She went to Sylvia alone, who rose out of her chair when she saw her coming. “Nora.”

“How is Jim?”

“They haven’t told me anything.” Sylvia looked past her. “Eph isn’t with you?”

Nora shook her head. “He went away.”

“It isn’t true what they say, is it?”

“Never. You look worn out. Let’s get you something to eat.”

While Nora was asking for directions to the cafeteria, distracting the nurses, Eph and Setrakian slipped inside the doors to the isolation ward. Eph passed the glove-and-gown station like a reluctant assassin, moving through layers of plastic to Jim’s bay.

His bed was empty. Jim was gone.

Eph quickly checked the other bays. All vacant.

“They must have moved him,” said Eph.

Setrakian said, “His lady friend would not be outside if she knew he was gone.”

“Then…?”

“They have taken him.”

Eph stared at the empty bed. “They?”

“Come,” said Setrakian. “This is very dangerous. We have no time.”

“Wait.” He went to the bedside table, seeing Jim’s earpiece hanging from the drawer below. He found Jim’s phone and checked to make sure that it was charged. He pulled out his own phone and realized it was like a homing device now. The FBI could close in on his location through GPS.

He dropped his phone into the drawer, swapping it for Jim’s.

“Doctor,” said Setrakian, growing impatient.

“Please—call me Eph,” he said, slipping Jim’s phone into his pocket on the way out. “I don’t feel much like a doctor these days.”

West Side Highway, Manhattan

GUS ELIZALDE SAT in the back of the NYPD prisoner transport van, his hands cuffed around a steel bar behind him. Felix sat diagonally across from him, head down, rocking with the motion, growing paler by the minute. They had to be on the West Side Highway to be moving this fast in Manhattan. Two other prisoners sat with them, one across from Gus, one to his left, across from Felix. Both asleep. The stupid can sleep through anything.

Gus smelled cigarette smoke from the cab of the windowless van, through the closed partition. It had been near dusk when they were loaded in. Gus kept his eye on Felix, sagging forward off the handcuff bar. Thinking about what the old pawnbroker had said. And waiting.

He didn’t have to wait long. Felix’s head started to buck, then turn to the side. At once he sat erect and surveyed his surroundings. Felix looked at Gus, stared at him, but nothing in Felix’s eyes showed Gus that his lifelong compadre recognized him.

A darkness in his eyes. A void.