I almost laughed. 'The NSA is the largest and most secret intelligence agency in the United States. Everything they do is classified. It would take a court order to get a cop past the front gate at Fort Meade.'
'This isn't Fort Meade.'
'To the NSA, it is. Look, until I talk to the president, we're on our own. Do you understand?'
She looked down at the growing pool of blood. 'Maybe he is a street punk.'
'Don't you get it? This is why they stole my file from your office!'
'What?'
'They already knew they were going to kill you.'
She opened her mouth but said nothing.
'Otherwise they would have photocopied the file and left it in place. They wanted nothing left in your office for the Durham police to connect you to the project.'
She was shaking her head, but my logic was difficult to refute. I stuck the automatic into my waistband and picked up my.38.
'We have to get out of here. Fast. There could be oth¬ers close by.'
Her eyes went wide. 'Others?'
Suddenly I saw it all. 'The XSA taps my phones. When they heard Ewan McCaskell leave his message, they knew I hadn't spoken to the president yet. That's all they were waiting for. I was too excited to see the implications.'
I grasped her hand. It was cold and limp. 'We have to run, Rachel. Right now. If we don't, we'll die here.'
'Run where?'
'Anywhere. Nowhere. We have to disappear.'
'No. We haven't done anything wrong.'
'That doesn't matter.' I pointed at the man on the floor and saw that he was no longer breathing. 'Do you think that corpse is one of my hallucinations?'
'You killed him,' she said in the voice of a child.
'And I'd do it again. He was about to fire a bullet into your head.'
She wobbled on her feet. I steadied her, then led her to the guest bedroom where I'd lain unconscious only minutes ago.
'Stay here. I have to get something.' I tried to put my.38 in her hand, but she recoiled. 'Keep it,' I insisted, closing her fingers around it. 'If you leave this house alone, you'll be killed.'
She stared hollow-eyed at me.
I took the silenced automatic from my waistband and checked to make sure the safety was off. 'Promise me you won't leave.'
''I won't leave,' she said dully.
I left the guestroom and raced upstairs. My bedroom was on the left side of the landing. On the right was a bedroom I used for storage. I pulled an old chair into the closet of that room and stood on it. With my arms stretched high, I could just reach the plywood panel that gave access to the attic. I pushed out the wooden square, then lifted myself by main strength and wedged my body through the space.
Standing half-erect to avoid the roofing nails jutting down from above, I balanced on two rafters and looked around to get my bearings. Enough light was showing through the eaves and vents to show my way. I crept twenty feet to my left and knelt. Lying on pink fiberglass insulation were a hammer and crowbar I'd left there four weeks ago, as though dropped carelessly. I picked them up and moved quickly to an area floored with quarter-inch plywood.
Jamming the crowbar into a seam between two pieces of wood, I hammered it deeper, then leaned heavily on the bar. The plywood splintered. I shoved the end of the bar through the resulting hole, then jerked upward, ripping open a two-foot section of wood. From the dark cavity below I removed a small nylon gym bag and unzipped it. The light filtering through the eaves illuminated the rec¬tangular outlines of a passport and two thick bundles. The bundles were stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Twenty thousand dollars' worth.
Five weeks ago, when Fielding told me I needed to cache a bag like this, I'd laughed at him. But he had known this day would come. Zipping the bag shut, I crab-walked across the rafters to the access hole, then dropped the bag onto the closet floor. My arms quivered from strain as I lowered myself back down to the chair and pulled the plywood square back over the opening.
When my feet hit the floor, an image of Rachel run¬ning from the house in panic filled my mind. I grabbed the bag and ran downstairs.
She was still sitting on the bed, her eyes blank with shock.
'Time to go,' I told her. 'Are you ready?'
She blinked but said nothing.
I took her free hand and pulled her to her feet. 'I need you to keep it together for five minutes. After that, you can collapse if you need to. Here we go.'
I led her through the hall and kitchen to the laundry room, which opened into the garage. Leaving her there, I retrieved Fielding's box from the back door, then returned and took my.38 back from her.
'Hold this,' I said, giving her the box. 'Wait here till I call for you.'
Without pausing long enough for fear to take hold, I threw open the door from the house to the garage and charged through with the automatic extended, traversing it right and left to cover all angles of fire.
The garage looked empty.
I made a quick circuit of my Acura, then dropped to my knees and looked beneath it. 'Come on!' I shouted. 'Hurry!'
Rachel's shoes hissed on the smooth cement. I opened the passenger door for her, then took Fielding's box and set it on the backseat. 'If anything bad's going to hap¬pen, it's going to happen right now,' I said, getting behind the wheel. 'Get down in your seat.'
She slid to the floor. The top of her head showed above the doorframe. I pushed it down, then started the engine and put the car in reverse.
'Stay down.'
I touched the remote control clipped to my visor. The garage door motor groaned above us, and the wide white door began to rise. With the killer's gun clenched in my hand, I watched for the silhouette of legs in the growing rectangle of sunlight.
I saw nothing.
The instant the garage door cleared roof height, I gunned the engine. The Acura shot backward over the cement and into blinding sunlight. I hit the remote to lower the garage door, then spun the wheel left. I didn't touch the brake until the car was pointed up Willow Street.
'What's happening?' Rachel cried, alarmed by my sudden stop.
'Stay down!'
I'd planned to drive calmly if the street was clear, but as we stopped, I could almost feel an unseen marksman taking aim. I shifted into DRIVE, floored the accelerator, and fishtailed up Willow, leaving six feet of rubber on the pavement behind us.
CHAPTER 13
In the Trinity building's control center, Geli Bauer stood absolutely still and spoke into her headset.
'We heard a shot. In Tennant's house.'
'Isn't that what you expected?' Skow asked.
Idiot. 'No. Ritter had a silenced weapon.'
'And Tennant was carrying his gun last night.'
'Right.'
Skow processed this in silence. 'That doesn't mean Ritter failed.'
'No. In fact, I can't imagine a scenario like that.'
'Good. What do you want to do?'
