It was sunrise, and the air was heavy with an early-approaching fall. Parked behind the fence of the neighborhood playground across the street from Dominique’s apartment, Nazir and Taliq watched as the light in Dominique’s bedroom clicked on.

It was an odd experience for Nazir, to observe life from a quiet family neighborhood and not the killing fields of his youth. He’d been thrown from the blood and heat of battle into a world of patience and surveillance, hoping Dominique would lead him to Hashim.

From their rented dark blue Nissan, Taliq watched a black sedan a half block down the street.

Nazir watched Dominique’s silhouette go by the curtains as she passed, hurriedly, through the rooms.

Dominique rushed out of her apartment. A cab was waiting.

Nazir was about to pull out and follow. Taliq grabbed the wheel. “Wait,” he said.

“Why?”

Taliq nodded in the direction of the black sedan.

“Someone else is watching her, too.”

The black sedan pulled out and followed the cab.

“Go ahead, but not too close,” Taliq said.

Nazir was annoyed at Taliq’s officious attitude, but he’d seen the other car and Nazir hadn’t. He followed both vehicles at a distance.

43

43

Dominique got out of the cab and made her way up the sidewalk to Senator Ledge’s home. Julian watched from inside through an opening in the foyer curtains. Further up the street he saw the lights of the black government sedan go out.

He opened the front door. The entrance into the house was dark—its atmosphere of a mausoleum.

“What the hell is going on that you’re being so mysterious about?”

He pulled her inside and shut the door.

“Hashim is gone. He left the cottage sometime in the last thirty-six hours and hasn’t come back.”

“I knew this was madness.”

He pulled her into the den, seething.

“She has no fucking idea where he is?”

“No. She had work to do in D.C., and left him alone there.”

“I knew it. I knew it. He played us! She can’t ‘see’ where he is?”

“She’s not a machine.”

“Did you ask?”

“Yes.”

“What’d she say?”

“She’s not a machine.”

“Jesus Christ. We’re fucked.”

Julian pulled the damask curtain aside and trained his eyes on the black government sedan, the interior dome light was on. They weren’t trying to be invisible.

“They’re going to follow us, you know, until they find out what we were hiding, or what we just fucking lost.”

He wanted to break everything in the room. He picked up a paperweight from the desk and was about to hurl it into the wall.

Dominique grabbed his arm.

“That won’t solve anything.”

She took the paperweight from him.

“I don’t believe he played us, Julian.”

“Yeah. Well… We can’t do this alone anymore. We’ve got to convince someone we’re not insane.”

Senator Ledge walked in.