"They got out, too," Clark said. "You're looking at the guy who got them out of the country."

"I don't believe in coincidences."

"The wife's name is Maria. The daughter's name is Katryn."

Holtzman didn't react, but he knew that only a handful of people in the Agency could possibly have known the details to that one. He'd just asked his own trick question, and gotten the right answer.

"Five years from today, I want the details of the bust-out."

Clark was quiet for a moment. Well, if the reporter was willing to break a rule, then Clark had to play ball, too. "That's fair. Okay, you have a deal."

"Jesus Christ, John!" Chavez said.

"The man needs a quid pro quo."

"How many people inside know the details?"

"Of the operation? Not many. My end if you mean all the details, maybe twenty, and only five of them are still in the Agency. Ten of them are not Agency employees."

"Then who?"

"That would give too much away."

"Air Force Special Ops." Holtzman said. "Or maybe the Army, Task Force 160, those crazy guys at Fort Campbell, the ones who went into Iraq the first night -"

"You can speculate all you want, but I'm not going to say anything. I will say this, when I tell you my end, I want to know how the hell you figured out that we even had this operation."

"People like to talk," Holtzman said simply.

"True enough. Do we have a deal, sir?"

"If I can verify what you've told me, if I'm sure I've been lied to, yes, I will reveal the source. You have to promise that it will never get to the press."

Jesus, this is like diplomacy, Clark reflected. "Agreed. I'll call you in two days. For what it's worth, you're the first reporter I've ever talked to."

"So, what do you think?" Holtzman asked with a grin.

"I think I ought to stick with spooks." John paused. "You might have been a pretty good one."

"I am a pretty good one."

"Just how heavy is this thing?" Russell asked.

"Seven hundred kilos." Ghosn did the mental arithmetic. "Three quarters of a ton - your ton, that is."

"Okay." Russell said. "The truck'll handle that. How do we get it from the truck into my truck?" The question turned Ghosn pale.

"I had not considered that."

"How was it loaded on?"

"The box is set on a wooden platform?"

"You mean a pallet? They put it in with a fork-lift?"

"Yes," Ghosn said, "that is correct."

"You're lucky. Come on, I'll show you." Russell led the man out into the cold. Two minutes later, he saw that one of the barns had a concrete loading dock and a rusty propane-powered forklift. The only bad news was that the dirt path leading up to it was covered with snow and frozen mud. "How delicate is the bomb?"

"Bombs can be very delicate, Marvin." Ghosn pointed out.

Russell had a good laugh at that one. "Yeah, I guess so."