Christine spent the night at police headquarters undergoing a battery of coffee-fueled interrogations that tested her stamina, not to mention her resolve. In the end she gave up nothing about David’s whereabouts. At the stroke of six in the morning, on the verge of exhaustion, she told them she was pregnant, a fact that Sjoberg had apparently not forwarded to the interrogators. It was a blatantly self-serving use of her intimate condition, but seemed to do the trick. Two hours later Commissioner Anna Forsten of the Swedish National Police came to see her. She explained that criminal charges would be considered, but were not imminent. Christine was free to go, but asked to remain available for further questioning in the coming days. To emphasize this final point, her passport would be held by the police.

From there Christine went straight to Saint Göran Hospital. After a phone introduction from Dr. Ulrika Torsten, she was taken by the supervising critical care nurse to Anton Bloch’s room. There she hit another roadblock in the form of a plainclothes security man who might have been Stockholm police or, more likely, she thought, the Swedish equivalent of the FBI. Two phone calls later, Commissioner Forsten authorized Christine’s admittance, reasoning that she was the patient’s only known acquaintance in Stockholm. Christine suspected more self-serving motives, and she noticed the guard at the door watching closely as she took a seat next to Bloch’s bed.

He was breathing on his own now and, according to a nurse who came and went, the operation had been a success. The patient, however, had yet to regain consciousness. Even asleep Bloch looked his gruff, serious self, and it seemed comforting in an oblique way. She settled into a bedside chair, ready to keep vigil over the man who had put his life on the line to save hers. She had an urge to take his hand, and when she did Christine sensed a shift in the guard’s gaze.

That will be in the report, she thought.

The chair’s soft faux leather took its hold and she began to relax. She wondered what David was doing right now. He was in Geneva, of course. Lying, cheating, stealing—all the things he was trained to do. But would he take the last step? Would he kill? He had done so before many times, always in the name of his country. But now?