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“Go for a drive?”

“Oh. Okay.” He frowned. “But can you give me a half hour? I’ve got something in the car, some seafood my wife is waiting on. I’d like to get that home first. I’ll tell her I forgot something and have to come back into town.”

Charlie shrugged.

As they walked toward the register, Peter Quinn said, speaking softly, “Did you come here just to talk with me?”

“I did.”

“Why? What’s it about?”

“My father. I’ll tell you when you return. How about if I meet you outside, in front of the McDonald’s in half an hour.”

Quinn looked at his watch. “Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. Sure.”

Charlie walked out of the store. Sat in his rental and waited. He watched Peter Quinn emerge, his eyes scanning the lot but not finding him. Then he saw Quinn drive away among the shedding trees, back toward his house on the mountainside, and wondered if he would return.

PETER QUINN’S ESCAPE
showed up nine minutes late. Charlie walked across the parking lot, opened the passenger door, and climbed in.

“This is a bit of a surprise,” Quinn said. He cleared his throat and coughed unnecessarily. “Nothing funny going on here, I hope.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, this isn’t some kind of set-up or anything, is it?”

“What are you talking about? What kind of set-up?”

“Any kind.”

Charlie saw that his hands were nervous. There was a large worn padded envelope on the seat between them. “No,” he said. “I’m just trying to gather some information.”

“Mmm hmm.” Quinn shifted gears. They drove for a while in silence, Charlie surveying the sidewalks and the woods. “Why now? What’s the occasion?”

“I’ve been thinking about my father’s death,” Charlie said. “And the project he was working on.” Quinn was silent. “The Lifeboat Inquiry.”

“Mmm,” he said. “What’s your interest?”

“Personal, mostly. I think what my father was looking at threatened some people. Caused some to want to silence him.”

“Mmm hmm.” Quinn cleared his throat.

“And I think maybe he was killed because of it.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Charlie watched the scenery, letting that settle. “He was concerned in particular that so much of Project Lifeboat was being outsourced. And that some of the people involved had been recruited by pharmaceuticals researchers, for a separate project.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Quinn was gripping the wheel with both hands.

“Why would a pharmaceuticals company be interested in genetic engineering of the flu virus, do you think?”

“Vaccine research always interests them. Anticipating the next diseases, I guess. It’s obscene the way that industry has grown. The biggest growth going forward, of course, will be in emerging nations. Where it’s going to be easier to sell illegal drugs and cut corners on regulation.”

Mallory noticed Quinn’s right eye twitch.

“He was concerned about that, wasn’t he?”

“Mmm hmm. Demographics. That’s going to be the next war, he used to say.”

“Yes. And you thought my father’s concern was valid?”

“I did, yes. Maybe he pushed it too much on occasion. I don’t know. I decided long ago not to play too long in games you can’t win. But that’s me.” He cleared his throat and slid his right hand along the side of the steering wheel. “It’s very difficult to be a whistleblower in the position he was in. The CIA has its own internal rules on the release of classified information, as you know. But to go to the Inspector General with a complaint, you first have to get approval from the CIA brass. Which sort of defeats the whole purpose of whistleblowing. That’s how it seemed to me, anyway.”

“This was something you thought you couldn’t win.”

“That’s what I thought.” He gestured resignedly. “I have to be honest, I feel a little guilty that I jumped ship. I think about that a lot. I saw your brother’s story recently, by the way.” He slowed down, coasted and then pulled off into a gravel clearing beside the road. “The reason I asked you to give me a half hour wasn’t because of my wife’s seafood.” He smiled, showing crooked teeth. He lowered his window. Mallory heard the sound of water trickling over stones in the woods. “I wanted to get something. Make copies for you.”

“Okay.”

He lifted the envelope and handed it to Charles Mallory.

“That’s yours. Several things in there might interest you.” He took a deliberate breath. Mallory saw the vapor as he exhaled. “Right before they shut the Lifeboat Inquiry down, your father wrote a memo about a disaster preparedness plan. I don’t know how he found out about it. It was something that a consulting firm in Houston, Texas, had done, apparently for this pharmaceuticals firm. A plan that basically looked at various disaster scenarios, one of which was for a runaway flu virus.”

“Where? In Africa?”

“No. Three counties in Pennsylvania.”

“What? Why would a disaster plan for Pennsylvania interest him?”

“No idea, but it did. He gave me a copy of part of it—all he had. It’s in there.”

Mallory breathed the cold mountain air, thinking of the other questions his father had passed along to him.

“Did he ever mention someone named Isaak Priest?”

“Yeah. Of course.” He waited as a truck whooshed by from the
other direction. “He was one of the main conduits into Africa, supposedly. A lot of money went through him.” He added, “Your father had a funny feeling about that, though.”

“How do you mean?”

“He wondered if Isaak Priest was a real person. He thought maybe he didn’t actually exist.”

“
What?
”

“He thought it was an invention.”

“But he has a past. You can Google his name and get newspaper stories. Going back ten, fifteen years.”

“I know. But that’s assuming you believe what you get on the Internet is real.” He half-smiled at Charlie. “Your father questioned the integrity of those records. Sure, you could go online and find a story about Isaak Priest from The
Washington Post
from ten years ago. It might even show up on the
Post
archives if you go to their website. But if you actually went back and found the physical newspaper for that date, you’d find that the story wasn’t there.”

“Why did he think
that
?”

“He didn’t
think
it, he
knew
it. He went back and found hard copy of the newspapers for two specific stories. And those stories were never in the paper. They didn’t exist. They were created after the fact.” He nodded to the envelope. “It’s in there, too. For what it’s worth. Take it with you. There’s more,” he said. “I couldn’t find everything in twenty minutes. Some of it’s boxed up. I can get it for you in another day or two if you’re going to be around.”

“No, I’m not. But I’ll give you an address, where you can send it.”

“Okay.” He sighed and looked up at the mountains, his breath dispersing in the cold air. His eyes seemed to twinkle for a second. “You know what, between you and me? I’m sort of glad you found me. I really am.”

IT WAS EARLY
evening alongside the Green Monkey River. The circle of the sun had already dropped from sight, but its light burned reddish-orange across the tops of the western mountains and above the deserted coffee plantations and squatter farms. The hardwood room with the western picture windows was sparsely furnished—a large redwood desk, wicker sitting chairs, two simple lamps, file cabinets, Mancala dragon rugs.

Isaak Priest went back to the computer monitor and studied the electronic map of the nation. Sites where they had purchased land, set up businesses. Many already operating: wind and solar farms, supply routes. A pattern no one had noticed yet.

Then he saw that there had been another encrypted message from the Administrator. The man in Oregon. The last deal had been completed.
The payment transferred
. Finally: there was nothing now that could stop the operation from going forward. It was nine days until the “World Series” began. October 5.

JON MALLORY SAT IN
the Costa coffee bar in Terminal 4 at Heathrow Airport, waiting for his British Airways flight back to Dulles. He finished a panini and Italian coffee, then used his international calling card to reach Roger Church. It was eight o’clock in London—three o’clock in Washington.

His editor picked up on the second ring. “Church.”

“Roger, it’s Jon.”

He heard the familiar sigh—a little more drawn out than usual. “Jon. Where are you?”

“In transit. What’s the reaction been to the story?”

“Amazing. No words to describe it.”

“Good.”

There was something tentative, though, in his voice.

“Are you on your way home?”

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. We’ll talk when you’re back.”

Jon clicked off. He walked the airport corridors for a while, browsing the shop windows, anticipating familiar surroundings and routines, but he also realized that he was heading toward a place he had never been before. He sat on a bench, closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate. But it wasn’t any good. Opened or closed, it didn’t matter. The images still flashed through his thoughts: the faces of the dead, eyes opened as if they were looking back at him, as if they were trying to convey some message to him.

“A
LEC
T
OMKIN
”
CAUGHT
the 11:34
A.M
. American Airlines flight from Miami to Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport on the island of St. Kitts. He rented a Dodge Charger at the airport and drove along the coast road south of Basseterre.

It was Sunday, September 27. At 3:28, Tomkin was idling in front of a large, gated, walled home. Two minutes later, the gate opened.

Charlie drove forward, parking next to the house. Joseph Chaplin, the director of operations for Mallory’s firm, was seated at a desk in what had been the living room, but which had been divided into two enclosed offices. In the next office was Chidi Okoro, a lanky, long-legged West African man who served as his communications director.

It was balmy on St. Kitts, eighty degrees. The mountains of Nevis were visible five miles across the green Caribbean water. From a boat, this home looked like any other beachfront property, with deck chairs, umbrellas, a boat dock. But its actual function was as one of the bases for D.M.A. Associates, Charles Mallory’s company.

“How’s it look?”

He took a seat in front of Chaplin’s desk.

“A lot of movement. Your brother’s story is causing a stir. The government of Sundiata is adamantly denying it, of course.”

“What’s the public reaction?”

He pushed several reports across to Charles Mallory. “Not a lot,” he said.

Charlie sighed. “Is Sandra Oku okay?”

“Yes. She’s fine.”

“Good. Kip?”

“No.” Chaplin lowered his gaze. “He didn’t make it out.”

Charles Mallory turned away.
Another casualty
. Another witness gone. Another good man dead.

He stood and took Quinn’s packet into the next office.

“I’ve got something here,” he said. “Hard copy and disk.”

“Okay.” Okoro watched him through the thick lenses of his black, rectangular glasses.

“It’s called a ‘tri-county emergency preparedness report.’ Three townships in Western Pennsylvania. Something about it’s not right.”

He handed it to Okoro, who studied the map on the front of the report. He was a soft-spoken man, Nigerian, who didn’t talk much, but he was a brilliant computer technician. He had worked a succession of related jobs—imaging analyst, digital forensics researcher, digital security consultant—before Charlie had hired him as the company’s digital and communications director. It was Chaplin, though, who had recruited him, and Okoro still seemed more comfortable with Chaplin than with Mallory, or anyone else on the team.

“How long are you here?” Chaplin said. He was standing in the doorway.

“Not long. Just a few hours. I have an appointment overseas tomorrow.” He took a deep breath, thinking about Kip Nagame. “Think I’ll go for a swim.” He turned to Okoro, who was still watching him with his magnified eyes. “I also need to know everything you can find on Douglas Chase. He’s an attorney based in Houston who might have some connection with the Hassan terrorism network.”

His communications director did not acknowledge his request, but Mallory knew it had registered. Okoro just did things a little differently; that was okay.

“Oh, and Thomas Trent has been trying to reach you,” Chaplin said.

“Has he?” Charlie nodded, feeling again the burden of what had already been lost—his father, Paul Bahdru, Kip, a couple of hundred thousand innocent people in Sundiata—and what was potentially still ahead. He was reluctant to contact Trent again, though, knowing that Trent was under surveillance. And that they had agreed
not
to contact each other. They lacked the communications armor of the other side. It was why he was so guarded in his dealings with his brother. He had to be. He couldn’t jeopardize losing him. But he had to fulfill a promise, made to their father.

THE SEA WAS
clear and cool, and it felt good to glide down through the water, to touch the grainy bottom and swim back toward the light. A brief interlude. Charlie had bought this waterfront property with his last government salary paycheck because St. Kitts was a place his grandfather had once come to do missionary work. That detail had stuck to his memory all of his life; he didn’t know why. It was the only piece of property Charles Mallory owned, although his company leased land in Africa and in Switzerland.

When Charlie came in from the beach, wrapped in a Carib Lager beach towel and wearing flip-flops, he saw Okoro standing in the doorway of his office, giant eyes watching him expectantly through his glasses.

“Encrypted,” Okoro said, sitting back at his desk. “Nothing to do with Pennsylvania.”

“I didn’t think so. What is it?”

“Steganographic code.”
Charlie stepped closer, saw what was on Okoro’s computer monitors. Steganography was a form of encryption that hid messages inside the pixels of image files. Terrorists had used it for years to send messages through online pornographic sites and other websites. “Fairly simple. Meant for limited distribution.”