McLure tilted his head, looked at him and said, “You have no family, you have no connections, really, you have no direction. You strike me as a gentle person, but not weak, very intelligent but unfocused.”

Nijinsky had frowned. “Is this a job interview?”

“I know someone who may need a young man like you, Mr Hwang. This person needs a sort of, well, I don’t quite know the word for it. He needs someone to be a right hand to a young man who is very talented and in a leadership position but is not good at handling people.”

“Like a personal assistant?” The idea had disappointed him.

“No. Like a brother in arms. Like a balance. Yin to his yang.”

“It doesn’t sound like—”

“Your life would be in danger. Your sanity would be at risk. You would see things, and do things …unimaginable to you now.” McLure had smiled. “You would have purpose. You would be doing very, very important work . . .”

Nijinsky saw that the Subaru family had finally gotten their order straight. He sighed.

The yin to his yang, or was it the other way around, he could never remember, was chained in the seat behind him. Kerouac was mad. Renfield was dead. Ophelia was dead. And unasked for, Nijinsky was in charge. He had never wanted it, not for so much as a millisecond. He’d been a good second in command to Vincent.

But he had never—

An app opened on his phone, unbidden.

Suddenly he was looking at a night-vision shot of the common room in the New York safe house, taken from one of the security cameras.

Men in Kevlar vests and helmets were in the room, swinging their weapons left, right, looking for opponents.

“They’re hitting the New York safe house,” Nijinsky said, then regretted it because Wilkes was all over him in a flash, wanting to see.

“Goddamn!” Wilkes said, twisting his hand so she could see the phone better. “They missed us by what, three hours?”

“They’re going macro on us. They hit DC. Now they’re hitting us in New York.”

Her chin was on his bicep as she looked in fascination at the gray-scale video. The cameras switched from room to room in steady rotation. There were armed men in every room now.

“You’ve got to do it, Jin,” Wilkes said.

Nijinsky said nothing. The phone trembled in his hand.

“Jin, you have to do it. If you won’t do it I will.”

“What are you two talking about?” Anya asked.

“Blowing up the New York place.” Wilkes tried to sound casual, but Nijinsky could tell that even she, even hard little Wilkes was shaken by the idea.

He punched in a twelve-character code to get access to the Kill button. It was a green button.

Cheerful.

“I have to check with Lear,” Nijinsky said.

“There’s no time for that, Jin,” Wilkes snapped, her voice as ragged as his own. “It can take hours for Lear to respond. You know there’s instructions for all this. Everyone’s biots are outta there, we’re outta there, you know what we’re supposed to do.”

“I don’t think—”

“It’s what they did at the UN, what they did to their own people to hide evidence, and they burned Ophelia’s legs off!”

“So we do what they do?” he demanded, wanting somehow to blame her.

“There are fingerprints, hair samples, personal stuff, clues. Evidence. Whatever the hell. Jin. Jin!”

“I’m the wrong person for this,” Nijinsky said quietly.

“Give it to me,” Wilkes said. “If you don’t do it you’re putting all of us and our families at—” She stopped. Because Nijinsky’s thumb had pressed down on the button.

The video feed went blank.

They sat there, silent, until Nijinsky said, “Anya, would you mind driving for a while?”

FOURTEEN

The instant Nijinsky, Anya, Wilkes, and a heavily drugged Vincent arrived at the church, Nijinsky held up his phone for Keats and Plath to read a text. It was from Lear.

Karl Burnofsky: inventor of the nanobot. Murdered daughter on orders of Twins. Hold at all cost. Kill before you allow escape.

Keats read it twice just to be sure.

Burnofsky saw all this. He sighed. “I assume that’s about me. Am I a dead man?”

No one answered.

“Anya, would you help Vincent to a room?” Nijinsky asked.

There was something wrong with Nijinsky, it was obvious to anyone, something that was not just about a long drive on the turnpikes and freeways. He looked old. He looked as if he could be his own father. His voice was a whisper. He was carrying a paper bag from the liquor store where he had stopped off en route.

Keats took the bag from an unprotesting Nijinsky and set it on one of the pews. He drew out a bottle of vodka. He crumpled the bag noisily, making sure to draw Burnofsky’s attention to the bottle.

Burnofsky licked his lips, and for a few seconds an expression of terrible desire ruled his face.

Keats saw and understood. He’d been right about Burnofsky. An addict.

“So there he is in the flesh,” Burnofsky said, deliberately looking away from Keats and the bottle. “The great Vincent. Look what you fools have done to him.”

“We didn’t start this,” Plath snapped.

“Of course you started it, your half of it,” Burnofsky said. “We started our part, but no one made you take the other side. Did they? Your father was a friend of mine, you know.” He glanced at the bottle. “We used to drink together, Grey and I. He worked for me at one point. Did you know that? Used to enjoy a drink together.”