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abducted this afternoon.”
    “Son of a bitch,” Bear muttered.
    “Exactly. Sixteen years old. She escaped. But we’ve already got indications there may have been a foreign power involved.”
    “What? Who?”
    “Tariq Koury was one of the kidnappers. We’ve got a positive ID, though he came through with fake papers. He flew to the States right next to her in first class, and then they grabbed her plain as day. It was dumb luck and quick thinking on her part that got her free.”
    Tariq Koury. That was… odd. He was a low life, a mercenary, and an opportunist. Bear had encountered him a number of times in the course of his work in Pakistan. Koury wasn’t driven by ideology or religion or political loyalties; his only desire was money. But he typically didn’t get involved in serious wet-work, and kidnapping the daughter of an American cabinet member was as serious as it got.
    “Who else was involved?”
    “We’re still trying to identify the other perp.”
    “All right. Who’s running the show?”
    “Who isn’t? Fucking Pentagon wants a piece of this. FBI, maybe Secret Service. But the Secretary talked to the President and Ambassador Thompson half an hour ago. DSS is running the show. I want you to head the investigation. I’ll get Joyce Brown or someone to run the back office stuff. You get out there while things are hot and find out what’s what.”
    “I want to talk to the girl, if I can.”
    “They’re flying her to Johns Hopkins.”
    “Is she seriously hurt?”
    “No, just a precaution, from what I understand. Everybody wants to close the barn door now the horses have escaped.”
    Right. Just like Cantwell. He grimaced and checked his watch. It could easily take two hours to drive to Baltimore from downtown DC at this time of day. He’d requisition a uniformed officer and official car with lights and sirens, and hopefully that would shorten the trip. In the meantime, he’d scramble Leah and have her get a protective detail organized. She’d be just thrilled.
    “All right. I’m on it.”
    Twenty minutes later, Bear Wyden was in a car, speeding up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

1. Andrea. April 28. 8:00 pm
    A NDREA THOMPSON WAS losing her patience. For nearly two hours she’d been poked, prodded, examined, and exhausted. She’d been questioned by the police, subjected to a host of blood tests, x-rays and a CT scan. “Just as a precaution.” She’d drawn the line at a rape kit, finally threatening to call the police if they touched her any more.
    Finally the first round of doctors backed off, replaced by a trauma therapist. Dirty Blonde drifting to grey, with a salt and pepper beard, he shoved his way past the other doctors, nurses, hospital administrators and the morbidly curious, then forced them all out with a few well chosen obscene comments.
    Against her will, Andrea immediately warmed to the man, if only for running off the med students who had been gawking at her. She breathed a sigh of relief as the room cleared out.
    “I’m Will Fisher,” he said.
    “Andrea Thompson,” she replied. “Thanks for… clearing them out.”
    “It won’t last,” he said. “The police are outside clamoring to get in, too. For now I’ve got you on restricted access.”
    She scrunched her eyebrows close to her nose. “My family?”
    “Of course your family can come in. And I expect you’ll be out of here in a couple more hours.”
    “What’s left?”
    “Let’s just talk for a moment.”
    “About?”
    Will gave her a warm, crooked smile, his teeth flashing white behind the beard. “How are you feeling?”
    “Are you a priest?”
    He coughed. “I’m a psychiatrist.”
    “I don’t need a psychiatrist.”
    “I’m sure you don’t,” he said. “You’re a resourceful young lady. But this is part of what we have to do. It’s kind of like getting a chest x-ray, but for your brain.”
    She blinked. “No. It’s not. You can see the results of an x-ray. Your examination consists of