“You went looking into things and lit a fire, and someone saw smoke,” he said. “I’m the firefighter. I was sent to put it out. I think you know what that means without my saying it. I don’t want to upset your little lambs. But I think you know.”

“I want to speak to my daughters.”

Grigor glanced at the window shade, fully drawn now as if to seal the room away from the rest of the world. Hawaii was waiting. He had big things to do there. But outside was outside, and inside was inside, and he could not afford to look past the present moment.

He lowered the phone from his ear, looked at the older girl.

“Mittha,” he said, using the pet name he had read off Musil’s lips outside the school. He waved her toward him with a wobble of the gun. “Come here. Your father wants to talk.”

She stared at him a moment from the corner of the wall. Then she dropped her arm from around Raysa’s shoulders and stood up and came toward him, her head and back straight, trying to look brave, marching like a soldier.

He waited for her to get about two-thirds of the way across the room.

“OK, far enough,” he said. “I want you to tell your father you love him. Just that. I...love...you...Daddy. One more word, and I’ll shoot out your sister’s front teeth.”

Jani stood there looking scared and forlorn but composed. He pressed the speaker button and held out the phone and nodded.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said, clearly.

Grigor took the phone off Speaker. “Back to your sister,” he said, wobbling the gun on his knee again.

He watched her return to the corner, put the phone up to his ear. “Agent Musil?”

“Yes.”

“You asked to hear your daughter, and you heard her,” he said. “Would you prefer I don’t kill her? And the little one?”

Silence.

“Musil?”

“I don’t want you to hurt them,” Musil said.

Grigor nodded.

“Then listen carefully to what I want.”

Musil’s line went dead. Malkira had disconnected.

He sat a moment, everyone in the room looking at him in silence. Then he half turned toward Harris.

“My daughter’s phone,” he said. “He told me he took it from her.”

Leo looked at him.

“Both girls have phones,” Musil said.

“Trey, c’mere!” exclaimed the tech from her console.

Her name was Wonder Castro, and she had been trying to find the Musil girls utilizing the Force’s Needlefish phone tracking system.

“One sec,” he said, noting her urgent tone.

Trey was her colleague Trevon Raymore. He had been across the aisle at his own console, attempting a standard GPS trace.