Roger held up a tiny microchip.
“This is a bug. They found it underneath my desk.”
Three analysts currently circulated around the office, waving special tools at the walls and furniture and light fixtures.
Agent Njeim and I stood in front of Roger’s desk.
“The last time I had this office swept was five days ago after the safe house was raided and your family was killed.”
Roger shook his head.
“I was paranoid because it was clear to me there was a mole within the Vault. Then there had been no bug, so at some point in the past five days Taylor managed to sneak it in here.”
Agent Njeim held a finger to her lips. We waited until the analysts finished up, and she took the microchip from Roger and handed it to one of the men.
“Analyze this. See if you can lift any prints. Anything.”
The analyst nodded and followed the others out into the corridor.
Once we were alone, Agent Njeim lowered her voice to a whisper.
“There’s a chance we may still be bugged.”
Roger frowned.
“How?”
“We have to assume Taylor wasn’t the only mole. There may be others.”
Roger thought about this for a long moment, then sighed.
“Shit.”
“Taylor must have been monitoring this office the entire time. She wiped all her computers, even the backups, but Nate is checking now to see whether anything is salvageable.”
“How do you know Nate isn’t a mole as well?”
“I don’t, but at this point I don’t think we have a choice but to trust he’s on our side. At least, I trust he’s on our side.”
I said, “Taylor was the one who accessed the copilot’s phone. She was the one who presented Sentinel as a possible target, and brought up Abu Muhammad al-Naser.”
Roger said, “What’s your point?”
“Why would she do that? If either Sentinel or al-Naser has anything to do with this, why would she lead us straight to them?”
Agent Njeim said, “He’s right. We have to accept the possibility that either if not both were smokescreens.”
Roger looked irritated.
“I understand that, but we can’t outright ignore them either. I’ve already briefed the president on those developments. He’s requested hourly updates moving forward. He’s promised me any resource we need to make sure this whole thing ends well. And now, Christ, I have to call and tell him this.”
Roger sank down into his chair, dropped his chin to his chest.
I asked, “Any word on the bodies from the Black Hawk attack?”
Roger shook his head.
Agent Njeim said, “How is that possible? There were over a dozen bodies. They can’t all turn up not in the system.”
“Oh, they turned up in the system, all right. They all turned up as deceased.”
Agent Njeim frowned at me, then frowned at Roger.
“What do you mean?”
“Each of them comes up as someone who died decades ago. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, as far as our people can tell. One of the men came up as a bank manager from Newport, Arkansas, who passed away in 1989. It’s thrown everyone for a loop.”
“Even dental records?”
“It’s too early to try to match dental records, but they’ve already started with a couple of the bodies. It could be hours before anything comes back, but we’re not holding out hope. Mr. Shepherd, may I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“You were right there with Agent Njeim before Taylor took that man’s life, from what I understand. Couldn’t you have … well, saved him?”
“No.”
Roger seemed surprised by the bluntness of my answer.
“Really?”
“Maybe in my prime I could have stopped her, but from where I stood I calculated the distance between us and all the possible outcomes. No matter what I did, that guard would die. Now let me ask you a question, Roger.”
“Go ahead.”
“Actually, it’s more of a request. I need to see my daughter now.”
Roger stared at me for a long moment, as if he didn’t understand what I was asking, and then slowly nodded.
“Of course.”
“I know you said you have a surveillance team on her, but with what’s just happened, I think it’s best I speak with her right away. She needs to know what’s going on.”
“I’ve always wondered something. Is your daughter—”
I cut him off.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“How can you be so sure? They’re twins.”
Yes, they were twins. Aisha had been born eleven minutes before her brother. Growing up she had liked to tease him that, despite the fact they were twins, she was the oldest and he had to listen to her no matter what.
“I still have no idea how it works. What it is about my blood—my DNA—that makes me what I am. As it was passed on to me from my father, you’d think I would pass it on to my children, but it was only my son. My wife and I had countless conversations after the twins were born and as they grew older. We watched and waited for them to do something … extraordinary. By the time he was two years old, I knew my son was like me. But Aisha … she was just an ordinary child. Even the few times I tried to test her, to see what she would do, she reacted as any child would.”
“So whatever it is that makes you … special, it doesn’t pass down to females.”
“I can’t say for sure. It may very well pass down to females, but just not to my daughter.”
Roger was quiet for a moment, thinking. He leaned forward in his seat, opened a desk drawer, and pulled out several black foldable cell phones.
“Agent Njeim, I would like you to take Mr. Shepherd to see his daughter. I’ll have a team escort you. These, however, are just for us.”
I asked, “What are they?”
Agent Njeim took the phones and handed me one.
“Disposables. In theory they can’t be tracked.”
Roger nodded.
“That’s right. The current phones our teams carry have GPS, so they can be tracked by anyone internally. With these they can’t be tracked, which means whoever is spying on us won’t know where you are. Well, at least they won’t know precisely where you are. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”
I stared down at the phone, then glanced back up at Roger.
“I’ll need another one for Hector.”
Roger shook his head.
“He doesn’t need one.”
“Yes, he does. And I’ll need to know its phone number, in case I need to contact him.”
“Why?”
“He’s going to come with us, and once we leave, he’s going to stay with Aisha.”
“Why do you think he’ll do that?”
“Because he owes me.”
Clearly not happy with this plan, Roger tossed me another one of the disposables. Then he rapped his knuckles twice on the desktop and nodded at us.
“Be careful.”