英文有声《第43条疤痕》三部曲

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Chapter 18
Gideon’s mouth formed into the shape of an O, and he began to lower as a way to lessen the pain.
She bent with him, her mouth following his ear, and she whispered so that only he would hear.
“I don’t want to kill you,” she said. “I won’t kill you, but if you continue to fuck with me, you’ll wish I had.”
Munroe’s respect for Gideon had gone up a notch with his attempt at placement— he’d been swift and smooth, and had it been anyone else that he’d tried to mark, he would have surely succeeded.
But professional admiration could never stand in the way of the need to assert dominance. Alpha to alpha, Gideon must never forget his place.
Logan and Bradford sat motionless, eyes wide, and it wasn’t until Munroe pried the tracking device from Gideon’s palm and slapped it on the table that the rest of them understood what had taken place in the space of those few seconds.
Gideon’s face was red, his jaw clenched, and Munroe readied for retaliation.
Instead, he straightened, turned, and left the café. There was silence as they watched him go.
“Many of us don’t take well to any form of imposed control,” Heidi said. “Ours was a totalitarian life, and we’re allergic to authority now.”
She paused. “He’s a good person,” she added, “just thought you should know.”
“I’m in no position to judge,” Munroe said. “If circumstances were different we’d probably get along fine,
“but right now my world revolves around getting to Hannah and defending the process.
“I do that by taking advantage of opportunities and protecting them from threats.”
Heidi nodded, and then paused in the slow hesitation of someone who wanted to say something but was worried about doing so.
Whatever tumbled inside Heidi’s head, Munroe needed to hear it, and with time at a premium, she needed it fast.
In an immediate downshift and instant role change, Munroe dropped her shoulders, became visibly smaller, and followed this with a relaxation of facial muscles, all of it culminating in a wistful smile.
The response was as expected, a reciprocal relaxation on Heidi’s part, and with the easing of tension, Heidi’s struggle ebbed.
“I was wondering,” she said, “if on any of the surveillance you’ve done, you’ve come across a guy named Malachi. Well, maybe it’s Malachi, maybe it’s Elijah.”
Munroe said, “Who?”【】Heidi reached into her purse and pulled out an aged photo. She slid it across the table.
“This guy,” she said. “I don’t know for certain what name he uses now, but the last time I saw him he’d just switched to Elijah.”
The photo showed an unmistakable blond, mustachioed, much younger, guitar-playing version of the Elijah that Munroe had spoken with yesterday at the Haven Ranch.
Munroe studied the photo and after a moment slid it back.
“The information is still pooling,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to go through it all yet.” She’d given the truth, if not the answer.
Heidi put the photo back and nodded, disappointment written on her face.
“He’s my dad,” she said. “I haven’t had any word from him in about six years. We used to be close.
“In spite of all of the insanity and the times we were kept away from each other, he always found a way to make sure that I knew he was there for me.
“He was a good dad. That’s probably the most painful thing in all of this— being cut off from my family.
“Not just my dad, you know. I used to take care of my brothers and sisters— well, half brothers and sisters— I was more their mom than my stepmom was.”
Heidi paused, looked toward the table, and said, her voice lower this time,
“I guess I hoped that maybe in the course of all of this, someone might spot him, might be able to tell me if he was still in Argentina.
“I’d really like to connect with him again, to see my brothers and sisters again.”
“What about your mom?” Munroe asked.【】Heidi shrugged. “It wasn’t the same.”
Munroe understood the ache of separation and, with true compassion, said, “When all is said and done, if they’re here, I’ll let you know.”
Heidi’s return smile was warm and trusting, an almost childish acceptance that contrasted with her extreme intelligence and yet was completely sincere.
It was difficult not to like Heidi, and the idea of being able to fulfill such a simple hope as a by-product of finding Hannah was a pleasant one.
“Will they let you in?” Munroe asked.【】“Maybe,” Heidi said. “It’s worth a try.”
Munroe turned to Logan and said, “Walk with me for a moment, will you?”
Logan stood and grabbed his coat. To Bradford, Munroe said, “I’ll be back in ten.”
Outside the café, the sky was overcast and the humid chill of yesterday had taken on the aspect of a misty rain just wet enough to coat everything in a layer of teardrops, yet not quite enough for umbrellas.
Munroe took Logan’s hand and led him away from the entrance until they were out of sight, and there, under a storefront awning, she sank back against the wall.
He followed suit, and together, in comfortable silence, they watched pedestrian traffic.
Finally she said, “Do you still think Gideon is here to help find Hannah?”
“If that’s all he wanted, he’d be content to let you do your job,” Logan said. “Especially now that he knows you’re capable of it.”
“He wants inside,” Munroe said. “I’m going to venture that the only thing holding him back from making a break and attempting to find them on his own is the risk of screwing things up for Hannah— for Charity.
“He wants it bad, Logan.” She looked off in the distance for a moment and then turned back to him. “What’s Gideon’s relationship with Charity?”
“He’s been in love with her for years,” Logan said.【】“Are they a couple? An item?”【】“If Gideon had his say they would be, but Charity’s not interested in him in that way.”
“He doesn’t know about the two of you?”【】“Nobody knows,” Logan replied. “Except for me, Charity, you, and”— he paused— “well, now Miles.”
She nodded. “Miles is my rearguard, Logan, you know the drill.”【】“Yeah,” he said. “I know how it goes.”
Munroe stared off in the direction that Gideon had walked. “Logan, it’s important that you realize the situation you’re in.
“As of right this moment, Gideon is the biggest threat we’re facing in getting to your daughter.
“He came down here for a reason, his time is running out, and he’s not going back until he gets what he wants.
“If they spook because of something he does, Hannah’s gone again. You know that, right?”
Logan nodded. Kicked a leg back against the wall for support.
“I know you all think that Charity needs to keep her name out of this,” Munroe said, “but if you’re serious about getting it done, I need you to buy me time. If Gideon will do what Charity wants, you need to get her involved.”
“It won’t be a problem,” Logan said. “I talk to her at least once a day, sometimes more. She’s biting her nails even more than I am right now.”
“Tell me about Gideon,” Munroe said. “What’s his story?”【】“Kind of like mine,” Logan said. “He was tossed out of The Chosen when he was fifteen.
“He’d never been to the States before, had never even met his grandparents, and then one day he was dropped off on their doorstep.
“He tried going to school, was too far behind academically to keep up with his peers, couldn’t adjust, couldn’t relate, started getting in trouble, and before long his grandparents kicked him out.”
Logan paused, and Munroe motioned for him to continue. “He ended up on the streets,” Logan said. He chuckled. “Remind you of anyone?”
She smiled. Logan grinned. “I was lucky,” he said. “Eric’s dad took me under his wing and put a roof over my head, even if it wasn’t much.
“Gideon didn’t fare as well. He was in nonstop trouble and twice narrowly missed a term in juvie.
“He saw the military as a way out, and when he was seventeen tried to enlist. He couldn’t without a guardian’s signature.
“His grandparents had already disowned him and his parents treated him like a pariah and refused.
“Some love, huh? They’d rather have their son out on the streets than break with The Prophet’s antigovernment worldview.
“So he survived by picking up odd jobs, eventually got into the Marine Corps, did his time, and then moved on from there. That’s Gideon in a nutshell.”
“What were things like for him while he was in The Chosen?” she asked.【】“I don’t know,” Logan said.
“I only knew him when we were younger— seven— eight— didn’t live with him when we were teenagers, and these days he doesn’t talk about it much. That’s how some of us deal, you know? Pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Anybody in particular he might have a vendetta against?”【】Logan paused. Looked directly at her. “You think that’s why he wants in?”
“Gideon’s got a big chip on his shoulder,” she said. “He’s got something to prove to someone, and he doesn’t strike me as the type to want to prove it with words— maybe he wants to pound some issues out.”
“I’ll ask around,” Logan said. “See what I can find.”【】When they returned to the café, Bradford and Heidi were talking.
There was an intimacy to their conversation, both of them leaning in toward each other, steady eye contact, and Heidi’s face was flushed in a way it hadn’t been when they’d left.
It was hard not to like Heidi.【】Munroe slowed. Her face burned hot. The café ambience faded. The reaction, instant as it was, came as a surprise.
In split-second intervals Munroe studied Bradford. Studied Heidi. And then turned concentration inward.
Emotion on an assignment could get a person killed. She pushed it back.
Each step toward the table was a conscious rejection of the intensity that had set her heart racing, each step a return to the focus on the tasks at hand.
By the time she and Logan had joined the others, it was as if the moment had never happened.
The good-byes were brief, the promises short, and the return to the hotel made in silence.
For Munroe the transit was downtime, transition from one role back into another, and Bradford, aware of how she worked, seemed content to allow her the space she needed.
It was late afternoon by the time Munroe approached the Haven Ranch.
The sky had brightened, and scattered rays of sunshine gave rise to the illusion of warmth.
She rolled the Peugeot to a stop at the gate, stepped out for the push-button, and then returned to the car to wait.
Gaining entry for this round should, by all expectations, be straightforward.
This time it wasn’t Esteban who made the long walk to let her in but a teenage boy.
She guessed him to be around fifteen or sixteen, still in that awkward stage between child and man, with limbs longer than they should be and blemishes where they shouldn’t be.
When he had swung the gate wide, Munroe lowered the window and eased the car forward a few feet.
“I’m Miki,” she said.【】He didn’t reply, merely nodded and met her eyes shyly.
“I can drive you to the house,” she said, “and save you the cold walk back.”【】He shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said.
His reaction was a good gauge. They trusted her enough to send a teenager but not enough to allow him to ride with her.
Munroe parked in the same space that Bradford had the last visit, although today hers was the only vehicle.
She stepped out of the car to wait, and when the boy approached, she held out her hand. “I didn’t catch your name,” she said.
He paused and then reached to shake it. His touch said that shaking hands wasn’t an everyday occurrence. “I’m Dust,” he said.
Their conversation had so far been in Spanish and the English word was a jarring contrast.
Dust for Dustin or Dust for dirt? Given the nature of the rest of The Chosen names thus far, Munroe guessed dirt.
“Is Esteban here?” she asked.【】Dust shook his head but offered nothing else, and not wanting to make him more uncomfortable, Munroe stayed silent, following him to the room in which she’d sat the day before.
“Elijah asked me to tell you he’ll be here in just a minute or two,” he said. This was the longest string of words the boy had yet to offer,
and although from his Scandinavian looks he was clearly not from here, his accent was perfectly local. He’d been in Argentina for a while.
Dust’s dichotomy was part of what made The Chosen what it was.
Not Argentine, nor wholly American, the group and the people within it were a hodgepodge of races and cultures homogenized into the culture of The Prophet.
From Romania to Zimbabwe, Chile to Finland, The Chosen were different faces, different Havens, functioning as shell organizations under a myriad of names,
but behind closed doors the lifestyle was the same: the culture of The Prophet.
Dust left the room, and alone as Munroe was, it would have been a prime opportunity for her to wander.
But instinct told her to wait, and so she sat while the minute or two turned into five,
and when Elijah arrived, he wore the harried look of a cook in the kitchen on Christmas morning.
Munroe stood in greeting, and he wrapped his arms around her in a tight and welcoming hug.
Her response to the uninvited physical contact was instant, a drive so intense that it required every shard of focus to keep her solidly in place.
The rhythm of violence pounded in her chest and she remained frozen, fighting the urge to destroy him, to crush his head against the wall.
With fire burning a trail through her veins, she forced reciprocation.
To every single person in this commune, close physical contact was a part of everyday life, and this was a dangerous tightrope act that she had to walk.
The rage had nothing to do with Logan or his daughter or even Elijah;
this was Munroe’s own past, a history that would forever allow but a handful of people safely into her personal space— and Elijah certainly wasn’t one of them.
It would be several moments until the urge to strike passed, and to remain so close to him now required pure, practiced self-control.
“We’re short-staffed today,” Elijah said, seemingly unaware of how near he stood to hospitalization. “Why don’t you join me in the dining room? We can talk during cleanup.”
Still fighting the internal pressure, still not trusting herself to speak, Munroe nodded, followed, saw in his profile and his gait similarities to Heidi that she hadn’t noticed before, and was irritated for having missed them.
They passed from the alcove, through the living room, past the stairs, and out the back door to a path that led to the annex.
There, Elijah slid open wide glass doors, and instead of standing back to allow her to pass, as politeness would have dictated, he walked in ahead.
The doors opened directly to a room, which by appearances accounted for half of the building.
The space was lit by neon, tiled white, and half of it was filled with row upon row of rough-hewn picnic-style tables and wooden benches.
The other portion was devoted to serving food— large industrial-size pots sitting on a wide counter gave testament to as much— and a dishwashing assembly line.
The only others in the room were children, eight of them, between what seemed to be ten and twelve years old, silently busying themselves clearing tables and sweeping the floor.
Munroe strained to see beyond Elijah’s shoulder, scanning faces, searching for a shock of blond hair, green eyes, anything that might confirm that she had come to the right place, but there was little opportunity.
Elijah ushered her to a table where a stack of papers and file folders were turned blank side up,
and against all hope he motioned her to sit where his face was to the room and her back against it.
Each of these details filled in the gaps, all of them snapshots of commune life.
She’d arrived at the end of either a very late lunch or an early dinner, and most of those who had once filled this hall were gone again, leaving this particular group of children to do the cleanup.
Elijah, harried, juggling his paperwork and his leadership, filled in overseeing these children while whoever usually held the position was out in the vans today,
and he, apparently unfamiliar with how odd such a scene would play out to fresh eyes, carried on.
Munroe listened, answered, her mind working overtime to stay in the present while thoughts pinballed through her head.
That Hannah could be here, in the same room, invisible while her back was turned, made the attempt to focus on Elijah’s words almost unbearable.
She waited an appropriate amount of time, waited until the sounds and the limited conversation behind her indicated that the cleaning had come to an end,
and then, as Bradford had done the day prior, she requested the restroom.
Elijah motioned one of the girls over and, in English, asked her to show Munroe where the bathrooms were.
He said nothing more. No request to keep an eye on her, no warnings about limiting conversations, no instructions to wait with her charge.
Perhaps such things were so ingrained as to make further commentary unnecessary.
Munroe stood, turned, and scanned the room, running her eyes from face to face, but found no one resembling Charity or Logan.
The girl led Munroe through another sliding door, to a hallway, which passed three smaller rooms, each without a door in the frame, each lined with bunks that stood three beds high.
The bathroom was makeshift and tightly fitted, narrow stalls of plywood on a cement dais set across from the one sink—
what appeared to have been a large bathroom, gutted and refitted to run several toilets into plumbing built for one.
Munroe didn’t linger. There was no place to stash either a bug or a camera, and her reason for the trip had been to see the faces in the dining room.
The girl was still outside the bathroom when Munroe exited, eliminating any chance of poking around the bedrooms.
They returned to the dining room in silence, the child offering no conversation and Munroe hesitating to initiate it lest her motives somehow be misconstrued.
In the dining room, the children sat at a table, silent, focused on small cards, and the girl went to join them while Elijah stood and motioned Munroe over.
He handed her a small book. “I want you to read this,” he said. “I’ve got a few errands to run and then I’ll be right with you.”
He signaled to a boy of twelve. “Nathaniel will show you the way back,” Elijah said.
Munroe knew the way. Didn’t need a guide or a warden, no matter how young, in order to walk from one house to the next, and she knew that Elijah knew that she knew.
Instinct screamed in rebellion, but acquiescence was his expectation,
and whether this was a test or merely the way of The Chosen, she couldn’t break from her role.
Showing only gratitude, she followed Nathaniel out.
The boy said nothing, and so again Munroe walked in silence, and at the alcove off the living room, Nathaniel left her alone.
She glanced around the room, sat, and made herself comfortable for the indefinite wait— by the number of pages she’d been assigned, it could be hours.
She cracked open the book, and as Elijah, her new spiritual guide had instructed, she read.

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Chapter 18
Gideon’s mouth formed into the shape of an O, and he began to lower as a way to lessen the pain.
She bent with him, her mouth following his ear, and she whispered so that only he would hear.
“I don’t want to kill you,” she said. “I won’t kill you, but if you continue to fuck with me, you’ll wish I had.”
Munroe’s respect for Gideon had gone up a notch with his attempt at placement— he’d been swift and smooth, and had it been anyone else that he’d tried to mark, he would have surely succeeded.
But professional admiration could never stand in the way of the need to assert dominance. Alpha to alpha, Gideon must never forget his place.
Logan and Bradford sat motionless, eyes wide, and it wasn’t until Munroe pried the tracking device from Gideon’s palm and slapped it on the table that the rest of them understood what had taken place in the space of those few seconds.
Gideon’s face was red, his jaw clenched, and Munroe readied for retaliation.
Instead, he straightened, turned, and left the café. There was silence as they watched him go.
“Many of us don’t take well to any form of imposed control,” Heidi said. “Ours was a totalitarian life, and we’re allergic to authority now.”
She paused. “He’s a good person,” she added, “just thought you should know.”
“I’m in no position to judge,” Munroe said. “If circumstances were different we’d probably get along fine,
“but right now my world revolves around getting to Hannah and defending the process.
“I do that by taking advantage of opportunities and protecting them from threats.”
Heidi nodded, and then paused in the slow hesitation of someone who wanted to say something but was worried about doing so.
Whatever tumbled inside Heidi’s head, Munroe needed to hear it, and with time at a premium, she needed it fast.
In an immediate downshift and instant role change, Munroe dropped her shoulders, became visibly smaller, and followed this with a relaxation of facial muscles, all of it culminating in a wistful smile.
The response was as expected, a reciprocal relaxation on Heidi’s part, and with the easing of tension, Heidi’s struggle ebbed.
“I was wondering,” she said, “if on any of the surveillance you’ve done, you’ve come across a guy named Malachi. Well, maybe it’s Malachi, maybe it’s Elijah.”
Munroe said, “Who?”【】Heidi reached into her purse and pulled out an aged photo. She slid it across the table.
“This guy,” she said. “I don’t know for certain what name he uses now, but the last time I saw him he’d just switched to Elijah.”
The photo showed an unmistakable blond, mustachioed, much younger, guitar-playing version of the Elijah that Munroe had spoken with yesterday at the Haven Ranch.
Munroe studied the photo and after a moment slid it back.
“The information is still pooling,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to go through it all yet.” She’d given the truth, if not the answer.
Heidi put the photo back and nodded, disappointment written on her face.
“He’s my dad,” she said. “I haven’t had any word from him in about six years. We used to be close.
“In spite of all of the insanity and the times we were kept away from each other, he always found a way to make sure that I knew he was there for me.
“He was a good dad. That’s probably the most painful thing in all of this— being cut off from my family.
“Not just my dad, you know. I used to take care of my brothers and sisters— well, half brothers and sisters— I was more their mom than my stepmom was.”
Heidi paused, looked toward the table, and said, her voice lower this time,
“I guess I hoped that maybe in the course of all of this, someone might spot him, might be able to tell me if he was still in Argentina.
“I’d really like to connect with him again, to see my brothers and sisters again.”
“What about your mom?” Munroe asked.【】Heidi shrugged. “It wasn’t the same.”
Munroe understood the ache of separation and, with true compassion, said, “When all is said and done, if they’re here, I’ll let you know.”
Heidi’s return smile was warm and trusting, an almost childish acceptance that contrasted with her extreme intelligence and yet was completely sincere.
It was difficult not to like Heidi, and the idea of being able to fulfill such a simple hope as a by-product of finding Hannah was a pleasant one.
“Will they let you in?” Munroe asked.【】“Maybe,” Heidi said. “It’s worth a try.”
Munroe turned to Logan and said, “Walk with me for a moment, will you?”
Logan stood and grabbed his coat. To Bradford, Munroe said, “I’ll be back in ten.”
Outside the café, the sky was overcast and the humid chill of yesterday had taken on the aspect of a misty rain just wet enough to coat everything in a layer of teardrops, yet not quite enough for umbrellas.
Munroe took Logan’s hand and led him away from the entrance until they were out of sight, and there, under a storefront awning, she sank back against the wall.
He followed suit, and together, in comfortable silence, they watched pedestrian traffic.
Finally she said, “Do you still think Gideon is here to help find Hannah?”
“If that’s all he wanted, he’d be content to let you do your job,” Logan said. “Especially now that he knows you’re capable of it.”
“He wants inside,” Munroe said. “I’m going to venture that the only thing holding him back from making a break and attempting to find them on his own is the risk of screwing things up for Hannah— for Charity.
“He wants it bad, Logan.” She looked off in the distance for a moment and then turned back to him. “What’s Gideon’s relationship with Charity?”
“He’s been in love with her for years,” Logan said.【】“Are they a couple? An item?”【】“If Gideon had his say they would be, but Charity’s not interested in him in that way.”
“He doesn’t know about the two of you?”【】“Nobody knows,” Logan replied. “Except for me, Charity, you, and”— he paused— “well, now Miles.”
She nodded. “Miles is my rearguard, Logan, you know the drill.”【】“Yeah,” he said. “I know how it goes.”
Munroe stared off in the direction that Gideon had walked. “Logan, it’s important that you realize the situation you’re in.
“As of right this moment, Gideon is the biggest threat we’re facing in getting to your daughter.
“He came down here for a reason, his time is running out, and he’s not going back until he gets what he wants.
“If they spook because of something he does, Hannah’s gone again. You know that, right?”
Logan nodded. Kicked a leg back against the wall for support.
“I know you all think that Charity needs to keep her name out of this,” Munroe said, “but if you’re serious about getting it done, I need you to buy me time. If Gideon will do what Charity wants, you need to get her involved.”
“It won’t be a problem,” Logan said. “I talk to her at least once a day, sometimes more. She’s biting her nails even more than I am right now.”
“Tell me about Gideon,” Munroe said. “What’s his story?”【】“Kind of like mine,” Logan said. “He was tossed out of The Chosen when he was fifteen.
“He’d never been to the States before, had never even met his grandparents, and then one day he was dropped off on their doorstep.
“He tried going to school, was too far behind academically to keep up with his peers, couldn’t adjust, couldn’t relate, started getting in trouble, and before long his grandparents kicked him out.”
Logan paused, and Munroe motioned for him to continue. “He ended up on the streets,” Logan said. He chuckled. “Remind you of anyone?”
She smiled. Logan grinned. “I was lucky,” he said. “Eric’s dad took me under his wing and put a roof over my head, even if it wasn’t much.
“Gideon didn’t fare as well. He was in nonstop trouble and twice narrowly missed a term in juvie.
“He saw the military as a way out, and when he was seventeen tried to enlist. He couldn’t without a guardian’s signature.
“His grandparents had already disowned him and his parents treated him like a pariah and refused.
“Some love, huh? They’d rather have their son out on the streets than break with The Prophet’s antigovernment worldview.
“So he survived by picking up odd jobs, eventually got into the Marine Corps, did his time, and then moved on from there. That’s Gideon in a nutshell.”
“What were things like for him while he was in The Chosen?” she asked.【】“I don’t know,” Logan said.
“I only knew him when we were younger— seven— eight— didn’t live with him when we were teenagers, and these days he doesn’t talk about it much. That’s how some of us deal, you know? Pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Anybody in particular he might have a vendetta against?”【】Logan paused. Looked directly at her. “You think that’s why he wants in?”
“Gideon’s got a big chip on his shoulder,” she said. “He’s got something to prove to someone, and he doesn’t strike me as the type to want to prove it with words— maybe he wants to pound some issues out.”
“I’ll ask around,” Logan said. “See what I can find.”【】When they returned to the café, Bradford and Heidi were talking.
There was an intimacy to their conversation, both of them leaning in toward each other, steady eye contact, and Heidi’s face was flushed in a way it hadn’t been when they’d left.
It was hard not to like Heidi.【】Munroe slowed. Her face burned hot. The café ambience faded. The reaction, instant as it was, came as a surprise.
In split-second intervals Munroe studied Bradford. Studied Heidi. And then turned concentration inward.
Emotion on an assignment could get a person killed. She pushed it back.
Each step toward the table was a conscious rejection of the intensity that had set her heart racing, each step a return to the focus on the tasks at hand.
By the time she and Logan had joined the others, it was as if the moment had never happened.
The good-byes were brief, the promises short, and the return to the hotel made in silence.
For Munroe the transit was downtime, transition from one role back into another, and Bradford, aware of how she worked, seemed content to allow her the space she needed.
It was late afternoon by the time Munroe approached the Haven Ranch.
The sky had brightened, and scattered rays of sunshine gave rise to the illusion of warmth.
She rolled the Peugeot to a stop at the gate, stepped out for the push-button, and then returned to the car to wait.
Gaining entry for this round should, by all expectations, be straightforward.
This time it wasn’t Esteban who made the long walk to let her in but a teenage boy.
She guessed him to be around fifteen or sixteen, still in that awkward stage between child and man, with limbs longer than they should be and blemishes where they shouldn’t be.
When he had swung the gate wide, Munroe lowered the window and eased the car forward a few feet.
“I’m Miki,” she said.【】He didn’t reply, merely nodded and met her eyes shyly.
“I can drive you to the house,” she said, “and save you the cold walk back.”【】He shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said.
His reaction was a good gauge. They trusted her enough to send a teenager but not enough to allow him to ride with her.
Munroe parked in the same space that Bradford had the last visit, although today hers was the only vehicle.
She stepped out of the car to wait, and when the boy approached, she held out her hand. “I didn’t catch your name,” she said.
He paused and then reached to shake it. His touch said that shaking hands wasn’t an everyday occurrence. “I’m Dust,” he said.
Their conversation had so far been in Spanish and the English word was a jarring contrast.
Dust for Dustin or Dust for dirt? Given the nature of the rest of The Chosen names thus far, Munroe guessed dirt.
“Is Esteban here?” she asked.【】Dust shook his head but offered nothing else, and not wanting to make him more uncomfortable, Munroe stayed silent, following him to the room in which she’d sat the day before.
“Elijah asked me to tell you he’ll be here in just a minute or two,” he said. This was the longest string of words the boy had yet to offer,
and although from his Scandinavian looks he was clearly not from here, his accent was perfectly local. He’d been in Argentina for a while.
Dust’s dichotomy was part of what made The Chosen what it was.
Not Argentine, nor wholly American, the group and the people within it were a hodgepodge of races and cultures homogenized into the culture of The Prophet.
From Romania to Zimbabwe, Chile to Finland, The Chosen were different faces, different Havens, functioning as shell organizations under a myriad of names,
but behind closed doors the lifestyle was the same: the culture of The Prophet.
Dust left the room, and alone as Munroe was, it would have been a prime opportunity for her to wander.
But instinct told her to wait, and so she sat while the minute or two turned into five,
and when Elijah arrived, he wore the harried look of a cook in the kitchen on Christmas morning.
Munroe stood in greeting, and he wrapped his arms around her in a tight and welcoming hug.
Her response to the uninvited physical contact was instant, a drive so intense that it required every shard of focus to keep her solidly in place.
The rhythm of violence pounded in her chest and she remained frozen, fighting the urge to destroy him, to crush his head against the wall.
With fire burning a trail through her veins, she forced reciprocation.
To every single person in this commune, close physical contact was a part of everyday life, and this was a dangerous tightrope act that she had to walk.
The rage had nothing to do with Logan or his daughter or even Elijah;
this was Munroe’s own past, a history that would forever allow but a handful of people safely into her personal space— and Elijah certainly wasn’t one of them.
It would be several moments until the urge to strike passed, and to remain so close to him now required pure, practiced self-control.
“We’re short-staffed today,” Elijah said, seemingly unaware of how near he stood to hospitalization. “Why don’t you join me in the dining room? We can talk during cleanup.”
Still fighting the internal pressure, still not trusting herself to speak, Munroe nodded, followed, saw in his profile and his gait similarities to Heidi that she hadn’t noticed before, and was irritated for having missed them.
They passed from the alcove, through the living room, past the stairs, and out the back door to a path that led to the annex.
There, Elijah slid open wide glass doors, and instead of standing back to allow her to pass, as politeness would have dictated, he walked in ahead.
The doors opened directly to a room, which by appearances accounted for half of the building.
The space was lit by neon, tiled white, and half of it was filled with row upon row of rough-hewn picnic-style tables and wooden benches.
The other portion was devoted to serving food— large industrial-size pots sitting on a wide counter gave testament to as much— and a dishwashing assembly line.
The only others in the room were children, eight of them, between what seemed to be ten and twelve years old, silently busying themselves clearing tables and sweeping the floor.
Munroe strained to see beyond Elijah’s shoulder, scanning faces, searching for a shock of blond hair, green eyes, anything that might confirm that she had come to the right place, but there was little opportunity.
Elijah ushered her to a table where a stack of papers and file folders were turned blank side up,
and against all hope he motioned her to sit where his face was to the room and her back against it.
Each of these details filled in the gaps, all of them snapshots of commune life.
She’d arrived at the end of either a very late lunch or an early dinner, and most of those who had once filled this hall were gone again, leaving this particular group of children to do the cleanup.
Elijah, harried, juggling his paperwork and his leadership, filled in overseeing these children while whoever usually held the position was out in the vans today,
and he, apparently unfamiliar with how odd such a scene would play out to fresh eyes, carried on.
Munroe listened, answered, her mind working overtime to stay in the present while thoughts pinballed through her head.
That Hannah could be here, in the same room, invisible while her back was turned, made the attempt to focus on Elijah’s words almost unbearable.
She waited an appropriate amount of time, waited until the sounds and the limited conversation behind her indicated that the cleaning had come to an end,
and then, as Bradford had done the day prior, she requested the restroom.
Elijah motioned one of the girls over and, in English, asked her to show Munroe where the bathrooms were.
He said nothing more. No request to keep an eye on her, no warnings about limiting conversations, no instructions to wait with her charge.
Perhaps such things were so ingrained as to make further commentary unnecessary.
Munroe stood, turned, and scanned the room, running her eyes from face to face, but found no one resembling Charity or Logan.
The girl led Munroe through another sliding door, to a hallway, which passed three smaller rooms, each without a door in the frame, each lined with bunks that stood three beds high.
The bathroom was makeshift and tightly fitted, narrow stalls of plywood on a cement dais set across from the one sink—
what appeared to have been a large bathroom, gutted and refitted to run several toilets into plumbing built for one.
Munroe didn’t linger. There was no place to stash either a bug or a camera, and her reason for the trip had been to see the faces in the dining room.
The girl was still outside the bathroom when Munroe exited, eliminating any chance of poking around the bedrooms.
They returned to the dining room in silence, the child offering no conversation and Munroe hesitating to initiate it lest her motives somehow be misconstrued.
In the dining room, the children sat at a table, silent, focused on small cards, and the girl went to join them while Elijah stood and motioned Munroe over.
He handed her a small book. “I want you to read this,” he said. “I’ve got a few errands to run and then I’ll be right with you.”
He signaled to a boy of twelve. “Nathaniel will show you the way back,” Elijah said.
Munroe knew the way. Didn’t need a guide or a warden, no matter how young, in order to walk from one house to the next, and she knew that Elijah knew that she knew.
Instinct screamed in rebellion, but acquiescence was his expectation,
and whether this was a test or merely the way of The Chosen, she couldn’t break from her role.
Showing only gratitude, she followed Nathaniel out.
The boy said nothing, and so again Munroe walked in silence, and at the alcove off the living room, Nathaniel left her alone.
She glanced around the room, sat, and made herself comfortable for the indefinite wait— by the number of pages she’d been assigned, it could be hours.
She cracked open the book, and as Elijah, her new spiritual guide had instructed, she read.

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Chapter 17
Without moving, Bradford scanned the bedroom surfaces, checking once again for anything that could be used as a weapon against him.
While his eyes darted from Munroe to the room and back again, his hand, slowly, so as not to alert her to his movement, put down the pen and inched it underneath his pillow.
These were the actions of a man who found himself accidentally in the path of a dangerous, wild creature.
Had Munroe been awake and aware, a fight with her was a suicide gamble,
but in this state of somnambulism, she moved slower, was less intuitive, and with a struggle, Bradford could gain the upper hand, as he had the time before.
Munroe wasn’t truly sleepwalking— at least not in any clinical sense; people who killed people in their sleep didn’t do it while they dreamed.
But whether it was clinically true or not, this was real, and she was deadly.
Her eyes were locked on him now. Whatever went on inside her head, whatever she lived and saw, given her predilection toward violence, she would not stop until she woke or he was dead.
Munroe sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, never breaking eye contact.
Her hands flexed, tensed, and then repositioned, as if they carried knives.
Bradford had the advantage of timing and awareness, and he remained still, taut, and ready.
If he was careful, he could end it in a single move, but doing so required getting her on her back in order to pin her under his weight.
Her focus was singular. No matter the angle, her eyes, still glazed, still unblinking, continued to track him as she stood and took a step in his direction.
He waited. She took another step. And then she struck.
A slash toward his jaw that would have been lethal were she armed. He weaved and she missed narrowly.
Bradford twisted to follow the flow of her movement, intending to throw her off balance, and was met with an elbow to the side of the face.
The blow came so quickly that he’d no time to brace for it, and the shock wave inside his head sent him reeling.
He shifted, prepared to block her follow-through, but it never came.
Instead, Munroe stood motionless, feet planted, staring at him with a puzzled expression.
And then, slowly, she glanced down at her hands and consciously unclenched them.
They both remained solidly in place— he eyeing her cautiously, she staring at some vague point near his knees, blinking as if she were running through a memory.
Finally, she raised her eyes to his and said softly, “Did I hurt you?”
He reached for her, his hand to her waist, his touch cautious and gentle. “No,” he whispered, “I’m fine.”
Her eyes followed his movement, but she gave no other reaction. “How long was I under?” she said.
He directed her toward her bed, and although she didn’t resist, she cut him a wary glance. “About five hours,” he said.
At his guidance, she sat on the bed and then lay back with her hands behind her head. “That’s a decent night’s sleep,” she said.
Bradford sat beside her, elbows to knees, watching her face, and then, certain that she was fully coherent, said, “If you want to sleep more, I’ll get you a bottle.”
She shook her head. “Five hours is a good stretch for me,” she said. “I’ll save the bottle for when I really need it.”
She turned toward him and reached for his face, running her fingers along the side of it. His cheek was tender, and Bradford flinched.
She pushed slightly, turning his head so that the side of his face fully reflected the bedroom light.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He smirked. “I knew what I was getting myself into.”
Munroe returned a weak smile and sat up. And then, as if a switch had been thrown and the temper of the room altered, she said, “Come on, let’s go find Logan.”
Her smile widened. “If things go well, I might even get to hit Gideon.”
Bradford chuckled at her joke, but he understood fully the wellspring from which it came.
Meeting with the trio was a necessary evil, one that Munroe would have preferred to postpone until she had determined with certainty whether or not Hannah was in the city.
But the confrontation couldn’t wait. She knew Logan well, knew that he wouldn’t have even mentioned the issue of Gideon to Bradford had he not felt the situation slipping from his grasp.
Gathering with the three was more than just a nod in Logan’s direction, it was a warning shot— a preemptive strike against stupidity.
The Chosen had kept Hannah on the move over the years, and if the girl was in Buenos Aires, it would take relatively little to spook them to take action once more.
The pieces were currently in place, data beginning to pool, and Munroe didn’t need Gideon or Heidi screwing things up in pursuit of their own objectives, whatever they might be.
They were to meet at twelve on Logan’s side of town, the café chosen specifically for its proximity to the hostel.
It would allow the others to get to it on short notice and provide Munroe enough traveling distance for her head to clear from the aftereffects of sleep.
They traveled first by city bus and then on foot, public transport always Munroe’s preferred mode of transportation when on assignment.
To center oneself in the cadence of human activity was to absorb the essence of a place, like breathing air when underwater, and so much better than the stifling confines of a taxi.
Around her, conversations ebbed and flowed, the radio blared, street signage passed and blurred;
the whole of the city’s chaotic fragrance filled her senses and she became one with it.
They arrived at the café five minutes before the agreed-upon hour, and there Logan sat waiting at a table near the window.
He stood as they approached. His eyes were ringed with shadows of sleeplessness, and when Munroe reached to hug him, his body seemed to deflate, the rigid tension going out of him.
Both hands on his shoulders, she took a step back and scanned him. “You hanging in there okay?” she asked.
He nodded, and as they sat, scooting chairs up to the table, his face remained wan.
“Where are Gideon and Heidi?” Munroe said.
“I asked them to give me a few minutes,” he replied, and then looked toward Bradford as if to beg for the same courtesy.
Bradford remained seated, face placid, arms crossed, and Munroe acknowledged his body language.
He’d go if she asked, but she wouldn’t. Her decision to keep him close wasn’t personal, it was strategic.
No matter how often Logan had watched her back, he couldn’t help her now, and with what she was preparing to do, she needed Bradford fully.
Munroe placed a hand on Logan’s knee and, as gently as she could, said, “There’s really nothing we have to offer, Logan, that can’t be said in front of the others.”
“I was just hoping that there might be something more,” he replied. “It’s difficult being out of the loop.”
“We’re moving as quickly as we can,” she added, “and you know as well as I do that to pinpoint three locations and set up surveillance in such a short time is pretty fast work.”
“I’m appreciative,” he said. “Please don’t think that I’m not.”
She said, “Signal the others, I know they’re watching.”
Logan, with his back to the window, stood and, no longer blocked by the signage, removed his jacket and placed it on his chair.
When he sat, he was smiling. “I’m not that predictable, am I?” he asked.
“Gideon is,” she said, and then, in a show of normalcy, she motioned for the waitress and ordered coffee and facturas.
It took but a minute for Gideon and Heidi to enter the café. Gideon, in the lead, slowed when he caught sight of Bradford.
The subtle pause was a good sign. That the others were, until now, unaware of Bradford’s involvement spoke volumes to the lengths Logan had gone to respect Munroe’s wishes.
As a matter of decorum, Munroe reintroduced Bradford to the group, although he already knew more about Gideon and Heidi than either could possibly imagine.
The small talk was short. Perfunctory. The closest she would go to preliminaries and niceties.
Her primary purpose for coming had been simple: outline the progress, make sure they understood how easily it could be undone, reiterate that they needed to back off and let her do her job.
As Bradford had done before, Munroe limited information to what was innocuous.
She provided no locations and kept back the details of having entered the Haven Ranch.
In contrast to Logan and Heidi, who were by all appearances accepting, Gideon exuded aggression.
He finally uncrossed his arms and, leaning forward, said, “Are you certain these places you’ve got under surveillance are really Havens?”
Munroe nodded. “One hundred percent.”
“You should let us be a part of this,” he said. “We’re insiders, we can verify what you can only guess, make sure you’re really on the right track.
“We know them, know the way they talk, know who these people are, and by not letting us be a part of this you’re taking a huge risk.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said.
“It’s not your decision,” Gideon said. His tone remained calm, but his body language spoke to his anger.
“This is our project. You work for us, not the other way around. We hired you, we’re paying you.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t, you didn’t, and you’re not.” She paused for effect, continuing before Gideon could say more.
“I’m here for Logan,” she said, “end of story. You have no idea what it takes to run a project like this, but I do. It’s what I do for a living.
“If you doubt me, ask Logan. Not only have I put more money into this than all of you combined, but it’s my neck on the line if something goes wrong.”
She nodded toward Bradford. “At best, you’re paying for my rearguard, and good luck convincing him that he works for you.
“I’ve given you an overview. The play-by-play is provided on a need-to-know basis, and quite frankly, you don’t need to know.”
Gideon’s face reddened, but he said nothing. Munroe gauged him carefully.
The provocation wasn’t meant as a way to establish rank or to throw her weight around— she didn’t need to waste words in order to achieve that— she was pushing in order to prove to Logan what she already knew.
Gideon wasn’t here for Hannah. He could claim it as much as he wanted, but she was merely a cover.
Sure, getting the girl would be a huge upside, but there was more that he wanted, something that required access to the Havens, and Munroe had a pretty good guess as to what it was.
Gideon, just like Logan, and possibly Heidi to a lesser degree, was using the others to get to what he was really after.
When this was all over she could sit back and reminisce over it, but at the moment Gideon was kindling to a fire, a match to gasoline, a danger to the assignment and, by implication, to her.
Munroe placed both hands on the table, shifted forward, and in a near whisper said, “Look, we’re all here to get a little girl back to her mother, right?”
The nods of agreement were reluctant, but there.
“Finding Hannah is why I’m here,” she said, “the only reason I am here.”
She reached under her chair and retrieved a small envelope. She slid it across the table in Gideon’s direction.
“This is me,” she said, “my professional life, facts that you won’t find in any Internet search.”
She paused. “I deal in information. This is my area of expertise, and I have the backup manpower to get Hannah out once we find her.”
Munroe paused and, with a hard stare in Gideon’s direction, said, “Provided she doesn’t disappear while we’re in the middle of this.”
Gideon took the envelope and stuffed it into a pocket. He stood.
“I’ll read it when I have a chance,” he said, “but unless you have something further to add, I’m finished here.”
Munroe placed her hands on the table. Folded them. “It’s all I’ve got,” she said.
Leaving the table, Gideon passed Munroe, brushing close against her as he did.
Too close. Her reaction came in a nanosecond of calculation. Instinct before thought.
He was still in midstep when Munroe stood, caught him at the wrist, twisted so that she had the advantage of position, and yanked his pinkie back nearly hard enough to break it.
It was a movement so sudden that Heidi jumped.
In a voice low enough that only those at the table could hear it, Munroe said, “You really have no fucking idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

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Chapter 16
In the main hallway, vibration against Munroe’s back caused her to pause.
She placed a palm to the wall and felt it again, a solid repetitive thud, understood what it meant, backed to the end of the hallway.
Knelt. Waited.
In half a minute came the scraping of a door on unforgiving hinges, a slice of the wall, moving inward, creating a doorframe where seconds before there’d been none.
From within, a man’s voice called out in a low bellow, presumably to summon his now missing partner.
Munroe drew and held steady.
The thud continued as the man with the voice worked up the last two steps.
He passed through the doorframe, a large man, not so much in height as in weight—
his girth would have half-filled the hallway had he the opportunity to get that far, and by appearance, he’d climbed the stairs with effort.
Munroe aimed. Fired. Three shots in rapid succession.
The reports tore through the hall, their deafening aftereffects muting his yell and the thud of his fall.
She strode toward where he lay on the floor, clawing to shift position, struggling to reach the submachine gun still slung over his shoulder and now pinned behind his back.
It was as if the shots had toppled him and in the fall he’d broken a leg or twisted a knee joint.
He was bleeding from his side, a rich dark color that spoke of imminent death.
Around his neck was a chain with three keys. His left arm trailed into the space made by the new doorway, where tight stairs led to a fluorescent-lit basement.
Munroe put a boot on his weapon. He stopped struggling. Gaped at her. And with obvious effort, in his native tongue, whispered, “Who are you?”
In language familiar from an assignment long ago, she whispered back, “I am redemption.”
She strained to hear footsteps, see motion, discover anything to indicate there’d been another with him, and after no reaction, put the muzzle to his forehead.
Pulled the trigger. Yanked the chain off his neck, and headed down.
Underground, the tight hallway fronted three small holding cells.
The concrete floor was damp, as if it had been recently hosed off, and the smell of bleach overpowered the scent of decay.
Munroe started with the cell farthest back, found the key, unlocked the door, and repeated this until each metal door had been opened and slid aside.
In a space clearly intended to house several per cell, Munroe found only one child.
The girl cowered in a corner, a tight little ball of self-defense wrapped in dirty clothes that were still wet from hosing.
Munroe ducked to enter the low-ceilinged room and then crab-crawled forward.
“I’m not going to harm you,” she said. “I came to set you free. Are you hurt? Can you stand?”
The girl said nothing, remained tight in her ball, and drawing closer, Munroe judged her to be around eleven or twelve.
Munroe reached for her and the child screamed, hers a helpless plea, a cry, a terror to be left alone while she remained curled and shaking.
Munroe stayed low, stayed back just far enough to keep from being seen as a threat.
“How many men are keeping you here?” she said.
Without moving or raising her eyes, the girl whispered, “Two.”
“The fat one and the little one?”
The girl nodded.
“You are safe from them,” Munroe said. “Come, come see, they are gone.”
Munroe stretched her hand forward, but the girl did not move to take it.
Munroe scooted closer, a cautious advance until she could touch the child.
The girl flinched but didn’t cry out, and Munroe, as gently as possible, brought her to her feet and pulled her along, up the stairs and over the body melting outward into pools of red;
the body that, contrary to expectation, calmed the child from her shaking, the body that would forever be more fodder for Munroe’s nighttime terror.
The first child had remained where Munroe placed her, and Munroe brought them both to the kitchen. “Eat,” she said. “I have work to do. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”
Munroe checked her watch. What felt like three hours had passed in fewer than ten minutes.
Outside, the first man still sat, head lolled back, behind the wheel of the idling car.
Music and laughter still tinged the winter air; life had gone on without taking notice of the dead.
Munroe reached in to shut off the ignition, took the keys, searched the man’s pockets to retrieve the cash paid for the child,
then dragged him to the steps and set him next to the other man so that they were tipped together like drunken conspirators in hushed conversation.
Again inside the house, Munroe searched the one occupied bedroom for money she expected to be hidden within it, and finding this in a small box stored beneath a loose tile,
returned to the kitchen for the children, who had by now eaten their fill of food clearly intended for their captors.
Cautious inquiry brought forth facts about each child.
The elder had been taken from her family far, far north in Bolivia; the younger had recently lost her parents and been sold by her uncle.
Outside, Munroe opened the rear door of the vehicle and ushered the girls in. She took the wheel, put the engine in gear.
Anger still raged, adrenaline still pumped, but the drums of death had gone silent.
Thumbing through the vehicle’s navigation controls, Munroe searched, found the closest convent, and headed toward it.
She would place these daughters where men should never go, and the money that had been used to take their lives would now be used to save them.
Two hours late, Munroe returned to the hotel.
Bradford sat at the desk, staring into space, and very nearly knocked over the chair getting out of it when she opened the door.
He stood at the far end of the room and said nothing.
The look on his face spoke of panic phasing to anger, mixing with relief.
Munroe stepped inside and shut the door.
“Where have you been?” he said.
“I got held up,” she said.
“It would have been nice of you to turn on your fucking phone.”
Munroe bit down on her bottom lip. Waited. “Don’t start with me, Miles,” she said. “Now is really not a good time.”
“Do you have any idea what kind of thoughts went running through my head when Raúl told me you never showed up for the pickup?” he said.
“Do you have any idea at all, the hell I’ve been through over these last hours?”
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through these last hours?” she said.
“Of course I don’t!” he said. “You wouldn’t pick up the goddamn phone!”
Munroe remained by the door, hands slack at her sides, adrenaline dropping, lack of sleep taking its toll,
the haunted faces of the girl children staring out at her as she drove away into the night.
Overwhelming conflict collided into a potent mix, bubbled to the surface, and the water of emotion, so rarely shed, began to seep.
Bradford, who had begun to pace, whose lecturing voice had risen further, stopped short at the sight of the tears.
He looked befuddled, at a loss, as if he couldn’t decide whether to remain planted where he was or move toward her in an attempt to comfort her.
“Oh God, Michael,” he whispered. “What the hell happened out there tonight?”
“I’ll tell you everything later,” she said, voice cracking, “I promise.”
Bradford walked toward her, drew near, and she leaned in to him.
He held her until the tears dried and the walls returned, until she could shut it out like she did everything else.
“You need to sleep,” he said.
She sighed.
“It’s been far too long,” he said. “You’re not helping anyone by running yourself ragged. Not Logan. Not Hannah. Not you, and you’re definitely not helping me.
“Look,” he said, pointing to his head. “Gray, gray, gray. One gray hair for every day I’ve known you.” His attempt at humor took the edge off.
She tilted her head upward and her eyes met his. “If I have nightmares, I’m medicating,” she said.
He nodded and rested his cheek against hers, wondering if his face looked as grim as he felt. “If that’s what it takes,” he said.
It was after five in the morning by the time Munroe settled, and as expected, she was out within seconds of having lain down.
Running on empty as she was, it stood to reason that once she allowed it, her body would simply shut down,
but Bradford knew as well as she did that the exhaustion wouldn’t matter. The nightmares would come; it was only a matter of when.
He’d encouraged her to take this assignment, had hoped that work would ease the pressure, that being busy again would temper the inner turmoil and set her world right; and it might still, but not tonight.
He sat on his bed, notebook in his lap, looking up occasionally from the rapid scrawl he put across the pages.
It would be a short night, and if they were lucky, she’d get several hours of true sleep before the interruption began.
In any case, she was sleeping. That was one of two issues handled, but her return to the Haven would definitely be the more difficult to deal with.
Bradford was familiar with Munroe’s patterns, had seen her in operative mode more than once, and knew how effortlessly she slipped into whatever role was needed to beguile a mark,
but her interactions with Elijah and Esteban, her professed enthusiasm for the lifestyle of The Chosen and approval of their beliefs, went far beyond that.
Stress over it as he may, he could never voice concern that her apparent acceptance had not been entirely an act.
Although, personally, he could never allow another to take a wife or child for sexual pleasure, or submit to someone who ordered him away from one nuclear family and into another,
and although to him the beliefs surrounding sex with Jesus, talking to dead people, and magical powers were absurd,
when The Prophet called, as was evident by the large numbers among The Chosen, thousands followed.
Bradford could sense the appeal, the draw that giving up autonomy might have.
To abdicate was a form of escapism. To release oneself from independence, to follow The Prophet was to be free from personal responsibility.
He thought of Munroe and felt the weight of her struggle.
In the stillness, the hours passed, and the relaxed pattern of Munroe’s sleep was a drowsy background to his writing
until a casual glance in her direction found his eyes locked on her vacant, unblinking stare.
The shock raced through his system and his heart hit hard in response.
He knew the look, and from the last time he’d watched a nightmare surface, readied for what was coming.

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Chapter 15
Shortly after midnight Munroe left the hotel room, and as he had the night prior, Bradford watched her go, continuing to stare at the door after it had shut.
Satellite images showed the house that they’d targeted as Haven Three to be the smallest of them all, and having already experienced the first two, Munroe had seen no need to waste time on a dry run.
Bradford opened the balcony door, stepped out, and, keeping back from the edge and her line of sight should she turn around, watched her step from the curb into the cab.
Instinct said she was right about eliminating the dry run, and were their roles reversed it’s how he would have called it.
But a job was different when he wasn’t mixed in the action.
He was used to being in command, putting himself on the front and clearing the way for his men. Remaining on the sidelines left him uneasy and restless.
At least, if nothing else, the property was close enough that he could get to her in an emergency.
The taxi peeled away from the curb and Bradford turned toward the desk with its myriad pieces of equipment.
He keyed in an instruction that activated one of the trackers Munroe had taken.
Observing progress on a screen was a poor substitute for being there in person,
but under the circumstances, watching her move through traffic electronically was the best that he could do.
Astute as she was, she’d know what he’d done and why, and would probably respond with mock chiding.
The tracker came alive, and eyeing the coordinating blip, Bradford picked up the phone.
He had only a few minutes before Munroe reached the target destination, but he needed to make the call now, while still certain he would be connected.
It had been three days since he’d contacted Logan, and even if Bradford hadn’t already had audible proof that Logan had returned to the hostel, it was easy to imagine that this was how he spent his evenings: sitting, anxious, hoping for the call.
Had it been Bradford in Logan’s position, the waiting would have driven him to madness.
Instructions or no instructions he would have been compelled to action, and he understood from personal experience the restraint it took for Logan to stand aside.
But still, there was a certain vindictive sweetness in knowing Logan’s torment.
It didn’t matter that Munroe was her own person and would never have agreed to the job had she not wanted to do it.
Nor did it matter that she’d taken the assignment with full disclosure, knowing well what she was getting herself into.
It mattered even less that work, with its thrill of challenge and the intense focus it brought, was what kept her alive and sane.
None of it negated Logan having used his friendship and history with Munroe, and then Bradford’s bond to her, to manipulate the two of them into the project as he had.
It seemed a rightful return that Logan should be left blind and forced to wade in a pool of frustration while the assignment went on without him.
Bradford dialed. The hostel had only one main line, and there was a wait while Logan came to the phone.
When Logan finally picked up and then recognized the caller, his voice filled with relief.
“I haven’t much time,” Bradford said, “but Michael asked me to update you.” He paused, and when Logan said nothing, he continued.
“So far, she’s located two of the Havens and what she believes is the third. We’ve got visual on one, audio on the other, and trackers on four of the vehicles.”
“Is there any sign of Hannah?” Logan asked. His tone was calm, but the stress of inactive waiting was there in his voice.
“Not yet,” Bradford said, “but if your daughter is in Buenos Aires, Michael will find her.”
The words seemed redundant, perhaps even patronizing, considering that it was precisely because of Logan’s awareness of Munroe’s ability that Logan had come to her for help.
There was a long pause and then Logan said, “Is there anything more?”
Bradford hesitated.
This was Logan asking. Logan. The man Munroe trusted with her life, and still he could not bring himself to divulge details that would in any way compromise the mission.
“No,” Bradford said. “That’s as far as we’ve gotten. I’ll keep you posted as we progress. In the meantime, lay low, okay?”
“It’s getting harder,” Logan said. “Not for me— although, granted, I can’t tell you how unbelievably frustrating it is not being involved—
“but I mean, to keep the others from taking matters into their own hands.
“Gideon, especially, keeps pushing for action, swearing up and down that he didn’t come all this way to take a goddamn vacation. I’m not his boss, Miles, I can’t make him do anything.
“The only thing I have going for me is that Charity’s put her trust in me, and Gideon does what Charity wants. I don’t know how much longer I can keep everyone here happy with promises.”
“I’ll talk to Michael,” Bradford said, “and see what she has in mind, but, Logan, this is hurry up and wait.
“You and Gideon, of all people, should know how it goes, so sit tight. I’ll get back to you next chance I get.”
Bradford put down the phone, eyed the tracker, and leaned the chair back on two legs.
Given the very personal nature of the job, he wanted a barrier between Munroe and Logan and minded not at all being the one to put it there.
What he did mind was remaining still, helpless in a hotel room, nothing but a detached voice in her ear.
Bradford traced his thumb along the scar that ran from the base of his ear across his cheek.
It was old in terms of injury, but it would be a long while before the pink faded into silver, longer still for the unspoken and unseen wounds to heal.
He’d lost a good man in that fight, and the shrapnel from the same IED that had taken out his best friend’s eye had narrowly missed Bradford’s own.
Some would say he was the lucky one, but what did they know about war and death?
Bradford watched the tracker come to the end of its journey. Munroe was running on empty.
If there was any one person capable of going into a fight and coming out alive, it was she,
but no matter how able she was, she couldn’t function on nothing indefinitely— losing one’s edge was how mistakes were made.
Even the fittest could fail to survive when cut down by time and chance, and the way she pushed herself made him uneasy.
Her voice came online, and Bradford broke from his thoughts.
Activity replaced stillness, and after a moment, visual replaced darkness.
Like the foray before, the shadows were Munroe’s friends, and she worked among them as if she were at home.
She was sleek and efficient, and watching her from the vantage of the first surveillance camera brought on the exhilaration of observing a master at her art.
Bradford worked with her, guiding her through the night, trusting her and fearing the vagaries of fate.
But there were no mishaps, no errors, and the hour it took to assemble and position the devices seemed to pass within minutes.
Bradford called Raúl for the pickup, and figuring fifteen minutes at the extreme for Munroe to make her way back, he switched off and tossed the earpiece on the desk.
Tonight, she had to sleep— even if it meant medication— because tomorrow she would return to the Haven’s fold,
and this time, in spite of his protests, she would be going without him.
After thirty minutes, Munroe had still not returned to the hotel, and Bradford began to pace.
Forty, and his forehead was to the wall while he pulled back on punches in order to keep from creating visible damage to either the wall or his hands.
Fifty, and he tried to raise her on the earpiece, and when that failed, called the emergency cell phone, which went straight to voice mail.
There was a nervous edge to his movements, a disjointed lack of rationality to his thoughts.
Time and chance. He cursed himself for having remained behind.
The cell phone bleeped and he lunged for it. On the other end Raúl said, “Mister, the lady, she no come.”
Inside Bradford’s head, the fear chanted over and over: time and chance, time and chance.
He remained in front of the computer, stymied, struggling for clarity on where to go with the next step.
He couldn’t trace her because she’d left the trackers stuck to the vehicles at the Haven.
For the time being, the best he could do was keep trying the phone.
Beside the desk, bloodying his fist against the wall, he willed her to turn it back on.
Munroe waited for the clear, and then dropped from the compound wall to the shadows along the sidewalk.
She traced her way toward the back of the perimeter, where she’d reach the narrow side street and, from there, turn again to the wider way for Raúl’s approach.
This residential neighborhood was close to the liveliest areas of Palermo, and its streets, clean and small, were tinged with muted laughter and music and the scent of asado and cigarettes, which reached from indoors out into the cold late night.
Munroe drew in the evening air, and with it the satisfaction of a job gone smoothly, one step closer to bringing Hannah home.
She moved steadily toward Raúl and the arranged pickup, thoughts of Bradford the worrywart on her mind, until movement along a branching side street caught her eye.
Her attention was arrested, not from the pedestrian familiarity but from the break in pattern: a parked Mercedes with two doors left open and engine idling.
Beside the car were two men whose relative positions declared that one owned the car and the other the house to the right of it.
Between the men, in the awkward position of merchandise being exchanged, was a child of nine or ten.
The man from the house pulled the child closer, tore open the robe that clothed her, and, apparently satisfied, handed a wad of cash to the man beside the car.
Munroe paused. The man by the car shut the rear door.
Inside her head, the cries of duty to Logan and Hannah rose in rebellion against any detour,
but her response was only to back up a pace and there, still cloaked in shadow, turn in the direction of the men.
Like the night in New York, like the nights of many kills, she felt no surprise at having once more been drawn toward the arms of evil.
She felt only a consuming rage driving from within, unadulterated anger at the violation of innocence, a rush of blood so loud that it drowned out the laughter and the music.
In place of the evening’s ambience came the internal percussion, the drumbeat pounding out the order to kill, the passion that would only be assuaged when blood was spilled and justice served.
Time slowed. Incremental slivers of understanding laid strategy across her mind: move against move, like a living chessboard.
She had no fear of their weapons, though she trusted they were armed; neither had she fear of death nor fear of pain.
The terror in the moment was failure, to inadvertently allow either of these men life, when they deserved none.
Speed. She needed speed to reach both men, before either in their gradual pulling apart found safety; before the innocent disappeared forever behind locked doors.
Through the dark Munroe moved as a shadow across the pavement, first to the man with the car.
The transaction finished, he’d walked to the driver’s side. He placed a foot on the floorboard, and Munroe reached for him.
He leaned down to be seated. Her two hands grasped his head. Fiercely, violently, she twisted.
Internally, pressure released with the snap of his neck, satisfaction like popping her own spine.
He collapsed in the space of time it would have taken to draw a breath.
Munroe followed him down to the seat, felt for a weapon where instinct told her to search,
and with hands still gloved from the evening’s original purpose, took the piece, checked the safety, and stashed it at the small of her back.
She slipped from behind the car’s door, moved around the rear.
The second man, with his back to the car, walked toward the house, toward the few stairs that led to the front door.
His hand was firmly on the child’s shoulder, guiding, if not pushing her forward, while she struggled, barefoot, almost naked, in the cold.
Munroe waited until the man unlocked the house door, then came again from behind.
The child heard what the man did not, turned ever so slightly as Munroe drew close, and stared blankly into her eyes.
The man paused to follow the gaze of the child, and before he could react, Munroe placed her hands tight to his head.
Again forceful, again violent, she twisted for the snap, for the euphoria, for a rush that sent the chemical cocktail coursing through her veins.
She let him drop to the ground and felt the rush, allowed the ecstasy to settle, and pushed past it for what was still to come.
The child stood frozen, face puffy from where she’d been struck, stained with old tears and grime, eyes wide, lips parted,
head twitching slightly from Munroe to the man and back again, as if in her little mind she couldn’t quite decide whether to scream or run or simply submit to what new twist fate had to offer.
Munroe felt for the man’s weapon, took it. The child began to move— a cautious step backward.
Munroe knelt and took the child’s hand, but gently, so that she couldn’t retreat farther.
“I’m here to help you,” Munroe said. “This bad man will be sleeping for a long time, so don’t worry about him. Are you cold?”
The child nodded, eyes still wide, lips trembling, tugging slightly against Munroe’s hold.
“Are you hungry?”
The child nodded; stopped tugging.
“I will take you someplace warm and safe where you can eat, yes?”
The child nodded, relaxed.
Munroe leaned forward and, with hands on either side of the girl’s face, kissed her forehead. “You’ll be all right,” she whispered. “I promise you.
“But in order to make things all right, I need you to be very, very quiet. Can you do that for me?”
Another nod.
Munroe pressed her index finger to her lips, and certain that the child grasped her intent, she stood and with the weapon drawn opened the unlocked door.
She peered through the crack into the silent building. Pressed the door forward. Entered.
The interior was everything other than what the neighborhood promised.
The foyer and the two front rooms that bordered it were bare and empty.
There was no furniture, no artwork, nothing other than curtains, which shielded the windows from prying eyes.
A dim-wattage bulb hung loosely from the ceiling down the hallway, casting a sick yellow hue.
Munroe motioned the child inside and again, with finger to her lips intimating silence, pointed to the tiled floor, to the corner that was least exposed to the rest of the house.
Munroe whispered, “You stay here, yes? I am coming back for you, once I know everything is safe.”
Such was her explanation to the child, but not her reason for entry.
It was possible that this exchange tonight, money for child, was a one-off thing, but Munroe expected it wasn’t; she needed to finish what she’d started, had to know if there were others.
The girl nodded a response to Munroe’s request, and then, inexplicably, she smiled.
Hers was a beautiful smile radiating innocence and trust, an unexpected contrast to the tearstains, grime, and torn and ratty bathrobe.
In a momentary pause from the rage and the blood, Munroe’s throat tightened and she forced back her own tears, which now threatened to surface in the wake of the child’s gift.
Munroe turned again toward the rest of the house, toward the hallway that led away from the front with its open tiled rooms, forward toward whatever and whoever lay beyond.
Aside from the kitchen with its table and chairs, and one bedroom into which two mattresses were pushed against opposite walls, the rest of the four-bedroom house was empty.
Anxiety rising, Munroe passed through the place a second time, certain that in the oddity of the emptiness, the completeness of the silence, she’d missed some vital clue.

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Chapter 14
The wind blew against the landscape, taking the typical winter chill and turning it bitter, and painting the leaf-strewn expanse with a dreary brush.
Munroe pulled the faux-fur-cuffed jacket tight round her neck, arriving at the gate at the same time as the man walking toward it.
Her expression was one of uncertainty, of innocence and curiosity. “ *Se encuentra el due*o de casa?” she said. “Are the owners here?”
“Le puedo ayudar si quieres,” he said. “What is it that you need?”
Munroe shifted from foot to foot, gave a nervous glance over her shoulder toward Bradford, who waited in the driver’s seat, and then turned back to the man.
“I’m looking for God’s people,” she said, and after only the slightest pause, continued on in a rush.
“It sounds crazy, I think crazier to you than even to me, but last night God answered my prayers
“and told me to come here and ask for His people— that God’s people would have answers and that they needed my help.”
She paused. “Have I come to the right place?”
The man hesitated. In all of the scenarios he’d expected to encounter at the gate, this was probably the most unlikely.
Munroe studied his face and body language for cues and chose silence. This man was not the final authority.
He looked from her to the car and then to Bradford beyond the windshield, and finally said, “Possibly the right place.”
This was good, so much better than a figuratively slammed door.
For the sake of her audience, her face brightened in visible relief, and then to push his hesitation toward favor, she reached into her coat and pulled out an envelope.
She held it toward him. “God said that His people need this,” she said. “If you really are those of my vision, the people who have answers for me, I want you to have it.”
The man reached for the envelope but before taking it said, “What type of answers are you looking for?”
“I want to know how I can find peace, and meaning to life, and what comes after,” she said,
and then in a rush of words that overlapped and retraced, all an excited chatter, she offered little while saying much.
After a bit, he took the envelope and, interrupting her flow, said, “If you could wait for just a few minutes?”
“Certainly, certainly,” she said.
He turned from her and, more quickly than he had come, walked back to the house.
When he’d made it halfway, Munroe returned to the warmth of the car.
“Did he buy it?” Bradford asked.
“I figure ten minutes and we’re in,” she said.
“What did you give him?”
“A thousand U.S. dollars in nice crisp hundreds.”
“Cheap date, huh?”
“The answer to their prayers.”
“So that’s your secret to information gathering? A gold-plated envelope?”
Munroe grinned at Bradford’s teasing.
He knew as well as she did that Logan hadn’t come to her simply because she was a best friend who could also conveniently kick ass and hand out bribes.
Logan needed her on the inside, had come for the same skill that brought the highest bidders and the biggest players to her doorstep:
the capacity to read people and then shift her own personality into whatever was necessary to allow others to believe what they most wanted to believe.
What happened after they were inside would determine whether or not she was granted access.
Munroe folded her hands in her lap and turned to him with a smirk. “If I’ve properly analyzed, their arms will open.”
“And if you haven’t properly analyzed?”
She cut him a sideways glance. “Trust me.”
Munroe’s estimate was off by two minutes. According to Bradford’s watch, the man, whose name she would later learn was Esteban, returned within eight.
He inserted a key into the large padlock that kept the gate chained shut, pulled to open it, and motioned them through.
Even though tree-lined, the property felt desolate, a bleakness that was possibly due to the weather or possibly not.
Bradford followed the sweep of Esteban’s hand, driving to the area beside the main house, where two vans were parked in a space made for four or five.
The vehicles were in relatively good condition and much newer than the overworked and run-down vans Munroe had seen both in documents and in person.
The dogs circled the Peugeot, sniffing the tires, and Bradford killed the engine.
Watching the side mirror, Munroe said, “If for any reason you have to say something, use Arabic, it’s the only language we share that they won’t understand.”
“Arabic?” he said. “It won’t raise questions?”
“It’s the only option,” she said, “unless we play you as a deaf mute.”
And then, as if an afterthought, “I know you’re a professional, Miles, but in the interest of covering my ass, when you hear English, no signs of recognition, okay?”
“Lakad fahimt,” he said, and his reply forced from her a smile. His accent was nearly as clean as her own.
Esteban approached, and they both stepped from the car.
Bradford kept a cautious distance as Munroe initiated conversation, and with the ice thawing if not broken, she beckoned Bradford closer, introducing him as her boyfriend,
hopeful that the combination of Bradford’s hypervigilance and his rudimentary Spanish would allow the meaning of what she’d just said to pass unnoticed.
In her manner, she was wide-eyed and expectant, simple and generous,
and she preempted suspicions about Bradford’s lack of interaction with the truth: he wasn’t from here and didn’t speak the language.
Esteban led them inside the main house, where a wide foyer opened into a wider hallway that half-ended in a winding staircase, the narrower space continuing to a back door.
To their right was a large living room with furniture that was newer and in better condition than she would have expected.
The size of the building spoke to the ground floor holding far more than this, although the layout didn’t provide for a view of anything else.
From what was visible, signs of occupancy were everywhere:
cubbyholes that reached five high near the end of the hall, far too many couches in the living room,
and in spite of the swept floors and washed windows, walls that had seen too many hands.
And yet, the house was eerily silent. There were no childish peals of laughter, neither the patter nor thud of little feet, and what voices did filter in their direction were hushed;
all of it so similar to the descriptions Logan had given of Havens going Secret when unfamiliar visitors were on the property.
Esteban brought Munroe and Bradford to an alcove off the living room, a small space that, from its clean walls and minimalistic décor, appeared to get little use— or at the least far less than the rest of the house.
They sat and Munroe attempted conversation, and although Esteban’s words were casual and friendly, his body language showed increasing signs of discomfort.
When, a moment later, a second man approached and introduced himself, she understood why.
The newcomer was Elijah, a balding fifty-something who, after his first words of introduction, Munroe pegged for West Coast American.
He greeted her initially in English, and when Munroe shook her head and half-killed an attempt to return in kind, he switched to Spanish.
His language was proficient, though not fluent, and his accent and word usage pointed to his having learned in another Spanish-speaking country.
Elijah thanked her profusely for the contribution to their home and, at times turning to Esteban for help in interpretation, asked her what had brought her and what she knew of them.
Growing up a missionary kid in the heart of Africa may not have been the logical segue to international spy and accidental assassin,
but for this journey, Munroe’s childhood was perfect.
She knew the answers before the questions and simply reversed course, her story following the woven fabric of what she’d first told at the gate.
She was short on details and long on emotion describing a search for happiness that had taken her through travel, then work and money, and finally drugs until she was desperate.
Wanting to put an end to life, she had a vision that showed her the path to the Haven.
If there was any part of this incursion that put Munroe on edge, it was the telling of the lie.
Assignments had taken her across five continents, the gathering of information propelling her into multiple roles and many stories,
each washing over her conscience more spot-free than the one before it. But never had she directly preyed on the spiritual faith of another.
To so easily enter this sanctum felt like a violation of what was hallowed,
and in the face of this pause her mind returned to Logan’s documents, to the pictures and images of true violation, to innocence and trust stolen, to the daughter kidnapped from her parents,
and the nauseating rage that had consumed her at the first kindled again, bringing her fully around to the present.
At the core of every successful subterfuge lay the desire of the mark to believe, and in this Elijah was very eager.
If he harbored doubts, her act of innocence and the thousand-dollar ticket at the gate had apparently dulled them.
As if he’d at last found a true votary, he discoursed with her, providing answers to her questions, guidance to her angst, and introduced her to the building blocks of his faith.
From the windows the shade of the sky shifted from gray to black.
Esteban occasionally interpreted an English word into Spanish, as often getting it wrong as right,
and Bradford sat silent until the middle of a lively exchange when he interrupted with but a stage whisper in Munroe’s direction.
She deciphered his request, Arabic to Spanish, asking for the restroom.
There was a moment of pause and the predicament washed over Elijah’s face.
He could let a stranger wander their house, or insist on having him accompanied and scare off the young potential proselyte who was so eager to give of herself and her fortune to God.
In the end, and after an awkward silence, the man gave directions.
Munroe, now certain that neither Elijah nor Esteban had understood the initial request, in turn interpreted to Bradford, adding a few words of her own.
“Try not to get lost,” she said. “We know how you can be when you’re in unfamiliar places.”
“I’ll try not to,” he said.
When he had left the room, Munroe turned immediately to Elijah and rushed onward in the conversation.
The move had been intended to distract from Bradford’s absence, but it had little effect.
Elijah after a continued pause finally said, “You speak Arabic?”
“Oh yes,” Munroe replied, “and a few languages besides. It happens that way when you are a mutt of no pedigree and you have relatives around the world.”
“And your boyfriend?”
She laughed, as if his question had been a joke.
If they wanted to know what part of the world the Arabic-speaking, dirty-blond, gray-green-eyed stranger hailed from, they’d have to work for it.
Her face drew serious, and in spite of the visible cues to Elijah’s discomfort and internal debate, she pressed forward with a question that he would not be able to ignore.
Bradford returned a long ten minutes later, and after another fifteen of continued doctrinal back-and-forth, Munroe apologized and excused herself on account of a prior appointment.
Elijah begged a few more minutes of her time, and although Munroe stood to leave, he called for his wife, and when she arrived, several smiling children were with her.
It felt like cheating, to know so much about them and what they intended from the encounter when they in turn knew nothing of her,
but she was along for the ride and so hugged the children back as they hugged her. Munroe promised to return— tomorrow if she could.
By the time they left the Haven, they had been there nearly four hours.
Four hours for Bradford’s ten minutes of work, but the long wait leading up to his exit from the room had been every bit necessary.
“Four bugs,” he said. “One in the kitchen, one under the stairs, one in the living room”— he shrugged— “and one in the bathroom.”
At Munroe’s mock disapproval he said, “Hey, don’t knock it. Listening to teenage boys’ bathroom talk might be our best lead.”
She chuckled. “Cameras?” she asked.
“Couldn’t,” he said.
She nodded and her face grew serious.
“It’s possible— highly probable, that she doesn’t go by Hannah anymore. I mean, The Chosen change names often enough without being on the run, I imagine she’s gone through quite a few.”
Bradford nodded, and they both grew silent at the implications.
They were halfway to the hotel before Bradford spoke again. “So,” he said, “how long exactly have I been your boyfriend?”
She grinned. “About as long as humans have lived on Mars,” she said.
He smirked. “That’s what I thought,” he said, “but for a moment there it seemed I might have been mistaken.”
Munroe said nothing, continued to smile, and kept her head tilted toward the window.
She turned toward him to find him watching her, and this time it was she who winked.
The stoplight changed to green and Bradford returned his focus to the road, but he was grinning. “That wasn’t flirting, was it?” he said.
She turned her gaze back to the window. “Maybe,” she said. “I’ll leave it to you to figure it out.”
Arrival at the hotel shifted their interaction from rapport to functional business partners.
There were preparations to be made before beginning the foray into the third Haven.
The nearly six hours away from the desk had allowed an overabundance of footage and voice recordings to accumulate,
and so, while Bradford sat on the bed, snapping equipment into place and constructing from obscure pieces what would eventually be the night’s placements,
Munroe ran through the data, scanning, listening, ever searching for evidence of Hannah.
Bradford completed his task and, with the equipment laid out, stretched out on the bed,
and so typical of battle-hardened soldiers who learned to rest whenever the opportunity arose, fell right asleep.
Munroe continued on through the data, didn’t stop until she came to the end of it.
She had no idea how long she’d been at the desk, her only awareness that of muscles that had cramped and a room gone silent.
In spite of all the information that had come in, there was still no indication that Hannah resided at either of the penetrated Havens.
In frustration she stood and tossed the headset with more vehemence than necessary.
The desktop rattled, and Bradford, with eyes closed and hands behind his head, said, “Nothing?”
“I think I’ve seen just about every child in Haven One,” Munroe said, “and unless she’s never allowed out, or is lying sick in bed, she’s not there.
“As for the Haven Ranch, the recordings are clear, but unless someone openly discusses kidnapping, it’s still guesswork.”
Bradford sat cross-legged on the bed. “There’s Haven Three,” he said.
She nodded. “We’ll see what tonight brings, but my gut tells me that if she’s in Buenos Aires, she’s out at the ranch.”
He raised an eyebrow, an invitation for her to share.
“It’s a larger place,” she said, “more of them are out there,
“and I’ve also not seen any children over nine or ten at Haven One. If they congregate them, it’s going to be at the Ranch.”
Bradford said, “You’re going back inside?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’d like to get a visual setup in there,
“and I’ve got an open invitation to return— it beats getting bit in the butt by a pack of mangy dogs.”
She paused, turned back to the desk. “I’m willing to stick with this as long as it takes,” she said, “but I don’t want to waste time chasing a phantom.
“Right now, all we have is the word of Charity’s sister saying Hannah is in Buenos Aires.
“No offense to Logan or anyone else, but that’s a pretty long stretch of trust. I need to establish that she’s here before putting plans in place to get her out.”
“I’m not keen on your returning,” Bradford said.
Munroe turned, stepped toward the bed, and, with a smile that was evil, knelt on it, making a slow crawl across the mattress in Bradford’s direction.
She continued until she was face-to-face with him, then reached out and patted his cheek.
The physical contact was soft enough to avoid implying a slap, hard enough to make him cringe in irritation.
“I’m a big girl,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”
“Just know,” he said, “that if I feel you’re under threat or in danger of any kind— physical or otherwise— the assignment or the kid be damned, I will come in, and I am prepared to use force if I must.”
She continued to smile as she backed off the bed. “That’s why you’re my rearguard,” she said,
and then, having stood, and without breaking eye contact, she pulled on the black neoprene that was the base of her costume for the night.

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Chapter 13
The pack leader turned in Munroe’s direction. He yelped and, stumbling a time or two, gave chase.
The others were at his heels, all four of them picking up speed as they loped the long stretch of grass.
Munroe neared the wall at an angle. The leader closed the gap.
At a full run she grabbed the anchor’s tail and, with the momentum carrying her up faster than if she’d merely climbed, hoisted herself, then scaled the wall as she felt the snap of teeth behind her.
Munroe reached the top and in the same movement released the anchor and pulled it with her as she slid over and dropped ten feet into a crouch.
Hands to her knees, lower back tipped against the wall for support, she pulled in one burning breath after the next.
After a moment she stood upright, swore at the pain shooting up her leg, and began a gimpy walk to the end of the road where Raúl had originally left her.
Bradford was in her ear again, his voice a steady calm that belied his panic.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I sprained an ankle on the way down. Call Raúl. I’ll meet him at the drop-off.”
The walk was a slow half mile, and although the temptation to bring the taxi driver in for a closer pickup lingered, Munroe pushed it aside.
The last thing the operation needed was an overeager bit player approaching the occupants of the house in a bid to double his money.
The less Raúl knew, the better, and in this, as with any part of the assignment in which he was needed, she would keep him at a distance.
Munroe pulled the lightweight T-shirt from her pocket, unfurled it, and pulled it back over her head.
The taxi driver returned Munroe to the front of the hotel, and she took the elevator up.
The door to the room swung open before she touched it, and Bradford filled the frame.
His face was placid and, but for the subtle creases at his eyes, unreadable.
He stepped backward so that she could enter, and as she passed, his eyes followed, though his body didn’t move.
Munroe turned back long enough to roll her eyes. “Relax,” she said. “It’s a sprain.”
Bradford nodded, shut the door, and leaned against it, exuding that natural calm that so deftly disguised his true thoughts.
Without turning to confirm it, Munroe knew that he watched her, and so made a slow show of removing the accoutrements of the evening.
When she had ripped the Velcro of the vest, emptied each pocket, and left a small pile at the foot of her bed, she glanced over her shoulder.
Bradford’s arms were crossed, his head tipped back against the door, eyes focused on her.
Maintaining eye contact, she sat, unlaced her boots, and, with the same slow deliberation, pulled them off.
Bradford said nothing, and the moment filled the room like smoke rising from the floor until, without a word, he reached for the handle, opened the door, and left.
The reverberation took with it the tension. Munroe sighed. She’d pushed him, had mocked his concern, and then taunted him with it.
She stood and turned toward the shower, shed her clothes for the water, heat and regret washing over her until under the burning stream she lost all track of time.
She would have felt differently if there’d been a point to her actions, but there hadn’t been, she’d been cruel for no useful purpose.
When Munroe reentered the room, Bradford was on his bed, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
He didn’t turn or acknowledge her, so Munroe picked up the last of Logan’s folders, sat cross-legged on her bed with the documents in front of her, and said, “Are you okay?”
Bradford shifted to his side so that he faced her, propped his head against his hand, and said, “Tell me about Noah.”
She turned to meet his eyes. “What do you want to know?”
“Why’d you leave?” he asked. “And don’t say you did it for Logan or the assignment or because of the nightmares,” he said. “They’re reasons, but not the reason.”
Munroe was silent for a moment and then finally whispered, “He didn’t know me. Couldn’t know me.” She paused, and Bradford made no move to break the silence.
“For a while, I fit an image in his head,” she said, “and as long as what I did and said conformed to that image, he was happy.”
She shook her head slightly, sadly. “But even if I try, even if I want to suppress my nature, it still surfaces.
“I am what I am, Miles, and the glimpses I allowed him clashed with the image he wanted.
“No matter how he argues it or even how he tries to accept me for me, he can’t, and I can’t conform, so it’s better this way.”
She stared out into empty space. “I already bring so much suffering into the world,” she said, “I never wanted to bring it to him.
“We had a good run, you know? I loved him— love him— always will.”
She traced her fingers in a random pattern across the top of the document folder and said, “But sometimes love is its own reward, Miles. To struggle to turn it into more is to murder it slowly.”
“You could go back when this is finished,” Bradford said.
“I could,” she said. “Although Noah made it painfully clear that I’m no longer welcome, and I don’t really blame him.
“It doesn’t matter why I had to go— a man’s pride can only take so much.” She paused.
“Oh, but I have considered it, you know? Going back, unwelcome as I am.”
“You won’t?”
“No,” she said.
She raised her eyes to his. “The reasons I left are there now as much as they’ve always been, and all I have to offer is more heartache.
“He can hate me— despise me if that’s what he wants. I choose to treasure what we shared, no matter how it ended.”
She paused and again met Bradford’s eyes. “And yes,” she said. “It has ended. That is what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”
It was nine in the morning and Munroe stood in the hotel foyer, waiting for Raúl.
She’d left a note taped to the TV as a courtesy against Bradford’s panic.
He would have bolted upright the moment she slunk out the door, and her rapid scrawl would at least allow him peace and a few more hours of rest.
The next phase was set for midafternoon, and as Bradford hadn’t fallen asleep until after five, she expected he’d be out until she got back.
Her first stop was Logan’s hostel, where two weeks’ advance payment on the rooms had been her insurance that the trio would stick around long enough for her to return.
She had called ahead, confirming with the proprietor that the boys weren’t in, although how long they’d be gone was impossible to gauge.
With instructions to Raúl, Munroe wound through the narrow courtyard to Gideon and Logan’s quarters,
and there, after confirming again that the room was empty, she let herself in with a skeleton key.
Being discovered invading Logan’s space ranked low on her list of potential disasters, but an encounter was something she wished to avoid, and so she moved to get out as quickly as possible.
Between the beds she shifted the middle table and, behind it, removed an electrical faceplate, fingers deftly wiring in a bug.
She then moved across the room and repeated the procedure behind another.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Logan— Gideon was another story— she was simply playing it smart, and Logan, knowing her as he did, would expect nothing less.
Having accomplished what she’d come for, Munroe retraced her steps, momentarily backing into an alcove to escape detection as Heidi passed.
Expecting the boys to follow shortly, she paced a quick return to the front, arriving a half minute before the taxi pulled into place.
Slipping into the backseat, she checked her watch. Two hours to prep for the next phase.
She returned to Paseo Alcorta for another shopping foray, this time swinging to the extreme girly side, sticking to the high-end boutiques and couture labels.
The trip inside was a focused mission of matériel acquisition, a trip that under any other circumstances would have been far more enjoyable and lasted well beyond today’s time constraints.
Bradford was still face to the pillow when she returned, and he did not stir as she closed the door.
It was a perfect act, so well did he hide his attentive awareness and project the appearance of sleep.
Amused, Munroe dropped her bags on the bed and moved to the computer.
She was fast-forwarding through video footage collected from the Haven cameras when Bradford said, “What time is it?”
Without turning she said, “Almost one o’clock.” A pause, and then, “Have you seen any of this?”
Bradford slid his legs over the side of the bed, stood, and walked to the bathroom.
“Nothing since daylight,” he said. “But the tracker started moving after ten.”
Munroe hovered over the computer, skimming through the footage, pausing as faces flashed across the screen, images of half a dozen of the Haven’s children.
They’d entered the yard shortly after noon, the wall-mounted camera capturing shot after shot as they played.
The computer allowed her to zoom and crop the digital information, and by the time Bradford returned from the shower, she had a full array of faces.
“Anything?” he said.
“Not yet, but these all look to be around nine or ten; the others haven’t come out yet.”
“What about the second camera?”
“I’ve got a couple of the vans leaving, all adults, nobody that looks like David Law.”
“Do you want to sleep?”
Munroe paused, turned from the computer, and, silent, stared at him.
“I figure you could use it,” Bradford said, “and maybe if we keep it to an hour or so, you’ll get enough to take the edge off without slipping into a dream.”
She said nothing.
He paused, shrugged. “Or maybe not,” he said. “But I can handle what you’re doing there if you want to take a break.”
She pushed back from the computer. “An hour,” she said.
Anything longer was not only inviting an episode but would also put her behind schedule for the afternoon.
She stepped aside to let him near the computer and, with a glance over her shoulder, turned to lie down.
Bradford leaned back in the chair, watching her in a show of exaggerated observation.
She grinned, shut her eyes, and allowed herself to free-fall into oblivion.
Munroe woke to the touch of Bradford’s finger against her cheek. Disoriented, she turned to him.
“Hey,” he whispered. She attempted a grin, and he said, “Any monsters?”
“No,” she said. “No monsters. How long was I under?”
Bradford glanced at his watch. “One hour and three minutes. How do you feel?”
“A little dizzy,” she said, and she sat up, shifting her feet to the floor. “What’d you get on the tracker?”
He smiled an exaggerated smile. “I think we’ve got the third Haven.”
She attempted a return smile, thumbed-up the news, and then stood and made for the shower and what she hoped was instant clarity.
She needed to be functioning at full throttle in less than an hour,
and the jury was still out on whether or not sixty-three minutes of sleep was worth the cotton-headed mental fog.
By the time Munroe returned to the room, Bradford had already left, so she dressed and for added femininity liberally applied makeup.
Having finished, and with Bradford still out, she turned again to the computer.
According to the data, the van had made only one stop in the hours since she’d returned from her jaunt at the mall,
and she could see from the location on Bradford’s map why he’d smiled.
The third Haven was less than a ten-minute drive from where they were ensconced.
She would forgo the dry run and get surveillance installed tonight. The pieces were coming together.
As long as Logan’s sources were accurate, as long as Hannah was truly in one of the Buenos Aires Havens, they would soon have her.
Munroe ran through visuals of the garage, located the time frame that the vehicle had left, caught a snapshot of who’d been in it,
and, certain that neither Hannah nor David Law had been among the occupants, moved to the recordings captured by the laser mike.
She had gotten through only the first five minutes when Bradford called.
Setting aside the equipment, she picked up her oversize purse, left the room, and joined Bradford in the lobby.
He grinned as she approached, obviously appreciative of her attire, and then took her arm in his and led her to a late-model Peugeot sedan.
Munroe paused to scan the car and nodded approval.
He’d procured it from his local contact, and it far exceeded her expectations.
“Is it clean?” she said.
“It’ll trace back to Recoleta.”
Recoleta was a neighborhood of expensive apartment buildings and city blocks filled with mansions, where the most affluent of Buenos Aires congregated.
They drove through the streets of Palermo to Pascual Palazzo, which would route them to the highway that would take them out of town.
It was a different route from the one Raúl had driven the evening before, but the destination was the same.
This was the first time in all of their mutual history that Munroe had allowed Bradford the wheel, and she glanced at him now, dressed up and owning the roads.
She supposed that his transformation from jeans and T-shirts to sophistication and the effect it had on her were what people around her regularly experienced when she phased from one role into the next— unnerving, but in a good way.
They drove for over an hour through gradually thinning traffic before reaching the rural road that passed the Haven Ranch,
and here Bradford turned off onto the gravel track that led to the buildings.
The vehicle slowed, Bradford obviously prolonging the approach.
“You ready for this?” he said.
Munroe nodded. “Born for it,” she said.
Bradford stopped the car, and while he waited in the warm interior, Munroe stepped out.
She stood at a chain-link gate and, hands shoved into her pockets, searched for a bell— anything meant to alert the occupants that someone waited for entry.
Several dogs approached. Their ruckus, absent any other notification, would surely give notice,
but after another moment, she found a press-button on a post far to the right of the gate.
She thumbed it several times and then returned to the car to wait.
“Still certain they’ll let us inside?” Bradford asked.
“Nearly certain,” she said. “Just give them time to clear forty pairs of shoes out of the foyer.”
As if on cue, a lone figure exited the front door and made the long walk toward them.
Worn coat, worn shoes, dark curly hair, he appeared to be in his late twenties,
and based on stories she’d collected from Logan and later Heidi, Munroe assumed that unlike the majority of those who lived here, the man was Argentine.
As he drew near, Munroe turned to Bradford, said, “Here goes,” and, with a radiant smile, stepped out of the car and walked toward the gate.

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Chapter 12
Munroe stepped from the bed to the bathroom and in turn to the shower,
where the water would help to clear her head and erase some of the emotional aftershock of sleep.
She lost track of time under the flow, the water hot, just shy of scalding, the heat taking with it the memories, if only temporarily.
She watched the water run and filter down the drain and, after what felt like an eternity, shut it off.
Clean and as clear as could be expected, she joined Bradford at the desk.
At her approach, he moved slightly, making room and behaving as if the violence that had transpired had never happened.
If he wished to probe and understand— and she was certain that he did— he kept it to himself.
He knew her well, knew that to wait and allow her space would in time bring him what he wanted.
With a half grin he handed Munroe a headset and slid out of the way so that she could listen to the recording that had been transmitted by the bug.
The device was voice activated, a feature designed to conserve battery life,
and during the five hours that Munroe had been asleep, there had been just over an hour of recording.
Nothing new had come in during the past hour, and that, combined with the van’s current location, led them both to believe that these transmissions were the last they’d get from the pen.
Munroe listened, jotting down the occasional note, and after a short while she took off the headset and set it aside.
For the most part the conversation was useless. She motioned for Bradford to rejoin her.
He paused from writing, set his notebook aside, and sat beside her, so close that she could feel the warmth of him against her skin.
She blocked out the craving for the calm of his touch and focused fully on the information at hand while together they pored over the data the tracker had provided.
The van had made a circuitous route through the city, and Bradford had pulled the two locations he considered most likely to be Havens.
Both were residential and fairly secluded. The property at which the van had come to roost was the smaller of the two and closer to its neighbors than the other.
Satellite images provided enough detail to get a feel for the locale, and Munroe mapped out routes to and from each property.
Having finished, she stood, stretched, and rolled out the kinks from her shoulders.
“I’m going to make a dry run of it,” she said. “You want to come?”
Bradford stood and reached for his coat.
She had invited him along, not because she needed his help but because of the calm she felt in his presence,
and because no matter how much he believed her capable of looking after herself, the protective soldier in him wouldn’t be able to help but stress until he knew for certain she was safe.
Keeping him close was a win/win for them both.
Outside the hotel, in the coming twilight, Munroe flagged a taxi.
With the directions pulled from the GPS, she talked the driver through what little he didn’t already know.
They traveled first to the far edge of city, away from the elegant colonial architecture and wide tree-lined avenues of the city proper.
Out here there were still dirt roads, the buildings were modest and humble,
and although this property wasn’t the van’s final destination, there was no other reason for the forty-five-minute stop in this remote area but to visit a sister Haven.
The property, spread out ranch style, was comprised of a greater two-story house, a smaller single-story annex, and what appeared to be a barn or large shed at the far back.
The buildings were set far off the rural highway with a dirt road connecting it to the main road.
Stopping wasn’t possible without attracting attention, so they passed twice, photographed what they could in the dimming light, and moved on to the next location.
The van’s home was in a suburb closer to the city, a neighborhood where houses were surrounded by high walls and accessed through sheet-metal gates and interspersed among mom-and-pop stores and microindustries.
The first pass confirmed what the satellite images had shown:
a three-story house with subconstruction in the rear that appeared to have been built as servants’ quarters. Placement from the walls allowed for a large backyard.
Far down the street, Munroe paid the taxi fare, and she and Bradford exited, joining the pedestrian traffic.
Unlike the first property, which they’d known was inaccessible, here Munroe hoped to see if there were any guard dogs or night watchmen, and to get a visual of the easiest access route over the walls.
Arm in arm, casually strolling, Munroe and Bradford walked until they had looped the entire area and she had seen what she wanted.
“How many bedrooms?” Munroe asked.
Bradford glanced over his shoulder and then turned his gaze toward the sidewalk as they continued.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe five or six.”
Munroe nodded. “That’d be my guess too. And I’m going to venture they’ve got at least forty-five people living in there.”
“Based on what?” he said. “Gut instinct?”
“Mostly from what I’ve read,” she said, “and from the things that Logan has told me over the years.
“At least two-thirds of them will be children,” she added.
Bradford paused, and Munroe knew he was running the numbers.
Finally he nodded toward the house. “Thirty kids in there?” he said.
“At least. Probably more.”
He waited a beat and then deadpanned: “That’s a lot of laundry.”
At one in the morning the heart of Buenos Aires was just starting to bustle.
For those out on the town the evening didn’t truly begin until around midnight and would only start to settle after three or four.
The night was different in the suburbs, where beyond the occasional late sidewalk chatter, the streets were mostly quiet,
the silence broken only by the occasional car or a dog’s bark or the wail of a cat in heat.
Munroe stood with her back to the wall, one leg casually braced against it, watching the street, waiting in the silence for the right moment to move.
She had approached the property from the rear, following the side road that Raúl had used to drop her off.
Once on her own she’d pulled off her outer T-shirt, tightened it into a roll, and stuffed it into a vest side pocket.
She donned a balaclava, and in full-body black with the depth of night calling to her, followed shadow to shadow, a phantom in the dark until she reached the loneliest of the Haven compound’s walls.
Munroe tossed a retractable anchor over and hoisted upward.
On the other side, the property grounds were well lit, and although Munroe didn’t see them, she knew from the first pass that several dogs had the run of the space.
She lay flat in the shadows along the width of wall, her left leg hanging along the outside for balance.
From a vest pocket she pulled a Ziploc pack of meat and with a trainer’s whistle summoned the dogs.
Relying on the old tried-and-true, she dropped several laced chunks into the yard, and with the dogs self-sedating, set to work pulling equipment pieces from her pockets.
She reassembled and mounted a surveillance camera first, followed by a wireless long-range transmitter.
Located as they were, she wouldn’t expect the pieces to be discovered for a very long time, if ever.
With Bradford’s guidance in her ear, Munroe made minute adjustments until he confirmed visual contact.
She then repeated the procedure with a laser sight, pointing it so that it reflected off the largest downstairs window.
The dogs were dozing now, and though not fully asleep, they were not alert enough to raise an alarm.
Munroe crouched and scooted along the balance beam of wall until her readings showed the proper angle.
Placing a laser mike required a bit of finesse, and tonight was her one shot at getting it right.
Munroe twisted a wing nut, tilting the receiver another half degree toward the laser, and Bradford, in her ear, confirmed sound.
Based on what he heard, there were at least four people still moving about the house.
Voice verification, an unexpected boon, was an upside to the downside of having someone awake in the Haven she’d hoped was by now asleep.
Camera and audio were secure and mounted, and logic said that having gotten what she’d come for, it was time to leave.
But from this place on the wall, across fifty feet of well-lit lawn, the open garage, with its three vehicles, beckoned.
Munroe hesitated. Surveillance on one window would net them something, but how much activity that one room received— even if it was obviously the largest in the house— was anybody’s guess.
She wanted more, and if the lure of getting a visual on the comings and goings of the Haven wasn’t enough to draw her forward, getting a tracker placed on a second vehicle was irresistible.
Munroe checked her watch. She hadn’t planned on staying this long,
and in wanting to avoid accidentally overdosing the dogs and spooking the Haven, she’d gone easy on the sedatives.
There wasn’t a lot of time before the pack started roaming again.
Munroe scanned the windows for signs of movement. Finding none, she removed the balaclava.
She slid over the side of the wall and dropped inside the grounds, heard Bradford’s sharp intake, and knew from her placement that she’d entered the camera’s range.
She ignored him, stood, and strolled casually across the yard, as if she were one of their own out for some late-night air.
Bradford’s voice was in her ear again, low and businesslike.
Whomever he had heard speaking had left the room and now moved through the house.
Munroe reached the far side of the garage. Here, shadows loomed and allowed her to again blend into the night.
She paused, listened, and continued inward.
Three vehicles sat two wide and two deep, the space where a fourth would have been was filled instead with several refrigerators, a chest freezer,
and, from the draped hoses and electrical cords, what appeared to be two broken washing machines.
Noting the door, Munroe chose the corner behind the farthest fridge as the ideal framing point.
She slid between the vehicles, knelt, and placed the extra tracker, then ambled onto a washer and from there climbed to a fridge top.
In the dark she assembled a second camera and amplifier, working with adhesive to hold the unit in place.
She powered it on and Bradford again confirmed visual, again guided her through placement.
And then, with fingertips tilting the camera for a final adjustment, Munroe froze.
Bradford’s warning hissed in her ear as he too spotted the crack of light leaking from the house into the black.
A moment later, the door to the garage opened and a boy of about sixteen stepped out.
The light from within was blinding against the darkness, and Munroe, previously so well hidden in shadows was now most certainly a demonic outline crouched above him.
Had he stopped and tilted his head upward, he would have looked directly into her eyes. But he didn’t.
Oblivious to her presence, he searched for something, eventually found it, returned to the house, and shut the door, and the garage was once more enveloped in darkness.
Equivalent to an all-clear, the door lock tumbled. Munroe slid down from her perch, and from there, back the way she’d come.
The same fifty feet of lawn separated her from the wall, and now, on the far side of the area, the dogs, though still sluggish, were beginning to move.
She’d gambled against this possibility and knew she’d lost.
They were still wobbly, and the longer she waited, the more dangerous they’d become.
Caring for little other than making it to the wall before they did, Munroe paused for a beat, tensed, and then bolted across the lawn at a full sprint.

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Chapter 11
Munroe sat beside the bed with her back to the wall and two sets of documents on the floor in front of her. 
It was after midnight, and Bradford, having claimed the bed closest to the window, had already crashed, his gentle snores assurance that he was either sleeping or doing a stellar job of pretending that he was.
Trying to keep ambient light to a minimum, Munroe had pulled the desk lamp down and settled it in the space between the wall and the bed. 
She had yet to go through the last set of documents that Logan had handed her, and they sat beside the envelope that contained information on the New York killing.
Munroe ran her forefinger between the two, a repetitive pattern of long internal debate until the documents were separated by a perfect line of tile. 
In a slow, drawn-out movement, she twisted her palms so that they faced her and gazed at the invisible stain of blood that marked them, urging away the tarnish, knowing full well that removal was impossible.
She was a predator, a hunter, hating the bloodlust that lurked always just beneath the surface, disgusted by how easy it was to kill and how good it felt when it was done.
Did it really matter that she killed in self-defense or that her dead were evildoers? 
Every kill had been a son or brother, father or lover to someone else. 
Death was death, killing was killing, and the urge to draw blood and the satisfaction it brought was as fierce as any addiction. 
For this reason Munroe didn’t begrudge the nightmares or the guilt she carried; 
these provided a form of proof that in spite of the euphoric rush of the kill, she did have a conscience, that she was yet human and alive.
On the flip side, concern that Logan’s assignment would add to the body count had gone down considerably with the realization that for the most part, The Chosen were pacifists. 
Unlike Jonestown, The Chosen disavowed mass suicide, 
and unlike the Branch Davidians, they didn’t stockpile weapons in preparation for Judgment Day— although they did believe that as the End Days approached, they would acquire X-Men-type superpowers.
The physical danger came not from The Chosen but from their Sponsors— connected individuals that The Chosen sought out and courted for protection and financial gain— military, police, or powerful local families. 
The details varied from country to country, city to city, and sometimes even Haven to Haven within a city and weren’t worth troubling over until the local situation became clearer.
The most immediate concern was not violence but being discovered by The Chosen and watching helplessly as the Havens scattered and Hannah vanished again, like fog between fingers.
Munroe pushed the New York envelope aside. Miles was right. She had acted in the only way that she could have. 
To brood over it now would only interfere with bringing Logan’s daughter home, 
and here in Buenos Aires, as long as it was merely the violence of the supernatural that she had to deal with, things would be okay.
Munroe picked up Logan’s folder and pulled out the pages, 
and as she began to read, rage, like a fire in her belly that could only be quenched by blood, began a slow burn upward.
The cause of the seething came not only from the details but also from the impunity with which they were published, promoted, and documented:
The Prophet, with his divine revelation proclaiming freedom from the laws of the Bible, said that to the pure, all was pure, and for The Chosen only one law mattered, that anything was allowed if done in love. 
The Prophet reiterated that love was the criteria, not age, or familial relations, or marital status. 
Taboos were removed, safeguards erased, and the innocence and bodies of the children violated, and these violations were shown and written about in graphic detail.
The Prophet’s doctrine was Saint Augustine saying, “Love, and do as you will”; 
it was Aleister Crowley’s dictum “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”; 
it was Saint Paul’s “All things are lawful unto me”; 
it was The Prophet saying that there was no reason young children couldn’t be fully involved sexual beings if love was the motivation.
The children didn’t scream or protest; they had been taught to submit, to obey, to never question. 
They had no power, no place but to serve, and when the pedophiles came calling, who had they to turn to for safety? 
Their parents, those who should have stood between the children and harm, had abdicated responsibility in order to follow The Prophet and remain a part of The Chosen, 
and these acts against the innocent, no matter how extreme, were, after all, done in love.
Only halfway through the pages, Munroe stopped and set the folder aside. 
She had to pause, to breathe, to consciously force herself into a state of levelheaded calm. 
There was no point in continuing through further details; 
she’d gotten the idea, and the emotion conjured by what she read brought her as painfully close to flashbacks as anything the years had thrown at her.
Munroe understood now why Heidi had said the missing pieces weren’t easy to forget, 
and what Logan had meant by the children’s pain having been turned into a media-circus freak show. He was right. 
After reading about it, it was easy to overlook everything else that had come before it, to forget how much further and deeper their pain went, 
how their entire lives had been a travesty of justice and a failure of those responsible to treasure, protect, and respect the innocence of childhood.
She didn’t need to read to know the rest of it; she’d heard it from Logan and caught glimpses of it from the discussions that had taken place in New York. 
Stories of abuse began to surface, governments began to investigate, and doctrines that The Chosen had once practiced in the open became secret. 
The Prophet and his Representatives rewrote history, burned Instructives, and to the public and the courts repudiated and denied, while on the inside they defended the Godliness of their beliefs. 
Only in the face of mounting evidence did The Prophet’s spokespeople grudgingly admit that some of the stories were true, 
even while denying the role of The Prophet or his doctrine, instead blaming rogue disciples and claiming things had changed.
Munroe sat for several moments, reflecting. 
Remaining free of preconceived opinions and ideas was critical to understanding and assimilation, 
but given the background on this assignment, remaining objective was becoming increasingly difficult.
When the rush of anger had subsided and the rage was temporarily quelled, she stood. 
Slowly, so as not to make noise or disturb Bradford, she crossed the room, pulled the laptop from the desk, and retreated to the nook between wall and bed. 
She powered up the machine and turned off the desk lamp.
Munroe had until early morning to pull and draw, to suck the life’s blood from the veins of information that lay within her reach. 
Logan’s folders had been thorough and had provided history, facts, and reality. 
What she wanted now was to crawl inside the minds of those involved, to understand the way that members within The Chosen thought, and if she could, acquaint herself with those in Argentina. 
She would learn their dreams and aspirations, their fears and motivations, 
and these she would find, not in history and data, but in blogs and comments, stories and testimonials floating through the vastness of the Internet.
Once started, her focus became so intense that she wasn’t aware of Bradford having woken until he’d crossed half of the room. 
She broke midsentence to acknowledge him and then turned again to the screen.
“Hey,” Bradford said, and he sat on the edge of her bed, tipped over so that his face was parallel with hers. 
“Not planning to sleep?”
Without looking up, she said, “Probably not a good idea.”
“What?” he teased. “You don’t think I could handle your sleepwalking with my eyes closed?”
She chuffed. “It might get messy.”
“When you want to rest,” he said, “let me know. I’ll keep an eye on you.” 
The playfulness had gone out of his voice and his tone was soft and serious.
Munroe paused, looked up, and met his eyes, which were only inches from hers.
“Thank you,” she said, and she truly meant it. “I might take you up on that, but tonight I’ve got to get this research in.” 
She checked the clock. Four A.M. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Depends,” he said. “Are we still on for seven?”
She nodded.
“I feel like I could use three more hours of sleep,” he said, pulling backward off the bed and winking that irresistible wink of his.
Munroe sat tall, eyes following as he recrossed to his own space; 
he with the drawstring pants slung loosely around his waist and the chiseled torso that showed two-toned in the darkened room. 
Bradford, knowing that she watched, turned back to catch her eye, and when he did, she almost laughed, continuing to observe until he had settled down.
The chemistry that had smoldered between them in Africa hadn’t lessened with time, 
but if the flame was to ignite, it would be on Munroe’s shoulders to fan it. 
Not for any lack of desire on Bradford’s part, that had been clear for a long while now, but because of his respect for her boundaries and for their shared history.
Thoughts of Noah tumbled through Munroe’s mind followed by the piercing pain that lately came with them. 
She pushed them back, returning her focus to the computer and another series of blog links, reached down and jotted another note on the pad that had by now been nearly filled.
They left the hotel at seven-thirty, Bradford accompanying Munroe as spotter and a second pair of eyes. 
Munroe expected the van to arrive at the grocery sometime between ten and eleven, assumed that the vehicle would approach on the side of the street with easiest access, 
but unwilling to risk waiting another week on wrong assumptions, she was attempting to cover all angles.
At eight, the streets were still waking up, and in this part of town, traffic was light. 
Still several hundred feet from the storefront, Bradford exited the cab, walked into a corner café, and took a seat along the window so that he had a clear view down the street.
The piece in Munroe’s ear chirped. Bradford was testing signal strength, 
and she smirked, eavesdropping on his conversation with the waitress as he struggled with the language. 
Then, having confirmed that he’d settled into position, she moved on, parking the taxi not far from where she expected the van to show.
She had borrowed not only the cab but also Raúl’s, the driver’s, clothes. 
Over the past few days she’d tipped him well enough to ensure that this morning he would be content to let her have the black and yellow car for a few hours while he lingered around the corner.
Munroe idled at the curb and settled in for the duration. 
For those few who flagged the cab or attempted to ride, she told them the vehicle was waiting on a fare and, in the long hours that passed, conversed with Bradford. 
Their conversation was abstract, time-killing talk, the rambling that bonded partners. 
He made her laugh with witty retorts, his mind nearly as fast as hers, jumping topics from the inane to the obscure until, as if on cue, the Haven van turned down the street.
Munroe spotted the van in her rearview mirror at almost the same moment Bradford alerted her to the target’s approach. 
Clearly visible through the advancing windshield was the male-female pair and a number of smaller faces in the backseat.
Counting cars and measuring speed, Munroe waited and, at Bradford’s go, shifted into gear and slid the cab away from the curb and into traffic, allowing the van to fill the spot that she had left empty.
Around the corner, she left the car with Raúl, swapped jackets, and added a hat and sunglasses to avoid the possibility of being recognized by Bianca, the store clerk, and any potential scene that would come of it.
Munroe doubled back the way she’d come, Bradford’s voice in her ear, clicking off minutes, updating her on the target’s movements. 
Bradford had left the café for the street and was slowly walking toward the van, backup if for some reason she should fail in her mission.
She passed the front of the vehicle, confirmed it empty, and, reaching the rear, knelt to tie a shoelace. 
At Bradford’s clear, she slipped a hand under the chassis, a movement clean and smooth that left behind a magnetic disk. 
She remained kneeling, waiting, working on the shoelace, until Bradford signaled again.
She rounded the vehicle to the driver’s side and, sure to keep her back to the clothing boutique, shimmed the door open, confidently and subtly. 
To the very observant she was the rightful owner returning for a forgotten item. 
She remained only long enough to drop a pen into the cluttered console and slip a booster pack under the dash. 
She locked and shut the door, turned, and continued on the way she’d come.
The battery on the listening device had a short life span; 
they could expect perhaps twelve to fourteen hours if they were lucky, but the tracker would last until they killed it.
Munroe slowed, allowing Bradford to shorten the distance between them, and after several blocks, she crossed the street to join him. 
Together they turned the corner and, with a nod to Raúl, who waited, climbed into the cab.
Their work here was done. Rather than attempt to follow the van through the city, they would allow the GPS tracker to do the work; 
every street, every turn, and every stop would be transmitted to the machines in the command center and then recorded and analyzed.
If the van functioned as Gideon and Heidi believed it did, they would have the locations of all three Havens by the end of the day. 
If not, it was inevitable that in time the others would be found, but time was the one thing Munroe had little to spare.
She expected the van would take at least three hours to make its rounds, so they returned to the hotel. 
With Bradford in front of the computer, comparing GPS information to local maps, and nothing further for Munroe to do but wait, she lay down. 
Exhaustion settled, her eyelids drooped, and although she feared another nightmare and the havoc the dreams would wreak, sleep took her hostage.
She stood along the expanse of empty road, useless Ducati at her side, and watched the Good Samaritan pull to a stop.
He stepped from the rear of his Escalade, spare gas can in hand.
The vastness of West Texas stretched in all directions, a barren and endless flat that melted into the horizon. 
Munroe had followed the roads at random, taking the bike to suicidal speeds, open throttle, screaming engine, 
and having misjudged the distance between towns after she’d found the last gas station unexpectedly closed, had ended up stranded.
The Good Samaritan approached. His hand rose in greeting; she nodded. 
She returned small talk to his questions. Unscrewed the bike’s gas cap. He held the can toward her.
His smile was wrong and something about his body language put her on edge. She hesitated.
It would take less than a gallon to make it to some form of civilization, and she wanted that fuel. Desire overrode instinct. She reached for the can.
Her hand closed around the handle, and the barrel of his gun came full in her face. Without moving, she raised her eyes to his.
The smile was gone, the safety off. He nodded toward his vehicle. She sighed. Not this shit again.
She slumped in resignation. Did as he instructed. He prodded her to the rear of the vehicle and followed.
If he’d wanted her dead, he would have already shot her, and so she moved forward, confident he wouldn’t fire until he had what he’d stopped for.
Munroe waited until they were parallel to the Escalade, and with the tinted windows working as mirrors, she struck. The speed of attack sent the weapon flying.
She drove a fist toward his face, a leg to his groin, and inexplicably, he countered. 
Blow by blow, block to block, an incomprehensible speed that matched hers until, against all reason, she was on her back, arms pinned to her chest, unable to move.
Rage boiled, frustration mounted, and still she could not gain the upper hand. 
The man raised a fist and struck her face. Hard. The blow left her dizzy. 
She turned directly to face him, stared hard, looking into his eyes. It was Miles Bradford who blinked back.
Munroe’s heart pounded, head throbbed, and she struggled to catch her breath, crushed beneath Bradford as she was. 
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay, get off.”
Bradford reacted instantly, letting go and sliding back. 
She sat up and drew her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and one long, slow inhale after the other forced her heart rate back down to a reasonable pace.
Bradford, still on his knees, was silent, staring. “I’m sorry I hit you,” he said.
She took another slow drink of air and shook her head. He had no reason to apologize. The strike had been worth not having to relive another killing.
She leaned forward and curled into the fetal position, rested her head in his lap. 
He ran his fingers through her hair, traced the outline of her jaw.
“How long did I sleep?” she said.
“About five hours.”
His touch was comforting, soothing, and she lay there just to feel it.
“Has the van stopped moving?” she asked.
“About thirty minutes ago.”
“What did we get?”
“It looks like we’ve got at least two potential Havens,” he said. “Theirs and one other— but I’m not sure you’re in any condition for the next phase.”
Munroe sat up, looked him dead in the face, and after a long pause said, “The hell I’m not.”

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Chapter 10
The docks were deserted, and Munroe crept through the night, moving past security checkpoints and into the shadows that preceded the shelter that was currently home.
Heavy machinery and conveyor equipment stretched out from the wharf like giant manacles onto the three ships that lay at port. 
Powerful lights illuminated the waterfront, creating lengthening darkness between the two- and three-story buildings that stood opposite.
The knife attack came without warning, out of the shadows, as if the man who wielded it had been waiting a long, patient time, knowing she would eventually pass.
He was strong. From behind he jerked her head back and forced her to the ground. 
Light crossed his face, and she recognized him from the dockyard. 
His skin was rough, scarred, making him look old, though she knew he wasn’t. 
His body was taut and muscular from the daily physical labor.
He tightened his grip on her neck, kept the knife to her throat, and in microsecond gaps she calculated. 
Her vision shifted to gray. Adrenaline flowed, and the edges of desire crept toward her soul.
She dropped a knife into a palm from a pocket in her sleeve; smiled; relaxed. 
In an unconscious response the man loosened his grip, and in that second of error she slashed his wrist. 
He screamed an obscenity, let go, stepped back out of her way, and blended into the darkness.
Munroe closed her eyes. Other senses would guide her where sight failed.
A scrape. A movement of air. He lunged.
She sidestepped, and his blade missed widely.
She pulled a second knife from the small of her back. Flipped it open.
His breathing was heavy, and she followed the sound of it, knives in both hands, circling cautiously. 
The lust for blood was there, she could feel it welling up inside, a pounding in her head, in her chest, an overwhelming desire to kill.
And she fought it. She was not to be a killer, an animal, a predator. She had fled to get away from this, to leave it behind.
“There’s no need for this,” she said to the night. “Put away your weapon, I’ll put away mine, and we can walk away.”
The attacker taunted her with obscenities, and she understood then that he wanted her body and meant to take it by death if necessary. 
With his mocking, darkness flooded in. She smelled the rankness of his sweat, heard the rasp of scorn in his voice, knew the fear of the knife. 
Her heart raced, muscles contracted, and instinct washed over her. Survive. Kill.
Light reflected off a blade. She rolled to the right. Instinct. Speed.
She turned. Came from below. Plunged a knife upward, connected under his chin and thrust it deep. Euphoria flowed.
The attacker dropped to his knees, eyes wide. Green eyes. Her stomach reacted violently.
His face. Soft. Familiar. A shock of recognition ran through her.
She gasped for air. Slumped forward and then, head tilted upward, with the primal shriek of rage and pain still rising, opened her eyes.
Not to the midnight sky, but to the bland, off-white ceiling of the hotel room.
Heart pounding, Munroe slid her legs over the side of the bed and stood, looking down at the aftermath of slumber. 
The sheets and her clothes were drenched, the pillow beside her shredded. 
She rubbed her fingers, feeling tenderness where friction had burned them raw. 
For this she had purchased three hours of sleep out of the last forty-eight. 
So little rest invited trouble, and agitated as she was now, there would be no natural return to the slumber that she so desperately needed.
Munroe shuffled to her bag, pulled out a bottle, and tipped the contents into her mouth.
It was nearing nine in the morning, at the same corner place where Logan had followed Munroe yesterday, and the café was filled with morning traffic. 
He sat at the far end of the room, his back to the wall, listening to a language that he only half understood, observing the bustling crowd, and through the storefront window watched the passersby. 
Across the table Gideon sat dazed and sleepy-eyed, and the fragrance of coffee blended with the sweet scent of the pastries that filled the empty space between them.
Conversation was sparse, and any words spoken were only filler. 
They were both tired, having spent far too many hours during the night planning and then rehashing options, 
and if it weren’t for the prearrangement to meet Munroe and Heidi here for breakfast, Logan would have been happy to steal another hour or two under the covers.
He glanced again at his watch and took a sip of coffee. The girls were ten minutes late. 
He wasn’t familiar enough with Heidi’s patterns to know how many minutes past an appointment defined her version of tardy, but he knew Munroe. 
She was her own woman and worked her own schedule, but if she committed to be somewhere at a certain time, she would show— on time— always.
Logan took another sip and then another glance at his watch. Gideon, noticing the movement, chuckled. 
Logan ignored him and, his face to the window, saw Heidi pass on the other side. 
She entered the café, eyes scanning the room, and seeing Logan, approached the table.
“Where’s Michael?” Logan said.
Heidi’s head turned puppy-dog sidewise. “I thought she was with you,” she said. 
And then in response to Logan’s deadpan expression, “I overslept— didn’t hear the alarm— I just figured she left without me.”
Logan blanched, and his heartbeat, fast and heavy, made it impossible to attempt conversation. 
To the others, Munroe’s absence would mean little— a stroll about the neighborhood or the desire to check out a lead— they would assume she would return in her own time. But he knew better. 
Her promise to get Hannah repeated in his mind, a mantra that was the calm against his panic. 
Munroe had given her word— her word— but perhaps now, in her current state with the medicating— the drugs— her word meant little.
“Heidi, I need your key,” he said. She looked at him quizzically, and he remained silent, hand outstretched. 
Finally, after a moment, she pulled the room key from her purse and handed it to him.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “I’ll be back in half an hour.” He left for the hostel at a near run.
The room was as he’d expected, with Heidi’s things on one side and most of Munroe’s few belongings on the other. 
Stacked neatly on the bedside table were the documents he had given her, and he could see from the way things were laid out why Heidi assumed that Munroe had simply gone ahead.
He browsed through the stack of papers, heart still pounding, 
until he came to the end and saw that those he’d held back, the ones he’d finally handed over yesterday, were missing. For that, there was hope.
Frustrated and sick to his stomach, Logan left the room to find a pay phone. 
He didn’t know what to expect, didn’t even know what he hoped to gain by the call, only knew that he had to make it, 
and that if there was anyone who knew what Munroe was up to, it would be Miles Bradford. 
Using a calling card, he dialed Capstone Consulting. 
He asked for Bradford, the receptionist requested he hold the line, and then, in less than a moment, Miles was on the phone. 
No transfers. No waits or stalls, no voice mail or notice of being out of the country, just the man himself, listening, while Logan ran anxiously through the reasons why he’d called.
When Logan had expended himself to the point of emotional emptiness, he paused, and in that space there was silence. 
Unsure if Bradford was still on the line, he was about to speak when Bradford broke the quiet.
“Michael left a message for you,” Bradford said.
Stunned, Logan made no reply. 
Munroe had known that he would go to Bradford— had made preparations based on it. 
Realizing, finally, that Bradford was waiting for a response of some kind, he said, “I’m listening.”
“She’s made you a promise,” Bradford said, “and intends to keep it. But she can’t work with the three of you hovering. 
“You need to take a step back, stay out of her way, and trust that she knows what she’s doing.”
Logan paused and then said, “That’s it?”
“She wants you in Buenos Aires,” Bradford said. “She might even need you at some point, so stay where she can easily find you. 
“Just don’t go anywhere near anything concerned with the assignment, okay? And Logan?” Bradford paused. “She means anything.”
Logan nodded to empty space. “All right,” he said. “If that’s what she wants.”
Courtesy of the bottle, Munroe slept, and in that sleep was peace from the living and peace from the dead. 
From sunrise around the clock to three in the morning she bathed in sweet oblivion, 
and when she woke, she checked the time and the day’s date to get her bearings, then set the alarm for eight.
When the hours passed and the buzzer sounded, her feet hit the floor before her hand found the stop. 
The bottle’s purpose had been served, and the go signal, like a checkered flag to a race-car driver, launched her forward. 
Today she would begin to dredge the road toward bringing Hannah home.
She showered and left the hotel in search of a salon already open. 
As with every assignment, there was a role to play, and with any role, illusion was everything. 
The human subconscious filtered out that which was familiar, and to err in any detail, no matter how subtle, was to jar reality and place a role at risk.
To become and to blend required more than understanding the language or speaking as they did, more than mannerisms and walk and copying dress. 
To become was to synthesize completely, and this illusion meant that everything— from hairstyle to shoes, even imports— had to be acquired locally.
Hair shorn into a neutral gender look, Munroe took a cab to Paseo Alcorta, one of the city’s several upscale malls. 
She moved through stores and boutiques with the speed and efficiency of experience. 
Styles, colors, weights, and textures changed from country to country, but the concept of blending was the same. 
Suitcase, clothes, shoes, backpacks, jackets; several collections to fill the needs of the neutral gender, all of it on her own dollar.
The money Logan and the other survivors had paid, although an exorbitant sum by their own standards, didn’t even begin to cover expenses on a job of this nature. 
What the others would never know was that in order to pull this off, she was contributing more to the project than all of their payments combined.
Shopping finished, Munroe returned to the hotel long enough to drop off the day’s bounty, and took a cab to the airport. 
She had the driver wait while she left for the arrivals area to search out Miles Bradford, who by now should have cleared customs.
She spotted him against the far wall, one leg kicked back for support, arms crossed, 
as if he had all the time needed to discover the world and no plans to do so. 
Beside him was a luggage dolly carrying two oversize lockers that functioned as trunks, an oversize carry-on, and a computer bag. 
He scanned the room with that disinterested look of his, which so belied the focus with which he observed all.
He met her eyes as she found his, and a beautiful smile transformed his face. 
He greeted her with a hug and then a kiss atop her forehead. “You okay?” he said.
The question, so clean in its simplicity, so strong in sincerity, held so many complexities that Munroe simply nodded and returned his smile.
“How was the trip?” she asked. “Tired?”
“I slept,” he said. “I’m ready to roll.”
“Did you get the list?”
“Whatever I couldn’t bring, I can get here,” he said. “I’ve got connections in the area— I’m owed and have already started pulling favors.”
Munroe nodded, and as they walked to the exit where the cab sat idling, she hooked her arm in his. 
Though it was strange to have Bradford as an on-site partner, knowing he had her back felt good.
In the cab, Bradford briefed her on Logan’s call, she updated him on what she knew of the Havens, 
and between them remained the unspoken issue of whether or not she’d slept.
Bradford pulled an envelope from his computer bag and handed it to her. “It’s what I have on New York,” he said. “It’s not much, but I’ve got my ear to the ground, and it’ll eventually come.”
Munroe stared ahead, eyes on the road, thin envelope limp on her lap.
Bradford put a hand on hers, his touch cautious, gentle. He said, “The killing was justified, Michael. You did the only thing to be done, let it go.”
This was that conversation for another time. Munroe inclined her head against the seat, turned to the side so that half of Bradford’s face filled her focus, and studied him as he watched the passing traffic. 
The way he spoke, that mixture of concern and respect, love and equality, was very rare and came from an intimacy grounded in complete acceptance and understanding of who she truly was.
From the airport, the taxi took them into Palermo, the vibrant northeast corner of the city just beyond the wealth-filled stretches of Recoleta. 
Munroe had originally come here simply to be across town from Logan and lessen the chances of accidentally running into him, 
but the hotel, large for the area with nearly thirty rooms stacked upon nine floors, 
and with a restaurant and wireless Internet, had all that she needed for a command center for the rescue— or kidnapping, depending on the point of view.
The room was on the fourth floor, and together they lugged the trunks inside. 
The local décor, as clean-lined and modular as any that Munroe had seen in Europe, 
added a variant to what would otherwise globally be considered a standard hotel room: two beds, a bathroom, a windowed balcony, corner chairs, a TV, and a desk against one wall.
Afternoon sunlight streamed through the balcony window and the heater took the chill out of the air. 
Munroe and Bradford rearranged furniture and cleared a wall upon which they taped a large sheet of paper that would double for a whiteboard.
But for brief questions or the occasional sigh or exclamation, Munroe and Bradford set up shop in silence, 
pulling matériel from among the clothing, assembling one piece after the other until the small desk was covered with machines and wires that overflowed and bled to the floor.
When Munroe had done all that she could, knew that she’d reached the stage of helpfulness that bordered on inconvenience, 
she left Bradford on his own and turned to the door. “I’ll be back by dark,” she said. 
As she prefer to work alone as she did, an assignment rarely called for this level of assistance, but what she’d always had and currently lacked was time. 
The information on Hannah’s location was now over two weeks old, and with The Chosen— particularly Hannah— relocating often, Munroe couldn’t risk losing her before they’d even found her.
She needed a lot of information as quickly as possible, and even in a city the size of Buenos Aires, getting it without alerting The Chosen of their presence meant depending heavily on electronics and on the wallet.
In the hallway, Munroe slipped a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door handle, 
and as a way to ward off curious eyes and unwanted visitors who might take a special interest in the electronic assembly upstairs, she let the front desk know that housekeeping wouldn’t be necessary.
With daylight hours fading, she returned to Nueva Pompeya, the neighborhood on the south side of the city where stood the midsize grocery store whose owner Gideon had so badly wanted to speak with the day before.
The grocery was on a narrow street, fronted by and set between a variety of smaller mom-and-pop shops. For this, the location was perfect. 
Far down the block, Munroe exited the cab and, zipping her jacket against the cold, walked toward the grocery, taking in the area and confirming what she had noticed on yesterday’s first pass.
A portion of storefront matched what she had seen in the blurry background of two pictures nestled among the many pages of documents and internal memoranda given her by Logan.
Gideon was correct that the owner of the store, a close friend of The Chosen, was probably still here, 
but Gideon’s urge to go to the source, while logical to the inexperienced, had great potential for ruin.
The photos were a dot-to-dot, pointing out who to avoid.
Unless she was able to move faster than the target— something she could only do once she was certain of where Hannah was located— to come so close had the potential to cause The Chosen to spook and scatter.
Munroe shoved her hands into pockets, crossed the street, and entered the shop opposite the grocery’s sliding doors.
From the outside, the shoe store had appeared to fit what Munroe was looking for, but a cursory glance around the interior told her otherwise. 
A nod to the proprietor and she returned to the street and moved on to the clothing boutique next door.
But for the girl seated behind the counter, the shop was empty, and judging from the merchandise, it was probably often empty. 
The clerk was young, late teens, possibly twenties, and she sat bored and disinterested, her eyes glued to her hands and what Munroe assumed was a cell phone. 
From her position behind the counter, the girl had a nearly perfect view through the display window and across the street.
Munroe surveyed the room and glanced at the clerk once more. 
Here, although she could get what she wanted as a female, instinct said that the girl would be more eager to help a boy. 
Experience had taught her that dressed as she was— no makeup, neutral gender hair, and neutral gender clothing— 
unless she assumed the role of one gender over the other, people inevitably projected whatever made them most comfortable.
What most never realized was that masculinity and femininity were never so much about looks as attitude, 
and to create the roles and slip between them, one gender to the next, was a tool of the trade that Munroe had utilized for so long that it had become as natural as blinking.
Munroe moved through the store casually, slowly, holding up the occasional garment, and by all appearances completely out of her element. 
She lingered an appropriate time, held two shirts side by side, dropped her voice an octave, and requested advice from the girl, who until now had barely taken notice of her presence.
“Che, qué gusta esta remera para mi hermana?” she said. “I need to buy a birthday gift for her and don’t know where to start.”
The clerk placed her phone on the counter and stepped beyond the glass to the small floor space. 
Munroe smiled bashfully, and the girl returned the grin. “I’m Michael,” Munroe said, “and thank you.”
“Bianca,” the girl said, “and how old is your sister?” 
The banter between them was casual and friendly, a gentle rebound about the choices at hand, and personal conversation that veered just shy of flirtation. 
And then, with a decision made, Munroe stood at the counter and glanced beyond the window. 
She wondered out loud how boring it must be to spend the day watching the comings and goings of the street.
Bianca sighed and nodded.
“So you’ve noticed the van, then,” Munroe said, “the one with the children?”
“The children don’t come every week,” Bianca replied.
“But the van does,” Munroe said, and she leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper, “the same day every week.”
The Chosen’s propensity toward multipassenger vehicles had been evident in the photos scattered throughout the documents, 
but other than that one fact, everything else Munroe said was based on guesswork. 
Right or wrong, it made no difference. Bianca, adhering to human nature, would contradict or fill in the blanks, whatever the case might be.
As if on cue, the girl added, “And always at the same time.”
“The van is gray, no?”
“White,” Bianca said.
“Yes, white.” Munroe grinned, this time blatantly flirtatious. “But I’m not color-blind.”
Bianca blushed, and then, either through embarrassment at the attention or from a desire to prolong the conversation, continued. 
She was an eager gossip, and Munroe plied the desire to share, questions intermingled with further flirtation and bashful smiles.
The van came weekly, always Tuesday around midmorning, and nearly always the same driver. 
He and his companion— usually a woman— would go inside for twenty or thirty minutes and then return with several filled crates. 
Bianca rattled off other details, but at this point they were superfluous. 
With a gasp at the time and a parting wave, Munroe left the shop for the hotel.
To pinpoint one Haven meant, with time and patience, locating all three said to be in or around Buenos Aires. 
When tomorrow rolled around, she would be ready. The magnet had served its purpose, and she’d soon have the needle.