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that had made that suspension a reality. But there was no proof that Tennant was part of the Englishman's campaign to sabotage the project, or that he was privy to any of the dangerous information Fielding possessed. Since Geli did not know what that information was, she could not judge the risk of letting Tennant live. She had reminded Godin of the maxim "Better safe than sorry,"
    but Godin did not relent. He would though. Soon.
    Geli said, "JPEG, Fielding, Lu Li." An image of a dark-haired Asian woman appeared on her monitor. Born Lu Li Cheng, reared in Canton Province, Communist China. Forty years old. Advanced degrees in applied physics.
    "Another mistake," Geli muttered. Lu Li Cheng had no business inside the borders of the United States, much less in the inner circle of the most sensitive scientific project in the country. Geli touched the key that connected her to Thomas Corelli in the surveillance car outside the Fielding house. "You see anything strange over there?"
    "No."
    "How easily could you search Tennant's car when he arrives?"
    "Depends on where he parks."
    "If you see a FedEx envelope in the car, break in, read it, then put it back.
    And I want video of their arrival."
    "No problem. What are you looking for?"
    "I'm not sure. Just get it."
    Geli removed a pack of Gauloises from her desk, took out a cigarette, and broke off its filter. In the flare of the match she caught her reflection in her computer monitor. A veil of blonde hair, high cheekbones, steel-blue eyes, nasty burn scar. She considered the ugly ridged tissue on her left cheek as much a part of her face as her eyes or mouth. A plastic surgeon had once offered to remove the discolored mark at no cost, but she'd turned him down.
    Scars had a purpose: to remind their bearer of wounds. The wound that had caused that scar she would never let herself forget.
    She punched a key and routed the signals from the microphones in the Fielding house to her headset. Then she drew deeply on her cigarette, settled back in her chair, and blew a stream of harsh smoke toward the ceiling. Geli Bauer hated many things, but most of all she hated waiting.

CHAPTER 4
    We drove in silence, the Acura moving swiftly through the dusk. At this time of evening, it was a quick ride from my suburb to Andrew Fielding's house near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Rachel didn't understand my demand for silence, and I didn't expect her to. When I first became involved in Trinity, the xenophobic level of security had stunned me. The other scientists—Fielding included—had worked on defense-related projects before and accepted the intrusive security as a necessary inconvenience. But eventually, even the veterans complained that we were enduring something unprecedented.
    Surveillance was all-pervasive and reached far beyond the lab complex.
    Protests were met with a curt reminder that the scientists on the Manhattan Project had been forced to live behind barbed wire to ensure the security of
    "the device." The freedom we enjoyed came with a price—or so went the party line.
    Fielding didn't buy it. "Random" polygraph tests occurred almost weekly, and surveillance extended even into our homes. Before I could begin my video today, I'd had to plug pinholes in my walls that concealed tiny microphones.
    Fielding discovered them with a special scanner he'd built at home and marked the bugs with tiny pins. He had made something of a hobby out of evading Trinity surveillance. He warned me that speaking confidentially in cars was impossible. Automobiles were simple to bug, and even clean vehicles could be covered from a distance, using special high-tech microphones. The Englishman's cat-and-mouse game with the NSA had amused me at times, but there was no doubt about who had got the last laugh.
    I looked over at Rachel. It felt strange to be in a car with her. In the five years since my wife's death, I'd had relationships with two women, both before my assignment to Trinity. My