“Not really. I was told that after finding the suspect’s boat abandoned near Chinatown, that you phoned your contacts at the FBI and filled them in on what happened. All federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, as well as the border patrol, customs agents, and Coast Guard, have been placed on high alert in connection with a very discreet APB. This has something to do with the hijacking, doesn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

“I might look young, Agent Harvath, but I’m not stupid. People like Meg Cassidy don’t normally develop the kind of enemies who blow up offices and then escape in a hail of automatic-weapon fire. Besides, someone just brought me this from the fax in my car,” said Gasteire as he held up the CIA’s sketch of Hashim Nidal. Meg felt a wave of revulsion wash through her at the sight of it.

“The last time I saw this face was during a press conference from Cairo after the hijacking, wasn’t it?” said the detective, pressing Harvath for confirmation of his assumption.

“You could be right, but I don’t suppose the powers that be want that spread around,” said Harvath.

“No, they don’t. The mere mention that a terrorist wanted only days ago for a hijacking in Cairo has somehow managed to slip into this country, blow up an office building in Chicago, and kill two FBI agents would cause widespread panic.”

“If it’s any consolation, the man in that picture is not who you’re looking for.”

“He’s not? Then why was I sent this?”

“Because that’s who the government believes was behind the explosion this morning.”

“And you’re saying the government is wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Based on what?”

“I saw him.”

“Wait a second. From what I understand, the suspect’s face was completely covered with a helmet.”

“It was.”

“Then how can you say this isn’t the same person?”

“Because I saw his eyes.”

“You what?”

“I saw his eyes. It was a different person. It was someone who works with the man the government is looking for.”

“Are you sure?”

“These are eyes like no eyes you have ever seen before; they’re-”

“Silver,” interrupted Meg, “and they can grow as black as night in an instant.”

Meg had thrown Harvath for a loop. “How did you know that?” he asked.

“On the plane. When Nidal first accosted me, the man with the silver eyes stopped him.”

“How come you didn’t tell anybody this before?”

“I did, but everyone seemed to be more interested in what I saw upstairs in the lounge when I pulled Nidal’s mask off.”

“What exactly did this man do?”

“When he saw what Nidal was trying to do to me, he got very upset. Some angry words went quietly back and forth, and then Nidal backed down-for the time being. I went back to my seat, and it wasn’t until later that he reappeared and forced me upstairs.”

Every one of the passengers on flight 7755 said the brown-eyed man gave all the orders, but what Meg was claiming took place between the two hijackers didn’t make sense. If Nidal was in charge, why did he back down? There had to be something more-something they weren’t seeing. A nagging suspicion began to tug at the edge of Harvath’s mind.

“Did anything else happen? Anything else at all that you can remember or didn’t think was significant?” he asked.

“No. Not really,” she lied. She held back the fact that she had been incredibly drawn to the hijacker’s luminescent silver eyes, had felt herself drowning in them, and that when he touched her cheek with his gloved hand, she felt an odd feeling of awe mixed with gratitude. She had heard it referred to once as Stockholm Syndrome-when hostages begin to identify with their captors, but Meg knew her reaction was something more than that. She was ashamed of her feelings and felt it best to keep them to herself.

“Okay, then I want to focus on getting you someplace safe,” said Harvath.

“Even though I never gave you an answer about what we discussed this morning?” Meg was choosing her words carefully in front of Gasteire.

“That doesn’t make any difference. Your safety is the number-one priority here.”

“So I guess this means I don’t get to ask any more questions,” injected Detective Gasteire.

“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Harvath. “There’s really no more either of us can tell you anyway.”

“Whether that’s true or not, we may never know.”

“Trust me, Detective, if there was anything we knew that could help you, you’d have it.”

“Then I guess that’s it.”

“Not exactly. There is one more thing.”

“What?”

“We need one of your officers to give us a ride.”

“I have to check out the boat over by Chinatown anyway. Where do you need to go?”

“We’re going back to Ms. Cassidy’s place on Astor Street to pack up some of her things-”

“No, we’re not,” said Meg. “We’re going to check in on Judy and the others at the hospital. Then we can go to my place.”

Harvath didn’t like it. “I don’t think that’s such a hot idea, Meg.”

“And why not?’

“Because at least with your apartment, we can send in a team to sweep first. The hospital is too large, too public a place. Our friend might be expecting you put in an appearance there.”

“Then you come up with a way to get us in without him knowing. Until I see my people, I’m not going anywhere else with you.”

Scot could see that she was serious. He thought for a moment and then pulled Detective Gasteire aside. Fifteen minutes later, Harvath and Meg had discreetly climbed into an ambulance via a lower-level loading dock and were on their way. Gasteire met them at one of the seldom-used alley entrances of Northwestern Hospital’s main facility. He provided them with surgical scrubs, long white lab coats, paper hats, and booties. Harvath was happy to get out of his wet clothes. He fastened his belt around his waist so he could continue to carry his gun and placed the rest of his belongings in the deep pockets of the lab coat. Everything else was left in the waiting ambulance.

Gasteire escorted them from room to room. Several of Meg’s staff were already close to being discharged and sent home. She spent time with two men who would probably be staying in the hospital through the week and promised their families that they would receive the absolute best care. Harvath was moved by Meg’s loyalty to the people that worked for her.

The last patient they visited was the most distressing and the one Meg was most concerned about, her assistant, Judy. Meg didn’t want to go into the room alone and so asked Scot to come in with her. Burn Unit rules were some of the strictest around and with good reason, few patients were as prone to infection and the deadly complications it could bring.

Harvath and Meg scrubbed as if they were going into surgery and donned new paper caps, booties, and disposable paper gowns. They were also required to wear gloves and masks-the biggest risk being an infection transmitted via the respiratory system. Detective Gasteire sat outside their door holding Harvath’s SIG and other personal belongings.

At the sight of her good friend, Meg Cassidy began to cry. Because of her charred lungs, Judy was enclosed in a plastic oxygen tent and on a ventilator. The area where the flesh of her chest and arms had been burned away was covered in some places with a thick white salve and in others with wet-to-dry bandages soaked in a special saline solution. Morphine for pain and antibiotics to fight infection were intermingled with her IV fluid. Judy’s eyes were closed, and it was hard for Meg to tell if she was sleeping or not. Harvath, though, knew that the woman was on so much pain medication that she was in a state much deeper than sleep.

All Meg wanted to do was take her friend’s hand and tell her everything was going to be okay, but that was impossible. Nothing was allowed to breach the patient’s oxygen tent. Though they were only inches apart, the inability for them to physically connect made Meg feel as if a chasm hundreds of miles wide lay between them.