Carmichael’s suite was at the end of the hallway. He was protected by DeRenzi and two more guards here, but when Mayes stepped into the office outside of Denny’s bedroom, D/NCS told the security officers to wait outside. DeRenzi and the others stepped out, and Carmichael shut the door and locked it.

Carmichael was just finishing up a phone call with Brewer, who was on her way to D.C., where she had been summoned to the JSOC safe house to speak with Dakota, so Mayes took a moment to look around. The windows to the outside were tempered glass; not bulletproof, but they did not need to be, because iron slats could fall into place at the touch of a button. One exit out of the office led to the bedroom, a second to the hallway that served as the spine of the south wing, and the third to a narrow inner hallway that led past a narrow staircase, which ascended one flight to a locked door. The other side of the door was the south wing attic, which itself was secured from the outside and shut off from the other parts of the building. Beyond the stairway in the narrow hall was a bathroom, and then a large conference room.

As soon as Denny finished his call he looked at his watch. “It’s ten p.m., Mayes. Trouble?”

“We have a problem.”

“Talk.”

“Catherine King. I gave Zack Hightower the day to recover after he watched her house all night long. I put four cars on her tail. She ran around doing press all morning, just what you’d expect to see from her. She’s all over the news with the story you fed her. But then, just after noon, she started running an SDR.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. A good one, too, from the sound of it. Our surveillance people stayed on her for the first half hour, but she slipped them. She was in the wind from about one fifteen p.m. till almost two forty-five, at which time she returned to her car parked at the CNN building. She took that back to her office at the Post, arriving at three fifteen p.m.”

Carmichael said, “From the look on your face, I assume there is something more.”

“There is. At four twenty p.m. today she bought a ticket on a six ten flight to Tel Aviv.”

Carmichael’s razor-tight face stretched tighter as he scowled. “Son of a bitch. It’s Gentry. He got to her somehow.”

Mayes said, “It’s possible.”

Carmichael just said, “Gentry told her about BACK BLAST. He’s sending her to Tel Aviv to find out details from people she knows in the Mossad.”

“What can they possibly tell her?”

“Details, obviously.”

“Details even I don’t know?”