Lindstrom looked around wildly, as if he had been thrust into a horror film. “Now you’re frightening me.”

“I don’t meant to, Paulus, but these are frightening times. Mobius has made it so.”

* * *

The moment Valerie severed her connection with Lindstrom, she removed another mobile from the drawer of her bedside table, unlocked it with a passcode, and punched in a speed dial number. She spoke in low, urgent tones to the man who answered, giving him the particulars of where Lindstrom was and the parameters of the circumstances he had found himself in.

Then she called Preach.

“There is no reason to worry,” he said in his soft Louisiana drawl.

“But he’s being threatened by Luther St. Vincent, the head of NSA’s Directorate N.”

“Again, there’s no cause for concern. I am familiar with Luther.”

Valeria was used to this. Preach seemed familiar with virtually everyone; his personal network seemed endless.

“You made the right move, as always,” Preach continued. “The situation will take care of itself.”

“I can never understand why you’re so sure everything will always go our way.”

Preach laughed, and somehow, deep down in the base of her brain, she was wholly reassured.

* * *

When Preach’s armed driver delivered Lindstrom to her front door, Valerie had a large hot toddy waiting for him. He loved hot toddies even on warm nights. He was always cold, he’d told her.

“Do you know why Luther St. Vincent was so insistent about Mobius?” Valerie said.

Lindstrom shook his head, miserable.

“And up until now you had no inkling of either his interest or his involvement?”

“No. Omar Hemingway had been in charge of Mobius from the get-go.”

They were sitting together on her sofa. All the lights were on, another thing he liked. He was totally averse to darkness or shadows in a house.

Lindstrom was holding the mug with both hands, staring into it.

“Did you give it to him?”

Lindstrom looked up, startled. “What?”

Valerie sighed inwardly. “The update on Mobius.”

“I didn’t want to; he scares me. But I did.”

“I think he scares everyone, Paulus.”

Lindstrom’s head sank down onto his shoulders, like a startled turtle withdrawing into its shell. “Even so,” he said mournfully.

Clearly, St. Vincent had upset Lindstrom, frightened him, badly. If it had been anyone else, Valerie would have given him a reassuring pat on the knee, but she knew Lindstrom wouldn’t appreciate that.

He looked at her from under heavy brows. “I don’t want to go back to my apartment.”

“I don’t blame you.” She smiled with the supernatural reassurance Preach had given her. “You’ll stay here.”

“Really?”

He was such a little child. “You can bunk right here on the sofa; there’s plenty of room.” She rose. “I’ll get you bedclothes.” She was also going to update Preach, although he might already know; he was uncanny that way. She pointed. “The bathroom’s right down the hall. There’s a spare toothbrush in the medicine cabinet and I’ll put out a set of towels for you.”