He drove through the airport exit. He kept a calm eye on the rearview mirror, looking for trailers. He saw nothing. Dewey moved onto the freeway, heading for downtown. He glanced up at a large green sign:

BEM-VINDO A PORTUGAL.

65

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

Jesus June sat in front of two large computer screens, angled in front of him, watching, waiting. Thirty-one separate applications were running on the SID mainframe, all of them visible and accessible on his two screens, icons layered like tiles on a checkerboard.

ThinThread had still not produced anything on Dewey. June had strategized with one of the other analysts inside SID about other programs that might possibly be able to trace Dewey’s whereabouts. June’s main hope, at the moment, rested on a facial-recognition program that allowed Dewey’s photo to be analyzed by ThinThread and compared to the database’s massive electronic warehouse. If a security camera anywhere in the world was tied into any sort of network that NSA had access to—legally or not—and Dewey stepped in front of the camera, ThinThread would call it out, and they would have their location.

So far, however, only four sightings had occurred, and none were Dewey. Two of them had been photos of the same man, someone in Kiev, videotaped twice at a train station in Kiev.

Like all successful NSA hackers, June was patient. Patience was perhaps the most important quality in an NSA employee. That, curiosity, and persistence. June, like Pacheco and Bruckheimer himself, had all three qualities, along with a big brain.

On the right-hand plasma screen, a small red-and-gold triangle abruptly lit up on the screen, signifying activity of some sort, then made a short burst of chiming noises. The program wasn’t related to ThinThread. In fact, it was an old program called FireBite, developed in the 1970s, which allowed NSA programmers to wiretap within the United States but not listen to the calls. In other words, if NSA was monitoring a phone number, and that number received a call, the number of the caller was immediately cataloged. Beyond that, the program was “dumb”; FireBite couldn’t eavesdrop.

He double-clicked the triangle, and the FireBite user interface appeared on the screen. June had set the program up to monitor a handful of phone numbers he thought Dewey might call. The home, cell, and work numbers of Calibrisi, Katie, Tacoma; his parents’ home in Castine; his brother’s home in Blue Hill.

On the screen, one of the numbers was boldened and had two messages. The calls had just occurred. June clicked the number. Then he did a double take. It was a number he’d stuck into FireBite as an after-thought; after all, Jessica Tanzer was dead.

His eyes bulged as he looked at the numbers, then hit the trace feature. A few moments later, the location of the calls appeared.

“I found him!” screamed June. “I got Dewey!”

*   *   *

At MI6, June’s yelling boomed over the speakerphone.

“Where is he?” asked Calibrisi.

“Lisbon. Hard location four minutes ago. He made two calls from a public pay phone at Lisbon Portela Airport.”

Smythson snapped her fingers, ordering one of her staffers to run down the hall and retrieve Chalmers.

“How do we know it was Dewey?” asked Calibrisi.

“We don’t,” said June. “But who else would call Jessica Tanzer twice in a row from halfway around the world?”

“Nice work,” said Calibrisi. “Langley, patch in Polk.”

Chalmers entered the glass conference room.

“What do we got?”

“Lisbon,” said Smythson.

Polk, the head of Special Operations Group, came on speaker.

“Hi, guys,” he said. “Whaddya got?”

“Lisbon,” said Calibrisi.

“Let me see what I have in theater. Hold on.”

Smythson pointed at one of her staffers, seated at the table in front of his laptop.

“Hurry, James,” she said. “Tell me what sort of manpower we have down there.”

“I’m already on it, Ronny,” he said, staring into his screen.

He banged the enter button, then pointed at the large plasma in the corner of the room, which lit up with what looked like a lineup from the roster of a football team. There were four photographs in a grid and names, ranks, current operations beneath each photo.

Chalmers and Smythson stepped to the screen.

Polk returned on speaker.

“I got one paramilitary in Lisbon,” said Polk. “I have a full black squad in Madrid, but I assume we don’t have the time to haul them down there.”

“No. What about Delta or SEAL?”

“Hold on.”

Polk went off the line again.

“Gatewood, O’Toole, Farber, Mueller,” said Smythson, turning, barking over her shoulder. “Get them over to the airport right now. Brief them en route, get them Andreas’s photo, and tell them to watch the hell out for counterfire. They’ll be swarming.”

Polk came back on speaker.

“I got a couple Deltas,” said Polk. “Where do you want ’em?”

“Airport,” said Calibrisi. “CIA, patch those Deltas into the MI6 feed; same with Special Ops; we’ll brief all of them at the same time. Billy, get them moving, safeties off. We’re goin’ in hot.”

“On it, chief.”

“I have a ton of police activity coming out of the airport,” said Serena Pacheco from Fort Meade, on speaker. “Gunfire.”

Calibrisi took his blazer from the back of a chair. He looked at Katie and Tacoma.

“I’m getting on a plane,” said Calibrisi.

“Let’s go,” said Tacoma.

“Hector,” came Pacheco again, “ThinThread is hitting hard. There were at least two killings, both Asian males, just happened. It’s a mess. They’re shutting down the airport.”

Calibrisi looked at Smythson, then Chalmers.

“He won’t be at the airport,” said Smythson.

“You guys and Billy figure out where to send the Deltas. We’re heading for the plane. You got a chopper we can borrow, Derek?”

“Absolutely. I’ll walk you there.”

Chalmers opened the door and exited, followed by Katie, Tacoma, then Calibrisi, who stopped just before leaving and turned back to the room.

“Thank you, MI6, for your work,” Calibrisi said, smiling at Smythson and her staffers, before turning and hustling to catch up with the others, who were running toward the elevator.

66

MINISTRY OF STATE SECURITY

BEIJING

Bhang’s office phone buzzed. He put a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, then hit the button on the console.

“What?”

“First sighting, Minister.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Bhang hustled across his empty office, then through a door that connected to a conference room.

At least a dozen people were in the room, either looking at laptops around the conference table or staring at one of the two massive wall-sized plasma screens.

The left screen displayed a detailed live satellite shot of Lisbon, taken from a low-orbit Chinese military satellite in outer space. It was tied into the ministry network; flashing red lights indicated the precise location of every agent in the city. Already, eleven separate members of ministry paramilitary were in the area, along with four contractors.

On the second wall-sized screen, a grid displayed fifteen individual squares; inside of each one was live video, coming off each agent or contractor in Lisbon, video that was being shot at various source points, including gun-mounted microcameras, on the weapons of the agents, or from cameras clipped to clothing, belts, backpacks. Several of the feeds were black, meaning the weapons were holstered or the cameras hadn’t been turned on yet.

The room became hushed as Bhang entered.

“We have a live report from an agent at the airport,” said Cho, one of Bhang’s deputies. “Andreas killed two men, outside the main terminal. They positioned the van across from the taxi stand. He saw them, killed them, ran.”