SOVETSKYA AVENUE.

ELEKTROSTAL, RUSSIA.

Cloud parked the Porsche on a side street, behind the Elektrostal train station. He had on dark black sunglasses. Behind the lenses, his eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed from a lack of sleep. He wore black leather pants, boots, and a green T-shirt. He was gaunt, so thin he appeared unhealthy. He walked quickly, stopping at a building several blocks from the station. Glancing in both directions, he made sure he hadn't been followed, then inserted a key into a large steel door.

The building was four stories high, constructed in mustard-colored brick. Like most buildings in Elektrostal, it long ago took on a look of dilapidated resignation, its exterior stained in rust and mildew. It had once contained the administrative offices of a steel pipe manufacturer who'd gone bankrupt in the 1970s. It was the fourth location over the course of a ten-year period for Cloud.

The locations shared certain characteristics. Each was inside a city large enough to provide a level of anonymity and infrastructure, yet small enough to be off the radar screens of intelligence agencies. Each was within a few hours of Moscow and accessible by train. All the cities were economically depressed, guaranteeing plenty of vacant office buildings.

Elektrostal was a small industrial city located an hour's drive east of downtown Moscow. A handful of heavy equipment manufacturers, metallurgical plants, and chemical processors were located in the grayish city. The streets of Elektrostal were laid out in a mathematical grid, with straight, sweeping blocks of concrete apartment buildings and half-empty strip malls that ran in precise lines for miles. Other than an underground nuclear waste storage facility at the northern outskirts of the city limits, Elektrostal was unimportant, a minor place that produced little of great consequence. At least a quarter of the city's low-rise concrete office buildings were dark and empty. There wasn't a single warehouse that wasn't partially covered in rust.

Cloud didn't like or dislike Elektrostal. For him, the dirty city, its shabby, woebegone people, its lousy restaurants, its crappy weather, and its foul mood were all irrelevant. Elektrostal was the entry into the world he actually lived in. The way a scientist might live deep within the infrastructure of a cell, Cloud lived within the digital pathways of the Internet.

Inside, Cloud climbed the stairs. The first two floors sat dark, empty, and unused. The third floor was dimly lit. Glancing through the fire door, Cloud could see that fully half the floor was taken up by high-powered computer servers, fifty-eight in total, enterprise-class, Chinese-made Huawei servers, all in steel cases that could be wheeled and repositioned. They'd been stripped and sanitized of all digital identifiers that might enable remote tracing or real-time location discovery. A half dozen large industrial air conditioners were kept on around the clock, no matter the time, weather, or season, to moderate the heat generated by the servers. Even in the dead of winter, the temperature in the room never fell below eighty degrees.

Cloud arrived at the fourth floor. The space was cavernous, open, brightly lit, and immaculate. All interior walls had been removed. At the center of the room, a series of tables were set up in a large U shape. On top of the tables sat computer screens, long lines of them, and before the screens were chairs. There were thirty-six separate computer screens in all.

Every square inch of the floor, walls, windows, and ceiling was covered in a thin layer of copper mesh, epoxied like wallpaper and designed to prevent eavesdropping or other forms of electronic signals capture from outside the building.

Sascha looked up at him as he came inside, barely registering his entrance.

"Hello, Cloud."

"What about Malnikov?" asked Cloud. "Has he been contacted by the Central Intelligence Agency?"

"Not that we're aware of."

"'Not that we're aware of'?" snapped Cloud rhetorically, annoyance in his voice. "What does that mean? I thought we are intercepting every phone call and electronic communications Alexei Malnikov makes."

"My only point, Cloud," said Sascha sheepishly, holding up his hands, "is that we technically wouldn't be aware if someone walked up to him and started talking."

"We just acquired a nuclear bomb," said Cloud. "Don't be so fucking literal. You scared the shit out of me."

"I'm sorry."

Cloud nodded.

"It's okay," he said. "You always were the boy who cried wolf, weren't you? I should've left you at Saint Anselm."

Cloud walked to Sascha at the far end of the room and stood next to his chair. He glanced at one of the screens in front of him. It showed an online chess game.

Cloud did a double take.

"You took one of my rooks," he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.

"You're distracted," said Sascha. "Otherwise I know you would not allow me to get within a hundred miles of your rook, Pyotr."

Cloud stared at the screen.

Sascha was one of the few people in the world who had known him back before Cloud existed, when he was Pyotr Vargarin, little Pyotr, son of the famous scientist Anuslav Vargarin, who'd killed himself and his wife in a motorboat for reasons no one knew, leaving Pyotr an orphan.

They met at the only home he could remember, a dank, dreadful place in Sevastopol called Saint Anselm by the Sea, the city's only orphanage, a cruel and horrible place, run by an alcoholic priest named Father Klimsov.

"Pyotr," said Cloud. "I haven't been called that in a long time."

A memory flashed.

"Pyotr, please come in," Father Klimsov said one day.

It was raining. Whenever it rained at Saint Anselm, there would be small puddles everywhere from the holes in the roof. On Father Klimsov's desk, a tin bucket was half filled with water.

"Pyotr, this is Dr. Tretiak," said Father Klimsov as he stepped into his office.

After more than six years at Saint Anselm, it was his first time in Father Klimsov's office.

Pyotr didn't like Father Klimsov. He was an obese, cruel old man.

"Dr. Tretiak is the president of Moscow Technological Institute. It is the most prestigious educational institution in all of the Soviet-I mean, in all of Russia."

Tretiak had a kind smile on his face. He extended his hand to shake Pyotr's, but Pyotr did not return the gesture.

"I heard you were shy," said Tretiak, laughing. "It's all right. I don't bite."

"Dr. Tretiak brings good news," said Klimsov.

"Yes, Father," said Pyotr.

"You have been granted entrance to Moscow Technological Institute," said Klimsov. "Next fall, you shall move to Moscow."

"You're a very smart young man," said Tretiak. "But then, you know that already, don't you?"

Pyotr didn't move, but not because he was scared, or rude, or indifferent. Instead, it was because he was transfixed by the sight of an object on Klimsov's desk.

"Yes, I know," said Pyotr, staring at the object.

"What do we say when someone compliments us, Pyotr?" asked Father Klimsov.

Pyotr didn't look at Klimsov or Dr. Tretiak; instead, his eyes remained fixed on the thing on Klimsov's desk.

"It's not a compliment if it's the truth," said Pyotr.

That night, after curfew, Pyotr snuck into Father Klimsov's office, where he turned on the computer, only to be thwarted by its demand for a password. It took almost a month's worth of nights for Pyotr to guess it. But once he did, it was like stepping out of a cave and suddenly seeing the world for what it was. He read and read and read for what seemed like forever, newspapers and magazines from all over the world. He stared mesmerized at photos of places he had never heard of. And then, at some point, at the sight of an error screen, he went behind the Web site into its code base. He studied it for hours, then returned a night later and studied it more, going back and forth between the code and the Web site. He could never explain what happened then, but one night, at the sight of the white screen filled with meaningless symbols, words, and spaces, he suddenly felt it all coalesce. He could see vague outlines in the code of what was being created visually. Soon, he could pore over a wall of computer code and know exactly what would be created by its code.

Within a few months, Pyotr taught himself enough programming to hack into the Union Bank of Sevastopol, where he established a bank account and then stole $25,000 from an account inside the bank. He used the money to buy a laptop computer and a wireless router, which he arranged to have delivered to the post office down the street from the orphanage. After splicing the Internet cable that came into the building, he added the router to the orphanage's dusty utilities closet. It was his escape hatch. Every night, he climbed through it, venturing out into a world beyond Saint Anselm by the Sea, beyond Sevastopol, beyond the shores of a country that had bequeathed to him a destroyed and hateful heart.

Sascha was the only person in the world who knew him from the orphanage. Sascha was the only one who knew the truth about Cloud's father. That he hadn't killed himself. That an American had done it, a man with a scar.

He trusted him because when you are orphans together, something happens between you that is stronger even than the ties of siblings. It is what you have when you combine self-hatred and anger, when violence and deceit are inflicted upon you at the youngest of ages; it is the feeling of trying to scratch an itch that will never go away, the itch that is the answer to the question: Why did they leave me?

Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?

The unsung chorus of the orphan.

Within the hell that is the sole real thing that an orphan possesses, misery pools like molten lava and eventually hardens into rock, then steel. It bonds orphan to orphan, and it can never be broken.

"Do you remember Klimsov?" asked Cloud, returning from his memory, looking at the chess game on the computer screen before Sascha.

"Yes. What about him?"

"He was such a crappy chess player," said Cloud, studying the chessboard. It was his move.

"I never played him," said Sascha.

"I did. He sucked."

"Why did you think of that old bastard?"

"Because I was wondering if he taught you how to play," said Cloud.

He leaned forward and typed into the keyboard.

"Checkmate, Sascha. Now go fuck yourself."

7.

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE.

CAMP SPRINGS, MARYLAND.

A white, unmarked Gulfstream V touched down at precisely two o'clock on a cloud-covered, brutally humid afternoon. Dewey followed Bond down the jet's stairs as, in the distance, a black Chevy Suburban sped across the tarmac.

"Speak of the devil," muttered Bond.

"Who is it?"

"Gant."

The Suburban made a beeline for Dewey and Bond, stopping directly in front of them. Dewey and Bond stood still. Both men were still dressed in tactical gear.

The back window opened. Sitting in the backseat was Gant. He had a stern look on his face.

"How did Iguala go?" he asked, looking at Bond.

"Fine."

"What happened?" asked Gant, his eyes scanning Dewey from head to toe as he waited for Bond to answer.

"We achieved the objective of the mission," said Bond. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we're both sort of tired."

"Take me through the minute-by-minute," said Gant.

"Sir, it'll be in the brief."

"Right now."

Bond took a deep breath, trying to control his temper. He nodded at Dewey and they started to walk away.

The back door of the SUV suddenly opened. Gant stepped out and caught up to Dewey and Bond, stopping directly in their path.

Gant crossed his arms, fuming. His attention shot to Dewey, again looking him up and down. Dewey didn't react. In fact, he didn't look back, choosing instead to simply stare off into the distance, ignoring Gant.

"I want the first debrief," said Gant, pointing at Bond.

Bond looked at Gant's finger, pointing at him.

"No disrespect, but I report to Bill Polk," said Bond, barely above a whisper. "He gets the brief, not you."

8.

GEORGETOWN.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Dewey sat at the bottom of a winding, carpeted stairway, on the first floor of an old, beautiful, impeccably designed town house, drinking a beer. It was his fourth beer. On second thought, it might have been his fifth. He was leaning against the wall, legs crossed in front of him, still dressed in tactical gear.

Dewey owned the town house now. Jessica had left it to him. It was the first time he'd stepped inside it since her death.

Next to him was a case of beer, five bottles missing. Two six-packs were Bud Light, two were Yuengling, a slightly heavier concoction. Dewey drank a Bud in between Yuenglings. He looked at Bud Light as being the equivalent to drinking water, a way to make sure he didn't get too drunk. Of course, the bottle of Jack Daniel's still inside the paper bag would soon make that whole thought process pointless.

His eyes were glued to the wall, at a large oil painting of a green iris. It was Jessica's favorite painting. Dewey wasn't thinking about the painting, however. He wasn't thinking about Jessica either. He wasn't even thinking about Gant, though he knew he'd likely come to Andrews for the sole purpose of eyeballing Dewey.

Dewey was thinking about Mexico.