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  The feeling of foreboding increased as she turned onto East Cornwallis Road, heard the whine of sirens, and saw black smoke billowing into the sky. Her hands tightened on the wheel as she turned left onto a smaller road, and the source of the fire drew closer. By the time she reached the gated entrance to Quasar Labs, the sirens had ceased, but a column of greasy smoke still emanated from inside the property.

  Andie parked beside the guard shack and stepped out of her car. A bulky man in his forties, his mustache bristling beneath beady eyes, slid open a glass window.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Andie started to take out her Duke ID, then thought better of it. “I work nearby. I saw the fire and wanted to check on someone who works here.”

  “They’re not answering their phone?”

  “No.”

  “I can’t let you through without authorization. Sorry.”

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “So far, just the one building. I think they’ve got it under control. Listen, who do you know? I might be able to check on them.”

  “Dr. Lars Friedman.”

  The guard’s face twitched, and one of his hands dropped below the window. “How do you know Dr. Friedman?”

  “He’s a friend. Why? Is he okay?”

  “What’s your name?”

  Wondering why the guard was acting so nervous, Andie gave him the name of the protagonist in a book she was reading.

  The guard looked her up and down, then glanced at her scratched-up convertible. By the smirk that tugged at the corners of his lips, she guessed what conclusion he had drawn.

  “I really need to see him,” she pressed, not giving a damn.

  He mashed his lips together, as if trying to make a decision. “Look. I can’t let you in, but between you and me, no one’s seen Dr. Friedman for a few days.”

  “What do you mean no one’s seen him?”

  “He didn’t come in today. Or yesterday.”

  “Did he call in sick?”

  “I can’t give out that information.”

  Trying to conceal how much the guard’s revelation disturbed her—Dr. Friedman had disappeared the same day as Dr. Corwin—she said, “What started the fire?”

  “Hey, lady, are you a reporter?”

  “I’m a friend. Like I said.”

  “Yeah, well, if you’re his friend and you hear something, let us know, okay?”

  “Sure,” she said, backing away.

  “Why don’t you leave me your contact information, and I’ll let you know if he shows up.”

  “That’s okay. I’m sure he’ll call me.” As the guard continued to watch her, she couldn’t resist a final question. “Was it Dr. Friedman’s lab that burned?”

  It took him a moment to answer, but she saw the truth in his eyes. “I can’t give that information out.”

  She returned to her car, feeling the sudden urge to get as far away from Quasar Labs as possible. As she started the engine, a black SUV approached the gate from inside the compound. It stopped at the guard shack and then rolled past her. Right before the tinted window was raised, she glimpsed a strikingly attractive Middle Eastern woman in the back seat, her black hair caught in a bun. She was reading a document held up in her hands. Beside her, a pale man with glasses and an aquiline nose was talking on a cell phone. Both wore business suits and had a laser focus on their tasks. As the man continued his phone conversation, he turned his head toward Andie, holding his gaze as if cataloguing her features. She froze, unsure whether to look back or turn away, feeling dissected by his stare. The moment passed, and his attention returned to his call.

  When Andie tried to get a look at the driver, she felt a prickle of gooseflesh rise along her arms. It was hard to tell through the tinted windows, but she noticed before the car pulled away that the driver’s arms stayed locked on the steering wheel in the exact same position, eerily so, and that his head never seemed to move. Maybe it was her imagination, and she never got a look at his face, but his rigidity caused a dissonant reaction to his silhouette.

  As if something about it wasn’t quite right.

  4

  Omer Kveller approached the ticket scanner at gate C7 in Terminal 2 of the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. As the leggy blonde manning the scanner held out her hand for his documents, Omer drew to his full height, met her gaze, and flashed a warm smile. The blonde smiled back.

  Omer was six foot two, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and blessed with the bone structure of a movie star.

  They always smiled back.

  His charm offensive did not stem from worry about the fictitious name on his passport. The more the technology surrounding legitimate documentation improved, the harder it became to detect the well-crafted false ones. Perfectly replicated laser perforations and intaglio printing were a bitch to expose.

  Omer’s fake ID was almost foolproof. He didn’t need to play nice with the gate agent. He simply found that greasing wheels eased his passage through life.

  And in his business, one used every advantage at one’s disposal.

  “Portuguese?” she commented, glancing at his passport. “I love Lisbon.”

  “It’s beautiful,” he agreed.

  Omer possessed the sort of swarthy complexion that could pass for any number of nationalities. A former linguist for Israeli special forces, as well as the son of a diplomat, Omer had the worldliness and language skills to support his false identities.

  Just before he placed his cell phone under the scanner, using his left hand so no one noticed the missing right pinky, a text made him draw the phone back. “Ah, one second,” he said, stepping out of line. “I’m sorry.”

  “Boarding closes in five minutes,” the gate agent chided, maintaining eye contact as he backed away. An unspoken promise. “Don’t miss your plane.”

  “Understood. Thank you.”

  He needed to find a secure place to make the call. Unfortunately, that meant outside the airport. He waded through the crowd at the gate and slipped into the flow of people returning through the terminal. Near baggage claim, someone grabbed him from behind. On reflex, Omer spun, gripped the man by the underside of his right arm, and prepared to gouge out an eye or press a thumb into the man’s windpipe.

  Omer was scanning the crowd for more assailants when he realized the person who had bumped him was a husky college kid with ripped jeans and a goatee.

  “Hey, man! Let me go!”

  “Excuse me,” Omer said, raising his palms in apology. The encounter had occurred in a heartbeat. “You startled me.”

  “Jesus, I just tripped.”

  “I apologize.”

  Though Omer’s heart rate had remained steady during the encounter, recent events had him on high alert. The attack in Bologna, the fire, and the chaos that the unfinished business was sure to bring. The college kid could just as easily have been someone sent to kill him before he boarded his flight.

  The kid was cradling his right arm, which had gone limp from the pressure applied to the ulnar nerve. “What’d you do to my arm?” he called out as Omer walked away.

  “An accident. You’ll be fine in a minute.”

  Once outside, Omer crossed over to the airport parking deck and took the elevator to the top floor. No clouds marred the hypnotic blue sky. The air felt thick and heavy. When he stood alone in a deserted portion of the deck, far from video surveillance and the threat of hidden microphones, he dug a different phone out of his calfskin duffel bag and called a familiar number.

  “We are here,” answered an anonymous robotic voice.

  Omer continued to scan his surroundings. “I just got a text.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the airport.”

  “You need to stay a while longer.”

  “What if there’s footage from the lab? Police could match it to the passport.”

  Omer was not worried about someone intercepting the communication. Names were never used on these calls, and the people on
the other end of the line were using burner phones and a messaging app encrypted with a block-cipher algorithm.

  The reason the call was filtered through a speech modifier, he knew, was to disguise the identity of the caller from Omer.

  “Let us take care of that,” the metallic voice droned. “Any troubling footage will be erased.”

  “Understood,” Omer replied. “What do you need?”

  “A young woman appeared at the lab and asked for Dr. Friedman. It was not his wife or any known associates.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “Who was it? The Society?”

  “We’re running facial-recognition software and should know by the end of the day.”

  “Was there any sign of the device?” Omer asked.

  “No. But she might have knowledge. Are you certain it’s not in Durham? You checked the office and the home?”

  “And left no trace. I know my job. But this woman—what’s the protocol? Interrogation?”

  “Deliver her,” the voice replied, and the line went dead.

  Half an hour later, after procuring a different rental car on a different false passport, Omer pulled into the parking lot of the Fairfield Inn & Suites near the airport. He bypassed the entrance and pulled his gray Nissan Armada deep into the back lot. After checking for surveillance cameras—hotels like this rarely had them in the rear—he parked and climbed into the middle row of the SUV.

  He placed his duffel bag on the seat beside him, pausing to set his phone to a London-based classical music station. Next, he opened the bag and extracted a disassembled advanced-polymer firearm wrapped in pieces inside his clothing. He wasn’t particularly worried about his target, but there were dangerous forces in play. A violinist in his youth, he hummed along to Stravinsky as he pieced together a zip gun invisible to airport metal detectors. The handgun resembled a flattened rectangle with a trigger and a snub-nose barrel. The last piece was an electric component that attached to the miniature scope, and synced to Omer’s wristwatch. Among other tricks, the watch could fire the zip gun remotely, at a distance of ninety yards.

  He loaded the weapon with sharpened polymer-coated rubber bullets. It was hardly the sort of piece he would carry into a war zone, but the zip gun was lethal at fifty feet or less. Next he removed his clothes and slipped into a skintight ballistic vest made of interlaced microfibers. He changed into lightweight slacks and a gray moisture-wicking shirt, then returned to the driver’s seat to await further instructions. Exhausted by the last few days, he locked the doors and let his eyes close. Trained to wake at the slightest sound, he hoped the next thing he heard was the buzz of his smartphone.

  As he began to doze, his last thought was of the protocol he had been given for the mission. He did not fully grasp the big picture. He knew the Ascendants were searching for a device of vital importance, something that involved a new technology, but he was not privy to the details. One day in the future, he hoped.

  Omer had always felt that for people like himself, high achievers with natural gifts, a different path in life should be available. A higher ceiling. Yet not in his wildest dreams could he have imagined the turn his life would take. The extraordinary people he would find.

  The lofty citadels of human potential available to those willing to work, to suffer—even to die—to reach them.

  While the mission remained opaque, the protocol he understood perfectly well. Follow the Archon’s orders exactly as they are given. Do not ask questions. Do not deviate.

  Do anything it takes to deliver the target, find the device, or gain information about it.

  Anything at all.

  5

  Stunned by the fire and the news of Dr. Friedman’s disappearance, Andie made a snap decision as she drove back to Durham. Dr. Corwin had told her not to get involved, but she wasn’t about to sit on her couch and start preparing an elegy. She was going to dig into Dr. Corwin’s life and find out what the hell had really happened in Bologna. And the police . . .

  Trust no one.

  Instead of turning onto the downtown connector, she stayed on Cornwallis and headed north. Before she made any decisions, she was going to campus to see if she could figure out the meaning behind her mentor’s mysterious message.

  After clearing the visit with Dean Varen, head of the physics department, Andie stepped into Dr. Corwin’s office and experienced a shock.

  The framed photo of the Ishango bone was missing.

  It used to hang on the wall across from his desk. She was sure of it. But now his Oxford diploma was hanging in its place.

  Unsure what to do, she stood by herself in the middle of the office, remembering, absorbing, shuddering at the loss of the man who used to greet her so warmly from behind the desk. Eventually she turned to take in the contents of the room: globes, telescopes, bookshelves, more framed diplomas, his prized Fields Medal for mathematical research, and a detailed star map that glowed in the dark. A chalkboard covered one wall, filled with strings of numbers and formulas. In the corner, a hovering bonsai tree was supported with the clever use of magnets.

  She approached Dr. Corwin’s desk. Stacks of journals, notes, and research papers were arranged in neat piles around an iMac. Though much of a physicist’s work took place on the computer now, Dr. Corwin liked to use his chalkboard. String theory and quantum gravity were still pen-and-paper theories, relying on creative insight more than computer programs. Like her mentor, Andie specialized in the intersection of theoretical physics and astronomy, though Dr. Corwin was a far better mathematician than she would ever be.

  Still no sign of the Ishango photo.

  A memory of Dr. Corwin’s spicy aftershave, mingling with puffs of chalk dust as he scribbled on the wall, caused a fresh wave of emotion. She took a moment to gaze at the photos on his desk. Dr. Corwin hobnobbing with luminaries of his field. Feynman, Dirac, Hawking. A very old photo of Heisenberg in a lecture hall.

  Her gaze lingered on a photo where she was standing next to Dr. Corwin outside a local restaurant named Foster’s. To celebrate a finished project, he had taken his research assistants out to brunch on a bright spring morning. With his silver-gray hair and sharp blue blazer, Dr. Corwin looked as distinguished as always. Foster’s was a casual place, more of a glorified coffee shop, and unlike the other assistants, Andie had shown up as she always did: her tall, lean frame clad in black jeans and an old leather jacket. No makeup, messy hair, and sleep-deprived eyes.

  Beside Dr. Corwin, she looked like an overgrown street urchin, and she laughed at the memory.

  The empty space on the desk beneath the monitor, where the laptop used to sit, drew her eyes. All of a sudden, she had the wild notion that Dr. Corwin might have been killed for his research. As far as she knew, he had discovered nothing groundbreaking in recent years. But the idea caused her to close the office door and search his desk.

  Nothing unusual in the top middle drawer: pens, sticky Post-it notes, an old graphing calculator he kept around for nostalgia, and a stack of business cards from colleagues around the world.

  The drawers on the left side of the desk were filled with scientific papers, grouped into drop folders. She browsed some of the headers: LOOP QUANTUM GRAVITY. HIGH-ENERGY PARTICLES. THEORETICAL CONDENSED MATTER. DARK MATTER DETECTION. GAMMA-RAY BURSTS.

  Again, nothing unexpected, except for the folder on condensed matter. She hadn’t realized that was an interest of Dr. Corwin’s, but it dovetailed with his connection to Quasar Labs. Curious.

  On the other side of the desk, the top drawer was filled with blank notepads. The other drawers on the right were locked.

  Locked? Why are these locked?

  After staring at the desk for a few moments, indecisive, she rummaged around until she found a box of paper clips. She took two out and straightened them. After setting one down, she made a loop at the end of the other clip, bent it at a ninety-degree angle, and twisted the bottom end. Her tension wrench and rake. Andie had once dated a guy
who had worked on motorcycles for a living. He had nice arms and could even talk literature. On their first date, after seeing a local band, he had broken into a nearby bar for kicks. He said he knew the owner, and Andie went along with it. At the time, she hadn’t cared about much of anything. They poured themselves a drink, had a laugh, and made out behind the bar. After three more dates, she realized he was probably a part-time criminal and let him go. But he had taught her a few tricks, and those biceps . . .

  Concentrate.

  She inserted the tension wrench into the keyhole of the middle drawer, then jiggled the rake around beneath it. She hadn’t practiced in a long time and was afraid she had lost her touch. Every few seconds, she paused to listen, expecting footsteps in the hall. She kept fiddling until she got the lock to turn, and the drawer popped open.

  The first thing she saw made her gasp.

  It was a photo of Andie and her mother.

  After biting her nails for a moment, she picked up the thin black frame. In the photo, her mother was walking along a city street, carrying Andie in a baby backpack. Andie didn’t recognize the city. The people in the background were white but did not look American. The city had cobblestone streets and old stone buildings. Where was this taken? Why have I never seen this photo?

  The sight of her young mother in the picture, gazing lovingly down at her daughter, brought a lump to her throat. Her mother had a similar build to her own but with long blond hair, a wider chin, and sharper cheekbones. A beautiful woman. Andie swallowed away her emotion. If only your beauty were more than skin-deep.

  Why did Dr. Corwin have this? Was he once in love with her mother? Somehow, Andie didn’t think this was the case. He had never talked about her or looked at Andie in a weird way, as if seeing her mother in her.

  Still, the photo made her feel that she was missing an important piece of her past—and made her even more determined to find out what was going on.

  With a deep breath, she set the photo aside and picked up the only other object in the drawer: a silvery nine-sided object the size of a softball. One of the sides had a touch screen that displayed the common representation of an atom: the orbital swirl of electrons around a nucleus. The only difference was a tiny black hole in the center, a disk of darkness surrounded by a spiral of colored gas.