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For I am become death, destroyer of worlds.

The Bhagavad Gita

With a mixture of anger, annoyance, and concern, Jack slammed the phone back into its cradle. For the tenth time this morning he had called Kusum’s apartment and listened to an endless series of rings. He had alternated those calls with others to Washington, D.C. Information had found no listing for Kolabati in the District or in northern Virginia, but a call to Maryland information had turned up a number for a K. Bahkti in Chevy Chase, the fashionable Washington suburb.

There had been no answer there all morning, either. It was only a four-hour drive from here to the Capitol. She had had plenty of time to make it—if she really had left New York. Jack didn’t accept that. Kolabati had struck him as far too independent to knuckle under to her brother.

Visions of Kolabati bound and gagged in a closet somewhere plagued him. She was probably more comfortable than that, but he was sure she was Kusum’s prisoner. It was because of her relationship with Jack that her brother had taken action against her. He felt responsible.

Kolabati… his feelings for her were confused at this point. He cared for her, but he couldn’t say he loved her. She seemed, rather, to be a kindred spirit, one who understood him and accepted—even admired—him for what he was. Augment that with an intense physical attraction and the result was a unique bond that was exhilarating at times. But it wasn’t love.

He had to help her. So why had he spent most of the morning on the phone? Why hadn’t he gone over to the apartment and tried to find her?

Because he had to get over to Sutton Square. Something within had been nudging him in that direction all morning. He wouldn’t fight it. He had learned through experience to obey those nudgings. It wasn’t prescience. Jack didn’t buy ESP or telepathy. The nudgings meant his subconscious mind had made correlations as yet inapparent to his conscious mind and was trying to let him know.

Somewhere in his subconscious, two and two and two had added up to Sutton Place. He should go there today. This morning. Now.

He pulled on some clothes and slipped the Semmerling into its ankle holster. Knowing he probably would need it later in the day, he stuffed his house-breaking kit—a set of lock picks and a thin plastic ruler—into a back pocket and headed for the door.

It felt good to be doing something at last.