The building didn’t have the bulletproof concrete he’d sought at first. But it fulfilled his other demands. And since the walls lacked the sufficient thickness, he’d have to re-reinforce them himself. In the trunk and back seat of his car he had a heat gun, a toolbox, and polymer plastics and laminates. He was planning to build an inner security door out of plastic, much lighter than transporting a steel plate that weighed a few tons. A transparent film of bulletproof glass that could withstand gunfire even from some of the most difficult angles. A few years ago, he’d come across a Russian manufacturer who specialized in a plastic that was both hard and tough when vacuum-glued to ordinary glass, and he bought out his whole stock. And even at only a thickness of twenty-five millimeters it could withstand automatic gunfire.

He’d build the inner door first, then reinforce the balcony door, then reinforce all the windows.

He’d place seven tiny, hard-to-spot cameras at strategic points outside—strange how something so threatening in one context felt like protection in another—then put detcord in four spots, ambush-mines that he could easily activate from his cell phone.

And finally the most important improvement of all—the closet in one bedroom.

•   •   •

He couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t leave it be.

“Hello.”

She’d been just the press of a few buttons away.

“Hello? Who . . . ?”

“It’s me. Piet.”

He could hear Zofia’s silence. Her confusion.

“Your voice? Do you have a cold? It sounds like you’re having trouble breathing. Is everything all right?”

“I’ll explain when I see you.”

He tried to make out where she was. Interpret the sounds around her. He would guess she was doing the same.

“Tomorrow. You wrote that on the note.”

“Maybe earlier. I hope so. But I don’t know.”

“Where are you?”

“Not very far away.”

“What are you doing?”

She’d long since realized something had happened. And that they were back again to him keeping all the whats and whys to himself.

“I can’t tell you. Yet.”

“Your voice Piet—maybe it’s the connection? Can you call again?”

Home. That’s what it sounded like. He could hear the fridge buzzing, a creak in the stairs.

“Hugo? Rasmus? Luiza?”

“Everyone . . . everything’s fine. Hugo’s still in school, he’s coming home late today, Rasmus is at the neighbor’s playing football and Luiza is asleep.”

Then silence again. No fridge, no creaking.

Only her slow breath.

“Zo?”

“Yeah?”

“We can handle . . . anything, right?”

“Piet, what . . .”

“We can, right, Zo? Anything?”

She pulled out a chair, probably in the kitchen—sounded like the sharp scrape of the kitchen chairs.

“I think so.”

They didn’t say more. After a while he kissed the phone twice, and she kissed twice, and they hung up at the same time. Always an even number.

•   •   •