Not that any amateur spy with an Amazon account couldn’t have found a listening device capable of handling the two hundred yards that separated Curt from the staging area in the corner of the navy yard adjacent to the bow of the Constitution, where the bulk of the Boston police officers, Massachusetts state troopers, and harbor cops had been gathering for the past forty minutes—ever since the EMTs had first lowered the FBI agent in the stretcher down from the deck of the great ship.

From that distance, FBI Agent Lindwell didn’t look particularly injured; though his legs were still strapped in, Lindwell was sitting up as the EMTs took his blood pressure and pulse. From the snippets of conversation Curt had already picked up through the mike as the man had been lowered down from the ship, the FBI agent was eager to continue his pursuit of the two fugitives—who had apparently acquired another item of importance in place of the stolen eagle. Lindwell hadn’t yet given any details about the new item itself; but now that he’d reached the ground and was furiously trying to brush off the emergency personnel tending to his health as he spoke in quick bursts to a heavyset state detective who’d arrived moments before—Curt was sure it was only a matter of time.

A noise from directly ahead, out in the harbor, interrupted Curt’s surveillance; for a brief second, he shifted his attention to the pair of Coast Guard cutters turning tight circles in the harbor, a hundred yards in front of the Constitution. They’d been working their way outward from the ship’s hull since Curt had arrived on the scene, and they didn’t seem close to giving up the search. The divers, however, had already returned to the surface, probably to change out their oxygen tanks. If any of them had seen any sign of Patricia’s body or the eagle that had gone with her into the water, they hadn’t advertised it yet—and from what he’d already overheard from Lindwell’s account of the confrontation, Curt doubted they’d find much of her intact.

For a brief moment, Curt’s lips tightened against his teeth. Then he forced his muscles to relax. Patricia had been a competent asset for many years, with a terrifying capacity for violence; but she had gotten sloppy, perhaps overeager. She had been overpowered by a pair of civilians and an art crimes investigator. If it hadn’t been for the tracking device Curt had slipped onto her when they’d met in the Public Garden, her failure might have given them an insurmountable head start.