She was about fifteen meters from the awning that led to her building.

“Is that her?” Nagib asked in Arabic.

“I’m not sure,” said Rashaad.

“Why aren’t you sure? How many opportunities will we have?”

“Be patient,” Rashaad said.

Nagib reached to the handle of his door. Time to get out and get a better look. Then, as he opened the door, he saw something else. There were headlights coming up behind him, a sturdy American car that had turned the corner and was proceeding slowly down the block. Nagib had a sixth sense about cars that moved at that speed.

Then Rashaad confirmed it. “Police!” he said.

Nagib closed his door again and felt his heart pound. He watched the car through his side mirror. Sure enough, there was a rack of lights on top of the car.

District of Columbia Police.

He stashed the gun under his coat.

He leaned back. So did Rashaad.

The police car came to a halt next to him on the passenger side of their car. Nagib turned and looked into the gaze of two district cops, one African American male who rode shotgun and one white female who drove. They stared at him. Slowly, his hand moved to his pistol. And yet the police car was positioned so that his own car couldn’t exit if he wanted it to.

Nagib gave the police a wide smile and moved away from the pistol. He held up his empty hands and gave an engaging shrug. Then he produced the half-eaten apple and showed it to them.

“Lunch time,” he said.

“Yeah,” the male cop said, his window down. “Right.”

“What are you fellows doing?” the female cop shouted from farther across the front seat.

Rashaad handled it. “My nephew works in that building down there,” he said, pointing. “We drive him home at midnight.”

“Never seen you here before,” the male cop said.

Nagib’s damp hand went back to the pistol and clicked off the safety catch. This was going the wrong way.

“My nephew’s car broke down,” Rashaad said. “What can he do? We must wait.”

No smiles in return from the cops. They glared at the two Arabs. Nagib’s hand broke into a heavier sweat and tightened on the pistol.

The male cop gave a little nod to his partner. Then there was movement. The police car lurched forward and eased away. The lame excuse had worked.

Nagib let an extra second go by, heaved a long sigh of relief, then looked back to the Calvert Arms. The street before the building was empty now, and the woman was gone.

A wave of relaxation spread over the car’s passenger. Several minutes passed.

“Thank you,” Nagib said.

“We are cousins now,” Rashaad said.

“We need to get access to the building,” Nagib said.

Rashaad nodded. “Maybe tomorrow. Now, we leave. We don’t want to be here if the police come back.”

Nagib agreed. The car pulled away from its watch a few minutes later.

The next morning Alex had a right-hand window seat on the train for her three-hour trip to New York. She had booked the seating intentionally; she wore her Baby Glock on her right side, so it would be better concealed and guarded. As the train raced northward, Alex watched the East Coast of the United States roll past her: Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, and Newark. Old cities that seemed almost antique and quaint-old for North America anyway.

She thought of Venezuela. Earlier that year, she had gone there to investigate a problem for philanthropist Joseph Collins, who was financing a group of missionaries in a remote town called Barranco Lajoya. Their work was being sabotaged by outsiders. Alex had stayed in the village for several weeks until an unnamed armed militia attacked, slaughtering many of the residents, destroying the village, and driving survivors to other locations. The reason for the attack remained unknown and still haunted her.

Forcibly, she shifted her thoughts away from Barranco Lajoya and pondered the potential move to New York, a more pleasant development. She had already decided that, all things being equal, it would be a good move for her, both professionally and personally.

A new venue, a new chapter. New people, new challenges.

To some degree, a new life.

The train arrived punctually at 11:30 a.m. She carried only a small overnight bag, a duffel that she slung over her shoulder. She had worn good walking shoes. New York, Paris, and London were her favorite cities for walking and picking up the feel of the metropolis. So she walked easily from Penn Station up to the Gotham. She checked in and unpacked.

By 2:00 p.m. she had ventured out again on foot. Although the weather was brisk, she didn’t mind the exercise and wore the proper footwear for a two-mile walk directly uptown, taking a path through Central Park, where the trees were already bare. She noticed in passing that a few of the stores were done up for Thanksgiving but most were already well into Christmas. The holidays hit a bittersweet chord within her; the absence of a family, the loss of a fiancé. Best to keep going, keep the chin up, and not dwell upon it.

After forty-five minutes, she had arrived at the home of Joseph Collins, or, at least, his luxury apartment building at Fifth Avenue and 95^th Street. There he made do with a duplex worth twenty million dollars-by the jaded estimates of Manhattan real estate.

The building had once housed several Rockefellers and a Kennedy or two. William Randolph Hearst had once bought a floor there for a mistress, and Winston Churchill had stayed there for two months with friends after being voted out of office in the late 1940s. It still housed numerous heavy hitters of the New York financial and industrial community.

The building was the work of the famous New York architect Rosario Candela, a prolific designer of impeccable apartment buildings in Manhattan between World Wars I and II. With its polished granite entrance, flanked by three doormen in subdued dark green uniforms, this was among the most luxurious apartment houses in Manhattan. The façade was sheathed entirely in limestone, and the entrance details were pure Art Deco. The front doorway told all anyone needed to know. Carved through a granite slab, topped by finials, were the letters that announced the address: 1240 PARK AVENUE.

Inside, the lobby was as Alex remembered it from previous visits: dark, lush, and wide, with comfortable sitting areas and plush carpets on marble floors. Even the elevator that brought Alex to Joseph Collins’s floor bespoke old money. The elevator man wore white gloves. Alex wasn’t sure whether she had walked into a time warp or a bank vault.

By 3:00 Alex was comfortably seated in a leather chair before Collins’s desk. Though showing slow signs of aging, Collins still had his easy grace and charm. At seventy-six, he was a man at peace with himself and the world. He sat behind his desk in a tie and suit and spoke fondly of his son, Christopher, who was now involved in missionary work in Argentina.

“The news from Venezuela is not all bad,” he said at length. “The land where the village of Barranco Lajoya stood is unpopulated now. All of the survivors moved to a different settlement. It’s down the mountain a little way and near the valley. I’ve seen pictures. I’m told it’s a beautiful area.”

“What are the plans for permanent resettlement?” she asked.

“I’m not sure there will be a resettlement,” he said. “The people of the village, I think there are about four hundred of them, have adapted somewhat to their new location. I’ve financed new housing for them. It’s nothing elaborate, but it’s functional. Oddly enough, the government offered no resistance when we put new buildings there, even though that dreadful demagogue Chavez is still in power. I know, I know, they criticize us as Yankee imperialists in one breath and accept our charity with the next. But the army can better keep an eye on the people of Barranco Lajoya in their new location.”