After a minute, she let out a long breath. "So how'd it go?"

"I think I've got Darrel talked into it. He really wants this guy. As do I."

"What about Abe?"

"I didn't get around to talking to Abe. He might have reservations I'd rather not entertain at this point in time."

Frannie closed her eyes and sighed again. "It's really that important?"

"Charlie Bowen told his wife it was the most important thing he'd ever worked on. It was his biggest chance to do some real good in the world."

"In the world, huh?"

"The big old world, yeah." He kept rubbing her back. "I didn't pick this fight, Frannie. It just came and fell in my lap. And now it turns out that this guy's just the smiling face of evil in this world, and what makes it worse is he cloaks it all in patriotism and loyalty while he deals away lives so he can make another buck. It makes me puke."

"And it's all up to you? It's got to be you, Dismas Hardy?"

"I think I've got the cards," Hardy said. "I can beat him and take him down."

"And what about the people protecting him politically?"

"Well, with any luck, them too. But Allstrong's enough for my purposes. I'm just trying to do the right thing here, Frannie, mostly for my client."

"I'm not sure I believe you, babe. I think you want to save the world."

"But if I did that," Hardy said, "I'd need personal theme music."

HARDY DIDN'T SLEEP as well as he would have liked. He woke up for the first time at two-sixteen to the sound of squealing tires out on the street below his bedroom. Wide awake, he went downstairs to check that the house was locked up front and back, which it was.

Behind the kitchen, he turned on the light and went to his safe under his workbench, opened it, and brought out his own weapon, a Smith & Wesson M &P.40. He hesitated for a moment, then picked it up and slammed a full magazine into the grip, racked a round into the chamber, and took off the safety. Then, quietly and methodically, he went through the downstairs, checking the kids' rooms, the family room, back up through the dining and living rooms. Nobody there.

Back upstairs in his bedroom, the gun's safety on, he put it in the drawer next to his bed and lay down again.

The sound of a Dumpster slamming shut, or a garbage can being dropped-something loud and clanging-woke him up at four thirty-eight. He grabbed the gun again and made another tour of the house, with the same result.

Up for the day, he realized, he put on a pot of coffee and went out to get the newspaper, but stopped at the front door first and looked down the street in both directions. Only after satisfying himself that it was clear did he go outside and grab the paper.

This was not turning out to be the way he had planned it.

ABOUT FIVE MINUTES before Frannie's alarm was going to go off, he went upstairs again and laid a hand on her shoulder, gently waking her up.

"Is everything all right?" she asked him.

"So far everything's fine. But sometime in the middle of last night, my subconscious must have decided that you were right. I've been awake half the night worrying. I shouldn't have put us in this situation. I'm sorry."

She reached out and took his hand. "Apology accepted. So what do you want to do?"

"I don't think it would be the worst idea in the world to check into a hotel for a couple of days. Treat it like a vacation."

She sat up, letting go of his hand. "Did something else happen last night that I didn't hear about?"

"No. I've just had time to think about these guys some more. Until it's clear to Allstrong that Glitsky and Bracco are really in on this investigation with me, which I hope ought to be by today or tomorrow, it's like Moses said-we're hanging out there all alone in the breeze."

Frannie shuddered. "I think I liked it better when you were pretending there was nothing to worry about."

"Me too. But I don't think that's the smart move right now. I think we'd be wise to lie a little low."

Sitting with the idea for another moment, Frannie finally sighed. "A couple of days?"

"Probably no more than that."

"Probably." She shook her head. "Do you have any idea how much I wish you hadn't called him?"

"Pretty much, yeah. If it's any consolation, I didn't feel like I had much of a choice."

"Right," she said. "That makes me feel much better."

ALLSTRONG WOULD ALSO know that Hardy went into his office every day, but Hardy had convinced himself that he could minimize his risk on that score by pulling directly into his parking place in the gated and locked parking garage underneath the building and taking the inside elevator up to his office. Once he was inside, he had a reasonable faith in his firm's security system.

As he pulled in about to park, though, he noticed a brown paper lunch bag lying against the wall just in front of his space. For a minute, the sight of the thing froze him. It was just the kind of harmless-looking item, he imagined, that might in actuality be an improvised explosive device. Turning on his lights, he illuminated the bag, which looked to be nothing more than what it was.

Setting the brake, Hardy opened his door and walked over to the bag, touching it gingerly with his foot, then leaning over to pick it up. It weighed almost nothing, and contained only a few napkins, an apple core, and a couple of Baggies.

Forcing a small nonlaugh at his paranoia, Hardy got back in to his car and parked, then crossed to the elevator and pushed the button to call it down.

IN HIS OFFICE, Hardy went over the final draft of his appeal, which explicitly laid out his argument on the Brady violation in such a way as to maximize Allstrong's connection to Nolan and to the Khalils. He attached a declaration from Wyatt Hunt detailing the conversation Hunt had had with Abdel Khalil. Included in the narrative was Tara Wheatley's information about the cash Nolan had brought back from Iraq, buttressing the idea that perhaps he'd been paid to carry out a contract on the Khalils. Of course, the FBI's interrogation of Abdel Khalil, which the agency had not seen fit to share with the prosecution team, was at the crux of his discussion.

In toto, Hardy believed that the appeal raised enough questions about important evidence that had not been admitted in the trial that he thought he'd at least get a hearing out of it. And possibly, if things worked out with Allstrong between now and then, a new trial for Evan.

Satisfied with his work, he sent one of his paralegals down to the court of appeals to file the brief, and then sent registered copies of it, as required, to Mary Patricia Whelan-Miille down in Redwood City, and also-although there was no mandate he do so-overnight to Allstrong Security marked "personal and confidential" for Jack Allstrong. He wanted Allstrong to know what he was doing, when he was doing it, and how it was likely to affect him if he didn't step in and do something to stop it.

Next, calling the prison, Hardy learned that Evan was still in the infirmary and that his condition had stabilized. There was some chance that he would be able to have visitors, perhaps as soon as the next day.

Hardy's cell phone went off-Bracco calling him. "It worked," he said. "I used the old 'Surely you'd want to cooperate in a murder investigation' and he opened up some time for me and I'm on the way down there right now."

"Have fun," Hardy said, "but be careful."

"Right." Bracco barked out a short, nervous laugh. "I'm all over it."