“But we can be a great deal of help to you,” Stratton persisted. “You need us to find your wife.”

“You could have told me in Zurich,” Ridgeway growled. “We could have worked together then.”

“We’ve been over all this before,” Stratton interrupted patiently. “We didn’t know then what we know now.”

“You could have told me what you knew.”

“I couldn’t…”

“You could have,” Ridgeway said angrily. “By every moral principle, you should have.”

Stratton stared off into the middle distance of his thoughts. Finally he sighed. “There was the matter of security,” Stratton said, almost to himself. “I had to have approval, clearances. This was—is—a classified matter. It takes time to get all the necessary approvals.”

“The goddamned fire was no secret,” Ridgeway flared up. “Zoe’s absence was no secret! Just what was so goddamned fucking classified about things?”

“There’s no reason to get blasphemous,” Stratton said quietly. “It doesn’t help us solve anything.”

Ridgeway stared at Stratton incredulously and shook his head.

“Listen, I know you’re angry,” Stratton began. “You have every right to be. Ancf upset too. But the best way to locate her is for you and me to work together.”

Ridgeway shook his head violently.

“I saved your life,” Stratton said. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“You used me as bait. You only saved me from a situation you could have prevented. You invaded my privacy, tapped my telephone, followed me everywhere, watched my boat so you could be there to catch them when they arrived. Whoever they are. You seem to have done such a trustworthy job that just about everybody is dead, almost including me. And for that I should trust you?”

Ridgeway shook his head and took another sip of the coffee.

Stratton got up and crossed the room to the coffee table. He reached for a plastic cup and then changed his mind. He tossed the cup on the table and then sagged wearily into a pseudo-Scandinavian chair next to the table. He wiped his face with the palm of his hand and leaned back.

“I think maybe I should have just let the man cut you open like he did the chauffeur,” Stratton countered.

“Maybe you should have,” Ridgeway said quickly. “Because I’m going to be no damn use to you.”

Stratton shook his head.

“What will it take?” Stratton said.

“For what?”

Stratton closed his eyes for an instant and grimaced. He took a deep breath and exhaled audibly.

“What would it take to get you to work with us?”

Ridgeway shook his head ruefully as he carried his coffee over to the foot of the bed nearest Stratton and sat down facing him.

“You don’t understand,” Ridgeway said. “I don’t trust you. I don’t work with anybody I don’t trust.”

“Mr. Ridgeway, I admire your principles,” Stratton said. “But the world can’t afford them. We’ve gotten ourselves involved in something that may affect the stability of the Western world and you just may hold the key. But you want to sit on your cherished principles while the rest of the world goes to hell!”