Her thoughts teemed. And then suddenly, she was mentally maxed out, very much on overload.

She glanced at her watch: 7:16 in the evening.

If it was a quarter past seven in Madrid, it was the same number of minutes after 1:00 p.m. in the eastern United States. She still had some telephone credit cards, so what good were they if she didn’t use them?

She needed someone to talk to, so she dialed a number in northern Virginia and got her friend Ben on the line.

They talked. A lot. Alex put her feet up onto the railing of the balcony and pushed, leaning back in her chair, then rocking slowly. Time flew.

Almost an hour later, she hung up the line, her spirits lifted temporarily. But during the call, the sky had darkened a little with some clouds that had rolled in from the Pyrenees to the far north. The late afternoon had long since made its transition to evening now and she could see the computer screen better. In the distance, across a rooftop, a neon Tio Pepe sign, an ad for the largest selling sherry in the country, glowed bright red across the rooftop of a commercial building.

A second surge of homesickness was upon her, as were thoughts about Robert. She knew it was best to get out of the hotel room.

She packed up her laptop and took it with her. She went to the same café as she had frequented the previous evening, sat at the same table, and felt better for being out, even when she flipped open the laptop and reviewed museum documents until 10:30. Then she surfed the web for relaxation a bit, had a final Carlos Primero, a distinguished Spanish brandy, and shut down her computer in favor of her iPod.

Eventually, it was midnight. She walked back to the hotel, alone on busy sidewalks in a very safe neighborhood. When she reached her room, she was exhausted.

She made no pass at any further work. She showered and went to bed. In her dreams, she was an innocent young girl again, laughing in the company of her beloved parents, playing in the warm surf of Southern California. The strong hands that picked her up and tossed her around in the water belonged to her late father.

She slept beautifully. Not everyone that night was as fortunate.

GENEVA, SEPTEMBER 8, 2:12 A.M.

The evening after meeting Colonel Tissot, Stanislaw had gone to his home and packed. He had a car at his disposal with a fraudulent registration. He would get into the car the next morning and begin to drive. The autoroute would take him down through France, and he would make Barcelona within a day. Driving was more arduous than flying, but driving gave him the temporary anonymity he wanted.

He had done enough research on his prey to know that in reality, Alexandra LaDuca was not about to cavort with a man she hardly knew. But the local police in Spain wouldn’t know that. A death is a death is a death in the police ledgers, and he would be long out of the country under another false identity before the dead woman’s body was even cold.

He planned an early getaway from Geneva the next morning. Thus, he was soundly asleep by midnight and resting very comfortably when his eyes inexplicably came open in the middle of the night.

Some sixth sense told him that he was not alone. He felt his heart start to pound, and he felt a sweat start to pour off him as he lay in his bedroom under the covers. He knew from his days as a mercenary soldier, sleeping in the field, that rolling over would accomplish nothing.

Instead, he slowly moved his arm. He moved it cautiously so his sheet would not rustle. And he moved in a way that brought his hand to the holster that held the pistol that he hung by his bedside every night. He hung it there for two reasons. Women found it an aphrodisiac when he was lucky enough to lure one back to his apartment. But the better reason was that of self-protection.

In terms of a home break-in during the dark of night, every second counted.

His hand found the holster. And the holster was empty.

He hadn’t failed to put the gun there. Its absence proved that he wasn’t alone. And its absence also told him that the enemy was waiting patiently for him to realize that the gun was gone, so that there would be a hideous panic in the moment of death.

In the dark, the full force of a lithe, powerful body came down on him, pinning him to the bed. Hands in latex gloves-hands that were like vices-pinned the upper part of his body. The hands were like steel. They clamped tightly.

Stanislaw let loose with a horrendous howl of profanity. He flailed and tried to fight his way forward, to escape the grip of the intruder.

Then there was a final sensation, that of a cool steel point pressing to the side of his neck, the point of something very sharp and very cold, like an ice pick.

A final kick, scream, and thrust and then Stanislaw felt the point of the pick penetrate his flesh, much like one feels a hypodermic needle. But this needle was several inches long. Pushed by a powerful hand, the blade shot upward into his jugular vein and slid onward through his head like a bolt of lightning.

When it went into his brain, a piercing blackness accompanied it. He shuddered a final time and was dead before the intruder withdrew the blade.

John Sun relaxed and withdrew from the sleeping area. Methodically, he placed the murder weapon in a zip-lock bag, the kind currently favored by airport security pests. He would later throw the pick into the Lake of Geneva. He went to the washroom and rinsed off his gloves but did not remove them. These days, in the era of DNA and micro-forensics, one could never be too careful. Get arrested in Switzerland, and he’d never see the light of day again. Even his government wouldn’t be able to get him out. Not that he was worried.

He returned to the dead man to make sure the dead man was a dead man. No movement, no pulse. Good. He breathed a little easier. He went to all the windows-there were only five in the apartment-and drew the blinds. Once again, one could never be too careful. Out of a sense of decency, he drew a cover over the dead man’s body. Like Colonel Tissot, the body would start to stink in about seven days and would draw investigators to the apartment. But by then, Sun would be long gone from the country and possibly even from Europe.

The apartment had a good audio setup in the living room, so he went to it and turned on some music. Most of the dead man’s music collection was not to John Sun’s tastes. But he did find some classical stuff, some Mahler and some Brahms, and he hooked up some restful, mournful stuff. He had killed two men today, partly out of retribution, partly because it had been his job. But it did set him in a mournful mood. No Verdi Requiem, so Mahler would have to do.

Then, for two hours, Sun prowled his second victim’s apartment. He found many items of interest, but the preeminent one was the file that the dead man had acquired less than twenty-four hours earlier.

Thoughtfully, he settled into a chair and read it, putting two and two together quickly.

Sun had a keen eye for attractive women, and his gaze settled almost immediately on the surveillance photographs of Alexandra LaDuca. This was the first time he had ever seen her, either in a photo or live, and it was the first time he had ever encountered her name. The file was clear as to what she was: an American agent who would be assigned to a case tangential to the late Pole, the late Colonel Tissot, and that star-crossed little statue that some busybodies had swiped from a Spanish museum, putting this whole skein of events in progress.

An American agent and a female one at that, as the pictures made clear. Interesting.

Alex LaDuca. Well, he had computer access and some very good backup people. He’d be able to find out more about this woman within a few hours, not the least of details being where and how to find her, if necessary.