Gersten noticed Jenssen stealing looks at her, using the bar mirror. She suspected he was lingering at the bar because of her. Flattering, but also a little weird. She still hadn’t heard from Fisk. When Nouvian got up to answer a phone call—“Hello, honey,” he said, passing Gersten on his way out of the lounge—Gersten made her way down toward Jenssen’s end of the bar.

She cruised the food table, picking through the crispy french fry butts remaining on the crumb-strewn platter like cigarettes in a dirty ashtray.

She felt Jenssen’s eyes on her. So why not play the game.

She eased in next to him. The seat afforded her a better view of the street below, a good vantage point from which to watch for Fisk’s approach.

“No drink?” she asked, holding up her water for the bartender to refill.

Jenssen smiled, tinkling the ice in his glass. “Pure poison. What’s your excuse?”

“Still technically on duty.”

“Oh? Still keeping an eye on us?”

“Still your camp counselor. Do they have camps in Sweden? Summer camps?”

“Oh, yes.”

Her fresh water arrived. “So you never drink? All organic?”

“Never say never.” He smiled. “But in general, I find alcohol to be a useless complication.”

Gersten glanced over at the corner where Frank and Sparks were now openly making out.

“Exactly,” she said, with a smile. “The world is complicated enough.”

She shifted in her seat, bumping his knee accidentally. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. She moved her chair back a few inches in order to ensure that it wouldn’t happen again. In doing so, she felt a spot of wetness on her thigh, and at first thought she had spilled some of her water. But no—her leg had been beneath the bar ledge.

“Do you feel something under there?” she asked, bending back to see beneath the bar. She saw Jenssen’s arm resting on top of his leg, the sleeve of his shirt buttoned over his fractured wrist. “Something leaking?”

“I think it’s my cast,” he said, pulling it halfway out for a look. “They told me to shower with it wrapped in plastic so it doesn’t get wet. I had a drugstore shopping bag I thought would do the trick, but apparently I wound up soaking it.”

“Oh,” she said. “That doesn’t sound good.” She tried to get a better look, but he returned his arm beneath the table, rather protectively. “Do you want me to call around, see if we can get someone here tonight, or tomorrow morning most likely, to look at it?”

“No, it’s fine. It will hold until after the ceremony.”

Gersten’s phone vibrated on her hip. “You’re sure?” she said. “It looks sore.” He was holding it oddly, almost hiding it beneath the bar, perhaps out of embarrassment.

“It is tender, but once the cast dries again it will be fine. I am certain.”

Gersten checked her display. Fisk, finally. “Excuse me,” she said, standing quickly. “I have to take this.”

She made her way down the short flight of steps, turning left into a short corridor leading to the restrooms, seeking a quiet spot.

“Hey,” she answered. “Where in tarnation are you?”

“Are you sitting down?” he said.

“No. What is it?”

She listened while he told her about the Bay Ridge apartment raid.

“She mixed the Bin-Hezam boom?” said Gersten.

“Looks that way. So where is she now? And how much more does she have?”

Gersten’s head was spinning. “Maybe his call to Saudi Air . . . was for her?”

Fisk said, “If so, nobody came in late and paid cash for a ticket. Already checked. That flight’s already departed. She wasn’t on it.”

Gersten blocked her open ear with her free hand in order to hear better. “You have her picture, though. We have a face.”

“We have a face, we have two names, we have a Social Security number, an apartment full of fingerprints . . . but we don’t have a location.”

Gersten shook her head. She turned to scan the lobby. “So now I have to watch for a Caucasian woman . . .” She thought about the exposure of the lounge, with its glass walls and floor hanging over Forty-second Street. And a woman with a backpack full of TATP standing on the sidewalk below . . .

“I’ll try to wind up The Six, or those who are left.”

“You’re still at the lounge?” said Fisk.

“Yeah,” she said. “Waiting for you.”

“Ah,” he said. “No chance now.”

“It’s cool. You’ve got a job to do.” As she was looking back toward the lounge, Frank and Sparks walked down the short stairway together on their way to the elevators. Sparks glimpsed Gersten on the phone and shot her what could only be termed a nasty look, leaving Gersten wondering, What the hell was that all about? “I need her photograph.”

“Alert sheet should be in your inbox now.”

“So she’s a fundamentalist convert. Maybe a radicalized sleeper agent? An assassin?”

“If so, then her cover here is airtight. I mean, she looks for all the world like a cat lady, only substitute jihad for cats. She’s involved, that’s all we can know for sure. How involved? That information died with Bin-Hezam.”

“So what if . . .” She let her thoughts trail away for a moment. “What if Bin-Hezam, not the hijacker, was the real distraction? What if . . . this whole weekend . . . when we thought we were tracking the real bad guy, we were chasing his decoy?”

“A double deception? It’s . . . possible, I guess. At this point, anything’s possible.”

“You took it to Dubin?” asked Gersten.

“Had to. Waiting to hear back now.”

“He’s going to go public with this one. No more secret hunt.”

Fisk said, “He should. This has gone too far. It’s gotten out of hand. We need to find this woman.”

She lost part of the word “woman” because he was getting another call.

“That’s Dubin,” said Fisk. “Gotta go.”

“Good luck. Talk tomorrow morning if you can.”

“If I can.”

And he was gone.

Chapter 62

Jenssen sat rigidly at the end of the lounge. He could no longer see Detective Gersten, who had disappeared around the back of the bar and down some stairs. He had to fight the urge to stand and observe her.

He was certain she was talking to Fisk, the other one she arrived with in Maine. The detective with dark hair and eyes, whom she seemed closer to than the others. Whom Jenssen had misled by linking Abdulraheem to Bin-Hezam in the airport lounge in Sweden.

He was the lead investigator. What was she telling him?

The Swede has changed his cast?

She had played it cool, but Jenssen could not be too careful now. His background was impeccably respectable—but if they harbored too many suspicions, they would exclude him from tomorrow’s ceremony simply as a matter of precaution.

His arm ached, as with every throb against the hardening cast, the pain increased. The only reason for coming down to this gathering was to avoid suspicion caused by his absence. Now he was certain he had drawn suspicion and imperiled his mission by attending.

The shirtsleeve over his cast felt damp now. Given the pain, he imagined it was bright red with his blood, but a peek beneath the bar showed him it was clear. A combination of moisture from the setting gauze and perspiration. The faint chemical smell was masked by the musk and social desire of the lounge setting.

The flight attendant, Maggie, was the last of the group to leave, avoiding Jenssen either out of embarrassment or shame. She left with Detective Patton, chatting as casual companions. The IKEA manager, Sparks, was the more dangerous woman of the two. Clingy, prying, predatory. Taking the flight attendant back to his room had been a most effective way to neutralize the manager’s smothering desire.

And it had worked. God would forgive Jenssen for taking the flight attendant. Jenssen had been forgiven many times in the past.

So the rest of them had retired to their dreams of great fortune and fame—all to be dashed tomorrow morning. They had wasted their last night on Earth with drink and self-congratulation.