“Are you asking for a specific number of years?” I asked.

Schwartz turned to me. “I have children, Agent Shane,” he said.

“You’re missing that soccer game, Mr. Schwartz,” Vann said, surprisingly gently. “You’ll be missing high school graduation too. Depending on what we get from you now, we can work on having you out to walk one of them down the aisle.”

Chapter Twenty-four

NICHOLAS BELL ENTERED Cassandra Bell’s second-floor apartment and entered the living room, which was in fact where Cassandra Bell lived, the bedroom of the apartment being used as storage and as a lounge for her caregivers. Cassandra’s morning caregivers had left for the day. Her afternoon caregivers would not come to the apartment for another hour. Nicholas walked over to the living room’s major feature: a cradle, in which lay a young woman. She looked, as all Hadens did, as if she were sleeping.

“It’s good of you to come see me, brother,” Cassandra said. “I haven’t seen you at all this last week.” Her voice was carried by a speaker next to her cradle, into which was also embedded a small camera, which she could use to see within the apartment. Cassandra preferred a simple real-world presentation. Which may have been why Nicholas paused when he saw the unfamiliar shape in the room. A threep.

“A gift from an admirer,” Cassandra said, following Nicholas’s gaze. “Not someone who admires me enough to know that I don’t use nor have I ever used a Personal Transport. But one of my caregivers knows someone who needs one. It’s waiting for her to come take it.”

Nicholas nodded and smiled and took his small backpack from his shoulder. He unzipped it and reached inside.

“Why, brother,” Cassandra Bell said. “Did you bring me a gift?”

“Yes,” Nicholas said. He took the large kitchen knife he had drawn from the backpack and thrust it into the young woman in the cradle, driving it deep into her abdomen.

Two more hard, deep thrusts into the belly, pushing upward. A rough jab downward, piercing the left upper thigh—a thrust in search of the femoral artery.

The flesh sliced open, pale.

Three thrusts making a sloppy triangle of cuts just below the sternum. One vicious slash on the left side of the neck and a matching slash on the right, opening up the arteries taking blood to the brain, and the veins drawing it away.

Nicholas Bell dropped the knife to the floor, and stepped back, breathing heavily. He stared at the ruined body, as if something about it puzzled him.

Such as: The body he had stabbed eight times now had not one drop of blood coming out of it.

“Brother,” Cassandra Bell whispered. “It didn’t work.”

I launched myself from the chair I was sitting in and tackled Nicholas Bell, who went down rolling and squirming.

He managed to get out of my grip and scrambled to his backpack. I rolled up and saw him, gun in hand, aiming at me.

“Oh come on,” I said. “I just got this threep.”

The crash behind us—the sound of FBI agents breaking down the door to get at Nicholas—distracted Nicholas just enough for me to run at him, but not enough for him to break his aim. He fired, and the bullet took me in the shoulder, spinning me.

Nicholas turned and fired three shots into the sliding glass door separating the living room and the balcony, and then ran into the shattered glass, hands up to protect his face. The glass tore away in a sheet and then Nicholas was through and stumbling over the balcony.

“Fuck,” I said, and followed him.

That’s when I learned the shot Bell took at me had affected the movement of my right arm. I tumbled over the balcony railing and fell hard onto the concrete walkway underneath. If I had been in a human body, I’m pretty sure I would have been dead or paralyzed.

But I wasn’t.

I stood up, scanned around, and saw Bell thirty yards ahead, limping but moving surprisingly fast. His gun was still in his right hand.

“What the hell just happened?” Vann said, in my head.

“He jumped out of the balcony,” I said. “He’s running on Ninth Street. Headed toward Welburn Square. I’m going after him.”

“Don’t lose him again,” Vann said.

“Again?!?” I said, and then went running.

Bell’s limp had gotten worse when I caught up to him just short of Welburn Square. I jumped him and we both went down on the redbrick sidewalk. I grabbed at him with my one good arm. He kicked it off and pistol-whipped me with the butt of his gun.

This did not work as well as he wanted it to. I had turned down my pain sensitivity. He turned the gun on me and I rolled away. Bell took off again, limping, cutting across the central circle of the grass in the square, scattering passersby when they saw his gun.

I went after him again, tripping him short of Taylor Street. He turned as he stumbled, and fired at me, hitting me in the hip. My left leg collapsed under me. I looked up to see Bell give a small grin of triumph and then run out into Taylor Street—

—on which he was immediately struck by a car. Bell splayed dramatically across the hood of the automobile and then collapsed on the road, clutching his leg.

Vann got out of the driver’s side, walked over to Bell, ascertained that he was not in immediate danger of death, and handcuffed him.

Two minutes later all the other FBI agents had caught up to us. Vann walked over to me, still down on the sidewalk. She sat down next to me and pulled her e-cigarette from her jacket pocket.

“That’s the third threep you’ve ruined in two days,” she said.

“Fourth,” I said.

“I don’t want to tell you how to do your job,” she said. “But I will say that if I were your insurer, I’d drop your ass.”

“You hit our suspect with a car,” I said.

“Oops,” Vann said. She sucked on her cigarette.

“You could have killed him.”

“I was going five miles an hour,” Vann said. “And anyway it was an accident.”

“You’re not supposed to be able to get into accidents like that anymore,” I said.

“It’s amazing what you can do when you disable autodrive,” Vann said.

“We promised Cassandra Bell we wouldn’t hurt her brother,” I said.

“I know,” Vann said. “It was a risk. On the other hand, that asshole just shot my partner. Twice.”

“It wasn’t Bell who shot me.”

“That’s not the asshole I was talking about.” She put her cigarette away.

*   *   *

“I’m curious about a number of things,” Vann said, to Bell. They were sitting across the table from each other in one of the Bureau’s interrogation rooms. Vann had a manila folder in front of her. “But I’ll tell you what I’m curious about right this second. It’s that you’re here in an FBI interrogation room, under arrest, and you have neither affirmatively invoked your right to remain silent or asked for your lawyer. You should. You should do both.”

“Yes,” I said. I was standing behind Vann. I was in one of the threeps the FBI used for visiting agents. The agent who had been using it half an hour before was currently stewing in Chicago because I had interrupted her work. She could stew for a while longer. “Although if I were you I wouldn’t try to call Sam Schwartz.”

“Why not?” Bell asked, looking up at me.

“We arrested him this morning on charges of murder and conspiracy, relating to the Loudoun Pharma bombing,” I said. “Won’t his boss be surprised.”

“Hubbard’s in the clear,” Vann said. “Everything points to Schwartz alone. Not the best sort of extracurriculars to have, though.” She turned back to Bell. “Now. Would you like to remain silent?” she asked. “When you answer, keep in mind that the minute you were out of your apartment and on the way here, we executed a warrant to search your residence and belongings. Which is to say we’ve already found the video you made confessing to the murder, and also, your suicide.”

“Which explains the gun,” I said. “Stabbing’s fine for your sister, but you wanted your own end to be quick and mostly painless. But I suppose me rushing you scrambled your plans a bit.”