Violin was on the move, getting closer to Joe Ledger, and finding terrible wreckage along the way. It annoyed and angered her that Ledger wasn’t taking her calls, but it also frightened her.

Oracle provided her with the locations of likely safe houses where Ledger might go to ground. She had gone to the first one too late. All she found were Ledger’s footprints in the blood of a living room awash with dreadful pain.

The Red Knights had left their signature on every inch of that small house.

Seeing the carnage, Violin had braced herself against the possibility that one of the mangled figures was Ledger, but neither was. An old man and his son. She could tell at least that much from their faces.

Standing in the living room, Violin considered pulling the old man down from the wall, but it would take more time than she had.

She ran out the back and got into the car she used while in Iran. The car appeared to be sedate and slow, but that was all exterior illusion. A much fiercer creature dwelt under the hood, and the suspension was rigged for high-speed pursuit and hairpin handling.

Even so, she stayed within legal limits as she navigated the traffic toward the second safe house. One run by the CIA. She passed it and saw nothing untoward. Around back there were two parked cars. She circled the block looking for backup and found it.

Violin parked her car in the shade thrown by a tall stuccoed warehouse. Across the street a pair of white vans sat in the shade. She recognized them. Not those specific vans, but the type. And she knew what they signified.

Sabbatarians.

Her lip curled in cold contempt. Those maniacs should have died out years ago along with their blasphemous Inquisition. It offended Violin to her core that they continued to prosper and had even found some private source of funding in recent years. Their numbers were growing and the threat they represented was no joke.

She accessed Oracle.

“Oracle welcomes you, Violin.”

“Quick field update. Please mark this urgent and make sure my mother sees it right away.”

“Noted. Please proceed.”

Violin explained about the slaughter rendered by the Red Knights and the Sabbatarian strike team she was currently observing.

Instead of the placid computer voice responding to her update, a very similar but far more intimidating voice barked, “Do you have Captain Ledger under active surveillance?”

Violin froze and had to take a moment to find her own voice. She looked down at the small screen on her computer and saw a face that was as ageless and beautiful as it was stern and humorless. Black hair shot with snow white streaks, cat green eyes, a full-lipped mouth compressed into a stern line.