Pattern Recognition

And they all, including Cayce, repeat these last three words, raise their glasses, and drink, beneath the shadowed ICBMs and Sputniks of the faded mural high above.

AS they're leaving, Parkaboy and Bigend to accompany Cayce to the guest house, originally for visiting academicians, where the three of them are to stay the night, Marchwinska-Wyrwal excuses himself to the others and takes her aside. From somewhere he has produced a large rectangular object, about three inches thick, enclosed in what appears to be a fitted envelope of fine beige wool.

"This is something Andrei Volkov wishes you to have," he says. "It is only a token." He hands it to her. "I apologize again for pressing you, earlier. If we were to know how you obtained the address, we could mend a gap in the security of the Volkovas. We are very concerned now, with Sigil. But Sigil has become essential to the Volkovas' project."

"You suggested my father might still be alive. I don't believe that."

"Neither do I, I'm sorry to say. Our people in New York have studied the matter, very closely, and have been unable to prove his death, but I myself believe that he is gone. Are you certain that you will not help us, in the matter of Sigil?"

"I can't tell you because I don't know. But it wasn't any weakness or betrayal at Sigil. Someone with intelligence co

His eyes narrow. "Echelon. Of course." Then he smiles. "A friend of your father's. I had guessed as much."

She says nothing.

He reaches into his jacket and extracts a plain white envelope. "This also is for you," he says. "This gift is mine. Traditionalists have their uses. Our people in New York are talented, extremely thorough, and have many options at their disposal." He places the envelope on the rectangular woolen parcel, which she's still holding before her as though it were a tray.

"What is it?"

"All that is known of your father's last morning, after he left his hotel. Good night, Miss Pollard." And he turns away and walks back into the shadows of the oval room, where she sees Sergei has reseated himself at the candlelit table, and has removed his tie, and is lighting a cigarette.

42. HIS MISSINGNISS

- /

Aside from looking as though they all shop at The Gap and nowhere else, the inmates of Volkov's rendering farm don't seem to be required to wear a uniform. Cayce sees several, in the halls, as she's leaving with Bigend and Parkaboy, and several more as they make their way to the guest house.

The fence she'd climbed, Bigend says, has been only recently installed to prevent teenagers from the surrounding countryside from sneaking in to pilfer things.

There are usually sixty people here, he says, fulfilling their debt to Bussian society by rendering, as they have been taught to do, the rough segments of footage that arrive from the Moscow studio. The physical plant, formerly a technical college, is intended to accommodate a hundred and fifty, which accounts, she supposes, for its dozy summer-session atmosphere.

"What sort of crimes did they commit?" she asks, scuffing along in her slippers, Parkaboy carrying Volkov's gift.

"Nothing violent," Bigend says. "That's a requirement. Generally, they simply made a mistake."

"What kind of mistake?"

"Miscalculated the extent of blat required, or who had it. Paid off the wrong official. Or made the wrong enemy. Sergei's recruiters keep track of court calendars, sentencing… It's essential to get them before they've been exposed, literally, to the standard prison system. Then they undergo testing elsewhere, medical and psychological, before coming here. I suppose some don't make it."

Moths are whirling around the light atop a steel pole, beside the concrete path, and the sense of being on the summer campus of some down-at-heels community college is eerie.

"What happens when they graduate?" she asks.

"I don't believe any have, so far. The facility's quite new, and their actual sentences are generally of three to five years' duration. It's all being made up as it goes along. As are many things in this country."

The path climbs to a sparsely planted grove of young pines, screening a one-story orange brick building that resembles a very small motel. It presents them with four identical entrances and four windows. Ornate white lace curtains are drawn across the darkened windows, but there are lights on above three of the doors.

'You look bagged," Parkaboy says, handing her the cloth-covered rectangle. "Get some sleep."

"I know you're exhausted," Bigend says to her, "but we need to talk, if only briefly."

"Don't let him keep you up," Parkaboy advises. He turns and enters one of the doors, without using a key. She sees the lights come on behind the lace curtains.

"They aren't locked," Bigend says, leading the way into the one to the left. An overhead fixture comes on as she shuffles in after him, bandaged feet smarting.

Cream walls, brown tile floor, hand-woven Armenian rug, ugly forties-looking furniture in dark veneer. She puts the woolen package down on a bureau with a mirror whose borders are decorated with frosted grooves carved into the glass.

She smells disinfectant, or insecticide.

She still has the envelope in her hand.

She turns and faces Bigend.

"Boone was reading my e-mail."

"I know," he says…

"But did you know it before?"

"Not until after he'd called from Ohio to tell me we needed to go immediately to Moscow. I had a friend's Gulfstream pick him up and bring him to Paris. He admitted it to me on our way here."

"Is that why he didn't stay?"

"No. He left because I no longer wanted to be in partnership with him."

"You didn't? I mean, you don't?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because he pretends to be better at what he does than he is. I prefer people who are better at what they do than they think they are."

"Where's Dorotea?"

"I don't know."

"Have you asked?"

"Yes. Once. They say they don't know."

"Do you believe them?"

"I think it's better left unasked."

"What was she trying to do?"

"Change sides. Again. She really did want the position in London, and she'd told them she'd still be working for them as well. Which I had discussed with her, of course. But when your e-mail reached Stella Volkova, and Stella replied, it caused a number of things to happen very quickly. All of the armaz.ru traffic is monitored by Volkov's security, of course. They immediately contacted Dorotea, who, in the course of what must have been a very intense conversation, realized for the first time who she had ultimately been working for—and who she was in the process of betraying, by coming over to my side. She must also have understood that if she could get to you first, and discover how you had obtained that address, she would have something very important to offer them. She might even be rewarded, and perhaps retain her job at Blue Ant as well."

"But how did she know I'd gone to Moscow?"

"I imagine she'd instantly hired replacements for the last two, or perhaps there were more to begin with. I doubt if she ever called off your surveillance, even after Tokyo. She would have needed to continue reporting on you. She isn't a very imaginative woman in any case. If they saw you check in at Heathrow, they knew you were going to be landing in Moscow. There are no other destinations, for Aeroflot, at that time of the evening. She could easily have arranged to have you followed, on this end. Not by Volkov's people, though. She still had co