“Your family has no idea?” Leonora Tesla asked Middleton.

“No. I never told them—never thought I’d have to. I thought I could protect them from . . . all this.”

She clutched his hand, an instinctive gesture, and released it fast. “This isn’t your fault, Harry, but your son-in-law is right. It wasn’t difficult for us to find you, and it won’t be difficult for anyone else who’s looking. It’s not safe.”

“It’s safe enough for a little while—long enough for me to think things through. The Soberski woman asked about Faust. She thought I was into something with him.”

“So you said, Harry, and I told you, Eleana Soberski was a sociopath and a congenital liar,” Tesla said. “You have to assume that anything she said was meant to mislead and to manipulate. Faust was our boogeyman—our white whale—and she knew that. What better way to get your attention than dangle his name?”

“She didn’t have to dangle anything, Nora. She had a gun in my ribs.”

Blowing out more smoke, Lespasse said, “She thought she was going to be interrogating you, Harry. She was laying groundwork, putting you off balance. She—”

Before Lespasse could finish, Middleton’s cell phone burred. He found it in a pocket, flipped it open and heard only static. And then a faraway voice, old and struggling in English.

“Colonel Middleton? My name is Abraham Nowakowski. I’m calling from Rome and I have a message from Felicia Kaminski—Henryk Jedynak’s niece. An urgent message.”

Harold Middleton listened intently for several minutes. Then he said, “Ciao, Signor Abe, mille grazie.” Closing his phone, he let out a massive breath. Tesla and Lespasse looked at him expectantly.

“Speak of the devil, and the devil appears,” Middleton said. “Faust. He’s in the country, and close—up in Baltimore. He’s got something Henryk Jedynak was holding for me, and he’s got Jedynak’s niece too.”

“Baltimore? What the hell is he doing in Baltimore?” Lespasse asked.

“I don’t know. Jedynak’s niece managed to get a call out to a family friend in Rome—that’s who was on the line. From what he said, it sounds like Faust has some sort of operation going on there, but the girl was cut off after a minute.”

“Did she say where in Baltimore Faust is?” Tesla asked.

“No, but she did tell her friend where she and Faust would be tomorrow—check that—tonight. A place called Kali’s Court, on Thames Street. Apparently the two of them are going there for dinner. Just the two of them. I’m thinking that maybe we should join them.”

Tesla and Lespasse looked at Middleton. Tesla shook her head. “Join them? You can’t be serious, Harry—with only three of us.”

“We need backup for something like that, Colonel,” Lespasse said. “Unless what you want is in and out, bang, bang, bang.”