After Hardwick and Esti were gone—after her agile little Mini and his rumbling GTO had turned past the barn and headed down the mountain road—Gurney sat gazing out at the pile of lumber and pondering the henhouse project it represented.

Then his mind proceeded from the henhouse to Horace. He forced himself out of his chair and through the side hallway to the mudroom.

Back in the house a little while later after reburying the rooster, Gurney found that whatever sense of organization and control he’d experienced during the meeting with Hardwick and Esti had evaporated, and he was taken aback by the improvisational sketchiness of what he had boldly been calling a “plan.” Now the whole caroming enterprise felt downright amateurish—driven more by anger, pride, and optimistic assumptions than by facts or real capabilities on the ground.

What they “knew” about Petros Panikos, after all, was little more than a hodgepodge of rumors and anecdotes from sources of widely varying credibility. The uncertain provenance of the data opened the door to an unsettling range of possibilities.

What, he asked himself, was he sure of?

In truth, very little. Very little beyond the implacable nature of the enemy—his proven willingness to do anything to achieve a goal or make a point. If evil was, as one of Gurney’s philosophy professors had once insisted, “intellect in the service of appetite, unrestrained by empathy,” then Peter Pan was evil incarnate.

What else was he sure of?

Well, there could be no doubt about the risk to Esti’s career. She’d put everything at stake to join the crew of what was feeling increasingly like a runaway train.

And there was at least one other undeniable fact. He was again putting himself in the crosshairs of a killer. He was tempted to believe that this occasion was different—that the circumstances demanded it, that their precautions permitted it—but he knew he wouldn’t be able to convince anyone else of that. Certainly not Madeleine. Certainly not Malcolm Claret.

There is nothing in life that matters but love.

That’s what Claret had said as Gurney was leaving his little sun porch office.

As he reflected on the statement now, he realized two things. It was absolutely true. And it was absolutely impossible to keep it in the forefront of his mind. The contradiction struck him as yet another nasty trick played on human beings by human nature.

He was saved from sliding further into a pit of pointless speculation and depression by the ringing of the landline in the den.

The ID screen announced it was Hardwick.

“Yes, Jack?”