Jill said, “Boo-boo is back online.”

Jack scowled. “Cute.”

She smiled and bumped her shoulder into his.

Holden said, “Welcome back, bro. You’re clear for about five seconds.”

Jack nudged the staff-area gate open and slipped out.

Behind him, Jill went over the fence.

It’d be a slow man’s race for the front gate.

He fell in behind a trio of twentysomethings and stuck close, listening in on the conversation to gain a sense of common ground, and was their new best friend by the time they reached the front gate. They were out of Baltimore. He had an aunt there he wanted to visit. It was easy to hitch a ride. They dropped him off in Franklin Square, and he made his own way toward the harbor and sat on a bench outside Light Street Pavilion, adrenaline dumping, brain unspooling, watching the waves dance.

He couldn’t stop yet.

This was almost over, but not quite.

He pulled out the last of the burner phones and, like Jill putting the gun to Clare’s head in that Belizean hotel, dialed Hayes for the final time.

The voice on the other end had lost its indifferent calm.

There was exhaustion, concern, maybe an edge of anger, but mostly an interesting readiness to listen. Jack said, “Tomorrow the junior senator from Tennessee and the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives will die. Whether or not their actual bodies take the knife is up to you. You’ve been given an opportunity to control the narrative, and you should use it.

“The intel that makes assassination possible has your fingerprints and DNA all over it, literally and figuratively. The evidence in my possession has been parceled and, together with recordings of our conversation, is ready for delivery to your peers within the intelligence community, the congressional leadership, and the media. The only thing standing between you and going down in history as a traitor is the choices you’re about to make.”

Hayes said, “I cannot stand down and allow these assassinations to happen, not even with a body switch. You know this.”

“I do.”

“Then what, specifically, are you asking for?”

“There are names I want taken off your kill list, and I want all the accompanying data completely removed from physical and digital repositories and destroyed. Think long and hard before you agree, because failing to deliver will be worse than no agreement at all.”

“I can put a hold on the kill list,” Hayes said. “But not today.”

“And the rest?”

“Some of that is beyond my paygrade.”

Jack stood and strolled toward the water’s edge. “Keep me and my friends alive,” he said, “and I guarantee your paygrade will rise.”

“Twenty-four hours is a long time for circumstances to change.”

“Twenty hours,” Jack said.

More precisely, twenty hours and eighteen minutes.

Jack flung the phone into the water, watched it sink.

He turned and trudged back toward McKeldin Square.