.

dead hooker,” he said as he barreled in and flicked on the lights. “I was just in here, checking on things. This is what I saw.”

      He crossed to her desk and pointed at her computer screen. Morgan stared down at the screen—to see himself in profile, staring down at the screen. He turned and squinted, searching for the camera.

      “It’s a button cam on that picture frame—the one of her and her family when she got her black belt,” McDonough said.

      Morgan couldn’t detect the camera on the black lacquer frame, which didn’t surprise him. The photograph itself was very familiar to him, showing a teenage Allison dressed in an all-black martial arts uniform, belt included, beaming from the center of a loving family. Her mother had still been alive. Marion Gracelyn was murdered ten years ago, when Allison was twenty-seven. Morgan had studied the picture before, wishing he could see Allison smile that broadly in person, catch her in a carefree moment.

      Catch her, period.

      He wondered if McDonough’s spycam had captured even one of the hungry, lustful gazes he, Morgan, had thrown Allison’s way when he thought she wasn’t looking. He should have guessed her own boss would be conducting illegal surveillance of her at the office. He wondered if McDonough actually was NSA. He had the codebreaking creds, but on the other hand, CIA employed lots of multilingual codebreakers, too.

      “Watch what we’ve got. This was yesterday morning.” McDonough pulled a miniaturized remote control device out of his black suit trousers and clicked it. An image filled Allison’s screen—it was Allison at her desk, fingers racing across her keyboard as she frowned mildly at the monitor. She stopped typing and rested her hand on her chin. Clouds must have passed behind her window, dimming the light. Morgan could practically see the wheels of her brilliant mind analyzing strings of code as they blipped across her monitor.

      Then her outside line rang and she picked it up.

      “Yes,” Allison-on-the-screen said. Her face changed and she sat up straighter in the chair. The room darkened perceptibly as her eyes widened and her lips parted. She looked…frightened.

      “I’ll get the cash,” she said. “Give me time.” Then she hung up, pushed back her chair, turned off the lights and left her office.

      “Then she leaves,” McDonough said, as the footage continued, the room cast in an eerie night-vision luminescence. “That was yesterday morning, before she took today off for personal reasons…and has been MIA ever since.”

      Morgan thought a moment. “Any corroborating calls come in while she was gone?” He could comb back through the phone log himself to check.

      “Nothing on my camera. I listened to all her messages, in-house and her secured outside line. I’d say that woman has no life except she clearly does, maybe working for the same guys who are trying to blow up the United States in time for Thanksgiving.”

      Listening to her messages involved some protected speech issues, but Morgan stayed focused. He was intrigued by what he’d seen, but he knew there could be a logical explanation. He simply had no idea what it might be.

      McDonough glanced at him. “As far as I’m concerned, that bitch has made her move, and it’s time for the bat signal, Batman.”

      Morgan kept his face impassive, and McDonough laughed mirthlessly.

      “Yeah, I know about you. You’ve gone deep for the people of these United States. Risked everything. Almost gotten killed a couple of times. I know you want to do this. Go ahead and volunteer. I’ll back you up.”

      Morgan doubted McDonough would backup his own mother, but he wasn’t about to say no. He wanted to go after Allison so badly he could taste it.

      “If you don’t go get her, I’ll send someone else who doesn’t have a hard-on for her,” McDonough continued.

      Morgan nodded once, hopefully out of camera range.

      McDonough nodded back. “You have everything you need?”

      “I do.”

      “Then stop wasting time.” McDonough lifted up his hand, snapped his fingers and pointed at the door. Morgan bristled at the lapdog-style command, but kept his irritation to himself.

      Without another word, Morgan left Allison’s office.

      McDonough stuck his head into the hall. “Call me. Check in. I don’t want to have to send someone after you next.”

      Morgan kept walking.

      As he strode past the conference room, Valenti rose from her chair and joined him in the hall.

      “What are you going to do?” she asked, catching up.

      He turned his head. The door to Allison’s office was closed and McDonough was nowhere to be seen.

      “What makes you think I’m going to do anything?” he asked.

      She pursed her lips and raised her chin.

      “Just tell her to come in,” he said. “It’s not too late. McDonough will back off.”

      Her expression never wavered. Morgan gave his head an angry shake.

      “You’re wasting my time,” he said, and then he guessed that maybe that was the idea.

      He took off.

      Chapter 4

      Allison flew down the off-ramp, gutterballing it as close to the shoulder as possible, and hit the turbo through a very yellow light. It was red before she was halfway across the intersection. More horns blared and she flicked her vision from the rearview mirror to the crimson taillights crowding her windshield. The grubby white van hadn’t shown yet, but in this day of cell phones and satellites, that didn’t mean a thing. For all she knew, her Infiniti had been painted by Echo herself, who was observing her nemesis via satellite as she flushed her out.

      There was a nondescript strip mall up ahead. Allison scanned for entrances and exits where she might dump the car if she needed to.

      A motorcyclist swerved around her and failed to maintain his speed. She braked hard, keeping her eyes on him in case he was trying to box her in. Her laptop and cell phones crashed to the floor on the passenger side. Sloppy. The motorcycle flipped her off and streaked away in the rain.

      Making a command decision, she turned off her lights and shot into the alley behind the strip mall. There were no overhead lights, and the alley was narrow, bordered by two one-story brick buildings on her right and a quartet of oversize aluminum Quonset huts on her left.

      She eased the car around an overflowing Dumpster, then glided around the far corner of the building. Leaning forward, she craned her neck and peered through the windshield.

      The van was crossing the intersection.

      She leaned down and grabbed up her personal phone, a more subdued black than the cheetah print prepaids. Punched in Selena’s number.

      “Yes, Allison,” she said.

      “I’m being pursued. White van.” She gave her the license plate number.

      “Checking. Is there anything I can do?”

      “Negative.” “Staying with you.” Selena’s voice was taut with anxiety, but she kept on task.

      The van pulled into the strip mall. It did not go into the alley, but advanced slowly down a straggly row of cars parked in the gravel lot, the majority of them clustered near Allison. A quick glance revealed that the building beside her was a bar.

      Allison backed up slowly, reluctantly shifting her attention from the white van to check the alley behind her via her side mirror, which she cranked to a sharp angle.

      Harsh white headlights blazed at the entrance of the alley. She froze. If she backed up any farther, the lights would brush her car. If the driver was working with the van, they’d have her.

      “I’m