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Lombard asked.
    “George Abe.”
    “George? Really.” That surprised him. He’d always considered them on reasonable terms despite how they’d parted ways. “What’s George done?”
    “He met Duke Vaughn’s son at a diner in Virginia. They’re driving into Washington as we speak.”
    The hairs on Lombard’s neck prickled. Gibson Vaughn and George Abe. Those were two names he never expected to hear in the same sentence, and the only thing they had in common was him. That they were together could not be a coincidence.
    “What were they talking about?”
    “That I don’t know, sir.”
    “Well, find out. Do we have anyone in George’s outfit?”
    “No, sir,” Reed said.
    “Well, get someone. And get Eskridge on the phone. Looks like he may need to get hands-on after all.”

CHAPTER SIX
    They drove in silence to DC. Gibson sat in back beside George Abe, who disappeared into his phone, answering e-mails. When Abe entered his phone’s passcode, Gibson stole it out of the corner of his eye. It was force of habit. It had taken him months to perfect the skill, but he could steal a phone’s passcode from across a room simply by watching the thumb move. Gibson filed it away just in case.
    Numbers had always come easy. Math, science, computers had always made sense to him. It had been a tremendous asset when he’d gone to the dark side. He’d trained himself to remember sequences of numbers. He could recall anything up to sixteen digits with one pass: phone numbers, credit cards, social-security numbers—it was remarkable how often people recited vital information in public. It ranked among his less socially acceptable talents.
    Up front, Abe’s girl Friday sat in the passenger seat, scanning the road like she was riding point in Fallujah. He’d seen that look before in the eyes of combat veterans. The memories that wouldn’t stay memories. The sights and sounds that were forever tuning up like a discordant symphony. She carried it like that—tense and watchful—as if roadside ambushes were commonplace in Northern Virginia.
    Back at the Nighthawk, Abe had introduced her as Jenn Charles. She’d given him a professional handshake, but her false, trapdoor smile was a warning not to cross her. Still, Jenn was a sweetheart compared to the dour little man driving: Hendricks—no first name given. Hendricks didn’t seem to like Gibson either, but, unlike with Jenn Charles, it didn’t feel personal. Hendricks didn’t seem to like much of anything or anyone.
    Despite it being a Sunday, traffic into DC was as heavy as rush hour. It was early April and the cherry blossoms were blooming, so the roads into Georgetown were bumper to bumper with sightseers. Somehow Hendricks maneuvered them expertly through the congestion, dancing between lanes as one ground to a halt and the other accelerated. A very practical superpower, Gibson thought. On Key Bridge, Hendricks exited onto the elevated Whitehurst Freeway, which ran alongside the Potomac and emptied them onto K Street. The river sparkled all the way down to the Kennedy Center.
    Gibson glanced at Abe. His words at the diner still stung— Suzanne loved you better than anyone. He looked out the window at the river.
    Better than anyone.
    Gibson had known Suzanne since they were kids, their lives linked by their fathers’ bond, which ran far deeper than senator and chief of staff. Lombard had been best man at Duke’s wedding, and after his mother’s death, when he was three, Gibson spent more of his holidays with the Lombards than with his own family. Senator Lombard and Duke would often work late into the night and through weekends, and as a result Gibson had his own bedroom down the hall from Suzanne. When Gibson was seven, Duke had to sit him down and explain that three-year-old Suzanne was not his actual sister. Gibson had not taken the news well.
    Some of his fondest childhood memories were from the Lombards’ summer house at Pamsrest on the Virginia shore. Summer