“No, you haven’t.”

“Yes. You were at my front gate!”

Damn security cameras, Jack thought.

“I knew it!” Dragovic shouted, purpling with rage as he pointed to Monnet. “You work for him, don’t you! He hired you to humiliate me!”

Where’d he get that idea? Jack wondered, but decided not to straighten him out. This might work right into his plans.

“Just sit there and be quiet while I talk to these bozos,” he said, dismissing Dragovic—which had to hurt him worse than another bullet. He turned to Monnet. “Where’s Nadia Radzminsky?”

Monnet seemed jolted by the question. But maybe frightened too. Hiding something? Jack couldn’t tell for sure.

“Nadia?” Monnet gave this nifty little Gallic shrug. “Why… home, I suppose.”

“She’s not. She’s missing.” He turned to the other two. “How about you guys? Any idea where I can find Nadia Radzminsky?”

“How should we know?” said the heavier, sweaty one.

“Radzminsky?” said the nervous ferret type. His eyes darted Monnet’s way. “Luc, isn’t that the new researcher we hired?”

“How do you know Nadia?” Monnet said.

Jack ignored him, concentrating on the other two. “How about Gleason—Douglas Gleason? He’s another of your people who’s MIA. Know anything about him?”

Bull’s-eye, Jack thought when he saw the ferret’s shocked expression. Here was a guy he’d like to play poker with.

Keeping a peripheral watch on Dragovic, Jack pointed his pistol at the ferret’s head.

“Nice haircut, but I think the part would look better on the other side, don’t you?”

The ferret clapped his hands against his scalp and ducked, crying, “Tell him, Luc! Tell him about Prather!”

Monnet closed his eyes and Jack stared at him, stunned. The only sound in the room was ripping cloth. Jack glanced at Dragovic and saw him tearing the silk lining from his suit coat and tying it around his wounded thigh.

‘Tell him!” the ferret screamed.

“Shut up, Brad!” Monnet said through his teeth.

“Ozymandias Prather?” Jack said, and watched the three partners’ faces go slack with shock.

“You know him?” Monnet said.

“I’m asking the questions.”

“No-no,” Monnet said, an excited look replacing the shock. “This is important! If you know him, then you must have seen the creature he calls the Sharkman.”

“Yeah. Saw it a few hours ago.” Where was this going?

“Then please tell this man,” Monnet said, pointing to Dragovic. “Tell him how the creature looks, how it’s at death’s door.”

“You kidding? It looks great—ready to bust out of its cage.”

Monnet looked ill as Dragovic pounded his fists on the table and shouted something about liars and traitors, but Jack wasn’t following because a sickening scenario was playing out in his mind.

He stepped closer to Monnet and pointed the pistol at his face.

“You!”

The doctor cringed. “What?”

“What did Oz and his boys do to Gleason?”

“Nothing.”

Jack jammed the muzzle of the silencer against Monnet’s temple, hard enough to make him wince. “You’ve got three seconds… two seconds…”

“He made him disappear!”