This was not an elaborate system; the whole surveillance effort had been hasty and ad hoc, with instrumentation to match. Indeed, the same went for the human capital deployed. Though they were not untrained, they were either insufficiently experienced or out of practice, or both. This was reserve-caliber work. He took the measure of the man before him: the weathered face, the soft hands. He knew the type—a marine who’d been on desk duty too long, summoned with little notice, an auxiliary reassigned to meet an unexpected need.

“Why were you following me?” Janson asked.

“I don’t know,” the man said, wide-eyed. He looked to be in his early thirties.

“Why?”

“They said to. They didn’t say why. The instructions were to watch, not interfere.”

“Who’s they?”

“Like you don’t know.”

“Security chief at the consulate,” Janson said, sizing up his prisoner. “You’re part of the marine detail.”

The man nodded.

“How many of you?”

“Just me.”

“Now you’re pissing me off.” With stiffened fingers, Janson jabbed at the man’s hypoglossal nerve, just inside the lower edge of his jaw: he knew the pain would be breathtaking, and he simultaneously clamped a hand over the man’s mouth. “How many?” he demanded. After a moment, he removed his hand, permitting the man to speak.

“Six,” the watcher gasped, rigid with pain and fear.

Janson would have interrogated the man further if there were more time; but if his locator unit did not indicate motion, others would soon arrive to find out why. Besides, he suspected that the man had no more information to offer. The marine had been assigned to his division’s counterterrorism section. He would have been suited up with little notice and less explanation. That was the usual way with consular emergencies.

What had Nikos Andros told them?

Tearing strips from the man’s Oxford-cloth shirt, Janson bound his wrists and ankles, and fashioned a makeshift gag. He took the transponder bracelet with him.

He was familiar with the transponder protocol; they were used to supplement the Arrex communicators, which were notoriously unreliable, especially in urban terrain. What’s more, spoken communication was not always feasible or appropriate. The transponders allowed the team leader to keep track of those in the shift: each appeared as a pulsing dot on an LCD screen. If one person hived off in pursuit of the subject, the others would be able to follow, with or without verbal instructions.

Now Janson put on the man’s yellow windbreaker and gray cap and made his way out the department store’s side entrance at a trot.

The watcher had been approximately his height and build; from a distance, Janson would be indistinguishable from him.

But he would have to keep his distance. Now he ran down Eólou to Praxitelous, and then Lekka, knowing that his movements would be showing up as a pulsing dot.

What had Andros told them?