A short row of redbrick buildings immediately adjacent to the road prevented her from driving right, and a metal guardrail to the left blocked her from taking her car through an empty bank parking lot. Helen concluded that the only way out of this was on foot. And the odds were stacked solidly against her. She guessed she was up against at least six aggressors, maybe more. Impossible odds if they were armed, which she had to assume.

She might have a chance if they were more interested in reacquiring Wilson than killing or capturing her. Then again, how far could she really get before they secured Wilson and turned all their attention back toward her? Probably not very far, but it beat waiting for the inevitable. Helen removed the last spare pistol magazine from her purse and stuffed it in her coat pocket. Hopefully she wouldn’t need it.

Helen took her phone off the dashboard mount and considered dialing 911—just as quickly dismissing the idea. The call was more likely to get a sheriff’s deputy killed than save her life. Instead, she opened a nameless app in one of the folders on the phone and entered a ten-digit password. The app displayed two options: a green “Activate Fail-safe” button and a red “Cancel” button.

She hated to drag Devin into this, but the future of the United States depended on it. Any and all doubt about her two-decades-long obsession had been erased over the past few minutes. She hit the green button and pocketed the phone. If Helen somehow got out of this alive, she could let him know to ignore the series of messages he would begin to receive in ten days. She’d set the delay long enough for things to settle down around her son. The kidnapping alone would put him under plenty of scrutiny. Whatever happened after she bolted from the car would only compound the attention he’d receive.

While she had the phone out, Helen swiped through the few photographs she hadn’t deleted, pausing on a family picture taken fifteen years ago, at Devin’s graduation from the University of Maryland. It was one of the last pictures they’d taken together in which everyone still looked happy. Helen had still been with the CIA at that point—two very messy years away from being escorted from her office in the George Bush Center for Intelligence. Not that the years before that had been smooth sailing at Langley, or at home. She stared at the picture until her eyes teared up. She wished she could apologize to Kari for the hell she’d put her through. Apologize to all of them for everything.

“Time to get this over with,” she said, pocketing the phone.