“Rob…”

“Please,” he pleaded, “don’t ask me to wait. Give Colin a call and see if he’s come up with anything else.” He picked up the list from the counter. “And let’s see if we can maybe map out an itinerary.”

“An itinerary? Meaning you’re planning on tracking down these people by yourself.”

“Not by myself. With you. You’re going to help me, aren’t you? Suse? I don’t think I can do this without you.”

“Of course I’ll help you.” She sighed, resigned.

“And Kevin. I need Kevin.” He paused, then grabbed the phone again and began to dial. “Delilah, get the plane fueled up and ready to go. I’m not sure exactly when. Just be on standby. Be ready.”

He hung up and turned back to Susanna.

“One way or another, we’re going to find him, Suse. I can feel it. We’re going to find Ian.” His eyes filled. “After all this time, we’re going to find my son…”

TWENTY-TWO

Sam, who are all those people?” Tom asked as Sam came in the front door shortly after several strange cars had pulled up the driveway.

“FBI, most of them former colleagues of mine,” Sam told him. “Someone at the Bureau thought the best way of keeping everyone here safe would be to call out the troops.”

“How many of them are there?” Kitty looked anxious as she peered out the window.

“Enough to keep the wolves at bay, Kitty,” Sam assured her. “But the thinking is that everyone needs to stay close to home over the next few days. I’m sure the kids won’t mind missing a few days of school.”

“Tommy’s not going to like missing football practice.”

“I realize that, Tom, but it can’t be helped. I’m sorry,” Sam said.

“You really think something’s going to happen?” Tom folded his arms across his chest. “You honestly think this guy is going to be coming here?”

“I think there’s a damned good chance he’s going to strike real soon, yes.”

“I don’t need the FBI to protect my family, Sam.”

“Actually, this time, you do,” Sam told him bluntly. “Besides, it isn’t your call to make.”

“Even though this is my property?”

“Your life-and mine-could depend on them being here.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t think it’s going to be long at all now.” Sam shook his head. “He’s escalated over the past few weeks. He’s in high gear now. He’s not going to wait much longer to make his next move. He won’t be able to.”

“Doesn’t it work on you sometimes, Sam?” Kitty turned from the window where she’d watched another car pull up. “Getting inside the head of these people? Trying to think like they do, trying to understand why they do what they do?”

“Yeah.” Sam nodded wearily. “It works on me. That’s why I left the Bureau and went to work with the Foundation. I needed a change.”

“Some change, Sam,” Kitty scoffed. “Looks to me like you’re doing the same thing, dealing with the same kind of people. You just traded one set of problems for another.”

Sam had no retort, the same thought having occurred to him. He merely nodded, then went back outside to meet with the latest arrival.

There were five agents standing in the driveway, all in black T-shirts and jeans.

“Wow. Men in black. Not a suit in the crowd, but still. Men in black.” Sam walked toward them. “You know, you might blend in a little better with the locals if you changed it up a little. A gray T-shirt here, a blue one there. If you’re trying to pass as farmhands, you’re going to have to do a little better than that.”

“We wanted to make sure you knew who the good guys were,” someone called to him.

“I know the faces, I know the names, the uniform is optional,” Sam replied. “And I’m glad you’re all here. I know it’s part of the job, but-”

“This is more than a job. This is personal,” another agent said. Sam was surprised to see Luke Parrish in the group.

“I thought you were on the Magellan case,” he said.

“I was. Still am. I’ll get back to it,” Luke told him.

“I hope my boss doesn’t find out you left his case to work on mine.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.” Luke slapped him on the back. “By the way, where’s Fiona? I heard she was on this job.”

“She left this morning. Said something came up.”

“So why don’t you fill us in on the backstory here, Sam.”

Sam nodded. “Come on inside, and I’ll bring you all up to date.”

He came into the house through the door that led from the garage into the kitchen. The house was quiet, as he knew it would be. His wife would be picking up the kids from their after-school activities, and she’d be stopping on the way home to pick up dinner. Of course, he could have hung around school when he finished for the day, picked up the kids himself, but he was too jumpy. It had been all he could do to get through his last class. The last thing he needed right then was a few more kids working on his nerves, even if those kids were his. Especially if they were his.

He opened a beer and took it out to the screened porch and stared into space. Things weren’t going the way he’d wanted. He’d figured that out by noon, when he overheard a couple of seniors talking about how Tommy DelVecchio hadn’t been at practice the day before. He’d been in school, but his dad and someone else had come to get him and he wasn’t in school again today.

He hadn’t needed to drive by the DelVecchio farm on the way home, hadn’t needed to see those cars all lined up across the barnyard to know what was going on. Which meant Sam had figured it out and had called in the troops. The chances of getting to any one of them now was pretty damned slim, he had to admit. He’d just have to be patient.

As soon as he’d thought it, he grimaced. Patience was not something he had a whole lot of right now. He’d already waited longer than any mortal should be asked to wait, hadn’t he? And who’s to say how much longer Sam was going to stick around? He could leave that night, could be packing right at this very second. Shit, for all he knew, Sam was already gone.

He got up and began to pace. It was so hard to think sometimes when he was sitting still.

All right, he told himself. So he won’t be able to get to Tom. He’d really wanted that sixth one to be Tom. That would have been the best. He’d never liked Tom, thought he was a real know-it-all, and he’d never been nice to them when they were all out at the farm with Sam. But the smartest people in life, the most successful, are the ones who can adapt, right? Survival of the fittest, and all that.

So he’d adapt. He’d think it through. He’d come up with the right one, of course he would.

He walked out into the backyard and waved to a neighbor who was out watering her flower beds. He didn’t stop to chat as he might otherwise have done. He didn’t want to break his concentration.

When it came to him, he smiled with satisfaction. Why he hadn’t thought of it sooner… well, it was even better than what he’d planned.

He walked briskly back to the house, his game plan falling quickly into place, a line from his favorite Stones song-the one about getting what you need rather than what you want-running through his head.