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lately with Lafayette. She’s been collecting his papers and correspondence. She found out that Washington promised to give Lafayette something big, something incredible.”
    “What would that be?” Maddock asked.
    “I don’t know, and if she knows, she’s playing it close to the vest. Anyway, we found out a letter from Washington to Lafayette, one that was never mailed, had recently been discovered and sent to Mount Vernon. It told Lafayette where to look for something, a paper with some kind of clues on it. That’s all I know.”
    “How did Wright know about the letter?”
    Guter said, “She’s Edmonia Jennings Wright. She’s got access to stuff the NSA wishes it had.”
    “What did he find?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Bones exerted some additional pressure with his knee and Guter winced.
    “Ow! Ow! I have no idea. I never even saw it! I just know he recovered something. Jamison is supposed to wait twenty-four hours in case he’s being surveilled and then deliver it to Ms. Wright.”
                  Bones raised his eyebrows and Maddock gave a slight nod. The big man let up the pressure a bit and said, “Which would be right about now, right?”
    Guter nodded.
    Maddock lowered his head so it was closer to the position of Guter’s. “What’s the endgame? What does Edmonia hope to ultimately find?”
    “I can’t say for certain. I just know it has something to do with Joan of Arc.”

SIX
     
    Cyrus Jamison maintained a healthy respect for the combat abilities of Edmonia Jennings Wright, despite the sheer improbability of a woman her age wielding such skill and maintaining such physical prowess. Whatever it was that kept her strong and fit, it bordered on magical. He feared no man or woman, but he practiced ruthless objectivity when it came to evaluating the skills of others. Wright’s talent for martial arts placed her in a select and lethal group populated mostly by individuals serving in Special Forces from various nations and eastern practitioners who devoted their lives to it. Nearly all such individuals were male and between the ages of twenty and fifty.
    Jamison still didn’t know exactly how Wright had come by her skills. But he was quite sure that the planet contained no other woman over seventy who could best her. Hell, a lot of men many years her junior couldn’t handle her. As her sometime sparring partner, Jamison knew that his equal skills and relative youth could defeat her, but only if he maintained the proper focus.
    Consequently, his respect for her was genuine, not that of a subordinate trying to remain in his employer’s good graces. Wright seemed to know this, as she didn’t speak down to him the way she did nearly every other person with whom she came into contact. She had summoned him to the office at the Baltimore house for a late night discussion about the document he had retrieved the previous day.
    Seated behind a large mahogany desk which amplified awareness of how slight her figure was, she wore the same baggy black pants and shirt as always. In her own home, she rarely wore the nylon top with the back hood that added an aura of mystery to her appearances in public. Her brown eyes promised a combination of secrecy and disappointment. The ornate sconce to the left of the desk gave off a soft light and left a lot of shadows in the room.
    “I understand Dane Maddock appeared on the scene shortly after your departure. Will I never be rid of that man?”
    It was a rhetorical question, so Jamison chose not to reply.
    “I understand he now refers to me as Grandma Ninja.”
    Jamison chuckled. “It’s not what they call you. It’s what you answer to.”
    “Quoting Bill Clinton is beneath you, Cyrus.” A sly grin creased her face. “I kind of like it myself. It conveys a certain respect while allowing those boys to retain some small fraction of their fragile egos. In any case, I believe you have something for me.”
    Jamison handed her a yellowed page inside a