Iris Johansen - Dead Aim

But he hadn't caught her.

How long before Morgan could get here? Too long.

No, it wasn't too long. She'd make it. Keep going.

The tech van was parked in the woods at least seven miles from Camp David.

Galen glanced down at his meter.

Pretty powerful to give off this strong a signal at that distance.

"Found it?" Kelly asked.

Galen nodded. "Go back to the car and get the guys." He started moving toward the woods. "I'll see if we have any sentries to worry about."

5:40 A.M.

The sky was beginning to turn the first pearl gray of dawn behind the bluff. Daylight that could be deadly for Alex, Morgan thought.

If she was still alive.

He jumped out of the car, grabbed his rifle and shells, and zigzagged into the brush. He was four miles south ofthe location Runne had given him, but that didn't mean he couldn't be waiting in ambush.

No shot.

He paused. Listening. Nothing unusual. He breathed deep. No smell of soap or sweat.

He started up the hill.

"Go ahead," Galen said when Logan answered. "I think you'll get through now. It was a tech van that was filtering and monitoring the calls."

"Was?"

Galen glanced at the charred and burning vehicle. "I had to make sure they didn't have time to alert anyone. That wouldn't have been smart. Try to make the call again."

"Stop arguing, Keller. I have to see Andreas," Logan said.

"Now."

"And I'm expected to believe you?" Keller asked. "I'm aware of who you are and your contributions to the President's election campaign, but that doesn't mean anything now. Your wife has direct ties to Alex Graham, who's wanted by the FBI for connections to Matanza. I'd be insane to trust you."

"You don't have to trust me. Just do what you do best and protect Andreas-and send search parties to locate that suitcase bomb."

"Which may not exist."

"If it doesn't, you can tell everyone that you were conducting a test run." Logan paused. "Or would you rather wait until it blows and then make excuses?"

"I'm not afraid of being a scapegoat, Logan."

No, Logan had a hunch Keller was an honorable man trying to do his job. Which might make him more difficult to handle. "Look, I know we have more questions than answers right now. But we've got to find those answers fast." He wasn't getting through to the stubborn bastard. He tried a new direction. "I was having trouble reaching you because a tech van was stationed seven miles from there, intercepting and filtering your calls. Why would that happen?"

"It couldn't happen. We'd know about it."

"Not if it was done by someone who knew how to bypass your safeguards. Like Ben Danley. If you don't believe the van existed, send your men to see the remains. We thought it best to destroy it."

"A very violent move for a peaceful businessman."

"Will you let me see Andreas or not?"

There was a silence. "I'll talk to him. When can you get here?"

"I'm on my way. Galen and I should be arriving at your first checkpoint in fifteen minutes."

It was the third time Runne had lost the track.

It had taken him twenty minutes to discover that she'd coated her shoes with mud so that they formed pillows of dirt and blurred the imprint.

Fury tore through him as he scanned the ground for new signs. She was good, and her stamina was amazing. He thought he'd have caught her by now and be waiting for Morgan to show with the trap baited. Instead, he'd spent hours chasing the bitch.

He drew a deep breath. It couldn't last much longer. The last footprints he'd found had been almost dragging. She was tiring, and exhausted prey always made mistakes.

But now he was being forced to look over his own shoulder. Surely that bastard Morgan should be here by now.

If he was coming. Maybe he'd decided the woman wasn't worth the risk. It was the decision Runne would have made. But in their short time together he'd noticed that Morgan didn't hold the same contempt for women that he did. It was that weakness he was relying on.

Footprint!

She'd tried to erase it, but she was getting careless now. He moved forward quickly, excitement driving, surging through him.

Find the woman.

Bait the trap. Kill Morgan.

Camp David

6:35 A.M.

Andreas didn't speak after Logan had finished.

"It's a wild story, sir," Keller said. "The idea that Matanza has been set up as a paper dragon to front an assassination attempt is bizarre. Danley would have had to be in the plot up to his neck to pull that off."

"And Danley has been with me for years." Andreas stared into the flames of the fireplace. "I trusted him."

"Past tense?" Logan asked.

"Maybe." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's hard to trust anyone these days and harder to give up that trust once it's given. I want to hold on tight. Yet I can see Betworth corrupting everyone around him. He's like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Only the fruit of temptation isn't knowledge, it's ambition. My main problem is that I can't see why Betworth would find it worthwhile to have me dead. I haven't gotten in his way on any of the major bills. There's no way he'd be able to climb over my corpse to get the next nomination. It doesn't make sense, Logan."

"No, it doesn't," Logan agreed. "And I wish I didn't have to admit it. All I can tell you is what I know, and what I know scares me."

And Andreas admired a man who could admit to fear. He'd always liked what he'd known of Logan. He hesitated. "Keller, do you have a list of our honorable colleagues who were designated to serve at Z-3?"

"In my briefcase, sir." Keller crossed to the desk. "I thought you'd want to see it." "Why did you keep Plum mock Falls as a bunker after what happened at Arapahoe?" Galen asked. "I pulled our people out of the Arapahoe bunker as a precaution after the dam broke, and I stopped the rotation of personnel into the Plum mock bunker. I hoped that what I'd been told was true," Andreas said, "that there couldn't be another security breach, it couldn't happen again. We handled all the bunkers completely separately. It seemed incredible that Matanza could buy that amount of sensitive information." His lips tightened. "I wish to hell we didn't even have to have those bunkers. But we do. Because the government has to be preserved and without them we could fall into anarchy. I won't let those bastards win that victory."

"Maybe you should have closed down Z-3 too."

"We discussed it," Keller said. "But there has to be at least one safe haven in case of nuclear attack. It was decided that the alternative vulnerability wasn't acceptable. We sent security teams to Z-3 to check for any possibility of sabotage, and it came up clean as a whistle." He opened his briefcase and drew out two documents. "Here's the bunker itself." He spread out the first diagram on the desk. He pointed to a solid rock wall. "It's built into the side of a mountain. Five-foot thick steel doors and an elevator that goes down seven stories. It was the last bunker built, and we learned a lot from Arapahoe and Plummock Falls. Not that the other two bunkers weren't perfectly safe. It's just that the new technology we installed at Z-3 made it absolutely impregnable. The clearing where the helicopter lands is about two-thirds of a mile away. The helicopter has to go through this pass to land. The aircraft has to fly low and would be almost on the ground before anyone could get off a shot." He handed Andreas the second sheet of paper. "And this is the personnel list, sir. The list of volunteers is at the top."

Andreas smiled crookedly as he scanned the names. "Betworth. No surprise there." His smile faded. "Life in those bunkers isn't exactly luxurious. It was my understanding it was hard to get volunteers from the higher echelon. But here's Ellswyth, Johnson, Cornwall, Waterson. It reads like a fraternity of Betworth's cohorts. He stacked the deck with a powerhouse of his own players. Nolan, Thorpall…" He glanced up. "Shepard? I thought he was going to go to Plummock Falls in case of any problems. He was changed after the mine explosion?"