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that whenever it was that the literary agent received the e-mail with the manuscript attached, Hayden would be alerted, and his whole team would spring into action. Because e-mail, he assumed—he was positive —was the only delivery method that could possibly make sense in this situation. But apparently he was mistaken.
    The recordings end.
    “The first conversation is between the agent and someone named Jeffrey Fiel—”
    “I know who that is,” Hayden interrupts. “And that second call, it’s between the agent and her assistant?”
    “Yes.”
    “And who is that in the third call, with the assistant?” Hayden is trying to stay calm, but this operation is all of a sudden threatening to come crashing down around him, dragging under his career in the wreckage. “The woman with the London accent?”
    “Her name is Camilla Glyndon-Browning. She works at a publishing house called McNally & Sons. Her job title is director of subsidiary rights. I don’t know what that means. Do you?”
    “Yes.”
    This is an unmitigated disaster. He saw this coming, fifteen years ago. He knew there’d be a price to pay, sooner or later. And here’s the bill, finally come due. He’s quite certain there will be other installments.
    “Anyway,” the man in New York continues, not expecting any further clarification from his boss. Hayden doesn’t provide unnecessary operational information. “It doesn’t sound like the Browning woman knows anything. But the girl, obviously, does. And she seems to be lying about not having a copy of the manuscript.”
    “Yes,” Hayden agrees. Photocopies could be a tremendous problem; every copy will need to be accounted for. He turns his eyes to the window, looks out at the midday busy-ness of Indre By, the heart of old Copenhagen. “Retrieve the assistant’s copy of the manuscript asap.”
    “Affirmative.”
    “Make no attempt to hide the retrieval. It should be clear to the assistant that someone burgled her apartment, and that only the manuscript was taken. And it should be clear to the agent that photocopies will not be tolerated.”
    “Understood. Speaking of which: after these conversations, the agent left home, and stopped at a copy shop. I’m sending that video through to you now.”
    “Okay.” Hayden stares out the window, chasing a conundrum in his mind: If the agent received the manuscript, that means the manuscript is finished. But if the manuscript is finished, then why is the researcher still working all day, every day? Surely after completing a book and sending it off, he would take a break …
    Plus, the agent received a hard copy. But Grundtvig has had a constant tail, and he didn’t mail a big package containing a hard copy …
    This doesn’t make sense.
    Regardless of the supply-side uncertainties, Hayden now needs to shift his focus to managing the demand side. “Okay,” he says again. “I’ll be in New York”—he glances at his watch—“I’ll be there today, late afternoon. I’ll confirm.”
    Back to New York. He was just there a few months ago, for a week, a long series of hopefully persuasive meetings with publishers and editors-in-chief, the people who run the large publishing outfits. He’s about to find out how persuasive he actually was.
    Hayden ends the call, and opens up the e-mail with the video attachment, a low-quality surveillance camera mounted above the door of a grungy copy shop. He watches the interaction, the transaction, his eyes narrowing as he tries to make sense of this five-minute silent movie, a bit unclear there at the end, but then he figures it out.

CHAPTER 7
    I sabel climbs out of the subway, gets her bearings. Across the street, a woman is loading groceries into a gleaming SUV with an East Hampton parking permit in the window and a toddler buckled into the backseat, wearing workout gear, Pilate’d and ponytailed and firm upper-armed. Another hyper-fit representative of the urban gentry, driving a moor-conquering