Javert returned from the bathroom looking like his usual self. Valjean looked up at him from his work and smiled.

"You kind of look like a Siamese cat now. Bluish eyes, dark face… A bit spooky."

Javert sighed and set the box with the contact lenses down on the low night-table near his bed.

"Well, there you go. You just answered your own question."

"What question?"

"The one you just asked me two minutes ago. 'Why the colored contacts?'"

"Oh, right… But surely you couldn't wear them all the time while you were in India?…"

There was a pause. Valjean turned around. The smug expression on Javert's face conveyed plainly that, yes, he could, and he did, and he loved every damn minute of it.

"Can't people tell?"

"Not really. On the two or three occasions when someone actually asked whether my contacts are tinted, I told them that my eyes are sensitive to the light, which is perfectly true, and that the contacts provide sun protection, which is also perfectly true – they are prescription, not cosmetic. It's not my fault they didn't guess to elaborate on the question."

"Why bother with contacts at all?"

"Gee, why do you think? Maybe because I don't exactly make a convincing Indian with blue-gray eyes?"

"You don't have to be Indian..."

Javert flopped back onto the bed. The springs under the sagging mattress creaked pitifully.

"Look, can you just shut up about my eyes for a minute? My eyes are not the problem right now. There is a maniac armed with a sword after you. That's the problem right now. Not my eyes."

"I don't really have any creative solutions to the maniac problem," said Valjean, straightening out the blueprint, which had once again curled in on itself.

"Aren't even a bit curious how he found you again?"

"Of course I am," shrugged Valjean, as he lined up the ruler for another pencil stroke. "But how is that going to make a difference now that we've already made a date to fight?"

"That date may yet be the least of our problems," mumbled Javert and reached for the black duffel bag at the foot of the bed. "And you are entirely wrong about the tracing. That's vitally important. Arch-vitally, even. You said you exchanged your entire luggage?"

"Yes. I thought he might've put a beetle in there or something."

Javert raised his eyes and for a minute regarded Valjean with an expression of contemptuous mirth.

"A bug, you mean."

"Yes. That."

"Ugh huh. Don't try to be all hep with me, Valjean," added Javert, ruffling through the clothes. "I know you too well to buy it. If you don't know what the thing is called in English, then don't embarrass yourself -just say 'concealed listening device.'" He pulled out the laptop and lifted it up: "That new as well?"

"Yes. Well, not really. I bought it two years ago for work."

"If you were that worried about being traced, why didn't you get rid of it as well?"

"I can't…I, I couldn't," said Valjean helplessly. "I have so many blueprints saved on it! Not just mine, but everyone's, the whole firm's! Everything we've drawn up for the past two years is in there."

"You should have bought a thumb drive and transferred the data," said Javert mercilessly.

"But there's so much data..."

"You should've bought two thumb drives then. Come on, this is two-thousand-six. There is no way you have more than ten gigs of blueprints on that machine."

"I didn't really think of it…"

"Oh, come on! You didn't think? What a load of bull. When do you ever stop thinking? Your whole life is one evasion after another, and you're going to tell me you didn't think?"

"All right, fine! I did think about it. I just decided that he couldn't trace me through it."

"A supremely stupid decision."

Javert's face, tinted blue with the reflection of the boot-up screen, was a study in irritability.

"Oh look, no password needed to log in!" he continued dersively. "How can anyone that smart be that stupid, tell me that, Mr. Hotshot?"

"Do I need a password?"

"Do you leave the laptop unattended at any time including night time?"

"Of course. I don't sleep with it."

"And you probably don't shower with it either. Or go grocery shopping with it. Or go to the pub with it."

"All right, yes, I've left it unattended before. So what? It was in a locked apartment."

"Which, if you recall, your blonde fan had absolutely no trouble breaking into."

Valjean jumped up and joined his friend on the bed.

"Oh my God, did he hack into it?"

"'Oh my God' indeed."

"If he stole our plans…"

"Fuck the plans!" interrupted Javert loudly. "Fuck 'em. I don't give a flying squirrel shit. Your plans and all your architect pals can rot in Frank Lloyd Wright's uneven-pancake hell as far as I'm concerned. You are worried about all the wrong things. What you should be worried about is whether or not he'd downloaded a tracing program to your hard drive!"

"Can't you check?"

"Nope. All good tracking software is undetectable and, unfortunately for you, uninstallable. Wouldn't be much good if it were otherwise, really. And it wouldn't be too hard to have the company switch it on once he'd purchased it."

Javert flipped the laptop closed and lay back, raising a vacant gaze to the rotating blades of the ceiling fan.

"Other than that, I'm out of ideas. Could've been your mobile, but you said you switched that at some point half-way through."

"Do you think he'll tell us if we ask him?"

"Maybe. Probably. He'll probably want to gloat if it's true. And if it's not true…"

Javert held a disconcerting pause.

"Then what?"

"Then there materializes a very healthy chance that you and I are both fucked."