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government, you can’t cobble together a handful—” He stopped and turned his gaze to Jonathan.
    They both got the Big Picture at the same instant. “You want us to break the law,” Jonathan said.
    “We want you to find the First Lady,” Miller said, and he looked like the words might have upset his stomach.
    Jonathan looked to Irene. She shrugged with her eyebrows. “If we follow the rules, we leave a paper trail. The paper trail will most certainly be leaked, and then it will be followed.”
    Just to be sure, Jonathan said, “No warrants, no due process?”
    “I’m told this might not be the first time you’ve done that,” Winters said. “In fact, rumor has it that you might have had something to do with thwarting an assassination attempt at one point.”
    “Not that they have any evidence to that effect,” Irene said interjected quickly.
    Jonathan’s mind raced. If Irene hadn’t been in the room, he’d have been out of there. But she had so much cred with him that he was nearly willing to ignore the warning bells in his head. At least temporarily.
    “What about prosecuting the bad guys?” Boxers asked. Most of their conversations in the past had implied dire consequences for the Security Solutions team if they’d sullied evidence and therefore endangered the government’s case.
    “Not all that much of a concern to us,” Miller said. “If you can find Mrs. Darmond, we don’t care what happens to the people who took her.”
    Jonathan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying you want us to kill them.”
    “I’m saying that we don’t care one way or the other.”
    Jonathan shifted his eyes to the White House chief of staff. “I want to hear you say that.”
    Winters didn’t drop a beat. “We don’t care one way or the other what happens to the kidnappers.”
    Boxers said, “Cool.”
    Jonathan held up a hand for silence and drilled his gaze through Winters. “Then we’ll let them go,” he said. “We’re not assassins.”
    The words hung untouched. The unspoken truth was that each of them knew people who were assassins, but no one wanted it on even this small a record.
    “Are you in or not?” Winters said, finally.
    “What happens in three or four days if we can’t make this thing happen?” Jonathan asked. “People are going to find out.”
    “And if they do, we’ll handle it,” Winters said. “We’d prefer that it not get to that. If it does, then we can take over the whole operation. You’ll be off the hook and the world’s economy and security will be destabilized.”
    Jonathan ears grew hot. It was a cheap shot to lay all of that at his feet. “I’ll shoulder the responsibility that I sign on for, Mr. Winters. I don’t do politics.” He turned to Irene. “What resources do I get?”
    “Whatever you need. In fact, I’ve got something for you both.” She reached into the pocket of her suit jacket and produced two pocket-sized leather folders, which she handed to Jonathan. He recognized them as FBI credentials. “I believe you already have the appropriate badges. But you need new names.”
    The old aliases were now permanent fixtures on the Interpol list of fugitives. Jonathan thumbed open the first folder and saw Boxers’ picture. “Here you go, Jason Kaufman,” he said, passing it over. He noted that his own read Richard Horgan. “Are these real?” he asked.
    “Real enough to get you through a background check, but not enough to get you a pension.”
    Jonathan craned his neck to get Boxers’ vote.
    “I’m in,” Big Guy said.
    This was a mistake. Enough of the circumstances didn’t make sense, and the fingers of the kidnapping reached far too high into the world power structure for any good to come of this, but Irene had never once said no to him when he needed her.
    “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “Start at the beginning and tell me everything you know.”

C HAPTER F OUR
    D avid knew he was in trouble the instant he heard his cell phone ring. He’d