One of the most interesting items he had discovered was that a little over six months ago, the Americans had secretly released five of the most dangerous prisoners they held at Guantanamo Bay. They had used a radioactive isotope to taint their blood in order to track them, but it had failed, and the Americans had lost track of them.

That all formed the what of the equation. What the Troll couldn’t put together was the why.

Had it been some kind of a hush-hush trade? If so, who was it with and why track the men? Were they hoping to get them back, and if so, from whom? Who wanted them in the first place?

As far as the Troll could see, the prisoners were in no way connected. They all came from different organizations-even different countries. It didn’t make any sense.

He supposed an Al Qaeda connection probably could be established among the five, but not in such a way that the release en masse made any sense. And they certainly hadn’t been released because they had been model detainees or had been wrongly incarcerated in the first place. No, these were very rough, very dangerous men.

Their dossiers listed multiple escape attempts and multiple attacks on the Joint Task Force Guantanamo guards. While it was probably a relief to some of their captors to see them gone, the United States must have commanded a heavy price in return.

That had been the Troll’s theory, but no matter how hard he tried to find a link, he couldn’t. There was an absolute black hole of information-a very rare intelligence phenomenon, especially by his standards. Information could be hidden, but it never simply evaporated. The fact that he had to drill down so hard to get what was sitting in front of him right now told him one thing-the United States didn’t want word of the release of these five men ever getting out.

The soldiers who had been involved with releasing the prisoners that rainy night nearly six months ago had all been promoted and transferred out of Guantanamo. The United States had done a very good job tying up all its loose ends, but why? What were they hiding?

The Troll let that question spin in his brain for a bit while he focused on another piece that didn’t seem to fit-Agent Scot Harvath.

Over the last several hours, it had become quite apparent that Harvath had some exceptional resources at his disposal, but they weren’t resources that belonged to the U. S. government per se.

On the contrary, for some reason the United States regarded him as a liability and, according to the Troll’s sources, wasn’t allowing Harvath to pursue the investigation into who’d shot Tracy Hastings. Harvath was working alone.

Be that as it might, the man obviously had friends-and quite talented ones at that. The Troll was still chiding himself for having lost everything. His data, his fortune, all of it.

At first, he had entertained the idea of putting a contract out on Harvath, but not only would it have been prohibitively expensive, but if anything happened to Harvath, the Troll might very well never see his money or his data again. He had no choice, at least for the time being, but to let things play out. If an opportunity presented itself at some point in the future, and one always did, then he would make his move. But for the time being, he was going to have to give every appearance that he was playing ball.

Reaching across the table, he pulled the thin pad of paper back toward him and studied the list of five names again. What should his next move be?

As a clap of thunder roared from somewhere out over the bay, the Troll lifted his pen, crossed the top name off the list, and then logged back into the chat room. What Harvath didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.

SARGASSO INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM

ELK MOUNTAIN RESORT

MONTROSE, COLORADO

After talking with her doctors, Harvath had sat with his mother again and had watched her sleep. It was still too early to tell if the damage to her vision would be permanent, but they were hopeful that her eyesight would begin to return soon. The blows she had taken to her head during the attack were what concerned them the most at this point, and they wanted to hold on to her for at least the next several days for more testing and observation.

After a little while longer, Harvath had stood. He loved his mother dearly, but no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t just sit there by her bedside and wait for someone else to be attacked. He needed to act. So with a group of her friends on deck ready to sit vigil, he had climbed back aboard Tim Finney’s Citation X and had flown back to Colorado.

Though the trip was smooth and uneventful, Harvath couldn’t get any sleep. Tracy lay near death and his mother had been assaulted and tortured. He would have to live with the horrors of what had happened to them for the rest of his life. For a moment, he wondered if that was a part of the plan. The thought of it turned his stomach sour and once again he tasted the bile rising in his throat.

Harvath was coming unglued and he knew it. He was not one to let his emotions get the better of him, but this was different. The victims were people he knew and loved who were getting attacked. Would there be others? Probably. Would the attacker become more emboldened and potentially kill? That was a possibility-one so big that Harvath didn’t even like to think about it, but he had to count on it.

Everyone, no matter how good, left clues. This guy was dropping pretty obvious ones, but none that helped Harvath figure out who he was or how he could be stopped.

Harvath wracked his brain all the way through the plane’s touching down and the ride up into the mountains to the resort.

When he got there, Finney and Parker were waiting for him.

“Did you get any sleep on the way back?” asked Finney.

Harvath shook his head, no.

His friend handed him a key card in a small folder with a room number on it. “Why don’t you knock off for a bit?”

“What about the Boy from Ipanema down there in Brazil?”

“We heard from him right before a storm front moved in. His comms are down for the time being. We’ll keep an eye on things. When the weather starts to break, we’ll come get you.”

Harvath thanked his friends and headed for his room. At the door, he made a conscious decision to shut his mind off and try to leave all his problems outside. Sleep was a weapon. It kept you sharp, and right now Scot Harvath needed it badly.

Opening the door, he kicked his shoes off and fell onto the bed. The resort was famous for its insanely high-thread-count sheets, down duvets, and featherbeds, but Harvath didn’t care about any of that. All he wanted was sleep.

In a matter of moments his prayers were answered and he stepped off the cliff of consciousness into one of the deepest, darkest sleeps he had ever known.