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He just couldn’t pin down what. And it didn’t matter—Ham still needed rescuing.
    When his cab dumped him off, he plodded through security and made his flight to Washington, D.C., with bare minutes to spare. It was an uneventful flight, allowing his questions to crystallize.
    When he arrived at Reagan National Airport, he took a cab out to Georgetown. For the past year, he hadn’t had a place of his own. The closest he’d come were the weeks he’d spent in the spring playing gardener for the Dunnemores in Tennessee.
    Mia O’Farrell lived in a narrow, historic brick town house on a quaint shaded street within a couple of blocks off M Street, Georgetown’s main drag. Ethan appreciated the shade, because it was hot and humid in D.C. The recent rains had moved north to New York.
    Dr. O’Farrell wasn’t home from the White House yet.
    Ethan walked down to M Street and got an iced coffee to go at a Starbucks, picturing himself as a Washington type. Some of his West Point classmates were Pentagon desk jockeys. He’d never been interested. Now? Forget it. He was damaged goods. That President Poe had asked him to volunteer for the Ham Carhill rescue mission only muddled Ethan’s status even further. It sure as hell didn’t help.
    Mia O’Farrell had been at the meeting with Poe two weeks ago. She’d done most of the talking, and although it was all somewhat unorthodox at first, everything had gone more or less by the book since then. Ethan had picked two veteran Special Forces sergeants—friends of his—to risk their lives with him. They could have said no, but they hadn’t. They were waiting for him in Bogotá. Whoever was supposed to know about the operation within the Colombian government had given their blessings. That wasn’t Ethan’s department.
    Neither was flying to New York to interrogate a deputy U.S. marshal, but he didn’t like the feeling that there was a subtext to this operation that he wasn’t privy to.
    He window-shopped on M Street, pretending he was an ordinary dad waiting for his kids to get home from soccer practice, sipping his coffee as he checked out restaurants and upscale shops—a black leather jacket on a mannequin in a store window display made him think of Juliet standing in the rain in New York.
    When he returned to O’Farrell’s street, she was on her front stoop, digging her keys out of an enormous, scuffed, soft black leather satchel, her long, straight dark auburn hair hanging over her face. Ethan said hello, startling the hell out of her. She jumped back and all but screamed.
    She was very smart, but tightly wound. He put up his palms in front of him and smiled. “Whoa, easy. It’s just me.”
    â€œOh. Major Brooker.” She seemed slightly annoyed, snatching her keys out of her bag, slinging the bag over one small shoulder as she singled out one key. She had on a trim gray suit, but her silky white blouse was scrunched over to one side, and her brooch—a white lily—had turned upside down and was about to fall off.
    â€œYou’re going to stick yourself,” Ethan said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWith your brooch. The pin’s come undone or something.”
    She glanced down, quickly pulling the brooch off her jacket. He thought she did stick herself, but she’d never tell him. Mia O’Farrell, Ph.D., was all about control. She fastened her green eyes on him, her brow furrowed as she studied him. “You shouldn’t be here. What do you want?”
    â€œLet’s go inside—”
    â€œNo way, Major Brooker. Absolutely no way.” She was calm but very firm.
    â€œOkay. Let’s take a walk—”
    She shook her head. “No. Right here, right now. What do you want?”
    â€œYou know, since I’m doing you a favor and risking my life and the lives of my friends in the process, you think you’d be nicer.”
    She didn’t