"Ames, anything?" Hansen called into his SVT.

"Not yet."

"Get up here."

"You got something?"

"Maybe. Move it."

Ames's footfalls came soft but swiftly, and within a few seconds he stood beside Hansen.

"How much you want to bet that skylight was opened from the outside?"

"Nothing, because it was." Ames mounted the ladder and climbed up twelve feet to the top. He pushed open the skylight, which folded soundlessly out of the way.

Soundlessly.

Hansen followed, and they both emerged onto the roof. Hansen leaned over and ran his finger along one of the skylight's hinges. His finger came up slick. "Fisher sprayed the hinges with silicone so they wouldn't squeak. This is definitely his entrance point."

"How'd he get up here?" Ames crossed the roof and spotted the air-conditioning unit. "Oh, here we go. I think he climbed up on the AC; then he could reach the ladder there." Ames climbed down the ladder and jumped onto the AC unit affixed to the wall. Again, Hansen followed, and in a few moments they both stood on the ground, staring up at the building.

"So if he came in from up top . . . " Hansen began aloud. "Wait a minute." He jogged around the front of the warehouse to the door, his gaze probing . . . and then he saw it--a long two-by-four lying near the wall about twenty feet away. He went over, picked up the wood, and inspected the ends. As he suspected, the wood was indented on one side. He brought the piece up to the door handle, and the indentation matched.

"If we go back to the loading dock, we'll find another two-by-four over there."

"He locked them in," Ames concluded.

"Then he came in from up top. They didn't stand a chance."

Ames snorted. "Yeah, well, they were fools. Fisher's playing with us now. Old man Fisher's going to cry like my sister when I get down with him."

Hansen made a face. "Pride cometh before the fall."

"You quoting Shakespeare?"

Hansen smirked. "No, Oprah. Let's go."

They crossed to the loading dock, where Hansen did, indeed, spot the second two-by-four, the indentation once again matching the door handle.

They went back inside the warehouse and Hansen crossed to the oak coffee table, where at each leg he found a black plastic ring: flex-cuffs. He was painfully familiar with them and felt his wrists ache from that night in Korfovka. Sure enough, the plastic matched the sliver he'd found upstairs in the bathroom.

So there it was: Fisher had probably lured them one by one upstairs, where he'd neutralized and cuffed them. But he'd saved the questioning of Doucet for the main arena. He imagined Doucet bound to the table and Fisher conducting the interrogation in his deadpan voice:

"We're done with questions. You talk. Otherwise, pain."

"No!"Doucet cried.

"All right. You choose pain."

Hansen flinched and shuttered as he noticed, on the floor, the scratch marks where Doucet had tried to free himself. All of it jibed with the police report.

Hansen and Ames spent another fifteen minutes searching for anything else of interest. Hansen discovered that the clothing dryer had been pulled back from the wall, and the floor was clear of dust in an area about the size of a briefcase. Something had, no doubt, been stashed there and removed.

Outside, they slipped back to their cars and took off, with Hansen, Ames, Noboru in one car, the women in the other. They would take separate routes back to the hotel, yet another tradecraft detail Hansen employed this time around.

He and the others were about five minutes away from the warehouse when Moreau called: "Ben? Maya and Kim are okay, but it looks like you boys have picked up a tail."

After swearing under his breath, he answered, "Talk to me."

"Black Range Rover. Two occupants. Driver's got the lights out. Can't see their faces. The driver's a pretty big guy, though. They're keeping pretty far back. What're you going to do, cowboy?"

"You testing me?"

"Life's a test, young man. Every day. Every hour. Every minute."

Hansen sighed and looked over at Ames, who was at the wheel. "Just keep driving."

Ames frowned. "You kidding me? I can lose these bastards, but you'll need to hang on."

"No. If they followed us out here, then they saw us leave the hotel. They know where we're going. Let's just head back and see what they do."

"I agree with that plan," said Noboru. "We don't know who they are, and if we react, we will lose the element of surprise."

NOBORUhad forced the emotion out of his voice--and that wasn't easy. Two men were following them, one larger. This wasn't his paranoia rearing its ugly head. Horatio and Gothwhiler were back there in that Range Rover. They had tracked Noboru to France. They were coming to finally, inevitably, settle the score.

But how had they found him? Had someone within Third Echelon tipped them off? As far as Noboru knew, only Grim was aware of his past. But perhaps that wasn't true. Perhaps there were others, those who worked for Kovac . . . those who would like nothing more than to expose another conspiracy within the organization: that one of Third Echelon's Splinter Cells had once been employed by Gothos, a corporation currently identified as an enemy of the United States.

Noboru swallowed. He reached for the door handle, saw himself leaping from the car, rolling down the ditch, then coming around to bring his pistol to bear on the car. He would kill them. The nightmare would end tonight.

But what if he were wrong? What if these men had been hired by Kovac or even Fisher himself? If Noboru were to confront them, he'd be doing the very thing he had just advised Hansen against: tipping his hand to the enemy.

But to remain silent, in place, knowing that they could be back there, would take inhuman reserve. He could barely breathe and the bile was building in his throat.

"Moreau?" Hansen called. "We're not reacting."

They drove on, all the way back to the hotel, with Moreau finally telling them that the Range Rover had pulled into a parking garage about five blocks away.

As they parked in their own garage, Moreau continued to feed them reports. Still no sign of the drivers.

"Ben, I suggest we search our cars," said Noboru.

"Good idea."

And within five minutes they found a pair of GPS tracking devices, both placed within the back sides of the cars' rear bumpers.

"Those are British made," said Moreau. "Interesting. Excellent encryption. They're not amateurs."

"Let me shadow them," said Noboru. "Let me go alone."

"I'd advise against that," said Moreau.

"Sir, are you telling me how to run my team?" asked Hansen. "Is that within the purview of operations management?"

"Young man, I'd like a word in private. Come on up here, ASAP."

"Tell him you'll wear your sexy bathrobe," said Ames with a wink.

"I heard that," cried Moreau.

Hansen looked at Gillespie and Valentina, who were holding the tracking devices. "Stick them on two other cars. We'll have a little fun with our tails."

The women smiled and got to work.

BACKup in Moreau's hotel room, Hansen stood before the man and lifted his shoulders. "Time for answers."