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times when he could relax with people he could trust, and who knew who he was. If he liked you, then you were never in doubt of his friendship, perhaps because the majority of his life was spent in danger, in deep shadows, answering to different names and wearing different faces. He treasured what was real, and what was reliable.
    "Has she remarried yet?"
    "Niema? No." The pawn's position had him worried, and he continued frowning at the board, only half his attention on his answer. "She doesn't see anyone on a regular basis. She dates occasionally, but that's all."
    "It's been five years."
    Something in John's tone alerted Frank. He looked up to see the younger man frowning slightly, as if he were unhappy to learn that Niema Burdock was still single.
    "Does she seem happy?"
    "Happy?" Startled by the question, Frank leaned back, the chess game forgotten. "She's busy. She likes her work, she's very well paid, she has a nice home, drives a new car. I can take care of those things, but I can't direct or know her emotions." Of all the people for whom John was an anonymous guardian angel,
    Niema Burdock was the one he followed the closest. Since he brought her out of Iran after her husband was killed, he had taken an almost personal interest in her well-being.
    In a flash of intuition, a leap of reasoning that had made Frank Vinay so good at his job, he said, "You want her yourself." He seldom blurted out his thoughts in such an unguarded way, but he was, abruptly, as certain of this as he had ever been of anything. He felt faintly embarrassed at making such an observation.
    John glanced up, eyebrows lifted quizzically. "Of course," he said, as if it were a given. "For all the good wanting does."
    "What do you mean?"
    "I'm scarcely in a position to become involved with anyone. Not only am I gone for months at a time, there's always a good chance I won't come back." He said it coolly, unemotionally. He knew exactly what the risks were in his profession, accepted them, perhaps even sought them.
    "That's true of other professions: the elite military teams, certain construction workers. They marry, have families. I did."
    ""four circumstances were different."
    Because Frank hadn't worked in black ops, he meant. John was a specialist in those missions that never saw the light of day, financed by funds for which there was no accounting, no records. He took care of what needed to be handled without the government becoming involved, to preserve deniability.
    Frank had been considering broaching a subject with John, and now seemed like a perfect time. "Your circumstances can be different, too."
    "Can they."
    "I don't plan to die in harness; retirement is looking more and more attractive. You could step into my place without ever losing a beat."
    "DDO?" John shook his head. "I operate in the field; you know that."
    "And you know that you can operate wherever you choose. You're a natural for the job. In fact, you're better suited for it than I was when I took over. Think about it for a while-" The phone rang, interrupting him, and he broke off. The call wasn't unexpected. He lifted the receiver, spoke briefly, then hung up. "An agent is bringing the report over."
    The chess game was forgotten, the real reason for their meeting taking over. Since Flight 183 went down the week before, the FBI and NTSB had been combing the rugged Carolina mountains collecting fragments, trying to piece together what had happened. Two hundred sixty-three people had died, and they wanted to know the reason. There hadn't been any unusual radio traffic; the flight had been routine, until the plane fell from the sky. The flight recorder had been found and preliminary reports said that the pilots hadn't indicated anything was wrong. Whatever had happened had been instant, and catastrophic-and therefore suspicious.
    From one of his untold shadowy sources, John had heard whispers there was a new type of explosive device that airport X-ray machines couldn't detect, not