She studied the handout as if she’d never seen it before. After a moment she looked up absently.

“I told them about Suzanne. About Sally.” She raised a finger to her temple and made a small telling circle. “They drew their own conclusions about your competency.”

The shocking thing was that he wasn’t even surprised, not really. He couldn’t remember what she’d felt like, last night; couldn’t remember anything about it except a haunting feeling of loss. She’d arranged that. Not even tornadoes happened by accident around her.

“Aren’t you going to call me a bitch?” she asked. He shook his head. “Why not? I am, you know.”

He bent and scooped up his overheads from the floor and began painstakingly ordering them. He was missing number six, the point at which everything had gone so fatally wrong. Maybe it had burned up in the heat of his disappointment.

She handed it to him. He took it and ordered the corners of the stack, slipped the plastic pages into a white folder.

“Martin,” she said. He was tempted to look up and conquered it by staring at a whorl of wood on the table. “I warned you.”

He nodded. His reflection, faint as a ghost, nodded back.

“I had to do it. You were too close to right, and just too far wrong. I have new information.” She shuffled papers and slid a photograph across the table to him. In it, a swarthy-looking man smiled genially. He was wearing a white sweater and white shorts, carrying a tennis racquet. “His name is Fathi el Haddiz. We think he’s here in the United States to make a deal for something involving your dichlorhyradine.”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Martin asked quietly. Carling’s hand formed into a fist and slammed down on top of el Haddiz’s picture.

“How stupid do you imagine I am? I’d love to, if we knew where the hell he was. We don’t have a lot of time, and we need to focus. I needed to derail your little train, because I’ve got an express coming down the tracks, and I need you on board.”

“Why me?”

She bent over. He sensed her warmth like a storm circling overhead. He met her teal green eyes, but couldn’t hold the stare. His gaze fell to the table.

Watch me, Daddy! Watch me!

“Because you were at least half-right, and you tried. Martin, I have reason to think you’re motivated to solve this problem. Am I wrong?”

“Go to hell,” he mumbled. He opened his briefcase and stuffed in folders; one bent, pooched open, and spilled papers out in his lap. He gathered up crushed handfuls and threw them in. “You and your bugs and your damn politics, you go to hell. You go right to hell.”