card numbers. They could then start examining those accounts to see if they could backtrack to Kegan.
Assuming, of course, that Kegan had really used a credit card.
Karr left another hundred on the table and started to leave.
Then he got a better idea.
“Mind if I have some lunch?” he asked.
“You’re running behind,” said Chafetz.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he said, smiling at the thoroughly confused manager as he pulled out a chair.
17
Dean’s years in the Marine Corps had convinced him that patience was the most important innate skill a sniper could have. A steady hand, good eyes, perseverance, guts, instinctual knowledge of the way people behaved — Dean didn’t know a sniper who made it through training without these qualities. But the real diamond, the most difficult gem to find in the deep mine of human consciousness, was the ability to wait. You couldn’t just sit — you had to sit with your eyes and ears and nose open. You sat ready, and you sat like that for hours and hours and days and days.
It had been a long time since Dean was in the Marine Corps — four or five lifetimes, it seemed. But he was still very patient, or could be when the circumstance required it. As it did now.
They had landed in Hamburg, taken a taxi to a house where he’d been fed and blindfolded, then driven around for a while longer before arriving back at the airport, where they’d boarded a flight apparently for Austria. Dean assumed the elaborate arrangements were meant to give his escorts a chance to see if they were being followed, but it was also possible they were trying to skimp on plane fare — the thugs hadn’t bothered to enlighten him.
The airplane they were flying in was an Airbus A320, a two-engined commercial airliner that in this case accommodated 150 passengers, though only three-fourths of the seats on the flight were filled. The CFM International turbofans had a throaty hum that reminded Dean of the sound a dentist’s drool sucker made as it pulled saliva from a mouth during drilling — assuming that sound was amplified a hundred times.
Most of the people on the plane were businessmen and — women, though there was a mix of students and a few tourists as well. Dean didn’t recognize any of the accents as American, nor did he spot anyone whose face looked familiar and who might be part of a trail team.
After they landed, the men prodded Dean to move quickly through the terminal; one handed him a passport that claimed he was Canadian. Dean adjusted his glasses, clicking the alert on, though by now he realized the com device had been broken. He considered taking out his sunglasses as they came outside, but the afternoon sky was overcast and threatening to rain and he thought it would be too suspicious. The Art Room would be tracking him and Lia would be behind him somewhere; it was best to just be patient and see how it played out.
It always came down to patience.
A blue Mercedes met them outside the terminal. As the driver reached over to open the door, Dean caught a glimpse of a holster inside his jacket. Dean slid in between his two minders. They spoke in German to the driver, whose tone sounded somewhat dismissive, though Dean had no way of knowing precisely what they were all talking about.
Five miles from the airport, the Mercedes pulled over. Another car, this one a station wagon, stopped behind them.
“Out,” said the man on Dean’s left as the other one opened the door.
“What’s going on?” asked Dean.
“We want to search you.”
“In the middle of the road?”
“Just get out,” said the man, adding something in German before pushing him toward the door.
Two men from the other car patted him down, looking for a weapon. When the search was over, one of the men went back to the station wagon and returned with a small suitcase.
He opened the case, producing what looked like a long, thin microphone. After adjusting a knob on a control panel in the suitcase, he began running the wand over Dean’s body, looking for a transmitter.
The NSA techies had assured Dean that the com system couldn’t be detected. Its transmission circuits shut off in the presence of magnetic fields produced by devices such as the one that was being used now to scan him, and the extremely low current used in the device mimicked the current inherent in a human body. But all the assurances in the world didn’t make Dean’s stomach rest any easier as he waited for the men to finish.
“Very good,” said the man back by the suitcase.
Dean waited as they packed up the equipment. One of the two men who had met him in London went and spoke to a man in the front seat of the station wagon. He nodded and took an envelope before going back to the Mercedes. Dean began to follow, but the man who had wanded him put out his hand.
“Professor, no. Your ride is on its way.”
“I’m not a professor,” said Dean. “I work in a lab.”
The man smiled but otherwise remained silent. A few minutes later, a second Mercedes drove up. A short man in khaki pants and a gray T-shirt got out and walked over, holding a folder in his hand. He spoke English with an accent that sounded German to Dean.
“You’re not Dr. Kegan,” said the man.
“Dr. Kegan is busy.”
“Where?”
“I work for him, not the other way around,” said Dean.
“Where?”
“Drumund University, Hudson Valley Division, primarily,” said Dean. That was the lab Lia had visited; Dean’s name was now listed on the security files as that of a visiting fellow with all access privileges. “Actually I’m paid by him directly under one of his grants; I’m not exactly sure which.”
The man frowned and opened his folder. “The University of Albany?”
“What about it?”
“The name means nothing?”
“Of course it does. I did my undergrad work there. I lived in Indian Quad.”
“A state school.”
Dean shrugged. “So? Some of us weren’t born rich.”
“Your grades were not impressive.”
“I didn’t realize I was being interviewed for a job,” said Dean.
The man smirked and closed the file. “E. coli one-three-five-six — E.”
Dean stared at the man. It was obviously some sort of test, but what?
He touched his glasses, trying to make it look like a nervous tic — eminently believable.
Now he wished he had the sunglasses on. But maybe they wouldn’t have worked, either.
“One-three-five-six-E.”
“I’m not really sure I know what you’re getting at,” said Dean. “There are many strands of E. coli. Are we talking about protein synthesis or hamburgers?”
The man frowned, but something in the answer satisfied him, for he signaled to the other men. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to blindfold you. It’s a precaution. You won’t be harmed.”
“I’d like to get something to eat,” said Dean.
“You will be treated well once you arrive at your destination.”
“Let me take my glasses off first.”
“Go right ahead.”
One of the men slipped a hood over Dean’s head, holding the fabric gently to keep it from hurting his ears. Dean let himself be led to the car — he guessed from the distance that it was the Mercedes — and sat back as the driver got in and pulled away. An opera began to play gently in the background as they drove. Dean cleared his mind, trying to count and keep track of the time.
He estimated that they drove for fifteen minutes. As he got out of the car, he heard the sound of a helicopter
