“Are they here?” Bear asked, looking up at the house.

  “I sent them to go stay with my sister for a few days. I hope you understand why.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “Let’s get you guys fed, shall we? The missus left us a roast.”

  Bear’s stomach growled right on command, and the three of them jumped out of the truck and marched up the stairs and into Goldstone’s house. As rustic as the whole place was, Bear didn’t miss the array of surveillance devices. Cameras littered his property. Some of them were obvious if you knew where to look. Bear was sure there were dozens he’d never be able to find.

  Goldstone’s lock was also state of the art. It required a keycode and a fingerprint. Bear wouldn’t be surprised if his security system cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It made him wonder if it was for his family alone, or if Goldstone was keeping state secrets here as well.

  Bear and Cara sat at the dining room table as Goldstone put together a plate for each of them. He also offered them each whiskey, and Bear was surprised when Cara knocked hers back like a pro. For the first time, he considered that she was more seasoned than she looked. After all, he had never asked. What had she seen in the few years she’d been a reporter? Considering how well she was handling this story, Bear was forced to admit that it might be more than he originally thought.

  As they were wiping their plates clean and groaning in satisfaction, Goldstone looked at Bear out of the corner of his eye. “You never said who it was.”

  “Who what was?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, Riley. That was always Jack’s job.”

  Bear laughed. “He was damn good at it, too.”

  “Not as good as you might think.”

  Bear laughed again, but this one was short-lived. He’d avoided naming the Director of National Intelligence for a reason. He didn’t know the kind of relationship Goldstone had with the man, but it was likely that the two knew each other. Maybe they were friendly. Maybe they were just colleagues. But Bear had trusted Goldstone up until this point. What was one more piece of information?

  “You’re asking who’s behind all of this? Who’s coordinating these attacks?”

  “That I am.”

  Bear took one more sip of his whiskey. “Mason Hughes.”

  Goldstone took a few seconds to absorb the information, then he wiped his mouth with his napkin, threw it down on the table, and stood up to his full height.

  “I knew that son of a bitch would cross the line sooner or later, and I vowed I’d be there when it happened.” He crossed the room and put a hand on the knob of a door that seemed to lead to the basement, looking back over his shoulder. “Follow me. I’ve got some information you might find useful.”

  20

  Bear and Cara exchanged a look and then pushed back from the table. Bear led the way to the door and then down the stairs. At the bottom was a thick steel door with another hi-tech security keypad and fingerprint reader. Bear slipped through the opening, not the least surprised that Goldstone had a bunker in his basement. He was surprised, however, by how small it was.

  Goldstone must’ve seen the look on his face.

  “This is only the foyer,” he said. “You’ll have to trust me on the rest.”

  “Understood.”

  Cara walked up beside him, her eyes wide with curiosity. Not for the first time, Bear wondered what she made of this entire situation. She was taking it all in stride, but despite her adaptive personality, she’d probably never been through something like this before. It tends to change you forever. He wondered if she’d realized that yet.

  “These computers serve a dual purpose,” Goldstone said in his signature drawl. “One, they track all the security footage I have and store it on a server far away from here. They say the best line of defense is a good offense, but I like to make sure my defense is nice and strong, too.”

  “What’s the second purpose?” Cara asked.

  “Keeping track of every secret I’ve ever learned over the course of my career.”

  Bear blanched. “That’s a lot of information.”

  Goldstone tipped his head. “It is.”

  “A lot of people won’t like the fact that you’ve written it all down.”

  “They won’t.” Goldstone turned and pecked away at the keyboard in front of him. “I’ve found it to be pretty good insurance over the years. Not a lot of people know I’ve taken my work home with me, so to speak, but those that do know that I don’t bluff.”

  “What kind of security you got on this?” Bear asked. He wasn’t necessarily a tech guy, but he knew state-of-the-art when he saw it.

  “The best of the best. Made friends with a nice young man around the time I was set to retire. Absolute genius when it came to computers. He set me up for success and stays on top of all the latest developments in the field. I get updates before the Pentagon does.”

  “That sounds expensive,” Cara said. The question was implied.

  “I had a very good retirement package.” Goldstone turned around and put his hands on his hips. “Are you sure this is Hughes? I’m not askin’ because I don’t believe you. I’m askin’ because I want to make sure you’ve got your sights set on the right beast.”

  “All signs point to yes,” Bear said. “Even if he’s not the one behind this whole scheme, he’s one of the major players.”

  “I’ve known Mason Hughes for a long time. We’re contemporaries. We never ran in the same circles, but we’ve shared a few drinks over the years. Never liked the guy. He was ambitious in a way that didn’t sit right with me. He was willing to cut corners. As much as I hate to say it, sometimes the job calls for that. But this was different. He enjoyed taking the low road. Winnin’ was his only concern.”

  “Why did you start tracking him?”

  Goldstone chuckled. “I had a lot of different reasons. The fact that he was the Director of National Intelligence didn’t hurt. Someone like that having the President’s ear? Hughes cares about this country, no doubt about it. I do think he serves to ensure we always come out on top. I gotta respect that mentality. But I knew sooner or later he was gonna put more than just a toe over that invisible line we all agreed not to cross.”

  Cara spoke for the first time. “Do you have anything that can connect him to Mateo and the bombings in Europe?”

  Goldstone clucked his tongue. “Not directly. Hughes is smart. He’ll have several people in between him and those doing the dirty work. The communications will be secure and encrypted. They’ll probably use a code, and not one that could be easily broken.”

  “Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?” Bear asked.

  Goldstone held a finger up to the side of his nose and smiled. “Like I said, I’ve been keeping an eye on Hughes for some time now. I’m not the only one who was concerned about how far his loyalty to this country would take him. We’re all patriots, but some of us don’t have the blind faith Hughes has. That blind faith raised a few flags with a couple of us.”

  “Who else is worried about him?” Cara asked.

  Goldstone waggled a finger in her direction. “You’ve got a good nose for reporting. You know the questions to ask. But I’m not going to answer that one, Ms. Bishop. It’s better you don’t know.”

  Cara deflated a little bit, but Bear could also see the pride shining through. She enjoyed her job, reveled in it the way Bear did in his. That sort of passion would take her places. If it didn’t get her killed first.

  Goldstone turned back to the computer and pulled up a grainy black and white photo of a group of men. It looked to be from security footage, and not a very good device at that. Bear stepped forward and squinted. One of the men looked remarkably like Goldstone. He didn’t know most of the others, until his eyes landed on Senator Goddard.

  “Where did you get this?” Bear asked.

  “Hughes’ schedule put him at a golf meeting in Florida with Vice President Eli Adams and a few lucky business owners who would have their attention for a couple of hours. Normally, I wouldn’t have flagged this at all, but the Vice President and Hughes don’t exactly see eye to eye. Adams is a bit passive for Hughes, a little too cautious. The two have been known to butt heads.”

  “What businesses did the other men own?”

  Goldstone flashed a smile again. “Another excellent question, Ms. Bishop. One of the business owners happened to be none other than your dead friend Mateo. The other men attending their little golf tournament were friends of Mateo’s. One is in the hospitality business, one owns several private airfields around the country, and the third was former military-turned-entrepreneur. He deals in cell phones now.”

  “So, travel, communications, and lodging are all covered,” Bear said.

  Goldstone nodded. “My thoughts exactly. The gathering was supposedly business off-limits, but we all know how these things go. Everyone’s got an ulterior motive.”

  “Do you think the Vice President is in on it?” Cara asked.

  “I never say never,” Goldstone responded, “but I would be surprised. When I say the relationship between Adams and Hughes is contentious, I mean it. As far as I heard, it didn’t sit well that Hughes missed out on their little game.”

  Bear looked back down at the picture. “Why didn’t he make the meeting?”

  “It seems he was called away to Costa Rica. I couldn’t tell you why. I can tell you, however, that he met with Goddard while he was there.” Goldstone pointed at the two men in the picture. “All security footage was wiped out in a two-block radius of this meeting. In fact, anywhere Hughes went, all video and audio feeds mysteriously malfunctioned. It seems Hughes didn’t want anyone knowing where he had gone.”

  “How did you get this picture then?” Bear asked.

  Goldstone chuckled. “It’s from a bakery that just installed a hidden camera. Someone was robbing his shop at least once a week. He hadn’t told anyone he’d installed it. Spent a pretty penny on the camera, too. Not that you could tell from the quality of the image. I sent a local man around to doublecheck that nothing had been left behind. Turns out the owner trusts his own people more than foreign governments. Who knew? He was more than willing to let my guy look through the footage.”

  “Did he catch them?” Cara asked.

  Both Bear and Goldstone looked at her.

  She looked from one to the other. “The person who was robbing him. Did the owner catch them?”

  “I believe it was his own daughter,” Goldstone said, “stealing money and pies to give to her secret lover. I can’t say I know how the story ends, though I assume it is not well—for either one of them.”

  Cara seemed satisfied with the answer, so Bear turned back to the monitor. “What else do you have?”

  There was a twinkle in Goldstone’s eye. “Everything you need.”

  21

  It turned out that Director Hughes had been a busy man over the last year or so. Though Goldstone didn’t have any hard proof of it, he had taken note that the government official had booked a trip to South Korea before he canceled it at the last minute.

  Bear had asked if there was any connection between Hughes and Thorne, but Goldstone wasn’t able to provide anything concrete. The two had met and worked together in the past, though this wasn’t out of the ordinary. With Hughes being the Director of National Intelligence and Thorne being one of the country’s best operatives, it was bound to happen. However, they didn’t seem chummy outside of work hours. Or, at least, as far as Goldstone’s records showed.

  Hughes had been in London when the bomb nearly went off. Goldstone had pinpointed his location, and it seemed that their esteemed DNI would have been just outside the blast radius, but still close enough to cause at least some panic on his behalf. Bear was sure that had been a calculated move. No one would suspect someone who had gotten caught up in one of the disasters. Plus, the PR from a near death experience would have been great for the cause. It also would’ve given Hughes motive to go on the offensive, making the enactment of this little plan all the easier.

  Bear got some satisfaction from the fact that he had probably ruined Hughes’ plan—or at least set him back one or two steps. Keeping that bomb from going off had saved countless lives, but it had also lessened the impact of Hughes’ grand scheme. Knowing there had been a bomb was different than experiencing it explode. People forgot one a lot faster than they forgot the other.

  “What about Germany?” Bear asked.

  Goldstone scrolled through his notes until he got to the bottom. “I don’t have anything on that. Hughes was in D.C. when it happened. There’s nothing here that ties him to it.”

  Cara slipped a handful of folded papers from her pocket. “What do you make of this?”

  When Goldstone unraveled the stack, Bear realized it was the blueprints to the bomb. She must’ve found them in his jacket after all. When Bear lifted an eyebrow at her, she just smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  “These are some interesting specs,” Goldstone said, flipping through the pages. “It would definitely get past security, but I don’t know how reliable it would be.”

  “What do you mean?” Cara asked.

  “Imagine you’re a terrorist. You want to send twenty guys out to plant bombs all over the world using this blueprint for the devices. You have to manufacture these parts and get them in the hands of your people. Then you have to trust they’ll be able to keep ahold of them. Not to mention assemble the bomb, place it, and then detonate it. It’s a little more complicated than strapping some C4 to your chest and walking into the middle of a crowd to press a button.”

  “Hughes is capable of that,” Bear offered. “He’d be able to coordinate all this.”

  “But is he?” Cara asked. “You guys said it yourself, Hughes has been trying to keep his distance. Whatever is going on here, he’s trying to keep several people in between him and the bombs.”

  “Especially now that the London bomb didn’t go off,” Bear added, “and he didn’t get to play the victim—or the hero.”

  “We need a trail,” Cara said. “We can draw a line between Mateo and Hughes. We can also draw a line between Hughes and everything you’ve been through, Bear. But that’s all retrospective. We need something that puts his finger on the trigger of the Germany bomb and anything else that comes out of his plan to start another World War.”

  “Then we need to find the next bomb.” Bear turned to Goldstone. “You got any ideas where Hughes is heading next? Any phone calls he’s made to foreign powers? Anything at all to give us a clue where to start looking?”

  Goldstone turned back to his computer and started clicking away on his keyboard. The room was silent other than the sound of his typing. Cara was still studying the blueprints. Bear was looking around the bunker, wondering what it looked like beyond these four walls.

  When Goldstone turned around, his face said everything. “I’ve got nothing. As far as I can tell, Hughes isn’t going anywhere. His official schedule indicates he’s locked up in D.C. He’s going to be using secure lines of communication for all his private dealings. We won’t be able to crack that.”

  Bear held up a finger. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’ve got a guy.”

  “He better be one of the best.”

  Bear grinned. “He is.”

  Cara put down the schematics for the bomb and looked at Bear. “I need to get something into the hands of my editor.”

  “No way,” Bear said. “Too dangerous.”

  “I understand the risks.” Cara’s voice was even. She was in journalist mode now. “But think about it. If I start connecting the dots, it’ll force Hughes into action. He’ll have to move up his timetable. He might get sloppy. We can use that to our advantage.”

  “If you publish something, he’ll come down on you with the entire force of the United States. If he can’t find you, he’ll start hauling in your family.”

  Cara waved off the comment. “I don’t have any family. And he’s already after me. This isn’t going to change that.”

  Goldstone’s voice was gentle. “Sweetheart, there’s a lot more the Director of National Intelligence can do to you. Trust me on that.”

  Cara’s mask cracked ever so slightly, but she stood resolute. “This will help us get the ball rolling. My editor knows what I’ve been working on. He’ll see that I’m being called a murderer. He’s a smart guy. He’s got my back. He’ll know I’m innocent.”

  “Would you bet your life on it?” Bear asked.

  Cara’s answer was immediate. “I would.”

  Goldstone and Bear exchanged a look.

  The journalist let out a heavy sigh. “Look, I know how this works. If I send something to my editor, he has a right to publish it. He must also turn in any evidence in the case against me. We’ll send it from a random city on our way back east. They won’t be able to track it.”

  Bear didn’t love the idea, but he couldn’t argue with her points. “Why do I feel like there’s something else going on here?”

  Cara looked sheepish. “My contact can no longer reach me by cell. We have a backup plan, but that’s only when we’re ready to blow this whole thing wide open. I think we have enough here to get started. My source will be able to fill in some of the blanks.”

  Goldstone opened his mouth, but Bear held up a hand. “Don’t bother asking. She won’t tell you.”

  Cara just grinned.

  Bear and Goldstone exchanged another look, and this time, it was Goldstone who broke the silence. “The two of you are welcome to stay here for the night. I don’t suggest you hang around any longer than that. Best to keep moving.”

  Bear extended his hand. “I appreciate your help, Rodger. And your faith in me.”

  “Both come easy,” Goldstone said, shaking Bear’s hand, “though let’s not make a habit out of it.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “You’d be surprised, young man.” Goldstone’s eyes twinkled. “Plenty of fun in a life spent at home with a family.”