“Paul, a stupid rancher does the environmentally unsound thing when he traps and poisons the coyotes on his place. A smart one plans so that his herd is never in jeopardy. The state’s simply gonna be the smart rancher.”

“But they’ll get through. They’ll find ways!”

“Some people will be killed. But it’s been like that for all of history, hasn’t it?”

“Let me pose you a hypothetical. You wake up some night, and one of these things is drilling into your neck. What do you do—I mean, personally?”

“This isn’t going to happen to me.”

“Hypothetically. Do you call Nine-one-one? Come on, be real, here! Christ!”

“The good rancher uses various appropriate and effective means to chase off the coyotes. We’ll be proactive in the same way.”

Paul got to his feet. “I’m in the middle of a mopping up operation in Paris. Gotta get back.”

“We are not going to continue with this barbaric exercise of yours. It’s over, Paul. Totally and completely over! Okay? And there are some people you need to meet.”

Danger always tapped on Paul’s shoulder before most people realized that it had entered the picture. Something about Justin’s tone of voice suggested that these people were going to give him a whole lot of trouble.

The U.S. had secret prisons for people who had broken the law in the course of classified activities. The law in those facilities was a strange, surrealistic version of the law on the outside. You had rights—just not the right to leave. Administrative prisons, that was what they called them.

Well, he still had the right to leave at the moment, or at least the ability, so he damn well walked out the door. He went through the outer office and into the corridor. There were two men coming toward the office. He went the other way.

Behind him, he heard their footsteps get quicker and louder. Goddamn, he didn’t want this. He’d been part of this organization all of his adult life. He had stood before the Memorial Wall and wept a tear for fallen comrades. He had loved CIA and stood by CIA and been absolutely loyal to CIA, no matter how dumb he thought the latest director was or how misguided the latest policy.

He got the hell out of the building, hurrying out the new entrance to the west lot where he’d parked. As he got into the pretty little Saab that had been waiting in his garage for the past two years, he wondered if he would be fast enough to pass the gate or if Justin had already called them and told them to detain him.