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  Gideon placed one handcuffed hand on the knob, realized it was locked. At the same moment he saw a quick movement out of the corner of his eye and instantly realized what was happening. Throwing himself sideways, he pitched himself into Dajkovic’s shoulder just as Tucker’s gun went off, but the round still caught Dajkovic in the back, slamming him forward into the closed door, the gun knocked from his hand. He sank to the floor with a grunt.

  As Gideon spun and dove, he caught a glimpse of Tucker in the kitchen doorway, isosceles stance, pistol in hand. The gun barked again, this time aimed at him, blasting a hole in the Mexican tiled floor mere inches from his face. Gideon leapt to his feet, making a feint toward the general as if to charge.

  The third shot came just as he made a ninety-degree lunge, throwing himself atop Dajkovic and grasping the .45 that lay against the far wall. He swung it around just as a fourth shot whistled past his ear. He raised the .45 but Tucker ducked back through the doorway.

  Wasting no time, Gideon seized Dajkovic’s shirt and pulled him to cover behind the washing machine, then took cover there himself. He thought furiously. What would Tucker do? He couldn’t let them live; couldn’t call the cops; couldn’t run.

  This was a fight to the finish.

  He peered out at the empty doorway where Tucker had been. It led into the dining room, large and dark. Tucker was waiting for them there.

  He heard a cough; Dajkovic suddenly grunted and rose. Almost simultaneously, rapid shots sounded from the doorway; Gideon ducked and two more rounds punched through the washing machine, water suddenly spraying from a cut hose.

  Gideon got off a shot but Tucker had already disappeared back into the dining room.

  “Give me the sidearm,” Dajkovic gasped, but without waiting for a reply his massive fist closed over the .45 in Gideon’s hand and took it. He struggled to rise.

  “Wait,” said Gideon. “I’ll run across the room to the kitchen table, there. He’ll move to the doorway to get off a shot at me. That’ll put him right behind the door frame. Fire through the wall.”

  Dajkovic nodded. Gideon took a deep breath, then jumped from behind the washing machine and darted over behind the table, realizing too late how badly exposed he really was.

  With an inarticulate roar Dajkovic staggered forward like a wounded bear. Blood suddenly came streaming from his mouth, his eyes wild, and he charged the doorway, firing through the wall to the right of the door. He pulled up short in the middle of the kitchen, swaying, still roaring, emptying the magazine into the wall.

  For a moment, there was no movement from the darkened dining room. Then the heavy figure of Tucker, spurting blood from half a dozen gunshot wounds, tumbled across the threshold, landing on the floor like a carcass of meat. And only then did Dajkovic sag to his knees, coughing, and roll to one side.

  Gideon scrambled to his feet and kicked Tucker’s handgun away from his inert form. Then he knelt over Dajkovic. Fumbling in the man’s pockets, he fished out the handcuff key and unlocked the cuffs. “Take it easy,” he said, examining the wound. The bullet had gone through his back, low, evidently piercing a lung but, he hoped, missing other vital organs.

  Suddenly and unexpectedly, Dajkovic smiled, bloody lips stretching into a ghastly grimace. “You get it on tape?”

  Gideon patted his pocket. “All of it.”

  “Great,” Dajkovic gasped. He passed out with a smile on his face.

  Gideon snapped off the digital recorder. He felt faint and the room began to spin as he heard sirens in the distance.

  Gideon Crew

  12

  Gideon Crew picked his way down the steep slope toward Chihuahueños Creek, following an old pack trail. He could see the deep pockets and holes of the stream as it wound its way through the meadow at the bottom. At over nine thousand feet, the June air was crisp and fresh, the azure sky piled with cumulus clouds.

  There would be a thunderstorm later, he thought.

  His right shoulder was still a little painful, but the stitches had come out the week before and he could move his arm freely now. The knife wound had been deep but clean. The slight concussion he’d suffered in the tussle with Dajkovic had caused no further problems.

  He came out into the sunlight and paused. It had been a month since he’d fished this little valley — just before going to Washington. He had achieved — spectacularly — the singular, overriding, and obsessive goal of his life. It was over. Tucker dead, disgraced; his father vindicated.

  For the past decade, he had been so fixated on this one thing that he’d neglected everything else — friends, a relationship, career advancement. And now, with his goal realized, he felt an immense sense of release. Freedom. Now he could start living his life like a real person. He was only thirty-three; he had almost his entire life ahead of him. There were so many things he wanted to do.

  Beginning with catching the monster cutthroat trout he was sure lurked in the big logjam pool in the creek below.

  He breathed deeply the scent of grass and pine, trying to forget the past and to focus on the future. He looked around, drinking it in. This was his favorite place on planet earth. No one fished this stretch of creek except him: it lay far from a forest road and required a long and arduous hike. The wild cutthroats lying in the deep pools and under the banks were skittish and shy and hard to catch; a single false move, the shadow of a fly rod on the water, the heavy tread of a foot on the boggy grass, could ruin a pool for the rest of the day.

  Gideon sat down cross-legged in the grass, far from the stream, shucked off his pack, and set down the fly-rod case. Unscrewing its end, he slid out the bamboo pieces and fitted them together, attached the reel, threaded the line through the loops, then sorted through his case for the right fly. Grasshoppers were scarce in the field, but there were enough that a few might have hopped into the water and gotten eaten. They’d make a credible lure. He selected a small green-and-yellow grasshopper fly from his case and tied it on. Leaving his pack and gear at the edge of the meadow, he crept across the grass, taking care to place his feet as lightly as possible. As he approached the first big pool, he crouched and twitched the rod, playing out a little line; and then, with a flick of the wrist, he dunked the fly lightly into the pool.

  Almost instantly there was a heavy swirl of water, a strike.

  Leaping to his feet, he raised the tip, putting tension on the line, and fought the fish. It was a big one, and a fighter, and it tried to run for a tangle of roots under the bank; but raising the tip farther, he used his thumb to increase the drag on the line, keeping the fish in the center of the pool. He slacked the line as the trout flashed for the surface, leaping and shaking its head, drops of water scintillating in the sun. Its muscular, brilliantly colored body caught the light, the red slash under its gills looking very much like blood; and it fell back and tried again to run. Again he increased the drag, but the fish was determined to get into the roots and fought him to the point where the leader was straining almost to the breaking point…

  “Dr. Gideon Crew?”

  Gideon jerked his head around, startled, and released the line. The fish took the slack and ran for the tangle of sunken roots; Gideon tried to recover and tighten the tension, but it was too late. The leader got wrapped around a root, the trout broke free, and the tip popped up, the line slack.

  Overwhelmed with annoyance, he stared hard at the man standing twenty feet behind him, dressed in pressed khakis, brand-new hiking boots, a checked shirt, and sunglasses. He was an older man, in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, olive skin, and a face that looked very tired. And a bit scarred, as if he’d survived a fire. And yet, for all its weariness, the face was also very much alive.

  With a muttered curse, Gideon reeled in the slack line, examined the fluttering leader. Then he looked up again at the man, who was waiting patiently, a faint smile on his lips. “Who the hell are you?”

  The man stepped forward and held out a hand. “Manuel Garza.”

  Gideon looked
at it with a frown until the man withdrew it. “Excuse me for interrupting you during your time off,” Garza said. “But it couldn’t wait.” He continued to smile, remaining unnaturally composed. The man’s whole being seemed to radiate calmness and control. Gideon found it irritating.

  “How did you find me?”

  “An educated guess. We know this is where you sometimes fish. Also, we fixed a position on you when you last used your cell phone.”

  “So you’re Big Brother. What’s this all about?”

  “I’m not able to discuss that with you at this time.”

  Could this be some blowback from the business with Tucker? But no: that was all over and done with, an unqualified success, the official questions all answered, he and his family’s name cleared. Gideon looked pointedly at his watch. “Cocktail hour is at six in my cabin. I’m sure you know where that is. See you then. I’m busy fishing.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Crew, but, like I said, it can’t wait.”

  “It? What’s it?”

  “A job.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a job. Up at Los Alamos. You know — the place where they design all the nice nuclear bombs?”

  “Frankly, this job is more exciting and it pays a great deal more. A hundred thousand dollars for a week’s work. A job for which you are uniquely suited, which will benefit our country — and God knows you need the money. All those credit card debts…” Garza shook his head.

  “Hey, who doesn’t have maxed-out credit cards? This is the land of the free, right?” Gideon hesitated. That was a lot of money. He needed money — bad. “So what’ll I be doing in this job of yours?”

  “Again, I can’t tell you — yet. The helicopter is waiting up top — to take you to the Albuquerque airport, and from there by private jet to your assignment.”

  “You came to get me in a chopper? Sink me.” Gideon vaguely remembered hearing the chopper. He’d ignored it; the Jemez Mountains, being remote, were often used for flight training from Kirtland AFB.

  “We’re in a hurry.”

  “I’ll say. Who do you represent?”

  “Can’t tell you that, either.” Another smile and a gesture with his arm, palm extended, toward the pack trail to the top of the mesa. “Shall we?”

  “My mother told me never to take chopper rides with strangers.”

  “Dr. Crew, I’ll repeat what I said earlier: you will find this job to be interesting, challenging, and remunerative. Won’t you at least come with me to our company headquarters to hear the details?”

  “Where?”

  “In New York City.”

  Gideon stared at him, then shook his head and snorted. A hundred thousand would get him well started on the many plans and ideas he’d been working up for his new life.

  “Does it involve any illegality?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “What the hell. I haven’t been to the Big Apple in a while. All right, lead the way, Manuel.”

  13

  Six hours later, the sun was setting over the Hudson River as the limousine pulled into Little West 12th Street, in the old Meatpacking District of Manhattan. The area had changed dramatically from what Gideon remembered during his graduate school days, when he’d come down from Boston for some occasional R&R: the old brick warehouses and covered walkways, with their chains and meat hooks, had been transformed into ultra-hip clothing stores and restaurants, slick high-rise condos and trendy hotels, the streets crowded with people too cool to be real.

  The limousine bumped down the refurbished street — bone-jarring nineteenth-century cobblestones re-exposed — and came to a halt at a nondescript building, one of the few unrenovated structures within view.

  “We’re here,” said Garza.

  They stepped onto the sidewalk. It was much warmer in New York than in New Mexico. Gideon stared suspiciously at the building’s only entrance, a set of metal double doors on a loading dock plastered with old posters and graffiti. The building was large and imposing, some twelve stories tall. Near the top of the façade, he could just make out a painted legend: PRICE & PRICE PORK PACKING INC. Above it, the grimy brickwork gave way to glass and chrome; he wondered if a modern penthouse had been built atop the old structure.

  He followed Garza up a set of concrete steps on one side of the dock. As they approached, the loading doors slid open on well-oiled hinges. Gideon followed Garza down a dim corridor to another set of doors, much newer, of stainless steel. Security keypads and a retinal scanner were set into the wall beside them. Garza put his briefcase on the floor and leaned his face into the scanner; the steel doors parted noiselessly.

  “Where’s Maxwell Smart?” said Gideon, in full wiseass mode, looking around. Garza looked at him, no smile this time, but did not reply.

  Beyond lay a vast, cavernous room, an open shell four stories high, illuminated by seemingly hundreds of halogen lights. Metal catwalks ran around the upper levels. The floor — as big as a football field — was covered with rows of large steel tables. On them rested a confusing welter of disparate items: half-dissected jet engines; highly complex 3-D models of urban areas; a scale model of what appeared to be a nuclear plant undergoing a terrorist attack by airplane. In a near corner was an especially large table, displaying what looked like a large, cutaway section of the seabed, showing its geological strata. Technicians in white coats moved between the tables, making notes on handheld PDAs or conferring in hushed whispers.

  “This is corporate headquarters?” Gideon asked, looking around. “Looks more like Industrial Light and Magic.”

  “I suppose you could call it magic,” Garza said as he led the way. “Of the manufactured variety.”

  Gideon followed him past table after table. On one was a painstaking re-creation of Port au Prince, both before and after the earthquake, tiny flags on the latter marking patterns of devastation. On another table was a huge scale model of a space facility, all tubes and cylinders and solar panels.

  “I recognize that,” Gideon said. “It’s the International Space Station.”

  Garza nodded. “As it looked before leaving orbit.”

  Gideon looked at him. “Leaving orbit?”

  “To assume its secondary role.”

  “Its what? You must be joking.”

  Garza flashed him a mirthless smile. “If I thought you’d take me seriously, I wouldn’t have told you.”

  “What in the world do you do here?”

  “Engineering and more engineering, that’s all.”

  Reaching the far wall, they rode an open-cage elevator up to the fourth-floor catwalk, then passed through a door that led to a maze of white corridors. Ultimately, they reached a low-ceilinged, windowless conference room. It was small and spartan in its lack of decor. A table of exotic, polished wood dominated the space, and there were no paintings or prints on the white walls. Gideon tried to think of a suitable crack, but nothing came immediately to mind. Besides, he realized it would be wasted on Garza, who seemed immune to his rapier-like wit.

  At the head of the table sat a man in a wheelchair. He was perhaps the most extraordinary-looking human being Gideon had ever seen. Closely cropped brown hair, shot through with silver, covered a large head. Below a deep brow gleamed a single fierce gray eye which was fixed on him; the other eye was covered with a black silk patch, like a pirate’s. A jagged, livid scar lanced down the right side of the man’s face, starting at his hairline and running through the covered eye, continuing all the way to his jaw and disappearing under the collar of his crisp blue shirt. A black, pin-striped suit completed the sinister picture.

  “Dr. Crew,” the figure said, his face breaking into a faint smile that did nothing to soften its hardness. “Thank you for coming all this way. Please sit down.”

  Garza remained standing in the background as Gideon took a seat.

  “What?” Gideon said, looking around. “No coffee or Fiji water?”

  “My name is Eli Glinn,” said the figure, ignoring this. “Welcome to Effect
ive Engineering Solutions, Incorporated.”

  “Sorry in advance for not bringing my résumé. Your friend Garza was in a hurry.”

  “I don’t like to waste time. So if you’d be kind enough to listen, I’ll brief you on the assignment.”

  “Does it have anything to do with that Disney World downstairs? Plane crashes, natural disasters​—​you call that engineering?”

  Glinn gazed at him mildly. “Among other things, EES specializes in the discipline of failure analysis.”

  “Failure analysis?”

  “Understanding how and why things fail—​whether it be an assassination, an aviation accident, or a terrorist attack — is a critical component to solving engineering problems. Failure analysis is the other face of engineering.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Engineering is the science of figuring out how to do or make something. But that’s only half the challenge. The other half is analyzing all possible modes of failure — in order to avoid them. EES does both. We solve very difficult engineering problems. And we dissect failures. In both these tasks, we have never failed. Ever. With one minor exception, which we’re still working on.” He flicked his hand as if waving away a bothersome fly. “Those two things, engineering and failure analysis, form our primary business. Our visible business. But they are also our cover. Because behind our public façade, we use these same facilities to carry out, from time to time, highly unusual and confidential projects for special clients. Very special clients. We need you for one of these projects.”

  “Why me?”

  “I’ll get to that in a moment. First, the details. A Chinese scientist is on his way to the United States. We believe the man is carrying the plans for a new, high-technology weapon. We’re not certain, but we have reason to hope he may be defecting.”