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“You're an idiot,” Moore said. “You actually thought if you opened four bank accounts and put twenty-five thousand in each, I wouldn't realize someone had paid you to kidnap her from her mother?”

“You're saying I have a hundred thousand in four different bank accounts?” Murphy started laughing. “Seriously?”

Murphy shook his chains, still laughing. “Come on then. Let me loose. I've got some money to spend.”

Murphy stopped abruptly, seeing the look that Moore was giving him.

“Dude,” Murphy said, “I have no idea what's going on. But I can tell you this. A few days ago, when I talked to your daughter, she said she was going on vacation with Amanda and that she wouldn't be back for a while. So let's get all of this settled and let me at the money.”

CHAPTER 49

In the hallway, Moore said to Mundie, “Think Murphy was telling the truth?”

They'd shut the door on Murphy to join Mundie. Evans and King stood to the side. Evans winked at King as if King were in on the joke.

But King wasn't. All he knew was that the big hand on the clock had slid another sixty minutes closer to the deadline before Amanda's promised drowning.

“I think he was astounded by what he learned, which means he had nothing to do with the kidnapping,” Mundie replied. “Someone snatched her and knew he'd be your first suspect. It was obviously worth a hundred thousand to that person to put the money in his account and confirm your suspicions. Do we know of anyone with that kind of money?”

“Delamarre,” Evans said.

King looked back and forth. His face probably showed he was shocked. Shocked that Mundie had broken his word about letting them have a confidential discussion with Murphy, and shocked that Evans and Moore weren't showing any anger.

“Wouldn't do any good to pretend I didn't hear the entire conversation, would it,” Mundie told King.

“Not when he's got as much on the line at this point as we do,” Moore said to King. “Naturally, he'd listen in.”

Moore looked at Mundie. “Just assure me it won't get into the hands of the Feebs.”

“As much as I can,” Mundie said. “It
is
their building. Ears could be anywhere and everywhere.”

“Let's take it outside then,” Moore said. “Starbucks is across the street. I'll buy.”

The four of them found a round table beneath an umbrella. King normally didn't drink coffee—he didn't like the taste. But he'd ordered an espresso, triple shots, just to keep the exhaustion at bay. He hadn't slept much the night before.

Just as King was thinking that professional lying was second nature to these guys, Mundie began the conversation.

“Until you spent five minutes in that one cell waiting for King and me to arrive,” Mundie said to Moore, “you and Evans had been in separate holding cells since we arrested you. And you were under observation for the short time the two of you were waiting. I can't see any way that you were able to collude ahead of time with each other or with Murphy to run your conversation with him the way you did. For that matter, I can't see any way you even expected King to negotiate you out of your cells to have a chance to talk to him.”

“Thought those would be your conclusions,” Moore said.

Mundie said, “So I accept that your time with Murphy was a legitimate interrogation. Furthermore, you admit you anticipated this and expected I'd listen in. That means your secondary purpose in there was to convince me you had a good reason to recruit Evans and begin an off-the-books investigation of Murphy.”

“Successful?” Moore asked.

“In convincing me, yes. From the conversation, I understand your
granddaughter has been kidnapped and you're under pressure to find her. The agency will take a dim view of your actions, but I understand it on a personal level. Still, I can't ensure there will be no disciplinary action—not yet. If we can get to Delamarre, the agency will probably be much more lenient.”

Mundie let that hang there a moment and then said, “Here's where I'm at. King gave me a photograph of a woman who is posing as a CIA agent on behalf of the president. I'll let him explain.”

“I need to ask some questions first,” King said.

“We don't answer questions,” Mundie said. “We ask them.”

Then Mundie grinned. “Sorry. That's a reflex response. Standard operating procedure. What do you want to ask?”

“Jack Murphy,” King said, directing his question to Evans. “You told me he was supposed to testify that Delamarre was a terrorist, and that's why you were trying to find him, right?”

Evans said, “I think I know what you're going to ask. Was that a lie? To you and your friends? The answer is yes. I needed to give you guys a reason to believe I had to do this off the books. Moore and I are so desperate to find Amanda…it was just one more deception.”

King had his internal questions. When is it justified to lie? When is it okay to do bad things to stop bad people? He didn't know if he would be able to answer that in his own mind, but he knew the men in front of him practiced deception every day. For the United States. Was that morally okay?

Instead, he asked Mundie something that had been bothering him. “How long did you know it was off-the-books?”

Mundie directed a long and level stare at King. “Son, you barely have clearance to know what I take in my coffee. No chance am I going to tell you anything about our internal checks and balances, except to let you know that it's sophisticated enough to tell us something was happening within seventy-two hours of Moore accessing some slush funds.”

Mundie shifted his stare to Moore. “And when this is over, there will be consequences.”

Moore said, “If we find Amanda, I don't care if I spend the rest of
my life in a federal prison. So maybe let's focus on what's in front of us right now. And start with listening to King talk about the woman who pretended to be CIA.”

Moore and Evans turned total focus on King. When King finished, both looked thoughtful.

“No idea who she might be,” Moore said. “Except that Delamarre wants the files that will clear him. Enough to kidnap Amanda and use that as leverage to force me to give him the files. He must have sent her.”

“And he must have had the bugs set up in room 1010,” Evans said. “It never occurred to me that he'd know we were there.”

Evans gave Mundie a questioning glance.

“I have no idea either,” Mundie said. “All I was told was that my biggest priority out here had been shifted. Find and apprehend the woman and put the routine IG investigation about you guys on hold. I received no information on why, and when I asked, I was told I didn't have the clearance. And I'm
in
the IG, so that should give you an idea of how hush-hush this is. I'm asking you guys, since all our cards are out on the table—do either of you know what Delamarre's original involvement was with the CIA? I can promise you it's not the invisibility cloak Kelli Isaac told King about. That's old stuff. Not everything about our research is on the Internet, but plenty.”

“Beyond my clearance level too,” Moore said. “I had no chance of finding the files that Delamarre wants, nor did I intend to look for them. My goal all along was to get my granddaughter back with the off-the-books special op with Evans. And without turning over any files to Delamarre.”

Evans said, “Even if we get the woman, or Delamarre, chances are we'll never find out what the secret software is that you are keeping from us.”

Evans glanced at King. “It's how we work. Need-to-know basis.”

“Beginning to understand that,” King said.

“And right now,” Mundie said to King, “we need to know what you promised you'd tell me when you got Evans and Moore released. So where is the fake CIA agent you took captive?”

CHAPTER 50

King sat on the couch of the fifteenth-floor hotel room suite, dazed at the silence.

In that silence, the eyes of Moore, Evans, and Mundie felt heavy upon him.

He'd walked through it twice in disbelief. Housekeeping had cleaned the room and put fresh towels and linens in place. His parents' clothes were still in the bedroom.

Empty.

That was impossible. When he'd departed the room to go to the FBI building, King had put a “Do not disturb” sign on the door to keep the maids from checking the room, and Kelli Isaac had been bound hand and foot with duct tape.

And when he'd departed, Mack and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Watt had grimly promised that there was no chance Kelli Isaac would be allowed to leave.

Yet now it was empty.

King reached over to the phone and called room 1010. No answer.

He called the room where the Johnsons had been staying. No answer.

King stood.

“I know what this must look like to you guys,” he said. “But she was here.”

“Pillowcase over her head and sock in her mouth?” Mundie asked without humor. “Clean sock or dirty?”

King decided it would be better to let that remark slide. “Our parents were on board with taking her hostage and getting your help. They said they'd wait until I brought you back.”

King shook his head, speaking to himself out loud. “How can someone waltz in here and force six adults and two guys my age to leave with them?”

Evans said, “Promise to hurt one of them. The others would go along.”

King closed his eyes. Disaster.

He opened them again. “One way to find out.”

“If you're not scamming me,” Mundie said.

King wanted to make a remark about agents making a living by scamming each other or people around them, but he said nothing. Instead, he pulled out his phone and sent a text to MJ.

At the room. Nobody here. Can't find a note telling me where you went. Even my pajamas are gone.

As if MJ had been waiting, a return text appeared within seconds.

Mack said we were too exposed there. He arranged for a ferry. We're all back on the island. Didn't want to text you in case you were in a delicate situation.

King looked up from the screen at the three agents. “They are definitely in trouble,” he said.

He passed the phone to Evans, who read both texts aloud for the benefit of the others.

“That confirms for you that they're in trouble?” Mundie said, not hiding his irritation. “If this goes sideways, I've just put my career on hold for a decade.”

“We learned it from Evans,” King said. “To use code phrases to confirm our identities. Someone else is using MJ's phone to reply. I used “pajamas” in my text. That would tell MJ it was coming from me. And
he should have responded with something like “Mr. Pajamas is in the White House.”

“You call the president Pajamas?” This from Mundie with zero trace of a smile.

“MJ did last night,” King said. “It was good for a laugh. Things aren't so funny now.”

“You got that straight,” Mundie said.

Moore said, “You're sure they didn't go to McNeil Island. Positive?”

“If someone else sent that text to try to get us to believe that's where they are, that's exactly where they are not,” King said. “But I'm thinking that maybe we should have the rest of this conversation in room 1010.”

“You told us that room is bugged,” snapped Mundie. Then a small smile returned to his face. “Of course. The room is bugged.”

“And,” Moore said, “if I understand correctly, nobody gave any hints to Kelli Isaac that they knew it was bugged, right?”

“Right,” King said.

King glanced at the clock. It was probably the five hundredth time he'd checked the time.

It wasn't slowing down.

CHAPTER 51

In room 1010, King said to Evans, “I'm online. Here's the USB port.”

Evans said to King, “You realize how much trust it takes for us to let you upload those files to your Dropbox account? Delamarre would probably pay you a million dollars for proof like that. So would a newspaper, for proof that the CIA was behind the false charges against him.”