“And strategizing for Operation Get Ahmale’s Stuff. After that, I’m going to fully devote myself to drinking a couple beers on the patio.”

“Sounds like a nice afternoon. Can I join you?”

“If you play your cards right.”

She turned on the oven light and peeked at the croissants inside. “You know, Nicholas Ward’s hired us to design security features into the research facility he’s rebuilding.”

“Really?”

“Scott says he’s going to suggest a moat full of hippos.”

“Hippos are good,” Rapp said absently. “Mean.”

“You’re seriously not interested?”

“You and Scott will get along fine without me.”

“What about a croissant hot out of the oven? Surely, you’re interested in that.”

He shook his head. “It’s either a croissant now or the beers later. Calories.”

“I’m finding this sudden change in you a little hard to believe.”

“You’re complaining?”

“No. I’m just wondering how long it’s going to last.”

20

CIA HEADQUARTERS

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

USA

THERE was a quiet knock on the door and Irene Kennedy looked up to see one of her assistants poke his head in.

“Marcus Dumond would like to see you, Dr. Kennedy. He says it’s urgent.”

She felt her eyebrows rise involuntarily. Dumond was a young hacker whom Mitch Rapp had stumbled over a few years ago. He’d been on his way to jail when they’d provided him another option: give working for the Agency a try. The combination of gratitude and genius had turned out to be a good one and Dumond had become a critical part of her team. Having said that, he was easily intimidated and a bit of a recluse. In fact, she was having a hard time remembering an instance of him requesting a face-to-face meeting.

“How am I looking for the next fifteen minutes?”

“We can juggle.”

“Then tell him to come up.”

“Actually, he’s standing in front of my desk.”

“Really?” Kennedy said, even more surprised. “Then by all means send him in.”

Dumond entered a moment later, looking a bit haggard for his thirty-four years. Other than that, he didn’t seem much different than the day they’d first met—same thin frame, slightly crooked Afro, and vaguely stunned expression. He seemed perpetually unable to believe that he was working a high-level CIA job and not in a prison laundry.

“What can I do for you, Marcus?”

“There’s been an incursion into our system,” he said, a little breathlessly.

“From the outside?”

He shook his head. “Inside.”

“How far were they able to penetrate?”

“That’s what’s weird. They seemed to be after one very specific thing. Information on Nicholas Ward.”

“Ward?” she said, reflecting for a moment on how often the man had come up in her life over the past few weeks. “I wouldn’t think we’d have much sensitive intelligence on him.”