And Faust would be the subject of one of the most massive manhunts in U.S. history. They’d find him. Middleton would make sure of that.

A half hour later, Jack Perez was in detention and Middleton was outside with Tesla, Lespasse and Jenkins—his former colleague from the Army. A car pulled up. Unmarked. Did the feds think people didn’t recognize wheels like that? It might as well have had We Serve and Protect in bold type on the side.

Two men climbed out. One was Dick Chambers, the Homeland Security man, and the other FBI Assistant Director Kalmbach.

“Emmett.”

“Colonel, I—”

Chambers interrupted. “I don’t know what to say, Harry. Your country owes you a huge debt. You saved thousands of lives.”

Middleton hoped Kalmbach was used to being snubbed. After stumbling and letting Vukasin and his boys into the country, Chambers was going to milk the win for everything he could.

He added, “We have to debrief you now. We’d like—”

“No,” Middleton said firmly. “Now I have to go see my daughter.”

“But, Colonel, I have to talk to the director and the White House.”

But all that Chambers was talking to at the moment was Harry Middleton’s back.

She would be fine.

Physically, at least. The mental battering from losing her child and the betrayal of her husband was taking its toll, though, and Middleton had whisked her away to the lake house.

They spent a lot of time in front of the TV, watching the news. As he’d predicted, Dick Chambers and other officials from Homeland Security took most of the credit for stopping the nerve-gas attack and finding the terrorists who’d slipped into the country—“owing to extremely well-done forged papers,” he pointedly added. The FBI got credited in a footnote.

Harry Middleton was mentioned not at all.

Which was, of course, how this game worked.

The post-mortem of the case suggested that Faust was in charge of the plot to seek revenge against America for the peace-keeping operation. Rugova worked for him but got tired of prison and was going to bribe his way out with loot stolen to support the terrorists.

That’s why he was eliminated by Vukasin. Stefan Andrzej, the tattooed man, who’d killed Val Brocco, was probably a traitor, and murdered for that reason—and for his incompetence.

The hunt for Faust was continuing at a fervid pace and several leads were beginning to pan out. He still had some unaccounted-for muscle in the country, and records from the prepaid mobile that Perez had called frequently, presumably Faust’s, showed that he made repeated calls to pay phones in a particular area of D.C., where his cohorts apparently lived. Stakeouts and electronic surveillance were immediately put in place.

But Middleton was, at least for the moment, not part of the hunt. He was more interested in his daughter’s recovery.

And in reconnecting with Nora Tesla and Jean-Marc Lespasse.