The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

will it take on yours? How long to actually set the plan in motion?”
    Another silence. Then: “A day or two. Maybe less. Christ, are we really doing this?”
    Finn heard as much excitement as anxiety in the voice.
    “Yes, we’re really doing this. None of us would’ve chosen to rush it, but if it’s that or never do it at all…”
    “I agree. I’m scared as hell, but I agree.”
    “I knew you would. Get started on it right away. I’ll talk to you soon.”
    “I love you.”
    “I love you too, Audra.”

Part III - Arica

Chapter Thirty-Three
    Richard Garner woke to his alarm at five in the morning. He exercised for thirty minutes. He showered, dressed in khakis and a gray cotton tennis shirt, and went to his den. Beyond the windows Central Park lay in amber light and long, early shadows, thirty stories below.
    He switched on the computer. While the operating system loaded, he left the room and crossed the broad stone hallway to the kitchen. He toasted two slices of wheat bread and poured a glass of orange juice. He took the plate and glass back to the den, sat at the computer, and clicked open his work in progress. The book was still only an outline. It’d begun as a study of Ulysses S. Grant’s time in office, with a focus on the difference between overseeing a war and overseeing a nation, but the research had led elsewhere. Now the book was shaping up into a broader examination of every president who’d held a position of military authority before taking office. An analysis of the pros and cons regarding what that kind of experience brought to a president’s perspective. He wasn’t sure yet on which side he would ultimately come down—whether generals tended to make good presidents or not. The evidence pointed to a number of conclusions, each conditional to time and place and political climate, and he’d only just begun digging through it. He hoped his own military background—he hadn’t made general, but he’d commanded a SEAL team for the bulk of the seventies—would provide him more insight than bias.
    It was involving work.
    Which he needed right now.
    Would almost certainly need for the rest of his life.
    He stayed in the den all morning and into the early afternoon. Mostly he sat at the computer, but at times he paced before the windows, looking out over the park and the city.
    He took a break at one o’clock. He had a sandwich and a 7UP. He plugged his iPod into the sound system, piped the music through the residence and did some random work around the place. Though he’d been here for two years, some part of him still felt like he hadn’t settled in yet. Like he was still getting used to it. Still getting used to living anywhere on his own.
    The residence took up an entire floor of the building, though only two thirds of it made up his own living space. The other third comprised the living and working quarters of the Secret Service detail that guarded him. He played poker with them, most nights.
    He quit the chores at four o’clock. Turned off the music. Went back to the den. He opened a heavy box of yellowed, sleeve-protected documents that’d come from the archives of the New York Public Library. The pages were by no means a part of the library’s lending collection. Even as non-circulating reference material they were pretty hard to gain access to. Garner felt a bit of guilt over the privilege his resume afforded him, but not enough to lose sleep over. It was just much easier for the library to send the stuff to him than to have him and his security footprint dropping in every time he needed to verify a quote. Besides, he was an old friend of the place. He’d worked there in his college years. He’d probably walked past this very box a hundred times.
    The day was clear and bright, but by five o’clock the sunlight in the room had diminished a bit. He turned on the lamp beside his reading chair. George Washington’s handwriting was hard enough to make out as it was.
    At a quarter past five a cool breeze filtered into the room from the hallway. It stirred the papers on the table beside him. It took him two or three seconds to realize that a breeze should be impossible. None of the residence’s windows were open.
    For a moment he only stared at the doorway. Tried to make sense of it. There was an intake for the HVAC system just out in the hall. No reason air should be coming out of it, but maybe some kind of maintenance was going on. It was all he could think of.
    All he