I t felt strange to enter his own vehicle as a guest, but the Secret Service would occupy the Blaine County Sheriff Office’s Mobile Command Center-the MCC-for the next four days.

A rock-and-roll tour bus confiscated in a drug bust and remodeled and equipped with every conceivable trick, the MCC was currently parked in front of the post office in the obnoxiously large parking lot that fronted the Sun Valley resort.

Deputy Special Agent in Charge Scott Ramsey sat behind a laptop computer in one of two opposing booths. Behind him hung a seating chart for the inn’s ballroom, each seat labeled with a guest name.

Ramsey gave Walt a nod. Three other agents stood and scattered into the back of the bus, from where Walt could hear a live feed of CNN.

Ramsey had the thick neck and shoulders of a steroid user.

“Dryer’s on-site in the hotel but busy at the moment. I told you that over the phone.”

“Let’s make him unbusy, if we can.”

“Not possible. How can I help you?”

Walt laid the stack of photographs, cropped and printed by Fiona, down on the table.

“We have a visitor,” Walt said.

Ramsey flipped through the first five or six, his face impassive. “Give me the four-one-one.”

“ Salt Lake City airport, this morning. The victim was discovered zipped up in a body bag and hidden inside a hung ceiling in a restaurant under construction. We got lucky, I guess you could say: He was still warm. I believe his killer is the same person contracted to do Shaler.”

Ramsey continued flipping through the photos. “Glad I ate a while ago.”

“I can take these directly to the attorney general, but I thought I owed Special Agent Dryer the courtesy of a conversation. If you say that’s not important, then that’s not important. Thanks for your time.” He scooped up the photos, turned around in the small space, offering Ramsey his back.

Ramsey stood. “Hang on.” He squeezed past Walt and led him into the Sun Valley Inn, the resort’s conference hotel.

Walt felt color rise as he recognized snippets of conversation flood down the hall from one of the conference rooms. He rounded a corner and was greeted by a parade of familiar faces just leaving a meeting. Some of the men stopped to shake hands with him.

“Better late than never, Sheriff,” someone called out.

“Nothing like missing your own meeting,” a familiar but unidentified voice said.

Reflexively, Walt double-checked his watch, though he already knew the time. The security orientation meeting wasn’t scheduled for another forty-five minutes and here it was breaking up.

W alt entered the stuffy conference room prepared for a turf battle with Adam Dryer. He was entirely unprepared for what he saw: his father.

The two men sat next to each other at a linen-covered table on a dais at the end of the boxy conference room. The dais was raised a foot off the floor facing rows of portable chairs separated by a center aisle, reminding Walt of a courtroom, and he the attorney pleading his case.

Jerry Fleming lifted his head and met his son’s surprised stare. “I left a message.”

Walt checked his cell phone: There was no message indicator.

“That’s bullshit,” Walt said.

Jerry Fleming served as director of security for Avicorps out of Seattle, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer. He’d taken the job and its six-figure salary, a detail he loved to mention to Walt.

“Who moved the five o’clock?” Walt asked.

Jerry answered, not Dryer. “The cocktail party at Cutter’s tonight put a little hitch in our giddyup. It was in everyone’s best interest to advance it an hour.”

“The five o’clock was my meeting. Mine and O’Brien’s. You have no say in this.”

“Apparently I do,” Jerry said.

“Your father brought us intel that First Rights is planning to protest the conference.” Adam Dryer made every attempt to make this sound of the utmost importance. “I left you a message on your cell phone about the meeting being advanced.”

Walt gave him a look.

“Careful, son,” Jerry Fleming said.

“You stay out of this,” Walt said.

“Wish that I could. My company’s going to have people at the cocktail party, and the five o’clock didn’t give me and my team time to get in place. A conference like this is fluid, son. You know that.”

His father was a fount of security clichés.

“You want fluid? Try piss and vinegar.”

“The presence of First Rights requires additional planning,” Dryer said.

“The WTO in Seattle? That First Rights?” Walt asked.

“The same,” Dryer said.

Walt now stepped forward and placed the Salt Lake photos in front of Dryer, who gravely flipped through the stack, passing each photograph on to Jerry Fleming.

“Son of a bitch,” Jerry said, meeting eyes with his son. “This is Salt Lake?” He scrutinized the photographs. “Organized mind. Experienced with a knife. Late twenties, early thirties. Single.”

“It isn’t a serial killer, Dad. It’s a hit man.”

“I’ve hunted them, son,” Jerry said. “All you’ve done is study them.”

“The upside,” Dryer said, raising his voice and making a conscious effort to separate father and son, “is that clearly our intel was wrong. When and if this dead guy’s ever IDed, what do you want to bet his initials come back AG? We got all worked up over nothing.”

“And this ‘hit,’” Walt said, drawing the quotes, “just happens to occur a couple hundred miles south of where AG Shaler is giving a speech? Give me a break! The intel’s solid. The planning for the body bag is the kicker. That should bother us, because it’s an indication of premeditation.” He paused, allowing that to sink in. “This kill confirms the intel. We need to know the victim’s identity-fast-and his role in this, because the man behind that knife is on his way here, or is here already.”

“You’re entitled to your opinions, Sheriff,” Dryer said. “But until we have the identification, until we have any kind of evidence connecting this kill to the conference, it would be irresponsible to initiate hysteria over what might be nothing.”

“‘Initiate hysteria’?” Walt asked. “You want another look at those photos? This guy is a pro-whoever he is, whatever his purpose-and he’s within three hundred miles of here. All I’m saying is we’d better sit up and take notice.”

Jerry interrupted the debate, saying, “There’s a cocktail party in a little over two hours, and First Rights intends to march on this conference. Where’s our focus? On a city three hundred miles south of here, in another state, or on the business at hand?”

“I need route clearance and a two-vehicle escort from the AG’s residence to Patrick Cutter’s residence, on or about six forty-five P.M.,” Dryer informed Walt.

“It’s already on the itinerary. You’ll have your escort.” Walt stepped up onto the dais to collect the photographs. “I want to show these to Liz Shaler.”

“Out of the question,” Dryer barked out quickly.

“She deserves to understand the degree of the threat.”

“The AG is my responsibility,” Dryer reminded.

“She’s speaking at the conference and that puts her with me. Are we really going to get into this?”

“If you want a few minutes with her, I’ll arrange it. But no photographs. No one should see these who doesn’t have to.”

Walt took this as a minor victory. “Thank you,” he said.

Jerry Fleming made a show of checking his watch. “I’ve got to get moving. Walt, let’s do this at the party.”

“Cutter doesn’t want uniforms present,” Walt reminded.

“So lose the uniform,” Dryer said. “Meet me at the cocktail party, Sheriff. You and the AG will step out for a minute. See if you can come up with a game plan for First Rights by then. We’ve got to hit this proactively.”

“See you at seven,” Walt said.