Jumper reflex pdf

Your Comment:. Home Downloads Free Downloads Reflex pdf. Read Online Download. Great book, Reflex pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone. Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:. Reflex by Steven Gould. Reflex by Dick Francis.

This is a gre A sequel to the book and movie Jumper, Reflex throws us back into the lives of Davey who can 'jump' to anywhere in the world he can see or has visited before, just by thinking about it and his wife Millie, in the present day. This is a great read, with believable action, a strong female lead in Millie, twists that are hard to see coming and kept me up late reading way past my intended bedtime. Also, the characters are a bit sarcastic by nature, so there's some great snark and comebacks throughout the tale.

I really enjoyed it, so much that I'm going to read more by Steven Gould. Mar 12, Lukas Lovas rated it it was amazing. I remember reading this book a couple of times before and usually skipping it, when I'm doing the jumper series re-read because of how dark it is. I've realised now I can barely remember it compared to jumper or Impulse , so I went ahead and re-read it as well There are a few moments and scenes that do make for a much darker mood, but overall, it was quite enjoyable and I now regret skipping it all these years.

Feb 01, Linda Branham rated it it was amazing Shelves: fiction , fantasy. I absolutely loved the idea of this book. The character can 'jump" teletransport himself anywhere! I happened to be reading the book while sitting in an airport and I decided it would be a wonderful skill to have! Of course people are him A very good and imaginative story I absolutely loved the idea of this book.

A very good and imaginative story Oct 06, eves rated it liked it. Epic sequel to Jumper. Although yes, Steven Gould kind of lost me in the scientific and technical facts, and the middle part dragged a bit, the overall novel was smashing and a wild ride. It makes sci-fi hella appealing, sexy and action-packed. You wouldn't have been able to expect anything like this.

But how on earth was Millie able to do what she did? Important questions! Apr 19, Cher Mendoza rated it it was amazing. Infinitely better than the first book. The style of writing had improved and the David's arrogance was lessened. This time, I loved that his wife took the spotlight and she kicked ass. Read my full review for this book HERE. Oct 01, Nijhia rated it did not like it. This book was a well awaited sequel to me and I was severely let down and I often didn't give a shit about the girl character, I only cared about Davey.

You can literally skip every chapter concerning her and get the whole story still. Jan 10, Jeff rated it really liked it. Sep 21, Gareth Otton rated it liked it. I have to admit that my absolute favourite type of story involving a person with awesome super powers is to lock them in a scenario where they can't use those powers properly for nearly a whole book. I mean, what could be more enjoyable than watching someone with superpowers act like a normal human being? The only way you could make that better would be if you subject the reader to countless chapters of that protagonist they like so much being tortured That's a genius idea.

In case it isn't cl I have to admit that my absolute favourite type of story involving a person with awesome super powers is to lock them in a scenario where they can't use those powers properly for nearly a whole book. In case it isn't clear in written form, I may have indulged in a touch of sarcasm in that opening paragraph. Its like someone asked me at the end of the last novel all the things I didn't want to happen in this novel and then they went and wrote a novel by ticking every single item off that list.

The fun adventurous tone that made the first novel great is replaced by the darker, melancholy tone that the worst parts of the first novel toyed with. This book stats in a place of doom and gloom, then goes downhill from there. Meanwhile, his wife had apparently caught ability to teleport like some sexually transmitted disease, and we are stuck watching her learn all the same lessons that Davey learned in the first book.

Not only was this tedious as all hell, but it reduces what is special about Davey. One of the big strengths of the 1st book was that as far as we knew Davey was the only person in the world who could do this amazing thing. It made it feel unique and special. His wife learning how to do it with zero explanation as to why cheapens that considerably. The trials of the protagonist, the drawn out plot, the inescapable situations and the constant dreariness of the tone just made my skin crawl.

I could never get comfortable reading this. However, for all that, I'm aware that most of these points are subjective. I think me and the author just had very different ideas about where to take this series. So from that point of view and trying to be fair in this review, I'm adding 2 starts because I think that different readers with different desires might enjoy this much more than I did. Jan 05, Brent Bauman rated it liked it.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Davys though…. I mean just problems everywhere. I get the abduction but he seemed to be WAY to amenable to getting along with these people. I loved Davys altruism in book one, I enjoyed his story and his motivation, but at some point you gotta start taking matters into your own hands.

I like the characters and the world enough to continue but this one was a rough ending for me. I started reading this in January and it took me until October to finish mostly because it was a chore for me to really get into it. As for Reflex I only read it so I could be done with it.

At a certain point you kind of came to I started reading this in January and it took me until October to finish mostly because it was a chore for me to really get into it. Either have him cave or refuse her right off and be done with it. I dunno. When I got down to the last 20mins of the book, I was literally falling asleep. Sep 02, Nikki rated it it was ok Shelves: science-fiction , The fact that Millie now jumps bugs me so much. She has never done it before and suddenly she's able to do it?

Is teleportation like the flu, you can "catch" it? Davy has been kidnapped and Mille takes the time to think "I wish he'd knocked me up first? I mean, really?!? And Davy was thinking about it, too, but not as bad. It just 2. It just really aggravated me. The storyline itself was okay. I've already read a book about learning to jump so reading it again through her eyes was meh. Reflex was okay. Not as good as Jumper but okay.

Dec 17, Kiri rated it liked it Shelves: cbpl. Another adventure with Davy, ten years after the previous book. Davy's got an established career with the NSA, and his girlfriend-now-wife Millie gets transported all over the globe by Davy's unlimited teleporting ability. But sure enough, trouble strikes. Davy gets kidnapped and Like Jumper , the story here is the plot, not the characterization. Aside from the nausea, I couldn't really bring myself to Another adventure with Davy, ten years after the previous book.

Aside from the nausea, I couldn't really bring myself to feel what the characters felt. But it's quite a gripping story, and I was rooting for an escape, and I liked that in the end view spoiler [it took both of them to solve it hide spoiler ]. Jul 30, Jeff Daly rated it really liked it Shelves: listened-to-audiobook , bought-on-audible. Narrator: MacLeod Andrews view spoiler [ Book notes.

Okay, author needs to do some serious explaining for this. Davy's wife Millie just teleported as she was falling to her death. She postulated that maybe everyone can do it but something She said she had experienced thousands? Really enjoyed it. I like the developments in Davie's abilities. I want to know more about Soji's history; feels like she may be a clairvoyant. Looking forward to the next book. Mon finished: Wed duration: 12hm Jan 04, Taid Stone rated it really liked it.

Ten years passes between the first novel "Jumper" and "Reflex. Davy, the teleporter, is married for example. And, he works for a few government agencies who pay him well for contracted jobs. However, it is people from the various agencies and more secretive groups who give the novel conflicts, interesting ones.

Several themes are important in this book. Clearly with Davy being married, love plays a Ten years passes between the first novel "Jumper" and "Reflex. Clearly with Davy being married, love plays a big role. Revenge for slights against people is even more important, less for specific actions and more for motivations to act. Finally, despite having a loving wife, Davy wants another jumper who can identify with him. The novel is well plotted. Nov 27, Duke rated it really liked it.

I loved the perspective shift from just Davy to both Davy and Millie. Personally I love it when stories have two protagonists and switch between the two. I enjoyed this one more than the first one, although I felt as though the plot flowed better in the first one.

Much like the first one, I liked how Gould wrote the characters. He did so in a way that made it feel like normal people in extraordinary stories. The science however was pretty shaky and the antagonists were pretty underdeveloped.

Tow I loved the perspective shift from just Davy to both Davy and Millie. Towards the end of the novel the story also seemed to drag on. All in all, Reflex was an enjoyable followup to Jumper and I had fun with it. Aug 18, Sikkdays rated it liked it Shelves: Once again, I find myself enjoying the plot, but the main characters lacking. Millie behaves different than Davy, but personality-wise they are the same. It is as if the author's voice is really the main character.

I was also thrown by the author's sense of humor, which the two main characters share indistinctly. Awkward and sometimes breaking the drama in places where the drama fits and the reader doesn't need relief.

I think the thing that keeps me reading is a desire for answers. How does he d Once again, I find myself enjoying the plot, but the main characters lacking. How does he do it? Are there others? These questions remain open and I will read the next book, but I think I will not be able to read further without those questions answered.

Readers also enjoyed. Science Fiction. Young Adult. Millie spread her hands and tried to look as harmless as possible. Let me take you to a doctor. Millie almost walked her into the dining room out of spite, but instead took Sojee up to the room and ordered room service. The bathroom with its golden tile and gleaming chrome fixtures fairly glowed in the fluorescent light.

She turned back to Sojee. While she was in there, Millie removed the bug and turned off the microphone. The food was cooling when Sojee came out of the bathroom. Millie was getting better at reading her facial expressions, at telling the random noise of her neurological condition from her true feelings. She was surprised at the degree of emotion. Schizophrenics were known for their flatness of affect—not too happy, not too sad.

Millie gestured at the food. I ordered the chicken. Help yourself. As she actively did things with her face—biting, chewing, drinking—the random movements and twitches stilled, until the next moment that part of her face relaxed. Then the tongue thrusts and prolonged blinks resumed.

She itched to ask Sojee about Davy again, but was not only afraid of spooking her again, but also of finding out Sojee had never seen him. Sojee ate slowly now, eating the salad with care, pushing the onions carefully to the side, but eating all the rest, wiping the dressing and chicken juices from the plate with delicate wipes of her bread.

The woman sighed and leaned back in her chair. She turned her head to the wall and squeezed her eyes shut, breathing carefully.

The moment passed and she was still in control, but her eyes burned. I started to ask it once, already, but you fainted when I showed you his picture. He kept vanishing and reappearing on me. When I found this one, I never took it off again. He paid for it with hundred dollar bills and we walked away, but then I found myself back on the street, in D. Disappear into thin air like my Angel.

She blew her nose and that helped a bit. It was that arctic air mass came down and froze all the Florida orange trees. Are you going to vanish, too? That was two months ago. When he bought you your coat?

He asked how I was doing and gave me some money. Keep it together, girl! You can cry later. She took a deep breath and expelled it through tight lips. Sojee was watching her, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed.

Somebody probably saw something. She felt like one raw wound. I thought I was holding this in. Sojee was looking at her when she finished wiping her eyes.

You might as well. Davy lived outdoors more than most people. If it was raining or snowing or too cold in one place, he simply jumped elsewhere, usually staying in the same hemisphere but not always. Early morning in the States was always a good time for a walk down the esplanade in Brighton, Sussex or tramping in the high meadows on the Cambrian Way in the mountains of Wales.

Late afternoon in Oklahoma was a great time to snorkel at Hamoa Beach on the east side of Maui or to hike up to the Puako Petroglyphs on the Big Island. Staying in one place, indoors, was getting to him. The management of his chains became second nature, their rattling and slithering across the floor, background noise. Just call me Jacob Marley. He suspected the pacing was beginning to bother his keepers.

Well, someone has a sense of humor. He opened the book. And Davy was feeling very much betrayed. Or at least they knew enough to follow Brian. Brian had cleared himself from suspicion very thoroughly. He glared at the book where it lay. He put out his hand and jumped. The chains writhed like snakes, a crack-the-whip movement that moved to the wall and then back down toward him, smacking his wrists and ankles painfully, but he was standing at the end of the bed, his hand on the book.

He could still jump within range of the chains. That is if he was willing to risk broken wrists or ankles. Parts of the chain were being accelerated instantly, over a distance of mere feet, but the energy imparted to the rest of the chain was considerable. Plaster dust floated in the air near the wall where the chains vanished through rough holes.

He wondered if his observers had seen him do it or grasped any of the implications. He waited for a moment, but there was no reaction from the speaker. He picked up the book again. Perhaps it was time to check out the escape. They brought supper that night, as usual, two different men in surgical masks and scrubs.

There was a persistent ache from the surgical scar on his upper chest and above, too, a tenderness that ran under the skin. Yet he had energy, too. So he took their masks off. One second he was reading in bed, the next he was standing at the extent of his chains, reaching out with both hands and closing on their masks just as the recoil from the chains reached his wrists. The chains, really, more than his own arms, snatched the paper masks off.

They jerked back, the one holding the supper tray dropping it with a clatter. They stopped, out of reach and stared at him, startled, perhaps even afraid. The other man was a hook-nosed individual with bushy reddish brown eyebrows and freckles. Not young, though—in his forties, perhaps. Davy stared at them, hungrily. The blonde held his hand to his cheek where a line of blood was forming. The chains clanked again. Davy sighed. The supper tray was lying out of reach, a small steak, baked potato, and salad, lying in a small lake of milk.

Davy looked at the mirror. There was more plaster dust in the air and small chunks of Sheetrock on the floor. He went over to the holes in the wall that the chain ran through.

They dropped down and vanished. When he tugged on one of them, it was as secure as ever. He got back on the bed and picked up the book.

The next morning, things changed. They came before breakfast, right after he finished using the portable commode, three, in scrubs, unmasked. Two thugs. The third was the brunette waitress from Interrobang. They stopped beyond the reach of his chains, Thug One and Thug Two slightly behind the woman.

At first, Davy thought they were still cautious, wary of him because of his action the evening before, but then he realized it was more of a power dynamic. The woman was in charge and they were afraid of her. Very wise. He was torn. Or do I take her and drop her from the Empire State Building? And do I catch her before she hits? Davy slid to the side and stood. For the first time in days he was conscious of the open-backed gown and his bare butt.

Standing felt safer, anyway. He noted that her hair was pulled back in the same tight bun and her makeup was just as heavy, though not running, this time, like it did in the rain.

If she shoots, perhaps I can jump to one side— The chains started clanking across the floor, pulling back into the wall, removing the slack. He had to shuffle backwards to keep up with them.

Thug One and Thug Two pulled the bed away from the wall—away from Davy—then unlocked the casters and rolled it to one side. His stomach churned and he licked his lips, some part of him expecting a beating. Then the chains loosened and he walked forward, expecting them to stop again where the end of the bed had been. Instead, Thugs One and Two and the woman backed up against the door. The chains stopped when he was two yards short of them.

The arc of the chains let him walk over most of the room, excepting only the end of the room with the mirrored window and the door. There was a mop in it and he heard liquid sloshing. Davy caught the heavy smell of pine-scented disinfectant. I could reach you guys with that mop. She looked at him, eyes narrowed. He frowned. Some saliva in the windpipe?

He coughed again, harder. And there was an odd tingling in his throat. He coughed hard enough to double him over but when the spasm was over he had no trouble breathing, no feeling of something in his throat. The computer voice came back. Just a tickle. This is the operational level. His chest hurt, stabbing pain in the vicinity of his heart, and he was having trouble breathing. He vomited again and again, though the first spasms were so spectacular that now he was bringing up just drops of bile.

Abruptly, it stopped. He was lying on his side, in a puddle of his own vomit, his face and hair sticky with it. It was mild, by comparison. He tried not to breathe through his nose. The pain in his chest had lessened though the ghost of angina seemed to linger. One of his hands was free of vomit and he gingerly touched his head. The finger came away with blood on it.

He had trouble meeting their eyes. Even though he was aware that what had just happened was done to him—not by him—he felt humiliated and ashamed. The two men watching him were pale, the blonde, Thug One, tending toward an actual shade of green. The woman seemed unaffected. She took the mop handle and pushed the bucket into the part of the room he could reach, letting the mop handle fall to the floor where it bounced—bap, bap, bap—three times.

Thugs One and Two went out the doorway, eagerly. The woman paused, with the door still open, and tucked a few stray hairs back into the tight bun on the back of her head. She smiled. He was weak as a kitten and, once vertical, the room spun around him. It took all his concentration to stay on his feet. Well, the only good thing was that, with his chains lengthened, he could actually go into the attached bathroom and use the bath. The bathroom looked like a standard residential toilet except a large mirror over the sink had clearly been removed—paint and the outer layer of some Sheetrock had been ripped out by the glass adhesive—and a smaller, plain steel mirror had been bolted to the wall instead.

Davy took one look in the mirror, then turned away. The gown nearly defeated him. It was disposable paper, but the fibers running through it made it hard to tear and, even though he managed the ties in back, the chains prevented him from just taking it off. Finally he summoned the strength to rip out the shoulders, allowing him to pull it off the chains.

He wadded it up and stuffed it in the small plastic trash basket. He pulled the shower curtain closed and, with the water full in his face, let himself cry. There was a bottle of squeeze soap in the shower and he scrubbed himself again and again, until his skin hurt.

He got soap on the bottle and it slipped through his fingers, falling to the bottom of the tub. He groaned as he picked it up, then stared at it.

He turned his back on the shower and squirted soap underneath the manacle padding on his left arm, twisting it to distribute the soap all around his wrist. He pulled and twisted, trying to relax his hand as the manacle rode up the base of his thumb. He wondered what would happen if he soaped both wrists, then jumped. He looked down. He sighed and rinsed the soap out from under the manacle padding. Drying off, he looked in the steel mirror over the sink and shuddered.

The scar on his chest, a semicircular curve starting an inch below his collar bone, had the red, raw look of still-healing tissue. A smaller straight version, healed to the same degree, was midway up the left side of his neck. He looked up at his eyes. The scars were awful in and of themselves and also in what they concealed, but what he saw in his eyes was even more terrible, more frightening.

He had to look away and it was beyond his strength, just then, to look back. When he returned from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, he found a pair of what looked like hospital scrubs on the bed.

He held them up and found that the outside pants seams were Velcroed from cuff to waist and he could actually put them on despite the chains.

On the short-sleeved shirt the Velcro was on the side seams from the waist to the underarm side of the sleeve. He could pull them on over his head and seal the sides.

He liked wearing pants again, but thinking about the forethought his keepers had put into this bothered him. The room stank, and his mess and footprints were still on the floor. Like in the shower, he washed the floor several times more than necessary. It happened. About five. The windows in the place were bordered with announcements of this and that performance, this and that dance studio offering classes, this or that dojo offering martial arts instruction, this and that person looking for a roommate.

Except this window. There were a few announcements on it, but none of the ancient evidence of bygone posters. This window had just been replaced. She felt a little odd, today, like a corner had been turned.

Today, her back itched. She laughed at herself. She left Interrobang and walked east, but the sidewalks were so busy that anybody could have followed her without detection. A cab went by, then another. She headed up the stairs for the Upper Level where the huge red and black Calder mobile hung in space beneath the faceted glass roof, but when she reached the top of the stairs the elevator doors opened and a woman pushing a fussing baby in a stroller got out.

The doors shut, then it continued up. She stayed in when it opened on the top floor, then she pushed the basement button and took it down and rode the moving sidewalk down the concourse toward the older West building.

At the end of the walkway, she crossed to the gift shop, and browsed, standing behind one of the display shelves and watching the pedestrians coming from the East building carefully. Several minutes passed and she frowned. There was a cluster of Japanese tourists, a family of five, three elderly ladies practically tottering, one of them using a rolling walker, and a single man carrying an easel and wooden paints case.

Over half the five hundred seats were full and he was pausing often to examine a particular grid of tables, then moving to another. She moved around that same display unit and positioned herself to peer over it, between two large coffee-table art books.

He could be looking for his wife. His kids. His grandmother. She looked at the way he stood and something made her doubt his innocence. She pulled off her blue raincoat and rolled it, white liner out, into a compact bundle.

She paid quickly, with cash, and asked for a larger bag than the one the clerk initially offered her. The clerk shrugged and gave her a paper bag with plastic handles. Millie ducked into the restroom, right by the Gift Shop, and hurriedly tied the scarf around her head, gypsy style.

Wrapped and tied, it transformed the kids on the beach to just another abstract pattern in tans and blues with the cheeks of the girl a pink highlight above the knot. She exited slowly and walked across to the Espresso and Gelato Bar.

He was still standing at the end of the walkway but now he was talking on a cell phone. Is he NSA? It made her want to break things. Or heads. Fight or flight.

She was surprised which side of the divide she came down on. If I could only hear what he was saying. We picked her up at the hotel. She dropped the black woman on Columbia then came to the National Gallery.

She was standing right behind the Monk. She turned her back on him, breathing deeply. I jumped? I jumped. I jumped! Immediately on the other side of the barrier one of the diners, a woman, was staring at her with her mouth open, a glass of water lifted halfway off the table, but frozen. Apparently it looked strange, too, for the woman flinched and dropped her glass on the floor.

His eyes widened slightly and he turned back away from her, casually. Millie fought back an urge to plant her toe firmly up his ass and turned, walking as quickly as she could toward the West Building. Well, not yet. There might be someone running across, at the Mall level, right now. She paused at the end of the shop, just before she turned right toward the stairs.

The Monk had turned and was walking briskly after her, still back by the restaurant, but closing. He was talking on the phone again.

She ran up the stairs but shied away from the door at the top. It was straight across to the East Building and she could see a figure sprinting toward this door but still quite a ways away.

The girl, clad in a long white gown and standing on a wolf skin, was life size, the painting itself almost seven feet tall. White drapes behind, shining with light, an oriental carpet below the wolf skin.

Not an artificial stillness, but a calm stance. Whatever she was doing, she was facing it calmly, with poise. She reached into her blouse and pulled out the tracking bug. There was a museum guard standing at the entrance to the next gallery, but she was watching a group of children instead of Millie. She took one more look at The White Girl and summoned resolve.

Share some of that serenity, please. There were steps in the east foyer, at the head of the stairs, and she left, moving to the next gallery. Her head twitched as she passed five Winslow Homer paintings. This is that sort of place. Get over it. She summoned mental blinkers and moved on. Many of the galleries had multiple doors leading from them, making the place a maze.

She worked her way toward the middle of the building, settling in Gallery 56 before a six-foot-high portrait of Napoleon in his study. There were four entrances to the room and two museum guards. She thought it was time to settle, to let her chasers find her, but Napoleon was staring at her a bit too directly.

When she looked out of the frame at Millie it was as if they were sharing something. The scale helped, too. Portrait of a Lady was only three-and-a-half feet high. She stood and moved close enough to read the note card. She was forced to flee Paris in disguise in Millie licked her lips.

And you survived. Next to Portrait of a Lady was another work by the same artist, two woman sitting next to each other while two children hung on one of the women.

My allies are everywhere. Millie laughed quietly, causing the female guard to look her way. Millie smiled at her, then looked up, at the security cameras. And not just in the paintings. She thought about her jump on the concourse level. Was she under the eye of a security camera then? Would anyone check it if she was? What mattered for now was that her followers were walking past countless video cameras as they searched for Millie in the museum.

Here, finally, they seemed to catch up with her. The Monk passed by the door to the East Sculpture Hall, and moved on without pausing, but shortly thereafter, a brunette, her hair pulled tightly back in a bun, wearing heavy makeup, a tailored jacket, jeans, and knee-high boots came in and began studying the Still Life with Figs and Bread on the wall behind Millie.

She eyed the main entrance to the south but wanted to stay under the eyes of the security cameras, near the museum guards, in the public eye. She moved into the West Sculpture Hall and took the second left, chosen because it was empty for the moment, except, of course, for the ever-present guard.

She stopped, blinking. Why is no one here? It had to be an abnormal ebb in the tide of patrons— the room was filled with Rembrandts. She turned slowly in the middle of the room, then froze opposite another ally—Saskia van Uylenburgh, the Wife of the Artist.

Millie felt the connection again, the sense of shared problems, of shared strengths. A couple came in through the east door and started moving around the gallery, studying a gorgeous rendition of a European man in turban and robe.

Millie eyed them. Now she gave it another interpretation. Millie took the west door and turned sharply, to put her out of sight of the couple. She counted to three, then stuck her head back around the door. The couple was moving toward her, walking apart, no longer touching. The instant they saw Millie they each swerved toward the other, then paused to study another Rembrandt.

Millie turned and walked. She was scared but she was also smiling. She moved through the gallery, a roomful of Dutch painters who were not Rembrandt, and into a roomful of Flemish work, notably, Rubens. She paused before a giant painting over ten feet wide and seven feet tall. She only had one other exit from this room, besides the direction she came in. She took it and found herself in a smaller room with more Rubens.

She cut through it into a larger gallery and paused before yet another Rubens, The Assumption of the Virgin. She paused again. Angels and cherubs carried the Madonna toward heaven while onlookers either stared up in awe or touched the discarded shroud. Where are you, Angels? The woman wore an enormous Elizabethan collar but she looked out at Millie with impish merriment.

Right, another ally. If she can look amused in that collar, perhaps I can relax under these circumstances. She decided to settle for a moment, to let them present themselves again, to give her someone to point at, when the NSA finally showed up. Fifteen minutes went by while the Marchesa and she communed, during which the only people to enter the room were a woman shepherding seven preteen girls. The guard glared at her and she scrambled to silence the ringer.

Thought you were still in the Sooner State? By the north door—the one that faces away from the Mall? The driver is wearing a red baseball cap. Get in. Trust us.

This is what we do. The fastest route was through the Main Gallery to the Rotunda, then down the stairs. She walked quickly, looking straight ahead, fighting not to stare into every doorway she passed. She continued to hold her allies in her mind, the images of women throughout the Gallery.

It was raining again, with a nasty wind that ripped at her clothes. The cab was there, as promised, but she felt a stab of dismay as she saw someone sitting in the back. Did someone grab it first? In this rain, cabs would be eagerly sought.

But the person in the seat handed the driver something, then opened the door and got out as she approached, leaving the door open for her. She twisted in the seat to watch the museum door, but parked cars already blocked it, and then buildings as the driver whipped right onto Pennsylvania. The driver grunted. He stayed in the circle three times around, then spun off south on First, spun around the next traffic circle twice, then took Maryland Avenue toward the south side of the Mall.

The traffic circles made Millie carsick and she leaned back and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths. When she opened them again, they were running down the far side of the Mall, behind the Air and Space Museum on Independence Avenue, south of the National Gallery but out of sight.

Millie looked at him for the first time. He was wearing dark glasses despite the gray rain. Hop out and into it, quick as you can.

The phone company van was parked illegally on the corner, orange cones set out, front and back. The inside of the van smelled of ozone and mildew. The console operator, a woman with short gray-streaked hair, moved, too, and patted the console seat. She unknotted her scarf and pulled it across her shoulders, like a shawl. She looked at Anders and bit her lip. She started down the stairs at a good clip, then stopped suddenly and took out a phone.

The camera zoomed on her. The woman said something on the phone, then retreated back into the shelter of the overhang, still holding the phone to her head. A man entered the frame, coming from the street, but paused there, in the shelter, clutching his tweed jacket together at the neck.

However, it was after the Monk found me, so I think he passed me to her. I lost him once and doubled back close enough to overhear a phone conversation.

Sneak up on him, I mean. She bit her lip. I wanted—I needed—to rule out paranoid delusions. And the black woman? She enlarged another video window. It was the same scene, with the woman still waiting, but the window title said Live Feed A. I worked with her once, fifteen years ago. Her name—her full name—is Hyacinth Pope. She had just started doing some contract work for the CIA then, but the wall came down, and most of her career since has been in the private sector.

But this affair may be compartmentalized. The camera tracked her to the street where she got into a late model Dodge Caravan. The camera zoomed on the driver. Anders leaned forward.