“We convene this evening in extraordinary circumstances,” Naomi begins. “A man was kidnapped from this premises by agents unknown, possibly for the purposes of enhanced interrogation. We have as yet no clue as to his whereabouts, his state of health or who, exactly, is holding him. This is intolerable, and tonight we begin the process of finding out what happened and why. Teddy, you’ll present first. Start with the murder victim.”

Teddy’s hands shake slightly as he presses a key on his laptop. An image lights up the screen. “Joseph Vincent Keener,” he announces, gathering confidence. “Age forty-two. Born, Hanover, New Hampshire.”

We’re looking at a head shot of Joseph Keener, wearing an ill-fitting suit and tie. A round, unremarkable face. Heavy black-rimmed glasses and just a hint of jowls, despite a scrawny neck that doesn’t quite fill his shirt collar. High forehead with the beginnings of pattern baldness thinning his light brown hair. His ears stick out, making him look oddly vulnerable. He’s not smiling and was glancing to the side and slightly down when the shutter clicked. Even in a formal head shot with studio lighting he seems to be lost in a world of his own.

There’s a moment of awkward silence. We’re looking at a dead man.

Teddy says, “Keener was a ward of the state-his parents, both talented musicians, died in an accident-and he was raised in a succession of foster homes from infancy. Somehow he managed to get himself enrolled at Caltech, age fifteen, which pretty much says it all. Language skills pretty average, but mathematical concepts and theoretical geometry are off the charts. When Shane called him a genius he wasn’t exaggerating.