Sean flexed his hands. Suddenly he felt nauseous, just like he did most mornings. “You don’t want to do that, Sanborn. Right now you might still be able to get out of this, but anything else and you’re a dead man.”

“And what about you?” Sanborn said. “Anything I’ve done, you’ve done too. It’s called conspiracy. Little more than you bargained for, isn’t it, Agent Kelly?” He moved then gun from Daryn’s temple and shoved it under her chin.

The driver of the burgundy car, a middle-aged, well-dressed black woman, was running toward them, but stopped short when she saw the gun. She turned and began to run back toward the street.

“The cops will be all over this street in a minute or two,” Sean said. “That woman’s pulling out her cell phone and calling them now.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Sanborn said. “There’s just been an act of terrorism at the Chase Tower. See that smoke? That means a lot more right now than some strange little altercation on a dead-end street.” He twisted the gun under Daryn’s chin. “I could just fix this right now, Daryn. One shot, a blinding split-second of pain, and then no more pain at all, of any kind, ever again. But no, maybe I won’t do that after all. You’d like that too much, wouldn’t you?”

Sean stared at him, not understanding.

Sanborn raised his voice. “Britt! Come here, girl.”

Britt didn’t move.

“Now, girl. Come to me or Daryn dies right here, right now.”

Britt walked slowly to him.

“Now you, Mr. Kelly. You’re going to step away from your car, over to the curb. Should have kept your weapon with you, shouldn’t you? But then, I suppose whiskey and sex have your mind a bit rattled these days, yes?”

Sean very slowly moved away from the open door of the Jeep, toward the last building on the block, which was vacant. A faded sign on the building read Billy’s Candy & Nectar Co.

He moved to the curb, holding his hands out away from his body, trying to think. But his brain felt encased in some kind of gel, something that surrounded him and wouldn’t let him go, wouldn’t let him think.

“Traitor,” Sanborn hissed, lowered the gun and shoved her hard. She tumbled to the ground and he kicked her in the ribs. “We’ll regroup in Mulhall. The Coalition isn’t dead, young Miss McDermott. We’re just getting started. The rulers will know that we’ve spoken, and one of them will be your father.”

He motioned to Britt with the gun, then ran for the Jeep.

“Daryn?” Britt said.

“Come now, Britt!” Sanborn shouted. “She betrayed the Coalition. She betrayed you! You loved her and she betrayed everything we stand for! Come on!”

“Daryn?”

Daryn was curled into a fetal position, clutching her ribs. Sean moved toward her. Daryn didn’t speak. She hadn’t made a sound since Sanborn grabbed her. Her eyes were squeezed closed. Tears streaked her face and ran onto the asphalt.

Britt finally walked to the Jeep, never taking her eyes from Daryn.

“If you try to come back to the Coalition,” Sanborn said, “I’ll kill you, or I’ll have you killed. And maybe…” He slid behind the wheel of Sean’s Jeep. “…maybe I’ll have you killed anyway.”

Britt got in beside him, and Sanborn turned the Jeep around, maneuvering it out of the dead-end street.

Sean looked up. He saw a face at a window across the street. He heard more sirens, and pandemonium from down the street. Smoke billowed and streamed from the Chase Tower.

He went to Daryn, picked her up in his arms, and took her back to the curb.

“He’s going to kill me,” Daryn whispered. “He’s going to come after me. He thinks I’m a traitor…but he…he’s the traitor. It wasn’t supposed to…” She contorted her face in pain, in anguish.

Sean’s head was pounding. Everything had gotten mixed up. He didn’t know who was who or what was what anymore. For a moment he could almost imagine that he was back in the cantina in Sasabe, drinking whiskey and eating tortillas half a mile from the Mexican border.

But he’d found Daryn McDermott. Her identity was in the open, as was his. Somehow Sanborn had broken his cover. But that didn’t matter anymore. Nothing was the same. Sanborn was right-Daryn would be implicated in any conspiracy charges. She and Sanborn had together been the driving forces behind the Coalition’s plans. Behind the plans yet to come. He remembered the list of other banks, all over the country, culminating with a “strike” on Citibank in New York City.

A little bit of the gel surrounding his mind melted. “Oh my God,” he said aloud. He knew in that instant he would never see the rest of Tobias Owens’s money, that Senator McDermott would probably never see his daughter again, and there was no chance at redemption for his career. But he had to make a choice. He pulled out his cell phone.

When Faith answered, he said, “Where are you right now?”

“At my office. All hell’s broken loose downtown. Why didn’t you-”

“Faith, we’re not far away. Come and get us.”

“What? What do you mean, us?”

Sean cradled Daryn’s head in his lap. “You’re in the protection business, right? I have someone who needs protection, and I think she might have some information you and your bosses would find useful.”

FAITH HAD TO LITERALLY PLUCK THEM OUT FROM under the noses of the local cops. As soon as she hung up the phone with her brother, she knew the us he referred to had to be himself and the missing girl, Katherine Hall. She also knew that if she was about to become officially involved, not as Sean’s sister but as a Department Thirty case officer, she needed to avoid any entanglements with the locals. All she would need was Detective Cain sniffing around what had turned into a federal matter.

Since her Miata was strictly a two-seater, she pried Hendler temporarily away from the downtown melee. The girl was to ride with Faith, and Sean with Hendler in his Toyota. Sean complained about the arrangement, but Faith silenced him with a look. He was in her territory now.

With no time to make other arrangements, she decided to use the Edmond safe house after all, and they headed north. The girl, Kat Hall, kept looking at her during the half-hour drive, kept trying to talk to her.

“Wait,” Faith told her. “Just wait, then you can talk all you want.”

Faith did look at her quite a bit herself, though. She looked almost frail, waiflike, but with eyes of pure steel. There was something vaguely familiar about her, though Faith couldn’t place it. Just like the elusive Franklin Sanborn. She’d searched every database she had access to, and had come up empty. But she was still positive she knew the name. With any luck, she’d know why very shortly.

Department Thirty’s safe house in the white-collar suburb of Edmond had once been the home of Frank and Anna Elder, the new identities assigned to James and Natalia Brickens, aka “Adam and Eve,” who had once been the world’s premier freelance assassins. They were still considered the biggest catches ever in the department, though both were now dead. Their case, and the turbulent search of their son to find his own real identity, had been her introduction to Department Thirty. That case had led to the death of her mentor and father figure, Art Dorian, and had brought her into his world.

The department had held on to the house, though, paying the mortgage, taxes, utilities, and insurance through a variety of accounts. It was in a quiet subdivision just off Santa Fe Avenue and Danforth Road on the north side of Edmond. The suburb had grown hugely just in the years Faith had lived in Oklahoma. The corner of Danforth and Santa Fe had once been an open field. A single convenience store had been the only business. Now all four corners were occupied by bustling shopping centers.

Faith kept a garage door opener for the house, just as she did for the Yukon safe house. She pressed the button and pulled the Miata into the two-car garage. Hendler’s Toyota pulled in behind her. Sean got out, but Hendler leaned out his window and said, “I have to get back downtown. There are a lot of…well, we’re still not quite sure what happened.”