CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

—Rudyard Kipling, The Gods of the Copybook Headings

It was midnight. Oliver Prentiss had sent Natalie to her mother’s house in Sterling and gave Cassandra a two week vacation to “thank her for her years of service”. He was taking no chances that Hunter would return.

He was fast asleep in the master bedroom with the new double bolt lock system on his door engaged. He had had bars put on the windows. He was having a series of unpleasant dreams, but the Ambien he had taken was keeping him from his initial few days of insomnia.

The phone rang. He heard it but could not get the sound to register properly. It rang again. He came to enough to see the dreaded caller I.D. notation of “Wireless Caller” on the LED screen. He cursed and picked up the receiver.

He was about to give the telemarketer a piece of his mind when he heard, “Oliver, don’t speak. Listen. You are stupid. You risked Heather’s life. Our mutual friend and I had a meet. He brought two friends. Those two have taken a swim in the Potomac. Tomorrow morning you will receive a box delivered by courier to your door. In the box you will find all the evidence you need to confirm where our friend is and his condition. You will follow the instructions in the box about how to get to the next set of clues—sort of like a scavenger hunt, almost perfectly like a scavenger hunt. You will bring home the bag you find beside him, and you will then execute the plan I gave you when we had our last visit. Betray me again, and the next package will be the size of a hat box. You won’t need DNA or finger prints to know who won’t be coming back.”

The phone clicked off as Oliver was stammering out his profuse apologies, his sincere promises, and his primeval panic.

At eight o’clock sharp that morning, the doorbell rang; and a Fed Ex delivery man presented Oliver with a neatly wrapped box for which a signature was required. They exchanged pleasantries, then Oliver calmly shut his door. He raced into the kitchen and tore open the box. It contained a neatly typed note of precise instructions and a severed hand. By noon, he had a match on the fingerprints and DNA. Oliver was on the verge of hysteria after he received the call from the CIA’s lab. He called covert ops.