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sun’s rays would be tickling the town shortly, the first city in the United States to receive the morning light each day. He showered and dressed. An hour later he met a sleepy-eyed Michelle for breakfast.
    Martha’s Inn turned out to be cozy and quaint, and close enough to the water to walk down to the shoreline in five minutes. Meals were served in a small, pine-paneled room off the kitchen. Sean and Michelle sat in ladder-back chairs with woven straw seats and had two cups of coffee each, eggs, bacon, and piping hot biscuits pre-slathered in butter by the cook.
    “Okay, I’ll have to run like ten miles to burn this goop off,” said Michelle, as she poured a third cup of coffee.
    He looked at her empty plate. “Nobody said you had to eat it.”
    “Nobody had to. It was delicious.” She noted the local paper in his hands. “Nothing on Bergin, right? Happened too late.”
    He lay the paper aside. “Right.” He tugged his sport coat closer around him. “Pretty nippy this morning. I should’ve brought warmer clothes.”
    “Didn’t you check the latitude, sailor? This is Maine. It can be cold anytime.”
    “No messages from our friend Dobkin?”
    “None on my cell. Probably too early yet. So what’s the plan? Not hang around here?”
    “We have an appointment to meet with Edgar Roy this morning. I plan on keeping it.”
    “Will they let us in without Bergin?”
    “I guess we’ll find out.”
    “You really want to do this? I mean, how well did you know Bergin?”
    Sean folded his napkin and set it down on the table. He looked around the room; there was only one other occupant. A man in his forties, dressed all in tweeds, was drinking a hot cup of tea with his pinky extended at a perfectly elegant angle.
    “When I resigned from the Service, I’d hit rock bottom. Bergin was the first guy who thought I had something left in the tank.”
    “Did you know him before? And did he know what had happened?”
    “No to both questions. I just ran into him at Greenberry’s, a coffee shop in Charlottesville. We started talking. He was the one who encouraged me to apply to law school. He’s one of the main reasons I got my life back.” He paused. “I owe him, Michelle.”
    “Then I guess I owe him too.”
    The initial approach to Cutter’s Rock took them on a circuitous path toward the ocean. It was high tide, and they could see the swells slamming against the outcrops of slimy rock as they drove along. They made one hard right, then doglegged left. Another hundred feet carried them around a rise of land, and they saw the warning sign on a six-foot-wide piece of sheet metal set on long poles sunk deep into the rocky earth. It basically said that one was approaching a maximum security federal facility, and if one didn’t have legitimate business there, this was the last and only chance for one to turn around and get the hell out.
    Michelle pressed the gas pedal harder, hurtling them faster at their destination. Sean looked over at her. “Having fun?”
    “Just working off some butterflies.”
    “Butterflies? What butterflies can you—” He caught himself, realizing that not that long ago Michelle had checked herself into a psych facility to work out some personal issues.
    “Okay,” he said, and returned his gaze ahead.
    A man-made causeway consisting of asphalt bracketed by built-up and graded-solid Maine stone led them out to the federal facility. The entry gate was steel and motorized and looked strong enough to withstand a charge by a herd of Abrams tanks. The guard hut held four armed men who looked like they had never smiled in their lives. Their utility belts each contained a Glock sidearm, cuffs, telescopic head-crushing baton, Taser, pepper spray, stun grenades.
    And a whistle.
    Michelle looked at Sean as two guards approached them. “Bet me ten bucks that I won’t ask the bigger one if he’s ever blown his whistle to stop a rampaging psycho from escaping.”
    “If you make even one joke to