Gone Tomorrow

and tended your goats. You’re going to die and that photograph is going all around the world.”
    “We have a fresh blank DVD,” she said. “The camera is charged up and ready for your starring role.”
    “You talk too much, Lila.”
    She didn’t answer.
    I closed the phone and headed back through the gathering evening darkness to the hotel. I went up in the elevator and unlocked my room and sat down on the bed to wait. I waited for a long time. Close to four hours. I thought I was waiting for Springfield. But in the end it was Theresa Lee who showed up.
    She knocked on the door eight minutes before midnight. I did the thing with the chain and the mirror again and let her in. She was dressed in a version of the first outfit I had ever seen her in. Pants, and a silk short-sleeve shirt. Untucked. Dark gray, not mid-gray. Less silvery. More serious.
    She was carrying a black gymnasium bag. Ballistic nylon. The way it hung from her hand I guessed it held heavy items. The way the heavy items moved and clinked I guessed they were made of metal. She put the bag on the floor near the bathroom and asked, “Are you OK?”
    “Are you?”
    She nodded. “It’s like nothing ever happened. We’re all back on the job.”
    “What’s in the bag?”
    “I have no idea. A man I never saw before delivered it to the precinct.”
    “Springfield?”
    “No, the name he gave was Browning. He gave me the bag and said in the interests of crime prevention I should make sure you never got your hands on it.”
    “But you brought it anyway?”
    “I’m guarding it personally. Safer than leaving it around.”
    “OK.”
    “You would have to overpower me. And assaulting police officers is against the law.”
    “True.”
    She sat down on the bed. A yard from me. Maybe less.
    She said, “We raided those three old buildings on 58th Street.”
    “Springfield told you about them?”
    “He said his name was Browning. Our counterterrorism people went in two hours ago. The Hoths aren’t there.”
    “I know.”
    “They were, but they aren’t anymore.”
    “I know.”
    “How do you know?”
    “They turned in Leonid and his buddy. Therefore they’ve moved somewhere Leonid and his buddy don’t know. Layers upon layers.”
    “Why did they turn in Leonid and his buddy?”
    “To encourage the other thirteen. And to feed the machine. We’ll rough them up a little, the Arab media will call it torture, they’ll get ten new recruits. Net gain of eight. And Leonid and his pal are no big loss, anyway. They were hopeless.”
    “Will the other thirteen be better?”
    “Law of averages says yes.”
    “Thirteen is an insane number.”
    “Fifteen, including the Hoths themselves.”
    “You shouldn’t do it.”
    “Especially unarmed.”
    She glanced at the bag. Then she looked back at me. “Can you find them?”
    “What are they doing for money?”
    “We can’t trace them that way. They stopped using credit cards and ATMs six days ago.”
    “Which makes sense.”
    “Which makes them hard to find.”
    I asked, “Is Jacob Mark safely back in Jersey?”
    “You think he shouldn’t be involved?”
    “No.”
    “But I should?”
    “You are,” I said. “You brought me the bag.”
    “I’m guarding it.”
    “What else are your counterterrorism people doing?”
    “Searching,” she said. “With the FBI and the Department of Defense. There are six hundred people on the street right now.”
    “Where are they looking?”
    “Anywhere bought or rented inside the last three months. The city is cooperating. Plus they’re inspecting hotel registers and business apartment leases and warehouse operations, across all five boroughs.”
    “OK.”
    “Word on the street is it’s all about a Pentagon file on a USB memory stick.”
    “Close enough.”
    “Do you know where it is?”
    “Close enough.”
    “Where is it?”
    “Nowhere between Ninth Avenue and Park and 30th Street and 45th.”
    “I suppose I deserve that.”
    “You’ll figure it out.”
    “Do you really know? Docherty figures you don’t. He figures you’re trying to bluff your way out of trouble.”
    “Docherty is clearly a very cynical man.”
    “Cynical or right?”
    “I know where it is.”
    “So go get it. Leave the Hoths for someone else.”
    I didn’t answer that. Instead I said, “Do you spend time in the gym?”
    “Not much,” she said. “Why?”
    “I’m wondering how hard it would be to overpower you.”
    “Not very,” she said.
    I didn’t