officially, I’m on White House protection detail, and I should be thankful for that. I mean it’s not like I did anything wrong during the investigation. But I sat in the director’s office and refused a direct order from him to reveal the name of someone. I still can’t believe I did that.”

“So was the old friend you told me about Oliver Stone?”

He shot Kate a glance that answered the question for her. “How the hell did you figure that out?”

“You’re not the only person in the room with deductive powers.”

“Apparently not.” He took a swig of beer and sat back against the cushions. “Like I said, I think at this point my hands are tied. How can I even tell them about finding the boat without revealing that I was doing the very thing the director ordered me not to do? If he finds out, I’m history. I can’t risk that.”

“I see your dilemma.” She brushed against his shoulder as she set her beer down on the coffee table. That simple touch was like an electric spark shot through Alex’s body.

Kate sat down in front of the piano and started playing a piece that he recognized as Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. It was clear that the woman was a highly skilled pianist. After a couple of minutes he joined her on the bench and started tapping out a side melody.

She said, “That’s Ray Charles. I thought you were a guitar player.”

“My old man said if you start with piano you can play pretty much anything.”

“Wasn’t Clint Eastwood a piano-playing Secret Service agent in the movie In the Line of Fire?”

“Yep, with Rene Russo sitting next to him.”

“Sorry, I’m no Rene Russo.”

“I’m no Clint Eastwood. And FYI, Rene Russo has nothing on you.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not the kind of guy to take my clothes off on a first date like Eastwood. Sorry,” he added with a grin.

She smirked at him. “Pity.”

“But that rule doesn’t necessarily hold for the second date.”

“Oh, you’re that confident there’ll be a second one?”

“Come on, I’m packing heat. I’m a lock, according to Lucky.”

He ran his fingers across the keys until they touched hers.

The kiss that followed made the electrical spark Alex had felt before seem like a faint tickle.

She kissed him one more time and then stood. “I know this is probably unfair, but I think your first-date rule is a good one.” She said this only halfheartedly, but then glanced away. “You don’t give it away the first night, because they might not be back the second.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be back any night you want me, Kate.”

“How about tomorrow?” She added, “If I can wait that long.”

Alex fired up his old Cherokee and drove off, his spirits soaring. He pulled off down the street, turned back onto 31st and started the long, winding descent into the main drag of Georgetown. His first hint of trouble was when he tapped the brakes and they didn’t respond. His second hint of coming disaster was when he punched them again and they sank to the floor. And he was rapidly gathering speed as the descent angle steepened. On top of that, there were parked cars on both sides of the street and the asphalt here curved like a damn serpent.

He fought the wheel and also tried to downshift to slow his momentum, neither of which did much. And then the headlights of another car cut through the darkness coming toward him.

“Oh, shit!” He cut the wheel hard to the right, and the Cherokee slid between two parked cars, where a sturdy tree did what the brakes couldn’t. The impact deployed the air bag, briefly stunning him. Alex pushed the bag away, undid his seat belt and staggered out of the car. He could taste blood on his lips, and his face was burning, probably from the air bag’s hot gas.

He sat on the curb, trying to catch his breath and also trying not to be sick as the mocha mint ice cream and Corona ratcheted up his throat.

The next thing he knew, someone was kneeling beside him. Alex started to say that he was okay when he froze. The hard, cold object was flush against his neck. His arm instinctively shot out and smashed into the person’s knee, buckling it.

The man yelled out in pain, but as Alex tried to get up, a searing blow caught him across the head. Then he heard footsteps running away and a car squeal off. Moments later he understood the hasty retreat as other car lights appeared and people were surrounding him.

“Are you all right?” they were asking him over and over.

Alex could still feel the icy touch of the gun barrel against his neck. Then a thought hit him. His brakes!

Alex pushed the people away and, ignoring the pain in his head, grabbed a flashlight out of the Cherokee and shone the light under his left front wheel well. It was all covered with brake fluid. Someone had tampered with his truck. Yet the only place they could’ve done that was at Kate’s. Kate!

He reached in his pocket for his cell phone. It wasn’t there. He threw open the door to the wrecked Cherokee. His cell phone was on the floorboard, broken in half from the force of the collision. He screamed in fury. By now the people who’d come to his aid were backing away, their expressions fearful in the face of his bizarre behavior.

Then one of them spotted it as he wheeled around and his jacket flew open. This person yelled, “He’s got a gun!” On this they all scattered like frightened pigeons.

He started running after them. “I need your phone! Your phone!” he yelled. But they were already gone.

Alex turned and started sprinting back up 31st Street. The blood was dripping down his shirt from his scalp wound, and his arms and legs felt disconnected from his body, but on he raced, up the steep incline until he felt his lungs would burst. He hit R Street and turned left, redoubling his speed, finding a reserve of energy and another gear he never knew he had. As the house came into view, he pulled out his gun.

He slowed and crouched low as he slipped into the yard. The main house was dark. He made his way quietly to the garden gate leading to the backyard and the carriage house. The gate was locked, so he clambered over the fence. His feet touched the grass on the other side, and Alex squatted down to reconnoiter the area and catch his breath. His head was pounding, and his ears were ringing so badly he didn’t know if he could even hear. He moved, crouching, through the cover of the bushes toward the carriage house. There was a light on upstairs. He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to stay calm as he gripped his SIG.

He inched forward, his eyes scanning the grounds through the bushes. If someone is out there drawing a bead . . . Then a light came on in the first floor of the carriage house. Alex watched through a window as Kate came into his line of sight. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was still barefoot but now wore only a long T-shirt. He inched forward some more as his gaze veered from Kate to the outside of the carriage house to the line of bulky Leland cypresses that surrounded the rear grounds. If Alex were sniping, that’s the spot he would have chosen.

He took one more calming breath and went into pure protection mode. This meant his gaze was steady and moved in and out in grids, with Kate representing the center of his protection “bubble.” It was rumored that when Secret Service agents went into this groove, they could actually count the beats of a hummingbird’s wings. That was ridiculous, of course, but all Alex wanted to do was prevent the lady from being hurt. All he wanted to do was see the gun before it fired. He’d had all those years of training to do this very thing. Please, God, let it be enough.

And that’s when he spotted it: across the yard and to the right, behind a giant rhododendron, the almost invisible glint of a rifle’s optics. He didn’t hesitate. He brought his gun up and fired. It was a long shot for a handgun, but he didn’t care if he hit the shooter. He just wanted to drive him away.

He placed the shot directly behind the optics. As soon as he fired, the rifle barrel fully appeared, jerking upward and discharging. A split second later Alex put six more bullets into the same area. Next he heard Kate scream. Then the rifle disappeared, and he heard feet running hard away. Damn, he’d missed, but accomplished his goal just the same. Still, the bastard had gotten off a shot!

Alex sprinted for the carriage house. Bursting through the door, he heard Kate scream again. She stopped when she saw him. He rushed to her, grabbed her around the waist and pushed her to the floor, his body shielding hers.

“Stay down, there’s a shooter out there,” he said into her ear. He wriggled forward on his belly and punched the light switch, plunging the carriage house into darkness. Then he crawled back to her.

“Are you all right?” he asked frantically. “You’re not shot?”

“No,” she whispered back. Then she felt his face. “My God, are you bleeding?”

“I’m not shot. Someone used my head as an anvil.”

“Who did it?”

“Don’t know.” He caught his breath and leaned his back against the stove, his gaze on the door, his hand clenched around his pistol. Kate crawled forward, reached up and pulled a roll of paper towels off the counter.

“Kate,” he said harshly, “stay the hell down. The guy could still be out there.”

“You’re bleeding,” she said firmly. She reached up again and ran some water over a wad of the towels. She cleaned his face off and examined the lump on his head. “I can’t believe it didn’t knock you out.”

“Fear is a great antidote to unconsciousness.”

“I didn’t even hear your truck drive up.”

“My Cherokee was put out of commission. Brake line cut. I had quite the roller-coaster ride down 31st.”

“Then how’d you get back here?”

“I ran.”

She looked astonished. “You ran! All that way?”

“I figured the only place they could’ve tampered with my brakes was at your place. I . . . I had to get back here. I had to make sure you were okay!” This came out in one long breathless purge of his emotions.

She stopped cleaning the blood off him even as her mouth started trembling. Then Kate wrapped her arms around him, her face nestled against his neck. Alex put an arm around her.

What a hell of a first date!

CHAPTER

43

THE CAMEL CLUB HAD WALKED back to Foggy Bottom and ridden the Metro to Union Station, where they had some late dinner at the food court in the lower level and talked things over. Afterward, they went to the train station’s parking garage to pick up their vehicles. Stone elected to ride in the sidecar with Reuben. He turned to Caleb and Milton, who were getting into the Malibu.

“All right, you two can go to your condo, Caleb. I believe you’ll be safe there, but please keep vigilant.”

“Wait a minute,” Caleb said sharply. “Where are you and Reuben going?”

Stone hesitated. “I’ll just have Reuben drop me back at my cottage.”

Caleb scrutinized his friend. “You’re lying! You’re going out to Purcellville, where that man lives.”

“Tyler Reinke,” Milton stated, glaring at Stone.

“You’re going out there,” Caleb continued. “And you don’t want us along because you’re afraid we might get in the way.”

“Consider, Caleb, that you and Milton don’t really have any experience at this sort of thing. Whereas Reuben and—”

“I don’t care,” Caleb snapped. “We’re going.”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Stone replied evenly. “If we’re discovered, he’d have all four of us instead of simply two.”

Caleb said with dignity, “Can’t allow it! We are adults, Oliver. And full members of the Camel Club. And if you don’t agree to let us go, I’ll follow right behind you blowing my horn the whole way, and let me tell you, my car’s horn sounds like a damn cannon going off!”

“And I’ve already located his house on my computer using MapQuest,” Milton said. “It’s very difficult to find without precise directions, which I happen to have in my pocket.”

Stone looked at Caleb, Milton and finally Reuben, who shrugged.

“All for one and one for all,” Reuben said.

Stone finally nodded, albeit grudgingly.

“Shouldn’t we just take my car, then?” Caleb said.

“No,” Stone replied as he eyed the motorcycle. “I’ve actually grown fond of riding in this contraption, and it also might come in useful tonight.”

They headed west, picking up Route 7 in Virginia heading northwest, passing very close to NIC headquarters as they zipped through Leesburg. A sign at one of the intersections indicated the direction and proximity of the intelligence center. It had always amazed Stone that there were actually signs to NSA, CIA and other highly sensitive places. Yet, he supposed, they had visitors too. Still, it certainly put a crimp in the “secret” part of the business.

Reinke’s place was very, very rural. They wound up and down back roads for a half hour after leaving Route 7, when Milton finally saw the route sign they wanted. He motioned for Caleb to pull off to the side of the road. Reuben slid in behind them, and he and Stone climbed off the motorcycle and joined them in the car.

Milton said, “His house is two-tenths of a mile up that road. I did a cross search of other addresses up there. There aren’t any. His house is the only one.”

“Bloody isolated,” Reuben said, looking around nervously.

Stone commented, “Murderers are notorious for wanting their privacy.”

“So what’s the plan?” Caleb asked.

“I want you and Milton to remain in the car—”

“Oliver!” Caleb argued immediately.

“Just hear me out, Caleb. I want you and Milton to remain in the car, but first we’re going to drive up the road and see if anyone’s home. If they are, we leave. If not, you and Milton will come back here and serve as our lookout. This is the only road in or out, correct, Milton?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll communicate by cell phone. If you see anyone coming, call us immediately and we’ll take the necessary actions.”

“What are you going to do?” Caleb asked. “Break into the man’s house?”

“You know, Oliver, he’s probably got an alarm system,” Reuben ventured.

“I would be surprised if he didn’t.”

“So how do we get in, then?” Reuben asked.

“Let me worry about that.”

The house was indeed dark and presumably empty, since there was no car visible and the house didn’t have a garage. While Milton and Caleb stood guard in a hidden location near the entrance to the road, Reuben and Stone drove up on the Indian, parking it in a clump of trees behind the house and making their way on foot.

It was a two-story old clapboard with chipping white paint. Stone led Reuben to the rear. The door here was solid, but there was a window next to it. Stone peered through the window and motioned Reuben to look too.

A greenish glow emanated from a new-looking object on the wall opposite the door.

“He’s got a security system, all right,” Reuben muttered. “Now what?”

Stone didn’t answer him. He peered closer at the screen. “We’ll have to assume he has motion detectors. That complicates things.”

Suddenly, something flew at them from the inside of the house accompanied by twin slashes of emerald. It hit the window and bounced off. Both men leaped back, and Reuben was already turned to run when Stone called out to him.

“It’s all right, Reuben,” Stone said. “Mr. Reinke has a cat.”

His chest heaving, Reuben staggered back up to the window and looked through it. Peering back up at him was a black tabby with a white chest and huge luminous green eyes. The room they were looking into was the kitchen. And the cat had apparently launched itself from the countertop when it noticed their presence.

“Damn cat. I bet it’s a female,” Reuben said, grimacing.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because women have always tried to give me heart attacks, that’s why!”

“Actually, the presence of the animal simplifies things greatly,” Stone said.

“How the hell do you figure that?”

“Security systems with motion detectors do not cohabit very well with cats.”

Reuben snapped his fingers. “Pet corridors where the motion doesn’t hit.”

“Exactly.” Stone was pulling something from his pocket. It was the black leather case he had taken from his secret room. He unzipped it. Inside was a first-class burglary kit.

Reuben stared at these felonious instruments and then looked up at his friend and said, “I don’t want to know.”

The window to the kitchen was opened within ten seconds.

“How’d you figure the window wasn’t wired to the security system?”

“Wired windows and a motion detector is a bit of overkill,” Stone replied. “And a house this old has plaster walls which are very difficult to run wire through. I doubt our Mr. Reinke could justify the price. And I checked for a wireless security pod on the window before I jimmied it.”

“Okay,” Reuben demanded. “I do want to know. How the hell do you know about stuff like wireless window security pods?”

Stone glanced at him with an innocent expression. “The library is open to the public, Reuben.”

They climbed inside and the cat met them immediately, rubbing up against their legs and waiting patiently to be stroked.

“All right, before we enter any room, we need to find the motion detector. Then I’ll send the cat across the room and we’ll follow its lead,” Stone said. “Be prepared to crawl on your belly.”

“Great! I might as well be back in Nam,” Reuben groused.

A half hour before Stone and Reuben broke into Tyler Reinke’s house, the back door of Milton’s place was forced open and Warren Peters and Tyler Reinke slipped inside and shut the door behind them. It had not been that easy, since Milton had six locks on every door, and all the windows were nailed shut, something the fire marshal doubtless would’ve disapproved of. They had already checked the power box going into the house for any signs of a security system and had found none.

Reinke was limping from where Alex Ford had punched him in the knee. And there was a bullet hole in Warren Peters’ coat sleeve where one of the Secret Service agent’s shots had almost found its mark. They’d stumbled upon the two when they went to Georgetown for another look at the boat, only to find that Ford and Adams had beaten them to it.

Both men were furious about their failure to kill the pair, and it was fortunate indeed for Milton Farb that he wasn’t at home right now.

The two men pulled out their flashlights and started searching. Farb’s place wasn’t that large, but it was filled with books and expensive computer and video equipment for his Web design business. Also located there was the one thing Reinke and Peters hadn’t counted on: a wireless infrared surveillance system that looked like overhead track lighting. Located in each room, it was now recording their movements, and had also sounded a silent alarm to a security firm that Milton had hired because of several previous burglaries. The system ran off a regular household outlet with a battery backup. He’d stopped using a loud alarm because in his neighborhood the police took their time coming and the alerted thieves had always been long gone before their arrival.

As the pair searched the house, their amazement grew with each new discovery.

“This guy’s a freaking nutcase,” Peters said as they explored the kitchen. The canned goods in the pantry were all neatly labeled and placed in excruciatingly precise order. The utensils hung from a rack on the wall arranged from largest to smallest. The pots and pans were organized the same way on a large rack over the stove. Even the oven mitts were lined up with precision, as were all the dishes in the cupboards. The place was a monument to fastidiousness of the most zealous kind.

When they went upstairs and poked around Milton’s bedroom and closet area, it was more of the same.

Reinke came out of the master bathroom shaking his head. “You’re not going to believe this. This bozo has torn off each sheet of the toilet paper and stacked them in a wicker box beside the toilet with instructions on disposal. I mean what do you do with toilet paper except flush it!”

In the bedroom closet Peters said, “Yeah, well, come in here and tell me who puts their socks on hangers?”

A moment later they were both staring at the socks and the tri-folded underwear and shirts that all hung on wooden hangers in precise order, with the shirts fully buttoned, including the cuffs. And they were organized by season. The men weren’t guessing at this, as Milton had helpfully posted pictures depicting winter, summer, spring and fall.

Finding nothing useful in the master bedroom, the two NIC men slipped into the other room upstairs that had been fitted out as an office. They both were immediately drawn to Milton’s desk, where every item there was laid at right angles to its neighbor.

And finally in this house of perfect order they found something that they could actually use. It was in a box marked “Receipts,” on a shelf behind Milton’s desk, and the receipts, they quickly determined, were divided by both month and product. From the box, Reinke plucked out a credit card slip that had a name on it.

“Chastity Hayes,” Reinke read. “Want to bet that’s his girlfriend?”

“If a guy like that can have a girlfriend.”

Each probably thinking the same thing, they shone their lights on the wall of Milton’s office. The pictures there were arranged in a very elaborate configuration that Peters recognized first. “It’s a double helix. DNA. This guy is a total freak.”

Reinke’s light flickered across one picture and then came back to it.

“Love, Chastity,” Reinke read at the bottom of the picture, which showed Chastity in a revealing bathing suit and blowing a kiss to the photographer, presumably Milton.

“That’s his girlfriend?” a stunned Reinke said as he eyed a picture of Milton next to the one with Chastity in her bikini. “How the hell does a geek like that get a chick like that?”

“Nurturing instinct,” Peters answered promptly. “Some women love to play mother.”

Peters pulled out an electronic device that looked like a larger version of a BlackBerry and typed in the name Chastity Hayes. A minute later three possibilities came up. Restricting his search to the Washington, D.C., area, Peters found Chastity Hayes, accountant and the owner of a house in Chevy Chase, Maryland. In addition it revealed her educational, medical, employment and financial history. As Peters ran his gaze down the info pouring over his tiny screen, Reinke pointed a finger at one line. “She was in a psych hospital for a while. I bet you she’s OCD like Farb.”

“At least we know where she lives. And if Farb isn’t here” — Peters glanced once more at the photo of the lovely Chastity — “chances are he’s there. Because that’s where I’d be sleeping if I were him.”

The noise in the back of the house froze them both. They were footsteps. And then they heard a groan and a thudding sound.

They pulled their guns and moved in the direction of those noises.

When they reached the kitchen, they saw it. The man was on the floor, unconscious. They both started when they saw the uniform.

“Rental cop,” Reinke said finally. “We must’ve tripped some alarm.”

“Yeah, but who the hell knocked him out?”

They looked around nervously.

“Let’s get out of here,” Reinke whispered.

They slipped out the back of the house and soon reached their car a block over.

“Do we hit the chick tonight?” Peters asked.

“No, you don’t,” a voice said causing both of them to jump.

They turned and saw Tom Hemingway rising from the backseat. He did not look very happy.

“You’ve had a singularly unproductive night,” he began ominously.

“You followed us here?” Peters asked in a small voice that broke slightly.

“After your last report of screwing up, what exactly did you expect me to do?”

“So you did the rental cop. Is he dead?” Reinke asked.

Hemingway ignored him. “Let me impress upon both of you once more the seriousness of what we’re trying to accomplish here. I have an army working their asses off just north of here doing far more than either of you have been asked to do. And unlike them, you two are being paid very well. And they’ve made no mistakes whatsoever. ” He stared at them so intensely that both men held their breaths. “Maybe what happened tonight was just a string of bad luck. But going forward, I will make no more allowances for bad luck.”

“What do you want us to do now?” Reinke asked nervously.

“Go home and get some rest. You’ll need it.” He held out his hand. “Give me the receipt with the woman’s name on it.”

“How did you — ,” Reinke began.

However, Hemingway looked at him with such disdain that Reinke closed his mouth and passed the paper over. In a few seconds Hemingway had disappeared.

Both men sat back in their car seats and let out deep breaths.

Peters said, “That guy scares the complete and total shit out of me.”

Reinke nodded. “He was a legend at CIA. Even the drug guys in Colombia were scared to death of him. Nobody ever saw him coming in or going out.” He paused. “I’ve watched him working out at the gym at NIC. He looks like he’s carved out of granite, and he’s quick as a cat. And he’s destroyed two seventy-five-pound body bags with just his hands. They won’t even let him use his legs on the heavy bags anymore because he was breaking them with just one kick.”

“So what now?” Peters asked.

“You heard the man. We get some rest. After three close shaves tonight we don’t need a fourth. You can crash at my place.”

CHAPTER

44

AFTER WHAT HE’D SEEN AT Arlington Cemetery, Gray had gone directly to CIA headquarters at Langley. Inside this facility was a room that only current and former CIA directors were allowed to enter. Each director could access documents and other materials that pertained to missions he was involved in while at the Agency. They were held in vaults that contained large safe-deposit-style boxes. Because of the secrets housed here, it was the most heavily guarded room at Langley.

Gray put his hand on a biometric reader in front of the vault door that was labeled with his name. The door slid open and Gray entered, taking out his keys. He knew exactly the box he wanted: number 10.

He unlocked it and drew out the contents, sat down and spread the materials out on a desk kept in the vault.

The file he was perusing was officially marked “J.C.” Those two initials could stand for many things, including Jesus Christ. However, they didn’t refer to the Son of God, but were simply the initials of a remarkable flesh-and-blood man named John Carr.

As Gray read through the exploits of Carr’s career at the CIA, his head continued to shake in absolute amazement at what the man had accomplished. And survived! Although it could be argued that the world was a more dangerous place now, it was not appreciably more perilous currently than when John Carr worked for the Agency.

As Gray came to the last pages of John Carr’s career at Langley, it ended, the way it had meant to end, with burial at Arlington Cemetery with full military honors, although John Carr had not technically worked for the army for years and had not died in a uniform. After that, his entire past had been wiped clean from every record in the United States. Gray had seen to that personally based on orders from the highest level at the CIA.

And though John Carr wasn’t buried in that grave, he was still supposed to be dead. The initial hit on him killed only his wife. But there had been another attempt deemed successful, though no body had been recovered; it was presumably in the bellies of fish in the middle of the ocean. Perhaps Gray was simply jumping to conclusions. The man he’d seen was thin and seemingly frail. Could that be the mighty John Carr? The years could take their toll, but still, with a man like Carr, Gray figured age would simply bounce off him. Yet the man had been standing directly in front of the grave marked for John Carr. And hadn’t he managed to disappear, much like the legendary Carr made a career out of doing?

Gray’s pulse accelerated as he thought how close he’d possibly been to a man who’d been betrayed by his country. And not just any man, but a man who, in his time, was the perfect killing machine for the United States government. Until, that is, he became a liability, as such men often did.

Carter Gray put away the box and left the room of old secrets with a curious emotion filling his chest. Carter Gray feared a dead man who, inexplicably, might still be among the living.

Later, back at his home, Gray lit the candles in his bedroom as he kept glancing at the photos on his mantel. In a few minutes it would be midnight, and September 11 would be with him again. He sat in the chair next to his bed and opened his Bible. Carter Gray had been baptized a Catholic, had dutifully performed his first Communion at age seven and his Confirmation at age thirteen and had even been an altar boy. Since reaching adulthood, however, he had never once set foot inside a church unless it was for some political function. With his occupation, religion had never seemed to be that relevant. However, his wife had been a devout Catholic, and their daughter, Maggie, had been raised in that faith.

Now, with both of them gone, Gray had taken up reading the Bible. It wasn’t for his salvation, but as a way of picking up the banner for his fallen family, although, he had to admit, the words did give him some level of comfort. Tonight he read out loud some passages from Corinthians and another from Leviticus and then ventured into the Psalms. It was now well past midnight, and he knelt down in front of the photos and performed his prayers, although they were more akin to conversations with his dead family. He almost always broke down and cried during this ritual. The tears felt deserved and, in a sense, were healing. Yet, as he sat back in his chair with his Bible, Gray’s thoughts returned once more to a burial plot with an empty coffin. Is John Carr dead or alive?

Tom Hemingway returned to his apartment, the receipt with the name Chastity Hayes safely in his pocket. He made his usual tea and drank it barefoot, standing by the window looking out onto the Capitol grounds. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours and none of it positive from his perspective.

His pathetic duo of Reinke and Peters had missed two targets tonight, and now Alex Ford and Kate Adams would no doubt go straight to their respective agencies and demand that full investigations move forward. Added to that was the fact that Carter Gray was talking about the resurrection of the dead. In Hemingway’s mind that was a clear reference to all the terrorists supposedly killed by their colleagues. That had prompted Hemingway’s hurried message to Captain Jack.

He turned from the window and looked at a portrait on the wall. It was a very good likeness of his father, the Honorable Franklin T. Hemingway, ambassador to some of the most difficult territories in the world of diplomacy. And his last post proved to be too violent even for him. A bullet in China ended the career of a man who had devoted his life to cobbling peace where none seemed possible.

The son had not followed the father’s footsteps principally because Tom Hemingway didn’t believe he possessed the necessary skills and qualities that went into a successful statesman. And back then he was an angry young man. While that fury had diminished over the years, it had never entirely gone away. Why should it? At his funeral it was said by many distinguished voices from all over the world that Franklin Hemingway would be sorely missed as a global peacemaker. Hemingway still felt the loss of his mentor as strongly this minute as he had felt it the day an assassin’s bullet ended his father’s life. For him, time lessened nothing. It only intensified the sense of agony he’d carried with him since learning that precious, valiant heart had stopped beating.