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a winner, for sure. Egan was afraid of him, but he did as he had been instructed.

    Egan called Hamid Akbar’s office to confirm the next day’s meeting. There was a delay as the Pakistani came on the line.
    He coughed before he said a word. “I am sorry,” said the Pakistani. “There is a problem tomorrow. It is not convenient.”
    Egan’s palm was damp as he held the phone, waiting.
    The Pakistani came back, cheerier.
    “Could you come to see me tonight at Habib Bank Plaza? It will be cooler.” He sounded a bit flustered, or tired, or perhaps it was just Egan’s imagination.
    “Can we do the business tonight?” pressed Egan. “It can’t wait.”
    “Yes, I think so.” Akbar coughed again, a dry cough as if something were caught in his throat. “Wait one moment. I will check.”
    The Pakistani made a call on another phone.
    Egan didn’t like it. He wanted to stop, right there. Check out of the Sheraton and catch a flight to anywhere. He hated any changes in the agreed routine.
    Akbar came back on the line. His voice was thin, stretched. “This evening is fine,” he said. “Come to my office at seven o’clock.”
    Egan deliberated what to do, but only for a moment. He couldn’t just break it off. What possible excuse could he give to his superiors in Los Angeles? Even Sophie Marx would think he had panicked.
    “I’ll be there, and then, you know…” Egan let the words trail off so that the silence encompassed the rest of the plan.
    When the call was over, he sent a BlackBerry message to the operations room, telling the duty officer that the timetable had been moved up. It was the middle of the night in Los Angeles. Would anyone at The Hit Parade even care?
    Egan took a fitful nap and then went to the hotel gym. He spent nearly an hour on the elliptical trainer, watching a cricket match on the little television to take his mind off what was ahead. It was a one-day international against South Africa. The star batsman for Pakistan looked like a mullah, with a woolly beard and no mustache. He was bowled out, leg before wicket, just shy of his half-century.
    Egan went over to the free weights. A fleshy Turk was using the bench, but he went away when Egan picked up the barbells.
    His mind wandered as he lay on the bench between repetitions. He was supposed to go to the Lake District the next weekend with his girlfriend. He had booked a room at an expensive inn. Had he spent too much? Should he buy London property before the markets took off again? Was his hair thinning in the back? How many more reps should he do with the barbells to be tired enough to sleep that night?
    When Egan returned to his room, he saw that it had been tossed. The hard drive of the computer had been drilled. That, at least, was predictable; they hit the laptops of most Western travelers. Egan showered and lay on the bed in his boxers for a while, watching more cricket. The South Africans were batting now. It was a soothing game, normally, all that green grass and so little action, but today he had the butterflies. His bowels were soft, and he hadn’t eaten anything in Pakistan yet.

KARACHI

    The afternoon was burning itself out in the old quarter of the city known as Saddar Town. The pink hazy light of dusk suffused the stucco buildings, but it would be gone before long. Howard Egan took a taxi to Mohammad Ali Jinnah Road, a mile north of the hotel, and wandered around the market where the old textile weavers hawked their goods. He didn’t turn to look for watchers, not even once. That was the hardest part before a meeting, to suppress the instinctual desire to see who might be following you.
    Egan surveyed the old stock exchange; garlands of twinkling bulbs were draped from the roof like strings of pearls. To the southeast, past the “salty gate” of Kharadar, a half-moon was rising over the Arabian Sea. Pedestrians were spilling into the road, careening away like gulls at the approach of every car.
    On the main streets, under