Next to the plastic basket with her name, marked with a piece of tape, was a void where Blass's bin usually sat. The Agency had probably tagged it as evidence and whisked away to some other facility. Barbara retrieved her purse and sat it down in the empty space to dig out her phone.

When the screen flickered on, two pieces of information greeted her: it was ten past twelve and she had one missed call from Sunshine Dry Cleaners. The call looked innocent enough, but that was the point. To anyone else, it was a call about a lost or damaged piece of clothing. But Barbara knew it was more important than that, and considering the events of the morning, it was vital she call back.

"Once again, I sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am."

Major Brennan stepped up behind her and at the first sound of his voice, she switched the screen off and let the phone fall back into her handbag before wheeling around on him.

"First you people imprison me underground for three hours and then you question me like some kind of criminal for the rest of the morning. And you're sorry for the inconvenience?" To be fair it had been some Agency men in suits that had interrogated her, not this tall, uniformed man with his bald head bowed meekly. But when had fairness ever associate itself with her life? Fuck fairness.

Brennan lowered his head a little more as though absorbed in his polished belt buckle or his hands that fidgeted just above it-the right one counting off the burly knuckles on the left. "It's just procedures-getting a full picture of what occurred. All I can say is sorry that-"

"Yes, it seems all you can say is sorry. They must have been awfully desperate when they put you in this job. You keep me locked up while the real culprit walks out the door under your nose. Is this a government operation or a circus act? Don't answer that. Obviously there isn't any difference."

Barbara pushed past the security chief and marched out.

Bastard. Not half the man Carlos was.

The parking lot was a chaos of military vehicles and black SUVs. A few wove through the obstacle course in fits and starts trying to get closer to the building. But most were parked haphazardly and their occupants either inside Aira or patrolling the grounds. Above, the sky was the same flawless blue, empty of clouds and weather that greeted her almost every day, but somewhere under the great canopy, Amy was roaming free.

Walt was going to go ballistic.

Barbara had no doubt he already knew. The Norwegian was like a slimy, giant squid with tentacles everywhere. The one thing she didn't know was what his next step would be. That uncertainty made the phone and its missed call weigh heavy in the purse on her arm.

"Barbara. Barbara." Emily came running to her. "What the hell is going on? I've been waiting to get in for half-an-hour while they run my clearance. No one is telling me anything."

"Go home. Trust me, you don't want in there. You'll just end up spending the afternoon answering the same questions over and over again."

"What happened?"

"Blass went nuts and let wolf-girl out."

Emily's face dropped and her jaw sagged. "Was anyone hurt?"

"Down there? No. Out here? I haven't checked the news. You hear anything about a savage, hairy animal laying waste to a shopping mall?"

"You mean she's out out?"

The emotional complexity of Emily's first reaction had been impossible for Barbara to dissect. It was likely a murky soup of concern for her coworkers trapped with the beast, empathy with their fear and pain, and worry for the sweet, blonde haired girl, who Emily must believe was as much a victim as the people she tore apart. But with the realization that the prom queen could be roaming the hills in search of her next meal, her emotions shifted to a very clear and edgy panic.

"That's what I said."

"Oh, fuck. What's going to happen now?"

"I was told to go home and await further instructions from the DTAA," Barbara said, unlocking her car door.

"No, I mean about Amy?"

"Maybe you should ask your boyfriend. I'm sure he knows more than I do."

Emily was too shocked to make a fuss about the use of the term boyfriend. Barbara knew that they were no longer seeing each other, but she was in no mood to be nice. Besides hadn't she already done Emily a favor by warning her away from the Agency's interrogation team?

"Max is here?"

"Came and left hours ago."

She got into the car and drove off, leaving Emily on the hot pavement looking like a lost child.

Amy was loose and who knew what havoc would be caused by it. The initial carnage would be nothing compared with the eventual end of the world-if Walt was to be believed. And Barbara could have stopped it.

She knew something was up with Blass the second he came into sight. The frayed look of anxiety in his eyes had worried her. Could he have gone ahead and killed the girl during the night when the bunker was empty? He seemed too soft for that, but maybe she had miscalculated. But then that foolish girl poked her head around the corner and everything fell into place. And still he prattled on thinking he was fooling her. The dolt didn't even catch her lie when she said she was going to get some coffee. He knew damn well she never drank coffee.

Is everyone stupid but me?

They were lucky they had run into her and not someone else. Any of the others would have tried to stop them.

Walt would be having an aneurism from the news of Amy's escape, but it suited Barbara just fine. She would have dragged Amy out herself, if she had been able to figure out a way to do it safely. At least Blass had proven himself helpful in that regard. Being useful went a long way with Barbara.

Usefulness was the only reason Walt was still breathing. He knew a lot of things Barbara wanted to understand and he had connections she needed. He had been right that first night they met in his chalet, she wouldn't kill him. Not for a while anyway.

When she was far enough away from Aira, she got her phone out and called Palmer back.

"Why did you call?"

"Just reporting in. I'm being sent to Maine on a mission."

"What the hell does Jorgenson have in Maine?"

"A secret archeology site. Some Viking village on a cliff by the coast. He's been excavating it for ages."

Words from a few years ago came back to her.

"There were two clans," Walt had told her at one of their early meetings in an overpriced restaurant where food was served up with tweezers and wine was poured from dusty bottles into sparkling crystal decanters. "The stories tell us that each clan was founded by one of Fenrir's sons. Fenrir, of course, was the great wolf who fought the gods, but we can hardly lay credence to such myths. More likely, the people linked the clan chieftains to these old legends-propaganda was a weapon even back then."

His tone was much more academic than it usually was, but perhaps it was a product of the late hour and the second bottle of wine he was working his way through. "You see my dear, these two chiefs held onto power, just as their forefathers had, by virtue of their lycanthropy. Over the generations there was whisperings of rebellion, but little action. It took a prophecy foretelling that Ragnarok would be started by the progeny of these chiefs to finally spark an uprising."

"Wasn't this talk of Armageddon just more propaganda?"

"Oh, perhaps it was made palatable to the masses with talk of Odin and Fenrir, but the prophecy of Ragnarok is very true. A sacred order was formed to guard against it. And this order fermented and organized the unrest, which finally ousted these abominations. The varúlfur were caught unaware especially when many of their own vassals turned against them. The rebellion rooted out and destroyed the bloodlines of these monsters...but not completely. A few loyal servants secreted away the last remnants of these damned creatures and took them far beyond the reach of their enemies."

Walt coughed and cleared his throat with more wine.

"One group headed south to Germany, which wasn't far enough away and led to many conflicts over the years. The craftier clan followed Ericson's trail over Greenland into the Americas. It is said they founded a settlement on rocky shores and nurtured the bloodline until long after the Spaniards came to these lands. Your Agency's precious Amy is a descendant of these traitors."

Walt told her about that settlement three years ago, and all the while, he was digging it up. The sneaky bastard.

"What's he sending you there for?" she asked Palmer.

"No idea. He said details would be forthcoming. Who the hell says forthcoming?"

"Calm down. Tell me where this place is. I'm going with you."

Palmer was such a baby. Barbara had to drag the details from him as he had his melt down and pleaded with her to stay put.

"Why? Why would you want to come to some godforsaken dirt pit?" he said in his weak, tremulous voice. "I can keep you informed of everything. I'm your eyes and ears, remember? You don't need to come."

But she did.

It just went to prove that everyone was stupid but her. Amy escapes and Walt's reaction is to send his fixer to the village of her ancestors.

Something important was there.

Achild could connect those dots.