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machines, paralleling his quarry. A jackpot rang out from a dollar slot machine. The winner, a middle-aged man in a jogging suit, smiled and looked around for someone to share his good fortune. There was only Painter.
    “I won!” he cried jubilantly, eyes red-rimmed from playing all night.
    Painter nodded. “More good luck, sir,” he answered, repeating the pit boss’s earlier words, and strode past the man. There were no real winners here—except the casino. The slot machines alone netted eight hundred million dollars last year. It seemed the Pequot tribe had come a long way from its 1980s sand-and-gravel business.
    Unfortunately, Painter’s father had missed out on the boom, abandoning the reservation in the early eighties to pursue his fortune in New York City. It was there he met Painter’s mother, a fiery Italian woman who would eventually stab her husband to death after seven years of marriage and the birth of their son. With his mother on death row, Painter had grown up in a series of foster homes, where he quickly learned it was best to keep silent, to be unseen.
    It had been his first training in stealth…but not his last.
    Zhang’s group entered the Grand Pequot Tower’s elevator lobby, showing their suite key to the security guard.
    Painter crossed past the opening. He had a Glock 9mm in a holster at the base of his back, covered by his casino jacket. He had to resist pulling it out and shooting Zhang in the back of the head, execution style.
    But that would not achieve their objective: to recover the schematics and research for the orbital plasma cannon. Zhang had managed to steal the data from a secure federal server, leaving a worm behind. The next morning, a Los Alamos technician by the name of Harry Klein accessed the file, inadvertently releasing the data worm that proceeded to eat all references of the weapon while defecating a false trail that implicated Klein. That bit of computerized sleight of hand cost investigators two weeks as they pursued the false trail.
    It had taken a dozen DARPA agents to filter through the worm shitand discover the true identity of the thief: Xin Zhang, a spy positioned as a technologist with Changnet, a telecom upstart out of Shanghai. According to the CIA’s intelligence, the stolen data was on the suitcase computer in Zhang’s suite. The hard drive had been trip-wired with an elaborate encryption defense. A single mistake in attempting to access the computer would wipe everything.
    That could not be risked. Nothing had survived the worm at Los Alamos. Estimates were that the loss would set the program back by a full ten months. But the worst consequence was that the stolen research would advance China’s program by a full five years. The files contained some phenomenal breakthroughs and cutting-edge innovations. It was up to DARPA to stop it. Their objective was to gain Zhang’s password and retrieve the computer.
    Time was running out.
    Painter watched from the reflection in a Wheel-of-Fortune slot machine as Zhang and his bodyguards stepped into an express elevator that led to the private suites that topped the tower.
    Touching his throat mike, Painter whispered, “They’re heading up.”
    “Got it. Ready when you are, Commander.”
    As the doors squeezed closed, Painter rushed over to a neighboring elevator. It had been crisscrossed with bright yellow tape, lettered in black: OUT OF ORDER . Painter ripped through it while punching the button. As the doors parted, he ducked through. He touched his throat mike. “All clear! Go!”
    Sanchez answered, “Brace yourself.”
    As the elevator doors shushed closed, he leaned against the mahogany paneling, legs wide.
    The car shot upward, driving him toward the floor. His muscles tensed. He watched the glowing numbers climb upward, ever faster. Sanchez had rewired this car for maximum acceleration. She had also slowed Zhang’s elevator by 24 percent, not enough to be noticed.
    As Painter’s car reached the