The clip went on for another two minutes. Grigor watched it to the end, silently mouthing Musil’s responses, syncing up with his speech patterns. With the second and third replays, he began answering along with Musil in a normal voice.

“I was doing my job. A child was in danger, and I responded... When you say community... I’m a husband, a father, a devout Sikh...”

Grigor studied the video several more times, breaking the agent’s voice down into all its components: its pitch and formants, its phrasing and articulation, its emphases, intonations and rhythmic and melodic changes. There were two or three additional interview clips, and he again went through multiple replays of each, mimicking the agent’s answers to reporters’ questions, copying and refining the man’s vocal characteristics.

An hour passed before he got up and went over to the dressing table. He was ready to test the quality of his impersonation.

“Hello, this is Amenjot Musil,” he said, standing in front of the mirror. “I’m calling about my daughters, who are students at your school.”

He grinned, satisfied.

His reflection grinned back.

Kali was at her laptop when Carmody got back to her apartment. She heard him come through the door and quickly shut its lid.

“Everything’s set,” he said as he entered the dining room.

“When do we leave?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

She looked at him. “I still have to speak to Natasha Mori.”

“Yeah.”

He pulled out a chair and sat beside her at the table.

“Your BMW’s a sweet bike,” he said.

“You managed not to crash?”

“No fair. Last time I was chasing a souped-up car in the snow. And there were major haystacks.”

She laughed. It rose up from deep inside her, throaty and thick as syrup. Carmody realized he had never heard her laugh like that before.

“I saw Duchess on the way back from the airport,” he said. “I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

“In exchange for?”

“Her doing me one,” he said. “It’s tied to the missing cable ship. I’ll explain later.”

Kali nodded. “Go on,” she said.

“There’s a company called Seven Winds based out of Penang,” he said. “I want to grab some files from its human resources system.”

“How soon do you need them?”

“Before we fly.”

Kali met his gaze.

“There’s a twelve-hour time difference,” she said. “If I’m to do this, I would have to start now.”

Carmody gave a small shrug.

“I’ll try to stay out of your hair,” he said.

Leo Harris slouched at his desk behind a tall stack of adoption forms. It was now an hour after his meeting with Morse and the prof about the Stalwart situation, and he’d placed some calls to hustle along the CloudCable warrants.