Denny watched the lights approach, his already dark mood quickly blackening full-on to anger.

Three black Yukon XL SUVs parked on the grass alongside the driveway, fifty feet from the patio. All in attendance knew government motor pool vehicles when they saw them, because this patch of Maryland was only twenty-five miles from D.C., and most everyone here worked in the District.

Carmichael felt around in his jacket and realized he’d left his phone inside. He’d missed an important call, he had no doubt. He placed his wineglass on a café table next to him, made a quick apology to the couple standing nearby, kissed a perturbed Eleanor, and then started towards the driveway.

A dozen men in suits climbed out of the vehicles, and the gray veins in Carmichael’s forehead throbbed. The guests were not supposed to see these security officers, because they didn’t know what Denny really did for a living.

None of his wife’s friends knew he was the director of the National Clandestine Service, which made him the top spy at CIA.

The rage he felt over his protection detail alarming the guests was blunted by the fact that he knew these men wouldn’t be spun up like this without one hell of a good reason. Every security officer on Carmichael’s detail knew their boss would tear their head off for overreacting to a threat, so Denny took this show of force to mean something serious was going down.

“Talk,” he demanded when he was still strides away from the armed men.

The team leader was a forty-one-year-old former army major named DeRenzi, who was just like his protectee: all business, all the time. “Sorry, sir. You didn’t answer your phone. Orders are to cordon you off from the guests and hand you my mobile so you can take a call from the office.”

Five men moved between Carmichael and the stunned party guests, and squat P90 bullpup submachine guns came out of their coats, held at the low ready by men with intense, searching eyes.

Every one of the guests, the band, the caterers—even Denny’s own wife—stared, mouths agape, at this spectacle. Most in attendance knew Carmichael had served as an officer in the Marine Corps, but all thought he now worked in something banal at the Department of Homeland Security, as that was his official story.

Denny ignored the attention and asked no more questions of DeRenzi—he only mumbled an explanation that he’d left his phone in the kitchen.

DeRenzi responded with, “The office is sending air.”

To this Carmichael cocked his head. “Air? Jesus Christ.” He thought over the outrageous spectacle of a helicopter landing in the yard and whisking him away. “Are we at war?”

“Dunno, boss.” DeRenzi was muscle. He had no answers. Instead he handed his phone to his protectee and led him briskly towards the house.