The cartoon map that we’d stuck to the wall earlier now had a lot more pins in it. The smoke detector had been pulled out of the wall and craftily disabled in a way so as to not set the rest of them off. Earl wasn’t the only smoker present. I swear, are there any Europeans who don’t smoke? The room was swimming in fumes. Luckily the balcony door was open or my asthma would have been killing me.

Julie excused herself from the Australian boss when she saw me come in. I was sure glad to see her. “You’re back.” She gave me a hello kiss. “And you taste like bratwurst…Where have you been?”

“I went to talk to Mosh.”

“From what you said on the phone, I figured that was what you were doing.” Julie was truly fond of my brother and was genuinely concerned for his well-being. “How’d that go?”

“Not good. I wound up slugging him in the mouth.”

“Really, Owen?” Julie put her hands on her hips. “Really? You know tough love is just an expression, right?”

I shrugged. “I’ll tell you all about it later.” Well, since she wouldn’t approve of my actions, nor did I like to bring up her condition, I’d tell her something. “Has everyone heard about the symbol I found?”

Julie nodded. “As much as we could share without getting into all the complicated stuff.”

“Appreciate it.” I had enough problems without all these strangers knowing about the odd things that I’d accomplished. As Stricken had said, there were blank spots in my file, and I wanted to keep it that way. “So what’s going on now?”

She pointed at the map. “We’ve made a gentlemen’s agreement with about half the companies at the conference. We’re going to share more information, especially about anything suspicious relating to this pattern. Lee got volunteered to coordinate and set up a sort of information clearinghouse. I think maybe we’ve even laid the groundwork to actually work together in the future. When the next event occurs, we’re going to be ready to strike fast, anywhere in the world, and get some answers.”

“Really?” That was good work for such a short amount of time. “Impressive.”

There was a sudden bang as something hit the linoleum in the kitchenette, and then two men were shoving each other against the fridge. I recognized one from the company out of Tel Aviv, and he had a thin man with curly black hair in a headlock. “Isn’t that the dude from Cairo?” The two of them were forcefully separated by some of the other Hunters.