• 7:52 A.M.

The train picked up speed and in a blink the Chantilly-Gouvieux station was out of sight. Victor sat back and relaxed. Richard had told him there was nothing to worry about, to take his time, have coffee, even breakfast, and not make a show of leaving; and he'd been right. At every step, Richard had been right.

He looked out the window and watched the French countryside pass by. Here, as in Coeur de la Forêt, the deciduous trees were beginning to leaf out. Bright green and filled with the hope of a glorious summer. He felt happy, even mischievous and, most particularly, alive.

Like a boy who had just turned fourteen and was gobbling up the world around him.

• RURAL FOOTHILLS NORTHEAST OF BARCELONA, 7:55 A.M.

Aterrible thudding roar followed by a huge shadow passing directly overhead made the young driver of the farm truck suddenly slow and look up through its cracked windshield. For an instant he saw nothing but fruit trees and sky; then a Mossos d'Esquadra jet helicopter came straight toward him over the treetops. In a blink it was gone. Five seconds later another police helicopter followed, this one flying lower than the first and blinding them in a storm of whirling dust.

"¿Qué demonios pasa?" What the hell? he cried out and looked wide-eyed at the two young farmworkers squeezed into the seat beside him.

In the next instant two Mossos d'Esquadra cars screamed down the dirt road directly in front of him. Two more raced in from the rear.

"¡Joder!" he yelled. Immediately his right foot slammed the brake pedal and the truck slid to a stop in the whirlwind of dust kicked up by the police cars and the helicopters hovering just overhead, one two hundred feet higher than the other.

Seconds later the three men were facedown in the dirt, uniformed police everywhere, submachine guns at their heads. The doors to the truck were thrown wide open.

Slowly the driver dared to look up. When he did he saw men in dark suits and sunglasses emerge from unmarked cars that had come in from the grove on either side and start toward them. Then something else caught his eye. A huge, polished black SUV appeared through the shade of the orchard trees and slowly approached.

"¡Dios mío! ¿Que ha pasado?" My God, what is it? The young worker next to him breathed.

"¡Cállate!" Shut up! A barrel-chested policeman shoved the barrel of his submachine hard against the side of his head.

Hap Daniels was the first from the SUV. Then came Bill Strait. Then Jake Lowe and then James Marshall. Daniels glanced at them and then started for the truck.

The whirling dust and the thudding roar from the police helicopters overhead made it almost impossible to see, let alone hear or think. Daniels said something into his headset, and almost immediately the helicopters moved up and away to hover five or six hundred feet higher. The dust settled and the sound diminished.

Lowe and Marshall watched Daniels reach the truck, look inside the cab, then walk around it. Seconds later he motioned to one of the Mossos d'Esquadra officers to climb into the vehicle's open staked flatbed. A second policeman followed. Immediately two of Hap Daniels's dark-suited, sunglass-wearing Secret Service agents joined them.

"It's right there, sir," Daniels heard the voice of the curly-haired intel specialist from inside the SUV come through his headset.

"Where?"

"Somewhere near their feet."

"Here!" One of the agents said sharply.

Lowe and Marshall rushed forward. The special agents helped Daniels into the truck and then showed him.

Nicholas Marten's cell phone lay in a large cardboard box filled with irrigation equipment, hose connectors, and sprinkler heads. No apparent effort had been made to conceal it. It was right on top, as if someone had walked by, seen the box, and dropped it in.

Hap Daniels stared at it for a long moment, then slowly turned and looked off. This time there was no need curse out loud. His expression said everything.

The game was still on.

• 8:07 A.M.

Miguel Balius pressed down on the accelerator, and the Mercedes picked up speed. They were headed away from the coast and toward the mountains. Earlier he had avoided a checkpoint for vehicles leaving Barcelona simply by heading back toward it. Several miles later he'd taken a side road near Palau de Plegamans, then turned north onto a country highway. Shortly afterward Cousin Harold had asked how to use the limousine's phone, saying he wanted to place a call abroad. Miguel had explained and Cousin Harold had picked up the phone and punched in a number. Quite obviously he'd reached his party because he chatted for a few brief moments, then hung up and turned to talk with Cousin Jack. Several minutes later he'd made his one and only stop-at the edge of a dusty apple grove, where Cousin Harold relieved himself behind a parked farm truck. As quickly they were off again.

Whoever his passengers were they were clearly middle-class Americans, hardly the terrorists the government troops were searching for, or at least the dark-skinned Islamic stereotypes he and most of the world had come to expect when the word "terrorist" was mentioned. His customers were jet-lagged and tired and simply wanted to spend the day away from the city and seeing the sights, with Montserrat as their current destination. If they didn't relish going through the traffic backups and tedious procedures of roadblocks and checkpoints, neither did he. Besides, there was nothing illegal in what he was doing. It was his job to do what his clients asked, not wait in lines of traffic.

Miguel glanced in the mirror at his passengers and saw them watching the small television screen. They came to see the countryside and were watching TV. What the hell, he said to himself, it's their business.

And it was their business.

Wholly.

The attention of both men was locked on the small screen, where a female CNN reporter was doing a live stand-up in front of the White House, where it was still early morning. There had been no further reports on the circumstances of the president's hasty middle-of-the-night retreat from the Hotel Ritz in Madrid, she said. Nor was there information on the location where he had been taken, nor anything definitive about the nature of the terrorist threat or the terrorists themselves. But the people thought to be directly responsible had been traced to Barcelona, where they narrowly escaped a police raid and were now the subject of a massive manhunt that covered most of Spain and led all the way to the French border.

The piece ended and CNN went to a commercial. At the same time the president picked up the TV's remote and pressed the mute button and the television went silent.

"The Warsaw assassinations," he said to Marten quietly. "On a normal day I would have immediate access to the French and German leaders and could warn them personally. I no longer have that luxury. Still, somehow, the president of France and the chancellor of Germany must be told of the danger at Warsaw, and I don't know how to do it."

"You're certain it will be Warsaw?" Marten asked.

"Yes, I'm certain. They want to make a public show of it to instantly gain world sympathy for the people of Germany and France. It will help smooth the call for rapid elections in both countries and work to quell any political infighting that might keep their people from being elected."

"Then we need to find a way to alert them in a way that's not tied directly to you."

"Yes."

"What about the media? What if it came from The New York Times, The Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CNN or any other major news organization?"

"Who's going to tell them? Me? It's impossible for me to use any electronic communications device, period. Neither can you. You took Peter Fadden's call. They will have recorded your voice. They will be listening as much for yours as mine. At one point I even thought about entrusting Ms. Picard but decided against it for any number of reasons, primarily because no one would believe her, and if she tried to explain and the tabloids got hold of it there would be a massive story that the president had run away from the Secret Service and gone crazy. It's the last thing we need."