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His weird talent had been the cause of his wife's death. Would it now take his daughter's life as well?

TOM MOORE STARED AT HIS DESK,
which was piled high with top secret government files, profiles of
the world's most threatening terrorist groups,
and all other manner of classified information. At this moment, though, the most important document on it was the unfinished letter to his daughter.

Dearest Gaia,

I was closer to you Saturday night than I've been in years. Close enough to be reminded that you have my eyes, your mother's nose, and our combined determination.

Close enough to see you nearly shot.

Close enough to save your life.

The pen trembled in his hand. Thank God he'd been there. His bullet had only hit the punk's shoulder, but it had been enough. For the moment, at least. Gaia had gotten away. Maybe the bullet had sent a message:
Back off. Stand down. Give up.
Tom could only hope. And anyway, there were other dangers stalking Gaia -- ones far more grave, far less predictable.

One, he knew, was a sick son of a bitch with whom, forty-some-odd years ago, Tom had shared a womb.

The thought made him physically ill. His brother. His twin brother. A deadly psychopath with a vendetta against Tom. Loki. Tom knew the name from the re-search his outfit provided. But he would have known it, anyway.

When they were children, his brother had fixated on the idea of Loki, the Norse god.
A Satan-like hero, consumed by darkness and evil.
It was no wonder that as an adult, he would adopt this moniker, under which to pursue his hateful purpose.

Tom said the word out loud. "Loki." It literally stung his vocal cords.

But what about his own name, his undercover name? Enigma, they called him. Definition: anything that arouses curiosity or perplexes because it is unexplained, inexplicable, or secret.

He gave a humorless laugh. Yes. That I am, he thought. I am a secret to my own child.

The name was dead-on.
Tom Moore was an enigma,
even to himself. He had been from childhood, when his remarkable talent had begun to make itself known. Why was he able to think the way he did? Why was he capable of solving the unsolvable? Why could his brain take in seemingly random patterns of words and numbers and make sense of them? He could decode, decipher, predict, and presume with terrifying accuracy.

In high school he'd discovered, much to his amusement, that he could open any combination lock in the building.
Handy for dropping little love notes into the lockers of cute girls
(his buddy Steve's idea, and favorite pastime). But even now, so many years later, he still wanted to know why he could work codes and riddles so easily. Not
how
. He didn't care how, but how
come?
Why should this responsibility have fallen to him?

And it was such an awesome responsibility. He had no formal, written job description. In fact, as far as he knew, there was not a shred of printed information on him anywhere. But in his own mind he'd boiled his job description down to one sentence:
Save the world.

Perhaps it was better that this ability had wound itself into the double helix of his DNA instead of his twin brother's. At least, Tom told himself, he used his skill for good. If Loki had been born with such a knack . . . Tom shuddered to think about it. Genetic predisposition was a freaky thing.

Gaia, for example.
Her body chemistry was a source of even greater astonishment.
It was as if the gods had said, "Let's give her brains, and beauty, and charm, and grace, and physical strength, but hold the fear. No use mucking up the gene pool with that useful emotion."

Again, why?

Tom let out a long rush of breath, expelling the question with the air in his lungs. He'd wondered too hard, too long on that one. Ironic: The only other conundrum besides himself that he couldn't solve was his own daughter.

So instead,
he hid from her.
And hid her, too.

Apparently not so well.

Because now Loki had her in his sights. And that filthy little street punk, whose ignorance was surpassed only by his willingness to hate, was stalking her.

Tom looked down at the unfinished letter, ran his finger over the greeting.

Dearest Gaia,

His talent had been the cause of his wife's death. Would it now take his daughter's life as well?

Not while there was breath left in his body, he vowed to himself.

He picked up his pen, hesitated, then added another line to the letter.

Daddy's home.

Then, as he did with every other note, letter, and card he'd written to Gaia over the last five years, he stuffed it into a file drawer and locked it away.

Not sending it was hard.

But sending it would make things so much harder.

KUDOS ON THE SUCCESSFUL COMPLE
tion of Test One. You are now to commit an act of theft -- a very specific act. George Niven has a computer disk that is of interest to us. You will find this disk and drop it off in Washington Square Park. There will be a man there to receive it. He will be disguised as a homeless man and he will have a cart. Bring the disk to him, Gaia, and do it fast. Time, after all, stops for no man. Not even for Sam ...

"They want me to steal from George," Gaia said, tearing her eyes from the note.

"Huh?" Ed blurted, following along as Gaia hurried down the hall, second period completely forgotten.

"What do they want one of George's disks for?" Gaia wondered aloud. She'd practically forgotten Ed was there. George used to be a Green Beret with her dad, and they'd been in the CIA together. Were the kidnappers somehow connected to the government?

Oh, shit. Maybe George still had connections. Maybe he had nude photos on someone in the Pentagon. Or maybe the disk simply contained his recipe for barbecue sauce, and this was just another sham test, to get her to prove she was in this 100 percent.

But what if it wasn't barbecue sauce? It was possible. After all, she'd sensed that
George had always known where her father was.
He never said anything; it was just this gut feeling she had. And now that her dad was back in town ...

Could something terrorist-related be going down in Washington Square Park? Something involving CJ and the late Marco, and all those other small-time white-supremacist swine?

And what did any of this have to do with Sam? Why hadn't they just
taken her?

If only they had just taken her.

"Gaia, have you heard a word I said?" Ed's voice suddenly broke through her stream of consciousness.

"No," she answered, unfazed.

"Well, I was just wondering if we're forgetting about school for the day, since you seem to be heading for the exit," Ed said.

Gaia stopped as the automatic door swung open with a loud buzz. "I think you should stay here," she said, glancing briefly at Ed's wide brown eyes.

"No way," Ed said determinedly. "This is no time to become Independent Girl." He pushed his way through the door and out onto the street. Fortunately, the school administration was a tad lax about keeping an eye on the handicap exits.

"Ed, I'm not
becoming
anything," Gaia said, stomping after him. A brisk October wind caught her hair and whipped it back from her face. "I just don't want you involved."

"I'm already involved," Ed said, staring straight ahead.

"Ed --"

"Gaia."

The tone of his voice made her pause. She might as well let him come home with her. She'd derail his efforts then. Somehow. She couldn't have him out on the street with her, where he was an easy target.

"Fine," she said, unwilling to let him get the last word. "But stay out of my way." She sidestepped past him and walked a few feet ahead, making sure to keep up a fast pace.

Gaia and Ed were halfway to George and Ella's house before either one of them spoke. Actually, she would have liked his advice, but how could she ask for it?

A) That would make her look needy, and she'd rather be dead than needy.

And

B) He didn't have all the facts.

As far as Ed could assume, George's computer files were most likely limited to bank statements and hints on preparing tangy marinades. He didn't know about George's past,
which might in fact turn out to be continuing on into his present.

The question: Was Gaia willing to turn over one computer disk, which might, perhaps (and that was one gigantic perhaps there), contain a bunch of classified government crap that could help some terrorist destroy the world?

Or could she just let Sam die?

"So . . . does this disk or file or whatever have a name?" Ed asked finally. "Maybe it'll give you some clue about what it is."

Loyal
and
smart, that was Ed. Gaia scanned the remainder of the note and found the name.

And stopped in her tracks.

The file was called Scaredy Cat.

ELLA HAD LEFT A NOTE. OBVIOUSLY
Gaia had overlooked it in the commotion of the morning.

She found it on the hall table when she barreled in.

Surprised George with a day trip to the country. We won't be home until late. Ella.

"Finally," said Ed. "Something goes your way."

"Lucky me," Gaia responded, crumpling the note and tossing it over her shoulder as she tore through the house toward George's office. The stupid note reeked of Ella's perfume -- some one-of-a-kind, New Age concoction she paid an arm and a leg for.
Some freaky witchlike person in Soho produced it exclusively for her. It smelled like dead roses on fire
and it made Gaia gag.

Gaia headed straight for the disk organizer on George's desk and quickly flipped through the contents. Nothing promising.

Like there was really going to be a disk marked Scaredy Cat in big red letters. Like anything could be that easy. Gaia pulled out a drawer and dumped the contents on the desk. Papers flew everywhere, and pencils, paper clips, and tacks scattered across the smooth wooden surface. A pair of worry beads hit the floor and rolled noisily into the corner.

"George is gonna love that," Ed said, wheeling into the room.

"Somehow neatness isn't my number one priority at the moment," Gaia said, rooting around in the mess. Again, nothing. Gaia groaned in frustration and went for the file cabinet.

Ed hit a key on the computer keyboard, reviving the machine from sleep mode. "Listen," he said, not taking his eyes off the screen, "I've become pretty proficient on this little modern convenience lately. I mean, until Arthur Murray comes up with swing lessons for paraplegics, there aren't a whole hell of a lot of ways for me to kill time."

Gaia didn't want to laugh, but for his sake she forced a smile.

"So I'm gonna hack around for a while and see if I can figure out who sent that e-mail," Ed said as the computer whirred to life.

"That's great," Gaia said absently. Great was an overstatement, but Ed locked up in George's office was a lot safer than Ed out on the street with some psycho kidnapper running around.

Gaia quickly leafed through files with yuppie titles like "IRS 1994" and "Appliance Warranties." She slammed the drawer so hard a framed certificate fell off the wall and clattered to the floor.

"Gaia, you're scaring me," Ed said.

"This is taking too long," she said, bringing her hand to her forehead and scanning the room for possible hiding places.

How many tests had the kidnappers set up? What if she didn't have time to complete them all?
That disk could be anywhere.
His briefcase. His underwear drawer. A safe-deposit box at some random bank. It could be with George in the country, for all she knew.

She glanced at the captain's clock on the wall. There was no time.

Gaia slammed her fist into the file cabinet. It didn't hurt nearly enough. But it did knock down a picture of Ella.

The picture clattered facedown on the desk. Gaia studied it for a moment. Pay dirt.

The front part of the frame wasn't sitting flush against the backing. It was bulging slightly, and there was a gap between the two parts. Gaia turned it sideways, gave one good shake, and the next thing she knew, she was holding several floppies, one of which was labeled Scaredy Cat. God, what a lucky break.

"I'm outta here," she said, grabbing her bag.

"Wait!"

But she couldn't wait. If she waited, she might have time to think about the fact that someone out there wanted information on her. Her. Not some secret government stash of anthrax or the plans to the Pentagon.

Her.

Gaia Moore.

And Sam might die because of it.

She wasn't waiting around to think about that.