At that precise moment, her gaze was drawn to a metallic flash as the door to McKinsey’s building opened. A young woman in a broad-brimmed hat, stiletto-heeled boots, and stylish reflective raincoat stepped out. In one arm, she cradled one of those tiny teacup poodles with a rhinestone-studded collar. She put the dog down on the sidewalk and attached the leash. As she and the poodle trotted down the broad stone steps, McKinsey emerged and scanned the immediate vicinity. Naomi froze, scarcely daring to breathe.
Apparently satisfied, he went down the steps and headed for his car. She leaned forward, her hand on the ignition key, her right foot on the brake. The idea was to start her car when he did, so he wouldn’t hear it. Her eyes followed McKinsey as he got into his car and slid behind the wheel. The instant he leaned forward to slot the key, she fired her ignition. A moment later, he pulled out. She counted silently to ten, then followed him into the traffic of Cathedral Avenue.
He took her south and then west into Georgetown. Turning left off M Street, he drove down to the water and parked. For some time, he sat in the car with the driver’s side window down, smoking. In no hurry, he appeared to be staring out at the water.
At precisely 6:14, he got out of the Ford and strolled down to the water. Elbows on the railing, he leaned out over the water and stared down. Naomi stepped out onto the sidewalk and followed his path to the east side of the Sequoia Center. As she did so, McKinsey did a strange thing. He straddled the railing, then dropped over the water side.
Naomi broke into a run. A motor coughed to life. She arrived at the railing just in time to see McKinsey standing beside a man driving a small motorboat. They were heading out to Theodore Roosevelt Island. Naomi caught a glimpse of the man McKinsey had gone to meet. He was in his mid to late thirties, athletic in build, with thick, dark hair, curling at his neck. He sported a full beard. There was a flash of dark predator’s eyes, set deep in his skull, before the boat swept away in a white spray of wake.
Naomi slammed her fists into the top rail and wondered what the hell her partner was up to.
THEY WERE already high in the foothills of the Korab mountains by the time the talons of dawn scraped the eastern horizon. At first, there was just a thin line of red, then, in the space of a heartbeat, the terrain was flooded with a golden light so dazzling they were forced to don sunglasses.
Alli walked between Paull on point and Jack at the rear. The trio wore climbing boots, jeans, and camouflage microfiber windbreakers. They carried ArmaLite AR 25 assault rifles, featherweight backpacks stuffed with food, water, and the DARPA weapons Paull had procured.
The ground’s pitch steepened, the dips more shallow and, at the same time, the way became more rugged. The switchback path was strewn with larger and larger rocks, and clots of loose earth that skittered and slid out from under their boot soles, tumbling backward down the slope. Trees were bent as old men, twisted by the high winds of storms, and the scrub took on the lackluster color of clay, looking more dead than alive. High above them, hawks circled and dipped on the thermals, searching for prey.
With daylight full blown, Paull called a halt and they made temporary camp in the shadow of an enormous boulder, leaning like a giant’s tooth knocked off true. They drank and ate a little, then took turns at lookout while the others dozed. When it was Alli’s turn to stand guard, Jack rose and picked his way to stand beside her.
“Did you find anything interesting on Uncle Hank’s cell?”
Her voice was soft and hushed, her eyes moving across the terrain, searching for any movement, anything out of place.
“Yes and no,” Jack said. “There are only two numbers on that phone, odd enough in and of itself, but to make matters more mysterious both are assigned a single letter—A and D—rather than a name. The designations could be the first letter of names, or some code of your uncle’s devising.” He gestured. “Out here, there’s no way of connecting with these numbers, so I’ll have to wait to check them out.”
Alli gave him a swift glance. “You think this means he knows about the Stem? About Dardan?”
“This cell, these coded numbers, may concern something altogether different, Alli. It’s too soon to tell.” Discussing Henry Holt Carson brought home to Jack a duty he had been reluctant to perform. There was no time like the present, he thought. Still, the trauma Alli had so recently sustained made this difficult task even more so.
“Alli, there’s something I need to tell you. I know your uncle neglected to tell you.” He took a breath, let it out. “The night Billy was murdered … your mother passed away.”
Alli said nothing. She stared out at the unfamiliar terrain, blindingly outlined against a sky so blue that without sunglasses it made your eyes hurt. Hardwood, pines, miles of granite, split and jagged. Not a hint of human habitation anywhere.
Jack could hear her breathing. “I’m so sorry. I’ll miss her.”
“Uncle Hank knew?”
“Of course. He was called to the hospital, as were Dennis and I. They tried to contact you, but by then Fearington was in lockdown.”
Alli’s breathing seemed to shorten, to quicken. “Why didn’t he tell me?” She turned to Jack, tears glittering in the corners of her eyes. “When I was at his house, when he locked me into his study, why didn’t Uncle Hank tell me?”
“I can’t answer that,” Jack said softly. “But it’s possible that being angry at him isn’t the way to go at this moment.”
She didn’t respond.
“Alli?”
She shook her head fiercely. “I can’t think about them—either of them.”
“You will, sometime.” His voice was both soft and gentle. “The longer you wait—”
“Shit,” she said, and walked away.
Jack watched her for a time, a tiny, lone sentinel. Her back was ramrod straight, her stance as fiercely battle-ready as any soldier.
A stirring at his side alerted him.
“That she is, Emma.”
NAOMI SPENT a very frustrating day with Pete, collating all the information they had amassed, including the forensics on the knife found behind Alli’s room in Fearington, which indicated that it was, indeed, Billy’s blood on the blade. However, the handle had been wiped clean, which was consistent with both a premeditated murder and a conspiracy to set up Alli.
“The bloody knife is such a clumsy attempt to frame Alli,” she said. They sat at facing desks, close enough for easy conversation. “I don’t get it.”
He picked his head up from his paperwork. He looked neat and tidy. He was freshly shaved. It looked as if his nails had been waxed. “What do you mean?”
“First the vial of roofies with Alli’s fingerprints is found under her bed. Pretty damning, no? But then this bloody knife. Who in their right mind would dump a murder weapon behind where they live?”
“You forget, Naomi. She’s not in her right mind. Hasn’t been, apparently, since she was abducted.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “You’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
He seemed peculiarly disinterested, she thought, or unusually distracted. Maybe that amounted to the same thing.
“It’s as if she was set up, then given this loophole.”
“I don’t agree.” He shook out a cigarette, then, remembering he couldn’t smoke in the office, shoved it back into the pack. “Why should she care about us finding the murder weapon if her prints aren’t on it?”
She ran a hand distractedly through her hair. She was suddenly sick of him.
“What have you found out about Qershi Holdings, the company that rented out the space where the Stem was transacting their business?”
“Exactly zippo.” Naomi was aware of how flat her voice sounded. She bitterly hated failure. Whoever said that you can’t handle success until you’ve failed was full of shit. “It’s a shell corporation, doing business out of the
