Crane snorted. Jana tightened her hand at the base of his spine, murmuring in his ear, rotating her hips slowly, encouraging him to stay longer. Film directors, she found, concentrated on the man’s pleasure. Jana, the director, concentrated on her own. Why not? she thought. She had time to kill.

Crane considered himself so clever, so subtle with his veiled questions about the Scorpion, about Ian Barrett-Bone. As if they were important, as if they were the movers and shakers, the planners and undertakers of the mission. It was like the Buddha said, in the ancient Sanskrit motto engraved on the copper bracelet: The irrigators direct the water, fletchers fashion the shaft, carpenters bend the wood. The wise control themselves.

Perhaps Archer had been right to alter the last phrase, the wise control themselves, making it the wise control the world. Already he had altered the second phrase: no longer the fletchers fashion the shaft, but the archer shoots the arrow.

Jana smiled at the conceit. Then her thoughts of Archer faded and an image of Devras Sikari soon followed.

Her mood changed instantly. She faked a second, more theatrical, orgasm. When she squirmed her discomfort, he dismounted and lay beside her, one ungainly arm draped across her belly.

He seemed entirely pleased with himself, a schoolboy who’d passed his final exam with flying colors. When he caught his breath, he said, “Now, don’t you think I deserve the answer to a question or two?”

“Certainly, Pierre.” That’s what any pliant Bond girl would reply. “But I must use the bathroom, darling.”

If he had any doubt that he’d won her over, this was the danger point, this was when the man would protest, try to grab her, or flee. Jana, the director, watched the action on the overhead screen.

“Hurry back,” was all Crane said.

Clanging bells announced the elevator. Turning her head to the side, Carson read a sign warning hospital staff against discussing patient care in public places. Langer had his SIG Sauer P226 under the top sheet where he could retrieve it quickly. Carson wondered whether she’d be able to reach it—Langer had convinced her she might need to.

She watched the white light as the elevator descended. Each time they passed a landing without interruption, Langer said, “Steady, Connie. We’re closer. Closer.”

At the basement level, Langer pushed the gurney out of the elevator, his eyes searching left and right. “This corridor leads to a loading dock,” he said.

Carson stared helplessly at the ceiling.

“Ready?” Langer asked.

Her throat dry, Carson nodded.

Suddenly, Langer began to run, speeding the gurney along the endless corridor. The whoosh of automatic doors preceded warmer air, the scent of ocean, sunlight.

As they rolled down a ramp, Carson saw a black Chevrolet Express waiting at the end of the path.

She heard the squeal of tires in the near distance.