6

      Rollie Burton stood in the shadow of a clump of blue spruce trees, invisible from the footpath, his mismatched blue-green eyes watching her through windows that ran the length of the swimming pool. His right hand nervously fingered the bumps and crevices of the carved ivory knife handle, anticipating the moment when he would put the blade to use.

      A few minutes earlier, he had been sitting outside her house again, debating whether a break-and-enter job fell within the terms of his agreement with the voice on the phone and if so, how he would pull it off. Suddenly, she had surprised him by walking out her front door and heading off alone down the footpath. He couldn’t believe his luck.

      He had slipped out of the car and started after her, being careful to keep to the shadows. He hadn’t had enough time to catch up and take her quietly before she arrived at the recreation center, but he was positioned now for a quick grab when she emerged. He hoped it would be soon. He was freezing.

      He watched through the window as she stood at the edge of the pool, wrapping her toes over the tile lip. She crouched, arms pulled back, chin tucked, eyes riveted on the lane ahead of her. There was a brief pause when she seemed to hesitate. Then her arms snapped forward and her legs launched her through the air. The triangular point of her fingers poked an entry hole in the water through which the rest of her body neatly slipped, hardly rippling the surface. He watched as her legs kicked powerfully and her arms settled into the rhythm of the first lap. And as he did, Burton experienced a flicker of uncertainty. Most dames panicked when you jumped them, freezing like a deer caught in headlights. But she was strong—that much was obvious—and she might turn out to be a fighter.

      He dismissed the worry with a snort. Hell, he’d taken down trained guerrilla fighters twice his own size. Ain’t no dame nowhere ol’ Rollie can’t handle, he thought. And he loved the look in their eyes when they first saw the knife.

      As Mariah dived into the pool, the shock of the cold water cleared her mind of all but the most elemental instincts for a few blissful seconds. But then her thoughts eddied back, rushing to fill the void, as her body acclimatized to the temperature.

      The Mariah Bolt who had stormed out of Frank Tucker’s office that morning was not the same woman who had walked in. For the past ten months, she had been running on automatic pilot, suppressing rage and pain in order to cope with David’s and Lindsay’s needs.

      She had brought them home by military air ambulance, had seen David settled in—first in a neurological unit for further testing and diagnosis, then into a nursing home in McLean, Virginia, when his condition stabilized and the doctors had run out of hope.

      She had also lined up doctors and physical therapists for Lindsay. That was the easy part of dealing with her daughter’s injuries—the hard part was helping Lindsay cope with the emotional trauma of the accident. Conscious and in horrible pain from her crushed leg, Lindsay had watched her beloved father nearly die in the forty agonizingly long minutes that it took rescue personnel to arrive and pry them out of the wreckage. While Lindsay seemed to have coped well with the tragedy, only Mariah knew the ache and fear she held inside, the tears too rarely shed.

      And then there had been the practical matters of day-today living to get under control once they were back in the States—painful visits with lawyers and a judge to have David declared mentally incompetent and their joint assets signed over to her. There were financial arrangements to be made to ensure that he would have the care he needed for the rest of his life—a life whose term was uncertain, given the scarred remains of his brain and body and the likelihood of further complications.

      Mariah had had to buy a car and a condominium alone, and move herself and Lindsay in, making sure that there was wheelchair access so that they could occasionally bring David home. She had arranged Lindsay’s school and music lessons and physical therapy schedule, and had then gone back to work at a new job at CIA headquarters at Langley. Ever since, the weeks had blended into one another, a blur of racing between home and hospitals, office and school.

      Now, suddenly, a new and overwhelming purpose was forming in her life—to find out why her family had been attacked and who was responsible. And then, to make the bastards pay.

      Overhead, the private Learjet circled as the pilot awaited clearance to land at backed-up Dulles Airport.

      Dieter Pflanz watched as Gus McCord rose and went to his wife, who was stretched out on the sofa that ran along one side of the back of the cabin. After ensuring that her seat belt was fastened, he pulled the blanket higher over her shoulders. Then his gaze settled on her face. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be sleeping soundly. McCord had wanted her to stay home, but Nancy was a trouper and was as excited as Gus himself about the opening of the clinic. She had insisted that she wanted to be there with him.

      The angina was getting worse, Pflanz knew. She’d suffered from it for about eight years now, but the last six months she’d apparently had pains almost every day. She tried to hide it from Gus but he always seemed to know when an attack was coming on. She’d slip away quietly and he’d follow to make sure she had her nitroglycerin, but she always insisted that she was fine and he shouldn’t worry.

      McCord gently lifted a stray lock of hair from her eyes and watched her for a while longer, studying the slow rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed. Then he returned to the front of the cabin where Pflanz was waiting for him. Jerry Siddon was sitting on the far side, playing backgammon with the photographer.

      Pflanz handed Gus a fax that had just rolled from the machine. McCord settled into a chair and buckled his seat belt, then pulled his reading glasses out of the inside breast pocket of his jacket. The bridge piece connecting the half-moon lenses settled above the bump on his nose and his copper eyes scanned the message.

      It was from the Albuquerque office of McCord Industries. The company had had offices in New Mexico for years. Millions of dollars’ worth of defense contracts poured into the state annually, and McCord Industries had always received its share, providing electronics and specialized equipment to the military research and production facilities in Albuquerque and Los Alamos. Defense work entailed special security problems, and the Albuquerque office held a strong contingent of Pflanz’s people. One of his handpicked specialists had had a particularly active schedule this week. McCord seemed pleased to see, as he read the brief message, that all had gone according to plan.

      “Shipment