Collision

“Adam wouldn’t try to expose undercover cops or CIA agents or anybody working for good.” She shook her head. “Never. Not on purpose.”

“I don’t believe he knew he was searching for covert government agents. Maybe he was told they were bad guys. Did he ever mention to you that someone wanted to fund this software?”

“He mentioned once, a guy named Sam Hector-that Mr. Hector might fund his research. But this was months ago. I called him today when I realized the government had taken all of Adam’s ideas. I thought he could help me. He said he’d come talk to me about how we could get Adam’s research back from the government.”

“I know Sam.”

“Oh, good.”

“Not really. He dragged his heels on helping me. It wasn’t like him.” He wondered if Sam was feeling his own set of pressures from the government. Maybe Sam knew much more than what he was saying.

“Well, Mr. Hector’s coming here and he’s going to help me.”

And he would do nothing for me that wasn’t under his own terms. What the hell was wrong with Sam? Bitterness rose into Ben’s throat. “Then he must see more value in helping you than helping me. Delia, this is huge. Have you told anyone, the police, about what Adam was doing?”

She made a face. “There was a Homeland woman here, but she acted like I was shit on her shoe.”

“Joanna Vochek.”

“You know her?”

“Yes. She might believe me.”

“She didn’t believe a word I said,” Delia said. “I’m supposed to call her if I remember anything else.” She pushed Vochek’s number at him; he opened the paper, memorized the number. He might need it soon.

He handed her back the paper. “But you believe me.”

She nodded. “Yes. I do.”

The doorbell rang.

“Is Sam on his way over here now?” Ben asked. Delia hurried to the front door.

“Yeah,” she said. She put her eye to the peephole.

Jackie had been sitting in the Mercedes, puzzling over how to get into Delia Moon’s house without a fuss when Ben Forsberg-the civilian from the parking garage last night-pulled up in a white Explorer.

He waited, watched Ben talk his way into the woman’s house. Interesting. He called Hector’s number. No answer. He left a message. Waited a few minutes and Hector called back.

“Her and Forsberg are here together.”

“Then why the hell are you calling me? Kill them.”

“I’m calling because you’re pretty freaking particular about how things are done,” Jackie said. He ended the call and walked out to the house. Rang the doorbell, bold in the daylight. Saw the peephole’s flick of light get eclipsed by whoever was answering the door.

Jackie fired his Glock through the peephole.

23

Indonesia, Ten Years Ago

Randall Choate had read through the Dragon’s files on Blood of Fire: a new group, disorganized, usually crippled by internal squabbling. Suspicion linked them to several murders in the Muslim community in Sydney, to two killings in Lebanon, to a bombing in Cairo. Very bad guys.

Clearly the man had done his research, thought out the possibilities, analyzed the risks and minimized them.

But the Dragon’s network of informants was gone, destroyed in less than a day. Which meant… what? A single source had betrayed the whole network? One informant knew about the rest? That did not seem likely to him. The Dragon, the legend, had made a mistake along the line and now Choate was stuck with him as a partner.

But he liked the plan; he would do the dangerous work with a computer and a keyboard; the Dragon could do the dirtier work of killing Gumalar and his terrorist liaison, once located.

Four hours after Agency hackers in a small lab in Gdansk, Poland, launched a 3 A.M. cyber attack on Gumalar’s bank, Randall Choate sat down at a bank computer wearing a suit, a tie, and a visitor’s pass. His ID indicated he was with Tellar Data.

“You can clean up from the attack?” The bank’s information technology manager stood behind him, arms crossed. The thin sheen of a sweat mustache shone on his lip. It had been a most stressful morning.

“Yes. The problem is the hackers.” Choate was supposed to be an asshole.

“I would like actionable insight, please,” the manager said.

Choate began a long, technical run-on sentence about repairing the databases, with atomic-level detail about checking field integrity before repopulating the records, operating seamlessly with front-end enterprise transactions, and other murmurings of reassurance. All would be well and they could restore any damaged records from the backups. The IT manager asked pointed questions and Choate gave correct responses. When he was done (the manager had begun to fidget), Choate jerked his arms, so the cuffs of his shirt and his sleeves went up, a maestro ready to work.

The IT manager left him to his labors.

Choate started the search, loading a program that would not leave a trace of its passing, hiding behind a series of protocols to check the database integrity. In addition to searching for corrupted records, the program hunted for the five aliases Gumalar used to funnel money to the suspected Blood of Fire terror cell.