“And the target?”

Ari said simply, “There may be more than one target, but as yet, it’s unverified. The only one we know for sure is you.”

26

KNIGHT TAKES E4

Nicholas’s Brownstone

East 69th Street

Upper East Side

Nicholas woke without an alarm at six. He felt good, rested, despite only a few hours of sleep. He turned on the TV as he stretched and listened to the local weather. It appeared the weather agreed with his mood, sunny and clear and warm, a perfect spring day shaping up outside. Quite different from his usual mornings in London—rain, rain, and more rain. He did miss London, but New York’s weather was hard to argue with. The city was growing on him.

His good mood swept him through a shower, shaving, dressing. His ruined clothes were nowhere to be seen, which meant Nigel had been in his rooms already this morning.

He took care selecting his clothes; he needed to look shipshape and in control since there would be cameras and press and meetings with other agencies. A gray three-button suit from Barneys, a white Turnbull & Asser shirt with a hint of cream stripe, his grandfather’s cuff links, polished wing tips. Yes, he would do. He started to put on a red tie, then opted for a muted purple. Zachery would be wearing red, no sense competing.

He went to the kitchen for his breakfast. Nigel was nowhere to be seen, but a surprise—he’d made oatmeal. It was much better than Cook Crumbe’s bitter excuse for oatmeal at home.

While he ate, he read the headlines on his iPad. The Bayway bombing was the lead, as expected, the photos from the scene in daylight even more devastating and graphic than he remembered. He glanced at his palms. The burns weren’t bad this morning, what with all the burn cream he’d used. He thought of Rex Cedarson, Bob Ventura, and Kenneth Chantler, the waste of it, and Mr. Hodges, a good man, now dead. No reason for any of it, a show of arrogance.

He drank two strong cups of Earl Grey—sent directly from Fortnum & Mason, thanks to his mum, Mitzie—had a second bowl of brown sugar–laden oatmeal while he checked his e-mail. Nothing from Adam Pearce yet, but it had been only a few hours. Give the boy a chance to make the appropriate inroads.

He got into his car, a sporty, very maneuverable BMW 335i. His new baby was sapphire black with a gray leather interior and dark burl walnut to announce the final touch of class. Though he missed his Jaguar, buying the BMW was cheaper than having the Jag shipped over from England. Well, almost. He loved the way the BMW drove. He’d named the car Freya after his first ancient Fiat from his parents when he was sixteen.

He checked traffic on his mobile, knew it would take him less than twenty minutes to get to Federal Plaza.

Mike called before he hit FDR Drive.

“Are you on your way?”

“I am. ETA ten minutes. What’s happened?”

“Nothing yet,” she said, “though I’ve only been here a few minutes. We’ll sit down at the threat table as soon as you get in. The video feeds are ready, and the families have been notified. Word is out we lost three men last night. This whole place is boiling mad. It’s not going to be a good day here. Ah, did you get everything worked out with our friend?”

“I did. He’s up and running. He’ll report in when he has entry. Is Zachery in his office?”

“I don’t know, but I bet he is, all ready to rock and roll. There’s a press conference scheduled for ten. No news yet on Larry Reeves—all the bodies have been recovered from Bayway, though they haven’t all been identified—he’s up and vanished, left his family without a word. There’s a chance he’s dead. Gray has something for you—important, he says, so hurry up.”

•   •   •

When Nicholas got to his desk on the twenty-third floor, he saw Mike first thing, hunched over her computer, face close to the screen, tracing something with her finger. She took off her glasses, rubbed the bridge of her nose, then leaned back and closed her eyes. He bent down to see what she’d been looking at and was distracted by that jasmine scent of hers—alas, overlaid with a bit of smoke smell this morning. He imagined he was still on the smoky side as well.

He straightened, touched her shoulder. “Nothing yet?”

She blinked up at him. He saw her face sported a colorful array of bruises, but she still looked sharp and ready to annihilate—quite a combination. He wished he had a bad guy to throw into her cage.

“Good morning to you, Michaela. You look better this morning, though that bruise is purple and looks like Rhode Island.” He lightly outlined the bruise with a fingertip. “Does it hurt?”

“Only a tiny bit.” She put on her glasses and looked him up and down. “You look like James Bond, super-macho in cool clothes. Wow, even French cuffs—you look ready to play high-stakes poker and take the table. Makes me think if you took over the Bond franchise, it’d explode.”

He had to laugh. “And I like that jumper. Black is your color. It sets off your hair.”

“Come on, Nicholas, stop trying to jolly me up. Hey, I’m proud of Rhode Island. How are your hands?”

He shrugged. “Not bad this morning.” He leaned back against the blue felt wall of Mike’s cube, his arms crossed. “I’ve been thinking. COE needed massive amounts of money to pull off the cyber-attacks last night. Gunther’s fee alone would be in the millions. Where is all this money coming from? That’s what we need to find out.”

Mike nodded. “Yes, of course you’re right. We’ve also got to be certain COE is behind this.”

“You know they are. Have you looked at any of the video footage yet?”

“Yes. Take a look at this, Nicholas.” Mike pointed to her screen. Nicholas saw blurred dark images, barely visible. Then he saw the edge of a jaw flashing white in the moonlight, and full lips, nothing else under the brim of a baseball cap.

“Brilliant, Agent Caine. Let’s find out who this woman is and track her down.”

27

BISHOP TAKES E7

Mike said, “I’ve got more. She shows up on all three videos. She never takes off the ball cap, so all I can capture is the jaw. We’ll need more for the facial recognition, since the feed itself isn’t so hot.” She paused for a moment. “In one of the shots she looks up toward the camera. It’s like she’s letting herself be seen, and what does that mean?

“There’s something about her that’s familiar to me, but unfortunately I can’t tell you what it is yet. I have this gut feeling she could be our key. Maybe when we find out who she is, all the pieces will fit into place.”

Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t think the database is going anywhere with these images, but who knows? I’ll start running the program immediately, see if I can’t adapt the parameters to work with the angle.”

Mike’s phone rang. It was Zachery’s secretary. “He wants both of you.”

Mike hung up and stood. “It’ll have to wait. It’s Zachery. Showtime.”

They walked down the hall to the conference room, heard Zachery call out, “Drummond, Caine, get in here.”

They stepped in, faced the threat matrix board that tracked all of the ongoing and recently thwarted operations their office was working on. A quick glance showed Nicholas that they stopped attacks in Atlanta, New Jersey, California, and New York in the past twenty-four hours.

Their team usually started their workday with the threat assessment, sitting around the threat table, as they called it, going through their analysis of the threat matrix, and every single morning, the actual volume of threats astounded him. But Bayway hadn’t been on the matrix as a possible action. There’d been no chatter, no threats. Nothing. How many more plots were being planned that they didn’t know about?