However clever Geyer might be, though, he didn’t know everything that Lisa knew. He had no way of matching her guess as to the identity of the person behind the kidnapping. All he could do was to sit around and wonder why Morgan had thought his quest a partialfailure—which would surely have driven him to the same hastily formed conclusion that Ms. X must have reached: that if Morgan had discovered a method of life extension that worked only on women, he would have immediately gone to work to find a way of making it work on men too. But surely, Lisa thought, neither Matthias Geyer nor Ms. X knew Morgan Miller as well as she did—unless, of course, she was a mere fool where Morgan Miller was concerned, and always had been.

“No,” she said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Geyer flashed her a ghostly half smile that might have been a calculated reflection of her own. “Perhaps I’m not entirely sure what I mean myself,” he said. “Algeny encourages the use of the imagination—the everlasting intellectual struggle to transcend the mental limitations imposed on us by the idols of the theatre and the tribe. I deeply regret what has happened. I feel sure that Morgan Miller was an Algenist at heart, and I wish he had come to us forty years ago for assistance with whatever line of research it was that frustrated him so deeply. If you ever come to feel that your vocation in forensic science has run its course, Dr. Friemann, I hope you will consider the possibility of seeking employment with us. We need people of your caliber.”

Lisa remembered Leland’s assurance that he could fix her up with a job. She had thought at the time that he was merely trying to suggest that her decision to overstep the legal line wouldn’t cost her too dearly, but now she considered the possibility that the Algenists really were enthusiastic to recruit her because of what she might know about Morgan Miller’s stubbornly secret research. She had to control an impulse to laugh at Geyer’s temerity. Peter Smith’s expression of disapproval was a sight to behold.

“If you’ll forgive me, Herr Geyer,” the tight-lipped man from the MOD put in, “I must insist that we stick to the point at issue. Do you have a tape of your interview with Morgan Miller?”

“I’m afraid not,” the Algenist replied. “It’s not our policy to tape confidential conversations. I really am trying to be helpful, although I apologize for digressing so far as to tell Dr. Friemann that we value expertise like hers. You have my word that if there is anything I can do to facilitate Morgan Miller’s safe release, I shall certainly do it—but for the time being, I cannot see anything I can more usefully do than urge you to return forthwith to more profitable lines of inquiry. I have told you all I can.”

No sooner had Geyer finished speaking than Peter Smith’s phone rang. It seemed an uncanny echo of what had happened at the Ahasuerus Foundation. “Yes,” Smith said, putting the phone to his ear.

Whatever was said didn’t seem to lighten his mood. His spirits had already become fractious, but the call seemed to darken them even further. When he put the phone away again, all he said was: “Very well, Herr Geyer—we’ll leave it there for the time being.”

Lisa rose with an alacrity she could not have contrived an hour before, no matter how impatient she had become. Smith obviously didn’t want to say anything in front of Geyer that could be construed as an indiscretion, so she didn’t ask any questions. It was, however, left to her to thank Matthias Geyer for his assistance. Unlike Smith, she thought that he probably had been as helpful as he could, in his own way.

When they were back in the police car, with the gates of the Institute firmly closed behind them, she asked Smith what had happened.

“They’ve identified the Real Woman,” he said. “Cross-connecting her records with Filisetti’s revealed what seemed to be a promising network of mutual contacts, but the moment your people got to work on it, they found that it was hopelessly confused by a smoke screen. Someone’s been busy corrupting the files, and the corruption extends into the heart of the police net.”

“Oh,” said Lisa. She had not anticipated this, but now that the information had been laid before her, she could see that it was not in the least astonishing. “What kind of smoke screen?”

“The statistical sort threw out a substantial list of names,” Smith told her glumly, “but the top three, at least, appear to be somebody’s idea of a joke. Guess whose name is number one, even though she didn’t even recognize the woman in question?”

“Mine,” said Lisa, her heart sinking slightly as she realized that this might look a lot worse than Stella Filisetti or one of her confidantes spraying the word TRAITOR on her door. Even so, she couldn’t help adding: “And I bet I can guess who numbers two and three are too.”

“Go on,” Smith invited, trying hard to pretend that it wouldn’t make him any more suspicious than he already was if she happened to guess right.

She went ahead anyway. “Chief Inspector Judith Kenna,” she said, “and Mrs. Helen Grundy.”

“Spot-on,” Smith confirmed. “I suppose I ought to be grateful that they had no way of knowing I’d be sent down from London, or they’d have put my wife’s name in as well.” He didn’t sound entirely convinced of that.

“What about Arachne West?” Lisa asked.

“She was on the list too,” Smith confirmed. “Farther down, of course—but near enough to the top to assist the theory that her name’s one of those that the smoke screen is trying to conceal, not part of the smoke screen itself. It’s only a matter of hours, of course, before the disinformation is eliminated. By dawn, or shortly thereafter, we’ll know for sure who our enemies are and be able to begin tracking down their current whereabouts. Once we can start making arrests, we’ll be able to ascertain Morgan Miller’s whereabouts soon enough.”

Lisa considered telling Smith that she already knew who Smith’s so-called enemies were, and that she already had a plan for ascertaining Morgan Miller’s whereabouts, but she decided against it. Until she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she didn’t want to be one of those so-called enemies, she had to work alone—or almost alone. There was one person to whom she still felt a limited sense of obligation, although it wasn’t going to be easy to give him fair warning without compromising her temporary advantage in the game of hide-and-seek.

“I need some sleep,” she said. “If I’m to be of any use to you when the disinformation is eliminated, I have to get my head down.”

“So do I,” he said. “We’ll go straight back to the hotel—but as soon as the sun comes up, we’ll have to move on.”

By daybreak, Lisa thought, I’ll have moved already— and with luck, you won’t catch up with me until I have all the answers I need.

SEVENTEEN

As soon as Ginny had eased the helicopter into the air again, Peter Grimmett Smith rounded on Lisa. “Okay,” he said. “So tell me—what was all that about? You were practically flirting with the guy.”

“As a matter of fact,” Lisa informed him frostily “it was he who was practically flirting with me.He seemed to feel that you were a trifle hostile and that I might be more sympathetic. Wasn’t that the point of my being there?”

“Of course,” Smith conceded ungraciously. “But you have to remember that he’s a suspect. He could be the one who had Miller kidnapped.”

“I doubt it. He’s infinitely more likely to be the one who set Leland loose—indirectly, if not directly. He had no reason to think that Morgan would prefer Ahasuerus to the Institute, given that Morgan doesn’t have your knee-jerk response to the mention of Nietzsche and that Morgan never suggested there was any kind of competition going on. When he heard about Morgan being abducted, though, he must have had a sudden anxiety attack that something so nearly in his grasp might be snatched away before he even got a chance to find out what it was. He was probably on the phone to Leland within minutes, although he might have checked with Switzerland first.”