"No," Hector said defiantly. He needed no translation. "No."

"Hector, listen to me carefully. When we find the president we will know you were lying and you will go to prison for a very, very long time."

Captain Diaz's translation was delivered as if what Bill Strait had said was already a given, a twenty- or thirty-year prison sentence handed down by a judge.

"No," he said, "we were alone. Amado and me. Nobody else. Ask your men. They looked, they found nothing."

Suddenly Hector felt a presence and looked up. Amado came toward him accompanied by two CNP officers. His complexion was white, his eyes filled with tears. There was no need for words. What had happened was all too clear.

He had told them.

• 12:18 A.M.

The ascent from the lower chimney to the main tunnel had been done with relative ease. The next, the hundred-yard marching along it, had been made quickly and without incident even in the dark. Then José had found the opening to the upper chimney, the one Hap, Miguel, he, Amado, and Hector had come down in what felt like days, even weeks earlier.

They were in it and climbing when Hap suddenly grunted and stopped. Miguel put a narrow flashlight beam on him and they could see the color had drained from him and that he was sweating heavily. Quickly Miguel gave him water from his camel pack and insisted he take another pain pill and he had.

Now the five sat in stillness, giving him a chance to rest and wait for the medication to take effect. In another circumstance they might have left him and gone on alone with his blessing but they couldn't. He had walked the entire Aragon resort only weeks earlier in preparation for the president's visit and knew the details of its layout as only a man with his training and experience could. If they were going to make it at all, they needed Hap. Whether a short rest would be enough, there was no way to know.

• 12:23 A.M.

"The football, Mr. President," Marten said in the darkness and for no other reason than he'd been thinking about it, "that black satchel the public sees a military aide carrying around everywhere the president goes. I assume it really does have the codes for launching nuclear missiles."

"Yes."

"Excuse my asking but where is it now?"

"I would assume 'my friends' have it. I couldn't very well have taken it with me when I left."

"Your 'friends' have it?"

"It doesn't make any difference."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"There's more than one," Hap suddenly joined the conversation.

"What?"

"The president has one when he travels. There's another tucked away at the White House and a third is available to the vice president in the event the president is unable to function. Such as now."

"You mean they have it anyway."

"Yes, they have it anyway… Any other questions?"

"Not for the moment."

"Good," Hap suddenly pushed himself to his feet. "Let's get moving before more 'rescuers' arrive."

• 12:32 A.M.

They stopped a dozen feet short of the chimney opening and sent José to the top as they had before.

• 12:36 A.M.

José climbed back down and spoke to Miguel in Spanish. Miguel listened and then turned to the others. "There are low clouds and it is raining," he translated quietly. "He heard nothing and saw no lights. When we get out, we follow him closely over open rock. Very soon there will be a steep path; it goes up for a short distance, then cuts back down through some brush and continues down through switchbacks for maybe a half mile before it ends in an arroyo. Afterward we follow the arroyo to a stream crossing. On the other side we pick up a trail through the woods that goes for at least another two miles before we hit an open space."

"Then what?" the president asked.

"We'll see when we get that far," Hap said flatly. "The weather will reduce the effectiveness of thermal imaging, but this is a game of little steps. If we cover almost three miles in the dark and rain without attracting visitors, that's huge. I hope not impossible."

"Are you up to it?" the president was genuinely concerned about Hap's condition.

"I'm ready when you are, Mr. President."

• 12:38 A.M.

It had taken Jim Marshall nearly twenty minutes to locate the vice president and have him connected to a secure phone. Word that the president had been seen alive, and in the shafts, and with a man fitting the description of Nicholas Marten within the past hour had disturbed the vice president but not enough to steer either him or Marshall off course. To both it was the same as it had been from the beginning when the president had gone missing in Madrid and then was located in Barcelona: he was either Marten's prisoner or he was mentally ill. In a way the situation now was better than it had been because they knew for certain where he was. Hundreds of people were zeroed in on the area with more on the way. It was only a matter of time, hours, maybe even minutes, before he was found. After that he would be in their custody and on his way out of Spain and to their isolated undisclosed location in Switzerland.

"You're right there on top of it, Jim. Nobody better to make sure it happens the way it needs to," the vice president reassured him.

"You'll inform the others."

"Right away. Let me know the minute you have him and are airborne."

"Done," Marshall said, and hung up. Immediately he went to find Bill Strait, who, along with Captain Diaz, was caught in the adrenaline-driven rush to coordinate the movements of people still underground while managing the setup and logistics for the wave of new forces being scrambled to come in.

Marshall pulled Strait aside to walk him through the confusion of the command post tent and out into the rain, where they could be alone.

"Once he's found, he and Marten are to be separated right away. Take Marten into our custody and fly him to the embassy in Madrid to be held there incommunicado for debriefing.

"No questions to the president by anyone, no conversation with him at all other than medical if he needs it. He's brought straight to the Chinook, the door closes, and we go, wheels up right then. That's it. Nothing else at all. Anyone questions it, it is a direct order from the vice president. Make certain everyone knows. Your people, CIA, Captain Diaz and her ops, everyone."

"Yes, sir."

• 12:43 A.M

They looked like ghosts.

Survival blankets over their heads Mylar side out and belted loosely around their bodies, eyeholes cut, the four followed José out of the fracture at the top of the chimney and then across a flat rock face to a steep narrow path between high rock formations. A few feet more and they stopped and listened. Nothing but the sound of the wind and the gentle beat of the rain on Mylar.

Miguel nodded and José led them on. Marten was second, then the president, then Hap, and then Miguel. Hap with the 9mm Sig Sauer automatic held just inside the Mylar, covering Miguel doing the same, his finger on the trigger of the Steyr machine pistol.

• 12:49 A.M.

They were on the far side of the rocks and descending along a steep, brush-lined path made up of gravelly sandstone. In the dark and rain it was impossible to know if they were leaving tracks that could be followed later. The other thing was the Mylar. At this point it was impossible to tell if their body heat was reading "cold" to the satellite watching from God-only-knew-how-many-miles-above-them or if their body signatures had already been read "hot" and heavily armed ops were on their way to intercept them.

Marten looked up through the rain, trying to see the ridgeline above them, his view narrowed by the eyeholes cut in the Mylar. He saw nothing but blackness and started to look away. In that second he saw a bright light swing over the hilltop.