Faust reached forward and tugged on Middleton’s tiny wire microphone/ earbud unit. He dropped it on the floor and crushed it. He then paid the bill. “Wait here.” He made a phone call from the pay phone near the men’s room then returned to the table. No more than five minutes later sirens sounded in the distance, growing closer. The attention of everyone in the restaurant turned immediately to the front windows. Then, in a flurry of lights and horns, police cars and emergency trucks skidded to a stop across the quaint street from the restaurant, in front of a bar. The bomb squad was the centerpiece of the operation.

Middleton had to give Faust credit. Not a single person in the restaurant or outside was focused anywhere but on the police action. They’d discover soon enough it was a false alarm, but the distraction would serve its purpose.

Middleton slipped the Chopin manuscript back into his briefcase and rose to his feet. Faust gestured to the kitchen.

“Through the back. Hurry. Time is short.”

This was where Felicia Kaminski was, M. T. Connolly thought, and it was where Middleton and Faust would continue their rendezvous.

Connolly now knew what Middleton had that so many people had deemed valuable enough to kill for: a seemingly priceless manuscript created for pleasure but now corrupted with the possibility of mass murder.

Even sitting alone, outside this hotel, in the dark privacy of her own thoughts, she was a little ashamed to admit she was ignorant of the strange history of this Chopin score, and of the human value of such a find. More so, until tonight, she had been as unaware as most Americans about the tragedies at St. Sophia.

But she did understand a monster’s need for glory, no matter how twisted and unimaginable it might be to a sane person. And it was an interesting side note to the events of the last few days. Her colleagues in law enforcement were looking for Middleton because they believed he killed two cops. But, thanks to Josef, her angel in Poland, she knew better. Middleton had in his hands a formula for mass destruction, and though he had formed an alliance with Kalmbach and Chambers, she believed he needed her help to keep it away from Vukasin. Kalmbach and Chambers she did not trust. In the core of her being, she believed the only way to stop a chemical attack within the borders of the United States was to keep Harold Middleton alive.

She took a quick look along the street and checked her watch. There was no sense in going inside the hotel until Middleton and Faust arrived—because it was only then that Vukasin would appear. She had left her previous post inside the restaurant only seconds before Middleton and Faust, sure they would come here to confer with Kaminski, who could help them solve their puzzle.