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she was, that floor would be locked.
    He glanced at the emergency boards. She was already in a recovery room, so whatever had been necessary to patch her up wasn’t serious. Good. Bones splintered under bullets, sometimes. She’d been lucky.
    Now he had to get in with her and buy them some time. Not that there was a them (there was a him and a story), but you didn’t half drag someone to a mysterious meeting place just to give up on your chances. Really, he was her best option. He had no idea where Samuelsson had been when the shooting started. And if anyone else showed up looking for her, he was pretty certain it would be bad news. If she was leaving, best she leave with him.
    He set the bouquet in the corner of an empty nurse’s station where he could, in an emergency, come back for them and pretend he’d just been in the men’s room. They were safe—no one would want to claim these. Then he went back outside, to gather courage and steal a coat.
    Ã—  ×  ×  ×  ×  ×  ×
    He’d known people back home who could really run cons like this—they got into parties, press conferences, hotel suites. It had been for money or blackmail, most of the time, but a skill was a skill.
    He understood being shameless (of course he did), but he’d never been able to mirror the people who pulled it off. They always acted as if whatever they were asking for was the dullest, most necessary chore in the world. He could spin a decent story, but every once in a while he’d overdo it. The trick was in the boredom.
    He could stop letting this matter. He could stop letting Suyana Sapaki have any hold over him at all. Why should he care? Once you cared, you had something to lose. This was just the most necessary chore.
    He came in through the front entrance, stolen coat on, jaw set, not looking left or right. He’d watched enough footage of the IA to know how people acted when they knew they could move mountains. The few people in the waiting room glanced over from the TV, just for a moment, like people do when someone important passes by.
    He went up to the reception station and rested the tips of his fingers on the desk, leaning in just slightly, the way handlers sometimes did when they were taking something off the record.
    â€œI’m here for your nameless mademoiselle,” he said in deliberately awful French, half an order, half bored out of his mind.
    The administrator started with recognition and blinked before she could summon the lie. “I’m sorry, Monsieur, I don’t know who you mean.”
    â€œGood,” he said in English, “and we appreciate your discretion. Now tell me where she is.”
    She cleared her throat, glanced at the computer. “Sir, I’m very sorry, I don’t—”
    â€œAll right. I was warned about a lack of critical thinking, but I was hoping you’d surprise me. I’m not here because I like leaving in the middle of a state meal. I need to see her so we can clean up this mess before half of Europe’s IA Peacekeeping forces descend on Paris. Now, please.”
    She frowned and looked him over. He wondered if it was too late, and Magnus had come in while he was gone, and Suyana would be going right back into the sights of whoever had tried to kill her.
    Don’t care, he thought, don’t care, don’t care.
    â€œDo you have ID?”
    Withering, he said, “In my division, it wouldn’t be my real ID anyway, would it?”
    Behind him, Daniel heard a familiar voice (on television, he realized, just after his heart dropped into his stomach).
    â€œâ€”under fire,” Magnus Samuelsson was saying. From the stone silence that followed, Daniel couldn’t tell if it was a studio recording or a press conference, and he didn’t dare turn around.
    â€œToday,” Samuelsson went on, “Suyana Sapaki suffered a grievous injury at the hands of