Middleton emerged from the Underground at Oxford Circus, amused by how quick the trip had been, even with the transfer at Euston. He imagined Nora still on the 503 motorway, if traffic was lurching. By instinct, he checked his common cell phone first. One message from Felicia, probably chiding him for failing to remember her recital or his lack of interest in crossword puzzles, cryptograms and such. When he looked at his encrypted phone, he saw he had no messages—nothing from NATO, the French, Interpol or the ICC as a post-mortem on the Cap d’Antibes operation; nor from Charley, Nora, Jean-Marc, Connie or Wiki. As he crossed the park at Cavendish Square, he thought for a moment of Wetherby, the bright NATO officer who gave his life to help prevent another godless execution of innocents. To steel himself from grief, long ago Middleton learned to shift his thoughts quickly to the mission at hand: to complete it would honor the likes of young Wetherby. Sikari and fresh water. Devras Sikari had developed an interest in fresh water. What could it mean?

Middleton left the park and as he waited for black cabs to pass, he saw a crowd milling under the hall’s glass-and-filigreed-iron marquee. Ticket-holders, he assumed, waiting to enter. Not that he would’ve delayed: He loved the hall’s alabaster-and-marble walls, the painting in the cupola over the stage in which a figure representing the Soul of Music stared in awe at a fireball that stood for the Genius of Harmony. The Wigmore stage was an altar and the music represented an offering to the Heavens. For Middleton, music was mankind’s link to divinity. It was his respite, his relief from the ugly, banal truth of the world of anguish and hatred in which he found himself while pursuing the likes of Devras Sikari. Only watching Charley blossom had given him a feeling of contentment and transcendence as had the music he loved.

“Is there a problem?” he said to the first patron he saw, a middle-aged woman dressed against the threat of rain.

“They aren’t opening quite yet,” she replied, “but they haven’t said exactly why.”

Middleton thanked her and headed toward the artists’ entrance around the corner on Wimpole Street. He’d never known Felicia to be an overly demanding artist, so he assumed the problem was with the house. Perhaps the pianist had taken ill.

His encrypted phone rang, its call an old-fashioned American bell chime rather than an identifying ring tone like the Chopin he’d had on his other line.

“Harry,” Tesla said.

“Nora—”

“Harry, you’d better come home.”