“I can’t do that, Colonel. Not while you still occupy the Benzai Strip. Do you hear me?” There was no response. “Do you hear me?”

Still no response.

“I won’t abandon our personnel. The people who went down in that helicopter are U.S. citizens. We have the right to retrieve them!”

Still no response.

“Are you listening to me, Colonel?”

When the colonel’s voice finally returned, it possessed an eerie calm that Ben found positively chilling. “Your time begins… now.”

Seamus McKay climbed into the driver’s seat of the beat-up Dodge the Company had loaned him for in-city work, grousing once more about how screwed up the whole system really was. The terrorists had better weapons than they did, better intel than they had, and perhaps most gratingly, better cars than they got. And yet they were supposed to track these people down and apprehend them-while of course being scrupulous about not violating their civil rights.

Good luck.

Come to think of it, he might have violated eight or ten civil rights during that brawl at the Washington Monument, but he had prevented the ugly obelisk from being blown to pieces, so he hoped that would be the primary focus of the debrief. Well, he could hope, anyway.

His whole midsection ached. He must’ve sprained something when he pulled his entire body weight up to the second level where the sniper was perched. He needed to get to the gym more often than he did, keep those abs in shape. But as his chronological age crept ever closer to fifty, the urgency of befriending the Nautilus machines seemed to subside. Wasn’t he getting too old for this life? Coming stateside had been a step in the right direction. Did he really want to spend the rest of his life chasing after the kind of scum who would rob a nuclear armory?

Speaking of which, he’d better phone in an early report. The security cops at the monument must’ve contacted his office by now. He’d better make sure his superiors got his side of the story, as quickly as possible. As he pulled onto the parkway, he dialed his cell with his left hand.

“Zira?”

“I’m here, Seamus. What the hell is going on?”

As succinctly as possible, Seamus tried to bring her up-to-date, explaining how he had followed the trail from the Arlington armory, using a tip from a trusted informant, caught up to the thieves just as they left their hideout, and followed them all the way to the Washington Monument. He left out most of the details of the fight, just mentioning in passing that he had taken out several men single-handedly.

“But one got away? With the suitcase?”

Count on Zira to accentuate the negative. “Unfortunately. I couldn’t be in four places at once.”

“So you took down three men of no importance and let the one with the nuke escape?”

“I took the fourth down, too. Unfortunately, he got back up again.”

He could hear a tsking sound on the other end of the connection. “I think this is another example of incredibly poor judgment, Seamus. Just the latest of many such instances.”

How had he ever ended up with a female operations chief, anyway? With her high heels and her perfectly tailored suits, she wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in Afghanistan. Did someone in Washington think this was politically correct?

“I saved the monument,” Seamus said curtly. “And there were no casualties.”

“Yet,” she rejoined without waiting a breath. “But since there’s a maniac out there with a nuclear device, how long will that remain true?”

Seamus stifled the instinct to swear. “Look, I’ve still got some leads. I saw a couple of things out there that might indicate where this guy will go next. I’ll follow up.”

“No, Seamus. You won’t.”

He swerved his car onto M Street and pulled into the far lane. “Are you kidding? I’m the one who found these clowns. No one knows more about them than me.”

“Nonetheless, you-”

“I’ll come in and do a full debrief and report later. Promise. But I’ve got to cover the field while the trail is still hot.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Are you listening to me?” Seamus practically shouted into the receiver. “These guys stole a nuke and they’re planning to use it.”

“Yes,” Zira replied, “and sadly enough, that is not the most urgent threat facing our nation today.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How much do you know about Kuraq and its current leader, Colonel Zuko?”

Seamus resisted the temptation to say, “A hell of a lot more than you.” “Plenty. Kuraq isn’t that far from Afghanistan or Iran. I’ve seen Zuko in action, back before he took control.”

“Good. How would you describe him?”

“Smart. Western-educated. Insecure about his military position, which is likely to make him dangerous.”

“You’re certainly right about the last part. Zuko has somehow infiltrated our military defense computers and seized control of some of our ballistic missiles.”

Seamus’s eyes bulged. “More nukes?”

“No, conventional explosives, at least at this time. But very powerful. Capable of making a very big hole in the ground.”

Seamus ground his teeth together. “How did he do it?”

“Our computer guys are still investigating. The most popular theory is that he’s launched a spy satellite that has a powerful computer-hacking ability.”

“His computer geeks came up with something before our geeks did?”

“It’s looking that way.”

Seamus took a deep breath. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“You’ll be putting in overtime.”

“More than that. Think about it. Someone robs a highly secret and heavily guarded nuclear armory. Someone hacks into our computers and seizes control of our missiles. Both on the same day? You got to think it’s the same people, executing some well-planned and highly coordinated attack against the United States. And there’s only one way that would be possible.”

“Do enlighten me, Seamus.”

He hesitated several beats before he could make himself say it. “We’ve got a mole.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. It’s the only possible explanation. Zuko shouldn’t even know about the Arlington facility. Most people don’t. And I don’t care how good his hacking program is-I don’t believe he could get into the military defense system without inside help. Someone passed him some back doors to ease his entry.”

He was gratified to hear that, for once, Zira didn’t immediately snap back with a response. “That is a singularly disturbing possibility.”

“And a very real one. You need to start running the A-Alpha Shadow protocols. Find the mole. Look for someone on the inside who has been making unexplained phone calls to unlisted numbers. Especially foreign numbers. Find out if anyone has recently had a significant unexplained cash infusion to their bank account.”

“I know how to find a mole, Mr. McKay, thank you very much.”

Seamus smiled. It gave him pleasure to think he had gotten that officious bureaucrat’s goat.

“And what will you be doing, if I may ask?”

“I’m not sure,” Seamus replied. “I guess I’ll consult my computer expert. Find out how this might have been done. Who could have engineered it. If you really think this takes priority over the nuclear suitcase.”

“It does. We have no direct evidence-other than your unsubstantiated suggestion that they were going to detonate it in the monument-that the suitcase will be used anytime soon. But we have a direct threat from Zuko that a missile will be launched shortly. If you can figure out how to get him out of our computers, we need that intel immediately.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do.”

“Good. Get to it.” She paused. “Don’t bother calling in to the president. He’s in the bunker. You can’t get through. I can contact him via his Secret Service detail. I’ll pass along what you’ve learned.”