The flowchart branched out. In one branch, the United States does nothing, the world does nothing, and Novak is killed. The diplomats and officials that Márta Lang consulted emphasized the hazards of American involvement. Yet there were risks in inaction as well—the risks of political embarrassment. Despite the countercurrents Fielding identified, Peter Novak was a widely beloved man. If he were killed, ordinary people would wonder why the United States had refused to help a secular saint in his hour of need. The Liberty Foundation might denounce the United States—furiously and vociferously—for refusing to provide any assistance whatsoever. It would be easy to imagine the ensuing deluge of congressional hearings, TV reports, newspaper editorials. The old words would reverberate throughout the land: For evil to triumph, it is enough that good men do nothing. In the resulting uproar, careers could be ruined. What looked like the path of caution was in fact strewn with broken glass.

But what if there was another explanation?

The Liberty Foundation, typical of its go-it-alone ways, assembles its own international commando team in a reckless attempt to spirit away the captive. Who can they blame but themselves if things go badly? Midlevel employees at the State Department would “leak” the word to the beat reporters who had come to rely upon them as unnamed sources: Novak’s people rejected our offers of help out of hand. It seems they were afraid it would compromise his aura of independence. The secretary of state is completely broken up about what happened, of course—we all are. But how can you provide assistance to people who absolutely refuse to accept it? Arrogance on their part? Well, some might say so. In fact, wasn’t that the fatal flaw of the Liberty Foundation itself? The worldly, knowing reporters—for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the syndicated wire services—would file dispatches subtly infused with what they’d been told on deep background. Informed sources said that offers of assistance were snubbed … .

Janson’s mind reeled. Was the scenario anything more than a fantasy, an invidious fiction? He did not know; he could not know—not yet. What he did know was that he could not exclude the possibility.

Fielding’s minute stretched to three minutes, and when he reappeared, closing the door carefully behind him, there was something different about him.

“The aforementioned grad student,” Fielding assured him, in a slightly piping voice. “Hopeless Hal, I think of him. Trying to unknot an argument in Condorcet. I can’t get him to see that in Condorcet the knots themselves are what’s interesting.”

Janson’s spine prickled. Something in the master’s demeanor had altered—his tone was brittle, as it had never been, and wasn’t there a slight tremor in his hands that had not been there before? Janson saw that something had upset his old teacher, and profoundly.