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Frowning, Daily smoothed down a few spikes of his crown. “You sure about this?” he asked skeptically.

“He’s sure,” Barrie said. “Tell him, Bondurant.”

While he recounted for Daily the peculiarities of Spencer Martin’s visit to Wyoming, she wondered how she could have failed to reco

gnize Gray among the passengers on her flight back to Washington. She hadn’t paid much attention to her fellow travelers, but wouldn’t he have stood out? Obviously he’d made certain that he wouldn’t. His talent for being a chameleon did not increase her confidence in him. In many ways it made her more mistrustful.

“So, as far as anybody knows, Spence Martin was never in Wyoming,” Daily summarized.

“He didn’t touch anything inside my house except the silverware he ate with, and I washed that. His avoidance of touching anything was one of the first warning signals I picked up.”

“Where’s Martin now?” Daily asked.

Gray was stone-faced. The awkward silence stretched out until Barrie was forced to answer. “Mr. Bondurant is disinclined to say how he managed to escape him.”

She glanced at the rigid profile of the man seated beside her. She didn’t doubt that he could kill someone, even a former friend. His cold eyes and that narrow slash of a mouth indicated he was capable of it. If he’d killed Spencer Martin in self-defense, that was excusable. But could she take his word for that?

Daily put into words a question that she’d been asking herself. “Wouldn’t Spence Martin have checked in with the President by now?”

“Ordinarily, yes. He even excused himself from the room on the pretext of placing a call to the White House. But he wouldn’t have called until he could give David a full report, including my extermination. David’s probably pacing the floor tonight wondering why he hasn’t heard from Spence, but he can’t send anyone to Wyoming to look for him because Spence wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“Sooner or later somebody’s bound to miss him and start looking,” Barrie remarked.

“Spence never had family or close friends,” Gray said. “David and his administration have been Spence’s entire life. To understand that, you have to understand where Spence came from. He was a frail, nerdy kid, bullied in school, picked on for being small. But he was much smarter than the average kid.

“All those years of being the bullies’ target made him determined to become the best bully of all. He achieved that goal—he came to be the most feared bully in Washington. It’s understood that crossing Spence is tantamount to spitting on the Oval Office. Spence wouldn’t have informed anyone where he was going. He accounted only to David.”

“Even the President’s top aide can’t be that autonomous,” Barrie argued. “The Department of Justice, Attorney General Yancey, the FBI, the—” She broke off when Gray began shaking his head.

“Bill Yancey’s a good man,” he said. “Almost too good to suit the administration. Yancey and David have locked horns several times since his appointment. But believe what I’m telling you. Spencer Martin’s network of agents is as elite and ruthless as the Third Reich’s SS. They operate like moles in every government agency, including the Secret Service. Spence’s men are kept on standby at all times. If his orders countermanded ones they’d received through official channels, Spence’s would be the ones these guys obeyed.”

Barrie hugged her elbows. “You’re scaring me.”

“These are some scary characters. Most of them are specially trained troops who have retired and don’t have a war to fight.”

Barrie wondered if he was aware that he’d also described himself.

“If it’s something really vital,” Gray added, “Spence would do the job himself.”

“Like assassinating a former recon buddy.”

Gray acknowledged Daily’s remark with a grim smile. “Right. Like that. Although most often he would assign the job to someone else. Usually it’s done with Spence out of town, so he’d have an alibi if the actual perpetrator got caught or left traceable evidence. I’m sure he made an arrangement like that for Barrie’s townhouse. It’s not unusual for him to be away. It will be a while before anyone becomes curious enough to start asking questions.”

“Merritt will be curious.”

“Once David learns that I’m alive,” he said in response to Barrie’s statement, “he’ll know that Spence failed to accomplish what he went to Wyoming to do.”

That sobering comment silenced them for a time. Finally, Daily turned to Gray. “I admire what you did over there in the Middle East.”

Gray acknowledged the compliment with a slight nod. “But?”

“But forgive me for saying that you could be feeding us a barrel of bullshit.”

The insult seemed to have no effect on him. “You have every right to be suspicious. It’s no secret that there was tension between David and me when I left Washington.”

“Because of his wife.”

Barrie couldn’t believe Daily’s temerity. He was saying the things, asking the questions, she hadn’t dared.