“Pleasure doing business with you.”

Morton returned his phone to its slot in his jacket, chose another, and called his mother. Thankfully, the machine answered. He left a message that he would not be home for supper. Then he drove to New York City to find an expensive woman to celebrate earning in two twenty-minute sessions of private security consultation more than top IT guys earned in a month.

Hours later, avidly watching his reflection in a mirror over a king-size bed, Morton suddenly remembered the routing drone’s odd feature of blocking the woman’s calls when it passed them on to Bucharest. He probably should have mentioned it to her. But she would figure it out in the end, Morton supposed.

* * *

HURRYING FROM THE arrivals gate, looking for the first place she could call Janson without getting arrested for violating the rule posted on huge signs that you couldn’t use a mobile phone in a security area, Kincaid paid close attention to the crowds streaming off their planes. Had one of them hacked her in the Johannesburg airport?

She got through Immigration and past Customs.

Finally, in an exit corridor that led to the terminal hall, she called Janson. And wouldn’t you know it, the goddamned phone dropped the call. As she redialed she noticed other people were staring perplexedly at their phones and poking buttons as if they, too, were losing calls. She looked at her screen.

“No Service.”

She felt the skin prickle on the back of her neck.

She looked around to see who was jamming the signals. Passengers, tired from the long international flights, were all carrying and rolling bags big enough to conceal electronic blocking devices. She slowed down and watched the faces of the people she had been tracking since she went by Customs. Businessmen and -women, tourists, homecoming Aussies with backpacks, families, two look-alike tall, stocky blondes, sisters, each dragging a yellow-haired kid.

Ahead the corridor opened wider and Kincaid could see people lined behind ropes hopefully gazing to greet their loved ones. She slowed more and let people overtake her. One of the blondes went ahead with both kids. The other was bumping into Kincaid, making excuse-me gestures as she jammed a pistol into her side and whispered in a nasal Australian accent, “It’s wearing a can, doll. No one will hear.”

Kincaid saw a sound suppressor screwed onto a Beretta, a quiet weapon to begin with.

“Hollow points. No blood, either. The bullet won’t leave your liver.”

TWENTY-THREE

Jessica Kincaid ground her teeth. They nailed her good. She never saw it coming.

Now who was the football clod?

Forget it.

New Game.

How did the woman get a gun into the secure area? Had to have an accomplice among the security officers, who would be watching closely for Kincaid to resist. No way she could fight back, not here. There were people all around and security cameras everywhere. The Australian was holding the Beretta with reasonable competence, but she looked jumpy, nervous enough to be unpredictable. If Kincaid screwed up taking the gun away from her, some bleary-eyed yawning travelers would end up with hollow-point expanding slugs tearing through their lungs.

“Keep walking!”

Kincaid had slowed to gauge the reaction. Very jumpy. A rogue cop, she thought. The woman had been or still was a cop, moonlighting. That would explain getting the gun through Security. And the case of nerves. Knowing her face could be recognized on security cameras or that she could bump into officers she was acquainted with, she had to have some kind of plausible story but damned well didn’t want to have to use it.

Kincaid picked up speed, though only slightly. “You got me,” she said. “Take it easy. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Walk ahead of me. Follow the signs to the car park.”

She had a van in the parking lot with no windows in back. Two more women were waiting inside. It smelled like they’d been drinking wine. The back cargo door was locked by steel bolts, and there were no side doors. A translucent sunroof let in light from the overhead street lamps, but it was not the kind that opened.

The woman at the wheel—the other “sister,” who must have handed off the kids to somebody—started the engine as soon as they got the doors locked. The third woman was a heavyset grinning maniac with a cocaine blizzard in her eyes, a prison matron’s mean mouth, and a pistol in her waistband.

They pinned Kincaid’s wrists behind her with a disposable nylon double lock flex-cuff—more cop stuff—and took her phone and her bag and shoved her into the cargo area, which was covered with a musty carpet. Blondie, the woman who had nailed her in the terminal, stole her gold bracelet and put it on. Kincaid pegged her as the leader of the trio. Cokie took the ring Janson had given her in Amsterdam, which pissed her off. The thievery was more confirmation of what she suspected. They were locals for hire—a crew of rogue cops and crooks who usually robbed pimps and drug dealers. Who had hired them to snatch her? Who but Securité Referral?

Blondie felt the slot under Kincaid’s bag and appeared surprised not to find a knife. Through airport security? Did she think Kincaid was nuts? But they did know to look for it. Proof positive they were working for the diver. Kincaid shifted internal gears in an urgent attempt to dampen panic. She knew she could not master panic, no one could, but Cons Ops had taught her ways to go around it, by concentrating step-by-step on questions and answers that might guide her toward action.

Clearly, she and Janson had underestimated Securité Referral’s reach. But what was this, revenge? The thought of being delivered, handcuffed, to the South African mercenary whom she had taken down and humiliated threatened to redline the panic.

What about the doctor? Wasn’t the doctor what Van Pelt wanted? But her capture was about both the doctor and revenge, she feared. That Van Pelt was hunting Dr. Flannigan didn’t mean he couldn’t spare an hour to give her a long and terrible death.

The only good news Kincaid could cling to was that the women were happy with her expensive bracelet and beautiful ring and didn’t bother stealing her cheap Swatch. They couldn’t see her hands behind her back. She worked her fingers past the cuff and pressed the Swatch’s stem to switch on her GPS asset-tracking signal that would allow Janson to track her location on Google Maps—God bless the Internet and the CatsPaw hard geeks and soft geeks who had tweaked a device originally marketed to parents to spy on their teenagers.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Janson was near enough to help? Wouldn’t it be nice if he otherwise arranged for a local CatsPaw contractor to help? Before the miniature device’s tiny battery ran down in two hours? Wouldn’t it be nice if pigs could fly?

The van was moving fast on a highway. She saw signs through the windshield for the Sydney Central Business District and the Harbour Bridge to North Sydney. “Where are we driving?” she asked.

“Luna Park,” called Sister at the steering wheel.

“What’s Luna Park?”

“Amusement park.”

“Haunted houses,” Cokie said. “Scary stuff.” She leaned close, leering at Kincaid, breathing wine in her face, mocking her fear.

Kincaid twisted her shoulder as though to relieve the stress on her pinioned arms. Her blouse puckered open in front, revealing glimpses of her breasts lit by the lamps arching over the road and oncoming headlights. Cokie wet her lips and glanced at the front of the speeding van. When she saw that Blondie had moved next to the driver, she plunged her hand into Kincaid’s blouse.

She slipped inside Kincaid’s bra and caressed her nipple. Kincaid tried to prepare herself for pain by separating thought from flesh, exiling her mind to a fog-shrouded beach where invisible breakers rumbled on the sand. Cokie positioned her thumb and index fingers like a pair of pliers.