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Hunter watched Carlos with unwavering eyes, the way a man might look at a challenging mathematics equation rather than a threatening foe.
    Carlos knew that he should be diving for the gun on the floor to his left or throwing the knife he’d drawn. But his fascination with this man delayed his reactions. If Svensson knew the full extent of Hunter’s capabilities, he might insist he be taken alive. Perhaps Carlos would take the matter up with Armand Fortier.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” Thomas asked. His eyes glanced sideways, to the gun and back.
    Carlos eased to his left. “Carlos.”
    â€œWell, Carlos, it seems that we meet again.”
    They both went for the gun at the same time. Hunter reached it first. Kicked it under the bed. Sprang back.
    â€œI never did like guns,” Thomas said. “You wouldn’t by any chance be interested in a fair fight, would you? Swords?”
    â€œSwords would be fine,” Carlos said. There was no way to get the gun now. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time for games today.”
    The woman would be coming. At any moment she’d knock on the door and wake her brother as promised. If either of them raised an alarm . . .
    Carlos lunged for Thomas.
    The man sidestepped his thrusting blade, but not quickly enough to avoid it. The edge sliced into his shoulder.
    Thomas ignored the cut and leaped toward the door.
    You’re fast, but not that fast. With two long steps to his right Carlos cut the man off.
    â€œYou’ve slipped through my fingers twice,” he said. “Not today.” He backed Thomas into the corner. Blood ran down his arm. How he’d once managed to survive a high-velocity slug to the head, Carlos had no clue, but the cut on his arm wasn’t healing now. One well-directed slash, and Thomas Hunter’s blood would turn the beige carpet red.
    Hunter suddenly spread his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs.
    â€œKaraaa!”

    KARA HAD just flushed the toilet when her brother’s voice sounded through the walls. “Karaaa!”
    He was in trouble?
    â€œKaraaa!”
    She flew through the bathroom door. The bedroom door. Across the suite’s hall. Slammed into Thomas’s door and wrenched the knob. Threw the door open.
    Thomas stood in the corner, all boxers and muscles and blood. A man of Mediterranean origin by all appearances had put him there with his knife. Carlos?
    They both turned to her at the same time. She saw the long scar on his cheek then. Yes, Carlos. The man about to shove his blade through Thomas was the same who’d shot him a few days earlier.
    She looked at Thomas again. He wasn’t the same man she’d kissed on the forehead last night before retiring.
    She’d told him to dream for a long time and become the kind of man who could save the world. She didn’t know who he’d become in his dreams, but his eyes had changed. The sheets on the bed were stained with blood, some of it fresh, some dried black. He was bleeding from his shoulder and his forearm.
    â€œMeet Carlos,” Thomas said. “He hasn’t heard about the antivirus that we have, so he thinks it’s safe to kill me. I thought it would sound more convincing coming from you.”
    Had Thomas learned something about the antivirus from his dreams? Carlos’s eyes jerked between them.
    â€œWhat neither of you know,” Thomas continued, “is that I have to take explosives of some kind back with me. The Horde is slicing my army to ribbons as we speak. I have fewer than five thousand men against a hundred thousand Scabs. I absolutely have to succeed. You understand? Both of you? I have to get this information and get back!”
    He was babbling.
    â€œThe water doesn’t work anymore, Kara. There’s a gun under the bed. You don’t have much time.”
    Carlos lunged at Thomas. Her brother slapped away the first blow with his right hand. The man followed with his