“Louis Dockery. A homeless vet with a chest full of medals, including a pair of Purple Hearts and a Combat Bronze.”

Burns wagged his head, his silvery hair tipping onto his broad forehead. “So very sad. I can certainly relate to the Purple Heart, I have a pair of those myself.”

Donnelly said, “I have one of my own. But unfortunately the two ongoing wars are adding enormously to both the military and the VA’s burdens. There’s simply not enough funding to cover all the problems.”

Beth said, “Well, Washington better rework its priorities. I can’t think of a more important goal than taking care of the people who’ve defended this country with their blood.”

Burns patted his bad leg. “When I got out I sought psychiatric counseling, although there was a certain stigma attached to that. Hopefully it’s less so now.”

“Well, you turned out all right, so there’s hope.”

“Some would argue with that.”

“That there’s hope?”

Burns smiled. “No. That I turned out all right.”

Donnelly pointed to the teenagers set to receive their awards. “Now, go give them a great pep talk, Chief. In ten years they’ll be the first line of defense for this country.”

“Preventing attacks instead of responding to them, you mean?”

“Much better to crush the enemy before he can act instead of pulling the bodies of his victims out of the rubble. We save lives, Beth, you and I. We just do it a little differently in my part of the spectrum. But the goals are the same. Always remember that.”

The men walked off and a moment later Beth’s phone buzzed. She looked at the caller and her brow wrinkled. She almost didn’t answer.

“Mace, I’m right in the middle of something. Can this wait? What?” She listened intently for sixty seconds. “I’ll take care of it.” She clicked off, glanced at the FBI agent emceeing the program, and held up one finger. He nodded.

She rushed to a corner of the auditorium and made a call.

Lowell Cassell seemed surprised. “All right, Beth, if you say so. It’s easy enough to check for that. But if it’s true that certainly will complicate things.”

“Yes, it will.”

“How did you come by this theory?”

“Take one guess.”

“Your sister is keeping busy.”

Beth clicked off and rushed up to the stage to personally greet the teenagers and then settled at the lectern to begin her remarks.

From a far corner, Donnelly and Burns, who’d been watching her intently while she’d been on the calls, turned and left the room.

CHAPTER 84

THIS WAS a nice surprise.” Karl Reiger’s wife, Wendy, kissed him on the cheek as her husband flipped another burger on the grill.

“Kids had the day off so I thought what the hell. Nice, sunny day, summer around the corner.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. You’ve been working such long hours lately, sweetie.”

Reiger looked at his wife. She was in her mid-thirties, four years younger than him. She still possessed the classic beauty she had when they’d met in college. She wore jean shorts, a white sleeveless blouse, and a Washington Nationals ball cap over her shoulder-length light brown hair.

“Yeah, work is a real bitch right now.”

“Oh look, Don and Sally are here.”

Reiger glanced over at the driveway of his two-story brick house in Centreville, Virginia. Lots of federal agents lived out this way because everything inside the Beltway was far too expensive if your job was to merely risk your life in serving your country. Don Hope, his wife, and three kids were climbing out of a Dodge mini\van, hauling platters of food along with a baseball and several gloves. Hope’s two sons put down the food on a wooden picnic table set up in the backyard and joined Reiger’s two boys in throwing the ball around. The Hopes’ daughter, a ten-year-old, went into the house with Tammy Reiger, who’d just turned eleven. Sally gave Reiger a hug and then she and Wendy busied themselves getting the meal ready.

Don Hope shut the doors of the van, grabbed two beers from a cooler he’d brought, popped the tops, walked over to Reiger at the grill, and handed him one.

Reiger took a long pull of the drink, finishing half of it.

“Cookout?” said Hope. “Little surprised to get the call.”

“Why not? Normalcy. It’s been a while.”

“Guess you’re right about that. No orders yet?”

“Why I’m flipping burgers instead of the other thing.”

“You think Burns is setting us up to take the fall?”

“Every op I’ve gone into I’m prepared to be killed by the guys on the other side and screwed by the guys signing my paychecks.”

“Hell of a way to make a living, Karl.”

“I thought I’d be career military. See the world, good pension when you pull your time. Even do some good.”

“Me too. Then-”

“We were too good at what we did, Don. That’s why they came calling. They don’t pick the dregs, they go for the cream.”

“Feeling more like soured milk now.”

Reiger slid a burger onto a platter and slapped another piece of raw meat on the grill. “Why, because we keep missing Perry?”

“Dumb luck.”

“I’m not so sure about that. I’ve read up on her after Burns gave us the ‘Rome is burning’ lecture. Lady is good at what she does. No question. Hell, I’m surprised Burns didn’t try to recruit her at some point.”

Hope took a swallow of beer and watched the boys throwing the ball. “Sterilized weapons, cocked and locked. What bullshit. I’m a dad. I got a mortgage. I’ve been married fourteen years and I still have the hots big-time for my wife. I’m not some damn machine.”

“To them we are. That’s all we are. Fungible. Use up some shells, they got more where we came from. We’re just rounds in a magazine.”

“How many more do you figure?”

“Never really thought about it, because I could never verify my guess.”

“But why meet at the Pentagon? Especially since no one else there knows what we’re up to.”

Reiger prodded a burger with a long fork. “DNI isn’t like the spider at the center of the web. It’s more like the snake slithering through the backyard. A mandate to go everywhere, see everything. Pentagon is as big an intelligence player as they come. Used to going its own way, sucking down dollars and data. We saw that when we were in uniform, Don.”

“For sure we did.”

“But even it has to kowtow to DNI. And so Burns makes the rounds, has offices everywhere, Langley, NSA, National Geospatial.”

“And the Pentagon?”

“I know two- and three-star generals who hate the DNI’s guts for all the good it’ll do them. Sam Donnelly does the daily presidential intelligence briefings now instead of the DCI. Locked tight. You got the man’s ear and trust, you can’t lose. You’re golden.”

“Yeah, but Burns is a piece of work. Half of me wishes he’d drop from a stroke.”

“And the other half?” Reiger said grinning.

“Nothing you haven’t thought about.”

Reiger put some cheese on top of an almost done burger. “Read up on him too when we were recruited for this. Vietnam vet. One hard-ass guy. Medals out the ying-yang. Guy was as brave as they come, did his thing, laid it all out there for the Stars and Stripes. Flipped to the intelligence side soon as Saigon fell. Wounds made him unfit for active duty.”

“The leg.”

“Right. He’s in his sixties. Could have got out before now, but apparently he’s got nothing else in his life.”

“Wife? Kids?”

“Wife left him, apparently his two kids did too.”

Hope looked impressed. “Where’d you get that scuttlebutt?”

Reiger cracked a smile. “Your security clearance isn’t high enough.”

Hope finished his beer. “The hell you say.”

“A hardass,” Reiger said again. “Loves his country, though. Do anything to protect it. And he expects us to do anything to protect it too. And anything covers a lot.”

“Piece of paper, Karl. That’s what we need. Our get-out-of-jail-free card.”