No, not unsatisfying. Bitterly disappointing.

Mikhail had tracked down Thomas’s last known address to a house in Clifton, New Jersey. But they arrived to find the Englishman had been missing for a week.

And they all knew “missing” in this case could mean only one thing. The man was dead.

Just like Freddy Chang in Hong Kong, or Stacy McKitrick in Bangkok.

Chang’s body had been fished out of the East Lamma Channel the day after Petra and her small team had arrived in Hong Kong. And in Bangkok they had at first lost Luka, then McKitrick herself had turned up dead on a walkway along one of the old city canals.

So close.

Perhaps Thomas would turn up in the Atlantic at some point, but even if he did, it didn’t matter. Dead was dead, and of no use to her. She needed at least one person from her photograph to be alive. She couldn’t question a corpse.

But now with Thomas sharing the same fate as most of the others, the list of possibilities had been reduced to two names: Kenneth Moody, last known location Philadelphia, and Ryan Winters, last known location Los Angeles.

At least one of their two targets had to still be alive. If not…

Petra wouldn’t even let herself think about it. She and Kolya were here in Los Angeles pursuing Winters, and Mikhail was back on the East Coast hunting down Moody. They were doing everything they could. Thinking more was just wasting energy.

She did another quick sweep of the baggage area, decided their arrival had gone unnoticed, then walked over to carousel number two and tapped Kolya on the shoulder. Without waiting for a response, she walked over to the man with the sign.

“Ms. Roberts?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Petra said with a slight Southern twang. “I’m Ms. Roberts.” She had worked very hard at perfecting an American accent, and had done well enough to fool most people.