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She realized, as he said it, that he hadn’t ordered her to do anything Not like before And she didn’t feel that her will had been taken away froun up and walk away

Or she could choose to go with him

He didn’t try to convince her one way or the other, just waited as the seconds ticked by A distant wail of sirens made him stir, just a little, but he still stayed quiet

Bryn relaxed her stance and put the gun back in the holster under her shoulder "I need to understand what just happened," she said "You need to tell me Now"

He nodded "Then please, let me help you"

He drove her--to her surprise--to a fanized the kid’s bike up against the hedge, and the leaning, weathered mailbox

"Why here?" she asked

"Because I don’t think you feel safe with me," McCallister said, as he put the car in park and killed the engine "Joe and his fa a lot of people here?"

"No," he said, then hesitated for a second before getting out of the car "Never, in fact"

Bryn pondered that as she followed hi the bell Joe’s wife, Kylie, answered the door, drying her hands on a dish towel; she blinked in surprise, then sht and opened her ar us," she said He stepped into the elance at Bryn Kylie did, too, and if her sain "Bryn Nice to see you"

McCallister said, "I’m sorry to drop in on you like this, but--"

"But you need to see Joe?"

"I’m afraid so"

"He’s out back in the workshop Follow h the war kids (who stopped to wave, or to stare, or, in the case of the baby, to gurgle), and out the back door She pointed to a structure twenty feet away across the yard "Out there," she said "Pat, you kno to get in?"

"I know," he said "Thanks, Kylie"

"Visit us for dinner sometime"

"I will"

His smile disappeared as soon as she closed the back door, and in its place was a ht She didn’t need to be told that McCallister dreaded bringing danger here, as much as he enjoyed the company It ritten all over his face

"It’s this way," he said, and walked across the yard He held out a hand to stop Bryn as they approached the closed door of the respectably large wooden shed, and a ht calare "Wait here"

She couldn’t see why, but she nodded, and then, just to test that she could, disobeyed him and followed him as he climbed the three steps up to the door

He shot her an irritated look and shielded a keypad fro series, longer than usual for these types of locks She heard a ed

Then McCallister knocked "Joe? Co in"

"Come ahead," said Joe’s voice from within, and McCallister opened up and entered, with Bryn at his heels

Joe Fideli was sitting at a desk that was absolutely loaded doith e drives--and it took Bryn a second or two to realize that he was putting away a gun A serious weapon, too, not a pistol but a semiauto rifle, which he put back on a rack behind hiuns in here than an armory In fact, Bryn was fairly sure that she couldn’t even identify many of them, and that was a statement, after four years of supply duty in Iraq That wasn’t even counting the shelves of other types of weapons--knives, Tasers, throwing stars, and brass knuckles in tidy order

"Close the door," Joe said to Bryn She didn’t do it--another test, to see if she could She did feel a weird ih, and that worried her Badly

McCallister stepped back and shut it, and the netic lock snapped closed Only then did Joe truly relax in his chair "So," he said, and laced his hands behind his head "Nobody looks happy Were the drinks watered? I hear that place ain’t much for quality"

"Someone invoked protocol on her," McCallister said, and sat down in one of the other two chairs on the opposite side of Joe’s desk

Fideli iot serious "Deliberately?"