Gavin awakens in Seattle early the next morning knowing that Alex Abel has strong connections with Afghani heroin smugglers. He considers this for a moment before deciding that it is another cliomantic attack, and goes to see Alex immediately. Alex is already awake and reading papers. He has no idea of what everyone else seems to know, but when informed he is quite irritated. Gavin grits his teeth and suddenly the world knows that Gavin L'Or is associated with heroin smugglers. Abel thanks him and sends him to Washington to express the Inquisition's extreme displeasure, preferably fatally.
Meanwhile, the team in Washington sends Jimmy and Jerry to keep an eye on Amanda Pelf for the day. Thielo, Esteban, and Angelina go out to have another look for cliomancers around the monuments. They don't find any, but Thielo finds that his sunglasses do not work inside the capitol. Looking up, he sees that to his aura sight the inside of the dome is covered with writing in Latin and mystic symbols, including an eagle with shield and the eye in the pyramid. He finds that he isn't thinking very clearly and cannot focus on the words, and leaves again. The interior of the Washington Monument effects him in the same way.
At that point, they inspect a bunch of the monuments, and discover some more interesting things. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials effect Thielo the same way as the capitol did. Both of them also have symbols and writing inside visible in gold to Thielo's aura sight. The statue of Lincoln has a simple and faint aura, which is also true of the statue of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and some of the names on the Vietnam memorial. They make a full report about this.
Gavin arrives and is briefed on the situation. Ryan Morrison also calls in having contacted the Santa Fe cliomancer and gotten some information about cliomancy in general out of him. There doesn't seem to be any convenient defense against it, and it can seriously warp your brain. The cliomancer also knows that Washington D.C. is no good for his magic - not that he's tried, but his mentor told him that there are no charges in D.C.
There's a long debate about who might be behind what and who's gone over to what side, and the team ends up calling in Uriel who says he might be able to summon Godfrey's spirit. He arrives after dinner and does an impressive Etruscan chant ("I am impressive. You are impressed by my magic.") that seems to be just window dressing, but Thielo doesn't call him on it. He reports that he is in contact with Godfrey, and the team verifies by asking Godfrey a question from the previous case that only he would know. Godfrey then reports, through Uriel, that he was killed by a one-eyed naked man and a dog, and that they were fast and said nothing. This effectively shoots a previous theory about the sleepers having tortured information out of Godfrey. Godfrey then asks to be sent to find his killers, and Uriel does another chant in Greek while coating an ancient bronze dagger in his own blood. ("By this dagger which bound the maiden to the grave of Achilles I so bind you to my service").
Thielo remembers a bit about unspeakable servants and calls Xerxes to confirm it. The one-eyed man and dog seem likely to be such. Hopefully they aren't the kind that are invulnerable to anyone but their master!
Assistant Director Pelf is reported to be going out, and the team has fixated on her as a possible leak, so they mobilize to follow her, using four cars for maximum sneakiness (and also because they have a lot of people). She goes to a restaurant and goes inside. Thielo goes in to spy on her a bit and finds her at dinner with a well-dressed woman in glasses, which Thielo's aura sight reveals as some sort of a mage - the grey flame seems to indicate a cliomancer. The team waits for the end of dinner, when the two women come out and get in the same car. They are also being followed by an Indian man who Ruth says is watching them, probably a bodyguard of some kind.
This makes the following a little trickier and the team is more spaced out. Unfortunately this means that when Pelf and the woman get to a house in the suburbs and go inside they don't have time to call Dawn and warn her that someone suspicious may be coming into her safehouse. The A.D. and the woman come out shortly thereafter, and while Pelf goes home, the woman gets into the car with the Indian man. The team follows the strange woman, who goes to a Holiday Inn. Esteban bribes the desk clerk to tell him that they are in room 304, but unfortunately the Holiday Inn has security cameras and it too public a place to consider attacking them. SILVER calls in to Damien and he tells them to leave Ruth and Jerry and Jimmy to watch the pair while the Inquisition sends in a whack team. SILVER also has Graham tap room 304's phone.
Later that night, they get a conversation between the woman in room 304 and a woman who is at a seedy hotel in a bad part of the city. The room 304 woman, who has an English accent, tells the other that there are too many inquisitors about and she is returning to England as soon as possible. The other woman disagrees and says that she can take care of the inquisitors.
SILVER decides that it is better to give than to receive and takes the team, plus Matthew, Uriel, and Officer Bob, to the seedy hotel. Angelina tranqs the desk clerk and the main team heads upstairs, while Thielo, Uriel, and Officer Bob head up the fire escape. Gavin kicks in the door and mayhem ensues.
The naked man in trenchcoat and the dog are indeed in the room, and they are superhumanly fast and can really take and dish out damage. The two of them focus on Gavin, who's in the doorway, and manage to maul his leg, break his collarbone, and a few other nasty things. Luckily Matthew performs some magical field surgery as Gavin fights, and he can stay fighting. Meanwhile Esteban lights the dog on fire, which treats everyone to the sight of an amorphous jellyfish-like thing coming out of the burning dog carcass.
Angelina, Bob, and Thielo shoot some at the man and the dog-thing, and then Thielo rushes into the bathroom and finds a woman there. He throws her across the room as the man finally goes down. Somewhere in all this a flying gun begins shooting at Officer Bob, who falls off the fire escape.
Then suddenly the woman and the dog-thing are gone and Officer Bob has climbed back up the fire escape. He explains that he landed in a dumpster and it took him a few minutes to climb back up. No one was there until the team suddenly appeared again. Alexandra's watch is six minutes slower than Bob's and they were synchronized at the beginning of the fight. The team decides to split, leaving the burning dog skin behind.
In the morning, the cliomancer and her bodyguard return to England without giving the whack team a good chance to get them. SILVER packs up and returns to Santa Fe as well, where Gavin and Angelina get some much-needed medical attention. A few days later, Angelina and Esteban accept B clearance.