“I almost forgot,” she said, and came up with the blue scarf she’d been knitting in Carling’s room. “Here, dear. Keep your neck warm. It’s going to be very cold tonight.”

The car was a nondescript-looking blue, American-made, new but not flashy. He wasn’t even sure what model it was, but it was automatic and had a lot of power under the hood. He pulled out of the hospital parking lot and followed her directions east. Apart from the directions, she had nothing to say to him. He felt like he was sixteen again, taking his driver’s exam. If she asks me to parallel park, I’m dead.

“Where are we going?” he asked after ten minutes. She gave him a beatific smile.

“Don’t ask silly questions.” Her tone was steel. “Agent Jennings?”

He was doing something with electronics in the backseat, producing beeps and bleeps and blips. She turned to look over her shoulder; a green CRT light gave her a gargoyle complexion.

“The truck’s still parked behind the dry cleaners,” he reported. She nodded. “I should be able to tell when they start moving.”

“That’s excellent. Very good work. Martin, Mr. Jennings visited our friend’s dry cleaning establishment today and dropped off some suits. While he was there, he took the liberty of a quick tour of the back rooms, and in one of them there was a large stack of boxes ready to be loaded for shipping. What did you find in the boxes, Bryce?”

“Dallas Cowboys sweatshirts,” he said in between bleeps. “Nice thick ones.”

“Now, I don’t know about you, Mr. Grady, but I am such a football fan, and sweatshirts like those sell. And not just in America. They could be sold in Russia, for instance. In England. To American troops abroad.” Mrs. Womack turned back face-forward. “I’d guess this is just the first stage of a larger operation.”

“But—wait—what about the ones who’ve already died? What were they? Accidents?”

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Womack who answered, but Jennings.

“Object lessons. We think he was proving the effectiveness of the process to potential buyers—one of the buyers, for example, was probably based in Louisiana, so he picks a Louisiana preacher in Dallas for a religious convention, gives him the special dry cleaning, and tells the buyer to watch for the preacher’s name in the papers.” One of the electronic tones changed to a higher pitch. “I’m getting movement on the box.”

“Bryce put a tracking device in one of the boxes,” Mrs. Womack said. “Isn’t he clever. Where’s it moving?”

“South,” he said. “Downtown.”

Mrs. Womack stopped smiling.

“Drive,” she told Martin tightly. “And quickly. Half-time is over.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

Ming