“And he saw a person of interest in Rome last November,” Benton says over the phone. “All I can tell you is this patient of interest served in Iraq, seems he’s a referral from Dr. Self.”

“And?” Lucy logs on to the Internet.

“Josh just finished the scan. The one aborted. On a person who’s leaving tonight, meaning no more forwarded e-mails. Time is of the essence.”

“Still there? The person who’s leaving?”

“Right now, yes. Josh has already left, has a sick baby at home. Is in a hurry.”

“If you give me your password, I can access the network,” Lucy says. “That will make it easier. But you’re going to be down for about an hour.”

She reaches Josh on his cell phone. He’s in his car, driving away from the hospital. That’s even better. She tells him Benton can’t get into his e-mail, there’s something going on with the server, she has to fix it immediately, sounds like it will take some time. She can do it remotely, but she needs the system administrator password unless he wants to turn around and handle it himself. He sure doesn’t want to do that, starts talking about his wife, their baby. Okay, it would be great if Lucy could take care of it. They work on technical problems all the time, and it would never occur to him that her intention is to access a patient’s e-mail account and Dr. Maroni’s private files. Even if Josh suspected the worst, he would assume she would just hack in, wouldn’t ask. He knows her abilities, how she makes her money, for God’s sake.

She doesn’t want to hack into Benton’s hospital. And it would take too long. An hour later, she calls Benton back. “Don’t have time to look,” she says. “Leave that up to you. I forwarded everything. And your e-mail’s up.”

She leaves the lab and rides off on her Agusta Brutale motorcycle and is overwhelmed by anxiety and anger. Dr. Self is at McLean. She has been for almost two weeks. Goddamn it. Benton has known it.

She rides fast, the warm wind slapping her helmet, as if trying to bring her to her senses.