Musil thought a moment. “He was able to impersonate me. Well enough to fool a man I’ve met before. Someone that good could have prepared a change of cars.”

“Or a place nearby where he intends to lay low,” Carmody said. “We can still get a fix on those phones. On or off.”

“Don’t you think he would discard them?”

“I think we need to get back to the Terminal and find out.”

Musil nodded. Then had a realization push suddenly into his brain. “My wife. I have to tell her. She’s out of town.”

“Where?”

“Milwaukee.”

“Work or family?”

“She’s visiting her brother.”

“He able to protect her?”

Musil nodded. “Sayad was in the Army.”

“Then she ought to stay put. She doesn’t have to know about the girls yet.”

“I won’t lie to her.”

“I’m not saying you lie. Just hold off telling her. Do that and she’ll want to come home. She’s safer there right now.”

Musil put a hand up to his forehead and rubbed.

“He killed Ki.”

“Yeah.”

“He has my daughters.”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t lose them. We have to get them back.”

Carmody looked at him.

“Trust me,” he said. “We will.”

“The first thing I’m going to explain,” Grigor said, “is that I don’t allow my passengers to have cell phones.”

He held his pistol steady, its silenced barrel nosing out at the girls between the Mazda’s front seats.

Jani stared at him. Her spine felt like a pole made of ice. She heard her sister sobbing beside her and kept holding her hand.

“No need for tears,” Grigor said. “I just want to know if either of you has a phone.”

Neither of them answered.

He leaned forward, held the barrel three inches from Jani’s face and made a wiggling motion with it.

“Tell me,” he said.

She tightened her hand around Raysa’s.

“Tell me.”

Jani sat there staring at him, the cold spreading out from her back to her ribs and circling around her chest, making her shiver all over. But she didn’t answer.

Keeping his pale blue eyes on her face, Grigor thrust his arm farther out between the seats and angled the gun toward Raysa, pushing the o of the silencer’s bore up against the right side of her head. She made a high, mewling sound, fresh tears squirting from her eyes.

“Yes or no, big sister,” he said.

“Please leave her alone—”

“Then, tell me. Last chance.”

Jani looked at him. “Yes,” she said, her lips trembling. “I have one. I have a phone.”

“Where is it?”

“In my backpack.”

“Where in your backpack?”

“In the outside pouch.”

He glanced over at the two packs in the front passenger seat. “Are you sure? Because I’ll be very disappointed if it isn’t there.”

“I’m sure.”