Seamus didn’t doubt it, but his attention was focused in front of him, as always, securing the playing field. There was a second shooter, as he had suspected. And he had an equally nasty-looking Uzi.

He floored it toward the second shooter. The creep managed to get off a few rounds, shattering the windshield. Seamus closed his eyes. Arlo ducked into the footwell beneath the glove compartment. Seamus couldn’t see anymore, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He targeted where he knew the man had to be and kept barreling across the lawn.

A few seconds later he felt the impact, perhaps the most satisfying thud he had experienced in a good long time. Two seconds after that, the flying body thumped onto the trunk of the car.

“I hope these thugs carry insurance,” Seamus grunted as he stopped the car and crawled out.

He started with the first shooter he had downed. The one who hit the tree. His neck was snapped cleanly. Seamus didn’t even bother checking for a pulse. He was dead and gone.

He moved quickly to the other felled assassin. His leg was twisted behind him at a bizarre angle. Seamus didn’t need a surgeon to tell him that leg would never function again. The guy probably died when-

Wait a minute. He wasn’t dead. He was spitting blood, coughing. His face was racked with pain.

Seamus got right down in his face. “No promises, you son of a bitch. But I think it’s just possible you might live. If I call an ambulance immediately.”

The man teared up. His eyes were pleading. “P-p-please-”

“I know you and your friends used this kid to hack into the defense computers. I know you came here to kill him to cover your tracks. What I don’t know is: Where’s your base of operations? The one you’re using to control the satellite.”

The wounded man’s head was shaking. His whole body began to tremble.

“You’d better tell me, if you want any chance whatsoever to live. ‘Cause if you’re thinking you’re headed to some afterlife with wine and honey and virgins, all I can say is, you’ve got a hell of a lot of misery between you and that.” He paused. “I can make that misery last a good long time. Longer than you can endure without going stark raving mad. And just FYI, there’s no heaven for filthy terrorists who try to shoot college kids when they’re not looking.”

Truth was, the man was fading and would probably be gone in thirty seconds or so. But he didn’t know that. “So talk! Where’s the base?”

“D-don’t… I-I d-don’t know…”

Seamus leaned forward, pressing his knee down on the broken, twisted leg. The man screamed.

“Last chance, chump. Where’s the base?”

“I don’t… know…” He was crying, spitting out blood between syllables. He wasn’t lying. Seamus was sure of it. He didn’t have the capacity to bear this kind of pain without trying to end it. Probably no one did. Damn.

“What about the missile?” Seamus pressed. “What’s Zuko’s target for the missile?”

The man looked up at him pleadingly, not answering.

“Answer me or my thumb goes into that gaping gash in your leg! I’ll pull the bone out with my bare hands!”

“Nooo! Please, no!”

“Spit it out! Or I’ll start putting bullets in your appendages one at a time!”

“It-it-it-”

“Tell me!”

His eyes and mouth opened. He was giving up the ghost, almost literally letting all the fight seep out of him.

“J-J-Jeffffff…”

“Jeff? Who the hell is Jeff?”

“The J-J-Jefffff…”

“The Jeff? What in the hell?”

Behind him, Seamus heard the rustling of grass and then Arlo’s voice. “Don’t you get it, man? He’s not saying Jeff. He’s trying to say Jefferson. As in the Jefferson Memorial.”

Seamus grabbed the man’s collar and hauled him upward. “Is that right? Is that what you’re saying?”

The man’s lids were heavy and he was beyond speaking, but his head trembled up and down in a manner that approximated a nod.

“Jesus God.” Seamus threw him down, then stared up at the sky. “I should’ve known. First Washington, now Jefferson.”

“Why would they want to do that?” Arlo asked. “It’s just a big hunk of marble.”

“It’s a symbol, kid. A very important symbol. And more to the point, it’s a symbol visited by thousands of people every day. Thousands of people who will be slaughtered as soon as that missile hits.”

The room was silenced by Ben’s disturbing but inescapable conclusion.

“If there’s a mole in here, who can I trust?” President Kyler asked.

“That’s the key question,” Cartwright said, arms folded across his portly chest.

“And the question none of us knows the answer to,” Ruiz added. “Well, maybe one of us does.”

“Or more,” Secretary Rybicki said.

“If Kincaid is right and there is a mole down here,” Cartwright said, “who the hell is it?”

All those seated at the table began to look closely, too closely, at the people sitting around them. Ben could feel the heat of scrutiny, the weight of too many eyes bearing down on him at once. He was well aware that in many respects he was the outsider in the room: not a member of the cabinet, not really a member of the president’s staff, and a presence in the White House for only a brief period of time. The two secretaries probably didn’t even recall meeting him before today.

As it turned out, paranoia did not reach out to him first. “Agent Zimmer,” Cartwright said, “exactly how long were you in the Middle East?”

Zimmer still had the headphones on and appeared to be conducting about three conversations and watching six screens at once. He made a waving gesture that clearly conveyed a message: I’m too busy to talk to you.

“Hmph,” Cartwright said, frowning. “Convenient.”

“Sorry to bring this up, Mike,” Vice President Swinburne said to the secretary of state, “but weren’t you formerly friends with Colonel Zuko?”

Ruiz looked stricken. “Friends? Hardly. I’ve met him a few times, long ago. We were both at Oxford at the same time. I was a Rhodes scholar and he bought half of Queen’s College. But I certainly wouldn’t say we were ever friends. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him since he returned to Kuraq.”

The president’s head tilted slightly. “Didn’t Zuko help out with your first campaign?”

“What, you mean back when I ran for mayor in Laramie?” Ben spotted distinct patches of red popping out on Ruiz’s cheeks. “Yes, he made a little contribution. I’d forgotten all about it. But it was his idea. I never talked to him.”

Even Cartwright didn’t bother to respond to that. No one could make Ruiz look more incriminated than the job he was doing on himself.

“I don’t understand why these accusations are coming my way,” Ruiz said defensively. “I’m a statesman, not a military man-unlike you, Admiral Cartwright. I daresay you know more about our missile defense system than anyone in this room.”

“What are you getting at, Ruiz?” Cartwright replied.

“I’m just pointing out that Colonel Zuko is not a computer genius. Someone had to give him some assistance.”

“Are you accusing me of treason, man?” The admiral’s eyes looked as if they might pop out of his skull. “If that’s what it is, stand up and do it to my face!”

Ruiz looked away. “I’m just saying…”

“You were in charge of the Middlemarch study, weren’t you, Will?” The president spoke soberly, but his voice seemed weak, almost feeble.

“Yes,” Cartwright replied. “And I guess this proves the importance of that effort!”

“Middlemarch?” Sarie looked just as puzzled as Ben was. “I haven’t heard of that. What is it?”

“That’s the code name for a top-secret study to assess the vulnerability of our national defense computer system. Basically, we were trying to determine if we could be infiltrated… well, in exactly the manner Zuko is doing right now.”