A knock on his open office door interrupted him. He glanced up to see Ronald Chin, Sigma’s geology expert, standing in the doorway. “Thought you should see this.”
Painter waved the geologist inside, almost expecting him to have to duck through the doorway. Chin stood just shy of six feet, missing that mark only because he kept his head shaved to the skin. He wore a gray lab jumpsuit, zippered half down to reveal an Army Ranger T-shirt.
“What is it?” Painter asked.
“I was poring over some of the reports and came across something that could be important.” He placed a file atop the desk. “It was from a debriefing of a National Guardsman on the scene, a Major Ashley Ryan. Most of the questions centered on the identity of the bomber, along with events leading up to the blast. But Major Ryan seemed mighty agitated about the blast itself.”
Painter sat up straighter and reached to the file.
“If you look at page eighteen, I’ve highlighted the key passages.”
Painter opened the report, flipped pages, and read what was marked in yellow. There were only a handful of exchanges, but the major’s last statement sent a chill through his blood.
He read it aloud. “ ‘The ground . . . it looked like it was dissolving away.’ ”
Chin stood with hands behind his back on the far side of his desk. “From the beginning, I thought there was something odd about that blast. So I consulted Sigma’s demolition expert. He came to the same conclusion. For a detonation strong enough to break through bedrock and crack open a geothermal spring, the concussive blast radius should have been tenfold larger.”
A gruff voice interrupted from the doorway. “That’s right. Not nearly enough bang.”
Painter turned to the doorway again. Apparently Sigma’s new resident bomb expert had come to support Chin’s assessment. The man leaned against the door frame. He stood half a foot taller than Chin, and outweighed his teammate by a good forty pounds, most of it muscle. His dark hair was stubble, but he still slicked back what little was there with gel. The man wore the same coveralls as Chin, but from the bared chest, it looked like he was wearing nothing underneath.
In his right hand, he kneaded a fistful of clay.
Painter grew concerned. “Kowalski, is that the C4 from the weapons locker?”
The man straightened with a shrug, suddenly looking sheepish. “Thought I’d run a test . . .”
Painter felt a sick lurch in his stomach. Joe Kowalski was ex-Navy, hired by Sigma a few years ago. Unlike others, he was more of an adoptee than a recruit. He had been serving as muscle and team support, but Painter sensed there might be more to this guy than met the eye, a vein of sharpness hidden beneath that dull exterior.
At least he hoped so.
Painter had reviewed the man’s dossier since he’d joined Sigma—evaluating his aptitude and skills—and eventually assigned him to a field of study for which he seemed best suited: blowing stuff up.
Painter was beginning to regret that decision. “I don’t think any explosives tests will be necessary.” He tapped the file on his desk. “Have you read this field report?”
“I skimmed it.”
“What’s your take?”
“Definitely wasn’t C4.” He lifted his fist of explosive and gave it a squeeze. “The explosion was something else.”
“Any thoughts?”
“Not without examining the blast field. Collecting some samples. Otherwise I have no clue.”
He had to give Kowalski credit. It was a passable evaluation.
“Well, someone knows the truth.” Painter leaned back in his desk chair and glanced to the screen with the frozen image of the bomber. “That is, if we can find her.”
2:22 P.M.
Utah Wilderness
Kai hid in a dense thicket of mountain willows alongside a cold stream. She knelt, cupped the clear water, and drank. She ignored the nagging concerns of giardia or other intestinal parasites. Most of the flow here was fresh snowmelt. As thirsty as she was, she’d take her chances.
After drinking enough to wet her mouth and take the edge off her thirst, she covered her face with icy-wet palms. The cold helped her focus.
Still, even with closed eyes, she could not get the image out of her head. As she had fled the burial cave, she had glanced back in time to see the flash of brilliance, hear the thunderclap. Screams and cries chased her into the deeper woods.
Why did I drop my pack?
John Hawkes had sworn the C4 was safe. He’d said she could fire a bullet into one of the explosive charges, and nothing would happen. So what went wrong? Already scared, she came up with one frightening possibility. Had someone from WAHYA witnessed her flight out of the cave and telephoned in the detonation command?
But why would they do that, knowing people were around?
No one was supposed to get hurt.
She hadn’t had any time to think. For the past two hours, she’d been running headlong through the woods, as fleet-footed as any deer. She kept hidden from the air as much as possible. She’d already spotted one helicopter as it skimmed past a ridgeline. It looked like a news chopper rather than law enforcement, but it still sent her diving for the thicket.
During the remaining hours of daylight, she had to put as much distance as possible between herself and any pursuers. She knew they’d be looking for her. She pictured her face being broadcast across the nation. She was under no illusion that her identity would remain a secret for long.
All those cameras . . . someone surely got a good picture of me.
It was only a matter of time before she was caught.
She needed help.
But whom could she trust?
4:35 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
“Director, it looks like we finally caught a break.”
“Show me,” Painter said as he stepped into the darkened room, lit only by a circular bank of monitors and glowing computer screens.
Sigma’s satellite com always reminded him of the control room on a nuclear submarine, where the ambient light was kept low to preserve night vision. And like a sub’s control room, this was the nerve center of Sigma Command. All information flowed into and out of this interconnected web of feeds from various intelligence agencies, both domestic and foreign.
The spider of this particular web stood before a bank of monitors and waved Painter over. Captain Kathryn Bryant was Sigma’s chief intelligence expert and had grown to become Painter’s second-in-command at Sigma. She was his eyes and ears throughout Washington and a savvy player in the internecine world of D.C. politics. And like any good spider, she maintained a meticulous web, casting strands far and wide. But her best asset was an uncanny ability to monitor each vibrating filament of her web, filter out the static, and produce results.