He left the shoe department and found the hunting department. It took up half the store and it took him five minutes to get his bearings straight. He started off with the field glasses, and found a nice sturdy pair. He was about to move on, but spotted a night vision scope. It might come in handy. He smiled to himself and thought, only in America can you buy gear like this with such ease. He kept filling the shopping cart with the various things he might need. He had spent enough time on patrol to know what worked and what didn't. His last stop was the ammunition racks. He took his time finding the highest-grade ammunition available. The 9mm rounds for the pistol was no big deal. There was plenty of hollow-point steel jacket ammo to choose from. He grabbed two fifty-round boxes which was a lot of rounds considering he wasn't planning on firing more than five shots to make sure the sights on the Glock were as he had last left them. The rounds for the rifle took a little longer. He eventually settled on a box of Federal 168-grain HPBT bullets. It was amazing what you could buy off the shelf in America.

He finished up and went to the checkout line. Both sides of the line were merchandized with trinkets and other small items. Gould grabbed a few Power Bars and a pack of gum. He plopped everything down on the scanning counter and dug out a wad of hundred-dollar bills. The total came to just under a thousand dollars. He paid the polite woman and carried his four shopping bags out to his car. The bags were placed in the trunk and he was back on the road. From Scranton he continued on Interstate 81 south to Harrisburg and took 83 across the state line into Maryland. The sun was firmly in the west and daylight was fading by the time he reached Baltimore. Gould called the American Airlines toll-free number to check on Claudia's flight. It was on time and so was he. Just before the main entrance to Baltimore International Airport, Gould exited the highway and filled the car up. Claudia called while he was pumping gas. It was the first time his phone had rung since he'd purchased it two days earlier. It was good to hear her voice.

Gould topped off the tank, ran into the little shed, and paid for the gas. He pulled up to the American terminal just as she was exiting the building and fought the urge to jump out and kiss her. There were cameras everywhere. He kept the visors down and sat up straight. All Claudia had was a shoulder bag and a generic black carry-on bag. She put the carry-on in the backseat and got in the front with her shoulder bag. She leaned over and grabbed his face with both hands.

"I missed you." She kissed him on the lips.

Gould smiled and took his foot off the brake. "Are you hungry?"

"Famished."

"I know of a good place. I think you'll like it."

The operational rules had been set. They only spoke English. While Gould's was so good he seemed like a native, Claudia wasn't as proficient. Like him, she was traveling with a Canadian passport. At least for the remainder of the day. Tomorrow morning they would change identities yet again.

She nodded. "No problem crossing the border?"

"No," he said, "and you?"

"Landed in Miami and cleared customs without too much difficulty."

"Did they fingerprint you?"

"I'm afraid so."

Gould nodded. He thought they would, but at least the new system wasn't in sync yet. The airports had months of backlogged fingerprints that needed to be input and correlated. "The money?" he asked.

"No problem. It's safe." That's where Claudia had been. Making sure the five million dollars was sliced and diced, moved and shuffled and then put back together in the vault of a boutique financial institution on a beautiful island in a very warm and sunny part of the world. Claudia was very good at such things. She had been in the banking business before they had decided to strike out on their own. She kept up on all the laws, regulations, and most importantly, which banks knew how to guard their clients' privacy in the face of an overzealous war on terror.

"What's the plan?" she asked as the car picked up speed.

"Downtown."

She looked at him sideways with a confused expression.

"I thought they lived out on the Chesapeake Bay."

"They do, but we don't know exactly where, and it would be foolish to start poking around. If he hears that strangers are asking questions, he's likely to come looking for us."

The explanation made sense to her. "But why are we going downtown?"

"Because that is where she works. We'll check into our hotel. Have a nice meal. Make love and then sleep."

"Tomorrow?"

"We'll do a little sightseeing. Get rid of this car, and if all goes well…we'll follow her home."

26

They were to meet at the Capitol Grill. It was one of their favorite restaurants. Bulletproof, Rapp liked to call it. The place had yet to let them down. Order anything on the menu and it was great. It came out hot or cold depending on how it was supposed to be served. They covered the surf and the turf equally well, which was important because she ate fish and he ate steak. He actually ate anything, but at these prices he preferred red meat.

Rapp was on time. She was late. This was nothing new, but it unnerved him to no end. They'd gone round and round over her lack of punctuality and had a few pretty big blowouts. Even under normal circumstances it would have bothered him, but their relationship was not normal. She was a TV correspondent who received at least one stalker letter a month. Nothing unusual really. At least not for women in her line of work. Middle-aged single men who undoubtedly had deep issues with their mothers. Voyeuristic sickos who got off on writing down their dirty thoughts. Every attractive woman at every TV station across the country had to deal with it to some degree or another. The good news was that ninety-nine percent of these perverts never graduated beyond the letter-writing stage. The remaining one percent gave Rapp cause for concern, but they were not the real source of his worries.

Rapp was a marked man with a price on his head. Fatwas, religious findings by Islamic clerics, had been handed down demanding that he be killed. This in part fed his desire to see men like Khalil resting in a pool of their own blood. They had entered the fray with their bellicose mouths and soft bodies. They were men who had never seen battle, and never would. Men who took perverse joy in inflaming the hearts of young Muslim boys, sending others to do work they had neither the skill nor the courage to perform. Those boys, and the ones who had grown into men, were the people Rapp worried about every time Anna was late.

Lovely Anna Rielly was a study in contrasts. Her delicate features and enchanting green eyes conveyed a sense of classic beauty. Just beneath the surface, though, lurked the tough street-smart daughter of a Chicago cop. Rielly had grown up with four brothers, three of whom had followed in their father's footsteps. The fourth brother became a lawyer. His choice of profession and Anna's created a bit of a divide among the siblings. The three brothers who donned the uniform referred to Anna and the lawyer sibling as the enemy. True to their Irish blood, the political debates were heated and shit was deep. As was their love for each other.

This colorful upbringing on Chicago's South Side added tenacity to her beauty and smarts. Anna did not like defeat, and she knew not how to retreat. It was a very potent mix for a reporter. Rapp sought to hone these natural instincts, and hopefully teach her to detect trouble before it was upon her. She teased him about the Dictaphone he bought her, but eventually came around to the wisdom of the device. "If you think someone is following you," he told her, "record the license plate and I'll run it." She'd seen Rapp do this himself at least once a week. He put her through a defensive driving course, and taught her how to shoot both pistols and shotguns.