'I thought nothing got to you, Danny,' Agent Atta was saying in low, personal-pep-talk tones. 'What is it you always say?'

'That if you shit on my plate, I'd simply eat around it.'

Atta laughed, but it sounded forced. 'Now that's the Danny Gerard I know…'

Then, with the dull spark of revelations outdistanced by catastrophe, Thomas understood. Neil. Neil was pulling them under. Starved for resources by the public furor over the Chiropractor, barred from seeking outside help by Neil's NSA past, unnerved and outwitted… They were out of their depth. They'd been treading water, and now that Thomas was drowning, they could no longer pretend to see the shore.

Agent Atta turned with a brisk and dismissive air, apparently far more heartened by her words of encouragement than Gerard.

'Listen, professor…'

'Spare me the harangue, agent. I'm not one of your troops.'

She stared at him for a thoughtful moment, then nodded. 'Just a question before I go.'

Thomas rubbed the back of his neck. 'Shoot.'

'We already know these abductions aren't random.'

Thomas nodded. 'He's picking tokens, people who represent something.'

'Exactly. With Gyges you suggested he was trying to undermine the notion of personhood. With Cynthia Powski, obviously, his target was pleasure, or suffering I guess, depending on how you look at it. With Congressman Halasz, he was gunning for the will and responsibility. And now with Reverend Forrest, spirituality.'

'Humanity,' Thomas said. 'Each represents a fundamental characteristic of what we think it means to be human. But this is all old hat, agent; why rehash it now?'

'Because it means we might be able to anticipate him. If we can figure out what characteristic or trait or whatever he's gunning for next, we might be able to draw up a list of potential…' She trailed, apparently troubled by Thomas's expression.

'What is it, professor?'

'Love,' Thomas said softly. 'His next target is love.'

He pressed thumb and forefinger against his eyes.

'How can you be so sure?'

'Because,' Thomas said to his palm, 'he already has his token.'

My son.

That night he suffered through one of those skidding sleeps, where he fell in and out of dreams, some bizarre, some terrifying—all of them bad. He would wake up, his head and face throbbing, then slip back into a long argument with Neil about nothing in particular, certainly nothing to do with what was happening in the waking world. The prick would shrug and smile his what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you smile, then the nightmare proper would begin again. Gunshots. Dead little kids, refusing to behave, always refusing…

Then ringing.

His thoughts reeled at the groggy entrance to consciousness. He slapped at the alarm, but realized it was his phone.

His eyes itched, his face felt sunburn swollen—from crying, he imagined. He fumbled in the darkness, managed to grab the receiver.