4 I Q Kitty Hawk and were now driving down I-95 in a Chevy Tahoe with her unconscious in the back P K looked up at the central video monitor An unmanned drone was following the Tahoe streaming live video into the Situation Room I guess I’m confused P K said If we know where Bethany is why don’t we send in a hostage rescue team to get her back she’s safe for now Malak Tucker is protecting her We may do just that his father said But not yet I think Who’s Malak Tucker She’s an ex-Secret Service agent who up until tonight I thought was dead She’s infiltrated the terrorist cell and is trying to find out who’s in charge of it so we can arrest them By arrest them P K knew his father meant kill them but he let it go His father always treated him like he was ten years old which in fact he was So you know this Malak woman P K said I’ve known her for years She was in charge of my protection detail Bethany knows her too How big is this cell His father shook his head We don’t know and that’s the problem They have managed to infiltrate every branch of government including the White House He nodded at the Situation Room’s locked door My staff is on the other side of that door going crazy because I won’t let them in The reason I won’t let them in is because I don’t know for certain which of them I can trust Somewhere there’s a list of cell members We need that list and this is our best chance to get it
Sunday September 7 12 00 a m to 1 35 a m 5 If Malak has already infiltrated the cell why does she Arrest him P K said Right And the SOS team following Bethany doesn’t work for need Bethany She’s only infiltrated it to a certain level Bethany is her ticket to the upper echelon of the cell Someone is in charge Perhaps more than one person To get the list she has to gain their trust Delivering Bethany will do that As soon as she meets the head of the cell Malak will uh the government No They’re independent contractors And you trust this Tyrone Boone guy and his team I do He and his team are about the only people I trust at the moment I’ve worked with Boone for over thirty years He’s never let me down But I have taken some other steps just in case things start falling apart which they often do For now Bethany is safe A phone on the conference table rang The president picked it up listened for a second then said The next person that calls me or allows a call to come through to me in here will be fired He slammed the phone into the cradle swiveled his chair back around and stared at the Chevy Tahoe heading south on I-95
The Interstate Hard rain blew sideways across I-95 I looked at my watch It was midnight We were in Virginia heading south Somewhere in front of us was a Chevy Tahoe Inside the Tahoe was Secret Service agent Malak Tucker who was supposed to be dead She was posing as a terrorist known as Anmar aka the Leopard She wasn’t alone in the Tahoe A few hours earlier she had drugged and kidnapped Bethany Culpepper the president’s daughter We were all a little tense The Sasquatch-sized ex-spy Felix was behind the wheel of our parents luxury motor coach driving about a hundred miles an hour Lying next to him in the white-leather passenger seat was Croc the ancient almost toothless mongrel with one blue eye and one brown eye Croc was not tense He was snoring and drooling and passing a little gas Felix cracked open the window to get some fresh air
Sunday September 7 12 00 a m to 1 35 a m 7 Boone Angela and I were sitting at the dining table in the back of the speeding coach staring at a laptop computer On the screen was the infrared image of a car traveling exactly seventy miles per hour down the interstate seventeen miles ahead of us according to the readout in the corner of the screen Slow it down Boone called up to Felix Felix eased his big foot off the gas pedal Why Angela asked We’re miles behind them Spotters Boone said The ghost cell is well organized and extremely paranoid which is how they’ve managed to survive all these years They aren’t one step ahead of us they’re ten steps ahead of us Angela pointed to the screen Right now they’re sixteen point five miles ahead of us Angela was my brand-new fifteen-year-old stepsister Two years older than me A fact she was constantly reminding me of But I’m taller She was kind of a know-it-all but I liked her And she was usually right Spotters I asked People sent ahead to see if they’re being followed Angela answered It’s part of countersurveillance Since we’d met Boone we’d had to learn a new language I guess Angela was a little more fluent in spy-speak than I was because of her mother Malak the woman riding up ahead in the Tahoe with the kidnapped Bethany Culpepper Angela’s right Boone said They’ll have people stationed along the route watching traffic maybe even running license plates
