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Emily froze, not wanting to look up, but she knew she had to. Set in the crotch of the first branch was a dog’s severed head. Its lifeless eyes stared back at her. Emily tried to swallow but her throat was too dry. Her stomach heaved but there was nothing to vomit.

Emily turned her head, looking at the wall of vegetation surrounding the clearing. He was out there. She knew it. Watching her. She felt a chill pass through her body as she realized he’d come over to the tree in the middle of the night while she was sleeping and tacked the license there and put the dog’s head in the tree. For her to see. She knew right away his ploy: he wanted her to despair, to give up.

Emily slowly got to her feet, feeling the strain on her muscles. She stood tall, then took several deep breaths to calm down. She folded her arms across her chest, grabbing her elbows tightly with her hands for control.

“Fuck you!” she screamed. “You will not win. Fuck you, you asshole.”

* * *

In his hide site, the Sniper had adjusted the video camera set on the small tripod, making sure he caught all of Emily as she got to her feet and began screaming. He had the audio turned off, so while it was obvious she was saying something, the actual words wouldn’t be recorded. Which was just as well.

He had almost an entire hour of tape recorded over the course of the last two days. His favorite was when she worked on the shackle with the wire from her bra. He’d been concerned at first, then fascinated by her meticulous efforts. He’d even felt slightly disappointed when the wire broke. But just slightly.

Her current defiance he found almost amusing. She thought herself so important. And she was nothing, a piece in the plan. He checked his watch. A plan whose next step was getting ready to unfold.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Airplane rides and murder scenes. Gant hoped they didn’t find the latter when they arrived in Virginia. He was looking at the satellite imagery of the farm and the brief security summary sent by the State Department to the Cellar regarding their protection of Lewis Foley and his wife Mary. Golden was across from him, going through the personnel folders of their three targets one more time.

Gant’s Satphone buzzed and he pulled it out. “Yes?”

“Mister Gant.” There was no mistaking Nero’s unique in-human voice. “We have an operative going in to provide coverage of the area. She’ll be in place within the hour.”

“She?” Gant asked as he checked his watch. They were still a good three hours out.

“Yes. We thought it time you met Ms. Neeley.”

Gant’s hand tightened on the phone as he recognized the name of the woman who had been his brother’s lover for the past decade. He had never met her, but he had heard about her. He’d heard that she had been there when he died and according to Bailey had buried him.

“The State Department has a couple of agents on site for protection and to provide what they believe to be deterrence,” Nero said.

“But Neeley isn’t on site.” Gant said it as a statement, not a question.

“She’s in over-watch.”

“All right.” Gant understood what that meant and he’d done enough missions for the Cellar that he knew there was no discussing it with Nero.

“There is something else,” Nero said.

“And that is?”

“Let me turn you over to Ms. Masterson.”

There was a brief silence, and then the woman’s human voice was on the phone replacing Nero’s metallic rasp. “You left a message asking about Doctor Golden’s son, Jimmy. Doctor Golden was married for eight years, divorced six years ago. Her husband was a psychiatrist also, specializing in the same field of predictive behavior. They had a son, Jimmy. She was given full custody when they divorced.

“Jimmy was living with her when she worked at Fort Bragg. He went to school one day and never came back. He was last seen in the school playground. It was immediately suspected that someone who Doctor Golden denied entry into Special Operations because of her psych evaluation might have been the culprit. However, there was also the stronger and more likely possibility it was a sexual predator and a random snatch. The police pursued the latter angle but turned up nothing. Nobody was ever found.”

Gant glanced across the plane at Golden who was immersed in her computer.

Masterson answered the question that Golden had asked and that was just forming in Gant’s mind before he could voice it: “The Cellar was not brought into this matter initially. The military chose to handle it themselves since it happened on post. They investigated without any success. Eventually it was brought to Mister Nero’s attention, but by then the disappearance was so far removed time-wise that an operative sent to check things out reported little to work with.”

But Nero got interested in Golden, Gant thought. Always the opportunist.

“The case is still open but there has been no progress in the past four months and there is no active investigator.”

“Might want to reconsider that,” Gant said.

“Yes, that has occurred to me” Masterson simply said. “But let’s stick to the task at hand. There will be a helicopter waiting for you at the airfield. It will take you close to Neeley’s over-watch position. She is at grid one-eight-five-six-one-five.”

The phone went dead and Gant slowly closed it.

“What’s the latest?” Golden asked as he put the phone away.

“The State Department has guards with the Foley’s.”

“I’m sure that’s a great comfort to them,” Golden said dryly.

“We’ll be joining a Cellar operative in an over-watch position,” Gant said as he checked the grid coordinate. “She’s already on-site.”

“’She’?” Golden repeated. “Seems the Cellar is very big on gender equality.”

“The Cellar is big on efficiency,” Gant said. He paused, considering if he should broach the subject, then decided it was best to do it before they met Neeley. “Ms. Masterson also mentioned your son.”

Golden’s face became a stone. “What about him?”

“She told me what happened. The Cellar wasn’t informed by the military so that was why no operative investigated until Mister Nero heard about it months later.”

“And?”

“Nothing was discovered.” Gant pointed at her computer. “I assume you did a target search of those people you interacted with or screened at Bragg?”

Golden nodded. “Yes. I came up with twenty-six possible. But the Criminal Investigative Command only did a cursory check of those. They were convinced it was a pedophile and, like other people, weren’t very impressed with my methodology. Even though I believe it was my methodology that caused this to happen.”

“And you? What do you think?”

“I think it was someone I screened out of Special Operations. Someone striking at me for revenge.”

“Why do you think that?”

Golden’s voice was harsh. “Because nobody has been found. Whoever it is wants me to continue suffering.”

Gant leaned back in his seat, suddenly very tired. Golden was still staring at him.

“After we save Emily,” Gant said, “we’ll check out your probable’s.”

Golden blinked. “Why?”

“Because you’re my partner.”

Golden considered that. “You said save Emily, not sanction the targets. A change in objective?”

“Both objectives are tied together,” Gant said.

“Perhaps.”

* * *

The Security looked through the binoculars at the roving guard, noting the way the man had his sub-machinegun casually slung over one shoulder. It was a good news-bad news situation. In several ways.