“What?” Margaret asked.

“She took the box with Kevin’s letters with her.” Jane was holding her breath, her gaze on Caleb’s phone. “The GPS may be able to follow her.” Please let that happen, she prayed. Everything else had gone wrong. Let this one thing go right.

One minute passed.

Two minutes.

A soft ping, barely audible.

“Yes.” Hope flared. “Where, Caleb?”

“It’s hard to pin down.” He turned and headed for the door. “But it’s the general direction of the airport. Let’s not wait to be a hundred percent sure. She could be on a plane by that time. You drive, Trevor. I’ll monitor the GPS.”

She could be on a plane by that time.

The words echoed in Jane’s mind as she rode down the elevator to the lobby.

While they played hunt and chase and dealt with Chicago traffic, Harriet might be lost to them.

She couldn’t risk it.

She took out her phone as they got off the elevator. “We need help. I’m calling Venable. We can’t let her get away.”

*   *   *

VENABLE ANSWERED THE phone on the second ring. “It’s about time that someone decided to call to let me know what’s going on. Where are you, Jane? And what the hell is—”

“I don’t have time to give you chapter and verse,” she interrupted as she got into the car in front of the hotel. “I need your help, and I need it fast, Venable. I didn’t want to call you. I’m scared to death that you’re going to do something rash, and Eve might die. I have no choice. So please shut up and listen. You’re going to have to work fast. Catherine said that Homeland Security has teams in both Chicago and Seattle. Is there someone in that team in Chicago that you can trust to be discreet and not tip his hand?”

He was silent. “Yes, Paul Junot.”

It was comforting that the name had come so definitely and quickly to his mind. “Then get in touch with him and get him out to O’Hare Airport right away. Harriet Weber is going to be leaving the city, and we have to know how and where she’s going,” she added grimly, “Though I think we know the where.”

“Seattle?”

“You’ve got it. But once she’s there, we can’t lose track of her. That could be fatal. Tell Junot that he has to do his check without her being aware of it. The last thing we want is to have her panic.” She was trying to think. “And you’ve got to have Junot set up a private jet rental for us. We’ll probably need it as soon as we reach the airport.”

“You don’t ask much,” Venable said dryly. “And why should I do it when I don’t know what the hell is going on?”

“I’m only asking for what we have to have. We can’t let her get away.” She paused. “She’s in control, Venable. We all thought it was Doane, but she’s calling the shots, and she’s calling them now.” She heard him muttering an oath. “I’m going to hang up so that you can phone this Junot. I know you want answers, and I’ll give them to you. But not now. Not until you get that done.”

“I’ll call you back,” he said tersely.

She pressed the disconnect as he hung up. “God, I hope he can get his man out there fast.” She looked at the GPS. “Is she still heading for the airport?”

Caleb nodded. “But she’s not reached the exit yet. She could still change direction.”

But Jane had the chilling feeling that Harriet was not going to change direction. Whatever had caused her to bolt from the hotel, she had a purpose and a focus.

“She just got off the airport exit,” Caleb said. “She’s committed.”

Committed. It was a frightening word when applied to Harriet’s plans. No longer a holding pattern. She was going forward.”

“She’s not heading for the main terminal.” Trevor’s eyes were on the GPS. “She’s going to the private-and executive-plane area.”

“Which means she could hop on a chartered flight and be off within minutes after she gets there,” Jane said. “We could lose her.”

“Easy,” Trevor said. “This is Chicago. Things seldom happen that fast.”

“Venable better be that fast,” she said grimly. “I don’t know what he can do about tracking her once she leaves, but he’ll have to do it. “Her phone rang. “Venable, I was just going to call you. We just found out that she’s heading for the private area at O’Hare. We’ll be able to zero in on exactly what hangar within a few minutes. Do you have Junot out there yet?”

“No, but he has someone he trusts at the airport who can start the ball rolling until he gets out there. He e-mailed him a photo of Harriet Weber and told him to find her.” She heard him relay the info she’d given him to someone in the background, and then he was back on the phone. “He’s Don Breital. Paul says he’s good.”

“I hope he’s very good. She can’t know she’s being followed.”

“I know, you told me. No panic.” His tone was hard. “Why are you so adamant about that?”

“I told you, she’s in control.” He wasn’t going to be satisfied with that answer, and she didn’t blame him. If she had to use him, then he shouldn’t have to go at this blind. “And we can’t be sure that she doesn’t have the detonator for those nuclear devices.”

“What?”

“She told Doane she knew where it was, and we can’t be certain that she doesn’t have it in her possession. She wouldn’t necessarily tell Doane the truth. We weren’t able to monitor every minute of her time since we’ve been following her. We don’t know what happened when she went to a bank here in town.” She added wearily, “Hell, it’s possible she stopped and picked it up tonight on the way to the airport. Though I don’t believe that could have happened. We were on her tail almost immediately.”

“You believe?” Venable said sarcastically. “You suspected all this, and you didn’t call me?”

“Things were moving very fast, and we had to move with them. Most of it was guesswork, and we were trying to piece it together.”

“And you didn’t trust me.”

“How could I trust you after Colorado? I only realized tonight that I had no choice. I just knew I had to find a way to keep you from moving too fast and cause Harriet and Doane to kill Eve.” She added, “We think we know where those nukes are located. There’s no question that we’ll share that with you.”

“Thank you,” he said sourly.

“But we want something in return. Give us just two hours once we reach Seattle to follow her to where Doane is holding Eve. You can use your super-duper spy gimmicks to monitor her from a distance. Don’t do anything fancy. Don’t scramble F-18s and try to take down her plane. Don’t rush her when she lands and surround her with SWAT teams to do a precision kill and get that detonator. If she has it, she will press the button if she believes she’s losing control. And, if she finds out it’s me following her, she’s arrogant enough to not regard me as any real danger to her. It’s actually safer for you to let us shadow her.” She paused. “Please, Venable, I know Harriet Weber. Everything I’ve told you is the truth. I can understand where your loyalty lies, but just give me two hours.”

He was silent.

“She’s as fanatical as Doane about honoring her Kevin with this nuclear holocaust. Don’t make the mistake of not thinking she’ll do anything she has to do.”

Venable was talking to someone in the background again. “Breital says that a Learjet was chartered late tonight and told it had to be ready for an immediate departure.”

“Harriet’s parking,” Caleb said. “Hangar 23.”

“Hangar 23, Venable,” Jane said. “Is that the Learjet?”

He was gone for a moment. “That’s it. Gassed and ready to go. Breital is trying to find out what flight plan was filed.”

“Providing the pilot follows the plan,” Caleb said. “I’ve been known to fudge a bit.”

“I can get a satellite and radar verification of the progress of any plane in the air once we get a fix on it,” Venable said. “If I decide to let her get in the air.”

“Well, bully for the CIA,” Trevor murmured. “But you can’t keep her from blowing up herself and two very fine cities if she chooses to do it.”