'I'll give the order, sir.'

O'Malley seethed, glowering at the trawler. Shit! Shit! Those fucking drift nets. Those irresponsible-!

A voice blurted from the walkie-talkie, 'Oh, my God, Captain! Jesus! Oh, my-!' The man on the other end sounded as if he might vomit.

'What's the matter? What's wrong?'

'The drift net! We're hauling it in! You can't believe how much fish it-! Christ! And the dolphins! The porpoises! I've never seen so many! Dead! They're all dead! Tangled in the net! A fucking nightmare! The crew!'

'What? Say again! The-?'

'Crew! Twenty! Thirty! We're still counting! Oh, God in heaven! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! We've found the crew! They were tied to the net! They drowned the same way the dolphins and-!'

The next sound from the walkie-talkie was unmistakable: anguished, guttural gagging, the Coast Guard officer throwing up.

EIGHT

Brooklyn.

The sign on the stake outside St Thomas More grade school said CLOSED, NO TRESPASSING, PROPERTY OF F AND S REALTY. Stapled to the sign was a piece of paper, which in legal-looking fine print explained that this area had been rezoned for multiple-family dwellings. Another sign – this one on the school's front door – said, SCHEDULED FOR DEMOLITION, FUTURE SITE OF GRAND VIEW CONDOMINIUMS.

The school, a three-story drab brick structure, had been built in 1910. Its wiring, plumbing, and heating systems were so in need of expensive repairs that the local diocese, at the limit of its financial resources, had been forced to sell it and arrange for Catholic students in the neighborhood to attend the newer but already crowded St Andrew's school two miles away. Parents who in their youth had gone to St Thomas More and had sent their children there mourned its passing, but as the bishop had indicated in his letter – read by the local pastor to his parishioners during Sunday mass – the Church faced a looming monetary crisis. Regrettable sacrifices had to be made, not only here but in almost every diocese across the nation. Prayers and donations were required.

At eight, the smog was already thick, the air sultry, as three cars turned into the teachers' abandoned parking lot beside the school. The cars were dark, four-door, American sedans, each with F AND S REALTY stencilled in yellow on their sides. Two men got out of each car, greeting the others with a nod. In their late thirties to early forties, they wore subdued, light-weight, polyester suits. Five held clipboards, the sixth an oversized metal briefcase. They considered the once vital school and the plywood that now covered its windows.

'A pity,' one man said.

'Well,' another man said, 'nothing lasts forever.'

'Nothing?'

'At least, on earth.'

'True,' the third man said.

'And you know what the bottom line is,' the fourth man said.

The fifth man nodded. 'The collection plate.'

'Did you bring the key?' the sixth man asked.

The first man patted his suitcoat pocket.

They approached the school's front door, waited while the first man unlocked it, and stepped through its creaky entrance, letting their eyes adjust to the shadows, smelling dust and mold.

The first man shut the door and locked it, the shadows thickening. His voice echoed, emphasizing the building's desolation. 'I suppose any room will do.'

'It's better on the second floor,' the man with the briefcase said. 'Less chance of our being overheard in case someone stands outside near a window. I noticed gaps in some of the plywood.'

'Agreed,' the second man said.

'All the same, we'd better check this floor.'

'You're right,' the first man said. 'Of course.'

Now the echo came from their footsteps as they crossed the hallway. While four of the men inspected each classroom, the boys' and girls' rest rooms, a storage room, and the various closets, the fifth man made sure that the back door was locked, and the sixth man checked the basement. Only then did they proceed up the creaky stairs.

Throughout, the first man had the eerie sense that they were intruding, that the spiritual residue of more than eighty years of eager, laughing children had been absorbed by the building, that there were… for lack of a better word… ghosts here, and that all they wanted was to be left alone to play here one last time, their final summer. Sentimental, he admitted, but in a profession that so often required him to be cynical, he decided that for a few harmless seconds at least, he could indulge himself.

The man was of medium height and weight, with brown hair, hazel eyes that tended to assume the color of the clothes he wore, and unremarkable features, so average that no one ever remembered him. Over many years, he'd trained himself to be a chameleon, and yesterday afternoon, he'd followed Tess to LaGuardia Airport.

When he reached the second floor, he squinted higher toward the continuing stairs, then right and left, noticing open-doored classrooms and two drinking fountains that seemed unnaturally low until he recalled that they weren't designed for adults. Shrugging, deferring to the man with the oversized briefcase, he said, 'Which room do you like?'

'The one on the left above the parking lot.'

'As you wish.'

'But not until…' The man with the briefcase pointed upward toward the final floor.

'Do you really think it's necessary? The dust on the stairs hasn't been disturbed.'

'I was trained to be thorough. Your expertise is surveillance, but mine is…'

The first man nodded. 'And you do it superbly.'

'I accept the compliment.' The man's eyes glinted.

'I'll check the upper floor while the others inspect the rooms on this floor. In the meantime, since we're under pressure, can you…?'

'Yes, I'll set up my equipment.'

Five minutes later, after having inspected the musty upper floor where he found no one, the first man descended to the middle floor and the room on the left above the parking lot. He and his associates had been very careful in selecting this meeting place. It was highly unlikely that their enemy had managed to trace them here. Mostly – he suspected – the man with the briefcase was concerned that despite the abandoned school's locked doors and barricaded windows, a drug addict or else one of the city's innumerable homeless might have discovered a way to gain access and find sanctuary here. Even a drug addict might make sense of their conversation and become an informant.

At the same time, the chameleon reminded himself that the enemy, over many years, had demonstrated remarkable cleverness, extreme survival characteristics, ruthless determination, including the ability to counterattack. No matter how carefully this abandoned school had been chosen, the fact was that the rendezvous site had been used four times already. A pattern had been established, and whenever a pattern occurred, that pattern could be discovered. The man with the briefcase was right. There was no harm in being cautious.

The chameleon noticed two things when he entered the classroom. First, the sixth man, the electronic-security specialist, had opened his oversized briefcase, plugged a monitor into a battery, and was using a metal wand to scan the blackboard, the ceiling, the walls, the floor, and the furniture. Second, the other men – normally so serious and dignified – were seated in cramped positions in miniature table-topped chairs designed for ten-year-olds. The absurd situation reminded the chameleon of scenes from Gulliver's Travels and Alice in Wonderland.

'It's clean,' the sixth man said, replacing his equipment in the briefcase, shutting it, and locking it.

'Then we'll begin.' Although the chameleon had been deferential until now, he assumed the place of authority, sitting at the teacher's desk.