“Better than that; they kept copies of everything, shipping manifests, stuff like that. They searched through the Dumpsters, you know, looking for stuff on the drug runners, but pretty much going through all the garbage. Folks at Sindhu were avid shredders, Langer told me, but one day the surveillance team found a disk. Musta fallen under a desk or something and the cleaning crew tossed it.”

“And you’ve got it?”

The van sped toward 275. “Langer tried to read the thing, said it was encrypted all to hell and back, figured with a name like ‘Sindhu’ and them clearing out, somebody ought to check it. So he notified a pal in Homeland Security. Guy might have gotten back to him in four or five years.”

“But you’ve got the disk?”

“I sure do. Yeah, you bet.”

Her arm throbbed; she was thirsty and exhausted, but Carson had to smile at his enthusiasm. Then she remembered Jean-Marc and a lump rose in her throat. Chang was so young. Though she was only a few years older, she felt ancient by comparison.

She said, “Fill me in. What’s our next move? Who’s driving this rig?” “A friend. He’s cool. He was an army medic, too, in case you—”

“You thought of everything.”

His grin was infectious. “If you’re up for it, we’re heading to a military airbase.”

“MacDill? Middleton’s orders?”

The young man’s face grew grave. “Not exactly . . . Connie, Colonel Middleton’s gone missing.”

“What?”

“No phone to trace, nothing. Headed to Russia and then vanished.”

“You haven’t heard anything from him?”

“Not a word. Tesla will fill you in.”

“You won’t be going with me?”

“I’m supposed to hold down the fort here.”

“Right. You’re not supposed to leave the lab, are you?”

“Hey,” he said, smiling expansively and waving his arms at the interior of the van. “I brought it with me.”

On the whole, Pierre Crane thought he had not done badly. He was alive. He was—if no closer to the secret of who had financed Sikari’s education or the riddle of the Scorpion—at least closer to the woman who was in some way entwined in the Scorpion’s life. Who wanted him dead or wanted to use him. The woman who was, quite possibly, his equal. He had acquitted himself well in bed. Casanova, he had heard, had been, if not an ugly man, a man of no particular physical distinction.