67

Paige rolled out of bed at 6 a.m. on Tuesday. She had already been staring at the ceiling for nearly an hour. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail, brushed her teeth, and put on her running clothes—black shorts, a tank top, and an old black sweatshirt with a hood. A brisk September wind would keep the temperature down until sunrise.

She fixed a cup of coffee for the road and then did her best Jason Bourne imitation, driving around the back roads of Virginia Beach for thirty minutes, checking her rearview mirror, making sure she wasn’t being followed.

Eventually she wound her way to First Landing State Park, grabbed her backpack and a new small shovel she had stashed in her trunk, and started jogging down the Cape Henry Trail. She tracked the mileage with her GPS until she came to the large cypress tree near the spot where she had buried her computer and phone. She took twenty steps into the woods, then stopped and listened. She took another twenty and stopped, waiting and listening again. The sun was just starting to peek over the eastern horizon, filtering its way through the mossy branches of the cypress trees. Paige took another twenty steps and listened a third time. Nothing but the sound of crickets and the wind rustling through the trees. Forty steps this time and a final pause to listen. Finally she convinced herself that nobody was around. One hundred paces into the woods, she began to dig.

The area looked the same as it had nine days earlier, but she had done such a good job that it was impossible to tell exactly where she had buried the stuff. She made her best guess and started with a hole about four feet by four feet, hitting nothing but roots. She moved to her right a few steps and started digging again. Then back to her left, where another hole came up empty. She methodically dug up a grid, forward a few paces, back a few paces, to the right, to the left. The sun warmed things up, and Paige took off the sweatshirt and kept digging, panic notching up with every shovelful of dirt. Occasionally she would hear somebody on the trail, and though they were out of sight, she stopped digging until they were past.

After an hour of this, Paige left the shovel and her sweatshirt and walked back to the trail. She paced again from the same cypress tree, retracing her steps, making sure she was digging in the right place. She ended up at the exact same spot where she had started and for the first time began accepting reality. Somebody had found her computer and cell phone!

She spent another hour digging until her grid was large enough that there was no way she could have missed it.

Her first thought was that it had to be Daniel Reese. He knew this was her running trail. Maybe he had followed her out to the path that Saturday morning.

But there was another possibility. The FBI had shown up the same morning that Paige had buried her stuff. What if they had followed her earlier that morning and then headed back to the condo and waited? What if Diaz and Vaughn had known all along that she had buried her computer? Everything else would have just been springing the trap.

Or maybe her phone was tapped. Maybe they had heard Wyatt tell her to destroy her computer and ditch her cell phone and then followed her on Saturday morning. Maybe her computer was sitting in the FBI offices even now.

Perhaps she had just watched too many movies, but Paige felt like she was living in a house of mirrors and trapdoors and optical illusions. It was ridiculous to think that she and Wyatt Jackson could litigate against the CIA and take down some of the most powerful people on the planet. Now they were paying the price.

Later that morning she stopped by Landon’s office and told him the computer was gone. His advice was still the same. Let him call the U.S. attorney and explain. Like Paige, he thought it was entirely possible that the FBI already had the computer. The whole thing would be a much tougher sell now, but it was still possible they could work out some kind of deal.

It was the first time that Landon had used that word, and it frightened Paige. “What sort of deal are you talking about?”

“Nothing involving a guilty plea. Just an agreement to cooperate fully, and they would take that into account in deciding whether or not to press charges.”

“You mean I would testify against Wyatt and Wellington?”

“You would have to tell the truth on everything. Without the computer, it’s all we’ve got.”

Paige didn’t have to think about that one. Landon wasn’t saying it explicitly, but he was suggesting that she trade her freedom for theirs. She shook her head. “I’m not turning against them,” she said emphatically. “There’s got to be a different way.”

AL MAHRAH GOVERNORATE, YEMEN

The small brick hut in the mountainous eastern region of Yemen had no air-conditioning, and the place was stifling. Saleet Zafar was meeting with tribal leaders, dispensing advice late at night, when he heard the buzzing sound that froze his blood. The others heard it as well. The talking stopped, and the men scampered from the house, climbing into trucks and running in every direction.

If the tribal leaders had learned one thing during the constant drone wars in Yemen, they had learned that drones couldn’t hit moving targets. The lag time from the relay of satellite images back to the pilot eroded the accuracy of the missiles. But there was no time to spare.

In the chaos, Saleet made sure his two boys got in a different vehicle, one headed the opposite direction from the truck he boarded. A minute later, he leaned out the window and watched as the drone circled overhead and fired, creating a crater in the road less than a hundred meters in front of the speeding truck. He could feel the heat on his face.

The missile had destroyed the road, and the driver jammed on the brakes and began turning around. Saleet opened his door, rolled out on the hard ground, gathered himself, and started sprinting toward the mountains. He glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see the truck in which he had been riding get obliterated, consumed in a tower of flames. Another missile destroyed the brick hut. Saleet turned and kept running.

A few seconds later, the drone whirled away, locked on another truck, and disappeared in the distance.

Later that night, Saleet circled back and found that his two sons had survived. With tears of gratitude, he kissed them both on the forehead and told them how proud he was of the young men they had become.

The three of them spent the night at the home of a different tribal leader. Saleet and the men stayed up all night—deliberating, watching, talking of revenge. After breakfast, with a vehicle waiting, Saleet asked for a few moments alone with his sons. He told them to take care of their mother. He had business to do and would not be able to see them, perhaps for a long time. He would pray to Allah for their safety, strength, and courage.

“You must not be afraid,” he said as he watched their lips quiver. They held their heads high, trying to make their father proud. “Allah will give you strength.”

He left them and rode away without looking back. He blinked away tears, feeling like someone had separated his heart from his body. Allah demanded great sacrifices. Saleet prayed that he would be equal to the task.