“Your husband’s family owns a cruise line. It’s a private company. No outside money. No outside influences. I think that’s how you and Victoria pulled it off. Somehow, you used your husband’s cruise line to get Victoria out of the country after 9/11. I can’t totally figure it out, but I need to know how you did it.”

“Why? If not to expose her, why do you need to know the details?”

Avery looked again to the manila envelope on the desk, then back to Natalie Ratcliff.

“Because I, too, need to get someone out of the country.”

CHAPTER 57 - Lake Placid, NY Thursday, July 8, 2021

CHAPTER 57

Lake Placid, NY Thursday, July 8, 2021

CLOSE SCRUTINY OF THE TWO HIKERS MAKING THEIR WAY THROUGH the trails of the Adirondack Mountains near Lake Placid would reveal boots that were too new, gear that was too clean, and rucksacks filled with surveillance equipment foreign to even the most ardent bird-watchers. But thankfully the two hikers—a man and a woman—never saw another soul on the trail.

“I think the blister on my foot just popped,” he said.

“You’re such a man,” the woman said.

“It hurts like a son of a bitch.”

“Childbirth hurts. Blisters on your toe are an annoyance,” she said, hiking up ahead and forcing him to hurry after her.

They trekked three miles from the national park where they had parked their car. It took nearly an hour, mostly because of her partner’s low pain tolerance, to make it to the precipice of the hill that offered a bird’s-eye view of the valley below. A trail descended into the basin and wrapped around the lake at the bottom. The peaks of the Adirondacks rose before them and marked the northern border of Lake Placid. It would be, on another day, a time to pause and take in the beauty of the outdoors, the majesty of the morning, and the glory of midsummer Lake Placid. But today was not any morning. The two hikers had information to gather and a deadline to keep. The woman started down the trail. A few minutes later her partner limped after her.

When they made it down to the lake, they had a clear view of the homes perched on the foothills in front of them. The female agent slipped her rucksack off her shoulders and unzipped the top. She removed a long-range Nikon camera with a telescopic lens and had the focus adjusted perfectly by the time her partner joined her.

“How are those new boots treating you?” she asked.

“Like my ex-wife.”

She raised her right eyebrow and looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Nasty and unforgiving,” he said.

“Get your gear out and start looking at birds,” she said.