Carol tossed her gym bag through the bedroom door and walked on into the living room. Her nostrils twitched. She could swear she was picking up the faintest aroma of cigars. Either the occupant of the apartment below was puffing his way through an entire humidor of Havanas, or someone had been in here. She smiled. She’d expected them to search the place, just as she’d expected the tail she’d spotted this morning on the way to the gym. She’d have been more concerned if nothing like this had happened. That would have meant that while Radecki might be taking her seriously as a woman, he wasn’t taking her seriously as a possible business partner.

What was interesting, though, was that the search had taken place now, while she was out at the gym. If she’d been responsible for organizing it, she would have chosen a very different time. While she was on the river with Radecki, for example. Then the searchers would have known they were sure of at least three hours in her empty apartment. The timing, coupled with the slight scent on the air, made her wonder if Radecki had been determined to do the search himself. If he had, it was indicative of how far he had succumbed to her charms. A man who was really smitten wouldn’t have wanted one of his minions nosing into her knicker drawer.

Carol crossed to the bookshelf and took the radio down. She slid the panel open and smiled with satisfaction as the hard drive dropped into her hand. They’d never have left that behind if they’d found it. Better double-check, however. She plugged it into the laptop and turned it on. She opened the special security program that recorded all user sessions and noted happily that nobody had used the drive since she had last logged off. Then she launched the encryption program and sent e-mails to Morgan and Gandle, alerting them to the fact that she was being followed and telling them about the search. She read an e-mail from Morgan, congratulating her on her success so far and warning her that Krasic had been making inquiries into her background. He assured her that her cover was holding up well under the spotlight. Like you’d know if it wasn’t, she thought cynically.

She wondered how Tony was faring. She knew that, whatever he was doing, it would take its toll. The one thing that had always moved Tony was the victims of violent criminals. The killers fascinated him, it was true. But profiling had never been an arid academic exercise with him. He cared about the dead; like her, he believed that the investigators were the living representatives of the murdered and mutilated. Their role was not to seek an Old Testament vengeance, but rather to give some kind of closure to those left behind. That, and to save the lives of the potential victims.