“The good news is, the cobra’s en route—we’re pretty sure, anyway. The bad news is, Nell Pearson’s body was discovered yesterday. The Mrs. Novak of record. Supposedly a suicide. Slit her wrists in her bathtub. So that thread’s been snipped off.”

“Christ,” said Janson. “Think she was murdered?”

“Naw, it was a ‘cry for help.’ Of course she was fucking murdered. But nobody will ever be able to prove it.”

“What a goddamn waste,” Janson said. There was lead in his voice.

“Moving right along,” Collins said bleakly, “nobody’s sighted Puma. Zip, nada, nothing. Four reports of look-alikes, quickly falsified. The fact is, our guy might not be arriving from overseas—he might already be in the country. And he’d find it child’s play to arrive incognito. This is a large, populous country with more than five hundred international airports. Our borders are inherently porous. I don’t have to tell you that.”

“This isn’t a time to talk about impossibilities, Derek,” the operative said.

“Thanks for the pep talk, coach. You think every damn one of us isn’t working balls-out on this? None of us knows who’s going to get killed next. If you want to talk about impossibilities, though, you’ll be interested in the latest thinking around Foggy Bottom.”

Five minutes later, Janson hung up with an unsettled feeling.

Almost immediately afterward, the silver-gray phone on the green-baize-topped desk rang quietly, the quietness of the ring somehow lending it additional significance. It was the line reserved for White House communications.

He picked up the phone. It was the president.

“Listen, Paul, I’ve gone over and over it with Doug here. This address Demarest’s giving before the General Assembly—there could well be an implicit ultimatum here.”

“Sir?”

“As you know, he asked for the control codes to the entire Echelon system. I put him off.”

“Put him off?”

“Blew him off. I think the message he’s sending is pretty unambiguous. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he’s going to appear before the General Assembly and set an explosion. Lay the thing out, with the whole world hanging on his every word. That’s just a surmise. We could well be wrong. But the more we think about it, the more we think it’s a credible threat.”

“Ergo?”

“I hope to God he’s hit by a thunderbolt before he can stand up and give that speech.”

“Now that sounds like a plan.”

“Barring that, I’ve decided to meet with him just beforehand. Capitulate. Give in to his first round of demands.”

“Are you scheduled to make an appearance at the U.N.?”

“We’d left it unclear. The secretary of state will be there, along with the U.N. ambassador, the permanent representative, the trade negotiator, and the rest of the tin soldiers we always send. But if we’re making this … barter, it’ll have to come from me. I’m the only one with the clearance and authorization to do this.”

“You’d be putting yourself in harm’s way.”

“Paul, I’m already in harm’s way. And so are you.”