Vanish

to her feet.

“Go stand by the door, doctor,” he ordered. He turned and pointed to the pair of women on the other couch. “You two, get up. Both of you.”

The women didn’t budge; they just gaped at Joe, as though certain this was a trick, that if they moved, there would be consequences.

“Go! Get up!”

The receptionist gave a sob and stumbled to her feet. Only then did the other woman follow her. They both edged toward the door, where Dr. Tam still stood frozen. Hours of captivity had so cowed them that they did not yet believe their ordeal was about to end. Even as Tam reached toward the door, she was watching Joe, waiting for his order to halt.

“You three can leave,” Joe said.

The instant the women had stepped out of the room, Olena slammed the door shut behind them and locked it again.

“What about my wife?” said Gabriel. “Let her go, too.”

“I can’t. Not yet.”

“Our agreement-”

“I agreed to release hostages, Agent Dean. I didn’t say which ones.”

Gabriel flushed in anger. “And you think I’m going to trust you now? You think I’d listen to a goddamn thing you say?”

Jane reached for her husband’s hand, and felt tendons taut with rage. “Just listen to him. Let him have his say.”

Gabriel released a breath. “Okay, Joe. What do you want to tell me?”

Joe grabbed two chairs, dragged them to the center of the room, and set them down facing each other. “Let’s sit, you and me.”

“My wife is in labor. She can’t stay in here much longer.”

“Olena will attend to her.” He gestured to the chairs. “I’m going to tell you a story.”

Gabriel looked at Jane. She saw, in his eyes, both love and apprehension. Whom do you trust? Joe had asked her earlier. Who’d take this bullet for you? Staring at her husband, she thought: There will never be anyone I trust more than you.

Reluctantly, Gabriel turned his attention back to Joe, and the two men sat facing each other. It looked like a perfectly civilized summit, except for the fact that one of the men had a gun resting in his lap. Olena, now stationed on Jane’s couch, held an equally lethal weapon. Just a nice little get-together with two couples. Which pair will survive the night?

“What did they tell you about me?” said Joe. “What’s the FBI saying?”

“A few things.”

“I’m crazy, right? A loner. Paranoid.”

“Yes.”

“You believe them?”

“I have no reason not to.”

Jane watched her husband’s face. Though he spoke calmly, she could see the strain in his eyes, the tight muscles of his neck. You knew this man was insane, she thought, yet you walked in here anyway. All for me… She suppressed a groan as a new contraction began to build. Keep quiet. Don’t distract Gabriel; let him do what he needs to do. She sank back on the couch, teeth gritted, suffering in silence. Kept her gaze fixed on the ceiling, on a single dark smudge on the acoustic tile. Concentrate on your focal point. Mind over pain. The ceiling blurred, the smudge seeming to bob in an unsteady sea of white. It made her nauseated just to look at it. She closed her eyes, like a seasick sailor woozy from rocking waves.

Only when the contraction began to ease, when the pain at last released its grip, did she open her eyes. Her gaze, once again, focused on the ceiling. Something had changed. Next to the smudge there was now a small hole, almost unnoticeable among the pores of the acoustic tile.

She glanced at Gabriel, but he was not looking at her. He was completely focused on the man sitting across from him.

Joe asked: “Do you think I’m insane?”

Gabriel regarded him for a moment. “I’m not a psychiatrist. I can’t make that determination.”

“You walked in here expecting a crazy man to be waving a gun around, didn’t you?” He leaned forward. “That’s what they told you. Be honest.”

“You really want me to be honest?”

“Absolutely.”

“They told me I’d be dealing with two terrorists. That’s what I was led to believe.”

Joe sat back, his face grim. “So that’s how they’re going to end it,” he said quietly. “Of course. It’s how they would end it. What kind of terrorists are we supposed to be?” He glanced at Olena, then laughed. “Oh. Chechens, probably.”

“Yes.”

“Is John Barsanti running the show?”

Gabriel frowned. “You know him?”

“He’s been tracking us since Virginia. Everywhere we go, he seems to turn up. I knew he’d show up here. He’s probably just waiting to zip up our body bags.”

“You don’t have to die. Hand me your weapons, and we’ll all leave together. No gunfire, no blood. I give you my word.”

“Yeah, there’s a guarantee.”

“You let me walk in here. Which means that, on some level, you trust me.”

“I can’t afford to trust anyone.”

“Then why am I here?”

“Because I refuse to go to my grave without some hope of justice. We’ve tried taking this to the press. We handed them the fucking evidence. But no one gives a shit.” He looked at Olena. “Show them your arm. Show them what Ballentree did to you.”

Olena tugged her sleeve above her elbow and pointed to a jagged scar.

“You see?” said Joe. “What they put in her arm?”

“Ballentree? Are you talking about the defense contractor?”

“Latest microchip technology. A way for Ballentree to track its property. She was human cargo, brought over straight from Moscow. A little business that Ballentree operates on the side.”

Jane looked back at the ceiling. Suddenly she realized that there were other fresh holes in the acoustic tiles. She glanced at the two men, but they were still focused on each other. No one else was looking upward; no one else saw that the ceiling was now riddled with punctures.

“So this is all about a defense contractor?” said Gabriel, his voice perfectly even, revealing no hint of the skepticism he surely felt.

“Not just any defense contractor. We’re talking about the Ballentree Company. Direct ties to the White House and Pentagon. We’re talking about executives who make billions of dollars every time we go to war. Why do you think Ballentree lands almost all the big contracts? Because they own the White House.”

“I hate to tell you this, Joe, but this isn’t exactly a new conspiracy theory. Ballentree is everyone’s bogeyman these days. A lot of people are itching to bring them down.”

“But Olena can actually do it.”

Gabriel looked at the woman, his gaze dubious. “How?”

“She knows what they did in Ashburn. She’s seen what kind of people these are.”