Vanished

86.

He looked as if he’d been drugged. He appeared even older and more haggard than in the picture they’d sent me. He was sweating profusely.

“Nick,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Stop right there,” the bullet-headed guy barked to Roger.

“Hey, Red Man,” I said softly.

“Hold up the card,” the guy said. “Take it out slowly.”

I pulled it from my pocket, held it up.

“You understand the deal,” he said.

I nodded. Roger was wearing some kind of vest, maybe a fly-fishing vest, that had been rigged up with blocks of M112 demolition charges wrapped in olive drab Mylar film. C4 explosive, army-manufacture. I could have recognized them a mile away. Wires came out of each block. The whole thing duct-taped to him. Sloppy, but professional.

He was a walking bomb.

A second guy got out of the Humvee on the left, the same one Roger had emerged from. He, too, was holding a garage-door opener in one hand and a pistol in the other. That guy was beefy, had a goatee. A real type. Like Neil Burris, like a hundred other guys I’d served with.

Both Humvees had been left idling. This was going to happen quickly. They wanted to make a speedy getaway.

“Here’s how it’s going to go down,” the first guy said. “Your brother’s going to get the card from you and hand it to me. I check it out. If it’s good, I take off his vest.”

“Sounds like you don’t want to get too close to me,” I said.

“Try anything stupid, one of us hits the detonator. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“In case you’re thinking maybe you grab your gun and try to take us both out, lemme tell you, you don’t want to do that. The detonators are on a dead man’s switch. So either of us lets go, the bomb goes off. Then there’s a pressure switch on the vest, and you don’t know where it is. You try to take off the vest, it’s gonna blow, and both of you get vaporized. You getting all this?”

“Seems sort of complicated.”

“It’s not. It’s real simple. Don’t play games, and you and your brother go home. All there is to it.”

I glanced at Roger. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be trembling.

“No,” I said.

“Excuse me?” the first guy said.

“No,” I repeated. “I hand you the RaptorCard, what’s going to stop you from setting off the vest and killing us both anyway? Your sense of honor?”

The second guy said, “We don’t need this. Let’s get out of here.”

“Here’s how it’s going to go down,” I said. “I’ll hand my brother the card. Only you’re going to stand right next to him. Then you take off the vest, and he gives it to you. And we all go home.”

There was a beat of silence. The goateed guy looked at the bald guy.

They really wanted to keep their distance from me. I suppose I should have been flattered.

The bald guy nodded. “Go,” he said to Roger.

Roger walked toward me slowly, unsteady on his feet. By then, his eyes were open, and staring, and frightened. His face was ashen. As he approached, the two Paladin guys watched, gripping their detonators, thumbs at the ready.

Roger seemed to be trying to tell me something with his eyes. I looked at him as he came closer, step by step.

He was shaking his head ever so subtly.

Telling me No.

I gave him a puzzled look in return: What do you mean?

He mouthed the word No.

He was just a few feet away. Slowly he reached out his left hand. Dad’s Patek Philippe was on his wrist.

I handed him the RaptorCard.

He whispered, “They’re going to kill us both.”

I shook my head.

He spoke a little louder: “I won’t let them kill you, Nick.”

His eyes were wide. “Run,” he said.

I whispered back: “No.”

The bald guy shouted, “Hey, let’s move it!”

“Run,” he whispered again.

“No,” I told him.

Suddenly he lurched to his right. He spun, raced toward the Hummer on the left. Collided with the goateed guy. Knocked him to the ground.

The detonator dropped to the ground.

But nothing happened. There was no dead man’s switch on the detonator. That had been a lie. What else were they lying about?

Then I saw Roger fling the car door wide open, ramming it into the goateed guy just as he was getting back to his feet, knocking him over again.

“No!” I shouted. “Roger, don’t!”

“Hey!” the bald guy shouted.

Roger leaped into the Hummer, and I propelled myself toward the bald man, slamming his body to the ground. His detonator went flying, and even as I had him down on the ground, I braced myself for a terrible explosion.

But nothing happened that time either.

The Hummer roared to life, speeded forward, raced to the end of the building. The bald guy wrenched himself free of me and jumped into the other vehicle. The goateed guy vaulted into the car as well, and it took off in pursuit of Roger.

One of the garage-door openers still lay on the ground, abandoned by the bald guy.

I picked up the Ruger and took off on foot, but both Hummers were gone. I could hear them squealing around a corner, then I heard the screech of brakes.

Shouted voices.

I kept running. They must have headed him off. Trapped him.

I ran.

About five seconds later the explosion came, deafeningly loud, a blast as loud as anything I’d ever heard in wartime, echoing off the buildings. And I knew what had happened. They’d set off the C-4.

But I kept running.

I reached the end of the building, looped around, saw nothing.

I ran until there was a stitch in my side so painful it almost brought me to a halt, but I ran through it.

A yellow-orange blaze illuminated the sky on the far side of the next building over.

As I raced, I did something I’d never done before: I prayed.

Then I reached the second building and saw the conflagration. A bonfire twenty feet high. The wreck of a Hummer, its carcass barely visible behind the veil of flame.

“No!” I shouted.

Only one car. The other was gone.

I got to within twenty feet of the fiery wreck before the wall of heat hit me. I stopped, tried to get closer. The Hummer’s windows had blown out. Shattered glass was strewn for dozens of feet.

I shouted, moved in closer, saw the shape inside.

A hand clutching the pillar between where the driver’s window had been and the window behind it. A human hand, yes, but blackened. Burned almost to a husk.

Roger’s wedding ring on one of its fingers.

On its charred wrist was my father’s Patek Philippe.

87.

Afterward, I wandered the streets of West Baltimore for a long while. I don’t know how long. I lost track of time. I felt my cell phone vibrate several times but ignored it.

Eventually I answered the phone and heard Garvin’s voice.

He came by in a Maryland cab and took me to the Union Station parking garage. A long, silent ride. Expensive, too. My jeans and sweatshirt were ripped and soiled and reeked of smoke, and pretty soon the entire cab smelled of it, too.

I retrieved the Defender, drove over to Lauren’s house, and let myself in.

I’D FACED all sorts of danger back in the day, in Bosnia and Iraq. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell Lauren what had just happened. I couldn’t bear to tell her-and Gabe-that I’d failed them after all.

I’d made a promise to Gabe, and I’d broken it.

As devastating as my brother’s death had been, the thought of telling Lauren and Gabe about it was worse.

I needed to make things right before I could face them. So I quickly and quietly gathered up some of my things from the guest room, intending to slip out of the house while they both slept and head over to my apartment.

Gabe was in the hallway when I emerged.

“What are you doing awake?” I whispered.

“You smell like smoke.”

“Yeah,” I said, my hand on the doorknob. “It’s late. You should be asleep.”

I had to get away from him because I was afraid I couldn’t hold things in anymore. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him about his father. That was his mother’s responsibility.

“Something wrong?” he said.

I pulled him into me and gave him a hug, long and hard.

When he let go, he said, “What was that for?”

“I need to leave,” I said. “I just wanted to say good-bye, and I wanted you to know I love you. And that I’ll always be there for you. No matter what happens. Okay? You can’t get rid of me so easy.”

Gabe looked even more confused at my words. “Did something happen?”

I ignored the question. “Oh, and you know how you’re always asking me to teach you how to use a gun?”

“You serious?” he said, excited.

“No, nothing like that. Next best thing. I left you a Taser. It’s in the TV room.”

“Awesome,” he said.

“It’s not a toy.”

“Dude, I know that.”

“It’s only for emergencies.”

“Sure. Of course. Cool!”

“You’ll figure it out. You don’t need me for that.”

“Okay, Uncle Nick.”

“But Gabe? Read the manual, okay?”

“Okay.” He paused. “Uncle Nick, where are you going?”

“I just have another job to do,” I said.

88.

When I got back to my loft, I fell fast asleep on the couch, still wearing my ripped and filthy jeans and sweatshirt and boots. At around eight in the morning my cell phone woke me up. My head was pounding, and my clothes gave off the stench of an ashtray, and for a moment I forgot where I was and what had happened.

And then I remembered.

“Nick.” It was Dorothy Duval. “Did I wake you?”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”

“Sorry about that. But you left me a voice mail last night?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

“You okay? You sound lousy.”

I told her about how the swap had gone bad, and we talked for a while. I’d never heard her sound so gentle. “You know, I did get into your brother’s e-mail after all. And I found that woman’s cell phone number.”

“Woman?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“She called herself Candi Dupont, but her real name is Margaret Desmond. But I guess this is a little late, huh? I’m sorry, Nick.”

I SPENT a fair amount of time examining the Defender for any tracking devices until I was satisfied there weren’t any. Then I left my cell phone and BlackBerry in my loft, just to make sure the GPS locator chips inside them couldn’t be used against me, and I gave Garvin and Dorothy the number of one of the disposable cell phones I’d bought.

I was about to make a long drive, and I didn’t want Paladin knowing where I was or where I was heading.

At least, not until I got there.

THE DRIVE took me twelve hours, but I didn’t mind it. I finally got to spend some quality time in the Defender. Alone behind the wheel, in my own head. Listening to music. Burning tank after tank of petroleum. Thinking about my brother, mostly. I still didn’t know what to believe about him, what had happened to him. Whether he’d been taken hostage or had arranged an intricate disappearance, abandoning his wife and son. Why Lauren had been attacked. How much of her husband’s plan she’d known about-or had even been involved in planning.

There were so many questions, and there was one person, I was convinced, who’d have the answers. At least, if my analysis of the network traffic was correct.

Though I knew he wouldn’t exactly volunteer them.

Most of the drive was straight down 95, through Virginia and North Carolina, through South Carolina and finally into Georgia. The Defender is a great vehicle, but it’s really meant for desert maneuvers, not the interstate. It doesn’t like to go much faster than seventy miles an hour.

While I drove, I played a lot of Johnny Cash CDs-I was down South, after all. I listened to “All I Do Is Drive” a bunch of times, and when my mood turned darker, I put on his cover of a Nine Inch Nails song, “Hurt.” That one could always wrench the heart out of me. Johnny-or is it Trent Reznor?-sings about how everyone he knows goes away in the end. How “I will let you down” and “I will make you hurt.”

Outside of Savannah, I stopped at a hunting outfitter and a hardware store. When I got back on 95, I took the exit for Waycross. Route 187 meandered south and then west for a while until it hit 129, at which point I drove south, on a road so straight it must have been drawn with a ruler.

I was in Echols County, in southernmost Georgia, on the Florida border. It’s the least populous county in the state: just over four thousand people. Almost all of it is privately owned. A few unincorporated towns and a lot of pine forest. The county seat, Statenville, used to be called Troublesome. No joke.

Twelve years ago the family that owned most of the county sold ten thousand acres to Allen Granger. It had been advertised as “perfect for a hunt club,” but it became the training facility and headquarters of Paladin Worldwide.

An unmarked road came off of Route 129, cut through the dense pine forest: newly built, freshly paved. According to the handheld GPS receiver I’d picked up in Savannah, it led directly to the Paladin facility. Half a mile down the road, the forest ended abruptly, and a clearing began, as far as the eye could see. The road ended in a large asphalt-paved circular drive.

There were a gatehouse and a barrier arm and a road-spike barrier and a large sign that said PALADIN WORLDWIDE TRAINING CENTER with the Paladin logo, that stylized blue globe.

On either side of the gate was a high chain-link fence, topped with coils of razor wire, cutting through the woods. How far into the woods, I had no idea. Various articles and Internet reports about Paladin had mentioned the chain-link fence and the razor wire, but I had no idea how far the fence extended. A chain-link fence enclosing ten thousand acres? That seemed excessive. Hugely expensive.

It was amazing, actually, how much I did know about the Paladin training center, all of it from the public record, mostly the Internet. The most useful information came from Google Earth, which had overhead satellite reconnaissance photos of the place, even precise geographical coordinates.

But nothing can take the place of what you can see in person. “Route reconnaissance,” as they called it in the Special Forces.

So I turned around and headed back down the freshly paved road until I found a gap in the trees, a natural path, and drove into the woods as far as I could. Finally, some true off-road driving, and here the Defender performed like a champ. I stowed the car in a thicket that was far enough from the road that it wouldn’t be spotted by anyone driving past, but just to be safe, I hauled some downed limbs and branches and managed to camouflage it reasonably well.

Before I set off, I switched my cell phone on and found four voice mails, all from Arthur Garvin.

He picked up right away.

“Nick,” he said. “I reached out to the Baltimore Homicide guys. To get your brother’s remains.”

“You know what?” I said softly. “I don’t really care about that. No offense-”

“Listen to me. Did your brother have a hip replacement?”

“A what?”

“The Maryland ME’s Office found something interesting in the wreckage. A piece of a high-grade stainless-steel alloy called Orthinox. It’s a stem used in a total hip replacement.”

“No,” I said. “He never had a hip replacement.”

“I didn’t think so. Also, Washington Hospital Center reported a body missing from their morgue. A sixty-nine-year-old white male.”

I said nothing for a long time.

“Nick?” he said. “You there?”

“Yeah,” I finally said. “I’m here.”

“Oh, and listen. We got a warrant for the guy in the Marjorie Ogonowski murder,” he said. “Nice work on that. The photo match thing.”

“Not me,” I said. “Friend of mine. Like I said, we have some fancy databases at my high-priced firm.”

“Still,” he said. “Good going, there.”

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Keep an eye on Lauren Heller and her son, please?”

I disconnected the call and set off through the woods to do my reconnaissance.

89.

Lauren picked up the phone in the kitchen.

“Is this Ms. Heller?” A pleasant baritone, halting in its delivery.

“You don’t know me, but my name is Lloyd Kozak, and I’m Leland’s financial adviser?”

She remembered suddenly: that homely man who’d come by one day to get some disks from Noreen. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

“It’s just that-well, I know you’re Leland’s personal assistant, and you probably know him better than anyone, but I really hope I’m not sticking my head someplace where it doesn’t belong.”

“I’m not sure what I can do for you,” she said.

“Something’s not right with Leland,” he said. “I need to talk with you if you have a couple of minutes.”

“What’s this about?”

“I’m in Chevy Chase. I could come by soon, if you’re not busy. I think we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“About Leland,” he said. “I think-I just think something’s wrong with him.”

THE DOORBELL rang around half an hour later.

Lauren went to the front door and looked out the fish-eye and saw a pockmarked face, oversized horn-rimmed glasses. She opened the door.

Lloyd Kozak stood on the other side of the screen door in a sad-looking suit and tie. Parked in the driveway was a Buick that had to be at least ten years old.

“Thank you so much for seeing me,” he said, and she opened the screen door and let him in.

The foyer was dark and chilly. The central air-conditioning was set too high. She led him down the hall toward the kitchen, her default meeting place.

“Leland’s told me so much about you,” he said. “He admires you so much. Trusts you so much. I figured you were the one person I could talk to about him.”

“You’ve got me worried sick,” she said. “What’s the problem?”

“You,” he said, and suddenly he was next to her, and he placed a hand over her mouth.

90.

My first response was anger, of course-great, towering fury toward this most contemptible of men. But as I walked through the woods, my anger subsided enough for me to realize that my brother had learned from a master, after all. Nothing he did should have surprised me.

Like a great illusionist, he was always one step ahead of his spectators. He understood that magic is all about misdirection: that sudden burst from a flash pot that gives us retinal burn so we don’t notice him palming the queen of hearts.

A professional magician once told me that the greatest magic tricks are never, in fact, a single trick at all. They’re always a sequence of tricks, and the true magic lies in how they’re presented. The audience watches a magic act in a state of high suspicion. They’re fully expecting to be fooled, and they watch, gimlet-eyed, convinced they know how the magician’s going to pull it off. But what they never know is that it’s this very suspicion that enables them to be mystified in the end. The magician directs their scrutiny away from what he’s really up to and toward a phony explanation of how it’s being done. They think it’s going to be one sort of trick, but then it becomes something else. And just when they’re sure they’ve got it figured out, it’s over, and they’ve been totally fooled.

I thought about Victor and the way he had misled me so cleverly. Maybe that was the real reason why Roger and he had talked so many times. Roger wanted to make sure Dad knew what to say. How to point me toward Paladin in such a way that I would believe I’d figured it out on my own. Roger wanted me to investigate Paladin. He wanted them to feel the hot breath on their necks.

The question was why.

In the end, I drew strength from my anger.

STILL, YOU never want to let your emotion, your impatience, get in the way of an operation. It’s always the times when you most want to rush to the finish line that you need to slow down, take stock, do it right.

That was why I spent the night in the woods.

I did a loop around the Paladin compound-ten thousand acres, which meant a perimeter of close to sixteen miles. Too long to circumnavigate on foot. I took the Defender out of concealment and managed to zigzag through the woods, stopping periodically to approach the fence.

Remarkably, the entire property really was fenced in. The apparent excess confirmed what Neil Burris had told me, that Allen Granger was a man with something to worry about. Why else would he spend so much money to put up a fence sixteen miles long? I’d been to top secret government areas before, located in places that weren’t nearly so remote, and none of them was so well protected.

Allen Granger, who hadn’t been seen in public in over a year, was known to be a recluse and intensely private. I realized he was also probably paranoid.

As far as I could see, there weren’t any fiber-optic sensors buried in the ground next to the perimeter fence. That would have been outrageously costly. Unnecessary, too. Instead, the facility was protected by a twelve-foot chain-link fence, six-gauge galvanized steel-extremely difficult to cut through-and topped by coils of razor wire.

But that wasn’t all. There were guards, too. One guard was stationed at the gatehouse at the main entry and was relieved every six hours. Two others made a circuit just inside the fence. Their shift changed every six hours as well, and every half hour they radioed in to a command post.

I knew that because I listened in on their traffic using my handheld Bearcat scanner. That, and a pair of good German binoculars, were all the instruments I needed to learn what I had to about the place. There were an airstrip and several helicopter landing pads, a high-speed driving track and a running track. Rock-climbing walls and drop zones. There was a pound for bomb-sniffing dogs: I could hear the baying of the hounds late into the night. There were barracks for the trainees, a mess hall, administrative offices, and a club where the trainees could go for drinks. It closed down at two in the morning. The lawns were luxuriant and regularly irrigated and mown short like a golf course. There were a few man-made ponds. In fact, the place could have been a country club-if not for the shooting ranges and the ammo-storage bunkers. And the mock village, used for assault exercises, and a fake town with a plaque that said LITTLE BAGHDAD, even though it looked nothing like the real Baghdad and we weren’t fighting there any longer. So far as I knew, anyway. And the black Hummers that came and went at regular intervals.

Fairly close to the entrance was an impressive two-story lodge, the sort of faux-rustic home you might see in Aspen.

Granger’s house.

I paid particular attention to the patterns there. Which lights went on in which rooms and when. What time they were switched off. How many guards-two, one inside and one outside-and when their shifts ended. Allen Granger was guarded twenty-four/seven-within the well-protected confines of the compound. Like paranoid old King Herod, ruling from a fortress within the fortress city of Jerusalem, a moat and drawbridge protecting him from those he feared most of all: his own subjects.

Granger lived here alone, I was fairly certain, though I never once saw him emerge. I knew what he looked like from photographs: a clean-cut, handsome young guy, early forties. Sandy brown hair cut short, but not enlisted-man short.

The radio traffic indicated that the boss was in residence. The cook-a tiny Hispanic woman-arrived a few hours before dinnertime and went in through a separate kitchen entrance. There were meetings throughout the day. Vehicles pulled up to the front of the lodge-black Humvees for Paladin officials, and the occasional black Lincoln Town Car bearing politicians, some of whom I recognized-and were always greeted by the outside guard.

I got several hours’ sleep in the woods, in a sleeping bag in a pup tent, with enough food and water to get me through. Once I knew which room Allen Granger slept in and when his bedtime was, I put away my Leitz binoculars and my Bearcat scanner and prepared to make my move.

91.

You need to tell me,” Lloyd Kozak said softly, gently, “how to reach your husband.”

She couldn’t have replied even if she’d wanted to, not with the duct tape over her mouth. All she could do was shake her head and give him her fiercest glare. She couldn’t move her arms or legs.

She hadn’t expected him to be so strong, to subdue her so easily.

He had taped her into one of the dining-room chairs, her arms bound to her side, and wound silver duct tape around and around her torso. No matter how she twisted her body, she couldn’t move, couldn’t get the chair to move, and he kept talking to her in that soft, gentle voice as he unfolded a cloth parcel, the jingling of metal inside, instruments of some kind.

She grunted-angry, defiant.

The sound of a key in the lock of the front door, and she thought, Oh please, not Gabe, not now, not with this madman here.

Kozak-or whoever he was, whatever his name was-turned. “Maybe Gabriel will know how to reach his father,” he said.

She tried to scream, to warn Gabe, but nothing came out.

He had something in his hand, something shiny that glinted, caught the light from overhead. Something that looked like a blade. A razor? No. A… scalpel?

Fear wriggled deep inside her, a living organism, cold and scaly and serpentlike.

She felt the cool sharp edge of the scalpel as he placed it against the delicate skin just beneath her left eye. She closed her eyes, tried to scream again.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t shout, couldn’t warn Gabe to stay away.

Where was he?

Maybe he’d gone right up to his room.

But he must have noticed the strange car in the driveway. Or the light on in the kitchen, which would tell him that someone was home. Or the fact that the alarm tone hadn’t sounded, which would tell him that it had already been disarmed by someone, and wouldn’t he wonder why?

She heard a series of high electronic tones, faint but distinct.

Had to be Gabe, punching in the alarm code. Spacey as he always was. He was disarming the alarm even though it was already off.

Which told her that he hadn’t even noticed anything wrong. Hadn’t noticed the strange car in the driveway, or if he had, he hadn’t wondered about it.

Please don’t come in here, she thought. He’d be overpowered in a second by this lunatic.

Unless…

Unless he walked into the kitchen and saw his mother bound to a chair with a strange man there, and he turned and ran, out of the house, ran to get help. That he could do. Get help.

She didn’t even know what she wanted him to do.

But it made no difference anyway. She didn’t control her son’s actions. She could no longer keep him safe and wrap him up in his baby blanket like an egg roll. She could no longer pick him up in the palm of her hand.

She heard him go upstairs. Up to his bedroom.

Maybe that was for the best.

“Lauren,” the man murmured. She felt the prick of the blade against her eyelid, cold and hot at the same time, then warm and wet and terribly painful. “If I have to remove your eyes, I will.”

For a moment she didn’t think she could possibly have heard him right.

She squeezed her eyes tight, but it didn’t stop the pain because he just pressed the blade in harder and slid it slowly to one side and she screamed but the sound that came out was a keening, small and frightened.

“You’ll never look at your son’s face again,” he said.

“Back off,” someone said, and for an instant she didn’t recognize Gabe’s voice. It sounded deeper, as if his voice had suddenly changed.

The voice of a man.

But Gabe’s voice. That she knew for sure.

She opened her eyes and the scalpel was no longer there, and Lloyd Kozak had turned around to see what she now saw, too.

Gabe, standing in the doorway, holding the Taser. Pointed at Kozak.

The weapon was shaking in his hand.

92.

At that point it was mostly a matter of timing.

I needed at least a fifteen-minute window to enter the compound. When the radio traffic indicated that the perimeter guards were at the far end of their circuit, and my Leitz binoculars confirmed they weren’t in sight, I unfolded the lightweight, portable aluminum ladder next to a section of the fence by the rifle-shooting range. The backstop was easily twenty feet high, which provided good cover. Placing a big square of carpet on top of the razor wire coils, I climbed up, straddled the top of the fence, and hoisted the ladder up after me. Then I set it on the ground on the other side and climbed down.

Easy.

I’d already determined my route, based on which parts of the compound seemed to be deserted at night and which weren’t. There was no way to be sure I wouldn’t be seen by someone who happened to be wandering the grounds at two thirty in the morning, or maybe just standing around smoking, but it was the best route I could devise, with the lowest probability of being spotted. Nothing was certain, of course. But nothing in life is certain.

Carrying the folding ladder and my duffel bag, I looped around the driving track, where there was no one. Then past the airstrip. Adjacent to that was a helipad, well marked with a big white H painted on the concrete and recessed landing lights, though the lights were off. No helicopter was expected that night.

A landscaped path wandered by the trainees’ mess hall, which was dark, then a smaller building that apparently served as the dining hall for VIPs and Paladin executives, which was also dark. If the Paladin compound were a military base, which it resembled, that would have been the officers’ club.

Here the path forked, the left fork leading to the barracks where the trainees bunked. A few lights were still on there. Some of the trainees kept late hours, and I couldn’t risk being seen. I took the right fork, which meandered past a man-made pond, bordered by ornamental grasses and flowers. Definitely more country club than army base.

Up ahead loomed Granger’s lodge. I stopped behind a cluster of trees where the path bent so I could observe unseen. The house was surrounded by thick, waist-high hedges: too low for privacy. Probably to delineate a border, a sort of moat. A line beyond which you dared not cross. In front of the house was a white-gravel parking area. When you walked over it, your footsteps would crunch audibly. The only vehicle parked here was a black Hummer.

I went closer, then crouched down behind the Hummer and watched the house for a few minutes. The only light on was in the front room, probably where the interior guard was stationed during Granger’s sleeping hours. I plugged an earphone into the Bearcat scanner and listened for transmissions. There weren’t any.

A guard was making a long, slow, counterclockwise circuit around the lodge. He was smoking a cigarette, toting a machine gun, and looking bored.

I didn’t envy the guard his job, protecting a paranoid shut-in during the small hours of the night. He couldn’t read, couldn’t listen to music, and had no one to share the tedium with.

Then again, some of his colleagues were working in various death zones around the world, so maybe he had the better gig. Boredom was generally better than death or mutilation.

But boredom makes you less alert. You’re likely to tune out, get distracted, let your mind wander. You expend all your mental energy trying to stay awake and get through your shift.

I hoped that was the case here.

Somehow I had to approach the house undetected. I also needed at least three minutes. Ideally, five. That wasn’t likely to happen, not with a guard constantly circling the property.

I removed a cell phone from my pocket, switched it on, and slid it behind the Hummer’s rear tire. When the guard had rounded the southeast corner of the lodge, I made my move, taking long quiet strides, from time to time ducking beneath the hedges when I thought I might have moved into the guard’s peripheral vision. Then, when he’d circled around the back of the lodge and disappeared around the northwest corner, I stepped over the hedge, hoisted the ladder and duffel bag after me, and ran to the kitchen entrance.

I looked at my watch.

I had around sixty seconds before the guard circled around again and spotted me. Maybe a bit less. I took out a second cell phone and dialed the first one.

A few seconds later, I could hear the phone ringing. Even at this distance, the sharp trill pierced the stillness.

Before setting down the ladder, I hooked up the earpiece of the radio scanner again and heard: “Alpha Three to Alpha Two.”

“This is Alpha Two.”

“You hear that? Sounds like a… phone, huh?”

“I don’t hear nothin’.”

“It’s out here somewhere. Out in front. I’m gonna go check it out.”

The disturbance was irresistible, of course. Just as I hoped it might be.

After five rings, I disconnected the call.

At both the front and the back of the lodge were entrance porches with wood-shingled shed roofs, lower than the roof of the main building. That made it easy to climb to the second story. I set up the ladder against the peeled-log exterior wall and started to climb, and I heard in my earpiece:

“Alpha Two to Alpha Three.”

“Alpha Three here.”

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing.”

“You think someone dropped a phone, maybe?”

“I don’t know. I’m coming back in.”

“Back in” probably meant back on his circuit. Which meant he’d be here in forty-five seconds.

As I clambered onto the roof of the porch, I hit redial, and I heard the faint ringing from the other side of the lodge.

“Ahh, dammit, there it is again,” I heard in my earpiece.

“I hear it now. You check the porch?”

“Nah, it’s farther out there.”

I chose a second-floor window that had remained dark at night. It seemed the safest point of entry.

“Alpha Three, I still hear it.”

“Yeah, me, too. I’m lookin’.”

That bought me another minute at least.

I switched off the cell phone to stop the ringing. I wanted him to look but not find it. From my duffel bag I pulled out a glass cutter and suction device, set them down on the flat of the roof outside the window.

But I saw no alarm contacts and the window slid right up.

The screen was unlocked, too, and I managed to slide that open.

Then I pulled the ladder up after me, folded it, and set it on the floor of the darkened room.

And then I entered the house in search of Allen Granger.

93.

Gabriel,” Kozak said, softly, coaxing, “you don’t want to be responsible for mutilating your own mother, do you? Put that toy down.”

Gabe snarled, “You goddamned-” and there was a loud pop and Kozak, anticipating the shot, sidestepped, and the thing shot out of the Taser, the metal probes striking the granite kitchen island, trailed by a silvery filament, click-click-clicking.

And Lloyd Kozak lurched forward, quick as a rattlesnake striking, grabbing her son, while she screamed again, the high, desperate, choked cry, tears blurring her vision, and she knew it was over, the whole terrible nightmare was ending, and this sadist would-

“Police!” barked a voice. Another voice.

A whole bunch of them, blue-clad policemen in her kitchen, weapons drawn. The one who knocked Kozak to the floor, a knee to Kozak’s throat, was older than the others, a man with thick glasses she recognized from the hospital room so long ago. Not much more than a week ago, though it seemed much longer.

“WHO PUNCHED in the duress code?” Arthur Garvin asked.

“Me,” Gabe said.

“You did good, kid,” Garvin said. “Saved your mom’s life.”

Gabe nodded.

“We need to get your mom to the emergency room. Get a doc to take a look at that cut on her eye. Probably need stitches.”

The emergency medical guys had bandaged the slice under her eye, which stanched the flow of blood. It no longer hurt. Her mouth hurt more, actually, from where they’d ripped off the duct tape.

“Was he in the house when you got home?” Garvin asked, meaning Kozak.

She shook her head. “He called and asked if he could come over. Who is he?”

“He works for Paladin.”

Yes, she thought. Paladin. She knew it was only a matter of time.

“You knew he’d come here?”

“No. I have a warrant for his arrest, and we’ve been looking for him all over, most of the day.”

“But what made you come here?”

“Truth?” Garvin said. “Nick asked me to check in on you. Make sure you guys were okay.”

94.

The room was dark and cool and smelled both recently cleaned and rarely used. The floor had been washed with oil soap and the furniture polished with lemon oil. But at the same time there was that faint musty odor of a room that’s normally kept closed up. Enough light from outside filtered in for me to see that it was a guest room. Twin beds, two night tables, a TV set, a bureau. A private bathroom. Not much else.

I placed the folded ladder and the duffel bag on the floor by the window, out of sight and yet easy to get to. Unzipped the bag and removed one last piece of equipment: the Ruger.

The floor creaked as I walked across it.

I slowed my pace, trying to minimize the creaking. Listening for any sounds. I had a rough idea where I was headed. I’d figured that Granger’s bedroom, the largest room on the second floor, was at the front of the lodge, on the southwest corner.

I’d also observed that no other lights stayed on up here. No lights in the corridors. That indicated that there were no guards outside his bedroom, unless they sat in the dark, which would be highly unusual.

Though not impossible. Nothing could be ruled out.

The door was heavy and solid, well balanced on its hinges. I turned the knob and pulled the door in slowly a few inches. No squeak. Almost silent. I peered out, saw no one.

Pulled it in a few inches more.

Waited.

There was less ambient light in the hall than there’d been in the bedroom. The window was farther away. But when my eyes adjusted I saw no guard, no one sitting on a chair with a weapon. Just a corridor that was empty except for a narrow table, a vase of flowers at its center.

I emerged slowly, carefully, gripping my weapon, and pulled the door almost shut behind me.

A pair of double doors down the hall to my right.

The doors to Allen Granger’s room.

Was he really in there? I hadn’t seen him enter or leave the lodge since I’d arrived. But the radio transmissions had made reference to him-to “the boss,” to “the Big Guy,” and once even to “Mr. Granger.” Plus, the security procedures would have been relaxed considerably if he hadn’t been in residence.

He had to be here.

Walking slowly, keeping my tread as light as possible, I made my way down the hall until I reached the double doors. Then I stopped. Listened.

Heard the faint buzzing of someone asleep. Gentle snoring.

He was asleep in there.

Ruger in my right hand, I clutched the left knob and turned it slowly. Hoping it wasn’t locked.

It wasn’t.

Pushed the left door open slowly, slowly. Glimpsed a large bed in the darkness. A sleeping figure beneath the covers. Heard the soft snoring.

Darker in here than it had been in the hall. The shades were pulled down: room-darkening shades, which made the room almost pitch-black. The only light spilled in from the hall.

I left the door ajar. Entered the room. The floors were covered in deep wall-to-wall carpet, which muffled my footsteps. I crossed the room to the right side of the bed, closest to where Granger lay swaddled in covers.

I’m sure my father had some line from one of his beloved ancient Chinese military tracts about the advantages of a sneak attack. But I didn’t need an ancient Chinese strategist to tell me what I already knew.

My heart had begun to thud. Not fear. But anticipation. Anticipation of what I would do to the man. Anger. Adrenaline.

As I reached the side of the bed, a tone sounded.

Loud.

Like a doorbell chime.

Too late I realized that I’d set off a pressure-sensitive switch concealed beneath the carpet.

I froze.

The sleeping figure suddenly lurched, the covers flying off, and a pajama-clad man sat up, grabbing a gun from under a pillow in one smooth movement.

Aimed it about three feet to the left of where I stood.

Nowhere near me.

“Freeze,” he said.

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now. I recognized Allen Granger: the neatly trimmed hair, the handsome young face I’d seen in photos hundreds of times.

But I didn’t expect to see the terrible scarring that marred the top half of his face. The raised welts of flesh where his eyes should have been.

Allen Granger was blind.

95.

Don’t move,” he said.

He was gripping a Glock, still aimed a few feet to my left.

I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe, said nothing.

I didn’t want Granger to be able to locate me by sound.

He moved the gun slowly to his right, even farther away from me. He was guessing.

From the hallway behind me came footsteps. Someone running.

Quickly I reached out, grabbed the barrel of his Glock, jammed it upward, and wrenched it out of his hands. He struggled, made an angry growl, but he seemed to have no strength.

He had no leverage because he didn’t have the full use of his body. Granger was not just blind; he was partly paralyzed as well.

“You’re not going to make it out of here alive,” Granger said.

“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” I said.

“I know why you’re here, and you’ll never get away with it.”

The door to Granger’s bedroom burst open, lights came on, and a guard entered, weapon drawn. A submachine gun. A Heckler & Koch MP5.

“Take him down,” Granger said.

I spun around, my Ruger leveled at the guard. He looked vaguely familiar. Tall, fit, around my age.

A pistol versus a submachine gun. Like using a water pistol against a fire hose.

Then again, eight hundred rounds per minute didn’t mean much if the guy holding the submachine gun was dead. A bullet was a bullet.

I noticed the tattoo on his right biceps: crossed arrows over a dagger and the words DE OPPRESSO LIBRE. The Special Forces motto. Misspelled, but then, tattoo artists aren’t always known for their spelling.

“Drop the gun,” he said.

For several long seconds we stared at each other.

I lowered the Ruger.

“I said, drop it.”

I let go. The pistol fell noiselessly to the carpet.

Then I lowered my gaze to his submachine gun and smiled. I looked into his eyes again. “I don’t know how many rounds you plan on getting off,” I said, “with the fire selector on safe.”

He couldn’t help himself: He glanced quickly down at his weapon.

And I lunged.

Grabbed the barrel and twisted it upward as I kneed him in the stomach, knocked him to the floor. He expelled a great lungful of air, made an ooof sound.

I said, “Your tattoo guy spelled it wrong, you know.”

The Special Forces motto was “De Oppresso Liber,” not “Libre.” Which meant “To liberate the oppressed.”

“Who the hell are you?” he said.

“Heller,” I said. “I’m here for my brother. And I don’t plan on leaving without him.”

“Did he say Heller?” I heard Allen Granger say from behind me. “That’s Roger Heller?”

“No,” I said. “Nick Heller. Roger’s brother.”

“Dear Lord,” Granger said. “We need to talk.”

96.

Can I offer you a drink?”

“I thought you don’t drink.”

We’d moved to a spacious room downstairs. A fire roared in the large stone fireplace. Hand-hewn beams crisscrossed the ceiling.

Granger sat in a wheelchair, dressed in a white cardigan sweater, blue button-down shirt, and gray woolen slacks. His hair was neatly combed.

His once-handsome face was ruined.

Press-shy, a recluse: of course. It must have happened within the past year.

“Oh, not alcohol,” he said with a quiet chuckle. “Heavens, no.” He gave me a conspiratorial look. “I’m talking genuine Dublin Dr Pepper.”

“Excuse me?”

“The oldest Dr Pepper bottling plant in the world. Dublin, Texas. They make it with real cane sugar, not that nasty high-fructose corn syrup. In six-and-a-half-ounce glass bottles, too. You can hardly find the stuff anymore. And if you’ve never had a Dublin Dr Pepper, this is gonna change your life. It’s my weakness. Now you know.”

“No, thanks.”

“Please accept my apologies,” Granger said. “I’ve had difficulties with some of my employees.”

“Is that what happened to you? You were attacked by one of your own employees?”

He nodded. “I was fragged, I guess you could say.”

“Civilians can’t be fragged.”

“Technically, I suppose you’re right. But civilians usually don’t use grenades.”

I’d put the Ruger back in my ankle holster. I’d handed him back his Glock. There no longer seemed any point in weapons.

Softly, Granger said, “Have you found him?”

“No,” I said. “Until a few hours ago, I thought he was dead.”

“I don’t mean your brother. I mean Him. The Lord. Have you found Him?”

I blinked a few times. “I’ve been sort of busy.”

“Jesus is never too busy for us,” he said. “We must never be too busy for Him.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Granger gestured toward his face, then toward his lap. “He’s gotten me through.”

“Why?” I said.

He paused, then said, “Why was I attacked?”

“Right.”

“There was a time, not so long ago, when private military contractors were outside the law, you know.”

“Above the law.”

“No. Outside the law. We weren’t covered by military law, and we weren’t covered by civilian law.”

“Neat little loophole. So your guys got to be cowboys. Shoot first and ask questions later. Kill whoever they wanted.”

“Some did, it’s true. Not all. Just a few.”

“But you realized that if you wanted to keep doing business with the government, you’d have to hang a few of your guys out to dry.”

“That’s awfully harsh, Nick.”

“The cost of doing business.”

“I won’t argue. And the men blame me for selling them out.”

“Who else should they blame?”

“I’m not in charge anymore. I’m little more than the figurehead. The front man.”

“Because you’re a division of a larger corporation? You’re part of Gifford Industries?”

He didn’t reply.

“So who is in charge now? Leland Gifford?”

He turned his unfocused blind eyes toward me. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Don’t know what?”

“What your brother did?”

“Yes,” I said impatiently. “Roger tried to extort a lot of money from you. He threatened to leak information on the bribes and payoffs you’ve made to the Pentagon.”

“That’s just a cover story.”

“And what’s your cover story? That my brother embezzled from the company?”

“No,” Granger said. “Your brother didn’t steal from the company. That’s not it at all. He stole the company itself.”

97.

Allen Granger offered me the use of his Gulfstream 100 and one of his best pilots.

I took the Gulfstream to New York.

I had no idea what to expect as I crossed Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

The ornate exterior of the Graystone Building hadn’t changed at all since I was a kid. It still looked like a Babylonian temple. Inside, though, you could see how the once-magnificent lobby had gotten run-down. The mural of Prometheus stealing fire was chipped and faded, but a couple of painters were perched on ladders, carefully restoring it. Some other guys were retouching the art deco ceiling panels. One of the elevators was being repaired.

But the brass elevator doors gleamed, and the elevator cabin still smelled of warm brass machinery and old leather. It still ascended slowly yet smoothly, the whir and clunk of gears somehow reassuring.

It seemed impossible, but the penthouse floor still had the aroma of my father’s pipe smoke.

There were a lot more workers up here, buffing the granite floor and replacing broken tiles and retouching the paint. I’d once read a piece in The New York Times about how the Graystone Building had fallen upon hard times, its occupancy rate had fallen to under forty percent, and its owners had been looking to sell for years.

It looked like the building had a new owner.

A couple of carpenters, who were restoring the mahogany wainscoting in the elevator lobby, glanced at me without interest. I walked slowly down the hall to the big corner office.

A woman was coming out: a tall, buxom blonde. Very attractive. Far more beautiful than the photo Dorothy had sent to my cell phone. I nodded, but she didn’t nod back.

Empty of any furniture or carpets, its oak parquet floor covered with white dropcloths, the office seemed even more spacious than I’d remembered it.

The sunlight flooded through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and he stood, his back to me, looking out over Manhattan. His arms were spread, his hands pressed against the glass.

I wondered whether he remembered that Dad sometimes used to stand exactly like that.

He must have heard me enter, because he turned slowly. He flinched, but almost imperceptibly. Only a brother would have sensed it.

“Hey, Red Man,” Roger said.

98.

I didn’t say anything.

I approached, arms outspread, and when he opened his arms for a hug, I punched him in the stomach. Hard.

He doubled over, glasses flying. For almost a minute he dry-heaved, clutching himself, head down, then he managed to stand erect, if unsteadily, crimson-faced.

“That wasn’t very brotherly, Nick.”

“No?” I said.

He took a few faltering steps and picked up his glasses and put them back on.

“Great view,” I said. “I’d forgotten how great.”

“Best in the city, I always thought.”

“You lease the whole floor? Just like Dad?”

“Actually, Nick, I own the building,” he said softly. Proudly. “Good price, too. A very motivated seller.”

“Nice.”

“Did Lauren tell you where to find me?”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Lauren’s done a far better job of protecting your role in this than you had any right to expect. No, I got your address from Candi. Or should I say, Margaret.”

For a few seconds he looked stymied. He tilted his head to one side: his skeptical expression. I knew it well.

“Oh, not from her personally. From her cell phone. In your booty e-mail.”

“Booty e-mail?”

“The secret e-mail addresses you and Candi used to arrange hook-ups.”

“I thought I deleted all that stuff.”

“It’s nice to be underestimated sometimes,” I said.

“You’re good,” he said with a short laugh. “And, what? Once you got her cell number, you used some sort of private-eye hocus-pocus to find out where she’d made calls from? Including right here?”

“Hocus-pocus,” I said, nodding. “Yep. Magic.” The GPS locator chip in the cell phone used by “Candi Dupont”-Margaret Desmond-had yielded the location of her phone calls to within fifty meters. Which gave me the building address pretty quickly. “Though I couldn’t decide where to look first: the old house in Bedford, or here. She called from both places. That surprised me, the Bedford house. I thought some rich hedge-fund manager bought it a couple of years ago. I didn’t think he’d want to sell so soon.”

“Hedge funds are in trouble these days. Besides, everyone has a price.”

I nodded. Smiled. Tell me about it, bro. “And sometimes the family has to pay it.”

“Believe me, Lauren and Gabe aren’t going to suffer. They’re not exactly going to be paupers.”

“Her payoff, right? Her divorce settlement? For all she did to help you?”

“No, bro. Because I still love her.”

“Heartwarming,” I said. “No one shows it the way you do. At least Dad didn’t arrange a hit on Mom before he disappeared.”

“Oh, come on, Nick. You really think I’d hire someone to bash Lauren’s head in? What kind of guy do you think I am?”

“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

“My guy was just supposed to knock her out. Nothing more than that.”

“She almost died, you know. And then, thanks to you, Koblenz sent one of his guys to kill her. Who came very close to succeeding.”

Roger looked ashamed suddenly. He hung his head. “She’s okay now. Thank God.”

“Maybe. But not Gabe. After what you’ve put him through in the last couple of weeks. That leaves scars. Not that you care.”

“Of course I care. I still love the kid. Lauren, too.”

“What a guy.”

“I did what I had to. To protect them.”

“No,” I said. “You did what you did to try to pull off the greatest heist in history. Even if it meant a little collateral damage. Like Marjorie Ogonowski, who seemed to be the only friend you had at Gifford. You know about her by now, right?”

I could tell from his expression that he knew about her murder. And me, I thought. I almost became his collateral damage, too. But I’d never give him the satisfaction of hearing me say it out loud. “Well, I guess you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, huh?”

“I had no choice.”

“So you staged the greatest vanishing act of all time,” I said. “With the help of a couple of guys you lured away from Paladin. While you were in the process of taking their company over. Well played.”

“Actually, Nick, you disappointed me, I have to say. I was convinced you’d identify my ‘abductor’ ”-he made air quotes with two fingers on each hand-“as a Paladin employee.”

“With a little more time we would have. The license plate was good enough to finger Paladin. Which was the point, wasn’t it?” Obviously, they’d switched plates with a Paladin vehicle. And meant for me, or someone, to locate that gas-station surveillance camera and make the connection. “Though I’m surprised you trusted any of those Paladin guys.”

“They’re all for sale. Look who they work for. Whoever writes their paychecks buys their loyalty.”

“So you had someone steal a body from a hospital morgue to set up your final trick,” I said. “No matter how it might traumatize your son.”

A pained expression wracked his face. “That was unfortunate, but necessary.”

“All to convince Gifford and Paladin that you were dead? Just to buy yourself a little time while you arranged to steal the company?”

“Not just that. Also to protect Lauren and Gabe.”

“Whose lives you endangered in the first place,” I pointed out.

But he ignored that. “After Paladin started putting pressure on Lauren, I had no choice. She started panicking. I almost lost her. I had to keep her from giving the whole thing up. I mean, look, when it comes right down to it, she’s a mother first and foremost.”

“Yeah,” I said dryly. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nick,” he said, “I’m sure you know the story about the family that’s hiding from the Nazis, right? They’re in the basement, or hiding under the floorboard-I forget, a mother and father and a couple of kids and a tiny infant. And the Nazi soldiers are searching the house-”

“Yep,” I said impatiently. “And the baby starts to cry so the mother puts her hand over his mouth to stop his cries. Smothers her own child. Feels it go limp.”

He nodded. “She kills her own baby to protect the rest of the family. A hard thing. A haunting thing. But what choice did she have? The life of a tiny child weighed against the life of an entire family?”

“You have a point?”

“Whatever Gabe and Lauren had to endure, it was for their own protection.”

“Protection? No. This was about bread crumbs.”

“Bread crumbs?”

“Easter eggs, maybe. Laying down a false trail for me.”

“Well, not for you. For the cops or the FBI. I certainly never wanted Lauren to call you in. That was Gabe’s doing.”

“Sorry to screw up your plans.”

He shrugged. “But you didn’t. Not at all. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. See, diversion is a major part of every magic act. Haven’t you learned that yet?”

I thought of the story that Victor and Lauren both told about Roger’s attempt to extort money from Paladin-which I doubted was true. He was after far more than ten million dollars. And everything buried just deep enough that I’d have to dig. Which made it all plausible. And then I thought of that “missing” billion dollars in cash, which Stoddard put me onto, which led me to Carl Koblenz, and I knew that Roger had somehow set that up as well. All in the interests of creating a false trail that pointed toward Paladin. But why? To neutralize them? To keep the heat on them? That part I hadn’t figured out yet.

“So you hired the cargo guy yourself,” I said. “To steal the container. Which you knew Paladin was shipping.”

He tipped his head to one side modestly. “And gave him Koblenz’s cell phone number to use only in case of an emergency.” He chuckled. “I can only imagine what Koblenz would have said if he’d gotten a call from the guy.”

“What if Stoddard hadn’t put me on the job?” I said.

“Why would he assign anyone else? Leland Gifford specifically requested you.” He gave me a wink, and I immediately understood that it was actually Lauren who’d put in the request, in her boss’s name. “I knew I could count on my little brother to protect me like you always did. That’s the thing about families. Even when we grow up, we play the same roles.”

“And yours was always as Dad’s Mini-Me. Has he been pulling the strings the whole time from his prison cell? The greatest swindle of his career? He wanted his empire back, didn’t he? Probably his idea, too, this whole scam.”

“Give me a little more credit than that, Nick.”

“I do. You always saw Dad for what he was.”

“You can’t be disillusioned if you never had any illusions to begin with.”

“And you couldn’t have done this without him.”

“Probably not,” Roger admitted. “I know a lot about offshore finance. But he really knows all the ins and outs. His firm was structured just like Gifford Industries, you know. Both family firms, both privately held by offshore entities. For tax reasons. Liability reasons.”

“I see,” I said. “So you convinced Leland Gifford to restructure his company after he acquired Paladin, right?”

“You been going to night school, Nick? You got it. I told Gifford he had to create another layer of offshore insulation, in order to shield himself from liability. He knew about all the kickbacks Paladin gave the Pentagon. He was smart enough to see that, with a new president in the White House, the worm was turning. He knew he might have to take the fall. He could be facing Congressional hearings, maybe even prison time, if he wasn’t protected. So he did what I urged him to do. He temporarily transferred beneficial ownership.”

“‘Beneficial ownership,’” I said. “In other words, the title to the company. To all of Gifford Industries, which included its new subsidiary, Paladin. Am I right? Since Gifford’s privately held?”

“And I always thought you had no interest in finance.”

“Just the bare minimum,” I said. “Just enough to catch the assholes.”

“Just enough knowledge to be dangerous, huh?”

“Guess that makes me dangerous, Roger. So-what, you had to disappear until the transfer became permanent? Until the mandatory waiting period had expired?”

“And everyone always said I was the smart one.” He smiled with what could almost pass for admiration.

“But you couldn’t have pulled this off without the RaptorCard,” I said. “Having your name on the paperwork was only part of it. You also had to transfer the company’s assets to your own personal accounts, right? Which is why you needed me to break in there and steal it.”

“Not quite,” he said. “You almost screwed the whole thing up.”

“Sorry to hear it. How so?”

“I gave Koblenz’s admin a boatload of money to go into his safe and get me the RaptorCard. Would have gone much more smoothly if you hadn’t broken in and stolen the damn thing. So I had to improvise.”

“Well done,” I said, and I meant it. I continued leading him along: “But I’m still not clear about something. That fake swap-trading you for the RaptorCard-how’d you know for sure I actually had it?”

Roger hesitated, but only for an instant. “Koblenz.”

“I see.” I saw the lie at once, but I didn’t pursue it. I knew the truth. “Well, you finally got your payback, didn’t you?”

“Payback?”

“Leland Gifford never really respected you. Never promoted you. I guess you got the job you deserved all along. So what happens to Leland Gifford now? You’re going to park him in a nursing home somewhere? Give him a monthly allowance?”

“Don’t worry about Leland Gifford. I paid him off handsomely. He’ll retire an extremely wealthy man. But I’m keeping him on. I’m not really an operational guy.”

“And he’s not going to talk anyway, is he? It’s not in his interest.”

“Very good. You got it. If the details of Paladin’s kickback arrangements with the Pentagon ever became public, the spigot would get turned off. The Defense Department would be forced to cancel all of its contracts. Paladin would be worthless. Gifford would lose his multibillion-dollar investment in his own company. So he’s better off with some money than nothing. It’s win-win.”

“You seem relaxed and calm,” I said. “Secure, even. You really think you’re safe?”

“Who’s going to come after me? Gifford? Granger? Koblenz? They all work for me now.”

“Tell that to Allen Granger. He lives in fear of his own employees.”

“That’s why I’m keeping him on. Let them all think he’s still their boss. Some of these ex-military guys are crazy.”

“I’m an ex-military guy. Don’t forget.”

“But you’re not crazy.”

“Not everyone would agree with that. Anyway, bear in mind, people aren’t always rational when they get angry. And you’ve got a lot of enemies.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about yourself?”

I shrugged.

“What are you going to do, kill your own brother?”

“No,” I said, after waiting just long enough to make him nervous. “I’d never do that. But some courts might consider what you did theft. Criminal, even. Crazy as it might sound.”

“Who’s going to charge me with theft? Leland Gifford? He doesn’t want to go to prison. He’d be liable for all of the kickbacks Paladin made, because he knew about them. From the due diligence I did. I made sure to let him know.”

I nodded slowly, felt for the cell phone in my pocket, looked up. “For all the due diligence you did, you’re entrusting your entire financial empire to some fleabag offshore bank? Really, Roger. That’s where you really blew it. Don’t you realize how quickly those offshore havens fold when the U.S. government puts the squeeze on them? Look what happened to Nauru.”

Roger always hated it when I knew more than him about anything. “Yeah?” he said. “You consider Barclays, B.V.I., fleabag? Come on, bro. Nothing but the best.”

“Barclays in the British Virgin Islands?” I said. “That’s in, what, Tortola? All right. I underestimated you.”

He smiled. “You know, Nick, there was an ancient Chinese philosopher who once said that battles are always won or lost before they’re fought.”

“Someone told me that,” I said. “You know a lot about war, Roger?”

“Just theoretically. And just enough to be dangerous. So are we done here, bro? Because I have a lot of work to do. I’ve got a conference call scheduled, and we don’t even have phones yet.”

“Almost,” I said. “Hold on a second.”

I pulled out my BlackBerry.

“Can you repeat that again?” I said.

Roger looked at me, bewildered. “Repeat what?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was talking to my phone.” The cell phone in my pocket had been on and transmitting our conversation to Dorothy the whole time. It took her just a few seconds to pull up the SWIFT code for Barclays’ British Virgin Islands branch. As she read it to me again, slowly, I typed the numbers into a message field on my BlackBerry.

I’ve always hated Bluetooth headsets-I don’t like walking around with a thing clipped to my ear like an extra in a Star Trek movie-but the one I was wearing was nonstandard. It was one of Merlin’s government-grade miniature earbuds. Roger’d never noticed it.

“There we go,” I said, this time to Roger. I smiled, held up the BlackBerry. “The cool thing about the RaptorCard,” I said, “is how easy it is to build in a backdoor, if you know what you’re doing. Every single transaction you made, it sent me a copy. Right here.”

Roger didn’t seem to know how to react. I could see the skepticism mixed with anxiety. “Yeah,” he said. “Like you know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, not me,” I admitted. “But one of my colleagues. Comes in handy to have friends sometimes. Now, watch closely. Nothing up my sleeve.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” A tendril of panic had entered his voice. Slowly he came around to my side of his desk. “What’s this all about? Because I did what you were too much of a candy ass to do?”

“Shhh,” I said. “Never interrupt a magician in midact. And now-”

“You understand that I fully intend to share this with you, right?”

“-Watch as I click this ordinary-looking button on this very ordinary-looking BlackBerry, and your entire digital trail is sent, by the magic of the Internet, to FinCen. The U.S. Treasury’s financial-crimes enforcement network-”

Roger leapt at me. “You’re a Heller!” he thundered. “This is the life we were meant to have!”

I sidestepped his lunge.

“And… abracadabra!”

With an unnecessarily theatrical flourish, I clicked the send button.

Then, without even turning to look at him, I strode across the wide expanse of his office. “If they give you a choice, I hope you request Altamont Correctional Facility,” I said. “It would be nice for Dad to have company. Maybe you two can work in the laundry together.”

And then I opened the door for the FBI.

99.

A few days later I tried to slip into Lauren’s house to retrieve the rest of my things, at a time I thought she and Gabe would be gone. I figured it would be easier on everyone if they just came home one day and found my stuff gone. No scene. No muss, no fuss.

I’d forgotten about private-school schedules, though: The more money you pay for school, the shorter the academic year. St. Gregory’s was out for the year, and Gabe was upstairs, listening to music. Lauren was doing something on her home computer. Another thing I didn’t expect: that Lauren would be at home and not at work.

That was actually okay, though. We had a lot to talk about. She told me that she’d decided to take a leave of absence from her job. A long one. The leave she should have taken in the first place, after the injury.

“For the first time in I don’t know how long, I actually need to work for a living,” she said pensively.

I suppose I could have let my brother get away with it, which would have meant that Lauren and Gabe might have shared in the spoils, or so Roger had said. But in the end, they’d never have been safe-you never get away with something like that.

And it just didn’t sit well with me. Bad karma, maybe. I knew a little about living off tainted money.

And-call me a starry-eyed idealist, but I did sort of like the idea of doing the right thing.

“Have you started looking for a job yet?” I asked.

She looked at me with surprise. “I’m not leaving Leland,” she said. “Why would I?”

“He’d take you back?”

“Take me back? What’s that supposed to mean?”

I felt a pang of sadness. She hadn’t stopped concealing. “Lauren,” I said.

“Lee doesn’t blame me for what Roger did. That wouldn’t be fair.”

“So Leland still doesn’t know,” I said. “Well, I’ll say this much for my brother. He may have used you, but he did protect you.”

“Protect me? In what way?”

“He could have turned you in when he was arrested, but he didn’t. And I doubt he will.”

“Turn me in for what?”

“For what you did. For your role in all of this.”

“My role?”

“Lauren, come on.”

“What?”

I was really disappointed in my people-reading skills. It had taken me far too long to learn to read her. Maybe my usual perceptiveness had been blunted by my love for her and her son. “Well, for one thing, Roger couldn’t have stolen all of Gifford Industries’ assets without the RaptorCard. And there’s only one way he could have known that I had it. From you.”

Her eyes were opaque, hard to read. “I told you he contacted me. He left me a voice message. He gave me a-an untraceable cell number to call. Because he wanted to make sure this deal went off without a hitch. So, yes. I told him.”

“Right,” I said. “But that was only part of it.”

She looked wounded. “What are you accusing me of?”

“I’m not going to turn you in,” I said. “No point in that. I blame my brother for dragging you into this.”

“I wasn’t dragged…” she began.

“Lauren,” I said. “Don’t even bother. Leland didn’t trust Roger. He didn’t like him. He’d never have gone along with the idea of creating a holding company-and designating Roger as the full, temporary, owner-if you hadn’t urged him to do it.”

She winced as she shook her head.

But I kept going. “Dorothy told me you asked her how to access a password-protected BlackBerry. You told her you wanted to help me out. Get into his e-mails. Of course, you didn’t bother to tell me about it.”

Hollowly, she attempted, “I didn’t?”

“Of course not. Because that wasn’t true. You weren’t trying to help find Roger. You were sending out e-mails under Leland Gifford’s name. To a bank in the Caymans. Authorizing the transfer. Replying to the bank’s queries. And later, I assume, deleting all evidence of the correspondence so Gifford wouldn’t find out.”

“Nick,” she began.

“Roger needed a confederate in the CEO’s office, or none of this would have worked.”

She looked away.

“And-oh, yes-you made sure that Stoddard assigned me to locate the missing cargo. That billion dollars in cash. A theft Roger arranged. More bread crumbs, to lead me to Paladin.”

Her expression confirmed my theory. She’d e-mailed Jay Stoddard as Leland Gifford to be certain he put me on the case.

“I don’t like what you’re implying. You don’t seriously think I’d risk Gabe’s life for money, do you?”

“No, I don’t. I’m sure this wasn’t your idea in the first place.”

“Of course it wasn’t! The worst you can say about me is that I was naïve. I trusted him. When he told me he had to disappear because that was the only way to keep us safe, I believed him. And then things just started to spin out of control, and Paladin started making all those threats-”

“I know. That’s when Roger took the risk of calling you. To make sure you stayed with the program.”

A single tear streamed down her left cheek in a perfectly straight line. “He told me if I didn’t, they’d kill him. He said it was the only way to save him and protect Gabe. He used me. He manipulated me.”

“He’s good at that. I understand.”

“His relationship with Gabe is over. He’s destroyed it.”

“He doesn’t deserve Gabe.”

“No,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve Gabe.”

“I don’t think Gabe’s going to be visiting him in prison. You see how often I visit my dad.”

She nodded sadly. “And… what about you?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“You think you might move?”

“I might. I’ll see. I’ve never loved Washington, you know that.”

“I hope not. That wouldn’t be easy for Gabe.”

“Or for me.”

“So don’t move. Stay in town.”

“I’ll figure something out,” I said. “I’m not worried.”

“You never worry, do you?”

“Sure I do. All the time,” I said. “I just don’t like to show it.”

BEFORE I left, I took Gabe for a walk around the block. The old oak trees shaded the path, their leaves rippling gently in the wind, the light dappled. He was wearing black shorts and his black Chuck Taylors and a red Full Bleed T-shirt with a big white fingerprint on it.

“Can you freakin’ believe it?” he said. “Dad asked Mom if I’d visit him in jail.”

“You’re not going to?”

“Are you kidding me? I told him I never wanted to see him again.”

“He loves you. You should know that. He may be a flawed person, but he does love you.”

“So? I don’t really care. He cheats on Mom, and he lies to us and almost gets us killed?” He shook his head. “And now I don’t think Mom can afford to send me to St. Greg’s anymore.”

“I thought you hated the place.”

“I never said that.”

I shrugged. I didn’t feel much like arguing.

“And we don’t even get any of that money he stole. If you hadn’t had him arrested, we could be rich.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Justice sucks sometimes. I get that.”

He glared at me.

“It’s like Batman,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Well, think about it. Batman these days, he’s an angst-ridden vigilante, right? Dark and brooding and tortured. He has these inner demons.”

He looked at me in surprise. “You’ve read The Dark Knight Returns?”

“Nah. Saw the movies. But when I was a kid, Batman was this really cool superhero. He was the Caped Crusader. He was millionaire Bruce Wayne, and he had the Batmobile and the Bat Cave, and he was always saving Gotham City from the Joker or the Riddler. He always won. The bad guys always ended up behind bars.”

“You’re talking about the TV show.”

“Point is, real-life justice is a little more complicated. More like the dark and brooding Batman, you could say.”

“Yeah, well, you’re totally wrong. Batman was originally this, like, tragic figure. Bruce Wayne’s parents are killed in a holdup, and he makes this solemn promise on their grave to rid the city of crime.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. I should have known better than to talk comic books with Gabe. “What I’m trying to tell you is, the right thing isn’t always the easy thing.”

“Do I get a cookie with that fortune?”

“You might want to watch the way you talk to your elders,” I said sternly.

“Yeah, right,” he said, and he smiled, and I smiled, too.

This was getting way too heavy for me, so I changed the subject and asked him about his summer plans, but he didn’t really have any, except for finishing his graphic novel. We circled back to their driveway and stood in front of my Defender.

I’d paid one of Granger’s guys to recover it from the Georgia woods and drive it back to D.C. The guy had had the car washed and polished, and it gleamed. Of course, that just made the long white scratch on the driver’s side stand out more against the glossy Coniston green.

“What happened here?” Gabe said, tracing the mark with his finger.

“Some jerk keyed it.”

“That’s a bummer.”

I shrugged. “Not my biggest concern right now.”

He looked uncomfortable for a few seconds, as if he wanted to bring something up.

“What?” I said.

“So how come you’re moving out?”

“I have my own apartment.”

“I mean, out of Washington. I heard you talking to Mom.”

“I haven’t decided what I’m doing. I might move back to Boston.”

“So, what, that’s it? You’re just going to move, and I’ll, like, never see you again?”

“You’ll see me plenty, you poor guy. More than before, probably.”

He smiled again. He had a terrific, totally winning smile when he actually used it. His mom’s smile. “You can run, but you can’t hide, Nick.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.”