Slowly, slowly, she struggled to her feet, holding on to the pillar for support.

“Listen to me now. I met this American in Regent’s Park who told me some lunatic story that maybe us Cons Op folks had got caught up in some big … manipulation. That the bad guy we were supposed to take down wasn’t really the bad guy. I ignored that, because if that were true, up was down and down was up. Can you understand that? If you can’t trust the people who give you your orders, what’s the point of anything? Later, I filed my Memorandum of Conversation about it, just pro forma, and I get a phone call not from my boss, but my boss’s boss. And he wants me to remember that Paul Janson is a genius liar, and was I sure he hadn’t gotten to me somehow? Now I’m shivering in this godforsaken warehouse and thinking if I ever want to learn what’s going on in the world, I’m probably not going to get that from my bosses. Now I’m thinking that the only one who can tell me what time it is is the guy I’m looking at.” Trembling, she began to put on the clothes he had brought her. “The same guy I’ve spent forty-eight hours trying to drill.”

“You’ve just gone through a traumatic experience. You’re not yourself. That’s all.”

“I’m not finished with you, Paul Janson.” She licked her cracked lips. Raised welts were beginning to appear on her bruised cheeks.

“What is it that you want from me?”

“I need help. I need … to know what’s going on. I need to know what’s a lie and what isn’t.” More tears welled up in her eyes, and she wiped them away, mortified. “I gotta get somewhere safe.”

Janson blinked. “You want to be safe? Then stay the hell away from me. It’s not safe where I am. And that’s the one thing I am certain of. Do you want me to take you to a hospital?”

An angry stare. “They’d get me there. They’d find me, for sure they would.”

Janson shrugged uneasily. She was right.

“I want you to tell me what the hell is going on.” Her gait was unsteady, but she took a step toward him.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“I can help. You have no idea. I know stuff, I know plans, I know faces—I know who’s been dispatched to come after you.”

“Don’t make things worse for yourself,” Janson said, not unkindly.

“Please.” The woman looked at him forlornly. She had the air of someone who had never experienced a moment’s doubt in her professional life before now—someone who did not know how to deal with the uncertainties that now thronged her.