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eventually drags the phone to a reading distance, and—if he had to guess—she reads the message twice.
    His camera is on his lap by the time her head snaps up and she scans the room. He can only wonder what she’s experiencing. He’s banking on a journalist’s curiosity; an investigative reporter’s paranoia; a woman’s intuition. Given the controversy of the topic she’s been covering, and the unfortunate outcome for at least two of her sources, she must give weight to the possibility that she herself is being watched. He won’t know until he tries.
    It’s everything he can do to keep himself in the chair. Time crawls. The overhead fans spin more slowly. He sees every twitch of character on every face, hears the scrape of chair legs on marble, the sputter of lips sipping steaming coffee. She’s on heightened alert, observing everything taking place in the café. She not only awaits the signal mentioned in the message, but wants to identify who’s responsible.
    Knox waits. He’s in the business of opportunity. He stands. Lets a girl screen him. Crosses to the man with the heavy eyebrows and expressionless face.
    “I hope you don’t mind,” Knox says, reaching his target. He speaks English.
    He fires off a photograph. A volley of four flashes burst, blinding the man.
    “Thank you!” he says. He moves and takes another picture, placing himself between the man tailing Sonia and the door.
    He sees his plan has worked perfectly. Sonia is outside and moving across the street.
    Her tail realizes she’s gone.
    Too late.
    Knox uses the iPhone’s camera to take a photo of the Nikon’s small display. He texts the photo to Grace.
    Sonia boards a tram. Her tail is too late.
    —
    G RACE’S PHONE BUZZES in her right hand. Even though she expects the text, the sensation nonetheless startles her. Standing outside Centraal Station, she feigns studying the tram schedule display. Her jaw lifted, her eyes are nonetheless trained on the faces of all the passengers disembarking a Line 5 tram. She raises the phone to where she can see Knox’s photo of the man in the café, while studying the faces of those departing the tram.
    She slips her iPhone into her black leather bag.
    The area outside the station is jammed. Busier than she’d expected. She works to filter out the noise and confusion, to focus. She’s noticed three pairs of police on patrol. One is behind and heading away from her. Another to her left dealing with a vagrant. The third pair enters the station.
    And yet, despite the chaos, there is something reassuring that everyone has a place to be, a place to go, a schedule to keep.
If only the world were more like a train station,
she thinks. When had the comforting sense of order been replaced by randomness?
    Sonia appears from the door of the number 5 tram, as expected. She has a beautiful face: wide-set dark eyes, gorgeous Indian skin. She’s shorter than Grace expected, perhaps her same height, wearing a soft purple scarf over her head, designer blue jeans and a flowing top beneath a tailored brown leather coat. She doesn’t hurry, doesn’t look back. Grace has the sense she’s paying attention to her surroundings. Her body language is magnificent, that of a bored commuter, but a close look at her eyes tells the observer she is alert and busy-minded. Grace is immediately impressed.
    A half dozen outdoor platforms serve the station. Platform 4 is currently serving Line 13.
    Sonia is following Knox’s directions to the letter.
    Grace waits, sipping a coffee and swallowing her impatience. It is a deficiency her trainers have worked hard to remove. Not easily done. But she has learned to overcome it with small tricks, aware of its destructiveness.
    Sonia’s tail appears only minutes later on the next number 5. He’s a clever one, this bastard. He inspects the schedule display, turns around. Grace does as Knox asked. She moves toward him and they collide. Her coffee spills across him.
    “Shit,” he curses