“Where your employer was murdered,” Lieutenant Orville pointed out. “Yours and Rumsey’s.”

“That was sad,” Blanchard said, but went on grinning.

“Were you and Rumsey questioned in the case?”

“Not us,” Blanchard said.

“Oh?” Lieutenant Orville registered surprise. “Why’s that?”

“Well,” Blanchard said, “Ambassador Chk was killed in Novi Glad.”

“And where,” Lieutenant Orville pursued, “is Novi Glad?”

“It’s the capital of Vostkojek.” Blanchard waved a hand to indicate someplace far away. “About five thousand miles from D.C. Past an ocean, and most of Europe.”

“And where were you when this ambassador was killed?”

“In D.C.”

Beginning to realize this was not after all going to be a fruitful line of inquiry, Lieutenant Orville segued out of it with one final question: “Did they ever catch the perpetrator?”

“Oh, sure,” Blanchard said. “It was political. He was a Bigendian.”

No. No deeper into that blind alley. “And where were you this morning,” Lieutenant Orville abruptly demanded, “when your latest employer was being kidnapped?”

Blanchard pointed at Wooster. “At my desk there.”

“And what were you doing?”

“Arranging charitable affairs for Mr. Hall to take part in.”

Unbelieving, Lieutenant Orville said, “Monroe Hall needs charity?”

“Oh, no,” Blanchard said. “He gives charity. His reputation took a bad hit a little while ago, and we’ve started the rehabilitation.”

Lieutenant Wooster mildly said, “My uncle lost everything in the SomniTech affair, everything.”

Turning that bland smile toward Wooster, Blanchard said, “But I’m sure the family helped out.”

Lieutenant Wooster’s mouth opened. He looked completely blank, as though the plug had been pulled on his brain.

Lieutenant Orville said, “So you were arranging charity this morning. Who with, and where did that person go?”

“A lot of people, by phone.” Blanchard pointed at the immobilized Wooster again. “The phone log is by your partner’s left hand there.”

“Bob,” Lieutenant Orville said, “let’s see that phone log.”

Popping back to life, Lieutenant Wooster picked up the black ledger book, carried it to Lieutenant Orville, and went back to his seat. Lieutenant Orville scowled at the book. When he leafed its pages, they were all there: names, numbers, times. There was no doubt it would all check out.

Slippery son of a bitch, this Blanchard. If only I could get under the surface, Lieutenant Orville told himself. There’s something going on down in there. He said, “Until further notice, I don’t want you leaving the property.”

Blanchard actually laughed. “Not me, “ he said. “I wouldn’t skip this for a million dollars.”

50

MARK TOLD HIMSELF THERE was no point in having the jitters, not now, not when it was all over. Or at least this part was all over. Monroe Hall had been successfully extricated from his compound—with butler, but never mind—and the two of them, freed of their blindfolds and ropes, were now snugly tucked into separate locked upstairs bedrooms with sheets of plywood over the windows. Mark and Os and the union men were gathered in the main living room, removing dustsheets from the sofas and chairs, making cozy. Os had already filled the refrigerator with beer, some of which had been brought out for a victory toast. So there was no reason any more, if there had ever been, for Mark to have the jitters. And yet, he did.

This feeling of edginess, of nerves unstrung, had started just before the kidnapping. He’d been fine on the trip to borrow the horse and its carrier; he’d been fine getting into the carrier with the others to leave the driving to Mac; he’d even been fine when they’d made it past the guardshack.

When it had started, the butterflies, the twitchiness, the body-out-of-control feeling, was when he put on the ski mask. That awful hot wool against his face had been a kind of shock, a reality check.

This is real! he told himself. We aren’t just talking about this, we’re doing this. Looking around at the others, clustered in the swaying carrier in the semidark, looking at the ridiculous ways they’d chosen to conceal their faces, he’d suddenly thought, We’re crazy. People don’t do this sort of thing. Why don’t we just forget Monroe Hall? Why don’t we get over it, get on with our lives?

Well, that was a hell of a moment to come up with such an idea, while driving from the guardshack to Monroe Hall’s home. Looking around the interior of the carrier, it had seemed to Mark that everybody else was calm, assured, confident, ready, knowing exactly the dangers and their own skills, like paratroopers clustered at the open doorway of the airplane.

It was only when they’d dashed out of the carrier and laid hands on Hall himself—and the butler, but never mind—and the others had all started shouting like madmen, yelling orders at one another and so on, that he’d realized they were all having the jitters, too. It was not just him. And that knowledge, plus the success of the operation, had calmed him considerably, until Monroe Hall recognized his voice.

That was the moment. That was the moment his mouth opened, his throat closed, his eyes bulged, his heart contracted, and his hands began to shake like fringe on a cowgirl. He had been a wreck ever since, silent except when he had to whisper something to Buddy to say to Hall, and not even Hall’s current residence in a locked room nor the presence in his own hand of a full and frosty beer had done much to make him calm.

Recognized my voice!

“Well,” Mac said, dropping into a sofa like a relief package without quite spilling beer, then drinking beer, “that was one hell of a drive.”

“You did it great,” Buddy assured him.

“We acted, I would say,” Os informed them all, very nearly smiling, “in the finest traditions of Mission: Impossible.”

Mark had things he felt he could say at that moment, but somehow the words didn’t come. Somehow, his mouth didn’t open.

Recognized my voice!

Buddy said, “What’s the program now?”

“We let Hall go without dinner,” Os said. “It’s four-thirty now. We’ll have our own dinner—”

Ace said, “What about the butler?”

Everybody looked at him. Os said, “What about the butler?”

“Does he go without dinner, too?”

“Oh. No, no,” Os said, “we’ll feed him. Soups and things, with plastic spoons and things, so he can’t get any ideas.”

“He didn’t strike me,” Buddy said, “as a guy who’d get a lot of ideas.”

“True,” Os said. “But one can never be too careful.”

“Sure,” Buddy said. “But after we’ve had our dinner and the butler’s had his dinner and Hall hasn’t had his dinner, then what?”

“At around, say, eleven tonight,” Os said, “we’ll go in, all of us properly masked, and we’ll lay out the situation to Hall—I’m afraid you’ll have to go on doing the talking, Buddy.”

“Make me out a speech. Write it down.”

“Mark will do that,” Os said. “Won’t you, Mark?”

Mark nodded, a bit afraid the gesture would make his head roll off. It didn’t, and he stopped nodding.

Os said to the others, “My expectation is, Hall will refuse tonight. So we’ll switch off the electricity to that room and let him think it over in pitch black darkness for tonight. Tomorrow morning, we’ll bring up a big breakfast, full of good things to see and smell, like bacon and waffles and maple syrup and orange juice and coffee, and we’ll ask him if he’s ready to cooperate. My guess is, he’ll say no, so we’ll take the breakfast away again.”

“Good,” Ace said.

“I’ve got a problem here,” Mac said.

They all gave him their attention. Mildly, Os said, “Yes, Mac?”

“I got a home and a family,” Mac said.

“That’s right,” Buddy said, as though surprised at the reminder.