He looked at Bryn. Maybe it was just the lighting that took all the color from her face. "How does it feel to be right?"

"Not as good as you'd think," she said, managing a wan smile. "How come I keep thinking this was an inside job?"

"And who the hell captured the feed?" This from Matt. "And how? Why are they sending it to us now?"

"Yeah, and where's it coming from?" Luke asked.

"Probably some kind of satellite uplink that's been planted in the computer. We'll need to open it up," Bryn said. She stopped, then asked, "Are we capturing this?"

There was a concerted leap to get a tape into the machine before a new loop began. Jake stepped back from the group, his thoughts abruptly turning in a new direction. He looked up as the tech pulled the grill away, revealing the camera secreted there.

Without stopping to think about it, Jake stepped around the tech until he was in full view of the camera and stared into it, as certain Phoebe was looking at him as he was that his chest had just gone too tight to breathe.

"Let me help you," he mouthed.

Phoebe stared at Jake like a deer caught in the headlights. He knew she was there and watching him. Dang. He was good. Too good.

"Let me help you," he was saying. Willing her with his eyes to listen and respond.

Damn it, she wanted to, more than she wanted to destroy Peter Harding. She stared at him, unable and unwilling to look away until the busy tech cut her connection with the room. She sat back with a sigh, reaching out to cut her uplink. They were bound to look for it next. It wouldn't be easy, because Ollie did good work, but they would find it and attempt to track it back to them. That would take them on a trip around the world, but they say travel is broadening. She would have grinned but for the feeling Jake was still watching her.

Let me help you.

This was pathetic. She'd now joined Phagan in feeding the Feds leads. This was beyond pathetic. It was dangerous. She hadn't even planned it, just acted on an impulse she couldn't explain. Well, maybe she could. It would put more pressure on Harding, even if he hadn't been the one to send in the thieves. The whole thing screamed inside job, so somebody on the inside was dirty, and it might as well be him.

That crime scene had to be confusing as hell. She couldn't resist a slight grin at the thought. Lucky for her she'd accidentally recorded the shooting. She had no desire to be the object of a murder manhunt. Okay, so maybe she also didn't want Jake to think she was a killer or involved with killers.

Of course, he should know that. They all should. How long had Phagan been operating without a whiff of violence?

No one at TelTech would be able to hang the deaths around their shoulders either, since she had RABBIT and the tape recording. If nothing else, that would seriously muddy the waters.

She pushed her chair back and paid a visit to the well-stocked mini-bar. Dewey had moved them from dirtiest dive to the honeymoon suite of Denver's finest hotel, thank goodness. The amusing part? TelTech was picking up the tab. Dewey had found a corporate credit card in the safe with the chip.

She popped the top of a Coke and drank. Wiped her mouth with the back of her hand while her thoughts did lazy circles inside her head, eventually bringing her around to the question of who inside TelTech had been trying to steal RABBIT. Or was that why?

She went around the heart-shaped bed, walking across a carpet of palest pink, and picked up the chip Dewey had removed from the safe. She lifted it to the light. It looked ordinary. Innocuous. Unremarkable.

What exactly was RABBIT? Ollie had died before he could tell them what it was. What precisely was it supposed to do that made it so valuable to Harding?

She tossed it up in the air, caught it neatly. Maybe it was time she found out.

Peter Harding closed his office door with a sigh of relief. Talk about the hounds of hell. The press wasn't going to go easy on him. Stern went straight for the bar and poured them both scotch, straight up. He handed Peter his and drank deeply from the glass he kept. Then he strolled over to the window and looked out.

Peter knew he would survive it. He had to. No, he was meant to. The storm would pass, and his troubles would be over, because RABBIT was gone. He tossed back half the glass, feeling the warm liquor rush into his bloodstream. "So far so good. When will your guys contact you?" Harding dropped into a chair, put his feet up on the desk, and held the glass up in a silent toast.

"I told them not to contact me for twenty-four hours, unless something went wrong. Just in case." Stern turned from the window. "We may have a problem."

"What?" He didn't want to hear about problems, not when it was almost over.

"My guys weren't planning to bail off the roof. There are other indications that someone else was here."

"What indications?" Stern just couldn't admit Harding's plan had worked perfectly. How like him to try to rain on his parade.

"Who set off the silent alarm?"

"I thought your guys were planning to do that when they were done."

"The alarm was tripped just after two. The timetable didn't allow for it until nearly two-thirty. They would have been in the elevator when it tripped. And, no, they weren't early. They couldn't have been. I was with them until one forty-five." He frowned. "That's why it took me so long to get here."

Peter got up and joined him at the window. Far below, officials swarmed in and out of his building. Soon he'd have to talk to General Hadley about his lost RABBIT. It wasn't going to be pleasant, but it would get less so if RABBIT turned up on the foreign market. "If our guys don't have it, then where is it?"

There was a knock at the door, then that FBI bitch-Bailey or something like That'stuck her head in.

"If you have time, there's something we'd like you to look at, sir."

Harding didn't look at Stern; he just nodded and followed her out and down, down, down to the security office with Stern on his heels. He entered the room and found himself facing three men waiting for him, something oddly similar in the way they all looked at him.

"Gentlemen?" Dealing with low level functionaries was familiar ground for him. He could feel his balance return as he returned their gazes with a practiced, worried one.

"This is Deputy US Marshal Jake Kirby," the woman said, pointing to a lanky man sprawled in a chair in front of the row of consoles. Kirby nodded at him. "And this is his brother, also a US Marshal, Matt Kirby."

Peter shook hands with him, tested his grip and found it as formidable as his hard gaze. "Marshal."

"And this is their brother, Detective Luke Kirby of the Denver Police Department."

"Quite the family affair, gentlemen," Peter said, allowing himself a slight smile. "This is my director of security, Barrett Stern. Have you found who stole my chip?"

"Well"-Jake turned to the console and punched some buttons- "we've made a good start."

Peter turned to the console, watched it flicker, then come alive. Saw the office, saw the guards. Saw them die.

He didn't have to pretend to be shocked. "I need-"

He couldn't breathe, couldn't get the words out. Stern pulled a chair forward and shoved him down. "Put your head between your knees."

Peter didn't argue. He needed a few moments out of sight of the barrage of eyes. Needed time to think. He didn't get it. Above him, he heard one of the men ask, "Who do you think put that camera in that vent, sir?"

Chapter 14.

The rattle of a key in the lock gave Jake and his brothers a short heads up that their mother was home. Jake felt a rush of relief. Mom was home. He'd missed her more than he realized since his transfer to DC.

"Well."

Jake looked up from the bowl of her soup he'd been dozing over and waited for her scrutiny to make its way to him. He looked like his mother, he'd been told, while his brothers were near carbon copies of their dad. Jake didn't see it himself, except maybe in the eyebrows; hers tended to run amok, too, and he had her blue eyes.

She was tall and thin, almost as tall as Jake, with a narrow, clever face and hair that had turned gray when their father died. She'd been sad for a long time, but that had finally given way to acceptance and a serenity that became her sons' anchor in the years that followed. Lately, she'd also acquired a sparkle that Jake had attributed to Matt's marriage, until Luke burst his bubble with the news she was dating again. A buddy of Dad's.