"Show me the entire third level and all ways in or out" Adams reached to the bottom of the stack and pulled out the last sheet. Then grabbing it with both hands, he laid it down on top.

"This is it. There's only one stairwell in and out.

The one that we used." Looking up from the blueprint, Adams asked, "Tell me what you're looking for, and I might be able to help a little more."

Rielly appeared on her knees at Rapp's side. She looked down at the blueprint and asked, "What's that?"

Rapp felt a tinge of anxiety. Another nuisance to deal with.

Why couldn't things be simple for once? Rapp cocked his head to the side and looked at Rielly, who was studying the blueprint in earnest. It was time to take this obstacle off the table. There were going to be too many variables coming down the homestretch, and he needed to keep the process as simple as possible. The more he had to think about, the better the odds were that he'd screw up. And screwing up on this one meant that someone would die. Most probably himself. There was one thing that would free them up a bit. Rapp had thought about it earlier in the day and decided if Rielly would go along with the idea, it would make things easier from a logistical standpoint.

"Anna, we need to talk."

Rielly looked up at him from the blueprint.

"What about?"

"I need to be able to speak freely with Milt, and I can't do that with you sitting here. So you have to promise me that you will do something when we get out of here."

"Sure."

"I am going to need you to sign a national security nondisclosure agreement."

Rielly moved back a little bit. She was familiar with the document, and the thought of signing such a thing was ludicrous.

She was a reporter, for Christ's sake. She would be bound by law never to discuss the matters outlined in the document and that most probably meant never being able to tell her story. Her head slowly started to move from side to side.

"I don't think so. I don't like the idea of the government holding something like that over my head. I'm a reporter. It wouldn't be right."

Rapp got a little angry. It showed in the way his eyes squinted just a millimeter or two. At that moment he looked at Rielly, and all he saw was a beautiful, selfish, self-centered woman. He didn't have the time or patience for this.

"Fine," he pronounced in a tone that was anything but.

"I'll have to remember that our careers are our number one priority. In fact, I probably should have kept that in mind last night." Rapp turned away from Rielly and grabbed the radio handset.

"Iron Man to control. Over."

"What was that supposed to mean?" asked Rielly in a wounded voice.

Rapp put his hand up to quiet her and spoke into the handset.

"We are going to go investigate right now. This will only be a lightrecon. I repeat, a light recon. If we meet any resistance, we will abort and try to find another way to verify.

Over." Rapp nodded several times and said, "Correct."

After placing the handset back in its cradle, Rapp looked at Adams and said, "Come on. Milt. We'll finish the rest of this conversation in the elevator." Rapp grabbed his submachine gun and rose to one knee.

Rielly reached out for his arm.

"Hold on a minute. What's with the attitude all of the sudden?"

"The attitude." Rapp pulled away and stood.

"Last night when that piece of shit dragged you up here to rape you, I turned this radio off because I knew that the people running this show would have told me to stay put, that the mission was bigger than just one person." Rapp stared her straight in the eye and pointed at himself.

"What I did last night was not a real big career enhancer, but all I saw out there was a woman who needed help and some piece of shit that deserved to die. Cut and dry, plain and simple." Rapp turned to Adams.

"Let's go."

Rielly was shocked by the extreme change in his manner.

She attempted to speak, but Rapp cut her off.

"Anna, I'm done talking." With his submachine gun up and ready, he placed his free hand on the bolt and said, "If I come across any paper and pens, I'll grab them so you can start working on your tell-all story." With that parting shot, Rapp slid back the bolt and slipped into the walk-in closet. THEY STEPPED INTO the small elevator without talking.

Adams shut the door and pressed the button. Rapp stood rigidly against the wall, his head slowly thumping backward into the wood paneling. He was more pissed than he ought to be, he thought. This was a childish romantic crush, a fleeting hope for something he hadn't felt in so long.

It was stupid.

With all of the shit that was going on around him, with all of the high stakes, it was a complete waste of time and energy to allow himself to be distracted for even a second by something so utterly juvenile.

Somewhere in Rapp's brain a red stamp crashed down on Anna Rielly's file, and she was banished to a part of his memory that was rarely accessed. It was as simple as that. Compartmentalize and move on.

With her out of his mind, Rapp looked at Adams. Adams looked back with a prying expression.

"What?" asked Rapp a touch too defensively.

Adams kept his basset-hound eyes locked on Rapp until his new partner repeated his question. Then Milt licked his upper lip once and said,

"Don't you think you were a little hard on her?"

Moving away from the wall, Rapp began to fidget in frustration.

"She's a non issue Milt. We have more important things to worry about."

"Are you gonna let me in on the secret?"

"Yep, and it's a doozy." Rapp took the MP-10 and cradled it across his chest as the small elevator reached the first basement. "It appears Aziz brought along some guy who specializes in breaking into vaults." Rapp stopped, to see if Adams could connect the dots.

It didn't take long. The expression on Adams's smooth face went from an inquisitive frown to one of surprise.

"That's not good."

"Nope." Rapp shook his head.

"Our job is to find out if Hayes is as safe as we thought."

Thinking several steps ahead, Adams plucked the folded blueprints from his vest. The series of sheets were like an unruly road map. Adams opened the documents and shuffled the right one to the top. Shooing Rapp out of the way, he held it up against the wall and said, "This is where it's located."

Rapp looked at the layout of the third basement.

"Only one way in?"

"Well, not really. Hold that side for me."

Rapp grabbed one side of the blueprint while Adams held the other with his hand.

"There's another way down to the third basement." Adams touched a spot on the blueprint.

"This is the anteroom to the vault. This little rectangle area here. It doesn't make a lot of sense from a strict design and engineering standpoint, but it's one of those things you need to implement into a design when you're trying to add things to a two hundred-plus-year-old building."

Adams touched another spot on the blueprint.

"This is the boiler room, where we came in, and this is the hall that I told you led to the bunker." Adams traced his skinny black finger down the hall, took the left-hand turn, and tapped it on a door.

"This is one of two ways into the anteroom. It's a three-inch thick steel door. Over here on this wall of the anteroom is the second door.

This is probably the one the president used to enter the bunker."

"Why do you say that?" asked Rapp.

"Because this door leads up a short staircase to a tunnel that runs all the way under the West Wing to where there's a much longer set of stairs that lead all the way up to a hidden door just off of the Oval Office."

Adams pulled another sheet from the back and showed Rapp the location of the tunnel and where it went.

"This tunnel used to be the bunker until this new one was completed just this last year. As this tunnel comes over from the West Wing, it stops here. At that point you can either go down this little flight, which empties you into the anteroom, or you can go up a flight of stairs that leads to one of those doors that don't exist."