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Granted, the latter snippets were undoubtedly doctored to avoid giving away anything to potential listeners, but she still appreciated knowing that her cabin had been released by the crime-scene techs, and that the intelligence community believed that al-Jihad was still out of the country. There had been no word on Lee, though, and the sense of creeping dread that stayed firmly rooted in her stomach made her positive that he was somewhere nearby, watching her.
    She shivered involuntarily when Gray handed her a computer printout bearing a dozen photographs, some candids, some mug shots, all of different men with cold, killer’s eyes. A jolt of icy fear shot through herwhen she finally saw the man who had played the curious role of keeping her safe from Lee, while holding her prisoner for some other purpose. She touched his photograph. “That’s Brisbane.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Positive.”
    Gray nodded as though he’d expected the answer, and took the printout from her, but he didn’t seem pleased about the break in the case.
    “Who is he?” Mariah asked, knowing Gray would only tell her as much as he wanted the terrorists to know.
    “He was a guy we know of but don’t know much about, a ghost who called himself Felix Smith. He’s a midlevel thug we looked at in connection with the Santa Bombings, but didn’t pursue. Apparently, that was a mistake.” But she sensed that more than just the mistake was bothering him.
    “He was a ghost?” Mariah pressed. “As in, he’s not anymore?”
    Gray fixed her with a hard look. “Depends on your definition of ghost. His body turned up in a Dumpster this morning.” He paused. “Al-Jihad doesn’t take failure lightly.”
    “Oh.” A shudder started in her gut and worked its way to her extremities. “Was there…” She faltered, then fell silent.
    “There’s still no sign of your ex.” Though Gray was sitting close to her, he seemed very far away, his expression remote and businesslike.
    Mariah pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to forceback an incipient headache. “Is that good news or bad?” Without waiting for him to answer, she continued, “From my perspective it’s bad news. If he was dead, I wouldn’t have to worry about him coming after me for revenge.”
    Gray’s eyes lost their distance as he zeroed in on her. “You think he’d come after you even if al-Jihad didn’t need something from you?”
    “I know he would. Lee took the ‘till death do us part’ thing literally.” She paused. “You’ve seen the letter, right?”
    Several weeks after Lee and the others had been incarcerated, she’d picked up her mail from her post office box and found a large manila envelope addressed to her in block print, along with a badly smudged return address and a Denver postmark. Inside had been another envelope, blank. Inside that had been a three-page letter in her ex-husband’s elegant script, a cutting missive that could be summarized simply as: “When I get out of here, you’re dead. Nobody leaves me.” The Feds had tracked the letter as best they could, but the lead had dead-ended quickly. Somehow, Lee had smuggled it out of the ARX Supermax, and another member of the terrorist network had made sure she got it.
    Gray’s jaw tightened. “Yeah. I’ve seen it. I wondered whether it was part of something else, though. Word is that your ex is more of a follower than an independent thinker.”
    “I didn’t know that side of him,” Mariah said slowly. “The man I married was a golden boy. He was the captain of the football team, class valedictorian, the nice boy my mother always wanted me to meet. He washandsome, charming and persistent, and it seemed to me that he always knew the right thing to say.”
    “He did,” Gray said bluntly. “Someone in al-Jihad’s network studied you and drew up a game plan.”
    “I know.” Lee had said as much to her, jeering from the witness stand. She tangled her fingers together and held on tight as she