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“Okay.”

“Mike!” Kat said, sitting up on her hospital bed. “I thought . . . We thought you'd been caught.”

“I was,” I said. “Eugene ratted on us. There was somebody waiting for me. He knew everything.”

“If he knew everything, why did he let you go?”

“He didn't. I escaped.” I sat down on the stool next to her bed. “How are you?”

Her arm was splinted and wrapped in an Ace bandage.

“They say I'll need surgery. I still can't move my fingers very well, but I was afraid all the tendons were cut. They're not. Well, not all of them. And either way, I'm not supposed to try to move them. That's the reason for the splint.”

“Where are the others? Mary told me that John had been here with you.”

“He brought me in, but we have to get to all the Players. We might have missed some already. What time is it?”

I checked my watch. “A little before ten.”

She shook her head. “We still have so many Players to stop. We can't be sitting around here.”

“You need to heal.”

“I'm done here,” she said. “I've already been stitched up, and now all I'm waiting for is to be discharged.”

“What did they say about my stitches?” I asked with a little laugh. “Do I have a second career as a nurse?”

She rolled her eyes. “They weren't happy. They didn't know what
to make of it. They asked why I would have you do that instead of coming to the hospital.”

“Were they suspicious?”

“No,” she said with a little shrug. “I think they just thought I was a stupid American. I pretended not to speak any German, or even understand much of their English, blaming it on their accents. And you know John—he can lie his way through anything. He made up something about being foreigners and not understanding the German health-care system. He took the blame on himself, and they believed every word.”

“What did you tell them about how you got hurt?”

“Kitchen accident. He was holding a knife and turned quickly and didn't know I was standing there. Again, they just thought we were dumb.”

“Well, can you go?”

“I want to, but I need the pain meds that they're going to bring me when I get discharged. Then we can get back into the action. According to John, things aren't going too well.”

“They're not,” I said. “We're being taken apart piece by piece. But we've got five, maybe six—John and Walter are out again. We're still waiting for the others to report in, but I don't have high hopes. Douglas and Barbara are out together, and they haven't had as much training as the rest of us. John went out after them. They were the business managers and forgers. I don't think they're as prepared. Molly and her team haven't come back either.”

“Damn,” she said. “Barbara and I were close. She's not going to make it; I can feel it.”

“Don't think about that. I've got a walkie-talkie in my backpack. I don't want to pull it out right now, but when you get discharged, we're supposed to check in and get our next assignment. My next assignment, I mean. You're going back to the safe house.”

“No way,” she said. “We started this insanity. We're going to get it done. I don't want to let all of our efforts go to waste.”

“You can't even hold your gun.”

“I'm coming with you,” she said. “We'll figure out what we're supposed to do, and we'll make a plan, and I'll do what I have to do.”

I looked at her arm and her pale skin. She didn't look well.

“Hey,” she said, gesturing to the TV. “Turn on the sound.”

There was a news anchor sitting at a desk, the words
MÜNCHEN GEISELKRISE
on the screen next to him.

I turned on the sound, but he was speaking in German and I couldn't understand anything.

Kat was watching intently, and she began to translate for me as we watched.

“They're saying anywhere between three and twelve Israeli athletes are being held hostage. The terrorists are members of the group Black September—Palestinians from Jordan. The body of Moshe Weinberg was found naked in a hallway. He was shot to death. He was a coach. Another person—
ringer
? I don't know that word. He was also shot. Black September demanded the release of two hundred and something Palestinian prisoners. They gave the deadline of nine o'clock, but that time has passed, and this is still going on.”

“What about our attacks on the Players?” I asked. “Have they said anything about that?”

“Not yet,” she said.

“It won't be long.”

As we waited, I told her everything that had happened to me this morning—told her everything that I knew about the agent who'd detained me, and told her about meeting Mary back at the safe house. She told me about how she and John had decided to leave the park and go to the safe house. After he unwrapped the gauze on her arm to wash it, he saw how bad it was and made her go to the hospital.

“I wanted to wait for you,” she said. “I wasn't going anywhere, but I started to get really dizzy, and John said he thought I was losing too much blood. I don't know if that was it. It might have been shock.”

“It's okay,” I said. “I'm glad you came here. I'm glad you're getting
help.”

A few minutes later the doctor came back in. The two of them talked for a while in English, and she sat up and smiled. She didn't look nearly as sick as she had when I'd first gotten there. He gave her a bottle of pills and told us we were free to go.

Outside, we stopped on a park bench, and I pulled out the walkie-talkie and called in. Mary answered almost immediately.

“Kat's out of the hospital,” I said. “Where do we stand?”

“John couldn't find the Olmec,” she said. “No word from Walter. Bakr is gone. He wasn't assigned to any team yet, but I get the feeling he skipped town. Molly came back.” There was a pause. “Henry and Phyllis are dead, and they weren't able to kill their Player.”

“Who were they after?” I asked.

“The Harappan,” she said. “He's still at large.”

Kat took the radio from me. “Mary, this is Kat. Any word from Barbara?”

There was a moment of heavy static, and then Mary spoke. “Barbara and Douglas haven't reported in yet. John was going to look for them when he went after the Olmec, but he hasn't found any trace.”

“We'll go to the plaza,” Kat said. “See if we can find them.”

“John told me to send the next group after the Nabataean.”

“Don't you think the Players are going to be at the plaza?” Kat asked. “That's where the invitations told them to go. It's a little late in the morning for them to be still waiting in their hotel rooms.”

“You can go for it,” Mary said. “But be aware that there will likely be a heavy police presence there.”

There was more static, and then we heard John's voice. “Just off the plaza is a café called Siegfried's. Come here, Mike, Kat.”

“Ten-four,” Kat said.

She handed the walkie-talkie back to me, and I collapsed the antenna and turned it off.

“If we're just going to the plaza to wait for Players to show up, this is going to get violent and dangerous. I don't even know where the
sniper rifles are—probably back at the safe house.”

“I left my gun there,” Kat said.

“Here.”

I looked around to see if there was anyone watching us. No one was. I took out the Colt revolver I swiped from the agent and handed the gun to her.

“I haven't ever practiced shooting with my left hand,” she said.

“Neither have I,” I said. “But this is just in case. Don't plan on being the one who needs to shoot.”

She put the gun in the large pocket of her jacket. It wasn't a great option—the gun was heavy, and it was obvious that she was carrying something in there—but at least it was concealed.

Kat stopped someone on the street and asked the fastest route to the plaza. We followed the directions to a bus stop and waited about fifteen minutes. By noon we were being dropped off at the Olympic center. It was eerily quiet, and a sign posted at an information kiosk said that the games were being delayed due to the ongoing crisis.

There were still a couple dozen tourists walking around, and some were even sitting at the concrete sunburst.

“Who's that?” I asked Kat, taking her good hand in mine. “The kid in the red hat.”

“It could be the Harappan,” she said.

He was just sitting there. Not moving. Not reading. Just observing. Our eyes met for a minute, and it was all I could do not to look away. But I kept my eyes on him for a few lingering seconds, trying not to appear suspicious.

“What do we know about the Harappan?” I asked.

“That's where Molly, Henry, and Phyllis went. I haven't read his dossier. He killed Henry and Phyllis.”

There was another possible Player sitting on a patch of grass beneath a large pine. She didn't appear to be paying any attention to us, or to the Harappan. She was just reading a book casually and calmly.

“Who's left?” I asked.

“Well,” Kat said, thinking. “The Harappan. The Donghu. Nabataean. Sumerian. John was supposed to take the Olmec and Walter was going after the Shang. Agatha didn't spot the Aksumite at all yesterday; Rodney, Jim, and Julia are likely dead. They never came back. Who am I forgetting?”

“We got the Minoan, and we know the Mu, Cahokian, Koori, and La Tène are dead. That's everybody.”

“And we're cut in half. We don't know where most of our group is.”

A door to a café—a café that was closed—opened and we saw John. He waved to us, and we turned and went toward him, leaving the possible Players in the plaza.

“Hey, guys,” he said as we got close. He looked awful. Exhausted, sweating, and covered with little droplets of blood.

“What's going on?”

“We tried to get you on the radio. We have the Aksumite.”

I frowned. “I thought the Aksumite didn't come.”

“That's what we thought,” he said, closing the door behind us. He was out of breath. “But he showed up. Looking for us too. He knows all about Zero line. He must have killed Rodney, Jim, and Julia, and then came after the rest of us.”

“Did you kill him?” Kat asked.

“Not yet,” John said. “We want to know what he knows.”

“You're interrogating him,” I said.

John led the way to the kitchen of the café. The Aksumite was there, bleeding from his head. He was young—younger than Raakel. I guessed maybe 15. Hands and feet both tied. But he was wiry and looked tough. And he was smiling at us as we entered.

Walter had his sleeves rolled up, showing the Green Beret tattoos on his arms.

“I'm going to ask you again,” Walter said, perfectly calm. “What happened to the three people that came to see you in Ethiopia?”

The kid grinned. “You are all fools. Interfering in Endgame. You will
all perish in the fire of the gods.”

Walter turned to the counter and picked up a meat tenderizer.

Kat grabbed my hand.

He smacked a pane of glass with the mallet and it shattered into pieces.

“What do you want me to say?” the Aksumite said. “That your friends are alive and waiting for you somewhere? You sent them to me to kill the people of my line and bring me to this counterfeit Calling. My people are not the kind to sit idly by.”

John spoke. “So you killed them?”

“We have eyes everywhere.”

Walter grabbed the kid's laughing face and picked up a piece of glass a little bit smaller than a playing card. He shoved it into the boy's mouth, slicing the edges of his lips. The boy began to choke, and John swung a fist into the kid's chin. Walter let go of him, and the Aksumite spewed out glass shards and blood. He struggled for breath, and moaned at the broken glass in his mouth and throat. He hacked and coughed, and then began to vomit.

“You . . . ,” he panted. “You will burn.” Blood was pouring from his mouth.

“You won't be around to see it, kid,” Walter said, and punched him.

“John,” Kat said. “John, we don't need to do this.”

The boy spit again, and I could see the tiny slivers of glass in the blood on the floor.

“He doesn't have any information,” I said.

“Stay out of this, Mike,” John said.

“You can't just torture a kid,” I said back.

John jumped up and grabbed me by the shirt. “He's not a kid. When are you going to get that? These people do not deserve our pity. They deserve pain and death. And when he has experienced enough pain, I'll give him death.”

“This is not what I signed up for,” I said.

“Me either,” Kat said.

“You wanted to stop Endgame, didn't you? Wasn't that what you signed up for? Because that's what we're doing.”

“You're torturing him,” Kat said.

“And what about Rodney, and Jim, and Julia?” John said. “They were my friends.”

The Aksumite spit again, and formed as much of a smile as his torn face allowed him to. “They were p-p-poisoned before they ever . . . before they got off the plane.”

Walter grabbed another piece of glass, but I didn't give him time. I pulled the Colt Lawman from my belt and fired two rounds into the young boy's chest.

John pushed the gun away and shoved me backward. I slipped on the tile floor and landed on my tailbone, pain shooting up my spine.

“Are you trying to make the other Players run away?” John shouted. “The Harappan's been sitting out there for an hour. The others will be coming!”

Kat answered for me. “Then shouldn't you be focusing on them instead of torturing him? We were supposed to be stopping these guys, not even killing them. Just stopping them. And you're torturing him for information you already knew? Tell me that you had any doubt Jim and Julia and Rodney were dead.”