CHAPTER 99

MY CELL PHONE WOKE us both from deep sleep. I looked around, confused, then grabbed the phone off the table, thinking it would be Mahoney.

It was Rawlins.

“I found a batch of exclusionary filters here in the Paladin algorithms,” he said.

“I’m putting you on speaker. Bree’s here. She knows I asked about them. Do any belong to Katrina White?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

We bumped fists.

Bree said, “What would happen if you removed the filter?”

“I already did, and she popped up,” Rawlins said and laughed. “A real GRU Sparrow. Disappeared in Istanbul four years ago.”

I said, “Do you have biometrics on her?”

“There’s not a lot of pictures of her coming up so far, but I think there’s enough if I put together a composite.”

I asked him if he could access the biometric immigration data from all the people who had entered the United States from Canada in the past forty-eight hours.

“Does a bear crap in Yellowstone?” Rawlins said. “Gimme a second here … and cross-reference…and search. And son of a bitch, there she is.”

“What?” Bree cried. “How is that possible that fast?”

The computer expert said, “Total number of people crossing from Canada into the States in the past forty-eight hours is one hundred forty-seven thousand, six hundred and fifty. Not that many to look at when you’ve got an AI sifter with the power of Paladin’s.”

I said, “We get you love their system, KK. Where and when did she come in?”

“JFK.” Rawlins sniffed, sounding mildly irritated. “Air Canada overnight from Vancouver. She entered on a U.S. passport under the name Katherine Blanco.”

I looked at my watch. It was thirty minutes past midnight.

“Can you run a universal search with her biometrics? I mean, all the data that passed through Paladin in the past forty-eight hours?”

“I can try. I’ll get back to you,” he said, and hung up.

“You need to tell Ned,” Bree said.

I called. He answered in a moan. “I’m just getting into bed, Alex. The night went smooth. Not a single problem.”

“Until now,” I said. “There’s been a breach in our national security courtesy of Ryan Malcomb. His Sparrow is here.”