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All three of them nod.

“I’ll begin with the question that still has no answer: what is the connection between the earthquake disaster in Kyoto and the tidal wave in Copenhagen?”

Hawkeye speaks. “Sir, I have, if you will, a question about the question.”

I know what Hawkeye’s about to ask. It’s going to be smart and sensible, just like Hawkeye himself.

“And your question is?”

“How do we even know that there is a connection?” he asks.

“We don’t,” says Burbank, jumping in. “But we’ve got to start somewhere.”

I nod. “Your question was a smart one, Hawkeye, and Burbank’s answer is equally smart. But whatever the situation, we must start from somewhere, and I don’t think it’s an irrational conclusion to draw.”

“May I use the screen, sir?” says Tapper.

“Of course,” I say. The flat screen behind me lights up in response to the voice command in Tapper’s question.

“If you will, gentlemen,” Tapper says as he presses a side button on his handheld. The screen fills with words.

“This is a complete listing,” he explains, “of everyone who received an invitation and actually attended the Oberon Awards. You’ll see the list is impressive, lots of big deals. It includes everyone from King Victor and Princess Marthaof Denmark to a large number of award-winning university professors, media celebrities, artists, and authors, not to mention international news reporters and twenty-three foreign ambassadors, including one who was appointed a special envoy by President Townsend only two days before the awards ceremony.

“Everyone on this list has been vetted by confidential computer algorithms, and even the special envoy, Karen Wallace, a sixty-year-old woman and former CEO of Allied Development Medical Supplies, comes with a clean slate—”

A new list appears. This one, he explains, is a catalog of all victims of the Kyoto quake, all injured survivors, all university personnel who were at their nearby jobs on campus that day. Of the predictably mostly Japanese names, I recognize only two: a husband-and-wife team who previously assisted me in a scientific germ warfare study.

Tapper confirms that these names have also been thoroughly vetted.

“With all due respect, Tapper… what have we got? Nothing,” says Hawkeye. “A bunch of heroes, a bunch of geniuses. We’re looking for evil scum and all we’ve got is a list of saints.”

“Connections,” Tapper replies. “Let’s look for connections.”

“Kyoto was an academic setting,” volunteers Burbank. “Copenhagen was essentially an academic setting, too, with its awards for peace initiatives and medical cures and general do-good stuff, but brainy stuff. Now, that’s a connection.”

“Can we break this down by country of origin and full background information of every person at the events?” Hawkeye asks.

Tapper presses the other side of his handheld device, and suddenly the screen is filled with pages and pages of documents.

“I’ve done the work already,” he says, very smug and proud of himself.

“Okay,” I say. “I don’t know if this is agoodstart, but at least it’s a start. I want everyone to explore these documents.Anyinsight, no matter how far-fetched, may turn out to be helpful. The other thing to tuck in the back of your brain is this: what in hell will these monsters do next?”

I tell them that we will reconvene in five hours… and I hope nothing earth-shattering happens before then.

CHAPTER 18

LAMONT HAS OFTEN said—perhaps too often for her liking—that if they ever give out an award for the World’s Best Sleeper, Maddy would win it hands down.

In response Maddy once told him, “I think of myself as an aggressive sleeper.”

“What exactly does that mean?” he asked.

“I approach almost everything I do as a challenge. Everything. Learning a foreign language. Playing basketball. Climbing a mountain in Nepal. And, yes, even sleeping. I see a clock. I see my bed. I know I must get to sleep. I push idle thoughts out of my mind, and then I get down to the business of sleeping.”

When Lamont heard that, he just shook his head, squinted, then laughed. All he said was, “Maddy, you should be glad that I’m such a huge part of your life. Because I might be the only person in the world who understands what you mean when you explain something.”

Tonight Maddy is sleeping precisely as she’s described it:flat on her back, arms folded, a pulsating electronic blanket folded at her waist. She breathes heavily, rhythmically, making a sound somewhere between snoring and singing. At least that’s what she’s doing until she hears a noise. Is it coming from the doorway? From the window? The bathroom? The… what the hell is it? She presses the Emergency button on the electronic console on her headboard.