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“No, I already told you”

“No strange phone calls or e-mails about it? No one showed any curiosity?”

Frobisher groaned “No, no, and no When can I go home? I’m tired”

Saood idea”

“What? Why?”

“He knohere you live—”

“Ah, he was just so It’s just a piece of wine bottle, for God’s sake, and he has it It’s over”

I doubt it, Saht And neither did he think the ie For whatever reason, solass, was very ih to kill for

Forty-fivebeneath the low-hanging branches of a tree, his face covered inthe movements of the Somerset County sheriff’s deputy as the tow-truck driver finished hooking up the Lucerne In some primitive part of his brain Arkhipov wanted to e and concentrated on re still It would have been so easy—not to —to take the deputy and the tow-truck driver by surprise, dispatch theht, but he knew that would cause him more trouble than the pleasure orth Aroadblocks, random stops, and even perhaps the F

BI, none of which would help him on his mission

He’d been awoken froht and the nearby warbling of sirens and had opened his eyes to find hihts He’d stayed still, certain he’d see figures running toward him, but when no one ca away, behind the boilers and into the trees where he now lay

Don’t move, he commanded himself He would stay here, stay invisible, and wait for them to leave The rental car had been secured with a false driver’s license and a sanitized credit card, neither of which would lead the police anywhere The rain had turned the junkyard into a le to pique the police’s curiosity At this point all they had was an abandoned car and what they would likely decide was a prank OnStar call froers

Now, that had been a clever trick, Arkhipov thought, as was their a, yes, but the professional in Arkhipov appreciated the ingenuity of the thing The sheer nerve of it His foot throbbed with pain, but he didn’t dare check it until he was alone The mud had absorbed part of the stone’s impact, but his two smallest toes were probably broken Painful but not debilitating He’d experienced much worse In the Spetsnaz, a broken bone rarely even warranted hanistanthebetter than to kill up close and personal, face-to-face and knife-to-knife, and he had the scars to reoriy Arkhipov kneas a si more

So ere they, he wondered, these ood Samaritans, that e And resourcefulness Friends of Frobisher’s, the ue that Arkhipov was only too happy to exploit It would be enough He would find them—hopefully before he had to report this incident to his employer

Clearly they had close ties with the antique dealer Why would they risk their lives otherwise? So, two plus two equals four If Frobisher didn’t want to cooperate and tell him where he’d found the shard, perhaps this other