"Yes, sir."

"Do you remember the woman who created such a nuisance last summer?"

"Louise Myers? The woman posting on the nine/eleven sites?"

"Yes. Her."

Everyone Ernst had sent against that woman had ended up dead. A bit more than a nuisance. Quite a bit more.

"Did you ever find her?"

"No, sir. We gave up on the search some months ago. She's stopped posting and there didn't seem much hope-"

"Resume the search. Widen it. Find her."

"Is there something I should know?"

"Merely a contingency plan. She has a book I may have use for. She's in the city. I could find her myself if I were there, but I am in the middle of something else at the moment."

"I'll get on it right away."

"Also, a package shall be arriving for your safekeeping. As for the woman, remember this: I want no contact. Locate her, but do not contact her."

"No contact? But-"

He was gone.

The One had said to widen the search. Ernst assumed that meant mobilizing more than just the Order. He called his right-hand man, Kristof Szeto, and told him to fax a copy of her picture to the head of security for the Dormentalists-their Grand Paladin-as well as get it out to the members of the Order.

"The Myers woman," Szeto said in Eastern Europe-flavored English. "Yes, this is good. This time we will find her. I have score to settle-"

"No settling anything." Ernst knew he was still bridling from losing so many men to her. "No contact."

"But-"

"A personal directive from the One."

A pause, then, "Well, in that case…"

Hank Thompson had strolled in-as usual, without knocking-toward the end of the conversation.

"Her again?" he said when Ernst hung up. He was tall and trim, with a dark, shaggy mane. "Didn't you track her to Wyoming?"