“Three people got out of the chopper and went inside. The helicopter returned just before dawn and picked up a single passenger. It flew to the end of a dirt road about a hundred and thirty miles southwest of DC. One man disembarked and got into a Yukon XL. We didn’t have capacity to follow both, so we chose the car.”

“And?”

“We got lucky. After about an hour, it went into a tunnel and a decoy came out. The surveillance plane picked up the heat signature of the colder engine or we’d have fallen for it. Ten minutes later the original vehicle continued on to DC. One man eventually got out and entered the Metro, where we lost him.”

“You lost him? How is that lucky?”

“We got a photo from an ATM camera as he was entering the station. We’ve cleaned it up, but the resolution and angle still aren’t ideal. It should be good enough for an ID and we’re working on that. I’m transmitting it to you now.”

“What about the farm?” Whitfield said as the photo decrypted pixel by pixel on his screen.

“Empty. Dense trees come right up to the south porch and we’re guessing that Russell and Smith went out on foot and got picked up somewhere.”

Whitfield turned and stared into the darkness. He was being outmaneuvered at every turn—a situation he was very much unaccustomed to. There were no excuses for this. With three men down, he had accomplished nothing but to expose himself.

“Sir? Has the file I sent come through?”

Whitfield redirected his gaze to the grainy photo of a man walking head-down through scattered pedestrian traffic. The collar of his suit was turned up, obscuring the lower part of his jaw, but there was still something familiar in the large forehead, the receding hairline, the long, slightly hunched stride.

“We’re estimating him at about five-ten or -eleven, sir. Probably in his early sixties, with…”

But Whitfield was no longer listening. A jolt of adrenaline surged through him and he reached a shaking hand out to eradicate all evidence of the photo from his hard drive.

“There’s no way to know what train he got on,” the captain continued. “We got the security camera footage but there was some unknown problem with the video. We’re trying to get something useful from it but—”

“You won’t be able to get anything useful,” Whitfield said.

“Sir?”

“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Captain. You are to permanently destroy all copies of this photo and all records of your investigation into the man in it.”

“I don’t understand, sir. I—”

“Then let me be perfectly clear. There is to be no evidence that any of this ever happened. You and everyone else involved are never to speak of it—or even think about it—again. Do you have any questions?”

“No sir. Your orders are clear.”