"I'm going to the meat market," he said.

He dropped the bottle into the basket and headed to the meat market. Constipation? He heard Boo and Cat giggling like girls behind him then felt her next to him.

"I like your glasses. Makes you look smart. And I like Boo."

"Me, too."

"Is she like your ex?"

"Only her looks."

"She's beautiful. Was your ex?"

"She was."

She was thirty-seven, but she looked twenty-seven. Hector Calderon was sixty years old and felt it-except when he was inside her. In such moments he felt young again, in the spring of life, full of the sap. He looked over her and upon the Gulf of Mexico through the open doors of his Cancun beach villa. He was vastly wealthy and could buy anything he desired, but he could not buy youth.

Oh, youth is surely wasted on the young, they say, and so true it is.

Hector prided himself on being educated and erudite, suave and sophisticated, handsome if not hard-bodied. He had had many beautiful young women in his life-they came with the money-but never had he been with a woman who was so like him. Who knew how to dress, how to speak, how to present herself in public. She did not embarrass him in public or disappoint him in private. He felt proud to have her on his arm. She was accustomed to the finer things in life, that was obvious. She had lived a high life in her prior life. She was a bit of a mystery, but he liked that. And he did not worry about her wearing a wire in their private moments because, as now, she was always naked in their private moments.

His eyes returned to her. He had not cared about a woman in so long. They had just been bodies to have sex with. Nothing more. But after a year together, he cared about this woman. His phone rang. Ah, perhaps it was Jorge with his money.

"Buenos das, patrn."

It was not Jorge. It was Pablo.

"What is it, Pablo? I am busy."

"Jorge, he is still not back from America."

"Was he arrested?"

"No. I do not think so."

Jorge Romero would not run off with Hector's $1.2 million. He was too loyal. And he was not that stupid.

"Perhaps he has found an American woman," Pablo said.

He laughed; Hector did not.

"I will make inquiries," Hector said.

He hung up the phone and stroked his woman. He soon forgot about Jorge Romero . . . but not about his $1.2 million.

Cat whispered to Scott, "We're being followed."

"What?"

She nodded behind him. Scott turned and spotted a six-foot-six, 330-pound black man trying to appear inconspicuous in Whole Foods. Scott walked over.

"Louis, what are you doing here?"

"I'm shopping, Judge Fenney."

"Where's your basket?"

"Uh, I'd better go get one."

"Louis, I appreciate your concern for my well-being, but I'm safe with Agent Pea. She's got a gun."

"I got your back."

"I know you do. But if you spend too much time in Whole Foods, you'll have tattoos. Go enjoy your weekend."

Louis big chest rose and fell with his breath. "You sure, Judge Fenney?"

"I'm sure. They won't kidnap me again."

The Whole Foods meat market was a long glass counter filled with sirloin, rib eyes, T-bones, buffalo, chicken, pork, sausage, bacon, shrimp, salmon, and crab.

"You ever eat ostrich?" Cat asked.

"I didn't know you could," Scott said.

"You can. It tastes great, and it's very lean."

"I'll try it."

"We don't have ostrich," the butcher said over the counter.

"Or not. Dos pollos then."

"You speak Spanish?" Cat asked.

"No."

Scott hadn't shopped for groceries with a female above the age of thirteen whose name wasn't Consuelo in ... well, he couldn't remember the last time. Rebecca never shopped for groceries; social climbing did not occur at the grocery store. So she had delegated that duty to Consuelo. And since grocery shopping was not billable time-except for trial lawyers-Scott had had no time for that chore.

He had time now.

And he had a woman above the age of thirteen with him. Of course, she was an FBI agent assigned to protect him, but it almost felt as if they were a couple.

"And four buffalo patties," he said to the butcher.

"Four?" Cat asked.

"You're staying for dinner."

"I am?"

"Aren't you?"

"Yes."

Saddam Siddiqui collected the falafel and walked toward the checkout counters. He cut through the produce department; as he walked past two young girls investigating the bananas, a bag of broccoli fell from their overloaded basket. He stopped and picked up the broccoli.

Scott always checked on the girls, and he did now. He spotted them in produce examining the bananas. Boo was very particular about the bananas she bought. A young man walked up to them, bent over, and handed something to them. He smiled and spoke to them. He looked too old for them.

Scott walked that way.

When he was halfway to the girls, the young man walked away. He looked like the young man Scott had run into there the Saturday before. He had the same dark skin and the same Arab features. When Scott arrived, he said, "Who was that boy?"

"Oh, I dropped the broccoli," Boo said. "He picked it up for us."

"What did he say?"

" 'You dropped your broccoli.' "

"That's all?"

"Unh-huh."

"Oh. Okay."

Scott turned away but stopped and turned back.

"Is that broccoli for my smoothies?"

"No."

The director had called Beckeman to relay the president's answer. There would be no enhanced interrogation of Mustafa.

"It's his call."

"Nothing?"

"Less than nothing."

"Shit."

"Only one man knows where the Arabs are holed up."

"You think he's a bad guy?" Cat said.

"That boy?"

"What boy?"

"Same Arab-looking boy I bumped into here last week. And now today, he was talking to the girls."

"You think he's stalking you?"

"Seems an odd coincidence."

"Too odd. Scott, he might be one of the Arabs." She unzipped her waist pack. "Show me."

They left the basket and hurried up and down the aisles and ended their search outside. He was gone. They stood outside the exit doors and stared at the parking lot. Cat zipped up her waist pack.

"I don't like this," she said. "I don't like this at all. Why would they abduct the presiding judge? Why would they stalk you?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"To divert our attention. I think the two Arabs who grabbed you are running the plot. I think ISIS is directing them from Syria. I think that's always been the plot. Not Mustafa."

"What do you think about crepe myrtles along the back fence?"

"What color?"

"Yellow."

"Yellow's my favorite color."

"Then yellow it is."

They were sitting outside on the patio. Scott was drinking a beer, Cat an iced tea. She was still on the job. Buffalo burgers cooked on the charcoal grill. They had talked more about Cat's concerns that his abduction had been to create a diversion, but they had dismissed concerns about the Arab boy at Whole Foods as paranoia, a job hazard for FBI agents and federal judges alike.

"Scott, do you have anyone in your life?"

"My girls."

"Above the age of thirteen?"