“Tough talk from a goddamn organization man. Look into my eyes, Janson—I want to see if you even believe what you’re saying. Probably you do, worse for you. Hey, like the fat lady sings, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. You think you’re some kind of hero, don’t you? I feel sorry for you, you know. There’s no freedom for people like you. Somebody is always manipulating you, and if it’s not me, it’ll just be someone else, someone a little less imaginative.” She turned to Jessica. “It’s true. Your boyfriend here is like a piano. He’s just a piece of furniture until someone plays him. And someone’s always playing him.” Something between a grin and a grimace flashed on her face. “Has it never struck you that he’s been three steps ahead of you all along? You’re so wonderfully predictable—I suppose that’s what you call character. He knows just what makes you tick, just what you’re capable of doing, and just what you’ll decide to do. For all your derring-do in the Stone Palace, he was playing with you like a kid with a goddamn action figure. We had remote surveillance rigged up there, naturally. Kept tabs on everything you did, every move. We knew every element of your plan and we’d prepared contingencies for every anticipated variant. Of course Higgins—oh, that was the fellow you sprang—was going to insist on saving the American girl. And of course you were going to give up your seat to the lady. What a perfect gentleman you are. Perfectly predictable. The craft was wired to blow by remote, needless to say. Peter Novak was practically waving a baton—he could have been conducting the whole goddamn operation. You see, Janson, he made you. You didn’t make him. He was calling the shots before, and he’s calling the shots now. And he always will.”

“Permission to blow the bitch away, sir?” Jessica asked, raising her left hand like an eager cadet.

“Ask again later,” Janson said. “You get only so many chances in this world, Márta Lang. Is that your name, by the way?”

“What’s in a name?” she said, blasé. “By the time he gets done with you, you’ll think it’s your name. Now here’s a question for you: do you think that if the hunt goes on long enough, the fox starts to imagine it’s chasing the hounds?”

“What’s your point?”

“It’s Peter Novak’s world. You’re just living in it.” She flashed a strangely ethereal smile. When Janson had met her in Chicago, she seemed the very picture of a highly educated foreigner. Her accent was now decidedly American; she could have come from Darien.

“There is no Peter Novak,” Jessie said.