LITMIR.BIZ

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stared at Luke, his head leaning quizzically to the side. “I don’t have much hospitality to offer, Luke. This is it.”

      “Why would I accept your hospitality, Don?”

      Don’s eyes did not look away. “Are you joking? For old times’ sake. As a gesture of thanks for mentoring you through Delta, and giving you your current job. Think of a reason, son.”

      “Exactly my point, Don. When I think of you, I think of my own son, and my wife, who you had kidnapped.”

      Don raised his hands. “I had nothing to do with that. I promise you. If it were up to me, I would never allow harm to come to Gunner or Becca. They’re like my blood, like my own family. I warned you because I wanted to protect them, Luke. I found out after it had already happened. I’m sorry that happened. There’s nothing in my long career that I regret more.”

      Luke scanned Don’s eyes, his body language, looking for… something. Was he lying? Was he telling the truth? What did Don even believe? Who was this man, whom Luke once thought he loved?

      Luke sighed. He would take the man’s meager hospitality. He would give him that much, and lie awake tonight wondering why he had.

      He squatted on the low stone.

      Don sat on the bed. A pause stretched out between them. There was nothing comfortable about it.

      “How’s the SRT?” Don said finally. “I suppose they made you director?”

      “They offered, but I declined. The SRT is gone, scattered to the winds. Most of the agents were absorbed back into the Bureau proper. Ed Newsam is on the Hostage Rescue Team. Mark Swann went to NSA. I keep in pretty close touch with those guys – I borrow them for an operation from time to time.”

      Luke saw something flash in Don’s eyes, and disappear almost before it was there. His baby, the FBI Special Response Team, the culmination of his life’s work, had been dismantled. Had he not known that? Luke supposed he hadn’t.

      “Trudy Wellington has disappeared,” Luke said.

      Something else appeared in Don’s eyes, and this time it stayed there. If it lingered, it meant Don wanted him to see it. Luke couldn’t tell if it was an emotion, a memory, or some piece of knowledge. He was good at reading people, but Don was an old spy. His mind and his heart were closed books.

      “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Don?”

      Don shrugged, offered half a smile. “The Trudy I knew was very smart. She had her ear to the ground. If I had to guess, she heard a distant rumble that disturbed her, and she ran away before it could come closer.”

      “Did you speak to her?”

      Don didn’t answer.

      “Don, there’s no sense thinking you’re going to stonewall me about anything. I can make a phone call and find out who you’ve talked to, who’s written to you, and what was in the letter. You have no privacy. Did you talk to Trudy or didn’t you?”

      “I did, yes.”

      “And what did you tell her?” Luke said.

      “I told her that her life was in danger.”

      “Based on what?”

      Don looked at the ceiling for a moment. “Luke, you know what you know, and that’s good. You also don’t know what you don’t know. If you have any limitations, that’s certainly one of them. What you don’t know in this case, because you don’t involve yourself in politics, is there’s been a quiet war going on behind the scenes for the past six months. The attack at Mount Weather? A lot of high-profile people died that night. And a lot of low-profile people have died since then. I’d say at least as many who died in the original attack. Trudy wasn’t involved in the plot against Thomas Hayes, but not everyone believes that. There are people out there seeking retribution.”

      “So she ran on your say-so?”

      “I think so, yes.”

      “Do you know where she is?”

      Don shrugged. “I wouldn’t tell you if I did. One day, if she wants you to know where she is, I’m sure she’ll be the first to tell you.”

      Luke had the urge to ask if she was okay, but he controlled himself. He wasn’t going to give Don that kind of power – it would be just what the old man wanted. Instead, another pause stretched out between them. The two men sat in the tiny space, staring into each other’s eyes. Eventually Don broke the silence.

      “So who are you working for, if not the SRT? I have trouble picturing Luke Stone out of work for very long.”

      Luke shrugged. “I guess you’d say I’m a freelancer, but I only have one client. I work directly for the President, on the rare occasions she calls me. Like she did earlier today, asking me to come out here and see you.”

      Don raised an eyebrow. “A freelancer? Do they still pay you your salary and benefits?”

      “They gave me a raise,” Luke said. “As a matter of fact, I think they gave me your old salary.”

      “Government waste,” Don said, taking on his agency administrator persona and shaking his head. “But it suits you. You never were the Monday to Friday type.”

      Luke didn’t answer. From this angle, he could see the view that the window afforded. Nothing – the cinderblock wall of another wing of the building, with a sliver of dark sky visible above.

      It was an insidious design. The facility was located in the Rocky Mountains – when Luke arrived tonight, beyond the guard towers and the concrete and the razor wire, he was struck by the vista of the tall peaks that surrounded this place. The air was cold and the mountains were lightly salted with early snow. Even at night, you might say the location was beautiful.

      The prisoners would never see it. Luke would bet five dollars that every cell in this prison enjoyed the same vista as every other – a blank wall.

      “So what do you want, Don? Susan told me you’ve got a piece of intelligence you’re eager to share, but only with me. I’ve got a lot going on in my life at this moment, but I came out here because that’s my duty. I’m not sure how you obtained this intel, given your current circumstances…”

      Don smiled. His eyes were completely divorced from whatever emotion his mouth tried to convey. They seemed like the eyes of an alien, lizard-like, with no empathy, no concern, not even any interest. The eyes of something that might eat you or run from you, but feel nothing while doing so.

      “There are some very clever men in here,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how intricate the communication system is among the prisoners. I’d love to describe it to you – I think you’d be fascinated – but I also don’t want to jeopardize it or put myself at risk. I will give you an example of what I’m talking about, though. Did you hear the man screaming before?”

      “Yeah,” Luke said. “I didn’t catch what it was all about. The guards told me he had gone insane…” His voice trailed off.

      Of course. The man had been saying something, if you had the ears to hear it.

      “Right,” Don said. “The town crier. That’s what I call him. He’s not the only one, and that’s not the only method. Not even close.”

      “So what do you have?” Luke said.

      “There’s a plot,” Don said, his voice dropping to just above a whisper. “As you know, many of the men in here are affiliated with terrorist networks. They have their own ways of communicating. What I’ve heard is there’s a group in Belgium targeting the old Cold War nukes stored there. The warheads are lightly guarded on a Belgian NATO base. The security is a joke. The terrorists, I’m not sure who, are going to try to steal a warhead, or perhaps a missile, or more than one.”

      Luke thought about it for a moment. “What good would that do? Without the nuclear codes the warheads aren’t even operational. They must be aware of that. It’s like risking your life to steal a giant paperweight.”

      “I’d

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