“Not a chance. He would have slipped off the second he got near the shore. Have to clear it anyway. Might find some clues on board as to what his play is here in the States.”

“Where did the Israelis come across this intel?”

“Unknown. I have a conference call set up with Menachem Aurbach at Mossad. We’ll initiate it as soon as you get to Langley.”

Just then, Carmichael saw heads turn to the south. Seconds later he heard the thumping. He knew the sound. It was one of the Agency’s sleek new Eurocopters.

Jordan Mayes added, “Denny, sorry about the party. I know it was important to Eleanor.”

“Fuck this party. I want the Violator Working Group assembled in sixty mikes. Everyone.”

“Roger that.”

—

The landing of the helo and the exfiltration of the host of the garden party went down in a fashion just as obnoxious as Carmichael feared it might. He’d spend the rest of his life explaining this moment away to his wife’s friends, but the fallout wasn’t even on his radar now. As he boarded the aircraft, along with DeRenzi and three other bodyguards, his mind reverted into combat mode.

Carmichael had fought as a lieutenant in Vietnam, as a lieutenant colonel in Lebanon and Grenada, and as a CIA officer against the Russians in Afghanistan. He’d HALO jumped into Panama, jetted into the Balkans, dune buggied into Iraq, and helicoptered back into Afghanistan twenty years after his first visit. Denny knew combat, and he knew how to push everything extraneous out of his mind, leaving it solely committed to the utter simplicity of kill or be killed.

This was his mind-set now.

The helo took off towards the south, leaving the party behind as it rose over misty, rolling farmland. The pilot pushed the cyclic forward and then twisted the throttle to pick up speed in the cold air.

Carmichael ordered Mayes to hold the line, then he moved to a seat just behind the flight crew and put on a set of headphones. Pulling the microphone down over his lips, he tapped the pilot on his shoulder.

The man turned back to him. “Yes, sir?”

“You have countermeasures on board?”

The pilot seemed surprised by the question. He glanced to his copilot, then back to the windscreen in front of him. “Yes, sir. Chaff and flares.”

Denny said, “Be prepared to employ them. I want your head on a swivel.”

The copilot spoke up. Unsure. “We were rushed into this . . . uh . . . Anything you can tell us about what we’re up against would be helpful.”

Denny shrugged. He said, “The threat is an ex-asset, code name Violator. A former Agency paramilitary officer with one hell of a grudge.”

The pilot spun his head back around sixty degrees and stared through his visor at the much older man. “One guy? All this is about one guy?”