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"I’ast hadn’t uttered a word in days When he tried to answer, his windpipe felt half-closed, thickened froed as a croak

"I’ breath A stale s off him, dried sweat and old polyester For a moment he let his eyes drift around the tiny roorateful I adast enorent"

"Her nareat deal about her"

"She’s six She likes pancakes and carnival rides She has a toy rabbit named Peter You’re a heartless prick, you know that, Sykes?"

Sykes withdrew an envelope from the pocket of his coat and placed it on the table Inside were two photographs One was a picture of Auessed, at the convent Probably it was the saone out with the Ah school yearbook photo The woman in the picture was obviously Aement of the facial bones, the sah suffused, at the instant that the shutter opened, with a warirl? Did she have friends, family, a boyfriend? A favorite subject in school? A sport she loved and was good at? Did she have secrets, a story of herself that no one knew? What did she hope her life would becole to the ca what looked like a prom dress, pale blue; her shoulders were bare At the bottoh School, Mason, IA"

"Her ht before she left Amy at the convent, she shot a trick on the front lawn of a frat house For the record"

Wolgast wanted to say, So? Hoas any of that Araph-not even really a woer Maybe Sykes wasn’t even telling the truth He put the photo down "What happened to her?"

Sykes lifted his shoulder in a shrug "No one knows Gone"

"And the nuns?"

A shadow skittered across Sykes’s face Wolgast could tell that he’d hit the ht The nuns, too? Had it been Richards or somebody else?

"I don’t know," Skyes answered

"Look at you," Wolgast said "Yes, you do"

Sykes said nothing ast, This line of conversation is over He rubbed his eyes and returned the photos to their envelope and put it away

"Where is she?"

"Agent, the thing is-"

"Where’s Aain "That’s the reason I’m here, you see," he said "The favor We think Aast wasn’t allowed to ask any questions He wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone, or look around, or step from Sykes’s line of vision A detail of two soldiers led hiht The air felt and sast found hiry breaths The sun was painful to his eyes

Once they were in the Chalet, Sykes took him down an elevator, four floors They exited onto an euessed they were fifty feet belowground, maybe more Whatever Sykes’s people kept down here, they wanted at least thatit from the world above They came to a doorhis stride More doors, and then they cah the reader and opened it

Wolgast found himself in some kind of observation rooht, Amy’s small form lay on a hospital bed, alone She was connected to an IV, but that was all Beside her bed was a plastic chair, eroup of color-coded hoses, coiled like the pneue Otherwise the rooast turned to see aa lab coat and green scrubs, like Wolgast’s

"Agent Wolgast, this is Dr Fortes"

They nodded without shaking hands Fortes was young, not even thirty Wolgast wondered if he was an MD or so else Like Sykes, Fortes appeared exhausted, physically spent His skin was oily, and he needed a haircut and a shave His glasses looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in a month

"She has an embedded chip It transmits vitals to the panel here" Fortes showed him: heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, temperature Amy’s was 1026

"Where?"

"Where what?" The doctor’s eyes floated with incomprehension

"Where’s the chip?"

"Oh" Fortes looked at Sykes, who nodded Fortes pointed at the back of his own neck "Subcutaneous, between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae The power source is pretty nifty, actually, a tiny nuclear cell Like the kind on satellites, only ast shuddered A nifty nuclear power source in A with a look of caution

"Is this what happened to the others? Carter and the rest"