Ramsey smiled. Old Carl, that was the name he’d given this giant of a sea lion that liked to laze about in the water below. He hadn’t seen Old Carl in several days now. He called back, “He’s probably at Pier Thirty-nine, stretched out on the barges with his cousins. What’s up?”
“Gage had a nightmare. Can you come and tell him the spinach monster isn’t lurking in his closet? He doesn’t believe me.”
He turned to her, grinning. “Be right there-”
Molly heard a shot, cold and sharp as the moon, and saw her husband slammed violently forward by a bullet. Molly’s scream pierced the night.
2
Criminal Apprehension Unit (CAU)
Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
Earlier on Thursday
Denny Roper from Security came into Savich’s office and handed him a plain white legal-sized envelope. Savich studied the big black block-printed handwriting: DILLON SAVICH, CRIMINAL APPREHENSION UNIT, THIRD FLOOR. That was it. No address.
Roper said, “A visitor told Briggs at security check-in in the lobby that he noticed this envelope propped against the outside door on the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. Briggs wanted me to look at it before it came to you, just in case.
“We put it through the X-ray, checked it out for biologics. There’s nothing gnarly like anthrax on the envelope or on that one piece of paper-but it’s curious, Savich. The person who sent it knows not only the name of your unit but your location-third floor.”
Savich unfolded the single white sheet of paper. The same black block printing: FOR WHAT YOU DID YOU DESERVE THIS.