He flicked the safety back on and handed the gun back to the woman. She pressed a button that brought the target to the front of the booth. She stuck her finger through one of the holes Zavala’s bullets had made and said something he couldn’t hear. He removed his ear protectors, and she said it again.

“Show-off.”

She placed the pistol in a hip holster and pointed to her wristwatch. They made their way to the door, first dropping off their ear protectors. The guide was waiting in the hallway, but Caitlin said she would show Zavala to the lobby when their meeting was over.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she said.

They strolled along a shady path that was a world away from the sound of gunfire and the smell of cordite in the shooting range.

Caitlin Lyons was an attractive woman in her thirties, and if she hadn’t been wearing black, short-sleeved coveralls with a sidearm on her belt she could have passed for a member of Celtic Women, the musical ensemble. She had a peaches-and-cream complexion, and the brows over her remarkable blue-green eyes were high and arched. Her dark blond hair was tucked under a black baseball cap with FBI on the front.

“Not bad shooting, Joe. Ever think of joining the FBI?”

“As soon as they have a navy,” Zavala said.

Caitlin laughed. “You were very brave to come up to me when I had a gun in my hand.”

“Should I have been worried?”

“You know what they say about a woman scorned . . .”

Zavala winced. His dark good looks and unassuming manner made him popular with many women around Washington. He had gone out with Caitlin, but their budding romance was interrupted by a mission for the Special Assignments Team. He had not gotten back to her until now.

“Scorned is an ugly word, Cate. I was planning to get in touch with you after my last job.”

“How about abandoned, then? Jilted? Left in the lurch. Forsaken.” She saw the distress on his face. “Don’t worry, Joe,” she said with a smile, “I’m not angry at you for leaving me to run off on another NUMA mission. I’m a cop, I might have done the same. And I wasn’t looking for anything permanent anyhow. The FBI is as demanding as NUMA. Besides, if I need you, all I have to do is turn on the TV and I’ll see those Latin good looks. I watched the bathysphere dive. Very exciting.”

“The most exciting part was what you didn’t see.”

Caitlin gave him a quizzical look, and he pointed to a park bench alongside the walkway. They sat down, and Zavala told her about the attack on the bathysphere, Austin’s close call, and the connection to the Pyramid Trading Company. When he was done talking, she took his hand and squeezed it.