DeVane stared out at the dying sunlight and nodded. Begela made for the perfect functionary; his mind was like an orderly desk drawer in a drab office. Reach inside, and you would find every needed supply in the right place, but never a single surprise.

“Proceed,” he said, and did not wait for a response before terminating the call and going below to send Kuhl his notification.

Big Sur. The balance of the day trembling at midnight’s edge. Occasional breezes blowing across the open canyon from the sea, strong and thick with moisture, blurring the long drop down in kettle swirls of mist.

Siegfried Kuhl sat before his notebook computer, reading an e-mail he had received only moments ago, his rigid features bathed in the amber firelight of a kerosene storm lamp on the living-room mantel. Around his desk, the huge black Schutzhund dogs lay quiet. Two of them slept, their sides rising and falling with their slow, regular breaths. The third watched the cabin door at Kuhl’s back. It was a pack instinct reinforced through training. By turns, one of the shepherds would remain awake and vigilant at all times.

The coded message displayed in front of Kuhl said:

If the cuckoo calls when the hedge is brown, Sell thy horse and buy thy corn.

In European folklore, the song of the cuckoo heard in September or October—when the hedge is brown—is an ill portent to farmers. An omen that the autumn food harvest is imperiled, warning them to be ready to take counteractive measures, and fill their stores with that which is most precious for survival throughout the long, cold months to come.

Kuhl stared at the computer. His time, then, was coming. Coming very soon.

He closed his e-mail program and opened his digital image viewer. Arranged in several rows across the screen now were scrupulously labeled folders of photographic stills. Kuhl opened one of them, selecting an image set of a blond woman he knew to be of early middle age, although his eyes glinted with cold appreciation of her exceptionally youthful appearance. Tall, slender, elegant, and stylishly dressed, Ashley Gordian possessed the refined beauty that came of good genes and exquisite care.

The first series of high-resolution frames showed her lunching with another woman at an outdoor café. In the next, Kuhl saw her through the clear glass walls of Palo Alto’s main library branch on Newell Street, the camera following her as she checked out her pile of books at the loan desk and carried them onto the patio. The next group was taken from outside a clothing boutique. Through its storefront window, she had been photographed at the sales counter signing for a credit card purchase, then smiling at the cashier as she was handed her bags, then carrying them to the door. On the street, she had walked directly to her parked Lexus sedan and driven off with her purchases in the backseat.