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Chapter One

"Of course you have a choice."

Silas Collins sat there, assessing what was really going on here and whether everything was down the tubes for him. Yesterday morning he'd been in the Colombian jungle, just "that far" from seizing the daddy of all drug cartel lords, and now he was sitting in front of a desk, facing two suits and overlooking Northern Virginia woodlands, with a stack of photographs sizzling on the desktop between the three of them.

"We've just about got Emilio Delgado," he said, stubbornly. "Two years I've spent on this. I'm only days away from blowing the top off this one. Send me back to Colombia, Ted."

"That isn't one of the choices," Ted Talbot, chief of the South America section, said, the tiredness showing in his voice. They'd been around the bandstand a couple of times on this point.

"Sam Winterberry here has come up with the choice we'd all like you to make, Silas. It will more than save your career. And when you've helped him set up the new unit he's forming, we can have you back. And all will be forgotten?nothing asked, nothing told. I'm not passing judgment, Silas. All I care about is results. I don't want to lose you. Taking Sam's offer is the win-win position for us all at this point."

Silas took another look at the damning photographs.

"And McGrath. Will he have choices too?"

Both Ted and Sam looked uncomfortable.

"Alas no," Ted said. "He doesn't?rather, didn't?have the value that you do?and Sam couldn't say there would have been room for him, really in the new unit."

"That so? Wouldn't have been?" Silas asked.

"Well, I guess you haven't heard," Ted said in a low voice. "Sorry to say that Mike McGrath died this morning. Cleaning his gun. It was a terrible accident."

There was a nervous moment of silence in the room as Silas absorbed this information.

"Is there really any other choice?" Silas eventually asked, his voice hard.

"A detail to Sam's unit is by far and away the best choice, Silas?for all of us. Not least for you."

"When would I have to start?" Silas asked.

"I leave for the Farm this afternoon; it's a three-hour drive down to Williamsburg if we don't meet a lot of traffic on 95 between Springfield and Dumfries," Sam spoke up. "You could go with me?and get started right away. A new recruiting class is coming in for basic today. You could be inserted into this class tomorrow, right from the beginning."

After he'd left Ted's office and was sitting, waiting for Winterberry to be ready to leave, Silas thought back on McGrath. He'd been the moody tape?and had been the one who came on to Silas?and Silas had never known him to be careless with his guns. There were just too many choices in what to think about this. And as for the choices that had been given Silas, he didn't really like any of them.

Chapter Two

Silas Collins. I should have known there was something more to him than we were led to believe. It's not just that he wasn't on the bus from Washington with the rest of us, that he just appeared as a member of the recruitment class at the Farm for basic physical training the morning after we were bussed down to Williamsburg. It's not just because he was older than the rest of us and in better shape and exuded confidence. And it's not because he always seemed to know the answers?that he didn't jump out and volunteer them?but that, if he was asked, he always had the right answer, succinctly given, on the tip of his tongue.

It was because of all of these together.

Without him ever telling us so or bragging about it, we soon learned that Silas could do everything. He could do more sit-ups and pushups and leg lifts, he immediately knew where to go to get anything at the Farm, he knew just what to say and when to shut up, he knew what direction the river and the main gate were from anywhere in the scrub forest of the triple-fenced installation. When we gathered in the evening, he had read all of the books, seen all of the movies, could play any tune we wanted to hear on the piano?which, when he found I could sing well, he did in accompaniment with me almost nightly in the club?and he could drink us all under the table and still remember what everyone had said throughout the day. He had all of the women recruits hanging on him, and more than one of the men recruits too.

I was one of those men.

I should have known. Much to my surprise, I'd passed the polygraphs. They hadn't even asked any leading lifestyle questions. Pete had told me I'd be bounced at the initial interview and testing, given in an unobtrusive brownstone building on a Washington street I'd already forgotten the location of?which was probably the plan. But I had the languages and the skills and the desire for it. I hoped that would make up for the other?and to the point of entering basic physical training, it had.

Seth Kamar was another one of those men. I probably should have paid closer attention to Seth's reaction to Silas?and Silas's reaction back. But it seemed like Halıcıoğlu Escort in no time Seth was gone from the program and no one said anything about why?they just glowered at anyone who brought it up and made clear that even this, not asking such a question as this, was part of our training for what we were to do in life.

There wasn't much of a question why someone like Seth was in this program. He was third generation Palestinian-American and spoke both Arabic and Persian fluently. He was also quick witted and breezed right through the obstacle courses set for us in our basic physical training regime. He'd been captain of the tennis team at Texas A