“What I meant,” he said, “was that I thought you would be home with your girls.”

Musil nodded again. He had showered the grit out of his hair and changed his clothes. But he looked wiped out.

“Jani and Raysa are at their uncle and aunt’s,” he said. “Morse arranged for an ESU detail to watch the house. Police special operations.”

“Good,” Carmody said. “It would be better if their dad’s around to hug them.”

Musil bowed his head slightly.

“You saved their lives,” he said. “Thank you.”

“You had a part in it.”

“Without you, Malkira would have killed us all.”

“Maybe.” Carmody shrugged. “I still don’t understand why you came here tonight.”

“Morse told me you have an idea where he’s gone.”

“She say what we’re thinking about that?”

Musil shook his head. “She wouldn’t be specific. She feels the same as you do. That I should go home and leave it to you.”

“She’s right.”

“No,” Musil said. “It isn’t over. Malkira’s out there somewhere. He could try to hurt my girls again.”

“I’ll see that he won’t.”

“I want to help.”

Carmody looked at him. “I already have my team,” he said. “We’re leaving tonight.”

“Where to?”

“Hawaii,” Carmody said. “Six thousand miles from here. Your family needs you to be with them.”

“If Grigor Malkira has left New York, he’s no threat to them right now.”

Carmody was quiet a moment.

“Something big is going on. It’s more than him. It’s the Stalwart, and it’s a whole lot of other stuff.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. I’m just saying that whatever we’re headed into is going to be dangerous as hell.”

“I need to help.”

“Stay here with your family.”

Musil shook his head.

“It would be the easier choice,” he said. “But you were a soldier. You are a warrior. You know that sometimes you can’t stay. Sometimes you have to leave to protect them.”

Carmody was quiet, his eyes holding steadily on his face. Several long seconds passed. At last, he nodded his head toward the entrance to the skybridge.

“Come on,” he said. “They’re waiting downstairs.”

Carmody and Musil crossed the skybridge to the adjunct, then got in an elevator and took it down as far as it went.

They stepped out into a corridor with a uniformed guard at its head. On his shoulder was the Quickdraw patch of Net Force’s rapid response team.

Quickdraw was primarily meant to do its work overseas. In founding principle, the Force did not have the same legal jurisdiction to conduct armed missions within the United States as the FBI, Homeland Security or local police departments. Under the umbrella of protective operations, however, it could do so in support of those agencies, as well as the National Guard and Coast Guard. It therefore had some flexibility participating in law-enforcement and intelligence operations.