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was of no value to Nick in his current condition. Nick was certain Chapin was overstating Garza’s reach, but he understood the paranoia.
    “You have no idea what you’re up against,” Chapin’s voice was weak and shallow. “He has connections everywhere.” With this, Chapin looked straight up at Nick with swollen eyes. “I’m serious. The guy has informants on both sides of the border. He’s unreachable. You can’t get to him. You have rules and regulations to follow. He doesn’t.”
    Nick and Matt exchanges glances.
    “He’s right,” Matt said, raising his eyebrows. “We need help outside of the agency.”
    Nick understood the connotation. “I know. Walt suggested the same thing.”
    “Then why not call him?”
    Nick stuck his finger into the bullet hole Matt left in the drywall. “I tried. He’s out of the country. I’m not sure he has cell coverage.”
    Matt shrugged. “All he’d have to do is make a few calls. He could get us information.”  
    Nick looked at the expression on Matt’s and Stevie’s faces, wanting him to contact his cousin Tommy like it was a call to Batman.
    “Relax,” Nick said. “He’s in Africa somewhere. I’ll find a way to get him a message. In the meantime, let’s find another way to get Garza.”
    In the corner of his eye, Nick could see Chapin wordlessly shaking his head, as if to himself. “You have no idea,” he whispered.
    Nick looked up at Matt. “Have Decker call in three random agents.”
    Matt cocked his head. “Why?”
    “Because if there really are any other moles I want to know about it,” Nick said. Then he looked at the mess of flesh sitting quietly on the floor. The man who had Ricky and Jim killed. “Besides, if there are others, they’ll report to Garza that the entire building was interviewed and it won’t arouse any suspicion toward this asshole.”
    “What do we do with him?” Matt asked.
    Nick came to his feet and patted Matt’s shoulder. “First, we get his daughter back.”   

Chapter 6
     
    The basement of the FBI’s Baltimore field office housed the most sophisticated War Room in the nation, which required an iris scan and a short elevator ride to gain access. The FBI’s information technicians worked long hours, so to avoid disorientation the walls were dotted with recessed TV monitors in the shape and position where windows would normally be placed. The monitors displayed the security images from the perimeter of the building with such clarity it felt like you were looking directly outside. Even the ceiling portrayed images of the actual sky above so the brain was fooled into believing it was in a ground floor office instead of fifty feet underground.
    The perimeter of the room was lined with computer stations where techs would decipher data they’d received from the field and analyze their level of validity, then their level of threat. More than a third of the staff there were multilingual and many more were pure interpreters.
    A weekly department head meeting was held there strictly for discussion of terrorist threats on US soil. Even though it was Walt Jackson’s home office, he was there early to mitigate any animosity between his boss, FBI Director Louis Dutton, and CIA Director Ken Morris.
    Dutton and Morris sat across the round table in the center of the room, pretending to be occupied on their tablet computers, while Walt and Defense Secretary Martin Riggs waited for the final member of the group to arrive.
    Riggs was an ex-Marine with little patience for politics and seemed to sense the tension around the table. He waved a finger between Dutton and Morris and said, “You two know each other?”
    Walt said nothing, while Dutton and Morris maintained their fascination with their tablets. The elevator chimed and out stepped Secretary of State, Samuel Fisk. He was a large man with a slow methodical gait. He held a plastic cup full of trail mix and placed it on the table as he took his seat next to Walt.
    Fisk