“Can you restore them?” Xander asked.

“Maybe. We have the SD card Amanda smuggled out, and it has a pretty sophisticated program on it that could be used to restore what’s been wiped. It’s almost as if she knew this would happen, and put her own fail-safe into play. I can’t promise it will work, and it’s going to take a while. She’s very good. She’s had the attack built into the system for a while. This kind of recovery, it’s hit or miss. It all depends on what I can reconstruct. It’s like a puzzle—without the corners, you can’t make the insides work.”

“Did she kill the information about Africa, and the medicine?” Sam asked.

Mouse nodded. “I’m sorry, but she did. She’s destroyed this so thoroughly even I am going to have trouble recovering it. She had at least thirty minutes’ head start, and it was enough time to wipe most everything clean. I’ll do my best, but without another backup to run and fill in the blanks, I can’t promise anything.”

“Another backup? You mean, like another computer where the information could be stored?”

“Yes. I’ve reconstructed a bit. I can see threads to other computers. But she’s severed them, and sent the attack program into their systems to wipe them clean, too. There are at least two other machines that hold the answers she was trying to get rid of. One is here in D.C., and one is in France. Probably the home of the terrorist who organized this in the first place.”

“If there’s one in D.C.... Can you trace an address, Mouse?” Fletcher asked.

“It’s on Connecticut Avenue.”

“Where does Jason Kruger live? What’s his address?”

Mouse typed some more, her tongue caught between her teeth. “There’s a Kruger on...hey, you’re good. Here it is—3700 Connecticut Avenue, apartment 303.” She flipped the screen, and Sam saw a satellite shot of D.C. The image zoomed in to a small spot. “It’s a match,” Mouse announced.

Fletcher had his phone in his hand, was squinting at the small screen. “My vote is someone gets over to Kruger’s house ASAP. He was up to his eyeballs in this. He must have a backup for safekeeping in case he needed to use it to try and play the hero instead of the villain.” He hit Refresh for the hundredth time in the past fifteen minutes. “Where the hell is Cavort with that file?”

On cue, Fletcher’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen, then answered with a frown. “Woolrich? What’s wrong?”

“Hey, boss. I’ve got a major problem.”

“Don’t we all,” he said. “Hit me.”

“I know you’re off on admin, but I thought you might want to hear this. That guy Hart interviewed earlier today, the one driving the gray Honda in circles around the crime scene? Hart told me something felt off about him, asked me to do a background check. The guy he described who opened the door and said he was Toliver Pryce doesn’t match the driver’s license photo Virginia has on file. It’s not even close.”

“Son of a bitch. Get back over there. Right now.”

“I’m already here. No one’s answering the door.”

“Shit, shit, shit, shit. Does this Pryce guy have family?”

“Not that I can find. I called his work—he’s an actuary out in Ballston. Boss said he’s a loner, keeps to himself. He was genuinely worried about the guy. Apparently, missing work is completely out of character. Without a family, if he were hurt or missing, no one would come forward to ask for a welfare check, right? We’d need to take the boss’s word on things?”

“That’s right. If you’re asking permission, I absolutely think you have enough to go in.”

“Armstrong’s getting paper right now. He wanted to be sure we were all taken care of. I just wanted you to know.”

“Break down the fucking door, Woolrich. I don’t give a shit if we have paper or not. This might be the key to stopping our killer.”

“Goddamn it. This is on you, Fletch.”

Fletcher heard a crash, then a muffled groan.

“Ah, man. Smells awful in here. We’ve got a body.” More shuffling, a murmur of voices in the background, then Woolrich came back on the line. “Fletch, we found him. Pryce has been stabbed. He’s in the closet. We’ve got another fucking crime scene.”

“Turn it over. You need to grab Tony and hightail it out to Hart’s place. We need a composite sketch of the guy he saw, and we need it yesterday. Have crime scene run the entire place for DNA, trace, anything they can find. We’re missing one last assassin. This might be him.”

“I’ll hand the scene over and get on my way. You think he’s in cahoots with the woman?”

“Maybe. What did Hart say he looked like?”

“Pretty boy. Really handsome guy, could have been a model. Blue eyes, midthirties. I’ll get with Tony and get a sketch together.”

“Is the Honda still there?”

“Yes. It’s in the driveway.”

“So we don’t know for sure whether this guy was really driving it last night or not.”

“Nope. Which puts everything he said into question. His whole statement is worthless.”

“Go get me a composite drawing, Woolrich. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

“Roger that.”

He hung up, and Fletcher’s phone dinged. It was the email from Cavort. “Finally,” he said, opening the file.

Kruger was thirty-four, born in Cape Town to an American mother and South African father. His mother was a diplomat, and they moved around a lot—he spent most of his time in England and South Africa. He went to the embassy schools, and followed in their footsteps into the Foreign Service. He requested the Africa desk, wanting to work closely with the various countries he’d fallen in love with as a boy.

He scanned the rest. This wasn’t going to do it. They needed more. Financials. Private emails. Phones. All the things that took time. He saw Sam, face pale but composed, moving from the kitchen to the living room, and intercepted her in the hall.

“We gotta go to Kruger’s place, ASAP. This file doesn’t give us diddly-squat.”

“You can’t show up there, Fletch. You’ll get into all kinds of trouble.”

“Then you go. Take Xander as backup. Someone needs to get into his place immediately. I’ll stay here and see that Bebbington and Everson are taken care of properly.”

Their raw scent had permeated the house. She didn’t want to go anywhere near the kitchen. Fletcher was giving her an out, and she was more than tempted to take it. She knew how to handle a crime scene, but this was her home. Her refuge. And it had been defiled in the most horrible way possible. She would never be able to stand in her kitchen again without seeing the vast emptiness of Everson’s face, and Bebbington’s head falling off his shoulders.

A wave of panic washed through her. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four.

Get it together, Owens.

She wanted out of this house. Right now.

She ducked into the guest bath, turned the water on hot, scrubbed her hands until they felt clean, counting, counting, counting. Fletcher said nothing, waited outside the door for her.

When she finally twisted off the tap and dried her hands, they were bloodred, but she had herself somewhat under control. She reached for the Glock at the small of her back, then deliberately inserted it into a small leather holster she’d taken from the closet and clipped it to her belt. She stashed a few extra magazines in her back pockets, grabbed her Birkin bag and said, “Ready.”

“You good?” Fletcher asked, giving her a veiled look.

She nodded. “I’m good. I trust your gut. We’ll go. Denon’s in shock. He bears watching. You don’t know that he won’t freak out and try to shoot you again.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be good. Honestly, I’d rather get him out of here, too, but he needs to stay somewhere that we can keep an eye on him. Leave Chalk with me. We’ll watch over him, make sure everything gets handled here. Sam, you have to hurry. I have a feeling about this.”

She’d known him long enough not to discount his instincts.