Lespasse nodded at Perez, and Tesla put out a warm hand. “Harry has told us all that’s happened, Mr. Perez. I’m so sorry for what you and your wife have been through. Will she be all right?”

“She’s lost a lot of blood, but the docs say she’ll recover. All right is another story. I don’t know that either one of us will be all right again after this.”

As Tesla nodded sympathetically, Middleton said, “Nora and JM have been through the wringer themselves the past couple of days. A man nearly killed Nora in Namibia, and JM narrowly avoided abduction in Chapel Hill.”

“Jesus, Harry, is all this about—?”

“We think so,” Middleton said. “The man who attacked Nora was looking for me.”

“I didn’t hang around to find out what those clowns in the parking lot were after,” Lespasse added in a raspy whisper, “but I heard them speaking Serbian, and they were carrying those cheap shit Zastavas.”

“And this is all about . . . what? That fucking manuscript?” Perez asked.

Tesla and Lespasse shifted nervously. Middleton said nothing.

“For Christ’s sakes, Harry . . . ” Perez said, shaking his head. He looked at Tesla. “How did you two manage to find us?”

“We both saw the news reports of Harry’s difficulty at Dulles and knew that he was . . . in flight. We both guessed that he might turn up at the lake house.”

“I ran into Nora there,” Lespasse said.

“ . . . and nearly blew my head off.”

“We saw the blood and thought the worst,” Lespasse added. “We started checking hospitals, closest ones first, and there you were.”

Perez turned back to his father-in-law. “Not too difficult. And the guys who are after you, whoever they are, seem fuckin’ relentless. How much longer before they turn up here too?”

Any answer Middleton might have given was interrupted by the night duty nurse. “You and your father-in-law will have to quiet down, Mr. Perez, and your friends will have to come back during regular visiting hours.”

Middleton seized the opportunity. “Yes, ma’am, and we’re very sorry. I’ll just see these folks out so Jack can sit with Charley.”

He took Tesla’s arm and led her and Jean-Marc toward the elevator, leaving Jack Perez grinding his teeth in the darkened hallway.

Outside, the air was warm and close. The hospital parking lot was nearly empty. Jean-Marc Lespasse lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew a column of smoke into the night sky.

Harry Middleton recalled the last time he’d seen Lespasse and Val Brocco. A blisteringly hot day at chaotic Kenyatta Airport. He remembered too his farewell to Nora Tesla. It had been somewhat after his final meeting with the two men and the location was much nicer—an Algerian-influenced inn on the Cote D’Azure—but the moment was no less difficult.

Events intervened . . .

She glanced at him once and then her eyes fled. Words seemed easier.