“I’d much rather be rich.”

“Five days,” he retorted.

“The negotiations are closed! Three days or your plan goes down the tubes.”

“I doubt one story from you will turn such an overwhelming global tide.”

“Fine, then don’t pay and we’ll see what happens. Good-bye.”

“Wait, wait!”

“I’m listening.”

“All right. Three days. But a piece of advice, Ms. James. If you do something as incredibly stupid as double-crossing us-”

“I know, I know. It won’t be pretty. Don’t worry. I’ve already got my Pulitzers. All I want now are the good things in life.”

She gave him the bank information and glanced at Shaw. He was making a slashing motion against his neck.

“Nice doing business with you,” Katie remarked before clicking off.

She looked at Shaw, who turned off the video camera.

“Well?” she asked.

“Western suburbs of Washington, D.C.; the Dulles Toll Road.

“They know that fast?”

“There’re two cell towers right there. It was easy to trace the signal. He would’ve been far safer sitting in a crowded hotel. Too many signals there to narrow down to one person.”

“Okay, but what about just tracing the number the man used?”

“We did. He tried to block the number, that’s why it didn’t pop up on your screen, but we had a wireless intercept on the phone you used. It overrode his block, snagged the number, and sixty seconds later we had our phone number owner.”

“Who was it?”

“According to Frank, an eighty-six-year-old priest in Boston who I’m reasonably sure is not running around the world starting wars, and has no idea someone stole his phone number.”

“So how does knowing that this guy was driving on that road help us? Could they tell which car?”

He shook his head. “Technology’s not there yet. Same as trying to pinpoint a person.”

“So how do we trace the guy, Shaw?” she said, exasperated.

He patted the video camera. “By using this.”

“That? You’ve been taking a video of me and a clock.”

“That’s right.”

“So now what?”

“Now we fly to D.C.”

THEY SNAGGED A RIDE TO AMERICA on a private wing that Frank managed to get hold of. The plane had enough range to make it to D.C. without refueling so they settled in for the seven-hour-plus flight from London.

Ed Royce from MI5 was with them. Shaw and Katie strapped into their seats in the back while Frank and Royce went over some details up front.

Katie pulled a blanket snugly around her. She sipped on some club soda and stared over at Shaw as they rode a smooth flight path across the Atlantic.

“This beats the hell out of the trip across the Irish Sea on that roller coaster, doesn’t it?” she said.

Shaw nodded, but kept staring at the seat in front of him.

“Do you really think we’re going to find out who’s behind it?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “If we’re lucky, maybe. But finding out and then doing something about it are two different things.”

“Evidence that’ll stand up in court, you mean?”

Shaw didn’t say what he meant. He turned away from her again.

“You okay?” she asked, touching his shoulder. It was his bad arm, so she did it very gently.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he said unconvincingly.

“When we get this all figured out and the bad guys are put away, I think I’m going to go see my parents.”

“Where are they?”

“In Vermont, at least they were the last time I checked. They like to move around. I think that’s where I got the wanderlust.”

“What do they do?’

“My father’s a professor of English. He teaches creative writing. That’s why my middle name is Wharton. Edith is one of his favorite writers. I was actually named after Katherine Chopin, but people have always just called me Katie. My dad grew up in D.C. but went to college at Stanford. That’s where he met my mom. He got his Ph.D. and started teaching at Harvard. Mom taught there too until the kids started coming.”

“How many?”

“Including me, four. I’m the youngest. I was born in Harvard Square. Literally. After three kids I guess Mom figured she could wait to the very last second before heading to the hospital. She and Dad were running to the car when her water broke. I ended up being born in a spare classroom. How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“I just divulged some details of my earth-shattering past. Now it’s your turn.”

“No, thanks.”

“Oh, come on, Shaw, it’s not like I’m going to run out and write a story about it. Just tell me something about your family.”

“Okay. I have no memory of my mother other than imagined because she got rid of me when I was about two, at least that’s what I was told later. I never knew my father. I lived in an orphanage until I got kicked out at age six. The next dozen years I spent with people I have no reason to remember. I have no brothers or sisters, at least that I’m aware of. So now you know all about me.”

He turned back away from her.

Katie just sat there stunned. “I’m sorry.”

“No reason to be sorry.”

“But that must’ve really been hard on you.”

“Probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“How can you say that?’

“Because it taught me right from the start to rely only on myself,” he said firmly.

Katie drew the blanket tighter around her as Shaw turned his attention to the back of his seat again.

“So what are you going to do after this is all over?” she asked.

“Depends on which way it turns out to be all over.”

“I mean the way where we both walk away from it still breathing.”

“Haven’t really thought that far ahead,” he said.

She glanced up to the front of the plane where Royce and Frank were sitting at a small table going over some documents.

“But not stay with Frank? You need to get out, before it’s too late.”

“What don’t you get? It’s already too late for me, Katie.”

“But Shaw-”

He turned away from her, slid his seat back, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

Katie kept her gaze on him for a while before turning to look out the window. The sky was black, the wide ocean seven miles below invisible. She’d been on thousands of flights over the years, and, for some reason, had felt cold on every single one of them.

Yet Katie had never experienced the ice in her veins she felt right now.

FRANK, ROYCE, SHAW, AND KATIE sat in a room and looked at the video stream pouring over the large screen. Now Katie understood what Shaw had been talking about.

“There’re video cameras mounted on poles all along the highway here,” Shaw had explained. “They’re as much to address accidents and traffic backups as they are about Big Brother watching, but they’re very useful for what we want to do.”

On another screen was the video Shaw had taken of Katie talking to Pender with the LED clock readout also clearly visible.

“Okay,” Shaw said. “Start the highway video at the same time as the film that I shot of Katie and the clock.”

The videos started up and the time ticked away. At midnight there was still traffic on the Dulles Toll Road. D.C. was just that kind of place. But it wasn’t bumper to bumper.

“There’s the starting position of the cell signal burn,” Frank pointed out on the screen.

“Looks like the cars are going about sixty-five,” Shaw estimated. “So a minute a mile.” He looked at the video of Katie and the LED clock.

He told Royce, “As soon as Frank told me they’d picked up the signal on the highway and that the guy was moving, I had Katie do the ‘pull the car off the road’ maneuver. That was three minutes and three seconds into the conversation.”

Royce nodded. “So about three miles of drive time.”

“I thought I could hear the squeal of tires on the cell phone when I told him,” Katie said. “And a horn too.”