Shaw made a helpless gesture. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s classified,” Dorgan said.

“What is?”

“The device. It’s a neurophonic prosthesis. Made of bioglass.”

“So it’s invisible to the body’s immune system.”

“Right.”

It was Ray Shaw’s turn to sit down. Settling onto the arm of a leather chair, he thought about what the physicist was saying.

“You should have told me how sensitive this was,” Dorgan complained.

“I didn’t know—”

“I was showing the Goddamn thing to anyone who’d look at it! And Fred—you know Fred—he goes way back—he takes a look, and he says, ‘We used to play with these in grad school.’ And I said, when was that—the Stone Age? And he laughs, and says, ‘Yeah, it was—everyone in the lab had his own lava lamp.’ Very funny. So I asked him: what is it? And he says, ‘Well, Charlie, it’s a neurophonic prosthesis—now I have to kill you.’ Ha ha, I say. And he gives me a funny look. A funny look!”

“You’re kidding.”

“The hell I am: he gives me a funny look, and says, ‘Seriously,’—seriously—‘you shouldn’t have that thing. It was a government program. Very hush-hush. One of those programs that never happened. An experimental program.’”

Shaw’s face darkened. “This wasn’t an experiment,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I removed it from a patient.”

Dorgan blinked several times. Got his breath back. And asked: “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“No.”

The physicist pursed his lips, and took a deep breath. “The next thing you know, I’ve got visitors.” He paused for emphasis.

“Who?” Shaw asked.

“‘Who?’ Who do ya think? The Smoking Man and his evil twin—the Other Smoking Man.”

Shaw chuckled.

“I’m not kidding,” Dorgan insisted. “These guys were straight out of Central Casting. Big trench coats, and no sense of irony.”

“They say who they’re with?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact—it came up. They said they were with the Pentagon,” Dorgan replied, “only I notice their business cards have a 301 area code.”

“Which means… ?”

Dorgan shrugged. “NSA?”

Shaw frowned. “So what was the point of the visit?”

“They wanted to know how I’d ‘come into possession of the device.’”

“And you told them?” Shaw asked, his face a mask of disappointment.

“Of course I told them! What was I supposed to do, Ray? They scared the shit out of me.”

“So…”

Dorgan hesitated. Finally, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe you should expect a visit.”

She had been sitting in the reception area for nearly twenty minutes when the door to Shaw’s office swung wide, and two men in black trench coats emerged, looking grim. Crossing the room to the hallway, they let themselves out without a word, while Shaw himself lingered in the doorway with a worried look on his face.

Tossing the New Yorker onto the table beside the couch, Adrienne got to her feet, and cleared her throat.

The psychiatrist turned to her with a distracted air. For a moment, it seemed as if he didn’t recognize her. Then he did, and, waking suddenly, exclaimed, “Adrienne! Migod, come in.”

She followed him into his office, and took a seat in front of his desk. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

The psychiatrist looked worried and confused at the same time. “I’m not supposed to mention their visit,” he told her.

“Whose visit?”

“The men who were just here.”

“Oh,” she said, uncertain what he meant.

Shaw frowned. Looked her in the eyes. “You haven’t told me everything, have you? About our friend.”

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “No,” she admitted. “Not everything.”

“Because, now… well, now there’s trouble.”

She was stricken at the thought that she’d drawn this kind and generous man into the mixing bowl of her own problems. And Duran’s. McBride’s. Nikki’s. “I thought, the less you knew…”

“They asked me for his medical file. I refused to give it to them.”

“Who?”

“The men who were here.”

Adrienne thought about it. “And who are they?”

The psychiatrist shook his head. “They said they’re with a government agency.”

“What agency?”

“They didn’t say.”

Adrienne made a face. “Well, if they want his medical file, they can get a subpoena—”

Doctor Shaw shook his head, and smiled ruefully. “I don’t think that’s the way they work. They were very forceful.”

“Oh.”

The psychiatrist did his best to push the men out of his mind. “You were going to look into Mr. McBride’s story. Did you find anything?”

Adrienne was relieved to change, if not the subject, the direction it was heading in. “Absolutely!” she exclaimed. “Beginning with the fact that he is who he says he is—except that he’s supposed to be dead.”

“What?”

“And he isn’t married. No wife, no child. No indictments for murder or anything else. None of that happened.” She removed a copy of the LOCAL MAN FEARED DEAD article from her purse, and pushed it across the desk. “He’s got longer hair in the picture, but… you can see it’s him.”

Shaw put on his reading glasses, glanced at the photograph, nodded, and focused. After a while, the psychiatrist looked up. “How can you be sure—”

“I went through every article on Nexis that mentioned anyone named McBride and San Francisco—‘95 through ‘97. There were hundreds of them, and there was nothing even remotely like the fairy tale he told you. And if I missed it, somehow—which I didn’t—it would certainly have been in the story about the plane crash—if it ever happened.”

Shaw leaned back in his chair, contemplating the ceiling. “And if he had a common-law wife? And a baby with a different last name? And if he was never a suspect in the murders… ?”

“Doc. Please. You’re reaching.”

The psychiatrist thought about it. “I suppose I am.”

They agreed to meet at the hospital the next morning. In the meantime, Shaw said that he’d instruct the nursing staff to keep McBride under restraints, but desist from any further sedation.

Returning to the Mayflower, Adrienne changed into her running clothes, slipped a $10 bill into her right shoe, and took the elevator down to the lobby. Someone was taking down the Thanksgiving decorations. Rubbing his gloved hands together, the doorman shook his head in admiration as she stepped out into the freezing cold. “If I’m not back in an hour,” she told him, “send a St. Bernard for me.”

Overhead, the bare branches of ancient oaks and sycamores framed the sky. Mounds of dung lay on the powder-soft, equestrian trails. And then, a long hill, leading to a dark pond on the southern-most edge of Harlem. Clusters of private-school kids stood together, tieless and smoking—laughing, conspiring. The slur of Rollerblades on the pavement. Thwockk of tennis balls in the distance. Then the Reservoir, ringed with Cyclone fencing, the sun behind it, setting. Light flickering through the fence as Adrienne ran beside it, thinking about McBride.

How do you imagine a family, she asked herself, imagine it so perfectly that you become suicidal in the belief that you’ve killed them? And why now—why would McBride recall an imaginary and toxic past after the implant had been removed?

It didn’t make sense. Unless, of course, that was the point: to make “Duran” commit suicide if and when the device should ever be removed, if and when he should ever recover his memory. His real memory.

And now the men in trenchcoats…

Adrienne arrived at the hospital the next morning, almost half an hour early, refreshed from a long and dreamless sleep. She was hoping to see McBride before Shaw arrived, but the nurse at the reception desk rebuffed her. “We don’t allow visitors on A-4. I’m sorry, but there are no exceptions.”