Durov looked hard at Zhurkov. His face flushed a bright red. “For a submarine group commander, the man is an imbecile! Do I have to tell him to wipe his ass after he shits?” He snatched the phone from his aide. “Dobiesz, you idiot. Put together a squad of naval infantry and get them up on that hill to search it. Do it right now. Use one of the armed helicopters to get them there.”

He slammed the phone down and returned to face his hapless prisoner. The old admiral tried to massage away the nagging pain behind his breastbone as he hammered away at the mouse of a president, trying to make him see the logic of the solution he was offering.

The little man sat there staring back, his fingertips pressed together, that same coy little smile playing on his lips.

Nicholas Vujnovich fumed as he watched the little Honda drive down the freeway. The big blond guy wasn’t stupid. He had tucked in between an eighteen-wheeler hauling groceries and a New Jersey State Patrol car. There just wasn’t any way to do anything now, even if they had wanted to. If they spent too much time back here tailing them, they might attract unwanted attention. There were other things that needed attending to right now. The SEC bitch could wait a couple of hours.

Vujnovich swung the big Ford off the interstate and toward the country road. Josef Bogatinoff yelped in surprise.

“Where are you going? The bitch is escaping.”

Vujnovich pulled to a stop at the end of the exit ramp. He looked each direction down the long stretch of country road before easing out and heading south. He stole a quick glance at Bogatinoff.

“She is not going to get away,” he said in a growl. “We will find her in the city where we can more easily take care of her without notice. Right now we have important business to finish back at the farm.”

The wind was blowing in from the west, bringing dark storm clouds with it, blotting out the wan late-winter sun and painting the empty New Jersey farmland with a depressing gray light. There would be rain or snow later in the afternoon. The Ford barreled down the empty highway, bouncing over the potholed macadam.

Bogatinoff sat without speaking for a few minutes, watching the naked maple trees flash by.

“What unfinished business?” he asked, unable to suppress the question any longer.

A huge stainless steel milk truck pulled to a stop in front of them, its left-turn blinker flashing. Vujnovich slowed the car as the tanker moved off the roadway and between a set of gateposts. A dairy farm lay a few hundred yards down a narrow country lane. The muddy field beside the road was filled with black-and-white Holsteins, chewing their cud, waiting for the evening milking. The stink of fresh manure filtered through the car.