So now he moved from one heavily secured compound to the next, never staying in one place long enough to be located, communicating remotely, and meeting almost no one face-to-face. Unfortunately for him, though, no matter how remote his hidden sanctuaries were, they couldn’t be fully separated from the world he so feared.

Whitfield finally spotted Dresner near the center of the garden, staring into a small pond as though it held some kind of secret. If anything, his recent success seemed to have aged him even more. His shoulders were a little rounder and his face a little more slack than it had been before. Perhaps he wouldn’t live much longer—a situation that had both dangers and benefits.

“Why the hell did you move against Smith and Russell?” Whitfield said angrily “I said I was handling it.”

Dresner looked up slowly, examining him as he approached “But you didn’t, Major. You warned them. And then you tried to transfer them. Now they’ve appeared in Germany to go through my Stasi records.”

Dresner always knew too much for his own good. Whitfield wasn’t so naive as to believe that the man wasn’t using his almost limitless resources to watch every potential threat. It was only when he tried to act that the situation became dangerous.

“And was sending a group of criminal half-wits after them productive?”

“It will appear to be nothing more than a failed mugging.”

Whitfield didn’t respond immediately. He’d cleaned up most of the mess. All the men involved in the attack were now dead and Johannes Thalberg had himself burned his warehouse before disappearing. For now, the loose end that he represented would have to be tolerated. The man had undoubtedly been planning his escape for his entire career and would be unlikely to make waves that could end up drowning him.

What was really worrying Whitfield was the glimpse of Christian Dresner he’d never seen before: a man who would hire neo-Nazis—the ideological progeny of the very people who had tortured his parents—to murder two people endangering his attempt to reshape the future. Many men throughout history had decided that their vision was important enough to justify any action. All had been absolutely certain that they were right. And all had turned out to be incredibly dangerous.

Whitfield concentrated on keeping his voice calm. As unstable as Dresner was, his technology was exceeding all expectations as a weapons system and America’s continued control over it was essential. “Both Russell and Smith have proven over and over again to be very hard to kill. I’m also concerned that they have a power base beyond the military or CIA.”

“Then it seems you need to redouble your efforts to get rid of not only them, but the people behind them.”