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one notch above silent, set its alarm for four minutes’ time, and handed it to Rollins.
    “OK, Doctor,” I said. “Where will you wait?”
    “Here,” he said. “Right where I am now.”
    “Will you move?”
    “No. Not a muscle.”
    “How much noise will you make?”
    “No noise. None at all.”
    “The alarm on the phone will sound. What will you do?”
    “Silence it. Immediately.”
    “And?”
    “Go up to the door. Knock three times, then pause, then knock three times again. Just like he told me to when he summoned me before.”
    “Good. And when you hear footsteps inside the apartment?”
    “Run. Fast. And don’t look back.”
    It wasn’t the world’s greatest plan, but I didn’t have many options. Normally, once I had a confirmed target securely squared away, I could stand back and hand the reins to a snatch team. From theSAS. Or SBS. Or the host country’s police or special forces, if we trusted them or had told them in advance what we were doing. But whoever took it over, they’d take care of the rest. Forcing an entry. Avoiding booby traps. Cleaning up afterward. It was a very satisfactory division of labor. But this time, London hadn’t sent anyone to help. And they’d ruled out involving the Chicago police any further. I was sorry the twelve o?cers outside were fictitious because that left me with just Dr. Rollins at my disposal to create a diversion. Not a very promising position. And not very much time. Four minutes wasn’t long to get myself into position. I’d have liked more, but I knew I couldn’t risk it.
    A drawback of being a new recruit in the navy is that you’re used for all kinds of psychological studies. The results are fed to us during training, so I knew I was seriously pushing the limit of how long a frightened person would remain compliant. Give him much longer and his brain would start to reboot itself. He’d start to question everything I’d told him. See that some things weren’t quite the way I’d painted them. Begin to doubt everything else. And most likely run for the hills. So the moment I left him I headed back down one flight of stairs and into the apartment I’d gained access through. I climbed back out through the window. Then I crept along the fire escape and made my way up one story, testing each footstep carefully before trusting my full weight to the grimy, corroded metal.
    Rollins had confirmed that the apartment McIntyre was squatting in had the same basic layout as the one below, so I edged along to the bathroom window and checked my watch. There were eighteen seconds to go. I pried the frame away from its mounting and wriggled my fingers into the narrow space. The wood around this window was drier and less decayed, and as I waited for the time to pass I could feel the points of several splinters slowly burrowing into my skin. A thin trace of blood had just reached mypalm when the second hand finally reached the twelve. I knew the alarm on the phone should be starting to sound. I pictured Rollins switching it off. Standing up. Climbing the final few stairs. Approaching the door. Raising his hand. Knocking. McIntyre hearing it. Focusing on it. Recognizing the agreed pattern. Moving to investigate. And leaving his back momentarily unguarded.
    I took a deep breath and heaved sharply backward.
    McIntyre had left nothing in the bathroom that would reveal the apartment was occupied. But a few sheets of dusty newspaper were lying on the floor beneath the window, artistically off-center, where an intruder’s foot would naturally land. The positioning was too perfect to be a coincidence. So I stretched to the side, got my right foot on the rim of the tub, and bypassed them. Then I checked underneath. Something was hidden there. A strip of bubble wrap. I don’t know where he got it from, but it made a half-decent perimeter alarm—for something improvised out of scrap. The guy was certainly thorough. It was just a shame he hadn’t put his skills and