Tillman turned and spoke. “We’ve got a situation, Gabe. Come and sit down. This is not good. Hard to imagine how it could be much worse.”

Chapter 6

AGENT CORMORANT WALKED forward and took a standing position next to the vice president. It was an odd move, and Reese’s gut tightened another notch. He was chief of staff—there was very little that the Secret Service should know about ahead of him. But they clearly did in this case. What in the name of God had happened? To whom had it happened?

The vice president nodded for Cormorant to go ahead and speak.

“Thank you, sir. Gabe, keeping what I’m about to tell you to yourself probably constitutes a felony. You need to know that before I—”

“Just spit it out, Dan.”

Gabe Reese liked Cormorant well enough, just not the way he pushed the bounds of his position. Tillman had brought both of them along, all the way up from the old days of Philadelphia politics, so there was some leeway to be expected here. It was just that Cormorant always seemed to make a little more of it than Reese thought he should. Then again, Cormorant probably thought Reese lived with a stick up his ass.

“Have you ever heard the name Zeus mentioned in any work-related context?” the agent asked. “Zeus, as in the Greek god.”

Reese thought for a moment. Secret Service had revolving code names for all protectees, but that certainly wasn’t a familiar one, and, of course, it would have to be a higher-up. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Should I have?”

Cormorant didn’t answer the question, merely continued. “Over the past six months, there have been a series of missing-persons cases all over the mid-Atlantic region. Mostly women, but a few men too, and all of them in a certain profession, if you follow me, which I’m sure you do. So far, nothing’s connected them.”

“Until now,” Reese inferred aloud. “What the hell is going on?”

“Our intel division has three separate communications intercepts linking this tag, Zeus, to three separate cases. Last night, it came up again, but on a known homicide this time.” He paused for emphasis. “All of this is classified, of course.”

Reese felt his patience slipping fast. “What does this have to do with the vice president? Or the president—since you’ve called me in? I’m not even sure we should be having this conversation.”

Tillman spoke up then, cutting through the bullshit as usual. “This Zeus, whoever it is, has some kind of connection to the White House, Gabe.”

“What?” Suddenly Reese was up and out of his chair. “What kind of connection? What are you saying—exactly? What the hell is going on here?”

“We don’t know,” Cormorant said. “That’s the first part of the fucking problem. The second is shielding the administration from whatever this is going to be.”

“Your job is covering the president and vice president, not the entire administration,” Reese shot back, his voice rising.