“Have a nice day,” I said, and started to turn. The guy next to Slab-face-the one with the crooked nose-put his hand on my shoulder.

I stopped and looked down at his big hand and then up at his face. I didn’t say a word and he didn’t move his hand. There were four of them and one of me. The Nose probably thought that gave them a clean edge, and since NSA guys are pretty tough he was probably right. On the other hand, these guys tend to believe their own hype, and that can come back to bite you. I don’t know how much they knew about me, but if this clown had his hand on me then they didn’t know enough.

I tapped his wrist with the bunch of daffodils. “You mind?”

He removed his hand, but he stepped closer. “Don’t make this complicated.”

“ ‘Why?’ ” I said, “is not a complicated question.”

He gave me a millimeter of a smile. “National security.”

“Bullshit. I’m in national security. Go through channels.”

Slab-face touched the Nose’s shoulder and moved him aside so he could look me in the eyes. “We were told to bring you in.”

“Who signed the order?”

“Detective…”

“There you go again.”

Slab-face took a breath through his nose. “Captain Ledger.” He poured enough acid in it to melt through battleship armor.

“What’s your name?” I asked. He hadn’t held the ID up long enough for me to read it.

He paused. “Special Agent John Andrews.”

“Tell you what, Andrews, this is how we’re going to play it. I’m going to go over there and put flowers on the grave of my oldest and dearest friend-a woman who suffered horribly and died badly. I plan to sit with her for a while and I hope you have enough class and manners to allow me my privacy. Watch if you want to, but don’t get in my face. If you’re still here when I’m done, then we can take another swing at the ‘why’ question and I’ll decide whether I go with you.”

“What’s this bullshit?” snapped the Nose.

Andrews just looked at me.

“That’s the agenda, Andrews,” I said. “Take it or leave it.”

Despite his orders and his professional cool, he was a little off-balance. The very fact that he was hesitating meant that there was something hinky about this, and my guess was that he didn’t know what it was-so he wasn’t ready to try to strong-arm me. I was a federal agent tied to Homeland-or close enough for his purposes-and I held military rank on top of it. He couldn’t be sure that a misstep here wouldn’t do him some career harm. I watched his eyes as he sorted through his playbook.

“Ten minutes,” he said.

I should have just nodded and gone to visit Helen’s grave, but the fact that they were accosting me here of all places really pissed me off. “Tell you what,” I said, stepping back but still smiling. “When it gets to ten minutes start holding your breath.”

I gave him a cheery wink and used the index finger of the hand holding the bottle to point at the Nose. Then I turned and headed through the tombstones, feeling the heat of their stares on my back like laser sights.

Holy Redeemer Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland

Saturday, August 28, 8:06 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 99 hours, 54 minutes

Helen’s grave was on the far side of the cemetery in one of the newer sections. The whole place was flat as a pancake, but there were enough crypts and monuments to provide nominal cover. My watchdogs could see me, but I had a little bit of freedom of movement if I kept it subtle. Out of my peripheral vision I saw the Nose and one of the other guys-a blond surfer-looking dude-circling the access road in order to flank me.

I smiled. Together the four of them may have had a shot. Separated the only advantage they were leaving themselves was observation. At the current distances I could force a two-on-one situation with either Slab-face and his backup or the Nose and the Surfer. I was comfortable with those odds.

Autopilot took me to the grave. I’d switched the flowers and water bottle to my left hand so I could stick my right in my pocket. I’ve become adept at surreptitious speed-dialing and used my thumbnail to tap a number and a three-digit situation status code.

It always hurt to come here, but it hurt worse to miss a week. In the two years since Helen’s suicide I’d missed maybe four weekly visits. Last week was one because I was busting up a lab in Virginia where a couple of absolute fruitball scientists were trying to create a weaponized airborne strain of SARS to sell to terrorists. We had to dissuade them. I figured Helen would forgive me.

As I laid the flowers on the bright green grass on her grave my cell vibrated in my pocket.

“Excuse me, honey,” I murmured, placing my palm briefly on the cold headstone, “but I have to take this.”

I pulled the cell out and knelt down as if praying, so that my body hid the phone as I flipped it open. There was no name on the display, but I knew it was my boss. “I’m having an interesting morning,” I said. The alert word was “interesting.”

“This line is secure. Sit rep?” asked Mr. Church. I’ve worked for him for almost two months now and I still didn’t know his real name. I’ve heard people refer to him as the Deacon, Colonel Eldritch, the Sexton, and a few other names, but when I’d met him he introduced himself as Mr. Church, so I used that. He was somewhere north of sixty but not where it showed. My boys had a pool going as to whether he was an ex-Delta gunslinger or a CIA spook who’d moved up to management.

“Have we pissed off anybody in Washington lately?”

“Not so far this morning,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m at the cemetery. Couple of NSA stiffs have asked me to accompany them saying it was a national security issue, but they dodged my questions when I tried to find out what the deal was.”

“Do you have names?”

“Just one. John Andrews.” I described him and the others. “They’re not waving warrants around, but it’s pretty clear this isn’t a request.”

“Let me make some calls. Do nothing until I call you back.”

“These goons are waiting on me.”

“Do you care?”

“Not much.”

“Nor do I.”

He hung up. I smiled at the dragonflies that were hovering over Helen’s tombstone and let a few minutes pass. Inside I was churning. What the hell was this all about? Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything bad enough to warrant this kind of thing, I still had that guilty feeling inside. It was weird, because I didn’t think cops got that from other cops.

So far this made no sense. The book was closed on my last mission and I had nothing new on the griddle, and the last time I’d even had a brush with the NSA was last month, but that had been on a job that had ended satisfactorily for everyone involved. No stubbed toes or hurt feelings. So why did they want to pick me up?

My worry meter jumped a few points when I saw two government Crown Vics roll in through the gate and park on either side of my Explorer. Four more NSA agents climbed out and moved quickly to take up positions on logical exit routes. Four exits, four two-man teams. Slab-face was by the cars; the Nose and one other agent were between my car and the exit.

“Aw, crap.”

My cell vibrated and I answered it.

“Listen to me,” said Church. “Apparently we have rattled someone’s cage in D.C. and the situation has some wrinkles. As you know, the President is undergoing bypass surgery, and while he’s out that officially puts the VP in charge. The VP has never liked the DMS and has been very vocal about it. It looks like he’s making a run at dismantling it.”

“On what grounds?”

“He’s somehow convinced the Attorney General that I’ve been blackmailing the President to give the DMS an unusual amount of power and freedom of movement.”

“That’s kind of true, though, isn’t it?”