"How's your headache?"

"What?"

"The headache, Cam."

"It's fine."

Blair found a clean shirt in the top dresser drawer, pulled off the protective plastic, and shook it out as she walked into the bathroom. She held it out to Cam with one hand and opened the medicine cabinet with the other. She extracted the aspirin bottle. "Take two of these before you go back over there. And promise me that you'll catch some sleep later on today."

Cam shrugged into her shirt, dry swallowed the aspirins, and kissed Blair again. "Promise. I love you."

"Yeah, yeah." Blair snatched her robe from the bathroom door and walked with her through the house, knowing she wasn't going to be able to sleep. She contemplated waking Diane for company, and then realized that she was at the guesthouse too. Feeling abandoned and out of sorts, she contemplated another walk. It was pitch black and still storming. She contented herself with making coffee, and as she watched the pot brew, heard footsteps behind her. Turning, she saw Stark in the doorway. "Do you have the night shift or can't you sleep either?"

"Night shift."

"Good. Go get the cards. I'm going to teach you how to play pinochle."

Cam walked into the dining room, which was lit by three desk lights and the computer monitors. The overhead chandelier had been turned down to a soft glow. Felicia and Valerie each sat at a keyboard. "What's up?"

Valerie pointed to the printer, where a page was just sliding out. "Grab that, Cameron. See what you think."

"Where's Savard?" Cam asked as she extracted the page.

"Asleep at the main house. I thought we could call her if this turns out to be anything," Felicia said. "I just thought..."

"No, you're right. Somebody might as will get some sleep." Cam frowned at the image from the color laser printer. It looked like a patch from a military uniform, but she didn't recognize the insignia. The resolution was poor and some of the markings indistinct. But what was very clear were the two crossed rifles above the American flag in the upper portion of the shield-shaped design. "What is this?"

"It's a shoulder patch," Valerie said. "We copied it from a web site image and blew it up. That's the tattoo those four guys had on their arms, don't you think?"

"Certainly looks like it." Cam pulled a chair out and sat down, placing the paper carefully on the table next to her. "Where is it from?"

Valerie slid a foot away from the computer monitor and pointed to the screen. "NCMA—North Carolina Military Academy. David Foster was a student there from the age of nine until he graduated at the age of seventeen."

"What's that site?"

Felicia answered, "It's the home page for the school. The commandant is in full uniform, and we pulled the patch off the picture of him."

Cam was quiet for several moments, then she stood and walked closer to the computer, squinting at the images. "We need to know everything there is to know about that place. How long has that guy been the commandant?"

"Checking," Felicia muttered. "Twenty-seven years."

"Then we need to know everything on him too. Starting with his name."

"General Thomas Matheson."

"A real general?" Cam asked. "Because sometimes these guys bestow their own ranks that don't come from any recognized branch of the Armed Forces."

"We don't know that yet," Valerie said. "We're about to start running him through databases now."

"You'd better wake Savard. That's her area," Cam said. "I'll make some coffee. The next thing you need to do is get the student records from the years that Foster was there. Let's see if we can pull some faces that match our dead guys."

"We'll have to...extract...that information from their internal computer systems," Felicia said carefully.

"Fine. Hack into them, Davis. Just don't let them know."

"Yes, ma'am," Felicia said smartly, a small smile of anticipation softening her elegantly remote features.

As Felicia turned to the keyboard, her fingers already flying, Cam signaled for Valerie to accompany her to the kitchen. "Nice job with that. How'd you tip to it?"

Valerie recalled the sensation of Diane's skin beneath her lips, the scent of her, and her heart raced. "Just luck. Someone mentioned getting a tattoo of a school mascot, which made me think of school crests." She opened the cabinet door and passed the coffee canister to Cam. She crossed her arms over her chest, belatedly realizing that she'd forgotten her underwear in her haste to dress earlier.

Cam followed her motion and hastily averted her gaze. "It's the first lead we've had, and it's solid."

"You're thinking that Foster met these men, or at least one of them, at school and then later reconnected with them?"

"Seems like a good possibility."

"God," Valerie murmured. "Why?"

"That's something we may never understand. I'll be happy just to know how."

"If this really turns out to be true," Valerie said, "it's going to be a media nightmare. We can't let this get out."

"I imagine that's why you're here, isn't it?" Cam spoke without rancor, watching Valerie's face. "To control the flow of information?"

"Even the CIA can't do that, Cameron. You know that."

"But the CIA is very good at making embarrassing situations disappear, when it's necessary."

Valerie said nothing. She couldn't refute what they both knew to be true.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Friday, September 28

C am found Blair working on a canvas as the last rays of a cloud-dampened sun faded on the horizon. She'd tied a rolled red bandanna around her forehead to hold her hair out of the way. She wore loose khaki chinos and one of her favorite Grateful Dead T-shirts, paint-stained and holey. A slash of iridescent blue crossed her right forearm where she'd evidently brushed against the corner of her palette when reaching for something. Cam kissed the back of her neck.

"You look terrific."

Blair grinned. "I'm a mess. Don't come too close, I'll ruin your suit."

Obediently, Cam stayed still as Blair moved a few feet away.

"Did you eat anything at all today?" Blair asked distractedly, her focus wandering back to the painting and a problem area she had been trying to correct.

"We had pizza."

"Mmm. That's right. Stark got us some too."

"Can I interrupt you for just a few more minutes?"

There was something in the tone of Cam's voice that immediately captured Blair's attention. She set her sable brush aside and picked up the rag she used to clean her hands. Turning her back to the painting and putting it from her mind, her expression cautious, she said, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing." Cam took her hand, ignoring her vigorous protests about paint stains, and led her toward the bedroom. Once inside, she closed the door. "We've identified the members of the assault team who hit the Aerie."

Blair took a quick breath and backed away. "Who are they? Do I know them?"

Cam took one step forward and, when Blair backed up yet again, she stopped moving and shook her head. "No, as far as we can tell, they have nothing to do with you personally. We cross-referenced their names with every bit of information in your security files. Nothing turned up. You've never met them. They never communicated with you. They've never been known to make a statement about you, your father, or anything remotely political."

"Then why?"

"It doesn't matter," Cam said, wishing that she could keep all of this from Blair. Pointing out that the assault had nothing to do with her as an individual, but only with what she represented, was like telling Blair she'd always been right. That who she was wasn't important, and all that mattered was what people saw when they looked at her. Just saying the words turned her stomach, but Blair did not want or need her protection. Not from this. "It wasn't about you. They came after you to make a statement."

"But Foster, Foster knew me." Blair couldn't hide the horror in her voice. A man she knew—a man who had sat beside her countless times in the car, walked with her on the streets, been there in the shadows as her guardian—had intended to murder her. Face-to-face. It couldn't be more personal. "Where did they come from?"

"We don't have the entire picture yet," Cam said gently. "We identified the men through tattoos that led us to the military academy that they attended as boys. Foster was part of their group." With Valerie, Felicia, and Savard working nonstop all day, they'd been able to access school records, interdepartmental memos, letters to families, interscholastic sports records, and applications to colleges—all manner of personal and academic information that had allowed them to profile the suspects. Eventually, they found the photo archives, and they'd found the faces.

"Tell me their names."

"Blair..."

"Tell me. I want them to be real. Not some ghosts, not some monsters without names or faces."

Cam took a breath and recited the names. She wanted to hold her. God, she ached to shield her. She was afraid to go near her, and that was the hardest part of all. "We think they might have been groomed for the patriot organization while they were at the school."

"You can't be serious. As boys? Recruiting boys to become assassins?"

"We don't know that they were trained from adolescence to be assassins," Cam admitted, "but they may have been indoctrinated into a way of thinking that made that next step possible. Don't forget the Hitler Youth and how effective they were in recruiting for the Reich."

Blair shook her head. It should have been inconceivable, but in her heart she knew it was a terrible reality. "Why did you come to that conclusion?"