You didn’t waste any time in Bogotá.” We were alone—no Tom, seemingly nobody at all in the empty, hushed building. Amzi’s wall of clocks said it was 3:41 A.M. Eastern Standard Time. He was wide-awake. I was dead tired. Amzi’s secretary had called me while my flight was taxiing to the gate after landing at Dulles and told me to come straight to Headquarters. I had had no sleep for forty-eight hours, every one of which, this one especially, spent in places where I would rather not have been. I said, “Give Dwayne some credit for my swift return. After he kidnapped Burkov there wasn’t much left for me to do in Colombia.” “He mentioned that you didn’t seem to grasp the finer points on that one. Can I be of any help?” “No need.” “But you were miffed,” Amzi said. “Don’t be. It’s SOP. We have people who handle walk-ins like your guy. They quarantine the subject. Nobody but them goes anywhere near him. The idea is for them to become the only friends the lost soul’s got in the world.”
