because he couldn’t find the woman who’d caused him so much pain and frustration, despite his best efforts and high-level connections.
She’d walked out in January, four months after a terrorist attack in New York City that had nearly claimed her life. Kealey had waited for two months, putting out feelers, calling in favors, but it had gotten him nowhere. By the time March rolled around, he’d finally admitted defeat, accepting that she didn’t want to be found. He’d pushed it aside for another few weeks, but then, tired of sitting around with nothing to do but think about her, he’d decided to strike out on his own. His only goal at the time was to clear his head, lose himself in the raw, primitive beauty of the world’s most isolated regions.
That had been three months earlier. Since then he’d climbed Denali in Alaska, Kilimanjaro in northeastern Tanzania, and Mount Cook in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. He’d crossed Chile’s Atacama Desert at its widest point, scaled Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains, and completed the 60-mile, six-day Paine Circuit in Patagonia. He had beaten his body to the point of sheer exhaustion and then had pushed harder, but nothing had helped. It had taken him half a year to figure it out, but the truth had been staring him right in the face the whole time. No matter what he did or where he went, he couldn’t stop thinking about Naomi Kharmai.
Kealey had been sorting it through in his mind since the day she’d disappeared, trying to figure out what he could have said or done to stop her from leaving. It was hard to pick out the worst part about the whole situation. It was all bad, but some aspects were worse than others. When he thought about it honestly, it wasn’t the fact that she had left that troubled him most. What really bothered him was her inability to face the past. The terrorist attack that nearly claimed her life the previous September had left her scarred in more ways than one, and while Kealey had done his best to help her through it, she had never fully recovered. At least not on the inside. In fact, the last time he’d seen her, she was still very much in denial.
It weighed heavily on him, and it was hard not to feel a sense of personal failure. If she had left because she needed more than what he had to offer, that would have been one thing. It would have been hard, but he could have dealt with it. What concerned him was that she might have gotten worse since walking out—that she might have spiraled further into her inner sanctum of guilt, grief, and depression. He didn’t want to push her, but he would have given anything to hear her voice, if only to know that she was still alive.
Shifting the weight of the pack on his shoulders, Kealey crossed the dark gravel expanse of the parking lot, heading toward the hotel’s main entrance. Stopping well short of the building’s lights, he looked up and appraised the clear night sky. The stars had come out an hour earlier, and they were shockingly bright, given the dimly lit surrounding countryside. Svínafellsjökull towered behind the low-slung building, the glacier itself a dark silhouette against the deep navy backdrop. Ribbons of green light seemed to ripple and dance in the crisp, clean mountain air. The aurora borealis—better known as the northern lights—was something that he’d never seen before landing in Keflavík, and the sight was at once ethereal and incredibly eerie.
After admiring the view for a few minutes more, Kealey pulled open the door and nodded hello to the plump, smiling receptionist. She returned the gesture and went back to her crossword puzzle as he climbed the stairs, making his way up to the bar on the second floor. The worn oak doors were propped open, dim light flickering into the hall. Stepping into the room, he pulled off his wool knit watch cap, ran a hand through his lank black hair, and started toward the bar. The walls were paneled in pale oak, uninspired prints hanging around the room and above the fireplace, where a small fire was burning. The dark green couches, shiny with wear, complemented the worn carpet perfectly, and burgundy velvet drapes hung behind the bar itself, where a morose young man stood guard behind the small selection of taps. Kealey had just finished ordering a beer when he sensed movement over by one of the large windows. He turned and stared for a few seconds, appraising the solitary figure. Then he lifted a hand in cautious greeting. Turning back to the bar, he revised his order, his mind racing. Less than a minute later he was walking across the room, a pint glass in each hand, wondering what might have brought this particular visitor halfway around the world.
Jonathan Harper was seated with his back to the wall, his right foot hooked casually over his left knee. He was dressed in dark jeans, Merrell hiking boots, and a gray V-neck sweater, but despite his youthful attire, the deputy DCI—the second-highest-ranking official in the Central Intelligence Agency—looked far older than his forty-three years. His neat brown hair was just starting to gray at the temples, but his face was gaunt, and his skin was shockingly pale. His mannerisms were even more noticeable. He seemed shaky and slightly guarded, but also resigned, like an old man who senses the end is near. All of this was to be expected, though, and Kealey knew it could have been worse. In truth, the man was extremely lucky to still be alive.
Kealey placed the beers on the water-stained table, shrugged off his jacket, and slid into the opposite seat. They appraised each other for a long moment. Finally, Harper offered a slight smile and extended a hand, which the younger man took.
“Good to see you, Ryan. It’s been a long time.”
“I suppose so,” Kealey said. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms in a casual way. “About seven months, I guess. When did you get here?”
“I flew into Keflavík this morning, but the bus only arrived a few hours ago.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting. How have you been?”
“Not bad, all things considered.” Harper took a short pull on his lager, coughed sharply, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The doctors are happy enough, so I guess that’s something.”
“And Julie?”
“She’s fine. I think she secretly enjoys having a patient again, though she’d never admit it.”
“Knowing her, it wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Kealey replied. He knew that Harper’s wife had worked for years as a head nurse at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, one of the best hospitals in the country. The smile faded from his face as he debated going forward with his next question. Finally, he went ahead and asked it.
“What about Jane Doe? Any luck on that front?”
“Not a thing. I’m starting to think we’ll never find her. Even if we did, it’s not like we could hand her over to the FBI. There just isn’t enough evidence to charge her with anything. They never found the gun, you know.”
Kealey nodded slowly. Eight months earlier, the newly appointed deputy director had narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Washington, D.C. The attack had taken place on the front step of his brownstone on General’s Row, just as he was stretching after his morning run. Harper had been facing away from his armed assailant when the first shot was fired. The .22-caliber round penetrated his lower back, then ricocheted off the third rib and up through the right lung. The second and third rounds had torn into his upper arm as he turned toward the shooter, and the fourth had punched a hole in his chest, missing his heart by less than an inch.
The woman had been moving forward as she fired, and by the time the fourth round left the muzzle of her gun, she was less than 10 feet from her target. As she approached to fire the fatal shot, a D.C. Metro police cruiser had squealed to a halt on Q Street, lights flashing. The police officer’s arrival on the scene had been pure chance, nothing but luck, but it had saved the deputy director’s life. The woman fired at the officer as he stepped out of the vehicle, killing him instantly, but the distraction gave Julie Harper—who had been making coffee when the first shots were fired—the chance to open the door and pull her husband inside to safety.
Unfortunately, the would-be assassin managed to escape in the ensuing chaos, even though the Metro Police Department was able to seal off the surrounding streets with astonishing speed. What followed was one of the largest manhunts in U.S. history, but despite the enormous resources it had thrown into the search, the government had yet to track her down.
The CIA had looked harder and longer than anyone else, of course, and in time, they’d managed to dig up a few tenuous