TriPoint, North Africa

Baltimore

ONE YEAR LATER

Marc says, �You�ll hem and haw, but we both know you�re going to go.�

He�s right. Again.

Maggie is walking across campus. She�d stayed long enough so it would not appear that anyone had run her off, but as soon as the speeches were done and the mingling began again in earnest, Maggie slipped out.

�So,� Marc continues, �what do you think Doctor Barlow wants?�

�I was hoping you�d have an answer,� Maggie says.

�Hmm, let me do a quick search on him... whoa.�

�What?�

�Did you know Evan Barlow is on the Forbes list of richest doctors?�

Maggie makes a face. �Forbes has a list of richest doctors?�

�Top one hundred, yeah.�

�And Barlow is on it?�

�Number forty-two. Net worth estimated at nearly a billion dollars.�

�He makes that as a doctor?�

�Not really, no. He makes it as, I don�t know, I guess you�d call him a medical entrepreneur. Barlow Cosmetics is a major brand. Plastic surgery is still their mainstay, but they�ve gotten into home remedies and beauty products. Ironic.�

�What?�

�None of the richest doctors made their money seeing patients. It�s either from pharmaceuticals or insurance or patents. A few doing biotech, pushing the bounds of medicine, as their slogan says.�

�So what does Doctor Barlow want with me?�

On the too-small screen, Marc shrugs. �He was your favorite teacher, right?�

�Yes.�

�Your mentor. Close to your family.�

Maggie nods. �He told me tonight that he�d always been in love with my mother.�

�So maybe that�s it. Maybe he just wants to help you out.�

�How?�

�Give you a job at Barlow Cosmetics.�

�But I lost my license. I can�t do surgery.�

�You could still do some other kind of work for him.�

�Like what? I�m only good at one thing.� Maggie sees the smirk on Marc�s face. She sighs and rolls her eyes. �Don�t say it.�

Marc smiles. �What?�

�Just don�t.�

�You mean about you only being good at one thing?�

�Stop.�

�Okay, okay,� he says, raising his hand in mock surrender. �But I still think it�s most likely Barlow knows your situation and wants to help.�

Because her head is down and her eyes are on the screen, Maggie nearly bumps into a group of students walking in the other direction. One of them mutters something about watching where she�s going, and she offers a sincere apology because, to be fair, she hates when people are walking with their heads down and eyes on the screen.

�What else do you see?� she asks.

�He opened the first Barlow Cosmetic Center seventeen years ago. Supposedly it�s cutting-edge and state-of-the-art.�

�What�s the difference between those?� Maggie asks.

�What?�

�They always say that in ads. �Cutting-edge and state-of-the-art.� Aren�t they the same thing?�

�Cutting edge refers to the most recent and advanced tools or platforms in a particular field. State of the art refers to the best technology or techniques made up of the most modern methods.�

Maggie makes a face. �You just looked that up.�

�I did, yes.�

�He wasn�t a billionaire when we were at Columbia,� she says. �He did cleft lift and palates, burns, reconstructive surgery. Worked almost exclusively with the underserved.�

�Like you,� Marc says.

Maggie shakes her head. �Like us.�

�I never did a cleft��

�You know what I mean.�

�I do, yeah. Either way, all that is probably in his past. My guess is, Barlow does mostly breast augmentation and facelifts now. The details on his practice are pretty secretive.�

�He�s got some famous clients,� she says. �They probably demand discretion.�

�Probably.�

She thinks about it and then figures, Why not? �I saw Sleazy Steve.�

�Did he hit on you?�

�Yes, but he can pull younger tail now.�

�Younger tail?�

�Apparently that�s a thing.� Then she says, �He said he works at Apollo Longevity.� When there�s no reply, she says, �I thought it closed down.�

�It still has its original mission: longevity. Blood spinning, ozone therapies, cell regeneration, stem cell, EBOO therapy.� He grins. �All cutting-edge and state-of-the-art.�

�But WorldCures is out?�

�There is no more WorldCures, Maggie.�

Just like that. Matter-of-fact as can be.

�Right,� she says. �I know.�

�So when are you going up to New York?�

�Tomorrow morning,� she says. �I�m going to call your dad at Vipers, see if he�s around.�

�Have you seen him recently?�

�Not since he and the gang road-tripped through here last month.�

�How�s he doing?�

�You know Porkchop,� she says.

Marc doesn�t say anything, just waits.

�He�s good,� she lies.

Maggie turns the final corner. Up ahead is the saltbox colonial she grew up in and where she now resides with her sister Sharon and nephew Cole.

�Maggie?�

�Yes?�

�I have a bad feeling about this.�

She stops. �About the meeting with Barlow?�

�Yes.�

A cold finger traces down her spine. �What makes you say that?�

�Nothing. I mean, no facts or anything.�

�Just a bad feeling?�

�Yes.�

�Except,� Maggie says, �you don�t work off feelings.�

No reply.

When Maggie sees her nephew step out of the house, she hits the red disconnect icon and drops the phone in her pocket. Cole pops on a huge smile when he sees his aunt. It�s been a tough year for the kid � too much death, divorce, and debt for a fifteen-year-old boy � but Cole always manages a smile for his aunt and his mother. Maggie doesn�t know whether the smiles are authentic or not. She suspects not. Cole is so damn kind and perceptive, Maggie suspects that he sees the stress his mother and aunt are under and does his utter best not to add to it.

�Hey, Aunt Maggie.�

She gives Cole a hey back. He starts a gangly, endearing trudge toward her. It tweaks her heart, the humanness of his sputtering movements, his youth and vulnerability.

�How�s Mom?� Maggie asks.

His face falls. �She�s at the kitchen table again.�

�It�ll be okay,� Maggie tells him. Then: �She�ll be okay.�

�Your being here, with us � I know it�s not your responsibility��

�It�s my responsibility,� Maggie says.

Cole nods, forces the smile back onto his face. The honk of a horn draws their attention. A car pulls up with a bunch of teens hanging out the windows. They call to Cole, who looks an apology at her, but Maggie smiles and waves him off.

�Go,� she says.

�You sure?�

�I got this.�

Cole does the gangly trudge toward the car, though this time with more speed. Maggie watches, glad for this bit of normalcy. Her nephew deserves this. The back door opens and swallows him whole.

When the car vanishes down the road, she takes out her phone and calls Vipers. She hears the ringing of the retro black payphone in the corner of the bar with a sign reading OUT OF ORDER so no patrons use it. This is Porkchop�s version of a Batphone. Her father-in-law, Porkchop � yes, that�s what everyone, even his son, calls him � redefines old school. He doesn�t own a mobile phone or computer. For that matter he doesn�t own a house or car or television. Porkchop once told her, �All I own is a motorcycle and the open road,� and when she made a face, he shrugged and said, �I read that on a matchbook in some biker bar in Sturgis.�

When the phone is picked up, a woman speaks. She sounds somehow both young and like she�s seen it all. �Vipers for Bikers.�

Maggie can hear the customary background racket of the biker bar. �Bat Out of Hell� is on the jukebox, one of Porkchop�s favorites, Meatloaf right now rocking that when the night is over, he�ll be gone, gone, gone. Maggie and Marc played the song at their wedding, she and Marc and Porkchop and Sharon standing in a circle on the dance floor, shouting every lyric at the top of their lungs until Marc pulled her close and the world vanished and the song softened for a moment and Marc sang along that she�s the only thing in this whole world that�s pure and good and right. And then they stared at each other until the song picked back up again and she�s reminded that Meatloaf is really singing about their last night together and the stanza ends with him screaming, �We�ll both be so alone.�

�Is Porkchop there?�

�No.�

Maggie can see the scene � that jukebox in the corner, the sawdust on the floor, the collection of neon beer signs, the heady smell of worn leather, diesel fuel, and testosterone.

�Can I leave a message for him?�

�Depends. You one of his old ladies?�

�Old ladies,� Maggie repeats. �Did Porkchop tell you to say that?�

�Yeah.�

The man never changes.

�Tell him it�s Maggie.�

The woman doesn�t bother with an �Okay� or �I will.� She just hangs up.

Maggie puts away her phone and enters the house, nearly tripping over a pair of Cole�s sneakers the size of small canoes. �Hello?�

�In the kitchen,� Sharon calls back.

The house is stuck somewhere in the... Maggie wasn�t even sure of the era. Seventies? Eighties? When you grow up in it, you don�t get how dated your own home is, and of course there is nothing wrong with that. The green-beige curtains are too heavy with tassels. The Persian carpets are pattern-complicated and threadbare. The antique �knickknack cabinet� � that�s what Mom had called it � has dozens of small, silver-framed photographs, most of them black-and-white, along with various cheesy figurines like Hummel children � boy in apple tree, girl with umbrella, that kind of thing. They had always been there, as far as Maggie knew. She didn�t remember her parents ever buying or putting one up or moving one or changing any. None of the knickknacks seemed to hold any particular significance to her parents. They never talked about where the Hummels came from, but Maggie assumes, knowing her parents, that someone had gifted them or they�d inherited them and their fate was either storage in the basement or placement on the knickknack cabinet.

It wasn�t that her parents were cash-strapped or, to be more blunt, tacky, but it was more that the �Doctors McCabe� couldn�t be bothered. Mom and Dad didn�t care about the dated wallpaper or the worn shag carpeting. Her parents were wonderful and kind and distracted; they were readers and healers and academics. They spent their money on books and experiences, not upholstery or d�cor. She could still see them in this living room with their friends, maybe fueled by a little too much alcohol, the debates lasting into the wee hours of the morning in the days when disagreeing was considered a good thing, when differing viewpoints were welcomed because they challenged and honed your thinking rather than producing anger and scorn.

But Maggie isn�t in the mood right now for that kind of... Was it nostalgia? What do you call a longing for critical thinking and common sense and decency?

Maggie�s family history is still told via framed photos on the fireplace mantel � she and Sharon at their dance recital when Maggie was eight and Sharon was six, various graduations, weddings, births, you know the deal. We have all seen it before. Maggie stops at the largest photograph � a horizontal group shot from her and Marc�s wedding. She and Marc are beaming in the center. Next to Maggie is Sharon, her obvious maid of honor. Next to Marc is his best man, Trace Packer. Trace could have been on either side of them, really. Trace had met Maggie first, serving with her as a Field Surgeon 62B in combat for two tour duties.

When she introduced Trace and Marc, the two men hit it off immediately. Eventually the three of them � Marc, Trace, Maggie � would create WorldCures Alliance, one of the world�s most dynamic charities, specializing in providing medical services for the most impoverished.

In the photo, Maggie�s parents are on the far right, looking heartbreakingly alive and healthy. Now that she looks again, does Maggie see hesitancy in her mother�s body language? Or is that �had I but known� projection on her part? Porkchop, Marc�s father, is on the far left. All the men wear matching tuxedos, except for Porkchop, who did don the bow tie and piqu� bib white shirt but kept on the leather biker jacket and the smile-skull jewelry, and Maggie would have wanted it no other way.

As though on cue, her phone rings. The incoming call simply says PAYPHONE.

�Hello?�

Porkchop�s gruff voice barks. �What�s wrong?�

�Nothing,� Maggie says, still looking at Porkchop�s image in the old wedding photograph. �Well, except that whoever answered your phone is referring to fellow women as your �old ladies.��

�What, you prefer my �girlfriends�?�

�Not really.�

�What then? My �hotties�? �Main squeezes�? �Love monkeys���

�Did you say �love monkeys�?�

�My bae, my boo, cuddle muffins��

�Please stop.�

�Some of the youngins call them �shorties,�� Porkchop continues. �That better?�

�No,� Maggie says. �And never use the term �youngins� again.�

�It�s cute when I say it.�

�Yeah, it�s really not.�

�Sooooo,� Porkchop says, dragging out the word, �this has been a fun icebreaker. What�s wrong, Maggie?�

�Can�t I call to say hello?�

�Sure.�

Silence.

�I�m coming up to Manhattan tomorrow,� Maggie says.

�Taking the Amtrak?�

�Yes.�

�Time?�

�The seven fourteen.�

�I�ll pick you up. You�ll tell me all then.�

Porkchop disconnects the call. Maggie�s eyes travel across the wedding photograph again, her mind blank and everywhere all at once.

From the kitchen, Sharon calls out, �Maggie?�

She wrestles her eyes from the photograph, inhales, and, taking a cue from her nephew, forces up a smile. When Maggie enters the kitchen, Sharon is sitting at the table, per what Cole said, her laptop open, papers strewn as though someone had dropped them from a great height. There is an open bottle of red from the Ch�teau Haut-Bailly. Just seeing it leads to a deep pang in her chest that has nothing to do with her sister�s recent desire to drink to excess.

�What are you doing?� Maggie asks.

Sharon looks up. �Coding to enable a hyperdimensional generative interference through stochastic gradient descent optimization of artificial intelligence by leveraging � should I continue?�

�Please don�t.�

Sharon takes off her reading glasses. �So how was the event?�

�Pretty good, actually.�

�Liar.�

Sharon is a genius. For real. Maggie had been a top student � high school salutatorian (damn Stuart Kleinman beating her for the valediction spot by.003 GPA points), driven from a young age to be a physician like her parents � but her sister Sharon had been a true polymath, what teachers and administrators used to call �academically gifted� or �overly advanced� or most commonly, �child prodigy.� Sharon could have graduated high school at the age of eleven, but the truth is � a truth her parents both understood early on � child prodigies don�t make it long-term. Think about the ones you knew growing up. Where are they now? See? They end up paralyzed by anxiety or abandon too many hobbies or spiral into self-doubt and self-hate or... Who knows?

They crash and burn.

Her parents, understanding this, encouraged excelling, but they insisted on routine and normalcy. Dad loved to quote Flaubert on the subject: �Be regular and orderly in your life, so you may be violent and original in your work.�

But it was never easy for Sharon. Her brain couldn�t � still can�t � slow down. Her neural signaling and power impulses and transmission synapses, whatever � they all ran too hot. Brain activity is commonly referred to as electrical, and hers would surge until the fuse blew. She couldn�t ease up or pace it. Even the smallest mistake would cause Sharon to obsess, blow it out of proportion, self-flagellate.

�Who gave out Mom�s award?� Sharon asks.

�Bonnie Tillman.�

�Oh, good. Mom liked Bonnie.�

�Don�t rub it in.�

�What?�

�Never mind. And Mom never liked her. She said she�d make a great doctor.�

�Same thing to Mom,� Sharon says, which was true.

Sharon too had served in the military, albeit for a clandestine branch of the army, breaking codes and developing AI, refining advanced reconnaissance software. At some point, Sharon and her husband, Tad � Cole�s father � turned to doing tech work privately, building an app that could in fact change the world. Sharon had designed a more advanced �humanoid AI� in the hopes the device might enhance and improve well-being through constant and immediate access to experts. Would you like to speak to your physician at any hour? Sharon�s anthropomorphic AI version of your favorite doctor is always available for a chat. Care to consult your attorney twenty-four seven, though this version of them has the wisdom of a thousand attorneys? Sharon�s app can do that. Do you sometimes need an emergency session with your therapist, maybe in the middle of the night, but of course, they aren�t available? Well, the AI version is there for you twenty-four seven, and for a small fee...

You get the gist.

On a practical level, the possibilities are an endless wow. But the moral implications started to weigh on Sharon, slow her down. Tad, who saw the dollar signs and realized, perhaps correctly, that someone might beat them in this global race, didn�t like that. He stole their patents by having Sharon sign papers she didn�t understand, and then he ran off with his assistant. The subsequent divorce had been brutal. Sharon tried every legal avenue to remedy the situation, but Tad�s father was a powerful federal judge, and if you think our legal system is about truth or fairness or equality, you�re either not paying attention or delusional.

Now Sharon is in heavy debt with no recourse.

Kind of like Maggie.

Yes, the McCabe Girls, raised by the Doctors McCabe to excel and be so accomplished, have been sidelined by enormous financial burdens, legal peril, and yes, scandal, with seemingly no options left.

Except, maybe, perhaps, who knows, Maggie�s old mentor in New York?

�Tell me the truth,� Sharon says. �How was the event really?�

�So many students adored Mom.�

�I meant for you?�

�Oh.� Maggie thinks a moment: �Shit.�

�Sorry,� Sharon says.

�Yeah, it�s okay.�

�Can�t say we�re surprised.�

�We are not, no,� Maggie says. �Doctor Barlow was there.�

�Oh, that must have been nice for you.�

�It was,� Maggie says. �He told me he was in love with Mom.�

�I bet he wasn�t the only one,� Sharon says.

�Yeah.�

�What?�

�Nothing,� Maggie says with a head shake. She scans the papers on the table. They aren�t scientific research � they�re bills. �What�s up with this?�

Sharon puts on the half-moon reading glasses again and peers over the top of them. �I�m calculating our financial options.�

�And?�

�And we have to sell the house.�

�Not yet.�

�Mags, it�s just a house. You get that, right? An inanimate object. A corporeal entity. Inert matter. Wood, bricks, mortar. It�s not...�

�Mom and Dad,� she finishes for her sister. �I know. Look, I�m going to New York tomorrow. Let�s talk about it when I get back.�

That gets Sharon�s attention. �What�s in New York?�

Maggie had planned to tell her about Barlow�s invitation, even though Barlow had insisted she not, but now that the moment is here, she is suddenly hesitant. She isn�t worried about betraying Barlow�s trust � her sister trumps an old mentor � but it suddenly feels like the wrong move to drag Sharon into this until she knows more.

Sharon mistakes the pause for something else. �Are you, uh, meeting someone?�

�What? No.�

�It�s okay��

�Sharon��

�Okay, never mind. Did you see any guys from your class at this thing?�

�Sleazy Steve.�

Sharon makes a face. �Eww, gross.�

�Right?�

�So why are you going to New York City?�

�To see Porkchop.�

Sharon pins her with a gaze. �What else?�

�What do you mean, what else?�

�It goes without saying that we all love Porkchop,� Sharon says, �but he�d road-trip down here if you need to see him.�

Maggie sighs. �Just... There�s a possible business situation.�

�What kind of business situation?�

�God, you�re nosy.�

�I prefer �inquisitive.��

�Can you be okay with me saying �I don�t want to tell you yet�?� Maggie asks.

�If you can be okay with me saying, �I worry a little.��

�Don�t worry.�

�I�d never judge you, Mags.�

�I know.� Then: �Also there�s nothing to judge.�

�What about Trace?�

Maggie feels the cold travel down her spine again. �What about him?�

�Is he back? Will you see him in New York?�

�Trace is still overseas,� she says. �Bangladesh, I think.�

�Trying to resuscitate WorldCures?�

Maggie shakes her head. There is zero chance of resuscitation. Sharon knows that, which makes the comment weird, but Sharon can be that way. Maggie McCabe, the face of WorldCures, is a pariah now. The funding is gone.

�In other news� � Sharon lets loose a deep breath � �I signed up for a dating app.�

�Good for you. About time.�

�The app is called Melody Cupid. It matches you by musical taste.�

Maggie puts her hand to her mouth. �Oh God.�

�What?�

�You have terrible taste in music.�

When Maggie gets off the Amtrak at New York City�s Moynihan Train Hall, Porkchop is already waiting by the tracks.

Porkchop is not playing with a phone. He�s not shuffling his feet. He just stands there with Zen-like patience, an older version of his surgeon son. Porkchop looks like what he is � a lifelong biker. He�s got the salt-and-pepper beard, green bandana holding back the long hair, leather jacket, faded blue jeans with splashes of motor oil discoloring them. His silver belt buckle is a skull and crossbones. His skin is tan and weathered from years on the road, his face handsome and hard, like something carved into stone.

Porkchop meets her eye and gives the slightest of nods. If he�d been wearing a cowboy hat, he would have tipped it at her. She hurries over, trying not to run, and Porkchop spreads his thick arms wide to welcome her. When he hugs her, she vanishes for a moment. Her eyes close. Porkchop is a big bear of a man. He makes her feel small and safe, and since those feelings don�t come often, Maggie just settles into that for a few moments. He holds her close and stays silent. Porkchop exudes both calm and electricity.

Like his son.

There is the faint whiff of Marlboros � Porkchop has always been a smoker � and here that familiar smell deepens her comfort. She almost asks him for a cigarette, even though she hasn�t smoked in ten years.

Once they step back, Porkchop asks, �Where are you staying?�

There is no reason for the normal �how are you, how was the trip� type pleasantries with Porkchop; the embrace took care of those.

�Aman hotel.�

�Whoa. Classy.�

�Yes.�

�I thought you were broke.�

�I�m not paying for it.�

Porkchop arches an eyebrow, and she sees the echo of his son when he does. �Oh?�

�It�s a business proposition,� she says.

�Oh?�

�Stop that.�

Porkchop grabs her overnight bag, and they start for the door. �Want to tell me about it?�

�I do not,� Maggie says.

�Then should we head to Vipers?�

�It�s a little early, no?�

�We do a nice brunch now.�

�Seriously?�

�Tourist trade, my dear. The gang is anxious to see you.�

Vipers for Bikers is partially what it sounds like � a biker bar located in the shadow of MetLife Stadium off Route 17. Back in the day, it was a hardcore biker bar/strip joint with the moniker, written out in neon flickering script, Hotties on Hogs. Porkchop had bought Hotties when it went bankrupt eight years ago and gentrified it into a touristy cosplay biker bar/restaurant called Vipers for Bikers.

�That�s nice,� Maggie says. �And I want to see everyone.� Then she puts her hand on Porkchop�s arm. �But I need to stop at Trace�s apartment before we go.�

She waits for Porkchop�s reaction, but she doesn�t get much of one.

�Why?�

�Because I always do that when I�m in the city.�

�Uh-huh.�

�And maybe we can get a beat on where he is.�

�Bangladesh.�

�Do we still believe that?� Maggie asks.

Porkchop doesn�t reply.

They exit the station onto a packed Eighth Avenue. Madison Square Garden in all its coliseum-like splendor is across the street. Porkchop�s bike is parked on the corner of 31st Street. Maggie is surprised when she sees it isn�t a Harley-Davidson.

�Since when do you ride a BMW R 18, Porkchop?�

�Since they started sponsoring me.�

�For real?�

Porkchop nods. �I get a free bike, free gas, plus a grand a month.�

�Sweet,� she says.

�I also prefer the BMW�s shaft transmission over the belt transmission of a Harley. Makes for a smoother ride. The BMW has three ride modes � rain, roll, and rock � whereas the Harley only has one.�

�They tell you to say that?�

�And exactly that,� he replies with a grin. �Took me three weeks to memorize it.�

Two young bikers guard the BMW. Both wear a patch with the Serpents and Saints logo on their upper right sleeve. Serpents and Saints is Porkchop�s... She would call it a motorcycle �gang,� but that brought up Hells Angels connotations and that didn�t come close to fitting anymore. Maybe thirty years ago. Not anymore.

The Serpents and Saints logo is a mean-looking, black-and-gold, heavily fanged snake with a halo over its head. Marc had a tattoo of it on his upper right quadriceps, albeit a far more cartoonish version with a goofily smiling serpent who looked about as mean as Snoopy. Instead of black and gold, his Serpent and Saint was garish orange and purple; instead of an intimidating glare, his serpent had a silly, exaggerated wink.

The tattoo, Marc had explained in bed, was the result of a late-night drunken visit to a New Orleans parlor on Mardi Gras when he was nineteen.

�It�s kind of ugly,� she�d told him.

�Don�t worry, my love. Only you�ll see it. Unless you think I should wear a Speedo.�

�Only I�ll see it.�

One of the young bikers is tall, thin, long-haired, white. The other is short, round, buzz-cut, Black. Together, they look like a bowling ball heading toward a pin. Porkchop takes two helmets from the Pin and hands her one. Maggie straps it on and hops on the back of his bike.

�Pinky will drop your bag at the Aman.�

Pinky, she now sees, is Bowling Ball. Porkchop, Pinky � the members like nicknames. Pinky takes her suitcase. Porkchop gets on the front of the bike. Maggie wraps her arms around his waist and feels the hum as Porkchop starts up the engine. When Marc had first introduced Maggie to his father, it had taken her a little time to get used to riding on the back. It wasn�t that Maggie didn�t trust Porkchop�s driving � it�s just that she hated to be in any situation where she wasn�t in control.

Now she relishes it. No talking. No music. No podcast. Nothing but the feel of the world being washed away by the wind.

Porkchop cruises them up Eighth Avenue. They turn west to Riverside Drive and then back north. Fifteen minutes later, Porkchop pulls up to the front of their old apartment building in Washington Heights, four blocks from NewYork-Presbyterian medical center. For a long moment, she and Porkchop just stand there, both of them straddling the bike.

�Porkchop?�

�It�s fine. Go. I�ll wait here for you.�

She watches Porkchop for another moment, but he is already fiddling with something near the throttle. As she turns toward the entrance, the doorman greets her with a wide smile. �Doctor Maggie!�

�Hey, Winston.�

Winston looks as though he wants to hug her, but decorum is what it is. She wants to reach out too, but she isn�t sure she can handle another hug right now. They both stand there for an awkward second before Winston�s smile fades away.

�I�m sorry about...� He stops. �Just about everything.�

�Thank you.�

�You still have Doctor Trace�s key?�

�I do,� she says, showing it to him. �Have you seen him at all?�

�Not in many months,� Winston says. �Doctor Trace�s mailbox got all filled up. We emptied it out, put everything in a box for you. It�s in his apartment.�

�Thanks.�

Maggie stays quiet as the elevator dings its way up to the eighth floor. They had all moved in at the same time. Maggie and Marc had taken a two bedroom on the fourth floor. Trace had grabbed a one bedroom on the eighth. They�d chosen this building because it was reasonably priced and had doormen and, most importantly, it was walking distance to NewYork-Presbyterian medical center. All three of them had crazy hours doing their surgical residencies.

She unlocks his door and enters. She expects the place to smell stale, but it doesn�t. There is almost no dust, and Maggie wonders whether Trace hired a housekeeper. Probably. At Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, the team used to tease Trace for being such a neat freak. Maggie had at first seen Trace as more hyperorganized, an �berpreparer, someone tightly wound in a way that made him focused, detailed, a great surgeon.

The furniture is modular, beige, functional; everything about the place screams, �A man lives here alone.� There are two items on display with any flair or prominence � and they stand side by side on his acrylic dining room table. The first is a model of the human heart signed by two legendary cardiothoracic surgeons credited with creating the first artificial heart, Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley. It�s the kind of anatomy model you might find in any doctor�s office or biology class.

The second item, displayed under Plexiglas next to the DeBakey-Cooley model, is an inoperative (though it would definitely be described as cutting-edge and state-of-the-art) prototype of, per the engraving, THUMPR7-TAH � what they�d all hoped would eventually be the next generation in making artificial hearts more permanent and efficient.

Maggie stares at the device, pushing away the bad flashback. The THUMPR7 had been developed and registered by WorldCures Alliance � that is, Marc, Trace, Maggie. She hadn�t wanted that � her name attached � because though she had trained in cardiothoracic surgery and assisted Marc and Trace plenty of times, she�d opted to make reconstructive and trauma surgery her official specialties.

The TAH stands for Total Artificial Heart, but the THUMPR7, despite its blend of robotic design, DNA coding, and stem cell research, remained a distant pipe dream.

Maggie knows that better than anyone.

On the wall, there is a framed color photograph taken by war photojournalist Ray Levine on what had been one of the worst combat days for Maggie and Trace. From his embedded perch on the ground in Kamdesh, Levine had gotten an almost surreal shot of Maggie and Trace furiously working to save two soldiers while their medevac UH-60 Black Hawk copter hovered above the ground. The sky above them is striking blue, the blood on their hands striking red, and something about the composition made it appear that Maggie and Trace were somehow defying gravity, that there was no way they wouldn�t tumble out of the copter in the next second or two, that the only thing preventing disaster had to be some kind of divine hand keeping them up in the air.

Maggie remembers it all too vividly. Trace�s soldier survived. Maggie�s did not.

Only two hours after that mission ended � right after they showered and cleaned up � Trace came to her tent and said, �Come on, let�s go.�

�Trace...�

He held up the bag of lollipops. �Now.�

Trace did this almost every time, especially when the mission had been particularly bloody. He grabbed a jeep and drove Maggie to the local town. When they pulled in, Trace shouted, �I�m here!� Children came running out from everywhere, squealing with delight. They already knew Trace � and his beloved lollipops. He started passing them out, smiling, nodding for Maggie to do the same. Several adults came out to greet them and offer them food. Maggie passed, but Trace told her she was being rude. He devoured everything, to their hosts� delight. Then he played some kind of exhausting tag game with two boys. More children came out. Trace made funny faces and farting noises � mouth-to-palm style � and they all howled with laughter.

Maggie just watched in awe.

Trace.

That night, after they got back to camp, she and Trace lay under the stars, the smell of thyme and cedar in the cool desert air. For a long time, neither spoke, comfortable in the silence. Then Maggie whispered a truth into the dark sky:

�The dead don�t leave us.�

Not ever. The dead stay by your side, as though you held on too hard as they tried to pull away and something had broken off. The man dying in Ray Levine�s photograph was named Greg Steeple. He�d been twenty-one years old and had a mother and a father and two younger brothers and a fianc�e named Claire.

�And yet,� Trace whispered back, �we�ll always long for this thrum in the blood.�

That is what they don�t warn you about when it comes to combat.

It�s terrifying, it�s awful, it�s the worst thing imaginable, you wish it on no one.

But it�s also addictive.

She can�t get the faces of the dead out of her mind.

But she also can�t get the memory of the adrenaline spike out of her blood.

The unspoken part of what makes it hard for combat soldiers to come home isn�t the flashbacks or the fear of returning � it�s almost the opposite. It�s the sudden quiet, the cloying calm, the suffocating safeness and sameness of normal life. One moment you�re ducking bullets, half hanging out of a moving helicopter, your hands working inside a warm abdomen to keep some kid like Greg alive � and then, what, you�re supposed to go back to your suburban split-level and do laundry and pick up your kids from soccer practice and sit in too much traffic on your way to work?

It would be easy to say they � she, Marc, Trace � created WorldCures Alliance for purely altruistic reasons. That had been a good story � three combat doctors who saw a need and eschewed the comforts of home to save the needy and revolutionize health care, but that felt too much like spin to Maggie. It�s not that you are not genuinely concerned about your patients � you acutely are � or don�t believe in your mission � they did � but the terrible secret, the secret she and Marc and Trace shared, is that you do it to be special. To paraphrase Eminem, a normal life is boring. The idea of going home to the kids, the laundry, the car pool... no, not for, pardon the play on words, M&M.

Scratch the surface of a person doing good works, and you�ll find someone who fears the mundane and conventional.

There is only one other framed photograph in the room � a slightly faded color one of a smiling ten-year-old Trace Packer on the Jersey Shore with his matching-smiling mother, Karen. Genetics. There is no doubt that these two are mother and son. In the photo, Karen wears the stunning square-cut emerald ring that always adorned her finger. A family heirloom, Karen had once explained to Maggie, given to her by her own grandmother. Years later, at Karen�s funeral, Trace clutched the green emerald in his hand for the entire ceremony. Maggie never forgot that image � Trace, sitting in the front pew by himself, opening and closing his fist, staring at his mother�s glistening square-cut emerald, as though the gemstone had some magical power that could bring his mother back to life.

Trace has a floor-to-ceiling redwood wine rack on the one wall that would get no sunlight. She checks the bottles. All reds from Ch�teau Haut-Bailly, a Bordeaux from the Pessac-L�ognan appellation. Maggie knows it well. Trace, a true Francophile whose second love after medicine is French wines, had invested in it � count on Trace � and she and Marc had visited the vineyard not long before she returned to Baltimore to take care of her mother. Maggie remembers that trip to Bordeaux so vividly. It was after a particularly grueling month in a huge refugee camp in Kakuma. They needed the break before heading to Dubai, but neither she nor Marc handled their spirits well. Trace arranged for his �closest pals� what he labeled �a palate pilgrimage� � a fancy term for a tasting where everyone gets overserved � and it had been fabulous and delicious and then she and Marc both got sloppy and laughed too much and, man, that had been a night.

No need to go there right now, Maggie thinks.

The pain never goes away. The pain never lets you go. You just learn to live with it.

Maggie forces herself to turn away, and when she does, she spots the cardboard box loaded with mail. She drops to her knees and thumbs through it. Junk mostly. Trace had set up automatic bill pay on most everything � utilities, rent, cable, internet, whatever � so it�s mostly ads from real estate agents (�Look What Sold in Your Neighborhood!�), discounts for food takeout, and furniture catalogues.

There is also a letter from Wells Fargo Bank.

Hmm. Maggie takes hold of it and lifts it into view. It�s thin � one page or two at the most � so it�s not a financial statement. She wonders whether she should open it, but of course, that�s why Trace had asked her to stop by whenever she was in town � to make sure everything was in order and copacetic. She doesn�t want to look as though she�s invading his privacy, but does she just ignore this?

It�s probably an ad for a credit card or something.

Except it doesn�t feel like that. It feels like something important.

She slits the envelope. There is only one sheet of paper.

It�s a bill for a safe deposit box.

Maggie�s first thought is Trace�s mother�s square-cut green-emerald ring. Karen�s emerald, she remembers, had been appraised for over twenty thousand dollars. It isn�t like Trace wore it. He�d have wanted to keep it safe. Where better?

But � check that � it�s a bill for three safe deposit boxes. Two of them are ten inches by ten inches. One is three feet by six feet.

A little much for a piece of jewelry.

She reads both the front and the back of the bill to see where the safe deposit boxes are kept. Oddly enough, it doesn�t say. She looks at the postmark � the bill was mailed two weeks ago from San Francisco. That�s probably the main headquarters for the bank. Is that where he keeps the boxes? She doubts it but maybe. Had she ever heard Trace talk about San Francisco? Not that she can remember.

So now what?

Do the smart thing, she figures. Maggie snaps a photo of the bill, scrolls to Trace in contacts, and texts him the image with a quick note:

No reply. Then again, there hadn�t been one in a very long time.

Maggie stares at the bill from the bank for another moment before putting it back in the envelope and dropping it into the cardboard box. She then does a quick walk around the apartment, turns the faucets on and off, flushes the toilet, makes sure the windows are locked. Everything seems in place. She wonders about the keys to Trace�s safe deposit boxes. Does Trace keep them here, in a drawer somewhere?

Does it matter?

Her phone buzzes. She looks down and sees a text from Dr. Barlow.

There�s a delay and the three dancing dots seem to sputter before the next text pops up.

She sighs. No reason to press it right now. She makes sure to turn off all the lights and heads back down.

When Maggie�s alarm goes off the next morning, she sits up fast � too fast, her head reeling in protest. A jackhammer batters her skull from the inside. Her heart thumps deep in her chest. She flashes back to the night before, at Vipers, sitting on that cracked-leather stool, the floor sticky from spilled beer, Bob Seger�s �Night Moves� on the jukebox, the bar loud and growing hazier, old friends embracing her, regaling her with familiar stories of Marc as a precocious child, stories she�s heard a dozen times before and had always relished. But not tonight. She tried so hard to listen, to engage, to give her full attention to every single person who approached because they deserved that at the very least, but even as she tried to hold on, Maggie could feel herself slipping away into her own personal darkness. She drank her whiskey neat � Porkchop was currently endorsing Laphroaig 10 Year Old Islay � the weathered faces surrounding her, getting too close, blurring, becoming one indistinguishable mash. Then other faces emerged in their stead, dozens, maybe more, faces with pleading eyes, staring up at her with the blend of hope and despair that only a doctor witnesses. Marah, Joseph, Ahmed, Seema... And then, in the end, the last face, always the last face, was Kabir�s. She tried to comfort them, tried to stop the bleeding, tried to understand what they were saying to her. But they were speaking a foreign language, their pained words drowned out by mortar fire and the roar of helicopter rotors and the screams.

Give me another chance, Maggie thinks. I�ll fix them.

And sometimes, in her dreams, she gets that chance. The big do-over. They are alive. All of them. She can save them if she moves fast enough. She feels a sudden joy, a rush of hope, an odd clarity and focus and even peacefulness, and then something outside the dream � the alarm going off, Sharon calling out to her, Cole slamming the front door, whatever � pulls her away. There�s this brief, horrible moment where Maggie is still in the dream, rising out of that cusp between sleep and consciousness, when the faces begin to fade away, dissolve, and Maggie realizes with cruel certainty that this is not reality, that this is a dream, that she will soon wake up to a world where the dead will always be dead.

Enough, she tells herself.

Maggie throws her feet off the bed and onto the floor. She takes a few deep breaths, lets her pulse slow down. She tries to remember the last time she drank too much, and an outdoor bar in Juba on a hot South Sudan evening comes to mind. Trace kept buying rounds of Araqi, a delicious date-based liquor, and Maggie and Marc kept imbibing. There had been lots of laughs as there always are after too much horror. Trace had a girl with him � Maggie couldn�t remember her name because Trace always had a nameless girl with him and then the girl would be gone and there�d be another. Trace doesn�t like attachments. Or more likely, he can�t do them. On the surface, Trace gives off that sort of healable fragility, that vulnerability that draws in every woman who thinks they can fix him, but whatever is broken inside of him stayed broken.

Where is Trace Packer right now?

No clue.

Maggie blinks. It takes her a few moments to get her bearings.

She�s at the Aman hotel.

She stumbles out of bed, flicks on the light, enters a ginormous bathroom. On her right is a too-inviting pink-cr�me bathtub the approximate size of a Cadillac Escalade. On her left is a black-stone shower room � room, not stall � with an array of showerheads. Maggie chooses the shower, in part because she fears that if she sinks into that bathtub with its potpourri of bath crystals and bath teas and bath salts and bath oils and bath pillows, she may never be able to extract herself.

She strips out of the oversize T-shirt she slept in last night. The T-shirt is from the Vipers gift shop. Porkchop had given it to her. Across the chest, it reads:

Hard to escape the dad jokes with Porkchop.

Maggie turns on the showerheads, all of them, full blast. She steps into the middle and lets the sprays blast away at her skin from every direction. The water pressure is excellent, almost piercing her skin. She doesn�t want to move. She thinks back to her time overseas, how she�d yearn for a hot shower, how she realized that one of life�s greatest and most unappreciated luxuries was a hot shower. If you think about it, no human on planet Earth had even experienced a hot shower until, what, a hundred years ago maybe? She once googled it � because that�s how her brain works � and hot showers were not common until the 1970s.

�Enjoy the smaller moments,� her father had often told her. �That�s where life is lived.�

So she does � at least for right now. After some time passes, when she realizes that she must regretfully turn off the sprays and step out of her black-stoned cocoon, there are plush Frette robes and thick towels. The hotel phone rings, a gentle gong, letting guests know that there is an incoming call but not wanting to disturb their serenity. Maggie answers. The voice on the other end of the line probably does voice-overs for hypnosis apps. The voice asks what food or beverage she �craves� for breakfast, promising an arrival in five minutes.

�Coffee,� she says. �Black. Strong.�

�The Florentine omelet is a specialty.�

Maggie passes. Just the coffee.

Her mobile phone jangles in the stillness. It�s Porkchop. She answers on speakerphone.

�Good morning,� she says in a quiet voice.

�Why are you whispering?� he asks.

�Something about this room is making me stay quiet.�

�You quiet? Must be a miracle room.�

�Are you being a wiseass?�

�Just a little.� Then he adds, �You okay?�

�I�m good.�

He waits.

She sighs. �It was just a lot, you know.�

�I do.�

�I wasn�t really prepared for that.�

�That�s on me.�

�No, it�s not,� she says.

�Everyone was happy to see you.�

�I know I sort of zoned out.�

�You did, yeah.�

�I hope I wasn�t rude.�

�You�re family � no such thing as rude,� Porkchop says. �How are you feeling now?�

�Pretty hungover.�

�Same.�

�Wait, you?�

�I�m not as young as I used to be, Mags.�

Pinky had been the designated biker. He drove her back last night. She feels weird about having too much to drink, but again, her issue had been pills, not booze, and boy, that sounds like a pathetic loophole. So did the idea that she had �issues� with pills and not an �addiction.� She had stopped taking them cold after the... What does she call it? Incident? Accident? Catastrophe? Could she have done that � stopped the pills cold � if it had been a real addiction? She doubts it, but does it matter? The damage was done.

She isn�t sure what to say next, but Porkchop takes over, asking in a quasi-mocking tone whether she�s on her way to her �big, secret meeting.�

�I need to get dressed,� she says.

�Call me when you�re done.�

�You don�t have a mobile phone,� she reminds him.

�I�ll be by the payphone. Are you sure you don�t want to tell me what this meeting is about?�

�Bye, Porkchop.�

She hangs up and throws on black jeans, boots, a denim shirt, and a blazer. It�s a massive mind melt that never seems to have a clear answer: Never be too provocative but never be too stuffy... Oh, but have a sense of style and always know what�s trending so you don�t appear, gasp, out of date � always trying to find the right balance between feminine and practical.

Utterly exhausting.

Maggie props up her phone on the bathroom vanity as she starts her makeup. She hits the icon and waits. When Marc�s face appears, Maggie says, �I saw your dad yesterday.�

�How is he?�

She chooses a little avoidance because she doesn�t want to go there right now. �Vipers is doing great. You ought to see what he�s done with it.�

�Did you both get drunk?�

�No.� Then: �Yes, of course.�

Marc smiles. �I�m glad you two have each other.�

Which is an odd thing to say.

�How long until your meeting with Evan Barlow?� he asks.

Maggie checks the clock on her phone. �Shoot, I�m running late. Talk later.�

She takes one last look in the mirror, shrugs, pockets the phone, and heads into the corridor. She reaches the fourteenth-floor atrium. The elevator doors are already open and waiting for her. The Mercedes-Maybach is parked at the quieter entrance on 57th Street. The chauffeur wears a black suit, black tie, and completes the look with a peaked newsboy cap. He holds the back door open.

�Hi,� she says. �I�m Maggie.�

�I�m Alou.�

She sticks out her hand and meets his eye. �Nice to meet you, Alou.�

He hesitantly shakes it. �Yes, ma�am.�

The windows are fully tinted, so no one can see in. She slides onto the plush leather in the back. The seat�s heater is already on full blast. There is a woman in the front passenger seat. She turns and gives Maggie the full-wattage smile.

�Hi, Maggie, I�m Dawn! I�m your Barlow concierge!�

Dawn speaks in exclamation marks, which are not welcome this early in the morning ever, never mind after a night at Vipers with Porkchop. Maggie looks back at Alou before he closes her door. He shrugs as if to say, �Yeah, this is how it is.�

�Hi, Dawn.�

�Many of our patients demand total confidentiality!�

�I�m not a patient, Dawn.�

She blinks and the full-wattage smile flickers but stays strong. �Oh, I know. We just thought you might want to experience the service. Plus, well, I was asked to assure your ride is comfortable and discreet.�

�I appreciate that. Where are we going?�

�To see Doctor Barlow, of course.�

She turns to face forward. The car starts up. Maggie stays quiet for a moment. When they start heading north on Madison Avenue, she leans forward and says, �Isn�t Barlow Cosmetics south of here?�

�That�s the public office,� Dawn says. �We think of it as our storefront. Most of the elite surgeries are done in, shall we say, a more private location.�

�And that�s where we�re going?�

�That�s where we are going, yes.�

�Can you tell me where specifically?�

�I never remember the address. It won�t be long. Would you like a Minus 181 mineral water?�

Ten minutes later, the Mercedes heads into a garage under a Dolce & Gabbana. There are cars lined up to be parked, but Alou circles around them and veers down a ramp. They drive two floors down and pull up to an elevator with its door open.

�Here we are!� Dawn exclaims in a singsong voice.

Maggie tries to open the door, but it won�t give. �I think my door is locked.�

Dawn turns to her from the front seat. �First, do you mind leaving your phone here?�

�Pardon?�

�We don�t allow phones on the premises. Company policy. For the privacy of you and all our patient�� Dawn stops, corrects herself. �I mean, visitors. Don�t worry. Your phone will be safe with Alou.�

�And if I don�t want to give up my phone?�

Dawn�s reply is a disappointed-schoolteacher frown. �I�m afraid we can�t make exceptions to this policy.�

Maggie debates making a stink or calling Dawn�s bluff, saying something like, �Okay, fine, take me back to the hotel,� but really, what�s the point? She powers down her phone and places it on the seat next to her. Alou opens the back door. Dawn escorts Maggie into the elevator. She presses the button for the eighteenth floor. Maggie stands and watches the light dance upward. Dawn does the same. Maggie has questions, but she sees no point in asking them right now.

The doors open, and it almost feels as though Maggie were back in the Aman. The medical offices � assuming that�s what these are � feel more like an upscale spa. Soothing sounds are playing. No one is wearing white � that would be too loud and disconcerting � and so the staff mills around in light-sage surgical garb. Dawn opens a door and invites her to enter. After Maggie does, Dawn gently closes the door behind her.

The room has wall-to-ceiling windows with spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline. Funny. Maggie loves nature � she has experienced every sort of mountain, desert, ocean, valley, canyon, night, day, sunrise, sunset, whatever view imaginable � but something about the skyline in a great city works best for her. She never tires of them. Maybe it�s because city views change. They are man-made, not divine, so she can relate to them more on some base level. Or maybe, more likely, it�s because you are not alone with this view: It isn�t just rock or brick or stone or vegetation � there are people out there, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of them, and they all have hopes and dreams and a spiritual vibrancy and connection that nothing in nature can duplicate.

Man, Maggie thinks, I�m in a mood.

�Maggie.�

Dr. Barlow enters from the side door, wearing the light-sage scrubs and a surgical cap, though she doesn�t think he just got out of surgery or is headed into it. He greets her with a hug and a buss on the cheek. �Sorry for the whole cloak-n-dagger bit, but I thought you might like to see how we handle our more discerning patients.�

�It�s quite an operation,� Maggie says.

�It feels like overkill, I know, but�� Barlow shrugs, waves his arm to have her take a seat on an off-white leather couch. �Some patients will do anything to make sure no one knows they are undergoing a procedure. A few years ago, we had a big-name celebrity who didn�t want the tabloids to find out she was getting a rhytidectomy. You know how it is. So to disguise herself, she came to our midtown office in a � I can�t believe I�m even saying this � in a burqa.�

Maggie frowns. �Wrong in so many ways.�

�Exactly. So now we offer greater privacy in this location. We have recovery suites, guest apartments � you get the point. Again, not all our patients want this. In fact, I would say fewer than ten percent purchase the security package. But it�s a service we have to offer.�

She was getting a bit impatient. �Doctor Barlow��

�Evan, please.�

�Evan, why am I here?�

�You�d find this place intriguing, Maggie,� he continues, as if she hadn�t spoken. He�s staying on a script, she figures, so she�ll just have to hang on for the ride. �As you know, we at Barlow Cosmetics are constantly pushing the boundaries. Refining and updating our procedures. We make them less invasive. Fewer scars. Shorter recovery time. You�ve always been a risk-taker, Maggie. It�s what drew you to the military. It�s what drew you to provide care in some of the most dangerous countries on the planet. You were never one to color in the lines. Perhaps that led to your...�

He falters here. Maggie helps him.

�Downfall?� she tries. �Destruction? Ruin?�

Barlow shakes his head. �Seems too harsh.�

�But apropos,� she says.

�I have a question for you.�

She waits.

�When the medical board crucified you, why didn�t you fight the charges?�

�Because,� Maggie says with no hesitation, �I�m guilty.�

Barlow isn�t sure what to say to that. �So you plan on never doing surgery again.�

He says it like that, a statement not a question, and the idea is so unfathomable. Never, ever again do the only thing she ever wanted to do? It breaks her heart anew.

�Looks like,� she says, slapping on the brave face. �I might still be able to do research for you, but I think having my name connected to Barlow��

�I don�t want you to do research.�

�What then?�

He stares at the window. She joins him. �I work with a select few clients who will pay a premium for complete discretion. A very high premium.�

�Yeah, you�ve made that pretty clear.�

�One particular client...� He stops, rubs his chin, considers his words. �I�m going to bring someone in in a moment. He demands complete confidentiality. There can be no record of this meeting. There had originally been a request to have you sign an NDA, but without a recording of this meeting, you�d have nothing to back up any claims.�

�What kind of claims?�

�It�s not like that.�

�Not like what? What exactly is this?�

�Look, I�ve said too much. You�re safe. I promise. I only have your best interest at heart. I think you know that. So let me bring him in. Listen to his offer with an open mind. If I didn�t believe this was something you should do, I would never have brought you up here.�

Barlow moves back to the side door and opens it. A large man fills the doorway. He almost seems to duck to get inside. When he�s fully inside the room, the man struggles to button the blazer on his suit.

�Maggie McCabe,� Barlow says, �this is Ivan Brovski.�

Brovski is bald and broad. He has no neck, his bullet-shaped head comes straight up from his shoulders. His suit looks expensive and tailored and yet it doesn�t fit, because this guy wasn�t built to wear a suit. Brovski manages a no-teeth smile and stretches out his hand for her to shake. She obliges. His hand swallows hers whole.

�Nice to meet you, Doctor McCabe,� Ivan Brovski says.

There is a hint of a Russian accent, but it is fainter than she would have imagined. He�s studied English for a long time. Judging by his accent, probably in London.

Barlow says, �I�ll be in the next room if I�m needed.� He can�t get through the door and close it behind him fast enough.

Maggie is standing. Brovski is standing.

�What can I do for you, Mr. Brovski?�

�I am a liaison for a very wealthy man,� Brovski says. �My client is in need of certain medical procedures.�

�What kind of medical procedures?� Maggie asks.

�You, Doctor McCabe, are a renowned reconstructive surgeon,� he begins, �a recognized expert in several surgical subfields, including cosmetic and facial reconstruction. You graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania before attending Johns Hopkins medical school. You�ve done residencies and fellowships at some of the country�s most elite hospitals, and even under the tutelage of our mutual friend Doctor Evan Barlow at NewYork-Presbyterian. Both of your parents were physicians. Your father, Clark McCabe, spent his career as a military doctor, mostly serving gravely war-wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. You followed your father into the military, where you served two full tours in heavy combat, earning you the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, and a Silver Star. You�ve also been awarded, along with your surgical partner Doctor Trace Packer, the Jackson Foundation award and, perhaps most impressively, a Purple Heart when you both took shrapnel from an IED in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan. After you served, you, Doctor Packer, and your husband, Doctor Marc Adams, created a rather noble charitable entity��

Maggie holds her hands up. �Yeah, okay, I get it. You googled me, I�m flattered. Why am I here?�

�My employer needs discreet cosmetic surgery done.�

�Can you be more specific?�

Brovski rubs the top of his head. �We need you to perform surgery on two people. Cosmetic procedures, as I said. My employer will tell you the specifics when you meet.�

Maggie looks left, then right. �Is he here?�

Brovski does the no-teeth grin again. �No.�

�So what�s the plan here, Ivan?�

�We fly you to a private location.�

�Where?�

�Someplace� � he takes his time � �out of the country.�

�I�m going to need more than that.�

�There is a place called Rublevka. It�s��

��a suburb outside of Moscow,� she finishes for him.

He arches an eyebrow. �You�ve been?�

�No, but I�ve heard of it.�

Rublevka is the epicenter of the Russian oligarchs, perhaps the wealthiest residential area in the world. Lenin and Stalin had dachas there. Khrushchev and Gorbachev had summer residences.

Brovski nods. �When you were in college, you took a course called Modern Russian History with Professor Taubman. I nearly forgot.�

�Do you know when I got my first hickey?�

�What?�

�I bet your researchers missed that. Seventh grade. A game of spin the bottle with Mitch Glassman. You can stop with the �I know all� intimidation tactics, Ivan. I�m a military brat who grew up military trained, so I know the program. Get on with it.�

�Fair enough,� Brovski says, amused. �But I think you see what we are after. We are looking for an expert surgeon who is willing to travel to Russia and perform highly confidential cosmetic procedures. We think that expert surgeon should be you.�

�What�s your client�s name?�

�I can�t reveal that at this time.�

�Is it a name I�d know?�

�I don�t know what you know,� Brovski says, �but I can tell you that my client values his privacy.�

Maggie takes that in for a moment. �You must be aware that my medical license has been revoked.�

�Yes, of course,� Brovski says. �It�s why you�re perfect.�

�Foreign doctors typically need to meet MIMC licensing to operate in Russia��

�Done.�

�What?�

�It�s done,� he says. �MIMC has already issued your permit. What else?�

�I�d need two surgically trained nurses and one anesthesiologist.�

�Done.�

�I�d need extensive operating equipment and a sterile environment.�

�Done.�

�A fully equipped operating room.�

�Done.�

�I need to be indemnified in writing if anything goes wrong.�

�Done. Done. It�s all done.� He waves his arms impatiently. �Do you think we thought about doing this an hour ago? Let me also make it clear that we know you�re in heavy debt. So is your sister.�

Maggie is no longer surprised at what he knows. He works for a top-level Russian oligarch. There is little doubt that whoever is behind this has made sure to check all the angles before making this request.

�So?�

�So the moment you agree to do this,� Brovski continues, �that debt will be gone. Yours. And your sister�s. The malpractice suit filed against you? It will be settled.�

�How?�

Ivan Brovski just shrugs.

Maggie swallows. No more crushing debt. No more trials and depositions. How much is that worth?

A lot.

�Why can�t your client just go to a discreet clinic like this one?� Maggie asks.

�He doesn�t like to leave the house.�

�But he�ll have to leave it to go in for surgery.�

Brovski shakes his head. �We�ve built an operating theater in his home. It�s state-of-the-art.�

That term again.

Maggie takes her time, tries to play it cool.

�What do you say, Doctor McCabe?�

�I�ll need to stay for two weeks post-op.�

�Yes, of course.�

�That�s a fair amount of time for me to be away.�

�Ah,� Brovski says with the hint of a smile, �very good.�

She says nothing.

�Let me guess, Doctor McCabe: You�re not sure our paying off the debts is adequate compensation.�

Maggie shrugs. �What you�re asking me to do is pretty risky.�

�It�s not, not in the least, but fair enough.� Brovski checks his watch and feigns boredom. �We are in a bit of a rush, so let me cut to it. If you come with me to the airport right now, on top of getting you and your sister out of debt and settling your malpractice case, how about we pay you...� He pauses and looks up purely for effect. Then he just drops the bomb.

�...ten million dollars?�

If Maggie ever had a poker face, it�s gone now. He almost laughs.

�Five million put into your account at Merrill Lynch right now. The other five million when you�re done.�

Maggie is not sure she can speak. Ivan Brovski grins.

�So we have a deal?�

Maggie stares out the window of what could inadequately be described as a �private plane.� Not that she�s had a lot of experience with private planes, of course. When she boarded, the flight attendant introduced herself as Hannah and then proceeded to give Maggie an orientation tour of a full-size 180-seat Airbus A320 renovated for private use. The new interior more resembles an upscale Manhattan penthouse than anything in the aviation family. The d�cor is gold with leopard prints. Flight Attendant Hannah leads her through a curving open floor plan with two lounges, a dining room, a gourmet kitchen, a theater room with a 65-inch contoured TV (�One of our four large-screen TVs,� Hannah had told her), and a primary suite with a king-size bed and a marble ensuite bathroom, including one of those oversize rain showerheads.

In the primary bedroom, there is a Matisse oil of a woman reclining on a couch.

�Is this a real Matisse?� Maggie asks.

Hannah�s reply is a simple smile.

Nadia stands in the corner of what looks to Maggie like a spare office. She wears a plush white terry cloth bathrobe that seems to be swallowing her whole and makes her look even more petite. Her jet-black hair is wet. Her skin glistens.

Maggie smiles at her. Nadia is expressionless.

Speaking very slowly, Maggie says, �Let me see if one of the nurses can translate for us.�

�No.�

Maggie watches as Nadia crosses in front of her and closes the door.

�I speak English,� Nadia says. �I just don�t want them to know.�

�Oh.�

There is no examination table. Maggie had debated bringing her into the operating room for a full exam, but it seems more important to do a private consultation � just talk to her alone � than do a physical yet.

�Is it okay if I call you Nadia?� Maggie asks.

�Yes, of course.�

They both take a seat. Maggie isn�t sure how to begin. She wants to say, �My God, you�re gorgeous, don�t do this to yourself,� but that would be wrong and unfair and judgmental. But none of that lets Maggie off the hook as a physician and, well, a woman. There could be disturbing issues around this procedure involving consent, coercion, and power dynamics.

�How old are you, Nadia?�

�Twenty-four.�

�Do you understand what Oleg has hired me to do?�

�Augmentation mammoplasty,� Nadia says. Maggie tries to place her accent. There may be Russian or Eastern European, but she also hears something else. �In short, a boob job.�

�Are you okay with doing this procedure?�

�Yes.�

�I should go through the risks��

�No need. I know them.�

Maggie nods slowly, leans forward. �Anything you discuss with me is between us. I will keep it in the strictest of confidences. Do you understand?�

�I understand.�

�You can trust me, Nadia.�

For the first time, Nadia smiles � and it�s radiant. �I do already, Doctor. You�re the only one who knows I speak English.�

�Thank you for that.� Maggie shifts a little more toward her. �I need to make sure you�re okay, Nadia.�

Nadia says nothing.

�If someone is pressuring you to have this surgery��

Nadia laughs. �You can�t be serious.�

��I can refuse to do the surgery.�

�Then Oleg would bring in someone else.�

Maggie lowers her voice. �If you don�t want to stay��

�Who says I don�t want to stay?�

��I can get you out.�

Nadia looks almost amused. �Do you really believe that, Doctor McCabe?�

�Believe what?�

�That you can get me out.�

�I�ll find a way.�

Nadia mutters something in a foreign tongue. �How? You, like me, are totally at their mercy. You can�t call anyone. Your phone won�t work. Oh, and your bedroom? It will be bugged. Just so you know � this is one of the few rooms in the house that doesn�t have cameras and listening devices. So how do we make our escape? Will you hide me in your suitcase?�

�Listen to me,� Maggie says, moving closer. �I can find a way.�

�You�re being naive.�

�Nadia��

�And I don�t want you to,� Nadia says, her tone firm now. �I am here by choice. I can leave anytime I want. I understand the surgery. I know the risks. They are minimal, no?�

Maggie nods. �Most studies report a one to five percent chance of a complication.�

�Between one and five percent,� Nadia repeats. �That�s an average.�

�Yes.�

�But I don�t have an average doctor, do I?� Nadia says. �Oleg only hires the best.�

They lock eyes.

�It�s an easy choice for me,� Nadia says. �I want to do it.�

Maggie nods, giving herself time to think. �That�s fine. It�s up to you, of course. I just want you to know that I�m here for you. That I want to help you.�

�Many girls,� Nadia continues, �beautiful girls, would give anything to be in my place.�

�I understand,� Maggie says.

Nadia flashes the smile again. �I know what I look like, Doctor McCabe. I know the effect I have on men. But after this surgery, I will be, let�s be honest, irresistible.�

�You already are, Nadia.�

�Don�t be patronizing.�

�I don�t mean to be.�

�You heard what Oleg likes. That�s what I need to be.�

�Got it.�

�Will you help me?�

Maggie sighs but she also nods. �If that�s what you want, I will, yes.�

Then Nadia drops a truth bomb on her: �You don�t know me,� she says. �You don�t know my life.�

Which is fair. Maggie knows that. But she can�t just let it go either. �You�re right. I don�t. But know this: I�m here for you. I�m on your side.�

�I know,� Nadia says. �Tomorrow you will operate on me. You will keep me safe.�

�I will,� she says.

�That�s all I need.� Nadia walks to the door. Then she says, �I bet you�ve made sacrifices for the man you love, haven�t you, Doctor McCabe?�

Maggie feels the too-familiar pang.

�Doctor?�

�I have,� Maggie says. Then she adds, �But not something like this, no. He would never...� She stops and reminds herself of an obvious truth: They aren�t the same, Maggie and Nadia. As Nadia so aptly put it, �You don�t know my life.� It�s condescending to compare. Maggie gets that.

But then Nadia asks, �Are you married?�

Maggie feels the tears push into her eyes.

�I mean, you have someone special in your life, right?�

Maggie still doesn�t reply.

�Doctor?�

And then, because Nadia deserves the truth, Maggie gives her the honest, heartbreaking answer:

�No,� Maggie says, �I�m not married anymore. There is no one special in my life.�

Ivan Brovski brought her to yet another room.

�How many rooms does this place have?� Maggie asks.

�I�m not sure anyone knows.� He gestures with his arm. �Please.�

It reminds her of Barlow�s conference room. Not an exact replicate like her OR, but then again, all these sleek rooms look the same. Ivan signals for her to take a seat. He moves around the table, sits across from her, and touches the tablet in front of him. The large-screen TV on the far wall comes to life in bright white.

�So you�re a physician?� Maggie says to Ivan.

�Oxford trained.�

�What�s your specialty?�

�I�m a general internist. Nothing fancy. Like you, I served in the military. When I resigned my commission, Oleg hired me to be his full-time physician and liaison.�

�Liaison,� Maggie repeats. �I bet that term is pretty flexible.�

A small smile comes to Ivan�s lips as he taps something on his tablet. The white vanishes from the television screen. �This is Mr. Ragoravich�s electronic medical records.� He taps another icon, and the file slides to the left, making room for another. �And this one belongs to Nadia Strauss.�

�Nadia�s last name is Strauss?�

He gives her a noncommittal shrug and hands her the tablet so that she can control the screen. The first page for both patients displays what one might expect: height, weight, date of birth, gender. Unlike the electronic medical files Maggie was used to from the hospital, there are no spaces for billing information � nothing about insurance company, address, social security number, occupation.

�You met your surgical team,� Ivan says.

�Briefly.�

�Just so you are aware, it�s not just the operating room we�ve duplicated.�

Maggie looks up from the tablet. �Meaning?�

�We interviewed members of your surgical team in Baltimore.�

�When you say interview��

�For training purposes,� he says. �So your team here has been schooled on your operating room preferences and protocols.�

�You don�t miss much.�

�We believe in minimizing risk, Doctor McCabe. We want to assure your success.�

�I see.�

�Assuming you approve, the schedule for tomorrow is as follows: Meet with the team at seven a.m. to go over procedures. Personally inspect the surgical facilities and all implantation devices. We are told you usually do this three hours before a surgery. Is that correct?�

�Yes.�

�Very good. So Mr. Ragoravich will go into surgery at ten a.m. He will undergo three procedures. One, a blepharoplasty. Two, a sliding genioplasty using fat transfer, so that his jawline more resembles the one in Photo A.�

Maggie clicks on what is marked as Photo A. It offers up a black-and-white, oddly grainy view of the lower half of a man�s face.

�And three, a rather unique open rhinoplasty. I think you�ll find that most exciting.�

�Why�s that?�

�You�ll be implanting an artificial nose scaffold.�

Maggie makes a face. �I�m not familiar with that.�

He grins. �I know.�

�I�m familiar with nose scaffolding using cartilage and tissue.�

�That isn�t what this is, though there is a lot of overlap, and that�s why it�s an open rhinoplasty. You�ll make the incision below the nose� � Ivan points with his beefy finger at the space between the upper lip and the start of the nose � �peel the skin up, do whatever you need to clear out space, and then insert the scaffold.�

�An artificial scaffold?�

�Yes, that�s correct.�

She frowned. �I didn�t know such a thing existed.�

Again the grin. �It didn�t. Until now. But I assure you it�s been tested.�

�Who built the scaffolding?�

�We did,� he says. �Via AI on our MB Reps 3D printer.�

Maggie sits back. �Are you serious?�

�I am.�

�You have an MB Reps 3D printer?�

�That surprises you?�

They sell, Maggie knows, for nearly a quarter million dollars. �Not really, no. But like I said, I never heard of this before. What�s the scaffolding made of?�

�It�s a patented biocompatible polyethylene.�

Maggie nods. That�s a common and proven material for implanted medical devices. Trace and Marc had done their work with that too. �And it�s a full nose scaffold?�

�Yes.�

�And you know I�ve never done that procedure before, right?�

�Truth?� Ivan leans in conspiratorially with the same grin. �I�m not sure anyone has. Do you think that�s a problem?�

She looks at the chart, considers the procedure, visualizes herself doing it. Her pulse picks up pace. She can�t help feeling excited at the prospect. �Not really, no.�

�It�s why we picked you.�

�Pardon?�

He settles back. �We didn�t think it would be an issue for you.�

�Who is �we�?�

�Doctor Barlow, mostly. He says you�re a bit of a risk-taker.� Ivan quickly waves both hands in front of his face as though clearing away his own words. �No, no, not like that. He meant like a maverick. You understand the best way to improve medical care is to push boundaries, no?�

When she doesn�t reply, he adds, �Anyway, Doctor Barlow thought you�d relish this challenge.�

The truth is, Dr. Barlow was correct. Maggie had read tons over the years on building and creating custom implants via AI and 3D printing � Marc and Trace had been working on something similar with the THUMPR7 � but the technology still felt like years in the future. A nose scaffold is not a heart or a liver � but it�s a pretty exciting step.

You have to walk before you can run.

�In most ways,� Ivan continues, �it works like any other facial implant.�

�Except,� Maggie says, studying the images, �it will more radically change the way Oleg�s nose appears.�

�Yes.�

�Most people want a smaller nose.�

�Oleg Ragoravich does not. Click Photo B.�

She does. The image � grainy black-and-white again, which is strange � is of a nose that would politely be called �prominent.� The vast majority of people go through plastic surgery to improve their aesthetics. This is fairly obvious. Some want to look like a favorite celebrity, but between this new nose, the chin implant, and the eye work via the blepharoplasty, Oleg Ragoravich clearly did not want that.

He wants to look like someone else.

Or at least, not like himself.

�We figure the three procedures should take you between three and four hours,� Ivan continues. �Would you agree?�

She would. Probably three, but it pays to have extra time with the nose scaffold. She�d want to inject some fat and stem cells into the area, just to make sure the device wasn�t rejected.

�Which brings us to Nadia,� he says, tapping the screen. �Assuming we begin Mr. Ragoravich�s procedures promptly at ten a.m., we will have Nadia prepped and ready for a two p.m. start. Does that work for you?�

�It does. I assume we are using silicone for the breast augmentation?�

He nods. �We can choose either round three hundred ccs, three fifty ccs, or four hundred cc implants, all on standby.�

The four hundreds would be too big, but keeping three sizes ready for an operation was standard. Silicone was back in � saline was out. In the nineties, there were headlines about silicone leaks causing cancer and lupus, but after extensive studies, they found no link between silicone breast implants and an increased risk of breast cancer.

�What kind of incision are you going with?� Ivan asks her.

�I prefer the inframammary,� she says. �Assuming that�s okay with Nadia.�

He nods. There are three types of incision used in breast augmentation: inframammary (under the breast), periareolar (around the edge of the areola, a sort of half-smile incision), and transaxillary (in the armpit). The inframammary is most common. The periareolar sometimes affects sensation, and the transaxillary is used only for saline and makes positioning difficult.

Maggie starts clicking through the pages, seeing if anything sticks out. �Can I keep these medical files to review in full?�

�Of course. That tablet is yours.� Ivan checks his watch. �The gala ball is in a few hours,� he says, putting his hands on the sides of his chair as though ready to push himself up. �So if there�s nothing else��

�Hold up a second,� Maggie says. Ivan waits. She clicks back, then forward. She reads the history again. �It says here Nadia only has one kidney.�

�Yes. She donated the other, what, six, seven years ago.�

�To whom?�

�Her brother.�

�Do you know what he had?�

�The brother?� He looks up as though trying to remember. �Nephrotic syndrome, I think. We ran a urine test and bloodwork on Nadia, of course. She has no signs of it.�

Maggie mulls that over. Something isn�t adding up. �Where is Nadia from?�

�Originally? I have no idea.�

�How did she meet Oleg Ragoravich in the first place?�

�In a club in Dubai. What difference does it make?�

�Having only one kidney could be an issue.�

�Could be, but it�s not. Nadia has been medically cleared. She�s in excellent health. As for the rest of your questions, Oleg Ragoravich is a private man.�

�Which reminds me,� Maggie says. �If he�s so private, why is he throwing a huge party tonight?�

�It�s a ball, not a party.�

�What�s the difference?� Maggie asks. Then, thinking better of it, she adds, �I�d rather not go.�

�You should. For one thing, you�re expected. For another, you will want to see the difference between a party and a ball with your own eyes.�

�Would it be a clich� to say I have nothing to wear?�

�It would be,� Ivan says, rising from his seat, �if that were true. But come on, my dear, you must know by now that we are prepared.�

Maggie stares out her bedroom window and watches the guests arrive. A long tent-like walkway has been put out between the helicopter landing pad and the front door. The snow, which was still falling, is strategically gone, though she has seen no one shovel it away. She�d asked Ivan Brovski how they cleared it away.

�Heat coils under the ground,� he told her.

But of course.

Other guests are pulling up in big black cars, either stretch limos or oversize SUVs. The men wear tuxedos. The women wear formal gowns.

Maggie�s bedroom is, no surprise, larger than most apartments. Ivan had shown her the way to her room. The first thing he�d done when they arrived was open her walk-in closet with, she estimated, somewhere between thirty and forty outfits.

�All in your size and style,� Ivan informed her, �including...�

He gestured to the three formal gowns suitable for, well, a ball.

Maggie shook her head. �I�m not even surprised anymore.�

�I assume you like them.�

She did. Very much. She pulls out a navy blue dress nearly identical to the one she�d worn at Johns Hopkins a few days ago. Same shoes in her size too. �Weird,� she says. �I have this same outfit at home.� Then it dawns on her: �But you already knew that.�

Ivan shrugs. �Not me, personally. But yes, artificial intelligence made the selections � a new software program that scours the internet for all your photos and videos, sees what you wear to various events, and creates a wardrobe based on what it believes is your taste.�

�Terrific.�

But there is no way they could have done all this in, what, twelve hours?

Someone has been watching her.

For how long?

�There are a few nice diamond pieces on the bureau. Tasteful, I�m told. Feel free to borrow them.�

�Okay.�

�How about if I stop by at eight? We can go to the ball together.�

She nods. He leaves. Maggie remembers what Nadia said about bugs and cameras. Not much she can do about it, she supposes. The room is fully stocked with a potpourri of dream products � Chanel perfume, Christian Dior makeup, every top-of-the-line skin product imaginable, all touting promises of youth via peptides and collagens. She takes a shower, letting the hot water steam up the room just in case of cameras, throws on a robe, lies in bed. She closes her eyes. No time for a nap. Instead, Maggie starts visualizing and even acting out the surgery. Her father had told her about Colonel George Hall, a Vietnam War combat pilot who spent over seven years in the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison. To maintain his sanity in the face of starvation and torture, Colonel Hall imagined himself playing golf in his tiny cell. He would feel the sun on his face, smell the green grass, take each swing with care. He would see the ball go up in the air, watch it land on the fairways and greens of his favorite courses. Supposedly he did this every day and actually improved his game just through this visualization. Maggie didn�t know if that last part was exaggeration or myth, but that didn�t matter. She got it. She lies back now, closes her eyes, raises her hands into the air, and uses the scalpel to make the first incision. In her mind�s eye, she goes through the entire operation � her own virtual world of surgery. She does this a lot � or used to when she was licensed. It is her way of both meditating and preparing.

At eight p.m., there is a knock on the door. Maggie opens it. Ivan�s eyes widen when he sees her all dressed up. He swallows back whatever comment he was about to make about her appearance, and says, �You chose the navy.�

�Yep.�

�It suits you.�

�Thank you.�

�Are you ready?�

Ivan looks stiff and uncomfortable in his tuxedo, the bow tie wrapped tourniquet-like around his neck. The house is oddly silent when they leave the bedroom. It�s not until they leave the wing that she starts to hear voices, occasional laughter, string music. They stay on the third floor and enter the ballroom from a balcony above it. The ballroom is polished white marble with gold leaf. It is huge, the approximate size of a college basketball arena. Relief carvings of baby angels, a look Maggie never understood, line the ceiling�s perimeter. There are probably three, maybe four hundred people mingling below. As she heads down the stairs, Maggie notices what appear to be food stations, a worldwide tour de cuisine on steroids. She wanders around and, for a moment, lets herself be a guest. She tries the abalone with liver and uni dipping sauce from Sushi Yoshitake, a three-star Michelin restaurant in Tokyo�s Ginza district. Lung King Heen, another three-star Michelin restaurant in Hong Kong�s Four Seasons Hotel, offers a scallop and prawn dumpling. Talula�s from Asbury Park provides pizza slices with Calabrian soppressata and local honey. Fromagerie Cantin, the renowned Parisian cheese shop, offers Aisy Cendr�, a semisoft cow�s milk cheese buried in oak ashes for a month.

A voice interrupts her midbite. �I know it�s a clich�, what with being here in Russia, but you have to try the caviar.�

The voice has a decidedly haughty American prep school accent to it. Maggie turns. The handsome man offers her a boyish aw-shucks grin. His tuxedo looks sculpted on, graceful, draping exactly where it should be and fitted where it shouldn�t. The midnight-black fabric seems to absorb light more than reflect it. No need for a flashy tie or patterned cummerbund when you�re seemingly fitted by a deity, just the shine of onyx studs against the pure white of his starched shirt.

He looks soft, pampered, privileged.

As the man and his polished shoes glide toward her, Maggie notices a moistness in his blue eyes, perhaps from drink.

�I�m Charles Lockwood,� he says with a crooked grin, sticking out the unblemished, manicured hand.

She hesitates, not sure whether she should give her name. He picks up on it.

�And you�re Doctor Maggie McCabe,� he says for her.

His stubble is curated and on point. His black hair is long and wavy, the kind of unruly and ungroomed that often requires too much product. It all works in its own way, she presumes. Charles Lockwood cuts a striking figure, which is clearly the intended effect.

�Have we met?�

�No, but I knew your husband a bit. I�m terribly sorry.�

�How did you�?�

�I dabble� � Lockwood lifts a manicured hand and shakes his fingers � �in cardiothoracic surgery too.�

�No one �dabbles�� � she imitates his finger gestures � �in cardiothoracic surgery.�

�Fair enough. I don�t say this with false modesty, but next to your husband? Yes, I dabble. Marc seemed a good man, maybe even a great man, I don�t know. But he was the greatest surgeon I�d ever seen.�

Maggie feels her throat start to close. She pushes on. �So what brings you to Russia, Doctor Lockwood?�

�I was going to ask you the same thing.�

�Yeah, but I asked first.�

�Probably the same reason you�re here,� he says.

�Hey, Charles, there you are!�

Two giggling women, both young and blonde and straight out of an influencer�s social media page, call out to him in Russian and approach on either side. One takes one arm. One takes the other. Both look at him adoringly. Charles replies to them in Russian. Both women pout, let their grips slip, and sulk away.

Charles turns back to Maggie and gives her a what-are-you-gonna-do shrug of the shoulders, palms up.

�Yeah, I don�t think we�re here for the same thing,� Maggie says.

He chuckles. �Sorry about that,� he says.

�Don�t let me keep you from your friends.�

�They�ll be around later.�

�I bet. You speak Russian?�

�I dabble.�

�Dabbling seems to be your modus operandi.�

Charles Lockwood gives her what he is sure must be the most winning smile. �I spend a lot of time here. I enjoy the lifestyle.�

�That lifestyle being?�

�A tad hedonistic. Nothing wrong with fun, Doctor McCabe, is there?�

She tries not to frown. �None at all.�

�Perhaps you and I can get together during your visit.�

�Yeah, no, I don�t think so.�

�Come now, Doctor McCabe, there is always time for a little fun along with our fundraising. Where are you staying?�

She ignores his question. �What�s that about fundraising?�

His expression says he knows that she�s dodging. �That�s not why you�re here?�

�No, are you?�

�As a matter of fact, I am.�

�For?�

�A medical startup specializing in cutting-edge longevity treatments.�

Again with the cutting edge, Maggie thinks.

Lockwood peers over her head. �Have you met our host?�

�Yes.�

Charles Lockwood makes a face to indicate he�s impressed. �Have you seen Mr. Ragoravich at the party?�

�It�s a ball, not a party.�

�Pardon?�

�Never mind.� Maggie�s eyes scan the ballroom. �No, not yet.�

�I�m hoping to meet Oleg Ragoravich tonight.� Charles Lockwood turns his attention back to her. �Your turn.�

�Turn?�

�Why are you here, Doctor McCabe?�

�Maggie.�

�Why are you here, Maggie?�

�I can�t really talk about it,� she says.

�Why not?�

She shuts him down with a face.

�Oh, my bad. I won�t push.� He throws up his hands in mock surrender. Again, Charles Lockwood probably thinks it�s a charming move on his part, and maybe for others, it is. Maggie hates this kind of faux charisma, the playboy blend of privilege and drink and good genes and people around you telling you that you are God�s gift.

Then Lockwood says, �Is Trace Packer here too?�

Maggie doesn�t bother hiding her surprise. �You know Trace?�

�Let�s just say we partied a few times together in our day.�

�I bet.�

�Trace knows how to party.� He looks around. �I figured you�re both here to fundraise.�

�Our charity closed down.�

�I�m aware,� Charles Lockwood says.

�You seem aware of a lot of things.�

�I like to be in the know.�

�Do you know where Trace is?�

�No, why would I?� When Maggie doesn�t reply, he asks, �So are you here to, what, thank your old benefactor?�

�I told you I can�t talk about it,� Maggie says. Then, realizing what he said: �What benefactor?�

�Are you serious?�

�Do I look like I�m joking?�

Charles Lockwood moves a little closer. �Aren�t you one of the founders of WorldCures Alliance?�

�Yes.�

�And who was your biggest donor?�

�The Kasselton Foundation.�

�Operated by?�

�I don�t know. I mean, the financial stuff was more Trace�s area of expertise. I met a few board members��

�Oleg Ragoravich,� Charles Lockwood says.

She almost takes a step back.

�You really didn�t know?� Charles seems amused now. �The Kasselton Foundation is funded by none other than our host.�

Maggie just stands there and tries not to look surprised. She isn�t sure what to say and doesn�t want to make the mistake of saying more. She doesn�t know Charles Lockwood. She doesn�t get what�s going on or why he�s here or if she should believe him. In her peripheral vision, she spots Nadia making her way toward them, wearing a shimmery silver gown. The crowd parts Red Sea � like as she strides with runway grace toward them. All heads turn and follow.

Charles Lockwood leans closer to Maggie and whispers, �Take care of yourself, Maggie. Stay alert.�

Then he slips away.

Nadia says that she�s going to say goodnight to Oleg before heading to bed.

�Do you mind if I come with you?� Maggie asks.

Nadia shrugs, so Maggie follows her up the stairs and around the corner. There is a gold door with two beefy bodyguards on either side. Nadia says something in Russian. One of the bodyguards barks something back and points at Maggie with his chin. Nadia explains who Maggie is, or at least, that�s what Maggie assumes. The bodyguard talks into his watch. A few seconds later, the door opens. Nadia enters first. Maggie is right behind her.

The room is done up in a gaudy red velvet that a Vegas brothel might consider over-the-top. The floor is blanketed in beanbag chairs and oversize pillows and various low-level seating, all punctuated by glass-piped, multi-hose/multiuser hookahs. You could probably fit a hundred people in here for an orgy � that looks like the room�s natural use � but right now there is only one person: Oleg Ragoravich. He stands by one long windowed wall. The windows are one-way and at an angle so you can look down at the ballroom, but the ballroom can�t look in on you. Maggie remembers the mirrors lining the top of the wall where the crown molding is. She figures that this is the other side of those mirrors.

Ragoravich doesn�t turn when they enter. He stares down at his ballroom not unlike an emperor at the Colosseum. Nadia says something in Russian. Maggie catches the end, �dobre noche,� meaning good night. Oleg waves and mutters the same words back. Nadia doesn�t wait. She turns and heads back out the door without another word or even a glance, leaving Oleg and Maggie alone.

Oleg still has his back to Maggie.

�Are you going down?� she asks him.

�Later.� He points through the window below. His voice is suddenly soft. �I saw you.�

�In the ballroom, you mean?�

�Yes. How�s the food?�

�Eh, not bad. You could have spent a little more, gone for the upgraded appetizers.�

He still doesn�t turn around, but she can see a small smile from where she stands. �You saw the stage?�

�Yes.�

�Do you know who�s going to play?�

�No.�

�Elton John. Are you a fan?�

Maggie nods. �He�s one of my favorites.�

He finally turns and faces her. �Mine too.�

�I�m almost tempted to stay up,� Maggie says.

�Please do.�

�I have surgery tomorrow.�

�True.�

�So do you.�

�Yes, but I�ll be asleep for it,� Oleg says.

�True.�

He stares down at his guests. �Greed isn�t what you think it is.�

His voice is thick with drink, or maybe that�s just sadness.

�What do you mean?�

�The problem is, you can�t go back. You can try. But human nature never lets you. Wherever you are, that becomes ground zero. Greed is not �I need more� � it�s the fear of losing what you already have. Of going back. So you hold on tighter and keep trying to climb up. Because that�s the only way you can go. Life won�t let you stand still. You are either on your way up or you�re on your way down. And you�ll do anything not to go down.�

�That,� Maggie says, �sounds like the very definition of greed.�

He chuckles without humor. �Or a wonderful rationalization for it.�

�That too. Are you all right, Mr. Ragoravich?�

�I�m fine,� he says. �We all have our moments of melancholy.�

Maggie thinks about what Nadia said, about the rich not having real problems and how their melancholy is a luxury. What must her reaction be when her oligarch gets gloomy?

�When did I first come on your radar?� she asks.

�You mean as a physician?�

�I mean in any way.�

�I don�t know. I leave these affairs to Ivan.�

�I was his choice, then?�

�Why are you asking me this?�

�Have you heard of WorldCures Alliance?�

He frowns. �That was the charitable foundation you ran before... before your troubles?�

�Yes. Did you donate to it?�

�No. I don�t think I ever heard of it until Ivan gave me your r�sum�.�

�Have you heard of the Kasselton Foundation?�

�No, should I have?�

�You�re not connected to it?�

�No.� He turns back to her. �Did someone at the ball tell you I was?�

Maggie isn�t sure of the right move here. She could lie, of course, or try to back away, but there is a good chance Oleg Ragoravich would figure out where she heard this. He told her already that he�d been watching her at the ball. He may have even seen her talking to Charles Lockwood. Even if he hadn�t, the entire ballroom is probably under CCTV surveillance. He could search the footage for it.

Taking all of that into account, Maggie settles for a half-truth. �Someone hinted it, yes.�

�Who?�

�An American. I didn�t catch his name.�

�From the ball?�

�Yes.�

Oleg smiles. �Every American here is in the CIA.� Then his eyes suddenly darken. �Does he know why you�re here?�

�No.�

�You didn�t tell him?�

�Of course not.�

Oleg Ragoravich takes a second, then seems satisfied with that answer. She should leave it there, let it go, but she can�t.

�Why would someone tell me you finance the Kasselton Foundation?�

�Who? This sketchy American whose name you can�t remember?�

�Yes.�

�I have no idea.� Oleg meets her eyes and holds them. �But I swear on the lives of my children, I don�t know what the Kasselton Foundation is.�

He may be a psychopath, but Maggie believes him.

�Do you mind if I ask you one more thing?�

He gestures for her to go ahead.

�Why are you getting this surgery?�

He frames his face with his hands. �You mean because I�m already so handsome?�

�Ten, maybe fifteen years ago,� Maggie says, �I was part of a group of reconstructive surgeons who were invited to the Marshals Service headquarters in Arlington. They run the Witness Protection Program. You know what that is?�

�Of course.�

�They wanted our opinion on what operations we could perform on the face, so that those who entered the program would be unrecognizable to their enemies.�

�Makes sense.�

�It does,� Maggie agrees, �except our conclusion was, there really was nothing much you could do. You could change hairstyle and color. You could do some eye or ear work, try to give them a rhinoplasty, that sort of thing. But in the end, they mostly looked the same, just with a facelift.�

�Interesting,� Oleg says. �I assume you think this applies to me.�

�Does it?�

Oleg doesn�t answer. �It was nice talking to you, Maggie.�

�And you.�

�Are you going back to the ball?�

She shakes her head. �I have to be up early for surgery.�

�We can push it back a few hours. For Elton�s sake.�

�Tempting.�

�But?�

�But no.�

Oleg Ragoravich turns so that his back is facing her again. �Will it be painful?�

�The recovery? You�ll be a little uncomfortable for a few days. No activity for two weeks. That includes sex.�

He says nothing.

�Anything else?� she asks.

�I see you�re getting close to Nadia.�

Maggie wonders what he means by that. She chooses to tread carefully. �She�s a patient. I need to make sure she�s cleared for this surgery.�

�Seems more than that to you,� he says. He points down to the ballroom. �I was watching.�

�It isn�t more. Why, is there a problem?�

�No, but you don�t speak Russian, do you?�

�No.�

�And of course, Nadia can�t speak a word of English.� His voice has some sarcasm in it, but his tone is closer to regret or even sorrow. �So I wonder � how do you two communicate?�

Oleg holds a hand up before Maggie can say anything. �I know. I�ve always known.�

�Know what exactly?�

�That Nadia tells a lot of stories about herself,� he says. Then he adds: �None of them are true.�

God, how Maggie has missed this.

In medical terms, the suffix plasty � as in rhinoplasty and blepharoplasty and genioplasty and mammoplasty � means �repair,� �restore,� �replace.� It comes from the Greek word �plastia,� which means �to mold� � and that is what it means to Maggie. Mold. Repair. Restore. It�s science. It�s art. The clay you create with is human flesh. There is no greater honor or responsibility than being a surgeon. For most of her career, Maggie dealt with soldiers and children with severe injuries and deformities. With her own two hands, she had the ability to mold, repair, restore them. Imagine that for a moment. Imagine what a privilege it is to do that kind of work, to make a living that way, to have people put that kind of trust in you and your abilities, to make them whole again.

How had she let herself betray that trust?

The obvious rationales � a butchered husband, a dead mother, whatever � none of that could ever excuse what she did. She had been given the greatest gift possible � the ability to heal through artistic creation � and she had squandered it.

Now she has been gifted this reprieve � for one day, at least.

Maggie goes through the same routine she�s gone through hundreds if not thousands of times before � wash the hands, don the scrubs, tie the mask over the nose and mouth, snap on the gloves � but there is nothing routine about it. Not today. When she enters the surgical theater, emotions fly toward her hard and fast, nearly overwhelming her. Tears come to her eyes. She holds steady. She stops and takes a few deep breaths before approaching the table where Oleg Ragoravich lies unconscious. Her support staff � that�s how she views them, as hers � are poised and ready.

This, Maggie knows, is where she belongs.

The operating room is her temple, her church, her sanctuary. Marc was home for her. She was home for Marc. But she and Marc both knew that here, in the cathedral they called an OR, was where they felt their most whole, their most complete.

She loved that about Marc. And he loved that about her.

They were the luckiest people in the world, weren�t they?

Once Maggie asks for a scalpel, once she makes the mid-columellar inverted-V incision to access the underlying cartilage, her heart rate slows down. The calm enters her bloodstream. She settles back into this state of blissful creation. She would curse herself for not appreciating this feeling, this reverence, this calling, but she�d always understood and appreciated how special and extraordinary it was to be a surgeon.

And she�d blown it anyway.

That�s what we stupid humans do. We carry the seeds of our own self-destruction.

She focuses now on the work to the point where she gets lost in it. Time passes. She has no idea how much. There are TV-like monitors so she can watch � they are in most operating rooms now � but she almost never needs them. It takes a little longer than she expects to clear away the nose cartilage so she can fit the marvel that is the artificial nose scaffold into place. She had hurried down three hours ago and geeked out when the technician showed the artificial scaffold to her. The material was, well, a nose � flimsy and stiff and malleable and brittle all at the same time.

She starts with this procedure because it is new and thus the most difficult. But it goes smoothly. She then moves on to the eyelids. She wants this feeling to last � to take her time, to remain in this state of pure contentment � but she knows it can�t. It doesn�t work that way. Surgery has its own organic, quasi-circadian rhythm. You can�t mess with it to please your own needs.

She marks the natural folds around the eye and then uses a curved size 15 blade to make the incisions. She removes excess skin, muscle, and fat and closes the wounds up. The sliding genioplasty, a very specific type of chin augmentation, is next. She cuts through the mandibular symphysis � in layman�s terms, the chin bone � and shifts it with her gloved hand. She harvests the fat from Oleg�s abdomen via liposuction and transfers it to the face. Then she molds and shapes and shifts until Oleg�s chin and jawline resemble the chin and jawline in the photographs.

Ivan Brovski is scrubbed and masked. He watches everything in silence. When he sees her close to finishing, he says, �Odd.�

�What?�

�You�re even better than your reputation.�

Maggie should be above feeling pleased by the flattery, but the truth is, she�s not. Maybe she would have been in the past. Not now. She closes up, and when she exits the operating room, Maggie sees that the total operating time on Oleg Ragoravich was three hours and fifteen minutes. Not bad. Maggie paces, feeling wired and jazzed. She can�t wait to get back in there. The operating room is soon ready for Nadia�s breast augmentation. Ivan Brovski is already there. Like before, she ignores him. Not out of malice or annoyance. She�s just in the zone. She doesn�t want anything interfering with that. If Brovski wants to watch, so be it. But she doesn�t feel the need to facilitate or hinder.

Focus. Stay in the moment.

As with most surgeries, intermittent pneumatic compression devices � think inflatable leg-squeezing machines or high-tech compression boots � are placed on the patient�s legs. This is to regulate blood flow and prevent deep vein thrombosis or again, layman�s terms, a blood clot. The Bovie pad is already stuck on Nadia�s upper thigh. Put simply, it�s a grounding pad used to channel electric currents away from the patient�s body.

Maggie would have wanted to go with the most cutting-edge method of breast augmentation � using a patient�s own fat � but Nadia didn�t have enough fat to donate, and that procedure would have been too subtle a change for what she (or Oleg) wanted. Instead, they were going with the aptly nicknamed, state-of-the-art �gummy bear� implants � solid gel breast implants known for shape retention and realistic consistency. If you slice traditional silicone breast implants in half, the material will leak out like honey. That�s not the case with the more solidified gummy bears.

Most people think they know how breast augmentation works: The surgeon makes the incision, creates a pocket behind the pectoral muscle, places the implant in the pocket, and then centers it behind the nipple. That�s all true, but for the best work, you need to strap the unconscious patient to the operating table so that at some point, you can sit them up in a Fowler position. It is really the only way to evaluate the breast shape and assess the placement. Think about it. Do you want them to look natural only when you�re lying down? Or do you care what they look like when you�re sitting or walking? Duh. To not have the patient cranked up to a seated position because of hemodynamic concerns that have pretty much been laid to rest in study after study is, in Maggie�s view, negligence.

The scrub nurse presses the operating table�s button, moving the strapped-in Nadia into an upright position. Maggie inserts the various sizers and then stands back to see which ones are most symmetrical and appropriate for Nadia�s frame. She has, as Brovski mentioned, the three sizes from which to choose. Dr. Deutsch, her mentor in this procedure, told her that when in doubt, go with the larger one because when it�s over, almost every woman he�s worked on says they wished they had gone a little bigger. Maggie keeps that in mind, but she also believes, perhaps wrongly, that Nadia is being somewhat coerced into doing this. In the end, the three hundred ccs, the smallest of the three sizes, provide the best aesthetic anyway, so Maggie goes with that.

At some point Ivan Brovski exits without a goodbye. Maggie idly wonders about that, but again this isn�t about him. It�s about the patient and the procedure.

A few minutes later, Maggie finishes up with sutures and steps back.

It�s over.

Except it most definitely is not.

The scrub nurse turns off the ESU or Electrical Surgical Unit. Then she pulls the Bovie pad off Nadia�s upper right quadricep.

And everything changes.

Maggie freezes and feels her world start to spiral.

�Doctor?�

Nadia has a tattoo on her leg. Maggie bends down for a closer look.

The tattoo is garish orange and purple. It�s a cartoonish image of a goofily smiling serpent with a halo and a silly wink.

�Doctor McCabe, are you okay?�

Maggie has seen only one tattoo like this before.

On Marc�s leg.

Ivan Brovski escorts her back to her bedroom. CinderBlock follows a few paces behind. When Brovski opens the door to her room, she moves to the window and looks out. There are more suited men scouring the front lawn.

�What�s going on, Ivan?� she asks.

�Nothing that concerns you,� Brovski says. �Here.�

She turns to him. Brovski extends his hand.

Her phone is in it.

Maggie resists the temptation to snatch it away. Doesn�t want to look too eager. Her hand reaches out and closes around it. Ivan holds on for another second. Their eyes meet.

�Just so you know,� he says, �we deleted your sister�s app.�

He waits for her to react. Maggie gives him nothing.

�Out of an abundance of caution,� Brovski continues. �I hope you understand.�

She doesn�t reply.

�You�ll be home soon. I�m sure your sister can provide you with a new one then.�

Nothing.

�Also,� he adds, �the battery is very low. Don�t worry though. A charger will be provided for you on the plane.�

Show him nothing, Maggie tells herself. �How long until the helicopter arrives?� she asks.

�Ten minutes.�

�This outfit is itchy,� Maggie tells him. �I�m going to change into something else for the trip.�

�Of course.�

Maggie heads into the bathroom and closes the door. The bathroom is what you�d expect � gold, marble, ornate. She waits to hear him leave. When he does, Maggie turns on the shower � and then she unlocks the phone.

Yep, the griefbot app is gone. Or at least, the little icon is.

Maggie doesn�t know much about technology, but what Brovski�s undoubtedly cocky experts don�t know is that Sharon sets up her proprietary apps so that they cannot be deleted without facial recognition from both Sharon and Maggie, plus a password. If someone else tries to delete them � like Brovski�s experts � the icon does indeed vanish from the screen so that it appears deleted � but in reality, it just moves to a hidden folder.

Maggie swipes, hits the news app, which isn�t really a news app, and accesses the hidden folder.

And voil�, the griefbot app is there.

She allows herself a small smile. Sharon, she thinks, you friggin� overcautious, anal genius.

She clicks the icon and AI Marc returns.

�Hey,� Griefbot Marc says to her.

The battery is indeed low, maybe 10 percent. No time to waste. �Tell me about your tattoo.�

�I must have told you a hundred times, but okay. I was in New Orleans��

�That�s a lie, Marc.�

�What?�

�I need you to tell me the truth.�

The bot even perfectly mimicks Marc�s perplexed expression. Well, if Marc had indeed been genuinely perplexed when he was alive. Maybe that had been an act. Maybe it had all been a lie.

No, she tells herself, don�t do that.

Don�t start questioning everything about the man you loved.

�I need to know about the tattoo, Marc. I�m not angry or anything. You probably had your reasons for not telling me. But that�s in the past. I need to know now.�

�Maggie, I don�t know what you�re talking about.�

�I saw a woman who had the exact same tattoo on her leg.�

AI Marc grins. �Hey, maybe it�s an ex,� he says.

�What?�

�You know, like as a tribute. Someone who couldn�t get over me. Come on, don�t be jealous.�

Maggie makes a face. The app thinks she�s joking.

�Though in truth,� he continues, �well, I show it to a lot of people. I mean, when I�m wearing shorts. Or at the beach or something. It always gets a laugh, you know that��

�Marc, I need you to listen to me. I�m being serious here.�

Sharon had warned about this. She had created a griefbot so much like the real Marc that it would also withhold truths that the real Marc might. �If Real Marc would have lied about it, so would Griefbot Marc,� Sharon had told her. �Like, if Marc really didn�t like a dress you wore but would lie to spare your feelings, so will AI Marc. And to get more serious, let�s say Marc secretly gambled or had another wife in Akron or whatever � something he would keep from you � so will AI Marc.�

In short, if Real Marc wouldn�t tell her the truth about the tattoo, neither would AI Marc.

�This is life and death,� Maggie continues, because she needs to reach this... this artificial being. Not Marc. A hell of a facsimile but still just that. Not more. �Whatever reason you had for lying to me about the tattoo? It�s not important anymore. Water under the bridge. You�d do anything to protect me, right?�

�Of course. Maggie, you know that.�

�Then tell me about the tattoo. The truth.�

�I was in college. I was in New Orleans. I had too much to drink��

�The truth, Marc.�

�That�s the truth. I was on spring break��

�I just did surgery on a patient,� Maggie interrupts.

Griefbot Marc�s face changes. He is now the serious, focused, great-listening husband-colleague she could bounce cases off of. �Okay. Give me the details.�

�A twenty-four-year-old woman.�

�Procedure?�

�Breast augmentation.�

�Okay, right. So?�

�So when I looked at her upper right quadricep, she had the same Serpent and Saint tattoo you have. Not something close. Not like what Porkchop or the gang have. The exact same as yours. The same design. The same colors. The same location on the upper thigh.�

AI Marc shakes his head. �That�s impossible.�

�Marc��

�I�m serious. That makes no sense at all. That tattoo guy in New Orleans. I think he was more wasted than I was. That�s where I got it.�

�It�s on her leg,� she counters, trying not to shout with frustration. �It�s real. I saw it. Marc��

�Wait, I got it.�

�I�m listening.�

�It�s a prank.�

�It�s not a prank.�

�Has to be. I�ve done the calculations, Maggie. Wait, I bet it�s Randi. She always made jokes about the tattoo � and she loves pranks.�

Randi Edmunds had been Maggie�s lead scrub nurse.

�Remember that prank she pulled on April Fools� with the ties on the surgical gowns. Randi has to be behind this. She drew a tattoo on your patient�s leg to mess with you. It�s just the kind of thing Randi��

�It�s not a prank,� she snaps back.

Time is running low. Maggie knows that.

�It�s not Randi Edmunds. She�s not even here. Please, Marc, I need you to tell me the truth.�

Maggie hears a knock on the door and then someone enters. From behind the bathroom door, Ivan Brovski shouts out, �Doctor McCabe?�

The shower is still on.

�Sorry!� Maggie shouts back. �I just wanted to rinse off again. I�ll be out in a minute.�

There is a small pause. Then Brovski says, �The helicopter will be here in five minutes. Please hurry.�

�Right, got it.�

She drops her phone hand to her side and wonders what to do next. That�s when she hears Marc�s tinny voice coming from the phone:

�Maggie, why are you with Ivan Brovski?�

Maggie�s blood goes cold. She raises the phone back to her face, so she can see Griefbot Marc�s face again. �You know Ivan Brovski?�

�Yes.�

�How?�

�Where are you, Maggie?�

�At an oligarch�s house somewhere in Russia.�

�Oleg Ragoravich.�

�Yes.�

�What are you doing there?�

�Barlow got me a high-paying concierge gig.�

�To do what?�

�The breast augmentation I just told you about?�

�That�s it?�

�No, I also did three facial surgeries on Ragoravich.�

�Why did he want that?�

�I don�t know.�

�Did I hear Brovski say something about a helicopter?�

�I�ve finished the surgeries,� Maggie explains. �They�re flying me home.�

�On the copter?�

�Yes.�

�Maggie?�

She looks at the screen and keeps it close. She recognizes that facial expression too.

Marc is scared.

�Whatever you do,� he says to her, �don�t get on that helicopter.�

The cold rips through her. �Why not?�

�There is an abandoned iron ore mine two miles away. No one knows how deep the hole is. Five, six thousand feet at least.�

�So?�

�So if you get on that helicopter, they will throw you into it.�

�Marc��

�You don�t understand these people.�

�And you do?�

�You performed facial surgery to change Ragoravich�s looks, Maggie. They can�t let you live. Do you understand what I�m telling you?�

The knock on the bathroom door startles her.

�Let�s go, Doctor McCabe,� Brovski says. �I�m losing my patience.�

�Maggie,� AI Marc says, �you have to run.�

The alarm startles Sharon.

It is late, way past anyone rational�s sleep time, but Sharon is awake. She usually is. She requires very little sleep, or at least, she gets very little sleep. Her mind has a tendency to run too hot. It is hard to shut it off. At one point, someone had suggested meditation, but just the thought of clearing the mind or turning off her brain or whatever stupid-speak people use merely to describe this awful experience caused Sharon anxiety to the point of a near panic attack. She doesn�t buy it anyway. Asking any human to stop thinking is akin to asking them to stop their heart from beating. You can�t. Not really. Sharon understands that better than most. Most people could control their thoughts in one way or another. Or experience mental fatigue and exhaustion.

Sharon could not.

She�d been reading a novel in the leather chair in her bedroom. Cole is in bed. Oddly enough, while she can rip through journals and manuals and technical books, she reads novels slowly, leisurely, making sure every scene comes to life in full color in her head. This is the closest she gets to shutting down � distracting her brain with fiction rather than problem-solving.

Sharon sits up when she hears the alarm. Her bookmark has Edward Hopper�s The Sheridan Theatre on it. Sharon�s favorite painting. Maggie had bought it for her at the Newark Museum gift shop when they visited in May.

Sharon places the Hopper bookmark between pages ninety-two and ninety-three, closes the book, rises.

Her mind is a constantly whirring thing, her brain overheating � it makes life unbearable in many ways. It makes it impossible for a man to stay with her. To love her. Tad had tried. In the end it hadn�t worked. Her... Is it a condition? Hard to say. Everything is called a condition now. You shake your leg, you have some big diagnosis. Sharon doesn�t buy it all. Is she on the spectrum or autistic or something like that? Undoubtedly. Does it matter? She isn�t sure. But this is how she was built and so her �condition� (let�s just call it that for now) eventually drove Tad away. She hadn�t expected him to become bitter. That had taken her aback. But she knows � and not in a pathetic, needy, pitiful way � that she is unlovable. She could be a decent mom and daughter and sister. She could be a pretty good friend. But her condition makes her unworthy of true companionship or love.

So be it.

The alarm sounds again, jangling her nerves. Sharon is a cautious person. You have to be in this business. Every software or AI enhancement she creates has backdoors and security traps, even the ones she�s provided to the government. Especially those. She could destroy the programs at any time. She could see whether someone tampered with them...

...and she could see if someone tried to delete them.

That � Sharon can see immediately when she fires up her laptop to check the alarm status � is what happened here.

Someone has tried to delete the griefbot on Maggie�s phone.

This is not good.

It doesn�t take a genius to figure that out. Sharon had done as Maggie asked. Up until now, she has respected her sister�s desire for privacy. Maggie had gone up to New York City to see Evan Barlow. Barlow had offered Maggie some kind of high-paying but secretive work. Maggie had told Sharon that she couldn�t say more because it would violate HIPAA and privacy clauses. Fair enough. Sharon let it go.

Sharon accepted the financial good fortune that had come their way, even though she knew that there had to be a price to pay somewhere for it.

Is now the time to pay up?

Someone tried to delete the griefbot.

It couldn�t be Maggie. Maggie knows that she can�t do it alone. Sharon had wondered about that. She had built every app and software program so that the only way it could be altered, touched, or deleted in any way was via Sharon�s direct involvement. She�d wondered whether this whole griefbot testing thing had been a mistake. The power of this particular griefbot is both enticing and destructive, but when you think about it, when you really think about it, that�s true of every invention that makes an impact.

There is no such thing as a consequence-free discovery.

It is what man chooses to do with it.

Sharon is a scientist first. She sees things from that perspective, and again that makes her cold in too many ways. Still, Sharon remembers Tad�s long body on the couch, the way he would lie behind her and spoon her, and now that same man hates her and wants to destroy her.

So be it.

Perhaps she shouldn�t have pushed Maggie with the griefbot. Sharon had rationalized that it would help her sister deal with the grief. But had that really mattered next to Sharon�s blinding drive for scientific progress? Marc�s death had been so sudden, so brutal, so shocking, that transitioning with an experimental AI version could offer real comfort, Sharon rationalized. But at the very least, Sharon should have given Maggie the option of deleting the app on her own.

Now, staring at the alarm, Sharon wonders why someone would try to delete Maggie�s griefbot. She can�t come up with an answer, but one thing is crystal clear.

Maggie is in trouble.

Porkchop spreads the printouts on the bar. Sharon stands over him. They are at Vipers for Bikers. It is eight a.m. Last year, Porkchop started opening for a Full Throttle Breakfast with specials like Rise and Ride, the Biker�s Breakfast Slam, and the house specialty, Pit Stop Pancakes. It�s proven to be a hit with the tourists.

�Okay,� Porkchop says, �explain to me what I�m seeing.�

�There is a proprietary beta UX app I created on Maggie�s phone.�

�Uh-huh.�

�It contains certain features involving the Doppler effect, CDRs, GPS, triangulation��

�Sharon,� Porkchop says.

�Yes?�

�Are you saying you can track Maggie?�

�Yes. No. Well, I could. Maggie didn�t explain what my new program can do, did she?�

Porkchop gives her a look. �You know I don�t own a smartphone, right?�

�It�s why I took the first train here,� Sharon says.

�I�m sorry about that.�

�So Maggie never mentioned an app?�

�An app to me is chicken wings,� Porkchop says.

Sharon nods. �Of course she wouldn�t,� she says, more to herself than to him.

�I�m not following.�

�It�s...� Sharon shakes it off. �Never mind, it�s not important. What�s important is that the app was on her phone. It�s an important app. For her. For me. It could one day also be worth a lot of money. She visited you when she came up to see Doctor Barlow, right?�

�Right.�

�And then she took some job. Something very lucrative. All of a sudden, all my debt was gone.�

Porkchop nods. �I know. He flew her someplace.�

�Russia,� Sharon says. �A remote region near Gelendzhik north of the Black Sea.�

�She told you this?�

�No. Look at the printout. It follows her route.�

�Your, uh, app does this?�

�Yes.�

�Sharon, I don�t know much about technology, but wouldn�t you lose the ability to track when it�s in the air or off Wi-Fi or whatever?�

�If you used strictly Wi-Fi or cellular services, yes. But I�ve been able to keep the app active by tying the frequency into governmental satellite LEOs � that�s Low Earth orbit��

�Sharon.�

�Right, sorry. Here�s the point. Someone tried to delete the app off Maggie�s phone.� Sharon raises her hand as though to stop him. �No, it wasn�t Maggie. She would know that it couldn�t be done this way. The most rational reason is that someone took away her phone, didn�t like that app being on it, and tried to delete it.�

�What�s on the app?�

Sharon hesitates.

�Sharon?�

�You wouldn�t understand. And it�s not really important. What does matter is that someone took possession of Maggie�s phone, undoubtedly against her will.�

�So she�s in trouble,� Porkchop says.

�Yes.�

�Can you use the L-E-whatever to tell us where she is now?�

�Here�s where she was yesterday. I brought the satellite image.�

She reaches over him and turns the page.

Porkchop studies the page. �I assume the red dot is her?�

�Yes.�

�I only see trees.�

�I know. I had to zoom out. There are roads, but whatever building is there, it�s being blocked.�

�What does that mean?�

�It means someone rich and powerful lives there. He doesn�t want his house seen via satellite. He wants to stay hidden.�

Porkchop says nothing.

�So at 2:13 a.m. local time yesterday,� Sharon continues, �someone tech savvy found a way past Maggie�s facial recognition and got into her phone. Forty-eight minutes later, someone tried to delete my proprietary beta app. It�s tricked up so that the person who does it will think they succeeded, but they didn�t. That triggered an alarm that reached me around three in the morning.�

�What else do you know?�

�The app was later reinstalled.�

�How�s that?�

�I don�t know. Perhaps the experts are better than I thought and figured it out. Or maybe Maggie got her phone back. I don�t know. The estate has a cell phone jammer. In short, the phone has not been used at all since her arrival. No calls allowed in or out. No emails or messaging. No Wi-Fi or internet access.�

�But your, uh, app. That still works?�

�Yes. Because it uses LEO satellites. That�s how I can still track it. Most people believe that if you are off Wi-Fi or cellular service, you can�t be tracked. That�s not true. You can be. Even if a phone is off, you can be tracked.� Sharon shakes it off. �Let me get to the point.�

�That would be helpful, yeah.�

�Someone took Maggie�s phone. Someone broke into it. Someone tried to delete the app. That sent me the warning. Several hours later, the phone, which had been in a location where cellular access was blocked, moved out of that bubble long enough to make a call.�

�Who did Maggie call?�

�We don�t know it was Maggie,� Sharon says. �But it�s a Lithuanian phone number. It�s the kind designed to be untraceable.�

�Okay, so where�s Maggie�s phone now?�

�That�s another issue,� Sharon says. �I can�t trace it anymore.�

�So, what, it ran out of batteries, or someone turned it off?�

Sharon shakes her head. �I told you. Even if a phone is off, you can track it.�

�So?� Porkchop asks.

�So,� Sharon says, �someone destroyed it.�

The end of the dream, if this is a dream, is always the most painful.

She is with Marc again. Somehow, she both knows he is dead and yet completely accepts that he is alive. Yes, this makes no sense, but that�s true of most dreams when you analyze them. Or maybe it�s different this time. In the past, Marc has always come to her. This time, maybe, just maybe, she is coming to him. Either way, Marc is there. They sit at an old wooden table in the middle of a vineyard. There are two glasses of red wine in front of them. Neither has been touched. The sun is setting, the sky a burnt orange. She and Marc sit side by side. He looks out over the vineyard. She stares at his profile. She can�t look away. She fell in love with that profile. It belongs on a Roman coin, she would joke. A tear runs down Marc�s cheek. �I promise you that your life will be extraordinary,� he says to her. Those had been the closing words of his wedding vows. She remembers how overwhelmed she�d been when he said it, standing in front of everyone they loved and cared about, that line, that final line. �I promise you that your life will be extraordinary.� Damn, she�d thought at that moment, such a good line that when she finished her own vows, she�d repeated it. �I promise you that your life will be extraordinary.� Not happy. Not fulfilling. Not complete. Extraordinary. They were not going to buy that suburban house and work in private practice and do the work of married physicians with two-point-four kids and a barbecue in the yard and a basketball hoop in the driveway. In the dream, a tear runs down Marc�s cheek, as it did when he spoke on their wedding day. But that tear had been one of joy. This one is not. She takes his hand. His hand is real, she notices. She can feel it. She wouldn�t be able to feel it if it was a dream. It�s flesh. It�s Marc�s hand. This is reality. Marc is alive. So why is her heart sinking? He finally turns to look at her and when he does, his grip slackens. No, no. Stay. You�re here. With me. But Marc is pulling away. She reaches out and grabs the hand tighter. But the hand is gone. He�s still there. The tear is still on his cheek. Comfort him. Love him enough so that he would never ever go. She throws her arms around him, pulls him close. Don�t go. Please, Marc, stay. This isn�t a dream. This is real. Except now she is starting to awaken. There is nothing crueler. She tries desperately to swim back down, to stay, to cling to this old wooden table in this dream vineyard. Marc is alive here. That�s all that matters. But something is pushing her to the surface. She fights it. But she knows she can�t win. Marc begins to fade away. She is in that crest now, that strange crest between the dream world and full consciousness. There is clarity here, terrible clarity � this is only a dream; Marc is still dead � and it crushes her anew. She feels the tears on her cheeks, real ones, and she knows.

Marc is gone. Marc is dead.

When Maggie blinks her eyes open, a man�s face is staring down at her.

It�s not Marc, of course. It�s Charles Lockwood. The playboy from Ragoravich�s ball.

�You�re okay,� he says to her. �You were hurt in a car accident. But you�re okay now.�

The dream flees. It is amazing and merciful how fast that happens. The only remnants are the tears on her cheek. Maggie opens her mouth to speak to him, but nothing comes out.

�Here,� Lockwood tells her. �Take these.�

He scoops some ice chips into a cup and puts them in her mouth. Maggie knows the move � it gives someone water but won�t let them take in too much at once. Charles wears a white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up on his knotted forearms. He checks her vitals. The playboy is gone now. The physician has emerged.

�Don�t try to talk yet. Just tap your finger once for yes, twice for no. Do you remember the accident?�

It takes a second and then the memories of her escape rush in � opening the bedroom window, the biting cold, the roof, the gunfire, the Ferrari. It�s all there. Jumbled maybe. But enough.

They�d chased her. They�d shot at her. They wanted her dead.

She had tried to get away. Something hit her. She lost control...

She signals yes. She does so with the finger tap, but she also tests out a head nod. The pain is minimal.

�How...?� she manages to say.

�You reached out to me.�

She gives him a confused face.

�The phone number you called. Our emergency line. It came through. We moved fast.�

Emergency line. She tries to remember. Her head is swimming. The phone number. The one the Marc griefbot had given her. When she tries to speak, Lockwood shakes his head and tells her that she should rest. She ignores that and tries again to shake her vocal cords free. When she finally gets out a few words, they sound muffled and far away. �You knew Marc.�

�I did, yes. I assume he gave you my phone number?�

How to answer that...? She can�t. Not really. So she just nods.

�There�s a lot to tell you, Doctor McCabe,� Lockwood says. �I need your mind clear for that. It�s not yet. I know, I know. You think you�re ready. But you�re not.� He moves his chair closer to her. �First though, I need to know why you�re here.�

How to even explain it all to him?

�I need to know why you�re staying with Oleg Ragoravich.�

He waits. She lets her head fall back on the pillow. Her eyes close.

Does she trust him?

Marc � or the griefbot version anyway � had given Maggie his phone number and told her to call. That means when he was alive, Marc trusted Charles Lockwood. Shouldn�t that be enough? Maybe. But then again � and it may be because her head can�t stop spinning � how does she know what Charles Lockwood just told her about getting a call is true? Everyone has been playing head games with her. She knows that now. None of this is accidental or coincidental. Ever since Dr. Barlow approached her at Johns Hopkins, Maggie has felt the thing she hates the most � out of control. She feels manipulated, lied to, like she�s fighting against too strong a current. So is Charles Lockwood another part of that? Is he telling the truth or another liar?

There is one way to know for sure: Ask the griefbot.

She sucks on more ice chips. There�s an IV in her arm. She takes a second or two to scan herself and assess her own injuries. There are places of soreness and pain, but she feels pretty damn good. She wants to ask him about that, about her injuries, but she gets that right now Charles is focused on his own questions. When the chips melt and her mouth is moist enough to speak, she says two words: �My phone.�

�What?�

�I need my phone.�

�I don�t advise you calling anyone,� he says. �They�ll be monitoring anyone close to you.�

�Who will be monitoring?�

He shakes his head and scooches a little closer. �Maggie, listen to me. I will explain everything when you�re ready. It�s a lot. But right now � and I can�t stress how important this is � I need to know why you were staying at Oleg Ragoravich�s house.�

�I need my phone first.�

�I don�t have it,� he says. He leans back, blinks, runs his hand through his hair. �Your� � he stops, searches the air for the word � �extraction � it was not easy. Do you remember the crash?�

She nods.

�A bullet grazed your upper back. Wait, are you in pain? I should have asked you that first.�

�I�m fine,� she says.

�The old Ferrari didn�t have seat belts and luckily, I guess, your windshield was shot out. So you didn�t slam into it on impact. You rolled down a ravine. That�s what saved you. You were hard to reach. Ragoravich�s men couldn�t get to you right away. They figured the exposure would kill you anyway. You have frostnip, by the way � you�re lucky it wasn�t full-on frostbite. That will hurt for a while. Point is, they saw no point in rushing to you. The ravine is tricky in the snow. That gave us time to get there.� He looks off, his eyes welling up. �Do you remember an SUV chasing you?�

She nods.

�There were two men in it. They�re both dead.�

Silence.

�So I don�t know where your phone is. In that Ferrari, I guess. Maybe in that ravine, I don�t know. It�s not important. We can get you another. If you�re too tired to answer questions��

�I�m not.�

�You had my emergency phone number,� Charles says.

�Yes.�

�Only one way: Marc gave it to you before he died.�

That wasn�t the way, of course, but it would be too much to explain the griefbot right now.

�And if he gave you the number, then you know you can trust me.�

She doesn�t know that, but it makes sense. And what choice does she have? She doesn�t even know where she is. She only knows that Marc had warned her that Ragoravich or Brovski would try to kill her, that they had indeed tried, and that someone, probably Charles Lockwood, had saved her.

So why not? She had to trust someone.

�I was hired to do plastic surgery,� Maggie says.

Charles Lockwood frowns at that answer. �On?�

�Oleg and a young woman named Nadia.�

�That�s the mistress I saw you talking to?�

She nods.

�So how did they end up hiring you?�

She explains in spurts about Evan Barlow, about Nadia�s breast augmentation, about the facial surgeries on Oleg Ragoravich, about Ragoravich disappearing from his recovery room, about the sudden panic, about the attempt on her life. She doesn�t go into the griefbot. As she speaks, exhaustion wedges its way into her bloodstream and spreads. It takes everything she has to stay awake.

�You know it�s not a coincidence,� Lockwood says. �You being hired for this job.�

She does now, doesn�t she?

�Who are you?� she asks.

�My name is Charles Lockwood. Just as I said.�

�Are you CIA?�

�Let�s just say something like that.�

�Where am I?�

�You�re safe,� he says. �And to answer your next question, you�ve been here two days.�

Two days. Her head drops back on the pillow. She wants to ask a million more questions, wants to stay awake, but her eyes are starting to flutter closed.

�I want to know...� She stops speaking.

�You will. I�ll tell you everything soon. But one last thing for now.�

Her eyes are closed now.

In the dark, she hears his voice: �Where is Trace Packer?�

�Bangladesh maybe,� she tells him.

�No, he�s not. Trace is missing, Maggie. We think he may have intentionally gone off the grid.�

�I don�t understand.�

And then, as Maggie sinks under, hoping to head back to that dream in the vineyard, she could swear she hears Charles Lockwood say something that makes absolutely no sense: �We think Trace is trying to find your husband.�

Dubai

Maggie can�t stop thinking about what Porkchop said about Nadia.

Nadia is the reason she ended up at Oleg Ragoravich�s palace.

Nadia is why Maggie nearly got killed.

Nadia is the reason she is here right now in Dubai.

Why? How?

Lots of questions. No answers. Which makes the �plan� even more relevant.

Maggie has to visit Etoile Adiona tonight and find Nadia.

Back in her room, Maggie sits on the king-size bed and opens the first patient medical record. The bed, of course, faces the floor-to-ceiling windows. Night has fallen. The city is still a mirage, but now it�s one of glitz and shadows. The Burj Khalifa, the famed tower, pierces the night like a silent sentinel. The Dubai Fountain shimmers and glistens. Dubai feels remote and endless from up this high. It sparkles like polished diamonds against a jeweler�s black velvet. It dazzles and explodes. It beckons and holds you at bay with a firm hand.

She goes through the medical files. Two patients. One is a five-year-old girl who needs otoplasty � ear pinning surgery. Prominent ears are often an aesthetic concern, particularly so in this world. The human ear is about 80 percent of its adult size by the age of five, so that�s often when this is done � before the age when a kid will be made fun of in school.

The second surgery... Oh man, this is so in her wheelhouse.

Maggie can�t help but feel a huge adrenaline kick when she sees it: a four-year-old boy in need of cleft lip and palate repair � the quintessential reconstructive procedure for a plastic surgeon. As she reads through the file, Maggie starts rehearsing the palatoplasty in her head, her fingers subconsciously moving in sync with her thoughts � separating the palatine muscles, isolating them, creating the flaps along the roof of the mouth to reconstruct the soft and hard palate.

Damn. How she missed all this.

Half an hour later, she puts the files away and turns her attention back to the Nadia situation. She wishes she could ask the Marc griefbot about her, but then again, Maggie�s strong guess is that Sharon probably had and learned nothing important. Porkchop had used the �we� several times during their conversation. That hadn�t been an accident. That had been his way of warning her in case someone was listening in.

She�d figured that Porkchop would be ready for her call � and he was. Porkchop had answered the payphone himself, on the very first ring, which was not how it usually worked. That told her that things had gone pretty much thusly: When Oleg Ragoravich�s people tried to delete the griefbot from Maggie�s phone, Sharon got sent an alarm. Sharon realized that something was very wrong and went to the only person she knew Maggie trusted one hundred percent.

Porkchop.

From what Maggie now put together from the brief phone call, Porkchop had paid Dr. Evan Barlow a visit, probably demanding reassurances that Maggie was okay. Barlow told Porkchop about the concierge surgical work � and more importantly, about Nadia.

Again the key question: What is Nadia�s deal? What is her goal?

It has to be connected to WorldCures.

That much is clear to her now � and something about that keeps niggling at the base of Maggie�s skull. She�s missing something. It�s right there, right in the sweet spot (sour spot?) where she can�t stop thinking about Theory Three, the one where Marc is somehow still alive, and while she knows that theory is utter bullshit, knows that Marc is dead, knows that his beautiful body was hacked up into pieces by a machete in that refugee camp...

But now she wonders: Why did they hack him up?

It�s something she couldn�t really face before for obvious reasons, and true, Marc wasn�t the only corpse left in that state. There had been others. But not a lot of others. And of course, if you wanted to pull this off, if you planned to fake your death � and yes, she knows knows that he didn�t � you�d make sure your �corpse� wasn�t the only one mutilated beyond recognition, right? If it was only you, that would look suspicious. So you�d make sure that other dead bodies were also left in a similar, awful, gruesome state.

Stop.

But she can�t because something isn�t adding up. She knows that now.

Nadia.

There is a laptop in the room. Maggie figures it�s being monitored, but she doesn�t care. Not for this. It�s a long shot, a tremendous one, and yet...

Using Google, Maggie finds Ray Levine�s website. The top title reads:

Maggie met Ray Levine when he�d been embedded with her unit during four combat missions. That�s where he�d taken the famous photograph of her and Trace on that copter over Kamdesh. Ray Levine had battled some strange demons in his life, and perhaps that made him so able to capture the �beautiful awful� � to use Ray�s term � in conflict, suffering, and heroism. You took your time with Ray Levine�s photographs. You felt the color and the texture. They made you slow down.

Maggie skims down the left sidebar menu: Afghanistan, Iraq, Rwanda, India, Gaza, Kosovo, Pakistan, Israel, Chechnya, Indonesia, Sudan, Ukraine. Ray has ones closer to home � his home � like Asbury Park and Atlantic City. Then he lists topics too, like Famine, War, Crime and Punishment, Refugee Care.

She braces herself and clicks on the Refugee Care link. There, in black and white, is a photograph of Marc and Trace, taken the day before Marc died. Marc sits in front of a makeshift tent, his head back, his eyes open, his surgical mask half untied and dangling from his neck.

Damn.

Marc. On his last full day of life. And Ray had captured him. The fatigue, the fire, the passion, the exhaustion, the commitment � it�s all etched on Marc�s craggy, beautiful, worn, tormented, celestial face.

How can such a life force be extinguished?

Easily, she knows. She had seen it in the men � boys, really � she�d served with, some not even twenty years old. They were all strong, funny, smart, bright-eyed, with smiles that could cleave your heart in two � colorful, powerful life forces that were vibrant one moment, and dust the next. It isn�t hard to die. It doesn�t take much. That�s the worst part of it. There is a saying: �When one man dies, a whole universe dies,� and while the implications are obvious � the death of even a single soul is like destroying a world, that human life has profound value � dying is also routine, mundane, almost tedious.

Marc, the gorgeous soul in this photograph, is dead.

Happens every day.

She looks now at Trace standing next to Marc, hands on his hips, squinting into the sun. The stages of grief, she thinks. The anger one. She never admitted this to anyone, barely to herself even, but a small part of her had been bitter at Trace for, well, surviving. Trace breathes, Marc doesn�t. Simple and as awful as that. Trace had done the right thing on that day, according to everyone who was there. He listened to Marc. He saved lives doing so.

Maggie understood all that, but the anger stage of grief didn�t.

She clicks the right arrow. A seemingly blank page comes up. Maggie scrolls down to the bottom. There are two text input fields � one for a username, one for a password. After Marc�s murder, Ray had sent her an email offering his condolences and the one thing he could offer that no one else could: his art. He had taken hundreds of photos at the refugee camp that day and stored them online. �When you�re ready,� Ray had written, �you can access them with the username Thalalatha and the password Hududu.� Maggie understood. Thalalatha Hududu is an Arabic phrase that roughly translates to �Three Boundaries.�

That�s the Arabic name of the TriPoint refugee camp where Marc had been murdered.

She clicks into the username text box and types in Thalalatha. She tabs over to the password and types in Hududu. Her hands, she realizes, are shaking. Ray had written �when you�re ready� because he knew she wasn�t. She isn�t sure she is now. The pain is still so deep and raw. She doesn�t need to probe that wound.

But now there is a reason.

So with a deep breath, Maggie clicks the blue Sign In button.

Photo thumbnails quickly populate the screen, dozens of them, at least a hundred on the first page. On the bottom is one of those page count things. It reads:

Ray�s raw footage. This could take a while.

But it doesn�t.

Maggie doesn�t know exactly what she was looking for � but she finds it anyway.

Right there. On the bottom of the first page. She spends the next hour going through the rest of the thumbnails. Twelve photographs in total tell the story. When she finishes, she realizes that there are tears on her cheeks. She sits back. She has answered one question, but it just leads to deeper ones.

There�s a knock on her door.

Maggie closes her laptop, gives her tears a quick sleeve wipe, and says, �Come in.�

Bob opens the door and steps inside. �Hell of a view, right?�

�Yes.�

�You wanted to see me?�

�I�m meeting a friend tonight at a club in the Burj Binghatti.�

He doesn�t like that. �What club?�

�What�s the difference?�

�Burj Binghatti is a residential building. It doesn�t have a club.�

�Not one that�s open to the public,� Maggie says.

�Oh, I see.�

�I need a ride or I can call an Uber or��

�You�re doing surgery tomorrow.�

�I�m aware.�

�You�re not here to go clubbing, Maggie.�

�And you told me this wasn�t a prison, Bob.�

�You�re being handsomely paid to be here.�

�I�m being paid to perform a service. I�ll perform it.�

Bob shakes his head. �I don�t like it.�

�Don�t care,� she says. �I�m going.�

�And if I say no?�

�Seriously?� Maggie shrugs. She checks her watch. �Fire me then.�

Bob stands there for a moment, looking a little lost.

Maggie makes a shooing motion with both hands, palms down. �I need to shower and get changed. I plan on leaving in an hour.�

Not sure what else to do, Bob reluctantly leaves.

Maggie takes a shower and grabs a simple black dress and sandals out of the essentials Charles has given her. She checks her look in the mirror, trying her best not to be self-judgmental. She isn�t sure she�s ready for an exclusive Dubai nightclub, but then again, she supposes she never would be. She steps out into the main room. Bob is standing there.

�Wow,� he says when he sees her. �You look really nice.�

�Thank you.�

He gestures with his hand to the Bugatti still sitting in the middle of the living room. The rich can be so bizarre. �I�ll drive you,� he says.

�But you won�t follow me in.�

�If you say so,� he says.

�I say so.�

�I�ll wait downstairs.�

�I might be late.�

�I�ll be okay.�

The drive is a short one. Charles Lockwood had given her very specific instructions about how to get into Etoile Adiona. The Burj Binghatti is currently the tallest residential tower in the world. Like every skyscraper in Dubai, it is sleek, space-age, and shiny. The most notable feature is the diamond-like crown on top. Bob drops her off in the elevator below ground on the C level past a facial-recognition security station. Maggie steps into the opulent elevator with some kind of purple quartz, amethyst maybe, lining the walls. There is a burgundy leather love seat in case you feel the need to sit for the ride. Again, no buttons to push, no bouncing lights telling you the floor. Nothing. The doors close, and the elevator shoots you rocket-like into the night sky.

The ride up the Burj Binghatti�s hundred-plus floors takes less than a minute.

Not much time to use the love seat.

The entrance to Etoile Adiona is a shimmering portal, tucked away on the 110th floor. No sign announces the club�s presence � if you need to be told where it is, you don�t belong. Maggie steps out of the elevator and stands in front of a mahogany door. She knows there is a camera. A well-dressed man opens the door. He says nothing. Maggie sighs at the theatrics, but per Charles�s instructions, she whispers the password, �Roman Goddess,� before the well-dressed man steps aside and lets her enter. Silly, Maggie thinks, but it adds to the mystique, and places like this thrive on mystique.

The music assaults when you enter. No other way to put it. Maggie loves music, but she doesn�t understand the need for it to be this hostile. The main room pulses with frenetic energy. It�s a kaleidoscope of lights and mirrors and strobes. Nothing feels real, but that�s probably the point. She sees dancers packed so tight they can only hop up and down rather than actually dance � human pogo sticks with spring necks, sweat glistening on their faces. Everyone is dressed in black and white. Some partiers are wearing capes and those Venetian masquerade masks. The room rumbles from a custom-engineered sound system.

Maggie tries to swim through the sea of revelers. A man with a masquerade mask half grabs her and starts to dance. She pushes past him and looks up. Above her head, a retractable roof reveals the inky expanse of an Arabian night. Neon drones paint the sky via intricate aerial choreography. The spectacle is mesmerizing. The drones fly with marching-band-like precision. It reminds Maggie of the Christmas light shows her parents would take her to as a kid, only raised to the tenth power.

She continues to trudge through the dance floor. The DJ, a woman with a sleeveless top showing toned arms, is on a giant swing above. She�s rocking out loud while her platform sways back and forth, one hand on a turntable, the other pressing a single headphone to her ear. The bass gets into Maggie�s bloodstream, making her chest vibrate like someone had jammed a tuning fork into her heart.

The basic VIP area is always easy to spot because, well, what�s the point in being a VIP if you can�t let others know they�re excluded? They sit in balconies so they can look down at you Roman Colosseum � style. It�s dark up there, but from Maggie�s vantage point, she can see a lot of men dressed in the more traditional dishdasha, big in the United Arab Emirates, a robe-like, single-piece, long-sleeved, ankle-length garment, which is white, simple, practical, comfortable, and � especially in the desert heat � cooling. A ghutra headdress with a classic black-corded agal. Marc often sported one when he came to this area, once the locals insisted that it was considered respectful and not any sort of appropriation.

Damn. Marc again. The constant stream of Marc-related pangs.

Up ahead she sees two beefy security guards with dark sunglasses standing behind, in a hackneyed move on the club�s part, an actual red velvet rope. Maggie steps up to one of the security guards. The music is still loud � don�t people just want to talk without screaming sometimes?�� so she has to shout: �I�m looking for Nadia.�

She expects him to come back at her with some stupid rejoinder like �I don�t know any Nadia� or �Who�s asking?� � a line like that. But instead, the guard nods and says, �We know.�

�You do?�

He nods and unclasps one side of the velvet rope to allow her to pass. �Take the elevator to the Ecstasy Level.�

Maggie gives him flat eyes. �Ecstasy Level?�

The guard shrugs as though to say, �Yeah, what can you do?�

Maggie moves toward the elevator. Ecstasy Level? Why not just call it something more subtle like Orgasm Floor or something? She gets in the elevator. Again no buttons, nothing saying Ecstasy or any of that. The doors close. The elevator heads up. The ride takes seconds, but to Maggie, it feels longer.

Because she�s about to come face-to-face with Nadia.

Her hands flex into fists. She rocks back and forth on her heels, feeling a bit like what a boxer must feel when he�s in his corner and waiting for the bell to ring for the first round. When the elevator door opens, the first thing Maggie sees are the stunning crystal chandeliers, a lot of them. They give off a soft, warm glow over a marble floor and plush seating. There are twenty, maybe thirty people � a celebrity or two Maggie thinks she may recognize � and while there is a perfume in the air that reeks of opulence and luxury, the main difference between the regular section of Etoile Adiona and the VIP section is that most people aren�t allowed into the VIP section. That�s it, really. Same music. Same dance floor. Same beverages. Slightly more attentive staff. Sure, it�s less crowded, but if you don�t want a crowd, why go to a nightclub?

The appeal is entirely about who is allowed in � and who isn�t.

Life is always a high school cafeteria.

This has never been Maggie�s world. The only time she�d go to clubs like this was when Trace would drag her as a wingman (wingwoman?) of sorts. �Stand near me,� Trace would tell her.

�Uh, why?�

�Nothing appeals to a hot woman more than a man who is already with a hot woman.�

�I don�t know if I should be flattered or insulted on behalf of the sisterhood.�

�Maybe both? But it�s true. If I�m normally, let�s say a seven��

�A seven, Trace? Oh, look at you being all modest.�

��when they see me with you, it ups me to a nine, maybe a ten, in their eyes.�

�Aren�t you worried they�ll think you�re taken?�

�Even better. Forbidden fruit. It�s a tremendous turn-on for women.�

�It�s not, Trace.�

�It�s not to you,� he says. �But I�m not after a woman like you.�

�More flattery.�

�You know what I mean.�

�Sadly, I do.� Then, watching Trace obviously scope out a nearby woman: �You�re a pig, Trace. You know that, right?�

Trace would spread his arms and smile. �Love me for all my faults.�

She shakes away the memory. A waitress in what looks like tuxedo lingerie hands Maggie a smoky beverage, like something out of an old horror film, covered in glitter. The music is still too loud.

�What is this?� Maggie shouts.

�Our signature drink. Starry, Starry Night.�

�What�s in it?�

�Mango, yuzu, coconut, Dom Perignon � and our secret sauce.�

Sounds gross, Maggie thinks, but she takes a sip. Not bad. �I�m looking for��

�Nadia is behind the curtain.�

Everyone here is prepared. �Like the Wizard of Oz.�

�Pardon?�

�Which curtain?�

She points. Maggie has had enough. She hands the drink back to the waitress and storms toward the curtain. A man gets in her way, says �Hey, babe,� and starts dancing for her. He�s doing the middle-age Dancing Douchebag move of biting down on his lower lip. Maggie is about to maneuver past him, but she stops a second.

How does she want to come into this?

Would it be smarter not to show Nadia all her cards right away? Slow down and think a sec. Nadia has been playing her. Would it be wiser to let Nadia think she�s still in control, not letting on that Maggie is on to her?

Should Maggie play it coy?

Before she gets to the curtain, it flings open.

Nadia steps out of some back room. The two women lock eyes for the briefest of moments. Nadia moves with the grace of a trained Bolshoi ballerina � her head high, shoulders back, clothes draped perfectly on her petite frame. She knows how to draw the eye and yet it�s all organic. There is an intensity to Nadia, a focus, a fiery intelligence, a magnetism that you can�t quite escape.

Nadia breaks into a run and when she reaches Maggie, she throws her arms around her and pulls her close.

�I�m so glad you�re okay,� she whispers in Maggie�s ear.

Maggie surprises Nadia by pulling her even closer. Aggressively. Oddly enough, Maggie can feel the new breasts press against her own. She had forgotten about that for a second, that Nadia was a patient, that she�d recently had surgery. She must still be tender to the touch, but Nadia doesn�t wince from Maggie�s grip or back off. Still in an embrace, Maggie push-walks Nadia back toward the curtain. Nadia�s lips remain near her ear. She can hear Nadia�s breath catch. Maggie keeps Nadia�s body pressed against her with one arm. Her other hand now slowly travels down Nadia�s back. Anyone watching from a distance � or heck, even close up � would see something on the sensual side.

When Maggie�s hand reaches her waist, Nadia stiffens, and then her body seems to totally surrender into Maggie.

�Doctor...?�

Maggie�s hand slides to Nadia�s hip bone, then down the side of her leg, and � should Maggie do it?�� up her thigh. Nadia�s breath quickens. Maggie is leading them back through the curtain, moving them away from prying eyes. The back room is empty and lined with plush sofas.

Maggie changes up now, pulling up on the fringe of Nadia�s dress so that it�s over her waist.

�Doctor,� Nadia says again.

And that�s when Maggie pushes Nadia back onto the couch. Nadia�s face is flushed. Maggie is about to follow her down, but there�s no need. Nadia�s dress is still up over her waist. As was Maggie�s wont, Nadia�s thighs are exposed.

And unblemished.

Maggie looks back and makes sure no one is coming toward them. No one is. Anyone who saw them vanish back in here probably thinks they want to be alone, private, undisturbed. Good. That�s what Maggie wanted.

Nadia�s eyes flare for a moment, and Maggie can see she realizes what�s going on.

Nadia pulls her skirt back down.

�Too late,� Maggie says.

Nadia stays still. Maggie reaches out and grabs the hem of the dress and pulls it back up, once again baring her upper thigh.

�No tattoo,� Maggie says, before letting go.

Yep, screw playing it coy.

�Time to cut the shit, Nadia, and tell me what�s going on.�

Nadia opens her mouth, a lie undoubtedly coming to her lips automatically, but Maggie cuts her off by holding up the phone Charles Lockwood had given her. She took screenshots from Ray Levine�s website and has the photos lined up and ready to go. She only needs one, the first one, to make Nadia go still. Using her index finger, Maggie swipes through them, just to emphasize the point. The photographs are black-and-white, taken by Ray the day before the incursion that killed Maggie�s beloved.

Marc is in many. Trace is in many.

And in the background, trying hard it seems not to be the object of attention, is Nadia.

�You�re Salima,� Maggie says. �You�re the guide who led Marc and Trace to the TriPoint refugee camp.�

Maggie sinks into the plush sofa next to Nadia.

The two women sit side by side in silence, both staring out at the curtain. The music thumps into the room, but it seems hushed now, respectful almost, as though the entire club is receding into the backdrop.

�I know you asked for me,� Maggie says.

�Asked?�

�To be your surgeon. You requested me.�

�Yes.� Nadia stares out. A sad smile comes to her face. �We met before, you know.�

�I don�t.�

�No reason you would. I was eleven. In Libya. You probably treated a hundred girls that day, maybe more.�

�Salima��

�I prefer Nadia, if that�s okay. I was both for a while, but Salima is dead now. She died in that refugee camp too.�

�You�ve been lying to me,� Maggie says.

Nadia doesn�t answer.

�That tattoo,� Maggie says.

�It was temporary, yeah.� She shakes her head. �I should have kept it on longer, I guess.�

�I�d have figured it out anyway.�

�I guess that�s true.�

�Why did you do it?�

�The tattoo? Why do you think?�

�To mess with my head.�

�Yes.� Nadia still stares out, so that Maggie has the profile view. �Most of what I told you is true. I grew up in Libya during a time...�

She stops, closes her eyes, opens them again. �That�s not important. There were refugee camps. There were humanitarian crises. You were there. I don�t need to explain to you how bad it was. And yes, I sold my kidney. Just as I told you. The World Health Organization claims over two thousand kidneys were sold in India alone last year. That�s a small part of the worldwide black market. I have no regrets. I explained my reasons for doing so. It saved my family.�

�Nadia?�

�What?�

�Are you in any pain right now? I mean, from the surgery.�

Nadia chuckles at that. �A physician first.�

�I should probably examine you.�

�No, I�m fine. Really.� Then: �Charles sent you, didn�t he?�

�You know Charles Lockwood?�

�I work with him.�

�He didn�t mention that.�

�He doesn�t trust me right now. It�s why he sent you. He told you about the money laundering?�

�Yes.�

�Did he give you his whole theory on corruption � on how it starts small and it either grows like a cancer or it dies?�

�He didn�t use a cancer analogy.�

�But you get it. And if it starts with money laundering, you can probably guess the next profitable step.�

Maggie nods. �Selling organs.�

�I was in that refugee camp when I was recruited to donate my kidney. WorldCures was there too. After I agreed to be a donor, I was flown here. For the surgery.�

Maggie is puzzled by this. �To Dubai?�

�Yes. To a place called Apollo Longevity.�

Apollo Longevity.

Nadia is trying to read her face. �You�ve been there, right? At Apollo Longevity.�

�You already know I have.�

Nadia gives her a slow nod. �WorldCures has a relationship with Apollo Longevity.�

�Had,� Maggie says, correcting her. She tries to keep her voice controlled, even, though the memories are starting to rock her. �We had some space in their facility.� And then, because Maggie wants to change the subject and is tired of Nadia�s cute evasions: �Are you going to tell me my husband removed your kidney?�

�I wouldn�t care if he did, but no, I don�t know. What matters is that I got my family out. At a cost. Not just my kidney. The organ brokers, they would only provide two of us with identities to get into the United States. I gave them to my mother and my brother. They do live in the Midwest now, just like I told you. They are prosperous and happy.�

�And what about you, Nadia? What happened to you?�

�I stayed here. In Dubai.�

�On your own?�

�Yes.�

�That must have been difficult.�

�Not really, no,� she says, but the words feel forced. �I, Salima, became Nadia. I did well here. I worked in clubs like this. Someone � a man usually � was always willing to take care of me. One Ukrainian benefactor gave me access to online education. He opened the door, and I walked through it. I learned quite a few languages, including Russian and English, which helped when I met Trace Packer one night at this club. He�d been drinking heavily. You know Trace liked nightclubs, right?�

�Yes.�

�He told me I looked familiar. I figured it was just a line��

It probably was, Maggie thinks.

��and I was going to tell him he was mistaken, but I, well, I remembered him. He was kind at the refugee camp. He was so nice to his patients. So I told him who I was.�

�You told him you were Salima?�

�From the refugee camp, yes. He said he remembered me. The next day, we met for coffee. He told me about WorldCures� latest missions. So I volunteered to help out.�

Maggie tries to sort this all out in her head. Some of it she had figured out already. Charles Lockwood had hinted that laundering money was only the start � that that crime alone would not have been enough to make Marc flip on someone as deadly as Oleg Ragoravich.

But harvesting organs?

That would have been the proverbial straw for Marc. The money laundering � again, it was bad but once you cross that line, there really is no going back. Even if Marc wanted to flip on that, everyone who worked at WorldCures � especially their three founders � would be subject to prosecution or, at the very least, have their reputations destroyed. More than that � much more � Oleg Ragoravich would never let them sell him out and just walk away. If Marc or Trace had any delusions about that, one quick helicopter trip would have straightened them out.

�So you accompanied Marc and Trace on that last mission,�

Maggie says to her.

�Yes. I knew the area. I speak all the dialects.�

�So what happened?�

�We got overrun. A surprise attack. Just like you heard. It was a slaughter. Trace and I tried getting people to safety. We were mostly successful. But Marc� � she stops, shakes her head � �he was so brave. Just like you heard. He insisted we go without him. He stayed behind, tried to save more. But still...�

Nadia stops.

�Still what?�

�The situation was dangerous, sure, but the invaders let the medical staff live.�

Maggie swallows. �Except for Marc.�

�Yes,� Nadia says. �He�s the only one they killed.�

�You have a theory why?�

Nadia nods. �I think someone sold Marc out.�

She lifts her head to look at Maggie now. Nadia�s eyes are on fire, hot with anger, full of hostility even.

�And I think that someone was you, Maggie.�

Maggie makes two calls before she gets back in the VIP elevator. The first is to her former classmate and suck-up student Bonnie Tillman. She needs to ask for a quick favor because Bonnie was class president and will definitely know.

Maggie gets right to the point.

�I need Steve Schipner�s mobile number.�

Bonnie groans. �Sleazy Steve?�

�Yep.�

�The Boob Whisperer? Do you know he calls himself that?�

�I do, yes.�

�Gross,� Bonnie says, in case the groan hadn�t been obvious enough. �Look, Maggie, I know you�re going through a tough time out there��

�It�s for a medical consult.�

�And only Steve can help? Come on, Maggie.�

Maggie doesn�t have time for this. �Do you have his number or not?�

With a theatrical sigh, Bonnie gives it to her.

It�s midnight here in Dubai, but Maggie is hardly worried about waking him. The phone Charles gave her has Maggie�s name on the caller ID. She figures that there�s an excellent chance Charles or one of his people is listening in on the calls, but at this stage she doesn�t really care.

Steve picks up on the third ring. His voice doesn�t hide his surprise. �Well, well, well, is this really the Maggie McCabe?�

�Hey, Steve.�

She hears classical music in the background. One of Chopin�s preludes. A bit of a surprise for Steve. She�d expected something more like Van Halen�s �Hot for Teacher� or M�tley Cr�e�s �Girls, Girls, Girls.�

�To what do I owe the pleasure of a late-night call?�

Maggie tries not to roll her eyes. �I�m in Dubai��

�What, now?�

�Yes.�

�I hear music. Are you at a club?�

�I am.�

�Which one? I know them all.�

Big surprise. �Etoile Adiona.�

Steve gives a low whistle. �Exclusive.�

�Yeah, there�s only like a thousand people here.�

�It should start filling up now.�

�With lots of young tail, I�m sure.�

�What?� He laughs. �Oh, Maggie, I was only kidding with that. Look, give me ten minutes to get ready��

�I�m on my way out,� she says, �but I do need your expertise.�

�Oh?�

�Will you be at Apollo Longevity tomorrow?�

Steve�s voice grows a touch wary. �I should be, yes.�

�I have a patient. A twenty-four-year-old woman. I performed a breast augmentation on her.�

�Wait. Wasn�t your medical license revoked?�

�Can I bring her to see you in the morning?�

�If you did something illegal��

�It�s nothing like that. Can we meet first thing in the morning? I�ll explain everything then.�

There is a long pause. Then: �What�s the patient�s name?�

�Nadia Strauss. Can you see her?�

Steve tells her that he can squeeze her in at ten a.m., right when Apollo Longevity opens. He then tries to convince Maggie to stay at Etoile Adiona or perhaps, if it would be more convenient, his apartment building has a members-only club in it, which would be the perfect place for a quiet drink. Maggie gets off the phone with as much kindness as she can muster.

She finds Nadia on the way to the elevator. �I found a way for us to get into Apollo Longevity.�

They agree to meet in the lobby a few minutes before ten in the morning. Nadia walks Maggie to the elevator. When the doors open, Maggie is caught off guard when Nadia gives her a big hug.

�I still don�t trust you,� Nadia whispers in her ear, �but I trust them even less.�

Nadia doesn�t say who �them� refers to � Ragoravich, Brovski, Lockwood � but she assumes, the same as Maggie herself, all of the above.

�Uh, ditto,� Maggie manages as she steps inside the elevator.

The ground floor of Etoile Adiona is in full swing now, and full swing here is defined as complete pandemonium. Maggie has no idea how many new people have come in during the half hour or so she was gone, but it feels like one more and the club would collapse a level or two. The dance floor is dark, lit only by the flicker from the strobe lights. The DJ is rocking out to something super-loud with a super-deep bass � so deep that Maggie can feel the lining in her lungs quake.

She tries to cross the dance floor, but it�s slow going. There are simply too many bodies crushed together in too small a space. She squeezes herself between any cracks in the crowd, but there aren�t many. She ends up making karate-chop hands and crowbarring her way through. The music transitions into something even louder and more aggressive. Maggie wants to cover her ears, but she needs both hands to slice through the crush of flesh. The entire dance floor has been transformed into a manic mosh pit now. The partygoers wearing the creepy Venetian masks are made more nightmarish by the strobe lights.

The whole effect is beyond dizzying.

Near the stage is what looks like a diving board. Patrons climb the ladder, spread their arms, and fall back into the heart of the dance floor. The crowd catches them and carries them along like waves at the ocean. Maggie can�t quite get her footing. She�s jostled to and fro, blindly pinballing closer to what she hopes is the exit.

Do people really enjoy this?

Maggie has never been claustrophobic, but she�s finding it a little hard to breathe now. How often, she wonders, does someone have a panic attack in a place like this? Worse, if you do have one, there is no real reprieve or recourse. You are trapped. Maggie wonders how many of these nightclubbers are on a pharmaceutical hallucinogen. A fair number, she�d guess. She wonders, too, whether that would make this experience easier or harder, and the answer is probably both.

When Maggie was a college sophomore, a boy she had a crush on gave her a pill at a two-day outdoor music festival in western Massachusetts. She still doesn�t know what was in the pill, but it made her freak out with paranoia. A paramedic took her and the boy to the �Chill Out Tent,� where they were fed oranges and activated charcoal and had saline pumped into their veins.

Strange memory.

Maggie is wedging herself through two beefy men when someone grabs her arm.

It�s not a casual or accidental grab. The grip is a straight-up iron claw. She tries to pull away. Nothing. She turns to see who it is, but through the mass of partygoers, she can only see a big, meaty hand on her forearm. Without warning, the big hand jerks her hard toward him. Maggie nearly loses her balance. The big hand pulls harder, dragging her back in the other direction.

Maggie isn�t sure what to do here. She�s being pulled through a human car wash. She tries to dig her heels in, tries to stop her momentum, but the pull is too strong. She yells out to stop, to let go of her, but the music is so loud she can�t even hear her own shouts.

With her free hand, Maggie finds the man�s index finger and tries to pry it off. His grip doesn�t waver. His fingers clutch like eagle talons to the point she fears he may break skin. She thinks about spearing his hand with a fingernail � breaking his skin rather than hers � but her nails are all cut down to surgery length, which means there is nothing to spear him with. She sees the back of him now, the broad shoulders and big back, but with the crowd, with the crush of people, she can�t rear back and kick him. She�d been taught pressure points that could possibly free her here, but pressure points never seem to work in the real world or on moving targets. She�s just about to try one anyway when the man suddenly stops.

He turns around and takes off his mask.

Maggie freezes.

His eyes are bloodshot and blackened. His face is swollen. He has a thin bandage across the bridge of his nose. She�s about to strike him � one shot to that new nose will finish him � but her eyes meet his and what she sees surprises her.

Fear.

It�s Oleg Ragoravich.

With a head tilt, he signals for her to stay with him.

Maggie isn�t sure what to do here, but curiosity gets the better of her. She nods and stops fighting him. His grip is lighter now, though it remains firm. She�s good with that. She needs this hand on her arm so that she doesn�t lose him in the crush.

The music�s volume lowers a bit, the frantic beat decelerating as the DJ transitions the crowd into a slow song. The patrons quiet like particles when you turn down the flame. Everyone remains packed together, but now instead of rapid, frenetic movement, the bodies gently sway back and forth.

When Oleg and Maggie reach a bit of a clearing, Maggie frees her arm with a sudden tug. Oleg Ragoravich spins toward her. She again sees the fear in his eyes before he lowers the mask back into place. He puts his hands on Maggie�s shoulders. She shrugs them off, but her first thought comes from her physician lizard brain: She needs to examine her patient and make sure he�s okay. She needs to make sure the surgery took hold, especially the experimental 3D-printed scaffolding in his nose.

�How are you feeling?� she asks. �I should take a look��

�I warned you,� he says, and his voice chokes up. �I told you not to believe a word Nadia says.�

�What�s going on?� Maggie asks. �Why are you here?�

�You need to help me.�

�Help you how?�

�They�re trying to kill me.�

�Who? What happened? Why did you run?�

His head is on a swivel now. �You don�t understand.�

�Yeah, I know,� Maggie says, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. �That�s why I am asking. Why did you run?�

�You have to get me out of here.�

�And take you where, Oleg?�

�Maggie, listen to me. You can�t trust anyone.�

�That I know.�

�It�s all a lie. All of it.�

�What�s a lie? Why did you run away?�

�I�m��

And that is when several things happen seemingly all at once.

The music picks up the pace again. It grows louder � louder and more aggressive than ever. The room goes dark, and the flicker strobes turn everything into time-warping, dreamlike bursts of light. A group in Venetian masks swarm around them, separating her from Ragoravich, their dancing fevered and fast. Maggie loses sight of Ragoravich for a moment. She reaches out and finds his hand.

Her grip tightens. He holds on too.

She is staring into Ragoravich�s eyes when she sees them go wide.

Too wide.

His grip on her hand slackens. Maggie tries to hang on to him, to grasp his hand even tighter. She tries to pull him back toward her, but she�s losing him.

His hand slips away.

�Oleg!�

But her cry is lost in the music. The masked crowd moves between them, pushing them apart. Ragoravich is tumbling away from her, almost out of sight.

�Oleg!�

She desperately tries to get back to him. There are too many masked people in the way now. Maggie shoves them hard, throwing punches even, anything to find Oleg.

There.

She sees him. Oleg is only a few feet away. She�s almost back to him, close enough to touch. She reaches out to him.

That�s when she sees a gloved hand pull a blade from Oleg�s chest.

Blood spreads across his white shirt.

Maggie screams. But the music � the damn music � swallows the sound away. Out of nowhere, someone delivers a body blow, almost knocking Maggie off her feet. She starts to spin, tries to regain her footing. But she can�t quite steady herself. Through the flickers from the strobe, she can see that everyone around her is wearing a mask.

She can�t find Oleg.

�Help!�

Nothing.

�A man�s been stabbed!�

She can barely hear her own voice.

Where the hell is Oleg?

She lashes out now, panicked. But she can�t find him. She starts throwing punches again. She searches frantically for Oleg or for blood or for a gloved hand carrying a blade � anything � but the room is too crowded, too dark, too filled with stuttering strobes.

She looks up, toward the open roof and the serenity of the night sky, and in her periphery, she sees a man being carried above the crowd mosh-pit style.

It�s Oleg.

He is already at least ten, maybe twenty yards away from her. She starts flesh-swimming toward him. A beefy man in a black masquerade mask gets in her way. When she knees him in the balls, he folds like a lawn chair. Another dancer bumps her. Hard. Maggie throws an elbow. It lands in his rib cage. Someone else rams into her. And then someone slams her with an open hand on the side of the head.

Maggie staggers and sees stars.

The music still blares. The party patrons surround her, consume her. She reaches out blindly toward the man who just slapped her. Her fingers find his mask. She grabs hold and pulls it down.

It�s CinderBlock.

What the...?

He shoves her hard and turns to hurry away. Maggie bounces against someone behind her, and using that momentum, she leaps on CinderBlock�s back. She�s still screaming for help, but no one is paying attention. Even now, even with her leaping on a man�s back, she doesn�t stick out in this crowd. No one does. Everyone is in constant motion � jumping, dancing, leaping, raising their fists in the air, shouting along with the music.

From her new vantage point on CinderBlock�s back, Maggie scans the dance floor. She sees two people surfing the crowd.

Neither is Oleg.

He�s gone.

CinderBlock tries to buck her off, but Maggie wraps her legs around his waist and then ankle-locks them into place. Her right arm snakes around his nearly indecipherable neck.

Then she squeezes for all she�s worth, choking him.

CinderBlock�s hands start reaching behind him, flailing to grab her. She lowers her face into the back of his head � close enough so he can�t get to her eyes, close enough so she can move with him if he tries a back headbutt.

She regrips and squeezes harder on his windpipe.

His hand movements grow more frenzied, more desperate to reach her, to get free for even a moment so as to get fresh oxygen.

But she has him.

She keeps squeezing. His knees start to wobble. She shuts her eyes and holds on. She will not let go. She will not let go until...

Whack.

A fist slams into Maggie�s lower back, just beneath her ribs. The knuckles land flush on her kidney. The pain is a white-hot piercing stab. A coppery taste flows into her mouth. The blow shuts down muscles, organs maybe, incapacitates her. Maggie tries to hang on through it, tries to finish this off.

But then another punch lands in the same place.

Maggie feels everything in her close down.

Someone grabs her shoulders from behind and pulls her off CinderBlock�s back. Maggie crashes to the floor. People dance all around her, some stamping on her legs and back. She tries to fight through them, to get back up, but there are just too many people. She keeps battling, keeps trying to get up, keeps getting knocked down.

She screams and then screams again. But no one hears her. No one stops.

The crowd parties on.

Sharon slides into the corner booth at Vipers.

Porkchop is already there. He looks up, sees the expression on her face, and waits. Sharon puts both hands on the table in front of her. She stares at them for a bit � her hands � and then sits back. Sharon�s eyes are everywhere but on him. Her left leg has the jackhammer shakes, but that�s pretty standard for her.

Porkchop knows Sharon is working up to something, so he just gives her space.

A few more moments pass. Then Sharon says, �Do you know what a griefbot is?�

The question is unexpected. But so is his answer. �Yes.�

�You do?�

Porkchop nods.

�I always thought you were the ultimate Luddite.�

�Pinky told me about them after Marc died. I guess he tried one with his mother.�

�What did he tell you?�

�He said it�s some kind of software program where the dead, I don�t know, they text you? Supposed to help you cope with losing a loved one. It�s like a digital replica of them or something.�

Someone hits the jukebox. Tears for Fears start telling everyone to shout, shout, let it all out.

�Did you try one?� Sharon asks. �A griefbot, I mean.�

�No,� Porkshop says. �I don�t want a digital replica. I want my son.�

Sharon nods slowly. Then she says, �But you know that will never be.�

�I do. Death is final.� Porkchop gets that Sharon can sometimes be clumsy with her words or overly blunt. �Is there a point to this, Sharon?�

�I created a griefbot of Marc for Maggie. But it�s not like any other griefbot.�

Sharon takes the next ten minutes explaining the machinations, details, ingenuity that have gone into the AI development of the Marc griefbot. Porkchop listens and tries not to react. Sharon talks fast. She rambles a bit. She loses him when she gets too deep in the woods with the technology, but he just rides that out. Again, this isn�t atypical with Sharon. Her mouth is always trying to keep up with her brain, and that�s an impossible task.

Toward the end Sharon veers into the economic realities of her potential startup. �Unfortunately, I�ve concluded that as of now, my griefbot is not a viable marketplace product, fiscally speaking.�

�Why not?�

�It took me two months of working full-time to gather the information on Marc � coding, hacking, researching, development. This is a beta version, a prototype, but I don�t see how I can mass-produce it to the point where it would ever be profitable. It�s too time-consuming to extract and organize the data.�

�If your griefbot works the way you say it does��

�Oh, it does.�

�Then some people will pay anything for it.�

�That�s probably true,� Sharon says. �But I have no interest in spending two months digging up information on, say, a billionaire�s father, no matter what they�d pay. I want everyone to have access to whatever I create.�

Porkchop sits back. �How long has Maggie had your griefbot?�

�Two weeks,� Sharon says. �She didn�t tell you about it.�

�She did not.�

�She thought it would hurt you.�

Again with the blunt words. Behind them, Tears for Fears are singing that if they could change your mind, they�d really love to break your heart.

�You don�t approve,� Sharon says.

�Not my place.�

�But it�s not something you�d be interested in.�

�The dead are dead,� Porkchop says. �You�re not supposed to get over it. You�re supposed to live with it.�

�Other people may feel differently.�

�I�m sure that�s true.�

�Suppose it offers comforts?�

�It would be a false comfort.�

Sharon shrugs. �All comfort is false, when you think about it. That�s almost the definition.�

�I�m not looking for comfort,� Porkchop says. �It�s not about me. It�s about my son. It�s not about what I miss � it�s about what he missed, what was stolen from him. I don�t care about my pain. I can live with that. It�s the least I can do. What I can�t live with � what I can�t get past, what I don�t want to get past � is what was taken from my boy.�

Sharon says nothing.

�Do you think your griefbot can help with that?�

�No,� she says.

�I don�t mean to sound harsh.�

Sharon puts up her hand. �I get it.�

�What made you decide to do this?�

�Make a griefbot?�

�Make one of Marc for Maggie.�

�Selfishness maybe. I wanted to see if I could do it.�

�And you thought it would help Maggie.�

�Yes.�

�Why?�

�She needed answers. Do you remember when you and Maggie flew over to Tunisia?�

Porkchop does, of course. �She wanted to see where it happened.�

�That would have taken you a day, maybe two,� Sharon says. �You two spent three weeks there. Visiting patients in the hospitals. Talking to every TriPoint camp survivor you could find. Maggie immersed herself in all the horror. She didn�t want to be spared. She wanted to hear how awful that day had been. Maybe Maggie thought hearing it all would be cleansing or healing or help her move on. But it was the opposite. When she came back, she wasn�t the same. I could see it in her eyes. She started self-medicating. She almost killed a patient during surgery. She lost her medical license. She spiraled.�

Porkchop just sits there. His expression doesn�t change, but Sharon�s words are shards of glass ricocheting through his chest. �So you tried to help with this griefbot.�

�Yes.�

�If I�m being kind, your invention is a crutch.�

�Sometimes a crutch is all you need.�

�In the short term. You can�t keep using a crutch.�

Sharon tilts her head. �Why not?�

Porkchop doesn�t have an answer to that.

�We all have crutches,� Sharon says. �We all have something to numb or distract or get us through the day. You have Vipers and your members. You have your bike rides. And...� Sharon points to the center of the room. �Do you think I don�t know what that is?�

Her finger is aimed at Vipers� display area � more specifically, at the 1996 Honda Blackbird. Porkchop had bought it for Marc as a graduation present. After he died, Maggie had insisted Porkchop take it, ride it himself or give it to another Serpents and Saints member. But Porkchop couldn�t. He tried, but he couldn�t bear seeing someone else on his boy�s favorite bike. So Porkchop put it in here, in Vipers for Bikers, and every day, he stops in front of it and just stands there.

Yeah, who needs a crutch?

Porkchop stares at the bike now. �Did it help her?�

Sharon knows he�s talking about the griefbot. �I don�t know.�

�But Maggie�s been using it?� He wrests his eyes away from Marc�s bike. �She was talking to...?�

�Yes.�

Porkchop thinks about that for a moment. It stings. The thought of Maggie talking to some computer-generated version of Marc. It stings more than he wants to admit, but what doesn�t? Part of him gets it. Part of him finds it infuriating.

�No wonder Maggie believes Marc might be alive,� he says.

�What?�

�She�s been �talking� to him,� he says with more disgust in his voice than he intended. �Not him. Not her husband. Not my son. Just whatever Frankenstein version of him you created.�

�It�s not like that,� she says.

�I said at best, it�s a crutch.� He tries but he can�t keep the bitterness out of his voice. �But more likely, your griefbot is a delusion. It�s a full-on lie.�

Sharon sits back. Porkchop immediately regrets his words.

�I�m sorry,� he says. �I didn�t mean��

�No, no.� Sharon waves him off. �Don�t do that. You do mean it. And I get what you�re saying. It�s fair.� She tilts her head. �Why did you say Maggie thinks Marc is still alive?�

�She doesn�t. Not really.�

�But someone is giving her hope?�

�Yes.�

Sharon shakes her head. �That�s cruel.�

Nothing crueler, Porkchop thinks. He turns his head and looks at his son�s bike again. He flashes back to the smile on Marc�s face when he rode it. That smile. His son�s perfect, joyful, life-affirming smile. Gone. And not just gone, but intentionally extinguished.

Intentionally.

Premeditated. A conscious decision someone made to snuff out his son�s existence.

His hands tighten into fists. Again. And again. It is an unbearable outrage. It cannot stand. If Porkchop stops and thinks about it for too long, he will go mad. He will start screaming, and he�s not sure that he�d ever be able to stop. Still. Even now. Even after all he�s done to quiet his own screams.

He�s lied to everyone to quiet the screams.

Even Maggie.

Viking Bob drives Maggie back to the residence.

No one believes her. Or at least, that�s what they claim.

A few hours ago, Maggie managed to crawl and claw her way from the dance floor and the crowd. There was no sign of Oleg Ragoravich. There was no sign of CinderBlock or any of the other masked men. Or maybe they were still there, right near her or still partying at Etoile Adiona. Maybe with those masks on, they stabbed a man and just melded back into the crowd and kept on dancing.

Maggie found a waitress and told her she saw a man being stabbed. Suddenly, the waitress�s English wasn�t very good. The waitress sends Maggie to the other side of the club and says to look for a man in a blue suit. There are dozens of men in blue suits in that area.

No one knows anything. No one can help. No one is sure who she should talk to. The music still blares. The party keeps going.

She finds the red velvet rope VIP area. Two new guys are working there. Neither one knows Nadia. Neither lets her through. She takes out her phone and dials 999 for the Dubai police. They are dubious too. She doesn�t let up. She insists that someone come. With great reluctance they agree to send an officer, but she�s to meet him outside.

They are not to disturb the Etoile Adiona guests.

Maggie heads outside, where a police detective with a big mustache waits for her. Bob is there too. �Don�t do this,� he tells her. �It won�t go well.�

She should have listened.

Big Mustache gets right into it:

�So you say you saw a stabbing, is that right? On a crowded dance floor? But no one else saw it? No one else reported it? Has anyone been reported injured? No? How come? Is there a body anywhere? Has anyone been reported missing? You say it was dark, only a strobe light � yet you saw all this clearly and no one else did? Are you sure? Are you sure you didn�t hallucinate it? By the way, how many drinks have you had? Did you take any drugs? Should we run a blood test to be certain? Oh, and please tell me � why are you here? Alone. In Dubai. What is the purpose of your visit to Dubai? Where did you fly in from? Oh, I see � you flew in on a private plane from Gelendzhik in Russia. Why would an American be in Gelendzhik? And are you in Dubai on your own? Are you here as a tourist? On business? What exactly are you doing in Dubai?�

At some point, Maggie sees the futility � and the danger. Big Mustache keeps asking what she is doing in Dubai, and the real answer, which she is now actively evading, is �probably something illegal.� She hasn�t looked up the rules, but most countries require licensing and authorizations to perform surgery, and there is no reason to think Dubai does not. So she stops talking to Big Mustache.

In the car, Bob says, �Not really smart.�

�What, I should have said nothing?�

�What did you think was going to happen, Maggie? That they�d close down the club and turn on the houselights and, what, search everyone in it?�

�I saw a man stabbed.�

He shakes his head. �Charles vouched for you, but I should have known.�

�You know Charles Lockwood?�

�Of course.�

�Do you know�?�

�That�s all I�m going to say on the matter, Maggie.�

The car vrooms back up into the glass elevator.

Maggie asks, �What time are the surgeries tomorrow?�

�Today.�

�What?�

�Not tomorrow. Today. You know it�s four a.m. The surgery was originally scheduled to be today at two p.m.�

�I�ll be ready.�

Bob shakes his head. �No, that isn�t going to happen.�

�Why not? I�ve done surgeries far more complicated on no sleep while the enemy dropped bombs. I can handle��

�I�m sure you can do them standing on your head,� Bob says. �But I�m going to advise the family against it.�

�Why?�

He turns to her. �You have to see that there are big-time repercussions for what you did tonight.�

�I reported a crime.�

�And in doing so, you�re now on the Dubai police�s radar. There are reasons why we demand discretion, one of which is that practicing medicine, especially surgery, without proper local UAE licensing is prohibited � even if the surgeon has the necessary licenses in their home country, which, let�s face it, you do not.�

Maggie has no reply to that.

�So here�s the thing,� Bob continues. �As long as you don�t do the surgeries, no laws have been broken. You�re just a houseguest. That�s what I�m going to remind the family � that currently there is no exposure. However, the moment you slice open a patient...�

�I get it,� Maggie says.

Bob gives her a tight smile as the car reaches the apartment. �Thank you for understanding.� He opens his car door. �I have to make a few calls, but I should be able to get you on a plane in the next two or three hours.�

�No,� Maggie says.

Bob turns and looks at her.

�I�m not done in Dubai,� Maggie says.

�You plan on staying?�

�I can get a hotel room��

�No, that�ll look weird too.� Bob shakes his head. �So what is your plan?�

�I�m meeting a doctor at Apollo Longevity at ten a.m.�

�Wow,� Steve Schipner says, �this is really great work, Doctor McCabe.�

They are in an examination room. Steve wears a white lab coat. His name is stenciled in below the Apollo Longevity name and logo. To his credit, Steve examines Nadia with professionalism, discretion, and respect. It�s as if he�s a completely different person in here. His voice when he speaks to Nadia is kind, understanding, inviting. He listens to her, pays attention, responds appropriately, asks the right questions. Despite Nadia�s stunning looks � and what could be viewed by some as the salacious medical reason they are here � Steve never, not once, hints at an ogle. He might as well be inspecting two lawn chairs. Maggie is surprised, and she is not. She has seen this before with physicians. It�s not an act on Steve�s part. You don the lab coat, you remember your oath, you get the importance and responsibility of what you are doing. You are everything to a patient � and they have to be everything to you.

Even Sleazy Steve understands that.

When they first met up in the lobby, Maggie had filled Nadia in on the Oleg... stabbing? Maggie isn�t sure what to call it. Nadia had listened raptly. She�d been up in the VIP section and had no idea of any of it. �The one you call CinderBlock. His name is Akim. He was on the plane with me. So was Ivan Brovski. But they aren�t in Dubai anymore.�

�How do you know?�

�On the plane, I got hold of Ivan�s phone when he fell asleep. I turned on his location services and dropped a pin to me.�

Brilliant and yet simple, Maggie thinks. �So you can track him?�

�Yes. Last night, I could see he was at Etoile Adiona, but� � Nadia opens up her phone and clicks on the app � �it hasn�t been active since 5:06 this morning.�

Maggie looks at the screen. �Is that Dubai International?�

�Yes.�

�So Ivan flew out. A location tracker won�t follow him in the air.�

Steve continues his exam with patience and skill. Maggie remembers the first time Trace brought Marc and her to Apollo Longevity. She had scoffed at the excess, at the exaggerated �fountain of youth� promises, constantly touted with the fascinatingly contradiction-in-terms phrasing of �anti-aging.� The wealthiest people in the world flew in just for whatever treatment was currently in vogue, and � Maggie�s personal opinion � even if well-intentioned, the vast majority were modern-day snake oil of one sort or another.

�You can get dressed,� Steve tells Nadia. �We can talk more in the consultation room, but I can tell you now that the operation is a complete success. I see no reason to be concerned.�

�Thank you, Doctor.�

Nadia meets Maggie�s eyes. Her eyes move to the computer monitor on the desk, then back toward Maggie. Maggie nods.

�We�ll wait in the other room while you get dressed,� Steve says. �Doctor McCabe, a word outside?�

Perfect, Maggie thinks. �Of course, Doctor Schipner.�

Nadia�s plan is simple, though a long shot. There is a computer terminal in the examination room. Nadia knows Trace�s username and password. While Maggie stalls and distracts Steve, Nadia hopes to log on and see what she can find.

Of course, there are a thousand things wrong with this plan. Trace Packer�s login may not work anymore. There is probably nothing important to see � do they think there�s going to be a message saying, �We�ve kidnapped Trace Packer. Here is his current location�? � and there might be trip alarms when she signs on or something like that.

But then again, who knows? She and Nadia are �spies� now, right? This is what spies do.

Steve escorts Maggie down the corridor. Up ahead she sees the one elevator that led down to the WorldCures floor.

�I wasn�t kidding in there,� Steve tells her. �You did great work with her.�

�Thank you.�

�And we both know you could have done this exam yourself. You didn�t need to bring her in.�

�I wanted to make sure,� Maggie says.

�Make sure what?�

�I wanted a true specialist to back up my work,� Maggie says. �And who better than the Boob Whisperer?�

Steve grins. �That�s just marketing.�

�Okay, sure.� Then with a shake of the head she says, �Boob Whisperer.�

�You�re making jokes,� Steve says, �because you don�t want me to ask the obvious.�

�That being?�

�Why did you do this surgery in the first place?�

�I could ask you the same question,� she says.

�Pardon?�

�This is a longevity clinic, not a cosmetic surgery center.�

�You don�t see the natural partnership? I mean, when you think about it, what I do here is one of the things that actually does reverse aging.�

�What about ozone therapy?�

He laughs. �Ozone therapy is old news. We have twelve rooms that do EBOO therapy now.�

�EBOO?�

�Extracorporeal Blood Oxygenation and Ozonation Therapy,� Steve says. �Doesn�t that sound good for you?�

�It does.� She needs to stall for Nadia�s sake � and she�s also sort of interested. �How does it work?�

�You lay back on the most comfortable recliner imaginable. Your blood is drawn from a vein into a tube and through a dialysis filter where it gets exposed to medical-grade ozone and oxygen. As the blood circulates through the EBOO machine, it removes heavy metals, pathogens, debris��

�Debris,� Maggie says. �I love that term.�

�Me too.�

�So all-encompassing. And meaningless.�

�Exactly. Oh, and EBOO also rids your bloodstream of my other favorite all-encompassing term.�

�What�s that?�

Steve smiles. �Toxins.�

�Oh yes.�

�Nice and vague. Anyway, after this, your same blood is returned to your body via another vein. So it cycles. Then you throw in some buzzy terms � immunity support, detoxification, inflammation reduction, enriching, regeneration, infusion...�

�Sounds perfect for the jet-setter who has everything,� Maggie says.

�Except immortality.�

�Which is what they sell here.�

�And we sell, to be fair.�

�Yeah,� Maggie says. �But what we sell is real. It isn�t quackery.�

Steve mulls that over for a moment. �I�m not sure it�s fair to call it quackery. There are some quality physicians who swear by these treatments, but here�s the problem: All of them profit from it. That�s not to say that they are charlatans � they�ll cite iffy studies and anecdotal evidence � but none of us think clearly when it comes to our wallets.�

�We are all the hero in our own story,� Maggie says.

�Exactly that.� Steve reaches an office door. �Are you done stalling?�

�What are you talking about?�

�You�re still not licensed, are you?�

�I�m not, no.�

�So how did you end up being Nadia�s surgeon?�

�You�ve probably guessed.�

�You were paid,� Steve says. �A lot.�

�Yes.�

�So some rich guy thought Nadia was too skinny.�

Maggie smiles. �I guess you�ve dealt with this before.�

�I have.�

�How do you handle it?�

�I insist on talking to the patient alone. If they say no, I flat-out refuse to do it. If I feel she is being coerced, I try to help her find a way out.�

�How?�

�First, I try to persuade the rich man in her life that he doesn�t want her to have bigger boobs.�

�Does that ever work?�

�Almost never,� Steve admits. �It�s like trying to convince a man he wants a smaller flatscreen.�

�What�s second?�

�I take a lot of photographs. I keep a lot of records.�

�Why?�

�Do you want to hear the ugly truth?�

�That�s always better than the pretty lies.�

�I�m not sure about that,� Steve says. �But let�s take your Nadia as an example. Nadia is a mistress to a rich man. The rich man wants her to have a larger chest. I don�t like it. You don�t like it. But there�s not a lot to be done in that case. So we just do it. But other times, well, the mistress is being discarded.�

Maggie swallows. �Discarded?�

�The rich man grows tired of her. If the girl is lucky, he just breaks it off, maybe gives her a few dollars. But sometimes � the rich man wants the woman to disappear.�

�I�m not following.�

�The world is about making a buck. We both get that, right?�

�Sadly, we do.�

�So if the rich man wants to get rid of the mistress and make a profit, what�s the best way to do that? You traffic the girl. Coming here is like turning in a leased car. They get her refurbished and send her back out.�

�Oh my God!�

�Or maybe that�s an inept analogy: They just do whatever they can to make their property more desirable. And we both know that a trafficked woman with bigger breasts or buttocks��

��is worth more,� Maggie finishes for him.

�Yes.�

They both stop and let that hang in the air for a moment.

�What do you do when you see that?� she asks.

�There�s a charity I can call. They�ll come to the back door. I try to get her to sneak out. But most of the time, well, the patients don�t want that. They think it will be okay. They�ll use their new body to get another rich man. So I keep their DNA on file. In case it�s needed for later.�

She shakes her head. �It�s a messed-up world.�

�Dark,� Steve agrees.

Silence.

Then Maggie says, �WorldCures used to have offices here.�

�Yeah, I know. On the lower level.�

�Can you take me down to see them?�

Steve wants to ask why, but he doesn�t. He brings her to the elevator and then uses the ID on his lanyard to access the elevator. They head down in silence. When the doors slide open, Maggie knows the way. Steve lets her lead. The place feels abandoned. Their footsteps echo in the quiet.

�We don�t do much down here anymore,� Steve says. �Just EGF facials.�

�EGF?�

�Epidermal Growth Factor.�

�Meaning?�

�They use a foreskin extract.�

�Pardon?�

Steve nods. �They buy foreskin from neonatal circumcisions.�

�Please tell me you�re joking.�

�I�m not. Hospitals sell baby foreskins to biomedical companies.�

She shakes her head. �I thought selling human tissue was illegal.�

�It is in a lot of places. But � and don�t ask me to explain why � it is legal to sell products derived from human tissue. EGF is also called the penis facial, but uh, that nickname is problematic for a lot of reasons.�

Maggie slows when she gets to the door. It�s ajar. She slowly pushes it open. The room is empty. She steps inside. The tile floor has been replaced with hardwood. There used to be a drain in the center. That�s gone now too.

She thinks back to that terrible day, her last one in Dubai. The three of them had tried to save a life. That�s what they told themselves. It had been a long shot. A sixty-two-year-old man named Kabir Abargil. Kabir had been brought in from a refugee camp � failing heart, weeks to live. Kabir was poor. He was on no waiting list for a heart.

Enter the THUMPR7.

Maggie wanted to exercise more caution � walk before you run � but Trace and Marc insisted that this was the perfect opportunity to launch their new technology. There are two major new research avenues focused on making heart transplants not only safe but more readily available. One school involves improving artificial hearts so that they are more than a temporary, stopgap measure. At Baylor St. Luke�s Medical Center, five patients have successfully transitioned from the BiVACOR artificial heart to donor hearts, but in Australia, one patient lived with the BiVACOR TAH for over a hundred days. There have been amazing advancements in robotics using AI, much of which they used in creating the THUMPR7.

The other school is made up of cell therapies and regenerative medicine. The idea is that one day we will be able to repair the damaged cells or even grow new ones. This regenerative technology is, of course, being worked on for all organs. There are many scientists who consider this the footpath to a potential fountain of youth. Think about it � once perfected, you could create new hearts, lungs, livers, and constantly (and safely) replace your own. To use a car analogy, if you keep replacing the engine, transmission, tires, brakes, suspension, body, a car could theoretically run forever.

Marc and Trace � and to a lesser extent, Maggie herself � believed the answer lay in blending these schools: taking the latest in robotics via the THUMPR7-TAH and inserting regenerated cell tissue that has gone through the proper DNA sequence coding so it can not only help prevent rejection but also make the transition inside the body seamless.

Yeah, it�s a lot.

In short, scientists could add cell tissue and certain DNA sequencing to make artificial organs integrate in the human body to the point that the recipient�s immune system does not recognize them as foreign and avoids attack.

The first step, which they weren�t able to do with Kabir Abargil, should have been to use a donated heart � that is, a real heart � and implant it inside the scaffolds of the THUMPR7. It would be better still if they could make it a �beating-heart� transplant � that is, where the donor heart never stops beating, eliminating ischemic time and reducing cell damage. If that worked, yes, in a few years� time, they could move on to doing transplants with just the THUMPR7 and regenerative tissue. But first, try it with a donated heart.

Walk before you run.

But that wasn�t possible here.

The ethical lines on such operations are iffy at best. We all know the slow but crucial rules of the FDA and the dangers in rushing experimentation and implementation. But if a patient gives informed, voluntary, and competent consent and no other remedies are left, isn�t it ethically permissible to try something experimental, especially if the alternative is certain death?

Hard to say. Probably not. But they were going ahead with it no matter what, and Maggie knew that the best-case scenario, which was still a terrible-case scenario, would be if she participated.

So she did. In this very room.

�Maggie?�

��Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.��

�What?�

�I did a surgery down here,� Maggie says.

Kabir Abargil, the so-called �poor man,� had no chance � and still he survived another twenty-one days. But they were awful days. And after that, Maggie wanted no part in any of this. Her mom had taken a turn for the worse. She headed home.

�I�ve heard rumors about that,� Steve says.

She looks at him.

�I started working here a year ago,� he continues. �WorldCures wasn�t the only one down here.�

�What do you mean?�

�I mean, there were other, shall we say, secretive medical research facilities? All in separate offices in this building.�

�So where are they now?�

�They vanished. Overnight. Packed up and moved.�

�All of them?�

�Yes.�

�Where to?�

His phone buzzes. Steve checks the screen and frowns at what he sees. �I have no idea, but after what happened, they felt like this location was compromised.�

�What happened?�

He glances up from his phone�s screen and meets her eye. �You really don�t know?�

�Why would I?�

The phone buzzes again. �Shit.�

�What?�

Steve gives her a baleful eye and leaves the room. �Damn it, I should have known.�

Maggie quickly follows. �Steve?�

�Oh my God.� He stops, turns to Maggie, and now she can see the fear in his eyes. �Did Trace Packer send you?�

�What? No. Wait, do you know where Trace is?�

He turns and starts back down the corridor. �Jesus, how could I have been so stupid?�

She hears the ding of the elevator. The doors open. Two beefy men in blue blazers step out. Between them is Nadia. One man is holding her left arm, the other her right. Her wrists are held together by what looks like a plastic zip tie.

What the...?

Both men, Maggie can see, have weapons strapped to their waists. The beefier one also has Nadia�s passport and some other kind of ID in his hand. Keeping a grip on Nadia�s elbow, he gives them both to Steve. Steve studies the ID and then starts paging through the passport.

�Let go of her,� Maggie snaps. �And cut that tie off her wrists. Now.�

When they don�t, Maggie storms over and pulls at Less Beefy�s arm. The arm doesn�t move, but Less Beefy does look over at Steve.

�I got this,� Steve tells the two guards.

Both men reluctantly let Nadia go, though she remains zip-tied.

�She broke into your computer,� More Beefy says.

Steve holds up his phone. �Yeah, I know. I got the report.�

�We�ve contacted Malik,� Less Beefy says. �He wants to handle this personally.�

Steve swallows. �I�ll watch them.�

�I think we should stay.�

�I got this. Go upstairs and wait for Malik.�

More Beefy doesn�t like that. He looks at Less Beefy. �You stay right here. No one gets on or off that elevator.�

Less Beefy nods.

�I�ll head back up and wait for Malik.�

More Beefy steps in, and the elevator doors close. Less Beefy gives them all hard eyes.

�I�m going to take them to the EFG room,� Steve tells Less Beefy.

Less Beefy responds with more hard eyes. Maggie wants to roll hers, but there�s no reason to make this situation any worse.

When they are back inside, Steve closes the door and says, �Tell me everything. Fast.�

�Who�s Malik?� Maggie asks.

�Head of security. Ex-military. He�s going to want to know why Nadia was trying to break into my computer � and he�s not going to ask nicely.� He opens a desk drawer, rummages through it. To Nadia, he says, �How the hell did you get my password anyway? Never mind, I don�t care.�

Steve pulls out a large pair of scissors. He moves toward Nadia. She sticks out her wrists. Her hands are turning blue. The zip tie is too tight. Steve carefully eases the tip of the scissors through the gap and cuts the plastic.

Nadia rubs her wrists. �Thank you.�

�I don�t get it,� Maggie says. �Nadia is a patient who sneaked a look at her doctor�s computer. Why would they go so crazy?�

�Are you serious? She didn�t just sneak a look. She tried to sign in as Trace Packer. Trace Packer, for crying out loud. Oh man, I�m totally screwed.�

�Why?�

�They suspected me of helping him the last time.�

�Helping Trace?�

�Yes.�

�Helping him how?�

�Why did you come back?� he asks Maggie.

�Steve, please, listen to me. Trace is missing.�

�I know. They�ve been looking for him.�

�Who?�

�Everyone. Look, when I first got hired, WorldCures still had an office here, but, I mean, with Marc dead and you out of the picture, there wasn�t much to it. But Trace Packer still showed up every once in a while. You know this, right?�

�Pretend I do.�

�Trace and I hung out a little. We weren�t friends or anything, but when it all went down, well, people thought I was involved, because of my connection to you.�

�I�m not following. What went down?�

�One night, I�m lying in bed, dead asleep, and suddenly Malik is there. In my locked apartment. Sitting on the edge of my bed. He starts asking me if I know where Trace Packer is. I say no. He doesn�t believe me. So then he starts with the interrogation. He says stuff like �You went to medical school with Maggie McCabe, right? When did you last talk to her?� Like that. I found out later that Trace broke in here after hours. He stole, I don�t know, something to do with WorldCures research � and then he flew out to Washington.�

Washington. Nadia and Maggie share a glance.

�When was this?�

�Five, six months ago. Hold up. You live, what, an hour or two from Dulles. Did Trace go to you, Maggie?� Steve snaps his fingers. �Of course he did. That would make perfect sense. Oh shit, this is bad. This is really bad.�

�He didn�t come to me. Steve, listen to me. Trace is missing. That�s why Nadia and I are here. Yes, he flew to Dulles five months ago. But I never saw him. In fact, as far as we can tell, no one has seen him since.�

�If that�s true��

�It is.�

��then maybe they found Trace.�

�No,� Nadia says. �Trace is smart, resourceful. He�d have found a way.�

Nadia�s words sound hollow with false hope. Maggie�s mind starts racing. She remembers the bill for the Wells Fargo safe deposit boxes she opened in Trace�s apartment.

Whoa. Slow down a second. Maybe that�s it.

Maybe whatever Trace had snatched from this building before leaving Dubai is now in those boxes.

That�s why Trace had to come back to the United States. Not to see Maggie. But to make sure he kept control of their innovations. So, okay, Trace goes into Apollo Longevity at night. He nabs the THUMPR7 and accompanying machinery. He heads to Dubai airport, flies back to the United States, and then...

What?

Steve�s phone buzzes again. An incoming call. He puts the phone to his ear and says, �What�s up?� His face loses color. �Wait, what, right now?� Pause. �Hold on a second.� He looks over at them. �What have you gotten me into, Maggie?�

Maggie offers up an elaborate shrug. �No clue, Steve.�

Steve heads to a monitor on the desk. He leans over, still standing, and types into it. As he does, he keeps glancing at the door behind him. �Someone is at reception asking for you by name.� He finishes and turns to her. �Do you know who he is?�

He flips the monitor so Maggie can see the live CCTV footage he�s brought up. The camera is focused on a man with a...

Big Mustache.

The cop from last night. He is in plainclothes but flanked by two men in olive-green police uniforms with matching berets.

Steve says, �Well?�

�I saw someone stabbed on the dance floor last night. He�s the cop who showed up.�

�Are you serious?�

�No, Steve, I�m making it up.�

�No time for sarcasm, Maggie.�

�Always time, Steve. Anyway, he didn�t believe me.�

�Well, he believes you now. I recognize him. He�s tight with Malik.�

�Maggie.� Nadia taps her on the shoulder. �Take a look at this.�

Maggie turns. Nadia shows her the screen on her phone. It�s the headline from a new article:

�We have to get out of here,� Nadia says.

Inside the elevator Nadia keeps the gun pointed at Steve�s head. �Zip-tie him,� she tells Maggie. �Take his phone, just in case.�

Maggie is about to ask what�s going on � why does Nadia still have the gun up and in Steve�s face?�� but the answer is frighteningly obvious.

The elevator has a camera.

It probably has sound too. Nadia is continuing to sell it. Steve plays his part too: �Please, don�t shoot me.� Maggie is about to take out the zip tie, but the elevator stops.

They are already at the garage level.

When the doors open, Maggie expects there to be men with guns or police cars or sirens or something waiting for them. But there are not. There is nothing. The garage is silent. She gives Steve one more look, trying to say thank you with her eyes. He answers back with the most imperceptible of nods. Maggie doesn�t know Steve�s fate. Will Malik and Big Mustache believe whatever story of abduction he comes up with � or will they realize he was in on this?

No time to worry about it.

Nadia grabs Maggie by the arm and pulls them out of the elevator. They hurry-walk (not run because that would draw attention) toward the car ramp. No one stops them. Again the element of surprise. Whatever Big Mustache or Malik had in store for them, there would have been no need to surround the perimeter of the building or get men to the garage. The elevator, like every elevator in Dubai, was superfast. It had been only ten, maybe twenty seconds since Less Beefy started to call for help. Even if he was heard immediately, they�d have to figure out where the cries were coming from. Once they did, they�d probably call for the elevator. But of course, the elevator was already taken. So it would take time to get up to their floor. Maybe some of them would choose to run down the stairs...

All of that takes time.

Maggie and Nadia slow their steps as they reach the ramp. They stroll up it and out. Simple as that. No one gives them so much as a second glance. The sun is at full power, blinding, debilitating, unbearable, but right now Maggie feels fine with it. Nadia is speaking Arabic into her phone. They move quickly down the street and enter the palatial shopping mall next door.

As they walk, Nadia pulls the phone away from her face and says to Maggie, �You told me Charles gave you a second passport.�

�Yes.�

�Give it to me.�

Maggie does. Without slowing, Nadia opens it to the front page, takes a photograph with her phone, hands it back to her.

�What�s going on?� Maggie asks.

�I saw the news report right before they caught me. Oleg�s body was found in the Dubai Water Canal.�

�Wow.�

�Yes.�

�Maybe I should just go talk to the police��

�No.�

�Why not?� Maggie asks. �I�m the one who called them. They can�t think I�m involved.�

�You�re being naive,� Nadia says.

�How so?�

�You fly into Dubai for sketchy reasons. On your first night here, you, a single American woman in her forties, go to a nightclub alone. You claim you saw the stabbing of a rich man who no one else saw, who you happened to bump into and whose house you happen to have just been staying in before you arrived � and this all happened right after you met with his mistress at the same club... Do I need to go on?�

�You do not,� Maggie says. �You�re good at this.�

�I�ve had some practice.�

�You want to explain?�

A small smile plays on her lips. �Another time. Now give me your phone.�

Maggie does. Nadia presses it up against hers, transferring data from one to the other. �I�ve uploaded a mobile boarding pass in the name Emily Sinclair into your phone�s wallet. It�s for the Emirates flight to London � that�s the next international flight out of Dubai. It leaves in an hour.�

They rush through the corridor, take the escalator down the steps and past an ornate fountain into the parking garage. There is a sign with an arrow for Uber and Bolt riders. Nadia gestures toward it.

�I ordered you an Uber to the airport. It�ll be downstairs in two minutes. The ride should only take fifteen minutes. There won�t be time for the police to have covered the airport yet. They may have time to put your real name in the system.�

�But not Emily Sinclair�s.�

�Exactly.�

�And what about your name?�

�I�ll definitely be in the system,� Nadia says. �That�s why I�m not going with you. I�ll figure another way out and meet you when it�s safe.�

They head down toward the rideshare pickup zone. Three vehicles are waiting. Nadia checks the license plate on the app. �That�s yours,� Nadia says, pointing. �The blue one.�

�Got it.�

Maggie slides in, and Nadia closes the car door. The Uber pulls away. When the Uber hits the highway, Maggie takes out her phone and calls Porkchop.

He answers on the first ring. �Where are you?�

�On my way to London.�

�Flight number?�

She tells him.

�Once you land,� Porkchop says, �I�ll have you covered.�

�How?�

�Let�s pretend you didn�t ask me that. No contact until you arrive.�

He hangs up.

Porkchop.

But he�s right. Every word she says is being heard by Charles Lockwood. Does she care? Who knows? But the thing is, Porkchop doesn�t want Charles Lockwood to hear. He isn�t saying why. Not yet. But right now, that�s enough for her.

As promised, the drive takes fifteen minutes. The Uber drops her at Terminal 3. She hops on what they call an APM � Automated People Mover � though Maggie has no idea what the difference between an APM and a small train is, and gets to Concourse A in three minutes. The security line is short and moves fast. Maggie is on full alert as she makes her way through it, sure that every employee is looking at her. She feels exposed. She wishes she had a hat or sunglasses or something, though that just usually makes a person stand out more.

When she reaches her gate, her flight to London is already boarding. She gets on the queue. Part of her keeps waiting for someone to grab her arm and pull her out of the line. There are, of course, plenty of security officers walking about the gleaming terminal. When she scans her boarding pass, the Emirates employee at the gate asks to see her passport. Maggie has it opened to the right page. It�s the same photo as the one in her real passport � Charles had just had it duplicated to create �Emily Sinclair�s� � but the agent seems to be taking a longer time than she should studying it. The gate agent looks at the photo, then at Maggie, then back to the photo.

�Have a nice flight, Ms. Sinclair,� the agent finally says, handing her back the passport.

Maggie hurries to her window seat. A man in a �groutfit� � gray sweatpants, gray hoodie � drops into the seat next to her. He says �Well, hello there� with a little too much enthusiasm. Maggie isn�t a plane-engager under the best of circumstances. Engaging with a plane passenger is up there with her major phobias, the most terrifying being when you get an aisle seat at a Broadway show and the actors come offstage for audience participation.

Shudder.

Still, she gives the man a tight-but-polite nod back. Then she stares out the window and doesn�t relax until the plane taxis down the runway. She closes her eyes and flashes back to one of her first flights with Marc. In a surprise move, Marc gripped her hand tightly and asked her:

�Why do we say we �taxi� down the runway?�

�Good question. Well, not good, really. Pretty inane as a matter of��

�I mean, when else do we use the term �taxi� as a verb to describe movement? Why only with air travel? What else besides airplanes �taxi� and why do we use that term for it? Sorry, I babble when I�m nervous.�

�You�re nervous?�

�Maybe a little.�

�But you ride motorcycles.�

�Which, you may have observed, stay on the ground for the entire ride.�

�I didn�t have you pegged as a nervous flyer, Marc.�

�It�s kind of sexy, right?�

�Would you settle for barely cute?�

�I would, yes.�

She shakes her head, and a sad smile, the only kind she had known for the past year now, comes to her face. The next time she and Marc flew:

�I looked it up, Mags. Why they use �taxi� for aviation.�

�God, you�re a dork.�

�So in the early 1900s, two French aviation pioneers named Bl�riot and Farman started using the term �taxi� to describe how primitive aircraft moved slowly across an airfield because it seemed similar to the way a taxi moves through city streets. Ergo �taxiing� on a runway and whatnot. What do you think?�

�Barely cute. But also, okay, kind of sexy.�

The pang � that ever-present Missing Marc pang � strikes deep in her chest. This is how grief works, isn�t it? Grief doesn�t attack her on Marc�s birthday or their anniversary or any of that. Grief knows you are expecting it on those days. So Grief bides its time. It lulls you, makes you think it�s not such a threat anymore, and then when your defenses are down � when a plane simply starts down a runway, for example � boom, it attacks.

Marc.

When the plane�s Wi-Fi comes up, Maggie tries to read all she can on the death of Oleg Ragoravich. They don�t call it a murder yet. Just a dead body. They don�t even say foul play suspected or any of that. Like maybe Oleg was taking a swim and drowned.

Dubai just being Dubai, Maggie figures.

But some of the details bother Maggie. The articles note, for example, that Ragoravich was �positively identified by close colleagues.� That seems an odd thing to mention. It�s not like the body was found after years underwater. Why mention that? The article also notes that �hundreds of guests recently saw the normally reclusive Oleg Ragoravich at an extravagant ball� � yep, they actually use the word �ball� � �he hosted at his private residence in Russia.�

Again: Why mention that?

The wording was odd. Something about it gnaws at the back of her brain.

She�d done a quick search on Oleg Ragoravich during her flight from Teterboro when she still wasn�t sure of his identity, and found very few photographs of him. At the time, she�d figured that was a normal, rich-guy privacy issue. The rich, especially those who have reason to stay in the shadows, often paid to have their online presence scrubbed or manipulated.

Which led to a host of related questions:

Why are there so few photographs of Oleg Ragoravich online?

Why would Oleg Ragoravich have wanted plastic surgery now?

Why would he have decided to throw a �ball� the night before his surgery?

Why had he stayed up in the hidden room at the top of the ballroom? How had Charles Lockwood put it?

�I�ve still never seen him in person. Not even at that crazy ball...�

Something isn�t adding up.

Her phone battery is low. She doesn�t know what brand of phone this is � it isn�t Apple and doesn�t seem to be Android. The better for Charles to bug her, she figures. Still, she signs on to her email and sends Sharon a short message. Porkchop, she assumes, has been keeping Sharon in the loop, so Maggie keeps the email short:

Something is starting to click.

Maggie turns off the Wi-Fi for a bit, trying to preserve battery. Does that work or is that a myth? She doesn�t know. Every half hour she checks to see whether Sharon has written her back. Eventually, Sharon does:

But Maggie doesn�t need more photographs. She sees it right away.

�Oh, shit,� she says out loud.

The Groutfit next to her stirs.

The photographs Sharon found are on the older side. At a quick glance, there�s nothing to see here.

Superficially.

It�s the third photograph, the clearest facial shot, that seals the deal for Maggie.

She�s seen this picture before, albeit in a very different form.

It�s an official-looking black-and-white portrait from the military. Maggie would guess that it�s thirty or forty years old, maybe more. Oleg Ragoravich is in uniform. He stares straight into the camera, his expression blank, a stone.

Oh, no. It can�t be.

It�s then that Maggie feels her phone vibrate with a text. It�s from Nadia:

Nadia included a screenshot of a map. Maggie zooms in with her fingers. When she sees Brovski�s exact location, Maggie�s head starts spinning anew.

Damn, Maggie thinks. I had it wrong the whole time.

Maggie cannot believe what she is seeing.

For the first time in so long, her heart bursts with joy.

An hour later � an hour spent putting so much of it together � she lands at Heathrow Airport. If you are one of those people who want to make sure you get your ten thousand steps in every day, Maggie suggests you fly into Heathrow. You walk left and right. You go upstairs and down. You use escalators and moving walkways. It�s also a �tease� walk � every time you think it�s over, there is just one more turn, one more set of stairs, one escalator, one more moving walkway to go.

Several flights landed at the same time, the passengers disembarking and first flowing and then clogging up the main Terminal 3 artery that leads to the passport and immigration heart.

Maggie feels alone, adrift, and yet there is finally a real sense of purpose. She is putting it together. Not all of it. Not yet. But she thinks she has a big-time lead. Fatigue radiates from every pore in her body as she gets through passport control, bypasses the baggage carousel and customs, steps through the exit door...

She freezes when she sees him, half worried it�s just a mirage.

Cue the bursting heart.

There are a ton of people in the arrivals hall. Chauffeurs with various name signs � some handwritten, some on touchscreen pads � are scattered everywhere. There are loved ones with welcome balloons and friends standing on their tiptoes, craning their necks to see who exits next. There are tour representatives and airport staff � maybe a hundred, two hundred people in all � but Maggie sees him right away.

Porkchop!

When she looks his way, Porkchop lifts his sunglasses and wiggles his eyebrows. Maggie shouts � shouts out loud � �Porkchop!� and breaks into a run. She wonders whether she�s ever been so happy to see someone, and no answer comes to her. He spreads his thick arms, and Maggie jumps into them. Porkchop swallows her up in a bear hug. She welcomes the smell of Marlboro and leather, and then Maggie just lets everything go. She collapses into the bear hug. Her smile gives way to tears. She digs her face into the leather and for a few moments she just cries. Porkchop lets her, holds her up. He cups the back of her head with his big hand. His voice is uncharacteristically choked up as he mutters, �It�s okay now, Mags, it�s all okay.�

She manages to say, �How...?�

�I was flying to Dubai,� he says. �There was a change of planes in London so...�

�I�m so happy to see you.� She hugs him harder. Then: �I think I know where we have to go now.�

�Where?�

�Bordeaux. A vineyard called Ch�teau Haut-Bailly.�

When she�s left alone, Maggie opens the griefbot app.

AI Marc appears on the screen with a smile. But it�s different to her now. Less potent. She�s not sure why. It�s like she sees the cracks and wires.

�Hey,� AI Marc says. �Where are you?�

�In a vineyard in Bordeaux.�

He smiles. �I wish I was there.�

�You�ve been here before,� she says.

�With you,� he says. �I�ll never forget.�

Neither, Maggie thinks, will I.

�Who picked this place for us?� she asks.

�It was Trace.�

�You knew back then that Oleg Ragoravich was building a facility here,� she says.

His honest answer surprises her: �Yes.�

�But you didn�t tell me.�

�No.�

�Why?�

�Did you enjoy that weekend?�

She nods. She remembers the morning sun coming into their room, the way it bathed his beautiful face in the yellow glow. Marc opened his eyes and looked into hers and they just lay there, in the bed, side to side, and Maggie remembers an old Joan Baez lyric, �Speaking strictly for me, we both could have died then and there.�

�That�s all I wanted for us,� Marc says. �A weekend together.�

It�s a good answer, a nice line, but there is no way to know whether it�s true or not. In that sense AI Marc is no different from Real Marc. This answer might be Real Marc�s truth, interpreted through data and overheard conversations. But what had Porkchop said about the human condition? You can�t really know what another person is thinking deep inside.

And neither could any AI program.

�Is Trace in Bordeaux, Marc?�

�I don�t know.�

�Did he kill you?�

The screen glitches. Maggie expected that. The griefbot doesn�t know it�s dead. It can�t comprehend its own death any better than a human. Sharon had warned about this.

As if on cue, AI Marc says, �I don�t understand.�

Maggie changes up. �This is a hypothetical. Let�s say you�re not Marc Adams. You�re an AI creation of him. You were created by my sister to comfort me because the real Marc Adams was murdered. Your data dump ended three months before your death, so you can�t know for certain. But you can look up the stories online. About your death. Study them, crunch the data, add in what you already know about Marc�s life. And then tell me. Did Trace Packer kill you?�

The screen freezes.

Maggie sighs and stands. Then from her phone, she hears Marc say, �The most likely scenario is that Doctor Marc Adams was killed as reported � during the terrorist massacre at TriPoint.�

�What�s the second most likely scenario?�

�That Trace Packer was involved.�

�How about...?� She stops, swallows, tries again. �Based on what you see, is there any chance that you�re alive...�

The screen freezes up again. Maggie pushes on.

�...that you faked your own death or, I don�t know, that you�re still out there somewhere, alive?�

She waits. But the screen doesn�t unfreeze.

Before Maggie puts on her surgical gown, gloves, and goggles, Ivan Brovski enters the room and collapses into a chair.

�All okay?� Maggie asks.

�I need to deliver a message.�

Maggie waits.

�Oleg Ragoravich has given us clear instructions: If he doesn�t make it out of the surgery, neither do you.�

He looks up at her.

�Hell of an incentive,� Maggie says, because sometimes humor is the best defense mechanism.

Brovski stands. �I�ll see you in the OR.�

He leaves.

Half an hour later, Maggie is in the operating room and ready to go. Beads of sweat coat her forehead before she even starts.

�Doctor?�

It�s the nurse to her right.

Deep breaths, Maggie tells herself.

�Scalpel.�

Maggie begins by performing a median sternotomy to access the thoracic cavity. With the scalpel, she makes a vertical incision down the sternum and then, using the surgical saw, she divides the sternum to gain access. Maggie opens the pericardium, the membrane protecting the heart. They�ve already run the flexible tube down Oleg Ragoravich�s throat and into the esophagus and now, using sound waves from the transesophageal echocardiogram, Maggie can see the heart on his monitor.

It�s a mess.

The heart is gray and enlarged. She can see scars on the surface.

Man, this surgery is happening just in time.

The operating theater is, no question, fully stocked. The staff seems first-rate so far, even though Maggie did not meet any of them ahead of time. They, like Maggie, wear full-face masks and opaque goggles. Ivan Brovski, who, as promised/threatened, is also in the operating room, ominously explained that discretion is paramount in this strange hidden lair they vaguely call The Vineyard:

�They can�t know your identity � and you can�t know theirs.�

Oleg Ragoravich lies beneath a sea of blue drape. His rib cage is split wide open now, held in place by retractors. It�s gross to most, but Maggie finds it oddly beautiful, and yeah, she knows that�s weird. Right now, only one assistant surgeon is in the room with her. She � yes, the other surgeon is a woman too � clearly knows her stuff. The third surgeon, Maggie is told, is in the adjacent theater with the brain-dead heart donor. That surgeon has opened the chest and will extract the donor heart at the same time Maggie removes Ragoravich�s native heart and attaches the THUMPR7 in its place.

Beneath the glare from the surgical lights, Oleg�s heart pulses in a weak, spastic rhythm. The tubes from the cardiopulmonary bypass twist away from the venae cavae and aorta. Maggie nods to the perfusionist, and the bypass takes over.

Oleg�s heart sputters, slows, and then stops completely.

Time to move fast and disconnect the blood vessels.

Maggie uses scissors to part the aorta and pulmonary artery, their ends tattered by disease. She trims the right ventricle along the atrioventricular groove, preserving the tricuspid annulus. She does the same on the left side.

�Prepare the donor heart and THUMPR7,� Maggie says.

The Vineyard has the latest cardiac retraction glove and sling, which are designed to lift the heart out of the chest without damaging surrounding tissue. Maggie does that now, carefully yet quickly. The native heart is seriously diseased � thinned and stretched, weak and so fragile that Maggie worries the heart muscle might rip or crumble or even disintegrate upon extraction.

�Need another set of hands?� the assistant surgeon asks.

Her voice is high-pitched, with an exaggerated Southern twang, and Maggie wonders whether the voice is a put-on for further disguise.

Maggie is a photo of focus. �I got it.�

When the heart is clear of the chest, Maggie turns and drops it into a basin on the surgical back table. Normally a heart like this is sent to pathology for examination or disposal. What will they do with it down here in The Vineyard? Study it maybe. Use it for experimentation. Eat it. Who the hell knows?

Maggie lets herself smile at the thought.

In fact, she realizes, under her mask, she�s been smiling the whole time.

Because even though she�s scared out of her mind, even though she can almost feel the gun being readied if something goes wrong, Maggie loves this.

She loves being a surgeon. She loves operating.

�TAH,� she says.

One of the surgical nurses hands her the THUMPR7 artificial heart.

�Donor heart ready?� Maggie asks.

�Coming in the moment you need it.�

�Now,� she says.

Maggie takes hold of the THUMPR7. She looks down at Oleg�s vacant chest cavity. Where there should be a heart, there is nothing but a yawning, bloodless void. It is a sight to behold, this threshold between death and life, between an ending and a beginning, between emptiness and hope. This chest is the emptiest of vessels and a promise waiting to be fulfilled.

For the briefest of moments, Maggie considers ending that hope.

Her patient is a man with no heart, figuratively and, for the moment, literally. He is also, perhaps figuratively and literally, dead.

Only she can bring him back to life.

What would happen if she didn�t? What would happen if she just let Oleg die on the table?

She glances to her right, toward Ivan Brovski. He may be goggled and masked up too so that she cannot read his expression, but his little headshake says it all:

Don�t even think it. He dies, you die.

The door opens. The other assisting surgeon, his gloved hands covered in blood � it�s a man � wheels an Organ Care System carrying the donor heart into the room. The OCS pumps an oxygenated blood base solution through the organ, keeping the heart viable.

The new surgeon stands on the other side of the table.

Maggie looks at him. He looks at her. But she can�t really see him, of course. She can�t see his eyes or his face. The shape of his body, too, looks pretty vague in the loose surgical gown. His hands are gloved.

He nods at her. For a moment, Maggie doesn�t move.

Ivan Brovski says, �Doctor?�

Maggie snaps out of it. With her gloved hand, she steadily lowers the THUMPR7 artificial heart � the one created by WorldCures but mostly by Marc, Marc�s brainchild, Marc�s work, Marc�s attempt to save lives on a massive scale � into the seemingly bottomless hole where Oleg Ragoravich�s heart once resided.

�Suture,� the assistant male surgeon barks.

His voice is gruff, muffled, and again she wonders whether this is his natural sound or if he is trying to mask his identity. With Maggie holding the THUMPR7 in place, her partner begins the delicate work of suturing the device�s inflow connectors to Oleg�s atrial cuffs.

Maggie joins in. Her adrenaline starts kicking into overdrive. She�s nervous. She has never done anything like this.

Gruff Voice stops for a moment. Maggie looks up into the goggled face.

�It�s okay,� he says to her. �You got this.�

Maggie is grateful for the encouragement. She swallows and nods.

The two surgeons � Maggie and Gruff Voice � work now in perfect tandem, threading the outflow connectors to the pulmonary artery and aorta, sizing the grafts with the precision of, well, cardiothoracic surgeons � too long and the lines will tangle; too short and blood won�t flow.

�Left ventricle first,� Maggie says, but Gruff Voice is one step ahead of her. He quick-connects � think �little snaps� � the heart to the Three A�s: artery, aorta, atria. Maggie does the same with the right. The THUMPR7 has four flaps. They are all open.

�Now,� Maggie says.

Gruff Voice opens the OCS or �heart box� and extracts a healthy, red, beating heart. He moves fast, guiding the donor heart into the THUMPR7. This, Maggie realizes, has never been done before. This, she realizes, would have been Marc and Trace�s dream moment � the THUMPR7 in tandem with a healthy beating-heart transplant donation. With a nod, Maggie takes over. She uses forceps to maneuver the heart into place. She attaches the donor heart�s pulmonary artery to the THUMPR7�s plastic valve in only one place. If this works, that should be the only attachment they need. The DNA sequencing machine is normally used after surgery to detect graft rejection. Maggie uses a specially designed one now, one that offers immediate feedback. She checks the readout.

So far, so good.

This is what their technology is trying to do: blend the robotic wonders of an artificial heart with the idea of cell regeneration and tissue compatibility. The best way of doing that is via a full organ � as in a beating-heart transplant like this � but the future hope is that stem cells, rather than full organs, will be enough.

Gruff Voice says, �No leaks. Blood flow is strong.�

Their goggled eyes meet again. They know this is the moment of truth. He gives her an encouraging nod. Maggie takes one more deep breath and turns to the perfusionist. �Turn it off.�

�Wait, shouldn�t we wean?�

�Not with the THUMPR7. It should kick in right away.�

The perfusionist hesitates.

�Do it,� Maggie snaps.

The perfusionist grudgingly switches off the bypass machine.

For a moment, nothing happens. Flat line.

Five seconds pass. Ten seconds.

The perfusionist says, �Doctor?�

�Wait,� Maggie says.

�It�s not working.�

�Then he�s dead either way,� Maggie says, while that sarcastic inner voice adds, And he ain�t the only one...

Ten more seconds pass, fifteen, twenty.

Ivan Brovski puts his large, gloved hands on both her shoulders as though to push her out of the way. �Doctor McCabe, what�s happening�?�

And then, with an audible grunt, the THUMPR7 starts beating.

BEAT... BEAT... BEAT...

Steadier now.

BEAT... BEAT... BEAT...

It�s working.

BEAT... BEAT... BEAT...

The room cheers.

BEAT... BEAT... BEAT...

Under the mask, Maggie�s face breaks into a wide smile. She looks up to lock celebratory goggle-eyes with Gruff Voice.

But he�s gone.

When the gate finally reopens, Maggie starts down the path. She finds Porkchop and his motorcycle in the clearing.

�How long have you been waiting here?�

Porkchop makes a production of checking the watch on his wrist even though he�s not wearing one. �Since I dropped you off.�

�That�s twelve hours ago.�

He shrugs. �Want to talk about it?�

�Not right now.�

�Hop on.�

Porkchop hands her a helmet. They drive back in silence � it�s too exhausting to talk/shout on a motorcycle even if there was something to say. The wind in her face feels sublime. Maggie closes her eyes and lets it cool her. Porkchop plays no music. As always. It�s just the bike and the road. Forget massages. Forget aromatherapy or hydrotherapy or saunas or body wraps or hot tubs. This is peace and isolation and freedom. The only place she loves more... Well, with Marc gone, there�s only one now.

The operating room.

Her church, her sanctuary.

God, how she misses it.

As they pull in, Guillaume and �lodie wave from a big farmer�s table covered in various wines and cheeses.

�Do you want to eat something?� Porkchop asks.

She shakes her head. �My social skills are out of order at the moment.�

�Understood.�

�You go. I�ll walk down to the guesthouse.�

�You sure?�

�Positive. I need time to decompress.�

He nods, turns the bike off, heads toward the table. Maggie takes the path down through the vineyards. She heads into the guesthouse. She goes into Porkchop�s bedroom and opens the side pocket of his satchel bag. When she�s finished, she heads back outside. The golden haze is back. It touches everything. Colors are colors, but in a vineyard touched by this golden haze, colors are never stagnant; they become a living, breathing thing.

She stops at a quiet stretch near the guesthouse and leans against a tree. She stares out and soaks in the stillness. It�s over now. She gets that. You don�t get all the answers. That�s part of life. Soon she will go back home to...

...to what?

No Marc. No surgery.

That�s when she feels the cold steel press against the back of her skull.

A voice says, �You killed him.�

Maggie�s eyes close.

Nadia.

�I rechecked Trace�s phone records,� Nadia says through gritted teeth. She keeps the muzzle of the gun right up against Maggie�s head. Maggie doesn�t dare move, her eyes still on the golden haze and the pale blue sky. �You called him on your mobile phone the day before he left. You called him and told him something and suddenly he packed and flew to you.�

Nadia circles so that she is now in front of Maggie. Her eyes are wide.

�If you lie to me, I�m going to pull the trigger.�

Maggie doesn�t speak.

�Did you call Trace? Yes or no.�

�Yes,� Maggie says.

The women are face-to-face now. Nadia aims the gun at Maggie�s heart. �What did you say to him?�

A tear falls from Maggie�s eye.

Nadia�s voice is a snarl now. �What did you say to him?�

�I told him I visited the TriPoint refugee camp,� Maggie says. Her voice is tinny in her own ears, as though she�s speaking from very far away. �Or what was left of it. Most of the refugees had been relocated. I followed them. I found every survivor I could. They all told me that the militants who slaughtered them left the medical team alone. One woman named Aisha � she lost one arm and one leg. Chopped off with a machete. She�d been left in the sand to bleed out and die. But she didn�t. She used her one arm and her teeth to rip her clothes and create tourniquets. She said she saw Trace come back to camp. Marc was alive when he did. She was sure of it.�

Maggie looks into Nadia�s eyes and waits.

�So you thought�� Nadia begins.

�I didn�t think anything. I told Trace I needed to see him. That there were discrepancies in what I was told happened to Marc. I said we needed to talk. In person. Eye to eye. Like this.�

�And when he arrived?�

Maggie shakes her head.

�You killed him,� Nadia says.

�No.�

�Then��

�Trace never showed. He ran instead.�

Nadia lifts the gun. �Don�t lie to me.�

�I�m not lying. Trace was supposed to come. I waited for him. But instead, I don�t know, he stole that device from Apollo Longevity and ran.�

She shakes her head. �He wouldn�t do that.�

�Nadia, we both know he did. You heard Steve.�

�And then what? Where is he now?�

Maggie shrugs. �I don�t know.�

�You�re lying.� Nadia pushes the gun toward Maggie�s face. �You killed him.�

And then Maggie hears another voice, a familiar voice, from behind her:

�She�s not lying. She didn�t kill Trace.�

She turns to see Porkchop.

�I did.�

Three days after Maggie gets back to Baltimore, she calls Vipers and asks to speak to Porkchop. She hasn�t seen him since that last day in the vineyard.

The woman who answers the payphone says he�s unreachable.

�Tell him it�s Maggie.�

�Porkchop is off the grid.�

�So you don�t know where he is?�

�No one does.�

�Suppose I really needed him.�

�He�s off the grid,� she says, �but we can put him back on it if there�s an emergency.� Then she adds in a kinder voice: �Give him time, Maggie.�

A week goes by. She calls Vipers again. The woman tells her the same thing. Another week passes. Same thing.

No sign of Porkchop.

Three weeks after that last day in France, Pinky answers the payphone when she calls.

�Porkchop is still incommunicado.�

�Tell him I know,� Maggie says. �Tell him I know, and I don�t care.�

There is a long pause on the other end of the line. Then Pinky says, �You think you know. But you don�t.�

Then he hangs up.

Two days later, Charles Lockwood calls her. �Oleg is in a coma. But that heart is still beating in his chest.�

BEAT... BEAT... BEAT...

�Thanks for letting me know.�

�Also The Vineyard � the whole operation � has been shut down.�

�Good.�

�No great loss,� Charles says. �Oleg never kept the best scientists and researchers in the end. The best scientists and researchers may complain about the rules and protocols, but they understand why they�re there. They want to work in the sunlight, not cut corners in the dark. That�s the part Oleg never understood.�

�I appreciate the call,� Maggie says. �Take care of yourself, Charles.�

�Let�s stay in touch,� he says.

�Yeah, I don�t think so,� she replies, but he�s already ended the call.

Maggie�s phone rings again. The caller ID tells her it�s the payphone at Vipers.

�Porkchop is back,� Pinky says.

�I�ll come up tomorrow.�

She disconnects the call and steps outside into the crisp night air. She takes a deep breath. This time of the year, the neighborhood always smells of freshly cut grass and backyard barbecues. The Burroughs family � Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter � sit on their front lawn. They all wave at Maggie. Maggie forces up a smile and waves back. Someone across the street is blasting a surprisingly touching Nick Cave ballad. His voice is raw and vulnerable as he repeatedly reminds a loved one that he�s waiting for them.

Maggie blinks, swallows, and lifts her phone into view. With a shaking finger, she clicks on the griefbot icon. The app comes to life.

Marc�s face appears. He smiles at her.

�Oh man, Mags, it�s good to see you.�

She stares at the screen. Nick Cave is singing to that same loved one to sleep now, sleep now, take as long as you need. Maggie closes her eyes and makes herself listen to the rest of the lyrics. When the song is over, she takes one last deep breath and heads back inside. When she enters the kitchen, Sharon looks up at her.

�We need to delete this,� Maggie says, pointing at the app. �For good.�

First, I would like to thank my mother and father, Betty and John Witherspoon, who served in the Tennessee Air National Guard and US Air Force, respectively. Their forty years of service in military hospitals and then private health care were the background of this novel. Living on military bases as a child, surrounded by medical military families, I learned about the connectedness of communities dedicated to risking their own lives to help others. Every dinner table conversation about surgery and patient care, filled with thrilling stories of harrowing medical experiences, influenced me to write about Maggie and Marc�s passion for health care. My childhood visits to hospitals and military bases instilled in me a powerful lesson that a life of service to others is the most noble life to lead. Mom and Dad, I love you.

Thank you to Reza, Kevin, Steven, Dasha, Nader, and many others who helped me build out details of locations and worlds I could only imagine visiting one day. You added truth and humor to every story you shared with me. Thank you.

Thank you to Ben Sevier, Lyssa Keusch, and the whole team at Grand Central Publishing for believing in this idea from Day One. Your enthusiasm was the wind at my back during this whole experience.

Thank you to my book agent, Cait Hoyt, who never fails to be my biggest champion, especially when I am past deadline and feeling so nervous I could crumble. You always help put me back on track and convince me I am writing something truly original. That�s the biggest compliment I could ever hope for!

Thank you to Kate Childs-Jones, Meredith O�Sullivan, Chelsea Thomas, Maha Dakhil, Gretchen Rush, Rick Yorn, Josh Dembling, and my entire team, who always make sure I am endlessly supported in every creative project. Your hard work and encouragement made writing my first novel feel a little less daunting � notice, I only said �a little.�

Thank you to Hillary, Beatrice, Jenna, and Jeff, who keep my life in order and make me look much more pulled together than I am! Your organization, attention to detail, and deep loyalty mean the world to me.

Thank you to Rachel Bati, who has kept the many different crazy trains in my life running on time for over (gulp!) thirty years. The three hundred emails, five hundred phone calls, and at least seven pep talks a day have made space for my creativity to flourish and grow in every way. I will be forever grateful for all the little ways you motivate me, including lots of funny stories about your hair and my favorite surprise cheer-me-up cookies during long days at work. I love you!

I would like to thank Harlan Coben for agreeing to jump in and become my partner on this amazing journey. I have no idea how I managed to convince a writer of your esteem to agree to coauthor with me for the first time, but I will be forever grateful to you for taking my seed of an idea and building out this fascinating world. A novel filled with global medical intrigue and massive corruption, all centered around a woman whose superpower is her surgical prowess, seemed like a far-fetched dream. You brought Maggie McCabe to life with your ability to shape an idea into a fully fleshed-out, page-turning thriller. And you made the whole process so fun! I am enormously proud of our collaboration and the deep humanity inside it. Thank you for being the best partner in the whole world.

Thank you to all my favorite writers, including all my Reese�s Book Club authors, readers, and booksellers who inspire me to explore the edges of my imagination and dream of more stories to tell.

Finally, to my wonderful children and family, there aren�t enough pages in this book to tell you how much your love means to me. I am so blessed to have the most encouraging family in the world.

��Reese Witherspoon