She walked into the bathroom and surveyed the damage. The shower curtain was torn from almost all the rings, the plastic slashed. What was left of the mirror lay in glittering pieces on the tiled floor, each piece smeared with red. There were two words written in what she was absolutely certain was blood, scrawled on the wall.

Umbra.

Tenebris.

“Darkness,” she murmured.

Mrs. Gondek set her dart gun on the closed toilet seat lid and knelt. Something about the broken, red-smeared mirror troubled her, so she squatted down and took the pieces and began reassembling them. As she did so, what had originally appeared to be just smears formed two more words. They were written in a similar, but slightly different hand.

The words broke her heart.

The words terrified her.

Save me.

PART 6

A SHADOW IN THE EAST

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.

—BODHIDHARMA

Instead of a man of peace and love, I have become a man of violence and revenge.

—HIAWATHA

CHAPTER 117

BERLIN AIRPORTCLUB LOUNGE

BERLIN BRANDENBURG AIRPORT

Peggy Ann Gondek sat primly in a padded chair in a corner of the lounge where she could easily see the other customers coming and going. She had a tall glass of iced coffee on the table beside her and the colorful coils of a scarf trailing from her busy knitting needles. Like many travelers, she wore a Bluetooth headset. People smiled at her, and she beamed back at them. Not a smile of invitation, merely pleasant.

Whenever someone came close enough to hear her quiet voice, she changed the subject to talk about stitches. Garter, purl, stockinette stitches as well as moss stitches, ribbing, and the basket weave stitches. She knew how to pitch her voice so that any subject could sound dreadfully dull, even knitting, which was her passion. People generally did not want to sit within earshot and listen to her drone on and on about it.

“Alone again,” she said as another person decided somewhere else was tranquiller and less lethally dull. “Is he available yet?”

“Hold on,” said a woman with a distinctly Brooklyn accent, and a moment later, a man’s voice spoke on the line.

“Were you able to determine where our friend is heading?” asked Mr. Church.

“Oh yes,” said Peggy Ann. “Timișoara, in Romania. His flight leaves in a little over an hour.”

“Can you be on the same flight?”

“Not a chance, dear heart,” she said. “He got the last seat. Who would have thought so many people wanted to go to Timișoara?”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“I’m on standby for another flight,” said Peggy Ann.

Mr. Church paused for a moment, then said, “Will you be able to locate him in Timișoara?”

“Oh, honey, of course.”

“Let Bug know if you need any additional resources.” And the call ended.