Jack's mind was racing. "Which means they can do pretty much whatever they want."

"And here's why: Only four people are authorized to send out a Dark Car," Bennett said. "The president, the National Security Advisor, and the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security."

"How would you know that?" Jack asked.

"Same way I know that all Dark Cars are foreign because no one would think of U.S. government agents using anything but an American vehicle." Bennett chuckled. "I guess the time when you thought you knew everything about me is over."

"Thanks," Jack said.

"For what?" his contact said before hanging up. "We never spoke about this."

"What?" Armitage said. "Who can do whatever they want?"

"Whoever was in the car." Jack paused for a moment, thinking the situation through. "It's not registered. Officially, it doesn't exist. Neither do its occupants."

Armitage moaned. "This really is a nightmare."

"Not if you keep your head." Jack turned to Armitage. "I'm going to tell you what this is all about. At this point, I think you deserve some context."

Armitage's eyes were wide and staring. Jack wondered whether he'd be able to keep his wits about him.

"A few days ago, two Secret Service agents were murdered. The E-Two logo was found at the scene of the crime. That's why Garner and his people came down on you. This is the opening they've been praying for to discredit the entire missionary secularist movement. I'm afraid this Administration is going to do its best to paint your people as criminals-worse, actually, they'll say you're homegrown terrorists. They want to destroy you." Jack paused. "But there is a way out."

Armitage's bitter laugh dissolved into a sob. "You must be seeing something I'm not."

"Very likely," Jack said. "If you can marshal your resources to help me find the killer, you'll have the best weapon you can hope for to fight the media firestorm the Administration is planning to rain down on you." He watched a speeding car pass by. "The problem, as you can see, is that you don't have much time. I can hold these people off for a day, maybe three, but that's it."

Armitage groaned. "What d'you need from me?"

"For starters, a list of your defectors," Jack said. "Then you and I are going to have to run them down."

Armitage stared out the window at the low sky, the driving sleet. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"You tell me."

Armitage pointed. "We'd better get to my office then, as quickly as possible, so I can access the encrypted database."

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Kansas Avenue. Just south of the junction of Eastern and New Hampshire," Armitage answered. "You ever heard of the Renaissance Mission Congress?"

Jack said he had.

"Back in the day, before it moved to larger, more luxurious quarters, it was known as the Renaissance Mission Church. We moved into its original building two years ago. Ironic, isn't it?"

Armitage didn't know the half of it, Jack thought.

His phone beeped. It was Chief Bennett.

"How did the stop 'n' shop go?" he asked with no little apprehension.

"It didn't," Bennett said. "I don't know what the hell you've gotten yourself into, Jack, but I got an official reprimand and a strict 'stay clear' order from the commander."

"Sorry, Chief, but you also got them off my tail."

A blur at the corner of Jack's eye made him reach for his Glock. There was a loud crack, the car swung on its shocks as the bullet entered the car's metalwork, and Armitage screamed. A second gunshot shattered the windshield, and Jack used the butt of his gun to punch out the crazed sheet of safety glass. Wind and sleet filled the interior, half-blinding him. But his mind had already formed the three-dimensional picture of his car, the road, the BMW. He could see the angles, feel the shifting vectors even as they formed and re-formed.

Just ahead of them, off the driver's-side fender, rode the gray BMW. Jack could see that the expert driver was jockeying for the perfect position, to enable the shooter to have a clear line of fire. The professionals were leaving nothing to chance.

The scenario was clear in his mind, the playing field existed in his world, and there was no one better at its mastery.

Jack's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, his mind performing a thousand calculations in the blink of an eye. He braked suddenly. The Toyota behind them screeched to slow down, rear-ended them at a reduced speed, jouncing them sharply against their seat belts, then back against the seats. In the following moment, when most people would be in shock, Jack's brain figured vectors, speeds, distances. Then he slammed the BMW's right rear fender.

The BMW spun clockwise; then everything happened very quickly. Jack put on speed. The BMW careened out of control, veering sharply to the left, its rims sparking off the wet tarmac. Jack caught a glimpse of the driver desperately scrambling to regain control, the shooter off-balance, white-faced. Then the BMW struck the left-hand guardrail at speed, its rear end rose up angrily before the car punched through the rail, spun crazily down the slope at the side of the parkway.

A moment later, flames flickered and an explosion of debris geysered up as the gas tank cracked. Jack floored the car, heading for Kansas Avenue NE, smack in the middle of his past.

PART THREE

TWENTY — FOUR

ALLI CARSON lay drowsing in the pantry, on the folding cot Kray had provided for her. The sheets and blanket were tucked up around her chin. Her face was flushed but calm. Kray, standing over her, emptied a syringe into the crease behind her left earlobe, where the puncture would never be noticed. On the counter below Carrie's lair was a full syringe, capped to keep the needle sterile. Kray dropped the empty syringe in the hazmat waste bin, bent over Alli, began to whisper in her ear.

Alli's mind was adrift on a cloud that shape-shifted first into her favorite toys as a child: Splash the dolphin, Ted the giraffe, and Honey the teddy bear. They romped and laughed as she played with them, before dissolving into other images. At first, these images were jumbled, smeary, and confusing, but presently they resolved themselves into scenes intimately familiar to her. Specifically the incidents that more or less defined her life up to the moment she was abducted.

Her mind brought her back to just before she was diagnosed with Graves' disease. At thirteen, she suffered moods so black, her mother took her to a psychologist. She referred Alli to her physician, who in turn referred her to an endocrinologist, who finally made the diagnosis. Her pituitary gland was affected, her eyes bulged slightly, her mood swings were vicious, the bouts of anxiety left her limp and exhausted, drenched in her own sweat. There were times when she was sure she was losing her mind. Lying on her bed, she would stare up at the ceiling, lost in the blackness of the universe, the essential futility of life. Future, what future? And why would you want one, anyway? Her heart galloped faster and faster until it seemed as if it would burst through her chest. Methimazole prevented her thyroid from producing too much hormone, so gradually the anxiety loosened its grip on her, her heart rate returned to a normal trot, her eyes ceased to bulge.

These memories, running one over the next, vanished into a pearly mist, only to be replaced by visions of the summer when she went to camp for the first and only time. She was fifteen. She'd begged her parents to let her go, not only to separate herself from the suffocating atmosphere of a senior senator's entourage but also in order to get a sense of how she'd do on her own. She needed a venue where she could explore who she was. She met a boy-an unutterably handsome boy from a wealthy family in Hartford. His father owned a huge insurance firm that generated obscene profits. His mother was a former Ford model. All this Alli learned from the boy, whose name was Barkley, though with the particular cruelty of teens, everyone called him Bark. Well, almost everyone; the kids on work programs at the camp in order to pay for the privilege of being there had another name for him, Dorkley.