We file out, Lin, Isabel, Jackie, then me. I feel something press against my back as I leave the elevator, and for a brief irrational moment, I think it’s the barrel of Petroski’s .45, but it’s warm and reassuring. Lorenzo’s hand.

“I’m right here, Gianna,” he whispers.

Where there were two soldiers, I now count ten pairs of shined boots. One pair steps forward smartly.

“Can’t let them leave, sir,” a voice says. “Dr. LeBron’s orders.”

I’m itching to tell him Dr. LeBron isn’t going to be ordering anything in the near or distant future, although he may be putting in a few requisitions for ice while he burns in hell. I find myself smiling and bite the insides of my cheeks.

Poe, directly in front of me, waves a familiar-looking envelope. In the upper-right-hand corner is the presidential seal. In the left corner, where a return address would normally go, is a silver embossed capital P.

“Tell him,” Poe says, handing over the envelope.

There’s an anxious rustle of paper as it’s torn open and the letter inside is unfolded.

“Fort Meade,” the soldier says. “I see. All right, then, you know where to go.” Then, in a gruffer voice, “Stand aside, men. Let them through.”

Whispers circulate around me. “Isn’t that the doctor?” “Hey—he’s the kid on television last night.” “I think I know her from somewhere.” “Damn, seven today.”

Burke’s quote comes back to me, the same one Steven paraphrased when the men came for Julia King: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

As we pass by the rows of boots, as I hear the whispers and murmurs of these men, I can’t decide whether I feel disgust or pity.

Maybe it’s a mixture of both.

Lorenzo is the last to climb into the van and takes a place next to me on the bench. Before Poe closes us in, I note an uncomfortable absence of windows, or of an interior handle on the rear doors. Terror creeps under my skin as the engine fires up, and I wonder if I’ve—we’ve—just been played.

“Everyone okay?” a voice says. It’s male, soft, and low. I recognize it but can’t place the timbre. “Turning lights on now, Christopher.”

That voice. It’s so damned familiar.

When the lights flicker on, illuminating not seven, but nine faces, I see why. Del and Sharon are in the back of the van with us. I reach out to take Sharon’s hand, squeezing it. She squeezes back and I almost want to fling myself into the arms of this woman I barely know.

“Time for that later,” she says.

“Sharon, honey, you get to work on those bracelets,” Del says, pointing to Jackie’s, Lin’s, and Isabel’s wrists. “You remember how to do it?”