“You’re predictable,” he said and paused. “There were four mooks inside the building. Fifteen bodies. They slaughtered the whole staff.”

Carmody winced.

“Malkira won’t be killing anyone else,” he said.

Dixon nodded. “There’s more we don’t know than we do about him,” he said. “And not just him. I feel like we still need all kinds of answers.”

Carmody held up the backpack. “Something tells me we might find some in here,” he said.

An hour later, Carmody got out of a JLTV at Barbers Point to find DeBattista on the field watching a team of Coast Guard runway jocks prep the Falcon for takeoff.

“Man,” he said, “you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Carmody said.

DeBattista smiled a little. “It’s all right. You can catch some beauty sleep on the way home.”

Carmody was quiet. DeBattista stood there a moment, then snapped his fingers.

“Almost forgot,” he said. “Your friend’s been asking around for you. The looker, I mean.”

“Her name’s Kali,” Carmody said. “Thought you told me you were going to keep your eyeballs in their sockets.”

DeBattista feigned looking wounded.

“I meant the other looker,” he said.

Carmody found Natasha Mori in the conference room where they had met with Harper and his aides the night before. She was at the table looking pensive over a cup of coffee.

“I heard you wanted to see me,” he said.

She regarded him but said nothing. He stepped in from the entryway.

“You OK?” he said.

Natasha hesitated.

“She’s gone,” she said.

He looked at her. “Who’s gone?”

“Kali.”

Carmody felt like he wasn’t tracking.

“What are you talking about? We take off in an hour.” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder toward the airfield. “The plane’s out there getting fueled up.”

“I know,” Natasha said. “She said you would understand.”

He suddenly felt even more confused.

“Understand what?”

“Why she couldn’t go back to New York with us.” Natasha shook her head. “She said to tell you sometimes people have to leave. And she just left.”

Carmody looked at her in silence.

His jaw clenched. His heart froze.

Then it plunged to the center of the earth and kept dropping.