Breakwater

His lucky day, Huck thought with mild sarcasm.

That was back in January. For four long months he’d worked hard to earn the trust of the paranoid, ideological vigilantes and hard-core thugs who’d cheerfully slit his throat if they knew who he really was.

A half mile up the loop road from Diego’s motel, a black Breakwater Security SUV pulled alongside him. Vern Glover was at the wheel. Vern was Huck’s main lifeline to the vigilantes network. Scrubbed, freckled and auburn-haired, Vern was already half-bald at thirty and never would be anyone’s idea of good-looking. He was also one unpleasant individual.

He rolled down the passenger window. “Get in. Storm’s about to hit. You don’t want to get struck by lightning.”

Huck gri

Vern ignored him and rolled up the window. No sense of humor. Huck climbed into the passenger’s seat. Vern’s best buddy was Huck’s now-incarcerated fugitive, due to go on trial for drug dealing, rape, armed robbery and attempted murder. Although Vern had no criminal record, Huck presumed that his new friend hadn’t exactly led a clean and quiet life. Occasionally, Vern would bitch to him about the bastard who’d turned his buddy into the feds and how he was going to find out who it was and kill him.

But Vernon Glover saw himself as one of an elite cadre of mercenaries who would save the U.S. from its enemies within its borders and beyond. A tall order, but Vern seemed determined and confident-a scary thought as far as Huck was concerned, because it meant Vern and his cohorts either had plans or were completely delusional. Or both.

Thunder rumbled off to the west.

Vern turned around at the small motel, practically in front of Diego Clemente’s truck with its New York plates, and drove out toward Qui

“That an osprey nest?” he asked, pointing to the buoy in the quiet cove, giving Vern a reason for him to be peering in that direction.

Vern made a face. “Yeah. It’s protected. Birds have more rights these days than people.”

Always the optimist, Vern was. Huck said nothing. He had the same feeling he’d had on his run. Something was wrong. He just couldn’t pinpoint what.

4

Qui

Qui

Qui

Qui

The neglected window boxes were just another sign, if a trivial one, of Alicia’s mounting burnout. In law school, she’d ended up in treatment for depression. The medication she was given didn’t agree with her, but therapy by itself did the trick, and she got better. The entire experience wasn’t something she shared with many people, but Qui

But Qui

Debating what else she could do, she walked back down to M Street, Georgetown ’s main commercial street. After giving up on chasing the black sedan, she’d stopped at her office, in case Alicia had asked her driver to drop her off there, but no luck. Now she wasn’t at her apartment, either. And Steve Eisenhardt, who worked with Alicia at Justice, hadn’t called back with any news of her.

If she called the police, Qui

She crushed the temptation to let her mind spin ahead of the facts and took the Metro Co

She was so preoccupied with the bizarre scene at the coffee shop that she almost walked past the ivy-covered 1896 Italianate brick headquarters of the American Society for the Study of Plants and Animals. Her eccentric great-great-grandfather was one of the founders, and her slightly-less-eccentric marine archaeologist parents were directors, their latest project, funded by a private grant, having taken them to the Bering Sea for most of the past year.

During college and graduate school, Qui

A cherry tree shaded the gracious building’s front entrance, its pale pink blossoms fluttering onto the sidewalk in a humid breeze. Qui

Thelma buzzed her in. When she tugged open the heavy door, Qui

Thelma took off the gaudy purple reading glasses she’d picked up at a drugstore. Despite the warm spring weather, she wore a sage-green corduroy ankle-length skirt and an argyle sweater vest over a white turtleneck. She had short gray hair and a Miss Hathaway face. Every summer, she picked ten mountains to climb.