The chapter shifts to the U.S. embassy in Prague, housed in the historic Schönborn Palace. Media liaison Dana Daněk works alone on a snowy morning, feeling the chill as she tries to warm her office.

Legal attaché Michael Harris arrives unexpectedly and, despite their flirtatious rapport and secret forbidden office romance, speaks with unusual seriousness. Michael Harris asks Dana Daněk to use embassy surveillance access to identify and track “a woman wearing a spiked tiara” who was on Charles Bridge shortly before seven o’clock, specifically where the woman came from and where she went afterward.

Dana Daněk hesitates because her authorized camera access is meant for public-relations incidents, not private tracking, and the request feels suspiciously personal. Michael Harris reassures Dana Daněk that he will protect her if anyone questions it, and then leaves for an emergency meeting with the ambassador.

Left alone, Dana Daněk wrestles with jealousy and doubts about Michael Harris’s recent secrecy and absences, briefly wondering if he is using her to investigate another woman. Despite her misgivings, Dana Daněk logs into the embassy’s surveillance interface.

The narrative explains that Prague’s vast camera network is part of a U.S.-funded classified partnership called Echelon, controversial with Czech authorities and protested by privacy activists. Dana Daněk, trying to rationalize the system’s existence and her own risk, navigates the map to Charles Bridge and pulls up the archived security footage to begin the search.