Final Winter

Photos came up… and…

‘Fuck,’ Blythe whispered.

Both shots taken yesterday at the Customs crossing in Washington State. The original photos were displayed, showing two men talking to a Customs officer. And there, the photos in the intelligence database, showing what had been triggered. She didn’t know all the particulars, but she did know that the facial-recognition software looked at key points on a person’s face, everything from the size of the nose to the distance between the eyes to hair length and color.

First up, Yemeni national called Imad Yussef Hakim, age twenty-three, connected to al-Qaeda and other Islamic groups, traveling with—

A Russian national believed to be dead. Who certainly wasn’t. Jesus.

Vladimir Zhukov.

And then Blythe saw his background and—

She opened a side drawer so hard that people around her craned their heads in her direction to see what was going on. In the drawer, sitting alone, was a thin folder, bound by a red paper ribbon. She lifted up the folder, broke the paper seal, and opened it. Her hands were shaking. She had never opened this type of folder before, except during training, so many innocent months ago.

Blythe flipped open the thin red cardboard cover. A single sheet was stapled inside with three instructions:

DENOTE DATE AND TIME OF WATCH LIST MATCH.

With a black Bic pen, she did just that.

CONTACT EXTENSION 4444.

She picked up the phone, dialed the four digits.

IDENTIFY YOURSELF AND REPORT STATUS TO OPERATOR.

A bored young man’s voice: ‘This is Operator Four-four-four-four.’

‘This is Blythe Coonrod, Redmond Station. I have a Watch List match.’

‘Your monitor identification?’

She peered at the letter and number sequence embossed on the sleek black plastic case.

‘Four one two, B as in Bob, C as in Charlie.’

‘Repeating, four one two, B as in Bob, C as in Charlie.’

‘Correct.’

The man said, ‘Remain at your station, please. You’ll be contacted in sixty seconds or less for follow-up. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

The man hung up. So did Blythe.

She folded her arms. She suddenly no longer had the urge to go to the bathroom.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It was early morning in Memphis, and Brian Doyle sat alone, back in his room, sipping a cup of coffee, watching the hazy early-morning sunshine over the Mississippi River. He felt tired and flat and tangled up. What had happened last night with Adrianna had happened, and he didn’t feel guilty about it. Not at all. It had been nice and delightful and tasty and all that good stuff. But what was pissing him off was what had happened about an hour ago. The woman had woken up in a panic, like she had realized that instead of bedding Mr Right she had bedded Mr My-God-I-Can’t-Believe-What-I’ve-Done.

So Adrianna had bustled him out of her room, thoughts of having breakfast together put aside, thoughts about what he had said about his dad put aside, his demand to be sent back to New York put aside. All put aside. Hell, even what he had going on for today: put aside. As he had left Adrianna had called out, ‘Take the day off, Brian. I’ve got other meetings with the General and his people… please, take some time.’

Which was a pretty clear message. Brian had fulfilled his duty earlier, with Adrianna using his father’s death to score points with the General, and to get the General and his company to sign on for Final Winter.

Duty.

He went over to his luggage, picked up a carry-on case. It was locked and he put in the combination, popped it open, and from inside he took out a file folder. Presented to him a few days ago by the good colonel, the Director of the Tiger Teams. A peek into Adrianna Scott’s life and background. Part of his job with the Tiger Team, part of his secret duty.

Brian held the file in his hand. He’d remembered earlier that he was going to review this file once Final Winter was done and over, and that had made sense at the time. But now…What the hell, if Adrianna had told him to take the day off, then what was he going to do today? Go to Graceland? Stay here and watch soaps and order room service?

He went over to a small round wooden table, sat down, opened the file and started to read.

~ * ~

In Maryland, Montgomery Zane was in the small kitchen area near the conference room, which was next to the offices for his fellow Tiger Team members. The damn place was empty, with the Princess, the cop and the doc out on a run to Memphis, and the code-puzzler not having shown up yet. Which was fine, since lots of times the Tiger Team members kept to their own lives and schedules and long ago, coming in, he had reserved the right to go on special missions without much oversight from the Princess. Like his recent adventures overseas, triggered only by pager and text messages from those who had the power. No big deal.