Then he put the truck in gear and pulled back onto the road.
The Porcupine Mountains were six hours north. Maybe more in this weather. The snow was getting heavier, the roads getting worse.
But Joe had driven in worse. And he'd tracked men through worse terrain.
He turned onto the highway. Pointed the truck north. And drove into the darkness.
Joe pressed the accelerator. The truck picked up speed.
He had forty-eight hours.
He intended to use every one of them.
19
Ivy’s apartment was on the third floor. It was a small but efficient and spotless townhouse.
She'd been home for an hour. Changed out of her work clothes into jeans and a Georgetown sweatshirt. Made tea. Green tea, loose leaf, in a small ceramic pot her mother had given her when she'd moved to DC.
The pot sat on the coffee table now, next to three manila folders she absolutely should not have taken out of the building.
The folders were from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Not CIA. Not Treasury. DIA maintained its own records on foreign weapons programs, separate from the CIA's intelligence assessments. Different focus and different access protocols.
And significantly less secure checkout procedures if you knew which clerk to ask and which forms to fill out at the end of a long Friday.
Ivy had known.
The folders sat there, innocuous and damning. She'd signed them out under a research request for Treasury's Financial Crimes division. Legitimate on paper. Completely unauthorized in practice.
If anyone checked, she'd be in very hot water.
She opened the first folder.
The apartment was quiet. No television. No music. Just the sound of pages turning and the occasional car passing on the street below.
A scroll painting hung on the wall above the couch—mountains and mist, done in ink wash. Her father's taste. The painting had been in his childhood home. Now it was in hers.
On the bookshelf, a small jade figurine. A scholar, seated, reading. Her mother had given it to her for college graduation. "For wisdom," she'd said. "And patience."
Ivy could use both right now.
She worked through the first folder methodically. The second folder went faster. Finally, she reached the last file, which was thinner than the other two.
More recent, too. A summary report on Soviet personnel who had disappeared, defected, or died under suspicious circumstances in the previous two years.
Ivy read slowly.
Nearly an hour later, she closed the folder. Checked her watch. Nearly midnight.
Joe was in Michigan. Probably asleep by now.
She needed to tell him as soon as possible.
She picked up her pager from the coffee table. A small black Motorola, standard government issue. She'd had Joe's number programmed in since he'd given it to her six months ago.
She typed in a code: 489.
On this type of pager, you had to use the number keys. I was the fourth key. V was the eighth. Y was the ninth.
