“It’s the phone number for today’s date,” I tell her. “And there is one more for the day after tomorrow, and that’s it.”

“So what does that mean?” she says.

“Either Thorn gets another set of communication codes,” says Herman, “or else by then whatever he’s up to is gonna be finished. What’s today’s date?”

“October second,” I say.

“So that means the fourth, which is what, Monday?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“And all we know, at least according to Pablo, is that sometime Monday his luggage is supposed to be in Washington. What’s the name of the hotel?” I ask.

“The Washington Court,” says Herman.

“I know it well,” says Joselyn. “It’s right downtown, walking distance to the Capitol.”

“So what do we do?” I slowly flip each page of the little book as we talk. After the code, the book is blank, not a mark on it.

“Be a waste of time to call the cops again,” says Herman. “We tell them that Thorn’s still alive, they’re just gonna say so what. That means he wasn’t on the plane. As far as they’re concerned, maybe he wasn’t even involved in it.”

“I agree,” says Joselyn. “Listen, if Thorn’s headed to Washington, why don’t you let me make a phone call. I have a contact who I believe should be able to get some action.”

“Who’s that?” says Herman.

“I can’t tell you. You’ll have to trust me. But I know he can reach all the way to the highest levels of the Justice Department.”

“You got that kind of juice, do it,” says Herman. “You have any problem with that?” Herman looks at me.

“One question. Will we be able to get information back from your contact?” I ask her.

“What do you mean?” she says.

“I mean, if they pick up Thorn in D.C. and he lawyers up, we may lose any hope of identifying or locating Liquida. Will you be able to get information from your man regarding Liquida?”

“That’s a good point. Let me find out,” she says.

“Go ahead and call him,” I tell her.

Joselyn takes her phone and heads into the bathroom. She closes the door to make her call.

“Secretive,” says Herman.

“I suspect that’s her big source on weapons systems,” I tell him. “That’s how she got all the details after the attack in Coronado. Leaks from friends in high places.”

I reach the last page of the little book, not a single mark, only the communications code on the first three pages. I’m about to flip it onto the table when I notice that the last page has been ripped out. The front and back cover of the moleskin pocket book is stiffened with cardboard.

“Herman, do me a favor. In my briefcase you’ll find a pencil in the pocket up top. Get it for me, will you?”

Herman gets the pencil as I examine the inside of the back cover, holding it up at an angle to the light.

“Whatya find?” Herman hands me the pencil.

“I don’t know. Have you got that knife?”

Herman fishes it out of his pocket. “I want it back,” he says.

“I found it,” I tell him.

“I’ll arm-wrestle you for it.”

“I value my elbow joint too much. You can keep it.” I open the knife and shave the pencil point on one side to expose more of the lead. Then I take the flat edge of the pencil and rub it gently back and forth over the impression carved in the white paper covering the inside of the back cover of the little book. Slowly the writing from the missing page emerges in the form of white letters from the growing panel of slate gray graphite. It is in the same neat hand as the coded numbers: “Waters of Death, Second Road, Pattaya, Thailand.” A group of numbers follow, nine digits in all, separated in sets of three with a space between each set, and the name “J. Snyder, 214 S. Pitt St., Alexandria, VA.”

FORTY-TWO

Liquida found himself bundled onto the last evening flight out of Columbus, Ohio, the seven o’clock headed for Dulles, in D.C. He’d received the e-mail that afternoon that his services were needed on another job and he wasn’t happy about it.

He had spent the last three days and a chunk of his own change watching the small farm outside Groveport where Madriani’s daughter and his law partner were holed up. The little GPS tracker that Liquida had mailed to the girl had done its job. The device was so sensitive that at times he was able to follow it in transit, even in the package. The second she opened the box, the tiny tracker gave Liquida a readout including latitude, longitude, and street address, and then plotted it all on a map. And if she had swallowed the thing, Liquida was sure that it would have performed an upper GI series.

He believed firmly that technology was a wonderful thing, as long as he didn’t have to use it. It was why he didn’t carry a cell phone, and why he changed his e-mail address more often than his underwear. Anything science could make, government could abuse.

He had staked out the farmhouse and identified the girl’s daily schedule. She never left the place. And the old man who owned the farm had friends. Half the time the driveway out in front of the house looked like a police convention. If Liquida had a dime for every car with a set of light bars on top that visited the house, he could have retired.

If that wasn’t enough, there were dogs, and not just any kind. The farmer raised Doberman pinschers. Liquida wasn’t a “dog kind of guy,” and he hated any breed that was German. You could poison most junkyard hounds. But a forty-dollar hunk of Chateaubriand salted with enough Ambien to put an elephant down wouldn’t raise an eyebrow on a good Doberman. And if you were stupid enough to cross the line and try to hand-feed him, you’d better be wearing a Kevlar body stocking.

The last time Liquida had tangled with a pinscher he’d ended up with his head in the dog’s jaws, being humped and thrashed like a stuffed bunny. Until the dog finally let go of his head, Liquida thought he was engaged, well on his way to becoming Muerte Liquida-Doberman. And he wasn’t anxious for a rematch.

But these dogs were confined by an invisible fence. A wire circled the property and was buried just inches under the ground. It emitted a signal that was picked up by a diode on the dog’s collar whenever it got within a few feet of the wire. If the dog tried to cross the wire, the animal would get a severe jolt of low-amperage electricity. The dogs had been trained and conditioned to stay inside the fence.

By now Liquida knew the precise boundaries of the invisible fence. He watched the property from a tree in an empty field across the road.

For the last two days, Madriani’s daughter had slipped into a pattern. Each morning around eight she would come out of the house carrying a colander to pick berries from some wild bushes that ran along the front of the property.

Madriani’s law partner would come out with her carrying a shotgun. But he usually sat on a chair on the front porch and kept an eye on her from a distance. And each day, as the berries became sparser, the girl wandered farther. She was already within the warning zone of the invisible fence. The dogs no longer followed her. By tomorrow she would be outside the fence and fair game for a needle-sharp stiletto hiding in the brush.

Liquida had been called away, but at least he knew where she was, and from all appearances, she wasn’t going to leave. He could only hope and pray that the berries would hold out until he got back.

Thorn approached the U.S. Capitol Building from the north, walking toward what many tourists called the back of the immense, sprawling structure, the steps on the east side.

He had spent Saturday finishing up the logos on the 727 and arranging for the delivery of a truckload of Jet A fuel from the airport on the east side of Vieques Island. After pumping the tanks full and paying for the fuel, Thorn hitched a ride with the driver of the tanker back to the airport, where he caught a flight to San Juan, and from there to Washington.