Mike sat forward, his hands clasped in front of him. “I spotted two men following me in the airport terminal. I’ve had enough experience to recognize they were foreign operatives. I know the airport very well and managed to elude them. Since they knew exactly when and how I’d be arriving in Washington, I realized they wanted the flash drive.” He glanced toward Grace and Lodner, then at the director. “Sir, I also realized only someone here at Langley could have told them, someone I’d trusted, and that included—and I’m very sorry to have to say this—you gentlemen, so I stayed out of sight in an old abandoned boathouse that belongs to my uncle, who occasionally hangs out there to escape his wife.” Mike cleared his throat, studied Lodner’s set face, then looked at Carlton Grace. Was that a faint smile he saw? Carlton kept things so close to his vest, you never knew what he was thinking. “I knew the information on the flash drive had to be critical, but of course, I couldn’t access it.” There was no need to mention his computer friend at the NSA. “I hadn’t contacted any of my team yet because I was afraid whoever was compromised at Langley would find out and I didn’t want to risk involving them. But after the attack on Olivia Monday night, and then again on Wednesday evening, I was afraid for her and called her.

“Olivia told me about meeting an FBI special agent she trusted. It was Agent Savich and he was in charge of the shooting at Olivia’s house.” Mike paused a moment. “I called him. He convinced me we had to contact Director Hendricks.”

Savich continued, “Olivia’s kidnapping at the High Point Mall—yes, what you heard is true. It was part of a plan we agreed on to lure the men who’d already attacked her into believing she knew where Mike was hiding and giving us proof of who’d hired them.”

Hendricks added formally, “And that joint FBI/CIA operation led by these three led to the retrieval of the flash drive intact and the capture of two internationally known criminals who work for Henri Delos, the CEO of Armament Météore, a leading French weapons manufacturer headquartered in Lyon, France. Both men are in FBI custody.”

Savich picked it up. “One of the men is René Delos, the younger brother of the CEO of Armament Météore and a known assassin, and the other is Claude Dumont, an American with a French father who moved his family back to France when he was a teenager. Both men were ‘problem solvers’ for Henri Delos. Claude Dumont was one of the two men who attacked Agent Hildebrandt at her house Monday night.