The two cities.
Cartland, the cell member Doane had mentioned.
Seattle, one of the cities that were to be targeted.
And the city that Doane had chosen as the place Eve was to die.
How could she make use of it?
They would be leaving tomorrow as soon as she put the final touches on Kevin’s reconstruction.
She could only hope that Joe and Venable were tracking them and would show up soon. She couldn’t believe that Joe’s efforts of the last few days would be limited to that memorial service. Venable was an unknown quantity at present. Doane had thought he might be betraying him, but Venable had not been either truthful or open during these last five years.
But she had to have faith that they were moving forward, and that somehow Venable had been forced to reveal the same story to Joe as Doane had told her.
And find a way to let them know where Doane was taking her. Not an easy task when Doane watched her every move whenever she was in the same room.
The bathroom?
Some way of writing on the mirror?
Steam? She had no lipstick.
No, that was strictly B-movie stuff.
Besides, Doane would undoubtedly check the bathroom before they left.
Think about it. Figure out a way.
Because now it wasn’t only her and Zander’s lives that were at stake.
Millions, Doane had said. Men, women, children caught in a deadly web through no fault of their own.
Innocents.
Find a way to save the innocents.
Lake Cottage
Atlanta, Georgia
VENABLE SAW CATHERINE coming toward him, and he must have read the expression on her face. He smiled at the man to whom he’d been talking. “Excuse me. Business.” He took Catherine’s arm and started across the grounds toward the parking area. “Though he probably doesn’t believe me. You’re not a woman to bring to mind the thought of business.”
“Oh, it’s business all right,” she said grimly. “Believe me, I’m not in the mood for social conversation. Where are we going?”
“My car. It’s private. You’re practically sending out sparks, and you’ll attract too much attention.”
“You’re right, I don’t give a damn how much attention I attract at the moment. You’ve been dodging me since I arrived here, and I decided to put an end to it.”
“You’ve been more patient than I imagined you’d be.” He opened the passenger door of the Lexus for her. “You’ve probably been talking to people and assessing the situation.” He got in the driver’s seat. “And now you’re ready to pounce.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when Eve was taken? You know I would have wanted to be there for her.”
“You were on a mission. Which you completed very successfully, by the way.”
“Screw it. I could have arranged to leave Colombia. You could have sent someone else to replace me.”
“But not as efficiently. You’re remarkable, Catherine.”
“Eve helped me when I needed her. She deserved the same from me.”
He was silent for a long moment. “I know she did. But I couldn’t let that matter. Not this time, Catherine. I couldn’t bring you home.”
“Why the hell not?”
“For the same reason I didn’t want to send anyone to replace you in Colombia. You’re remarkable.” His lips twisted. “A little too remarkable. You would have dug deep. Turned the world upside down searching for Doane and Eve. I couldn’t afford to have you do that.”
She stiffened. “Dirty business, Venable?”
“Needful business, Catherine.”
“Kendra said that she didn’t trust the way you behaved at that ghost town. She wasn’t sure it was in Eve’s best interests.”
“She was probably right. Kendra’s very smart. I guess you found that out.”
“Why the hell would you do something that wasn’t in Eve’s best interest? Did you want to get her killed?”
“God, no. That’s the last thing I wanted to happen. I like Eve. I did everything within the boundaries that I was permitted to save her.”
“What boundaries?”
“I had to make my first priority to kill or capture James Doane. I had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“You see? That’s why I didn’t bring you back to hunt for Eve. I wouldn’t have been able to control you.”
“Not if it meant letting her die because you wanted Doane’s scalp. Company business isn’t that important to me.” She added grimly, “I should have known that it would be to you. You’ve spent most of your life playing their games.”
“Yes, I have. Because it’s worth doing. You believe that yourself, or you wouldn’t have become an agent or stayed with it this long. Does it get dirty? Hell, yes. But we’re lily-white compared to the other side.” He paused. “And this time it was so nasty that I had to make decisions I didn’t want to make.”
“Eve’s life for Doane’s head?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “If necessary.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Yes.”
“Why? What was so important about getting Doane?”
“I had to shut him down. One way or the other.”
“It was that urgent? It was worth Eve’s life?”
“One life, Catherine. I had to put it in the balance. There wasn’t any choice when I did that.”
“What are you telling me, Venable?”
“Two cities, two nuclear devices, Doane with the knowledge of where they are and how to activate them. Is that clear enough? I had to take him out one way or the other. I had a chance at that ghost town in Colorado. I didn’t do it. He got away and took Eve with him. The crazy bastard’s out there somewhere, probably trying to make contacts to destroy those cities.”
“Which cities?”
“Homeland Security wasn’t able to find out both the target cities. They determined that one was Chicago, but we have no idea about the other one.”
Chicago was a huge population center, Catherine thought. If the second city was equally populated, it could hardly be worse. “How bad is this device?”
“Powerful enough to take down a quarter of the city. And dirty. Our information isn’t good enough to judge how dirty. They were planted over five years ago.”
“And Homeland Security hasn’t been able to locate them in all that time?”
“No. Doane’s son supposedly hid them before he was murdered and evidently did a stellar job. But now we’re sure that Doane knows where those bombs were placed. All he has to do is get in touch with Kevin’s old al-Qaeda buddies who were in the cell in charge of setting those devices off and tell them where they are.”
“Do we have any leads about who was in that cell?”
“We have a few names. The investigation was going pretty well until the general hired Zander to kill Doane’s son. Then the panic started, and they all went underground. There was a Paul Berlitz, a George Cartland, who appeared to be in charge, and a Mohammed Nali. We were gathering other names, but—”
“You haven’t been able to find any of those men you ID’d?”
He shook his head. “Believe me, we’ve tried. For a while, we thought that they’d returned to Tehran. They might have done that, but we can’t take a chance. The minute Doane took off from the safe house where we placed him, the game changed.”
“New jobs, new identity papers? I suppose you checked out the usual sources in Chicago?” He gave her a sour look, and she shrugged. “I had to ask. I understand you haven’t been following your usual modus operandi. Where do you go from here?”
“Locate Doane. Hopefully, capture him and make him tell us where those damn devices are located. Otherwise, kill him and hope he hasn’t already told Cartland where Kevin hid the nukes.”
“Either way, Eve could get caught in the cross fire.”
Venable made no reply.
Catherine’s eyes narrowed on his face. “Why are you being this open with me? You didn’t even make me dig. Yet you’ve evidently been deceptive as hell with Joe Quinn and Jane MacGuire.”