A lot happened in the next twenty-four hours, and none of it was pleasant. In far-flung places all over the world, doors got kicked in and people got dragged from their beds or kitchen tables or showers—anyone even vaguely suspected of doing business with Whiskey. They ended up in the custody of American allies who weren’t bound by American limits on interrogation.

In the days that followed, in nice offices overlooking the Potomac, people paced and waited for news from ugly little rooms that didn’t overlook anything. When that news finally came—two days ago now—it was just five words, coughed out by a man to his captors:

Rigel. It’s something called Rigel.

The statement raised lots of eyebrows—mostly in confusion. What the hell was Rigel? A fast computer search of Pentagon databases returned two hits: there was an infrared camera built for AWACS aircraft called a Rigel FLIR, and there was a suite of navigation software for Coast Guard interceptor boats called Rigel Nine Seven. Neither of those sounded especially dangerous.

At that point, with time running out, the investigators opted for crowdsourcing. They put the word out to all FBI field offices, CIA stations, and military investigative units: If you know what the term Rigel means, in the context of classified military systems, get in touch with us right now.

“That’s when I came into the picture,” Grace said. “I got the memo about thirty-six hours ago. As head of the L.A. field office, they wanted me to ask around in the ranks, especially among guys with military backgrounds. I talked to a couple dozen of them in a few hours; none of them had heard of anything called Rigel. It wasn’t until the next morning, this morning, that I decided to talk to my old boss, the guy who was SAC in that office right before me. I called him at his place in Florida and ran it by him, and he got quiet as soon as I said the word Rigel. Then he said, There’s something you need to know about.”

“The blue binder,” Danica said.

Grace nodded. “Just he and two other men had seen it. They found it five years ago in your father’s office, after he died. It was in a secure safe in the wall. It jolted the hell out of them, reading that stuff. He must’ve broken twenty different laws to get that information, and they were probably breaking a few of them just reading it. But they read it anyway. Then they put it in a safe-deposit box and decided to keep their mouths shut about it, and cross their fingers no one ever came around asking about the damned thing.”

Grace shifted in his seat. He glanced out the window beside him. Nothing out there but darkness now—probably the New Mexico Rockies.