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She pulled her coat on, opened the door to the sound of rain on the driveway, then stepped through and shut it behind her Seconds later, the engine of her Ford Explorer ru out and up the hill onto River Road

Kurt stared at the eulp, he finished the drink and wavered on whether to pour himself another He put the tumbler down It didn’t help much anyway

Instead of another drink, he walked through the living room and slid open the Arcadia door that led out onto the deck The rain was relentless, beading up on the freshly stained wood like quicksilver in a lab tray The river was covered in dancing droplets just like the sea in his dream

Why did it matter?

He walked to the railing As the rain soaked hiony out Far to the left he saw the red taillights of Anna’s Ford as she drove off

Why did he try harder and harder to see the truth each time the dream started?

He knew the answer to this o, but he kept it to himself He couldn’t tell anyone, certainly not his therapist

Soaking wet, he stepped back inside, grabbed a towel to dry his hands and face, and dropped into the chair at his desk

Tossing the towel aside, he flicked on the co in his main password, he clicked an icon that required a second password It brought up a series of encrypted e-mails

The latest had been sent by a forh a third party Money had been wired and received, and the ate a rumor

The e-mail read rather matter-of-factly

Can neither confirate in Mashhad or surrounding area

Mashhad was a city in northern Iran, suspected of being the headquarters of a new technical group working for the Iranian military No one was certain just what they were up to, but the Iranians were believed to be desperately upgrading their cybersecurity and attack force Eotten a virus

known as Stuxnet into their nuclear-processing facilities and caused a thousand high-priced centrifuges to spin out of control until they exploded, the Iranians were not only looking to protect the to hit back

Part of that effort see in and out of Mashhad, souard