Harvath eased his feet to the floor and slowly stood up from the bed. His legs were weak, but with a concerted effort he propelled himself forward to the bathroom.

Taking the gown off was the hard part. With the straps tied behind him and his arms so stiff, he couldn’t reach around to untie it. He walked toward the toilet, lifted the bottom half of the gown like a skirt, and began to relieve himself. Then, ever so slowly, Scot inched the gown over his head until it came all the way off. He reached inside the shower and turned the control all the way to hot. As he did, he caught a glimpse of his back in the mirror. He wouldn’t win any beauty pageants, that was for sure, but it would heal.

God bless the president for having friends that can afford houses like this, Scot thought as he sat on the marble bench in the ornate shower and let the hot water beat down on him. After what he figured had been a good fifteen minutes, he flipped the lever that activated the steam shower and closed his eyes. As he breathed in the searing moisture, he replayed the events of the past twenty-four hours in his mind. The avalanche didn’t make any sense. There had been a lot of snow falling, but both the Utah Avalanche Forecast Center and Deer Valley’s avalanche-control team had assured him that the risks were minimal. Scot himself had even made the trip up to Squaw Peak to test the conditions that very morning.

Could more snow have fallen than he thought? Even though the UAFC had rated the risks minimal, there still had been risks. The weight of responsibility rested heavily upon Scot’s battered shoulders. He sat in the shower in a trance and replayed everything over and over in his mind. Then, with a jolt, he sat upright. He had completely forgotten about Hollenbeck’s conversation with Hermes right before his exhaustion overtook him, Two agents down…unnatural causes.

Scot threw the lever back to shower and twisted the knob all the way to cold. He had learned this trick in a massage club in Hong Kong. A hot bath followed by a cold plunge was better than four cups of coffee any day.

The shock to his system had the desired effect, and Scot climbed out of the shower feeling alive, his senses keen, even if his body was still in pain. He promised himself no sedatives or pain medication, no matter what Hollenbeck or Dr. Trawick said. He hated how those things could cloud his mind, and his mind was his most important weapon. Gumming up the works was just asking for trouble.

Not seeing his clothes lying around, and figuring they had probably been cut off him, Scot was relieved to find a terry cloth bathrobe in the bedroom’s cedar closet. He put it on and headed for the door.

When he stepped into the hallway, he noticed the door across from his was wide open and the room’s bed was made. He searched his brain for what Dr. Trawick had said about Amanda. Hadn’t he said she was across the hall? If she had been, she had been moved, and Scot added her whereabouts to the list of questions he had.

There were no detail agents in the hall as he made his way toward the stairway, but he did hear voices coming from below.

Walking in a straight line across a level surface was one thing. Walking down stairs was another. Scot leaned heavily on the pine banister as he forced his knees to bend and accommodate. He let out a small thanks that none of the agents in the enormous, picture-windowed living room had seen his struggle. After three shuffling steps at the bottom of the landing, he was spotted by Agent Palmer.

“What are you doing up, Scot?”

“I’m not paid to sleep, and I want to know what’s going on.”

“It’s bad. Real bad.”

“I heard Birdhouse talking with Hermes about finding two agents down last night.”

“From what I heard, you took a real beating. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Scot growled with a little more venom than Agent Palmer deserved. “Would somebody just tell me what’s going on?”

“Have you eaten?”

“Palmer, damn it. I want to know what’s happening.”

“Listen to me, Scot, just relax. A lot has happened, and I mean a lot. I’ll be more than happy to fill you in. Why don’t we get you some breakfast, and I’ll tell you everything. You’re gonna need to sit down for this.”

Palmer walked away for a moment toward the front door and returned carrying a blue duffel bag with a Secret Service emblem on the side.

“They had to cut you out of your clothes last night. Hollenbeck figured you might need some things, so he had one of the agents get this stuff from your hotel.”

“He’s all heart.” My hotel. Scot still couldn’t remember its name.

“There’s a bathroom just down the hall there. Why don’t you get dressed and meet me in the kitchen? I’ll put some coffee on and see what I can rustle up foodwise.”

“Thanks, Palmer.”

“No prob.”

Twenty minutes later, shaved and past the painful ordeal of getting dressed, Scot appeared in the kitchen wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of Timberland boots. Palmer was sitting on a stool at a granite-topped cooking island reviewing paperwork.

She looked up from her reading and saw Scot standing in the doorway. “How are you doing?”

“Enough about me. Let’s have some answers.”

“You know, Harvath, I’m willing to cut you some slack for what you went through, but you’re getting dangerously close to the limit.”

“I know,” Scot said as he took the stool next to her, glad that it had a soft cushion he could rest his body against. “I’m sorry. I just want to know what the big picture is.”

“Fine. I can understand that. There’s a lot to go over, so why don’t I pour us each a cup of coffee and we’ll get started. I hunted up a microwave breakfast. One of those eggs-and-bacon things. Probably doesn’t taste too good-”

“Sold. I’ll take it.”

With a cup of steaming hot coffee and a bland microwave breakfast to keep his mouth busy, he listened as Palmer explained what the Secret Service knew so far.

“At sixteen-ten yesterday afternoon you relayed Goldilocks’s desire to call it a day. You met Hat Trick’s detail at the last lap, from which he proceeded with his detail toward Death Chute and your detail accompanied Goldilocks toward her usual route back here. At approximately sixteen-twenty-five your report states that Goldilocks wiped out and while you were retrieving her gear, you thought you noticed Ahern and Houchins fall going into the treed area of Death Chute. It was at this point that you noticed communications-”

“Palmer,” said Scot between bites of hash browns, “can you please skip ahead to the stuff I don’t know? Give me the abridged version.”

“You know, I could just let you sift through the reports.”

“Don’t give me a hard time. Give me the facts.”

“All right, all right. Your team didn’t make it.”

“None of them?”

“We’ve recovered five members of your detail already and are looking for the others, who are now presumed dead. The five we’ve got were killed by the avalanche.”

Scot hung his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to fight off the headache and emotion he felt coming on. “And Goldilocks? What’s her condition?” he asked without looking up.

“She suffered some severe head and neck trauma, frostbite, and hypothermia. Had you not gotten her out of the snow and the intercept team not found you when they did, she never would have made it. Her condition is guarded, but stable. She has some damaged vertebrae, but they believe they can be fixed.”

“Will she be able to walk? Is there any permanent damage?”

According to Dr. Paulos, there shouldn’t be any permanent damage. It looks like she’s going to pull through.”

“Thank God for that. What about Hat Trick?”

“That’s where it gets really bad. Every member of Hat Trick’s detail is dead.”

“Dead, how?”

“Nine millimeter, best we can tell.”