“Yes.”

They ate some more of their food. Outside, the Buddy Holly simulacrum had done a gradual fadeout and Elvis Presley, the genuine article, was singing about how he couldn’t help falling in love with someone.

Nimec looked at Megan.

“I’ve also got a personal favor to ask, if you don’t mind,” he said.

She nodded.

“It involves Annie.”

Megan waited.

“Before she came along, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to worry about anything or anyone besides UpLink,” Nimec said. “I’ve had to rethink that, though. Take a new look at my responsibilities. What they are, and what they should be. I figure Africa’s probably going to be business as usual. But you know how it is.”

Megan nodded again.

“Yes,” she said, “I do. You can’t afford to let things slide.”

Nimec paused, transferred his food container from his lap to the top of the dash, and moved forward a little in his seat.

“Jon’s got his mother to take care of him, and I know he’ll always be okay,” he said after a bit. “With Annie it’s different. She’s tough. Good at handling things, been relying on herself a long time. But I don’t want her to have to do that anymore. Don’t want to be thinking there’s a chance she’s ever going to be alone.”

Megan gave him a third nod.

“Annie’s my friend, Pete,” she said. “More, she’s one of ours now. Package deal. You know what comes with that.”

He looked at her, then grunted.

“She’ll be in town a couple of weeks from now, staying at my condo with the kids. Hers and mine. We were supposed to see a ball game . . . and if you have time—”

“At your service,” Megan said. “I’ll invite them over for dinner and ask if they want to stay overnight. Annie’s been scoffing at my claim to virtuosity in the kitchen, so it’ll give me a chance to show her up and feed the brood all at once.”

“Uh-oh,” Nimec said. “Double jeopardy.”

“Is this what you consider being grateful?”

“No,” he said. “Realistic.”

Megan stretched her lips into an exaggerated frown, reached for his food container, and set it back onto his lap.

“Eat a clam, buster,” she said.

Madrid. One o’clock in the afternoon. His model church on a table near the apartment window, Kuhl’s curtains were drawn, a pale light filtering through their sheer white fabric to throw a shadow of the church, still towerless, onto a wall and corner of the ceiling. Under a fluorescent swing-arm magnifier clamped to the table, the tower subassembly awaited his last touches of detail.

Across the room, Kuhl sat at a notebook computer joined to a cable Internet connection, his eyes fastened to its screen as he clicked onto a private conferencing site and typed in his security key. Headset on, he waited a moment and was forwarded to the next level of channel-specific authentication.

The prompt for his first spoken pass phrase appeared.