“I guess so,” said Schreiber.

“Good,” replied Lawlor as he continued. “The first thing I need to tell you is that Joseph Stanton is dead.”

The young man couldn’t believe it. “Dead? How? What happened?”

“I shot him this afternoon.”

Schreiber couldn’t believe it.

“Was there anything unusual about him? Anything that someone could use as leverage against him? For instance did he gamble? Did he like women a bit too much? Drinking? Drugs?”

“Wait a second,” responded the young man as he put two and two together. “You think it was Joe Stanton who exposed the New York locations?”

“It’s a possibility we’re considering. Is there anything you saw or heard in the office which might be relevant?”

Schreiber was quiet as he thought about the question.

“Anything at all,” said Gary. “Anything that might put us on the trail of who he could have been working with. It doesn’t matter how small or inconsequential you think the detail might be.”

The young man glanced at his watch.

“Are we keeping you from something?” asked Caldwell.

“No, sir,” replied Schreiber. “I’m just trying to get a fix on the date.”

“What date?” said Gary.

“A few weeks ago, Stanton gave me a pretty weird assignment. He said it was a loose string the NSA was running down. He dropped it on my desk, told me to get on it right away and not to talk about it with anyone else.”

“What was it?”

“He wanted me to track all sales over the last few months of a very high-end dialysis machine.”

“Did he tell you why, or what it was in reference to?”

“No, just that it had to do with a case involving national security, and then he reminded me again not to talk about it with anyone.”

“What did you find out?”

“I found out that the machine was one of the most expensive of its kind anywhere in the world and that it was the number one choice for the premier hospitals involved with treating very particular forms of advanced kidney disease.”

“Why the hell would he want information like that?” asked Caldwell.

“I don’t know,” responded Schreiber. “He wouldn’t say. He wanted me to provide him with a list of individuals or organizations who had taken delivery of the machine in the last three months.”

“And what did you find out?” asked Lawlor.

“Nothing at first. The company that makes the machines is called Nova Medical Systems. They’re extremely tight-lipped about everything they do.”

Lawlor paused. There was something about that company name that he recognized, but couldn’t place. Synapses were firing all across his brain as he tried to connect the dots and jump ahead to some sort of conclusion. Why was the company name so familiar?

Hoping the young analyst could knock the answer loose, Lawlor beckoned Schreiber to keep going.

“I was finally able to hack their private sales information and discovered that they’d sold only one of these super-high-end machines in the last three months,” the young man said.

“Who bought it?” asked Lawlor.

“The Libyans.”

The Libyans? It had to be a dead end.

Lawlor was ready to write the entire thing off until Schreiber said, “But that’s not the weird part. The weird thing is that the machine wasn’t sent to Libya.”

“It wasn’t? Where was it sent?”

Schreiber leaned forward over the table and replied, “To their United Nations mission in New York.”

NEW YORK CITY

How much time is that going to give us?” asked Harvath when Tracy gave him the update and told him her plan.

“Don’t worry,” she replied. “All you have to do is jump off the platform and make a run for it. I’m the one who has to get out from underneath.”

“How much time?” he repeated.

“Probably not enough.”

“That’s no good, Tracy. It’s unacceptable.”

“If that’s the way you feel, then I guess it’s a good thing I’m in control.”

“I’m not going to let you do this.”

Hastings eased over and looked up at him through the removed floor panel. “You’re going to have to accept the fact that you’re not the boss here. Not this time, Mr. Harvath.”

“That’s Agent Harvath to you lady,” he chided, “and this is still my operation.”

“But this is my bomb.”

She was right, and he knew that no matter how hard he tried to dissuade her she wasn’t going to change her mind. This was how Tracy had been called to face down her demons. If the bomb did go off and take her with it, at least it would do so on her terms. She wasn’t running away, not anymore. She was sick of hiding her scars, sick of people trying to make her feel better about her appearance, and sick of feeling afraid-afraid of what had happened and how things might have been different if she’d just been able to defuse that last IED.

No, there was no changing Tracy Hastings’s mind. She was in this game till the end, no matter what its outcome.

For his part, Harvath couldn’t let her take all the risk upon herself. She didn’t deserve to die. She’d already been through enough in Iraq and with everything else she’d suffered since that failed IED disposal assignment. But what could he do? The answer wasn’t easy to accept, but it was perfectly clear-nothing.

“Your insubordination has been duly noted for the record,” said Harvath.

He could hear Hastings stifle a laugh beneath the raised floor.

“Really?” she said as she began quoting him almost word for word, “Well, seeing as how I’m neither a federal employee nor a recognized active-duty EOD tech, and my participation in this operation is in an unofficial, unrecognized, and most definitely unsanctioned capacity, I fail to see what the downside of that might be.”

Harvath thought about it for a moment and then said, “Insubordination on one of my teams comes at a pretty high price. You’re going to have to pay for our dinner now, Lieutenant.”

Hastings laughed again, though this time it seemed forced. “If we both get out of this alive, then I’m going to be thrilled to pay for dinner. In fact, we’ll go anywhere you want.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” he said.

“Good,” she replied. “Now, when I tell you, I want you to take one step back off that floor panel and then run like hell.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Hopefully, I’ll be looking over my shoulder and laughing as you get beaten in a footrace by some girl.”

This time it was Harvath’s turn to laugh. “You’re anything but some girl, Tracy.”

“I’d tell you flattery would get you everywhere, but somehow encouraging you at such an awkward moment doesn’t seem right. Just focus on getting ready to run.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Hastings looked up through the hole in the floor and said, “That’s Lieutenant to you, Agent Harvath.”

Harvath smiled back at her and prayed to God she was going to make it. He didn’t know why-maybe it was her vulnerability, or maybe it was her smart-ass attitude, but she had really grown on him and he was one hundred percent serious about taking her out for dinner and dancing.

“Okay, on three,” she said, once she’d squirmed back beneath the raised platform to where the secondary bomb was located.

Harvath took a deep breath and waited. Then he heard her.

“One, two, three!”

Leaping off the raised floor platform, all Scot could think about was making sure Tracy Hastings made it out alive. Something told him that if she didn’t, he’d carry that burden for the rest of his life.

He turned, expecting to see her sliding out from beneath the platform, but she wasn’t there. He looked back toward the opening next to where he’d been standing, but she wasn’t there either. Where the hell was she?

Suddenly, there was a splintering sound near his feet, and he realized she must have crawled beneath the floor to the far side to have a better shot at the door. As the panel broke open she yelled, “Run, you idiot! Run!”