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up. She stepped out of the camera area, tossed the pseudo-blunt, and ran toward the cans and her backpack. She’d leave the belt; its function wouldn’t be obvious, and as far as she was concerned it wasn’t worth the risk retrieving it.
    As she was unzipping the ruck to retrieve her jacket, she heard the security Jeep approaching. She pulled out the cigarette pack and took out the last cigarette, lighting it just as the Jeep pulled up.
    “Excuse me, ma’ am,” said one of the security people from the truck.
    Lia turned around, holding the cigarette out as if she were embarrassed to be discovered. There were two guards in the truck, a man and a woman.
    “You really have to be back in the gravel area,” said the man.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Hold on a second,” said the woman as Lia started away. “Who are you and where’s your badge?”
    “Corina Jacobs,” whispered Rockman in her ear. He had undoubtedly chosen the name from a roster of legitimate visitors, but Lia realized it was an unfortunate choice—she was Asian-American, and she undoubtedly didn’t look anything like a Corina or a Jacobs.
    Then again, she didn’t look like a DeFrancesca, either.
    “Jacobs.” Lia patted her blouse as if looking for her name tag. “Must’ve left my jacket inside.”
    “Jacobs?” said the woman.
    “I was adopted,” said Lia. That much of her story was true, though the particulars she spun from it now were fiction. “Chinese Jew, New York City, over-the-hill hippies, yada-yada-yada. Pretty interesting around the holidays. Let’s. not tell anyone I smoke, okay?” She stomped on the cigarette. “Please?”
    The name was on the list the guards had; Lia saw the woman frown when she spotted it.
    “That’s how I got into viruses,” said Lia. She walked toward the truck. “Because, see, my birth mother was HIV positive, which was why I was put up for adoption. I think she might have been a prostitute or something.”
    The female guard rolled her eyes and prodded her companion—whose eyes had been pasted on Lia’s chest the whole time—to resume the patrol.
    Lia took out her handheld computer as the Jeep drove off. She put her thumb on the sensor at the rear, waiting for the machine to recognize its owner and wake up. When it did, two taps on the menu in the left-hand corner brought up the map of the site with the black spots of the surveillance net and her own position marked out. She turned, still on camera, made as if she were going back to the courtyard, then twisted back into the clear area.
    “They’re coming back,” hissed Rockman in her ear. “Probably make you repeat the whole story.”
    In two steps, Lia had reached the wall. With the third, she had vaulted to the top, grabbing on the ledge and swinging upward. She nearly lost her balance but managed to slide her other arm far enough over the top to pull herself up and over as the Jeep returned. Lia fell to the ground, cursing, but sustaining no bodily injuries.
    Her panty hose remained intact as well—her luck was starting to change.
    “All right. Have the helicopter at the rendezvous in fifteen minutes,” she said, starting back toward the nature area.
    “Better make it twelve,” said Telach. “You have less than a half hour to get to Kennedy Airport.”

7

    Rubens made it down to the Art Room just in time to see Lia board the helicopter, a “sterile” civilian Sikorsky S80 leased by the NSA for domestic travel. The helicopter had a cam in the passenger compartment, which Rockman was feeding onto the large screen at the front of the situation room. The camera was mounted low enough to provide a tantalizing glimpse halfway up Lia’s skirt.
    “Still keeping a prurient eye on our people, Mr. Rockman?” said Rubens as he walked toward the row of desks at the front of the room. The room had two levels; at the back were three rows of computer consoles and other communications gear used to tie into various systems during complicated operations.