Flores stood in the barn staring at an abstract painting, trying to stifle a yawn, unhappy that he was the one having to miss out on an extra hour of sleep. Thanks to the end of Daylight Saving Time, he had magically arrived at the Aldie site just before he’d set off from his home, or so his watch had glibly implied, and it was still not yet three in the morning.
The homeowners were a painter and his sculptor wife, able finally to make the long-vaunted move to the country to have their own studio. Now an armed prowler had tarnished that dream, their comment that the man sounded British automatically forwarding a priority alert to the FBI.
Flores’ day might be starting earlier than he’d anticipated but he wasn’t the only agent to be losing a good night’s sleep. The FBI was on high alert for terrorist attacks and anti-government protests, the torpedo attack on the USS Milius provoking an angry public and media backlash; to many, the President’s muted response to the sinking of HQ-17 was merely the catalyst for further aggression. The White House had expressed the usual outrage and condemnation, but the standard ‘we will respond proportionately and at a time of our choosing’ hadn’t sounded particularly convincing. The USS Milius was still afloat, at least thirty of her crew killed in the torpedo attack, well over fifty injured. The submarine deemed responsible had reportedly been sunk with all hands, no-one as yet officially blaming the Chinese.
Flores’ own sleep-deprived problems seemed trivial in comparison, and he watched as an agent tried to get something more out of the husband. It made no sense for the prowler to be Anderson, although the fingerprints on the torch definitely said otherwise. He was obviously looking for something or someone, but quite why an old barn near Aldie had attracted his attention remained a mystery.
Flores was irritated that the FBI always seemed to be following in Anderson’s footsteps and he decided to formally recommend a change of strategy; Anderson was clearly innocent of Garcia’s murder and he wasn’t the enemy here – that was unquestionably Pat McDowell.