FORTY-FOUR

John Gallagher gunned his rental car toward Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. After getting off I-64, he streaked up Interstate 81 at eighty-five miles an hour. He hoped the state police were busy stopping everyone else.

Ken Leary called. “Okay, I got into the archives … read the reports. Several spots in the Valley were mentioned.”

“Go down the list … geez, oh geez, I hope we’re not too late.”

The key was to isolate the one that the Russians thought was truly a “blast from the past.” Gallagher and Leary agreed on one, which seemed to be the best from a strategic standpoint. It was just off of I-81, about ten minutes by car from I-66, which led directly to downtown Washington.

But Gallagher also knew that if he placed all his eggs in one basket, and lost the bet on which basket, he was about to lose hundreds of thousands of lives, the U.S. Capitol, and most of the American government in the bargain.

To make matters worse, Gallagher felt like he was doing that balancing act while running a gunnysack race.

“Thanks, Ken,” he said. “Gotta go.”

Gallagher fished through his private book of phone numbers, until he came across a retired FBI guy by the name of Frank Treumeth. Gallagher remembered that Frank had bought a place in the Shenandoah when he left the Bureau and was doing something “folksy,” like being a fishing guide or something. The last case they had worked together was in North Carolina, busting up a terror cell that was smuggling drugs to finance their plans to then bomb bridges in major cities during rush hour.

He voice called the number into his Allfone while driving. It rang at the other end. It kept ringing. Then he heard a voicemail. “Hi, this is Doris and Frank. We wanna talk, and so do you. So leave a message.”

“Frank, hey, John Gallagher here. Retired from the Bureau just like you; you may have heard. How’s the fishing? Say, got an emergency here. Don’t want to overplay my hand, but I really, really need to talk to you ASAP. Please, buddy. Give me a ring, pronto. Okay?”

As Gallagher flew up the interstate, he knew that Frank Treumeth was the only play he had left. Sure, Gallagher had some other backup plans if Frank was unavailable, but in the light of day they all looked tragically stupid.

For a fleeting second he thought, I left the FBI … so why am I still trying to save the world?

But as quickly as he asked that question, he answered it.

Because it’s worth saving.