Too easily.

“He knows,” Hecate said to Paris after the call was ended.

“He doesn’t know,” insisted Paris. “He can’t know.”

“He knows.”

“No way. If he knew, then he’d never agree to come here, never allow himself to be that much in our power.”

“He knows.”

“No, sweetie. Alpha doesn’t know a damn thing. But he will once he gets here. I can promise you that.”

That had been the end of it. Hecate had to accept that Paris was too much of an idiot to recognize the subtle brilliance that made Alpha who and what he was. Not that she knew exactly who and what Alpha was-but she grasped the essence of their father in a way that her brother seemed incapable of managing.

“He knows,” she murmured to the infinite stars.

Yet he was coming all the same.

Chapter Ninety-Four

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

Monday, August 30, 5:03 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 54 hours, 57 minutes

Eighty-two sat in the dark and looked out at the black water of the harbor. He’d never been in Baltimore before. Except for the Deck, he’d never been anywhere in the United States before. He felt strange. Lonely and scared, and alien.

Everyone here had treated him well. His nose was tended to, he was clean and dressed in new clothes: jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt with the logo of a baseball team. They even let him keep his rock. He’d been allowed to eat whatever he wanted. He’d had pizza for the first time in his life, but he wasn’t sure if he liked it. They gave him a bedroom that had a TV with cable. He was allowed to watch whatever he wanted.

But he knew that he was a prisoner. No one had used the word, but what other word was there? Before they let him go to his new room they’d taken his fingerprints and samples of hair and blood and swabs from inside his cheek. They asked him to pee in a cup. It wasn’t all that different from what the scientists at the Hive did, though these people smiled more and said “please” and “thank you.” But they weren’t really asking his permission to do their tests.

The night was long and he didn’t want to sleep. The big man who called himself Cowboy had promised that the New Men were being taken care of, but nobody explained what that meant. All Eighty-two knew was that ships from the British and American navies had converged on the island. Beyond that, he knew nothing and no one would tell him anything about what was being done to the New Men. He never saw the female again, not after Cowboy had rescued him.

Eighty-two felt more alone than he had ever been.

How strange it was, he thought, that he felt more alone, more alien, more apart, here in this place, here among the “good guys,” than he ever had before. He realized bleakly that he no longer had a place. He could not go home again even if he wanted to, which of course he did not, and he certainly didn’t belong here. He belonged nowhere.

He was no one.

The darkness stretched on forever before him.

Chapter Ninety-Five

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

Monday, August 30, 5:04 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 54 hours, 56 minutes

Mr. Church sat behind his desk. He hadn’t moved at all in over half an hour. His tea was cold, his plate of cookies untouched.

On his desk were three reports, each laid out neatly side by side.

On the left was the coroner’s report on Gunnar Haeckel that included DNA, blood type, body measurements, and a fingerprint ten-card. In the middle was a brief report on Hans Brucker that included preliminary information and a fingerprint card. The blood type was a match; the basic body specifications were a match. That was fine. There were a lot of people of that basic size, build, weight, and age with O Positive blood. The troubling thing were the two fingerprint cards. They were identical. Church had ordered the prints scanned and compared again, but the results had not varied. Not even identical twins have matching fingerprints, but these were unquestionably identical.

But it was not the inexplicable match of fingerprints on the two dead men that troubled Mr. Church. For the last half hour he had barely looked at those reports. Instead all of his attention was focused on the brief note he had received from Jerry Spencer, who was now back at the DMS and ensconced in his forensics lab. The note read: “The prints taken from the boy are a perfect match for the unmarked set of prints you forwarded to me. The only difference is size. The unmarked set are larger, consistent with an adult, and there are some minor marks of use such as small scars. However, the arches, loops, and whorls match on all points. Without a doubt these prints come from the same person. There’s no chance of a mistake.”

When Mr. Church first read that note he called Spencer and confirmed it.

“I thought my note was clear enough,” said Spencer. “The prints match, end of story.”

But it was by no means the end of the story. It was another chapter in a very old and very twisted story. It painted the world in ugly shades.

Mr. Church finally moved. He selected a cookie and ate it slowly, thoughtfully, thinking about the boy called Eighty-two. The boy who had reached out to him, who had risked his life to try to save millions of people in Africa and to save the lives of the genetically engineered New Men.

Church picked up the boy’s fingerprint card and turned it over to study the photograph clipped to the other side. It had been taken during the physical examination of the boy. Church looked into the child’s eyes for long minutes, searching for the lie, for the deception, for any hint of the evil that he knew must be there.

Chapter Ninety-Six

The Deck

Monday, August 30, 5:05 A.M.

Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 54 hours, 55 minutes E.S.T.

“I think she suspects,” said Cyrus. He sipped his wine and held the Riesling in his mouth to taste its subtleties.

“About?”

“The Wave. Not that she could know anything with specific knowledge, but I think she suspects that we have some sort of global agenda.”

“Of course she suspects,” said Otto. “Wouldn’t you be disappointed in her if she didn’t?”

Cyrus nodded. It was true enough.

“But,” said Otto, “she can only be guessing. She can’t know.”

“No.”

“Not like we know.”

“No.”

“You’ll be able to see for yourself when you visit the Dragon Factory tomorrow.”

They thought about that for a while, and then they both laughed.

“Are you surprised that they invited me?” asked Cyrus.

“A little.”

“Do you think it’s a trap?”

“Of course. Our misdirection with the assassins probably only fooled Paris,” said Otto. He pursed his lips and added, “Though my guess is that this is a fishing expedition more than anything. She wants to look you in the eye when she talks about the attack. She probably believes that you’ll give something away.”

Cyrus laughed again. Otto nodded.

“She’s very smart, that one,” said Cyrus, “but I think we can both agree that she doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does.”

“No.”

“So… a fishing expedition with a trapdoor if she doesn’t like what she sees? Is that what you think?”

“More or less. Probably not as rigid as that. Hecate likes wiggle room. If she’s not one hundred percent sure that you sent the assassins, then I expect she’ll give you some heavily edited version of a tour. Letting you see only what she thinks would appeal to you and perhaps flatter you. She’s her father’s daughter in that regard.”

“No, Otto… I think she gets that from you.”

Otto shrugged. “I believe that’s her plan.”

“And if she becomes convinced that I am responsible for the assassins? Do you think she’ll try to have me killed?”