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signs streaked with red-brown rust, following the forgotten arrows to the basement, to a dirty, white-painted fire door. Around the thick edge of the door was a small button. There always was. Trotter pushed it, three shorts and a long. Trotter knew it was ridiculous, since it was certain he was being monitored by a hidden camera at this very second, but as his father frequently told him, a big part of the reason anybody was in this business was because of the game.
    Or rather, The Game. Prisoner’s Base with real prisoners. Capture the Flag with real flags. The Game his father assured him was in his blood, no matter how loudly he claimed he hated it. The one he’d never be able to turn his back on, no matter how hard he tried.
    Trotter preferred not to think about it. But then, here he was.
    The door slid open. Trotter stepped in. Fenton Rines was there to greet him, offering a handshake but no smile.
    Looking at him, Trotter doubted Rines ever smiled anymore. He was like one of the people in fairy tales whose wish coming true was the worst thing that ever happened to them.
    Rines was a veteran FBI man, ex-Marine, legal and business education. Trotter had always thought he resembled the president of a small-town bank. He still did, but in a town that the economic recovery had passed by. He had always been a skilled and dedicated agent, but now his rugged, handsome face was harried, and his steel-gray hair was going white along the sides of his head.
    He met Trotter with his jacket off, another first. His tie was loose and his sleeves were rolled up. This was a man with more on his mind than a dress code.
    Because Rines had made a wish. Over the course of years, he had become aware of strange happenings in areas the FBI had some interest in. Convenient appearances and disappearances. Unlooked-for luck in the counterespionage business. Crimes and other sorts of mysterious operations that were obviously the work of top pros but made no sense. Phenomena, in short, his instinct told him were intelligence operations but which his connections showed to be attributable to no known intelligence agency.
    Then, two years before, a young girl had been kidnapped and a truckload of dead bodies had been stolen. These events turned out to be tied together, as part of a Russian operation known as Cronus, and Trotter’s (successful) attempt to stop it.
    And that led to Trotter—or Driscoll, as he was calling himself then. Trotter/Driscoll was the Congressman’s son, and suddenly, Rines’s wish had come true. He knew now about the Agency. But he wasn’t through with it. Rines had been caught between the Congressman and his son—he was the only person Trotter would trust with knowledge of his whereabouts.
    Trotter supposed it wasn’t fair. The old man was as persuasive as Satan; it was inevitable he’d be using Rines as another operative, this one with access to, and a certain amount of control over, the facilities of the FBI.
    “Anything to stretch the budget,” Trotter said.
    Rines thought he meant the sparse furnishings. The place still looked like a fallout shelter, albeit one with a couple of desks, a telephone and fluorescent lighting. “Oh, he’s practically all moved out, here. The canned water will be back in by tomorrow.”
    “I figured that was what was going on. I had Albright bring me to the door.”
    Rines nodded. The Agency didn’t have much use for a fancy physical plant—a secure switchboard, storage for various electronic equipment, some filing cabinets and a comfortable chair for the Congressman to sit on and think, on those rare occasions he wasn’t sitting and thinking in his apartment or in his office on the Hill. The Agency parasited (the Congressman’s word) more than money from other government agencies. Computer time, background reports, satellite photographs, statistics. If anyone anywhere in the government knew something, the Congressman could get hold of the information without leaving a trace. If