He stood at the hotel room window staring out between its parted curtains. The sun had moved west across Manhattan, and Lexington Avenue was awash in shade and shadow. The automatic climate control had lowered his air conditioner a tick as the weather cooled outside, leaving the room a little stuffy. He turned to get a bottle of water out of the fridge and reviewed what he’d learned.

His call to Hughes had lasted exactly four minutes and twelve seconds. In that time, he’d learned Musil had left Stephen Gelfland’s home with two items. One was Gelfland’s photograph, which would be a problem. The Wolf’s image manipulation software was like a probing eye searching the internet for photos of the real Gelfland. Spot his face on a website, find it in a database, and Grigor’s face would replace it. But for all its applied artificial intelligence, the software couldn’t eliminate wild-card variables like the photograph on Hughes’s phone. And digital space was too vast for real-time capabilities. It was fast, but not instantaneous. There would be a lag, a short gap in time between an image popping up online and its detection and substitution.

All of which Grigor had anticipated. The Gelfland deception was designed to have built-in obsolescence. The store receipt was the only surprise.

He closed his eyes. He remembered Gelfland leaving his car in his driveway the night of the kill, then walking across his lawn to his front door. Hidden in the darkness, Grigor had called out to him as he crossed the yard, mimicking Gelfland’s responses, making himself sound like Gelfland, fine-tuning his vocal impersonation in case it was needed in the future...

“Steve, hi.”

“Hello? Who is it? Hello?”

Grigor had waited until he reached his front door to take him out. Had come up behind him and locked one gloved hand over his mouth and brought his Walther up to the base of his skull.

“I’ll be a fine version of you, Steve. Promise.”

There had been a noisy clatter. Grigor could hear it now in his mind. He was Level Three Pinnacle with a trained photographic memory and could replay it all in clear and perfect detail. Could slow it all down and speed it all up and freeze it where he wanted a closer look.

Gelfland had carried a full grocery sack from his car, and its contents spilled out onto the ground as he struggled for his life. Glass bottles, other things. Then Grigor had put two .22-caliber bullets in his brain, and his thrashing stopped.

He drank some water, remembering, his eyelids pressed tightly together. As Gelfland had sagged out of his arms, he’d gathered the groceries off the lawn and walk and loaded them into the bag. Turkey. Loose potatoes. Three bottles of ale. Paper towels and some canned and boxed food...