Gus straightened, leaving the burst beer on the ground and moving backward, shoes scraping the grit. A few steps away, he reset himself, willing himself to relax. His trick was to think that someone was watching him lose his cool. He turned and walked calmly to the closed garage door.

The spring creaked again, putting a hitch in his step, but not halting him.

He reached the black panel with a red plunger switch next to the door. He hit it with the heel of his hand, and nothing happened.

He hit it two more times, first slow and easy, then hard and fast, the spring action on the plunger sticking as though from disuse.

The van creaked again, and Gus did not allow himself to look back.

The garage door was made of faceless steel, no grip handles. Nothing to pull. He kicked it once and the thing barely rattled.

Another bang from inside the van, almost answering his own, followed by a severe creak, and Gus rushed back to the plunger. He hit it again, rapid-fire, and then a pulley whirred and the motor clicked and the chain started running.

The door began lifting off the ground.

Gus was outside before it was halfway up, scuttling up onto the sidewalk like a crab and then quickly catching his breath. He turned and waited, watching the door open, hold there, and then go back down again. He made certain it closed tightly and that nothing emerged.

Then he looked around, shaking off his nerves, checking his hat—and walked to the corner, guilty fast, wanting to put another block between him and the van. He crossed to Vesey Street and found himself standing before the Jersey barriers and construction fences surrounding the city block that had been the World Trade Center. It was all dug out now, the great basin a gaping hole in the crooked streets of Lower Manhattan, with cranes and construction trucks building up the site again.

Gus shook off his chill. He unfolded his phone at his ear.

“Felix, where are you, amigo?”

“On Ninth, heading downtown. Whassup?”

“Nothing. Just get here pronto. I’ve done something I need to forget about.”

Isolation Ward, Jamaica Hospital Medical Center

EPH ARRIVED AT the Jamaica Hospitel Medical Center, fuming. “What do you mean they’re gone?”

“Dr. Goodweather,” said the administrator, “there was nothing we could do to compel them to remain here.”

“I told you to post a guard to keep that Bolivar character’s slimy lawyer out.”

“We did post a guard. An actual police officer. He looked at the legal order and told us there was nothing he could do. And—it wasn’t the rock star’s lawyer. It was Mrs. Luss the lawyer. Her firm. They went right over my head, right to the hospital board.”

“Then why wasn’t I told this?”

“We tried to get in touch with you. We called your contact.”

Eph whipped around. Jim Kent was standing with Nora. He looked stricken. He pulled out his phone and thumbed back through his calls. “I don’t see…” He looked up apologetically. “Maybe it was those sunspots from the eclipse, or something. I never got the calls.”