The big-boned nurse was striding into the room. "We had no idea where she was! You must let me know if you take her."

"Not lost," Jamie said.

Leila gaped at the nurse. "I didn't take her. She just came into this room."

The nurse took a moment to absorb that. Then she glared at Jamie. "Young lady, did you walk off when I went to get your mother?"

"Not my mother," Jamie stated.

Alarm flashed on the nurse's face. "This isn't your mother?"

Jamie put her arms around Leila's neck. "This is Mommy."

Leila gave Jamie an exasperated look. "Honey, what do you mean?" To the nurse, Leila said, "There must be a mistake. How did you know I was in here? The doctor just brought me up."

"I got a call at my desk," the nurse said. "The visitor's station told me that you had arrived to see your father."

"What visitor's station?" Leila asked.

"It wasn't you," Jamie told Leila. "It was the other lady."

A chill went through Thomas. "What other lady?"

Jamie snuggled closer to Leila. "The bad lady, Grampy."

Thomas suddenly felt cold. He toggled on his glove and put in a call to the base.

"I don't understand," Leila said. "What lady?"

"A tall woman came in," the nurse said. "She was looking for your father. Security called me down to talk to her, but she left before I got there."

Leila glanced at Jamie. "How did you know who it was?"

"I saw her on the screen," Jamie said.

"She must mean at my station," the nurse said. "The other nurses let her sit in my seat while I went to the visitor's center."

A voice crackled out of the comm on Thomas's glove. "Matheson here." He sounded much more awake than the last time Thomas had talked to him.

Thomas lifted his glove. "C.J., this is Thomas. I want a twenty-four-hour guard on my daughter and her family. The woman who broke into my house may have come to the hospital this morning. Security here can give you more information."

Matheson didn't miss a beat. "I'll take care of it right away."

"Dad, what's going on?" Leila asked.

Thomas knew he had to give her an explanation, but he could hardly tell her that the NIA had lost a highly secured project. He spoke to Leila, knowing Matheson could overhear. "The woman who attacked me last night may have escaped from a mental hospital. She has a fixation on me, we aren't sure why."

"Good Lord," Leila said. "Will you be all right?"

"I'll be fine." He felt like a monster, though, knowing his work had endangered his family. He just prayed it didn't end with any of their deaths.

VI: House Call

Thomas used his crutches as he walked with Matheson down an austere hallway of Building Seven at the NIA. These crutches were ordinary, with none of the add-ons the nurse at the hospital had shown him, no headphones, broadband connection, or mesh screen. He couldn't fathom why he would distract himself with so many extras. Seemed a surefire way to injure himself again.

His leg had responded well to the acceleration nanomeds the doctors injected last night, and his broken calf bone was already healing. In a few days they would remove this cast and give him a shorter one that only came to his knee. It amazed him; the last time he had broken a bone had been fifty-six years ago, in 1976, while he was playing soccer in high school. It had taken months to heal. Even with the acceleration, though, this whole business frustrated him. The injury slowed him down.

"Do you think Alpha will go after Pascal?" Matheson asked.

"Possibly," Thomas said. "I told her he wasn't Charon, though, and she didn't otherwise have much to do with Pascal."

"She might not believe you about Charon."

"I think we should release Pascal. The paperwork is done."

"But it would make him a target." Matheson glanced at him. "Ah. I see."

"Might be too obvious a ploy," Thomas allowed.

"Unless we released him into protective custody," Matheson said. "With enough guards to capture Alpha

if she went after him."

Thomas paused and leaned on his crutches while he caught his breath. Fortunately no one else was around to see his weakened condition. "Sam wants to take him to her house in California. If they're willing to go with guards, maybe we should let them." He wanted Sam to have guards, too, and he knew she would resist. If he released Pascal, she would be more amenable to the idea because they would be protecting her boyfriend. The NIA hadn't yet figured out how Alpha had escaped, and Thomas didn't

want Sam left defenseless. Ironically, if they let Pascal go with her, she would be safer than if they kept him locked up.

"Shall I arrange it?" Matheson asked.

"Set up a meeting with General Chang." It relieved Thomas that he had emails from Chang indicating

she had agreed he should work with Alpha before they did anything drastic, like dismantling her. It could protect his job. He wasn't certain if heads would roll over Alpha's escape, but he was responsible; had he ordered her taken apart, none of this would have happened. Even so. That made it no less like murder.

"I'll try to set it up for tomorrow at her office," Matheson said.

Thomas set off, swinging along on his crutches. "I can meet her today over a secured mesh line. No need to go to the Pentagon."

"Sir-"

"Yes?"

Matheson glanced at Thomas's leg, then back at his face. Thomas met his gaze with what he hoped was

an implacable stare. He knew C.J. wanted him to go home and rest. The doctors had said the same when they reluctantly released him this morning. Thomas didn't have time to rest. Alpha certainly wouldn't.

This mess was his fault, and he had to get working on a solution.

Matheson cleared his throat. "All right. I'll try for this afternoon."

They came around a corner and almost collided with two men in fatigues. Inside the building, soldiers wouldn't normally salute. However, many people on the base knew Thomas had the Congressional Medal of Honor, which almost always evoked a salute, even indoors, especially in the past fifteen years

when so few people received the medal. As soon as they saw him, both men snapped their hands to their foreheads.

Thomas stopped, fl.u.s.tered. He knew they meant to offer respect, and they obviously hadn't seen his

crutches until too late. Matheson moved to his side, but Thomas didn't realize C.J. had discreetly grasped his crutch until Thomas let go and it didn't fall. Leaning on one support, he returned the salute. One of the soldiers flushed, but Thomas smiled slightly. He nodded as the two men stepped aside to let him and Matheson pa.s.s.

When they were alone, Thomas said, "I'll be glad when I'm rid of this blasted cast." He was already tiring.

"You handle it well," Matheson said.

Thomas slanted him a look. "I don't. But thank you."

"Well, you survived against an armed forma."

"Why didn't she fire?" Thomas wished he knew. "I'm glad she didn't, but it doesn't make sense. She had plenty of time."

"It would have killed you. Not much use in a dead hostage."

"You're probably right." He wanted to believe she had shown compa.s.sion. It wasn't logical, and it annoyed him to have that reaction, but nevertheless, he felt that way.

"We should have taken her G.o.dd.a.m.ned head apart," Bartley said. "It would have prevented this debacle."

Thomas scowled at his desk comm. It didn't help that Bartley had a point. Fortunately, neither he nor the senator had activated visual on their comms, so Bartley couldn't see his expression.

"Her brain isn't in her head," Thomas said.

"d.a.m.n straight, Wharington. And neither is yours."

The h.e.l.l with this. "We'll catch her."

"You had better." After a pause, Bartley asked, "How's the leg?"

"Fine."

"Your granddaughter?"

"She's fine." Thomas kept reliving the moment he had put Jamie in the car, the way she had looked at

him with frightened eyes, so big and blue like her mother's. Like Janice's eyes. He had thrown himself at

Alpha knowing he could die, but that fear paled compared to losing Jamie.

After he and Bartley signed off, Thomas spent an hour going over reports on Alpha's escape. Somehow she had infiltrated the mesh at the safe house, sent false orders to her guards, released the locks on her room, and slipped away. No one could unravel how she managed it. If anyone had helped her, they left no trace. Her guards submitted to lie detector tests and gave every sign of telling the truth. Their mesh

gloves had recorded a call ordering them to report to another part of the building.

Thomas's comm buzzed while he was studying holos of Alpha's room, which floated above his desk screen. "Yes?" he said absently.