ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

As Niles and Ryan sat in the green sedan on their ride back to the surface, the young lieutenant could see the director was deep in thought. The camouflaged dirt floor above them parted to allow the massive lift to complete its journey to the surface, where they were met by a lance corporal. He waved and then disappeared into a small maintenance cubicle that doubled as the security office. Ryan started the car as the large double doors parted and bright afternoon sunshine once again filled the interior. He backed the car out and onto the gravel drive at the back of the mansion. With a last wave at the marine guard, he put the car into drive and headed toward the front of the grounds. As he passed two men in light Windbreakers, Ryan had the queer feeling they were being watched. He lifted his hand and adjusted the rearview mirror in time to see the two men turn and raise their own hands, only theirs weren’t full of car mirror. Ryan immediately saw the submachine guns. He pushed Director Compton down hard to the left by grabbing his suit coat, and leaned down across him. Just as they both hit the seat, bullets smashed through the rear window and into the interior of the vehicle. Ryan felt flying glass as he blindly slammed his foot down on the accelerator and shot off the road into the cemetery proper. Niles had the good sense to keep down.

“How many?” he asked without attempting to rise.

“Three,” Ryan said loudly over the noise of more rounds striking the metal skin of the car. As he lifted his head to see where to steer toward, he saw a dark green Dodge pickup truck with two men in the front and one standing in the back. It slid sideways in an attempt to head them off. Ryan threw the wheel to the left and turned the car around, narrowly avoiding a large tree. He tried to head back the way they had come. He was starting to wonder where the Parks Service men were when he saw one of them sprawled on the grass not ten feet from his spinning front wheels. “Five!” he called, correcting his earlier statement to Niles.

More bullets pinged and thumped into the moving car, and the passenger-side window blew inward as a larger calibered weapon opened up from the back of the pursuing truck.

“Goddammit, this ain’t going to last long if we don’t get some help!” Ryan shouted as he slid down again in his seat. As he did so, he crushed the accelerator down to the floor, again narrowly missing some of the outer white crosses that marked the resting place of fallen soldiers and statesmen. Reaching under the seat, he brought up the only weapon they had, an old Colt .45 he had brought along simply because Jack’s regulation was that no security man left on a field assignment unarmed. So he chose a weapon he had first qualified with in the navy, the venerable Colt.

“Hang on, sir!” he cried as he swung the car into a complete 180-degree turn. He used his right hand to steer and with the left he pointed the .45 automatic out of the window and started pulling the trigger as fast as he could at the oncoming truck. Several of the large rounds hit the truck’s windshield and one or two found their mark, striking the man standing in the pickup’s bed. The bullets struck their attacker so hard he went flying out of the back; Ryan was amazed to see him bouncing like a rubber ball until his body struck one of the white crosses and came to an abrupt stop with blood misting the air around the memorial, staining the white marker crimson.

“Hah! Got one,” Ryan cheered in momentary triumph.

Niles sat up to see. “Look out!” he shouted as he saw the first two men. They were both standing in the road, shocked that the car was speeding right for them once again.

Ryan pulled the wheel to the right just in time as the two men again opened fire. Several bullets hit the windshield and spider-webbed the safety glass. One of the bullets grazed by his head, only inches from his skull.

Niles reached out and pulled the gun out of Ryan’s hand, swinging the weapon out of his broken passenger window. He was cursing up a storm, already angered by the futility of his computer search and, on top of that, at the indignity of being shot at in this hallowed place.

“Son of a bitch!” he screamed as he fired off the last four rounds in the Colt’s clip.

Ryan quickly glanced out the side window and was amazed to see one man grab his face and careen into the other, sending his fire off target. Then an amazing thing happened. Ryan didn’t see the tree and they slammed into it. It was a rear-right-side quarter-panel graze, but enough to stop the car. At the same time, the dark green pickup truck found the road and came screeching toward them. Ryan figured in a split second that was it, as he turned the ignition and there was nothing but the clicking of the solenoid. The car was as dead as they soon would be. As he thought this, the truck suddenly swerved, as loud popping noises sounded from a distance away. The truck’s front window blew inward. The man in the passenger seat grabbed his chest just as his face disintegrated in a hail of large-calibered bullets. The driver of the truck slammed on his brakes and turned the big vehicle around, stopping only to retrieve the one man who was standing and carrying his partner. The driver waited only long enough for the man to throw his buddy into the back and climb in, and then sped away toward the front gate.

Ryan closed his eyes as the silence grew around him. He heard the ticking of the cooling engine and the heavy breathing of Niles, but that was all. He looked around and took stock of the damage. He shook the director until Niles looked at him with a blank stare.

“You okay, sir?” Ryan asked, himself a bowl of jelly.

“How does Jack do it? I mean, that’s the first time I have ever been shot at,” Niles said as he slowly laid the gun on the glass-covered seat.

“I’m sure he hates it as much as us, sir.”

As they watched, several Arlington guards and the Group’s undercover marines made their way to the car. Ryan opened the car door; it creaked loudly and fell to the grass. In the next second, the black hand of the lance corporal who had moments earlier seen them off was helping him out of the car, and then the director.

“Ballsy bastards, weren’t they?” he said.

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “They must have wanted us stopped from leaving here pretty bad.”

The lance corporal checked Niles for injuries. “A few more minutes, you might have taken up permanent residence here.”

Niles remained blank faced. How in the hell could someone send a team into a covert site, and how in the hell did they know he was there?

“We’ve got to get back, Corporal. Get us some transport, please,” Niles ordered, “before the Parks Service starts asking questions about us.”

“Yes, sir,” the corporal said as he sprinted off back toward the maintenance shed.

“Mr. Ryan, someone knows what’s up here in Washington.”

“Yeah, and I would sure like to know who it is. I could have that F-16 trainer armed with no trouble …”

“I admire your sentiments, but we have to get back to the Group, ASAP!”

Three hours later, Ryan and Niles were in the F-16 somewhere over Nebraska when they received a scrambled transmission from the Group’s information center. The director was surprised to hear Jack’s voice on the other end of the call.

“Major, I thought you were heading out to Montana.”

“Copy that, Doctor. We delayed in the hope of tracking down the identity of the man Lieutenant Ryan shot in Arlington.”

“And?” Niles asked from twenty-eight thousand feet.

“Niles, the body was gone by the time our security arrived up top. Someone beat us to it.”

“Who in the hell are we butting heads with? Major, we’ll talk again when we arrive; hang tight until I arrive, then we’ll figure out how to proceed.”

“Roger. By the way, Mr. Ryan tells me you may have saved both of you with some good shooting.”

“I was scared to death!” Niles said quietly into the face mask.

“All battles are fought by scared men who would much rather be somewhere else, Mr. Director. And pass along to Ryan, well done.”

Ryan smiled under his mask. Praise from Caesar.