A voice changer made the caller sound like a robot. The phone number listed on the caller ID said the caller was OUT OF AREA. Austin remembered Buck’s words when Austin had confronted him at TopkapiPalace.

My employer has other plans for her.

Carina had never made it to Penn Station. Austin pursed his lips. He mentally retraced Carina’s steps that day, hoping that he’d recall a clue to her disappearance. Carina had told no one else of her plans to go to the Met. He remembered overhearing her making last-minute plans with the museum people that morning on his phone.

Austin picked up the phone to call Zavala, but his hand froze in midair. He put the phone down as if it had turned into a rattlesnake and went out onto the deck.

The air carried a rank but not unpleasant smell of mud and rotting vegetation. Lovelorn frogs croaked soft love songs against the insect chorus. The river was a pale ghost in the light of a half-moon. He remembered the prowler who’d watched the house the night of his first dinner with Carina. The tall oak tree where he had found the footprint was silhouetted against the dull sheen of the river.

The prowler had done more than prowl.

Austin went back through the house and out to the car. He drove to the end of the long driveway, turned onto the road, and drove five miles before stopping. He removed the cell phone from its dashboard holder and punched in a number from memory.

A deep voice answered: “Flagg here.”

“I could use your help,” Austin said. “Can you come by my house? Bring a fumigator.”

“Twenty minutes,” Flagg said and hung up.

Flagg was probably at Langley. Austin didn’t know where his old colleague lived. Maybe he didn’t have a home other than the CIA headquarters, where he spent most of his time between troubleshooting assignments that took him around the world.

Austin drove back to the boathouse. He was angry at himself for not insisting that Carina stay out of view, although it probably wouldn’t have done any good. Carina was fearless when it came to her own safety.

Two vehicles pulled into the drive exactly twenty-five minutes after Austin called. Flagg got out of a Yukon. A slim young man wearing coveralls emerged from a panel truck that had the name of a pest control company painted on the doors.

The fumigator introduced himself as the Bug Man. He set an aluminum case on the study floor and snapped the lid open. He removed a gadget that looked like a Buck Rogers ray gun and pointed its flared barrel at the walls as he swiveled on his heel.

Working quickly, the Bug Man surveyed each room on the ground level and then climbed up the spiral staircase to the turret bedroom. He came down a few minutes later and went to repack his electronic gear.