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Who could push someone off a mountain?

On his knees, staring into the empty hut, that crucial moment on the cliff came flooding back to him. Once again, he could see the coldness in Javier’s eyes. He could see Javier’s lips moving, and he struggled to recall what was said. As the image came clearer in his mind’s eye, the words, or at least Patrick’s understanding of the words, remained a fog.

Boss’s orders.

The sound of Javier’s voice was in his head, but Patrick wasn’t sure if he was remembering or imagining it. Had he actually uttered those words before pushing Patrick away? He could have. But did Javier meanhewas the boss? Was it Javier’s boss who had given the order?

Or was it Patrick’s boss?

Patrick suddenly sensed the presence of someone or something directly behind him, but before he could turn around, he felt the pressure of a gun barrel on the back of his neck.

“Manosarribas!”the gunman said.

Patrick obeyed, raising his hands slowly, not sure what to make of this abandoned guerrilla stronghold that wasn’t exactly abandoned.

Chapter 22

Kate went for a run on Tuesday morning and stopped long before she was tired. It was 8:00 a.m., and she was just a few steps from the start of Lover’s Lane, the pathway to Dumbarton Oaks Park, exactly where she’d connected with Noah the previous weekend. She’d arrived by way of the tree-shaded ropewalk, a stretch of redbrick walkway in Montrose Park that was once used for laying out hemp to be turned into long ropes for the shipping trade. It brought to mind the old saying about “giving a fool enough rope,” and she wondered if it was indeed professional suicide to be secretly meeting with Noah about Project Naïveté.

Or maybe it was a strategic act of self-sabotage, calculated to propel her in the direction she really wanted to go—out of the law, away from Buck Technologies, and into a career in arts management, where her dream of being a playwright had some chance of survival.

“Wasn’t sure you’d show up,” said Noah, as he approached.

Kate silenced the music from her smartwatch and removed her earbuds. “Me neither,” she said.

Noah, too, was wearing running clothes. The fanny pack around his waist was a new addition. He kept walking, and Kate went with him.

“Does your father know you’re here?” he asked.

“Does your mother know you’re here?” she asked.

“Not exactly the same thing,” he said.

“I came to listen, Noah. Not to answer any questions.”

“Fair enough. Let me tell you what I know. If you want to fill in any blanks, feel free.”

Kate kept walking, no reply.

Noah continued. “Patrick Battle’s name was near the top of my list of Buck employees I wanted to interview. Buck immediately sent him on a corporate adventure. No one could tell me where he was, but just yesterday I heard from the State Department that he is missing somewhere in Colombia.”

“Which has me very worried,” said Kate.

“With good reason,” said Noah. “It took over fifty years of fighting to get the FARC to lay down its arms, but there are still pockets of dissidents in the mountains. For them, the Marxist-Leninist war against imperialism goes on.”

“I know. I read just enough online last night to scare the crap out of myself. So let me just say this much. If this meeting is about helping Patrick, I’m all in. But if this is about me becoming a spy on my father’s own company to help you find out about Project Naïveté, you’ve got the wrong girl. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Then why did Patrick come to your office on your first day of work? And why did you go to his office in Building C the following Monday?”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m doing a cybersecurity audit. Entry logs for all Buck’s buildings are clearly within my domain.”

“Those were personal visits,” said Kate.

“You two had no discussions whatsoever about Project Naïveté? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Patrick was already gone by the time I went to see him.”

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