Tom Schranger is already there, sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in clear sunlight, the gray wings of his overcoat spread out to either side like a hawk's, when Marianne White arrives, walking a little too briskly in the wind. She's just come from her car. Drove right from home. Didn't check in at the office. Hasn't even set foot in the office in over a week but is using her soundproofed basement as command center and situation-containment room. It's as secure as the office, maybe even more so, boasting all of the up to date electronic equipment and the coded communications software and multiple phone lines that cannot be eavesdropped upon, and it is here -- on a red Italian leather sofa -- that she has been sleeping since the order came down to close shop on the Facility and wipe away all traces of the Ultra program. Every three hours she checks in by secure cell phone with her team for updates, dark gallows jokes, and to share thin slivers of information on the evolving crisis. She raises her hand. He gives her a slight, non-committal nod, the muscles at the sides of his jaw tightening. Tom Schranger, Chief Intelligence Officer, Ad Hoc National Security Operations Council, Head of the Special Global Sanction and Threat Containment Task Force. He looks thinner than usual and his skin appears bleached of all color. Marianne slows her pace as she climbs the steps to him, smoothing back strands of reddish-dyed hair that have come loose. She's a pleasant-looking woman in her early fifties, once beautiful -- once voluptuous, even. She, too, is wearing a gray overcoat. It's a Washington in-joke. People say that you can always identify the spooks by their handsome dove-gray London foggers. Tom stands. "Long time," he says. She dips her head. Smiles, a little thinly. He doesn't say it, but she knows she must look harried, too. Not at her best. Not by a Maryland mile.

As they approached the Lincoln Memorial's wide white steps, Tom said, -Not to scare you, Marianne, but we're also missing four students. Marianne's face winced. -Four? -One senior, three freshmen. Of course, their DNA might still turn up. We haven't worked through all the remains. Some of the, ah, material is just barbecue. -Names? Tom ticked them off. Marianne stopped short, holding her forehead with both gloved hands. Then she started walking again with a lurch. Tom said: -It can't be that bad. Can it? -The last three you mentioned, no. They'd hardly even begun the training. But that last boy is right up near the top of his class, unusually ruthless and brilliant, a natural operative. If he and Kap got out -- Tom patted Marianne's shoulder. -If they got out, still, hey, they're dangling in the open now with no money, no network, no communications, probably no weapons. Just the clothes on their backs, and maybe injured into the bargain. Realistically, what are their options? Marianne shook her head as if to wake herself up. -I'll tell you straight out, Tom. If they can get to an urban center, they have the "underworld option." -Which is? -Mark a low level drug dealer, take him down, confiscate his weapon, interrogate him as to where and who he gets his merch from, go there, bust the door down, walk in shooting and clean out all the cash. The crime is never reported. The money is untraceable. Rinse and repeat. Put Mark Kap in any city in the world, even Albany or Buffalo, and within three days he'll have collected enough funds to live comfortably for two years. Or to run his own network. And with that five star student as his lieutenant? Not even Scarface would be safe.