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frowned. “I don’t have to tell you that the soon-to-be First Daughter’s abduction has caused an intelligence mobilization of nine-eleven proportions.” He turned to Jack. “The head of the special task force in charge of the investigation has requested you, not simply because you’re my best agent by far, but I assume because of Emma.”
    That was logical, Jack thought. Emma and Alli both went to Langley Fields; they were roommates and good friends.
    When the limo turned onto Langley Fields Drive from Georgetown Pike, it was met by a fleet of unmarked cars. There was not a police or other official vehicle to be seen. The limo stopped while the driver handed over his creds; then a grim-faced suit with an earful of wireless electronics waved them through the tall black wrought-iron gates onto the school grounds, which were guarded by a twelve-foot-high brick wall topped by wrought-iron spikes. Jack felt sure those metal points were more than decorative.
    Langley Fields was the epitome of an exclusive, expensive women’s college. The colonial-style white brick buildings were scattered across a magnificently groomed campus whose expansive acreage now revealed volleyball and tennis courts, a softball field, an indoor gym, and swimming facilities. They passed a professional dressage ring on their right, behind which was the long, low clapboard stable, its doors closedagainst the winter chill. Beside it, neat golden bales of pale hay were piled high.
    The limo crunched over blue-gray gravel, moving along a sweeping drive toward the sprawling administration building. Jack pressed the button that rolled down his window and stuck his head out. At regular intervals, unmarked cars had been pulled unceremoniously onto the immaculately tended lawns, green even at this time of year. Beside them, more suits with ear candy consulted with the outdoor staff or were either setting out or returning in search parties of three or four.
    Jack counted three sets of K-9 unit dogs straining at the ends of their handlers’ leashes as they tried to catch a trace of Alli Carson’s scent. High overhead a stationary helicopter whirred, no more than another bird with acute vision. With the president-elect’s priority visits, the chopper wouldn’t betray any unusual activity to the school’s neighbors, Jack surmised.
    The suits watched the limo’s slow passage, their pale gimlet eyes narrowing as they spotted Jack. Their mouths turned down in disdain or outright hostility. He was an outsider come to take their Golden Fleece, make it his own. As they realized this change in the order of things, they bared their teeth slightly, and, aggrieved, their cheeks puffed up.
    The car came to a stop under the porte cochere, held aloft by massive fluted Doric columns. Jack stepped out, but when the chief didn’t follow, he turned, bent into the interior.
    “This is as far as I go.” Bennett’s face was impassive, but his fingers were firmly laced together on his lap. “Your ass belongs to someone else now.” His lips seemed to twitch in a grimace. “A word to the wise, Jack. This is a different arena. You go off the grid, they’ll for damn sure make you wish you were dead.”

5
    Jack, ID’d at the front door, was taken in through the vast echoing vestibule, with its domed ceiling, huge ormolu-framed mirror, and ornate spiral staircase to forbidden upper floors. A crystal chandelier hung like a cloud of tears caught in the moment before it’s drops fall to earth.
    The familiar polished mahogany console with its gold-tipped cabriole legs, delicate as a fawn’s, stood to the left, a large bouquet of purple-blue hothouse irises rising from within its glass bed. To the right, through mahogany pocket doors, was the sumptuous drawing room used for teas given by the headmistress or for holiday parties. Jack stood for a moment, transfixed, as he stared in at the room’s yellow walls, yellow flowered sofas and chairs, white trim. He saw himself with