“I’ve got bars and juice. Give me the number and I’ll make the call.”

“I don’t think so. Then you’ll have the number on your phone.”

“This isn’t my phone. It belongs to one of your guys. The one I knocked out with a toilet.”

“Did you look at any of the contact information on it?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“Maybe I am,” he said.

“Can I have it? I need a phone.”

“Maybe later.”

Since he had nearly a foot in height and over a hundred pounds on her, she didn’t push it, but looked around at the dark surroundings. “Where are we?”

“A few hours outside of London. I’ve arranged for wheels. Where do you want to head now?”

“I think our separate ways.”

“That is not a good idea. Kuchin can-”

“He can do a lot of things, but catching us is not one of them. In fact, Whit was right. We’ll go back after him.”

Shaw took her by the arm like he wanted to shake her. “What part of the memo didn’t you get? He almost killed you all when he didn’t know you were coming. Now that he’s warned you’ve got no chance of taking him.”

“We almost got him before.”

“Did you ever stop and think why you didn’t?”

“What?”

“How did those guys end up ambushing you?”

Reggie pulled away from him. “How should I know that?”

“You need to know that. They had inside information. They were waiting for you. You’ve got a mole somewhere.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Then give me another explanation that fits.”

“We screwed up in the field somehow and they got onto us that way. I went to the church before to meet with Whit to go over the plan. Someone could have followed me then.”

“Why would they even suspect you?”

“You’re the one who’s trumpeting how good Kuchin is. He probably suspects everybody.”

“I listened to him when he was tied to that crypt, and so did you. He tried to bluster about killing you, but that was a man who expected to die that day. And if he suspected you, why would he have come with you to the church in the first place?”

“We used the Muslim information you gave us to work an angle to herd him that way.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” she said defensively. “And it worked.”

“If someone had followed you to the church earlier and knew what was up, why would they let it play out? Why not blow the whistle? That way Kuchin is never in danger at all.”

After staring at the dark, rolling sea for a bit, she said, “I can’t answer that. I don’t know why.”

“But the answer, whatever it is, is not good for you. If you do have a traitor in your ranks it’ll make it pretty easy for Kuchin to come after you.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and wearily rubbed her temples. “Look, you said you made arrangements for some wheels. Can you just get me to London? It’s the middle of the night and I’m too tired and dirty and still way too nauseous to think clearly about this right now.”

He stared at her before shrugging. “Sure, the wheels are just up there.”

“Just up there” turned out to be a half-mile walk through uneven terrain in the pitch dark to a road. A motorbike was near the tree line, keys under the seat. He tossed her the spare helmet. “It’s not the Vespa but it’ll do.”

She clung to him on the way back to town. When they reached London, lines of smoky pink were beginning to burn against the sky, and early morning commuters were making their way along the still mostly empty streets. A few cabs and one bendy-bus puttered along the roads.

She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to one corner. He slowed the bike and then stopped near the entrance to the Tube. She got off and handed him back the spare helmet.

“Sure you don’t want to hang with me?” he said.

“First stop we made for petrol I’d just sneak out of the bathroom window. Why not save time and cut to the chase?”

He pulled the phone from his jacket pocket and tossed it to her. “Bonne chance.”

“So that’s it? No more trying to convince me? Just wish me good luck?” It seemed clear to Shaw that part of her wanted to stay with him. But he wasn’t feeling conciliatory right now.

“Just another job.”

He throttled the bike.

“Thanks for saving our butts, Shaw,” she said, a bit guiltily.

“Like I said, just another job. Reg.”

He popped the gear changer with his heel, released the clutch, and pulled away, leaving her to trudge on to the Underground alone.

66

REGGIE LOOKED AROUND the small footprint of her dingy flat in London. There was a lumpy four-poster bed, an old chest that had belonged to her mother, a square of frayed carpet, a table with two straight-backed chairs, a hotplate, a small under-the-counter fridge, a four-foot-high shelf crammed with books, and two dirty windows that looked out on the back of another grimy building. Her single potted plant was quite dead because a freak heat wave that had hit London while she was gone had baked her room, which sat defenseless without the benefit of central air-conditioning. The toilet and shower were down the hall. The folks in her building were early risers and if she wanted to bathe with even moderately hot water she had to get there by 6 a.m.

I’m twenty-eight and still live like I’m at university.

She’d showered in cold water since she’d arrived home late, and then changed into the only clean clothes she had left in her closet. She bagged up her dirty laundry with the intent of washing it later in the facilities downstairs. Since she’d been gone awhile, her fridge held nothing edible. She ate breakfast at a café down the street, taking her time over eggs, coffee, and a buttery croissant. She’d charged her phone and sent a text to Whit. She’d received an immediate reply. All their people had gotten out safely. One had even gone to the villa and retrieved her personal things and brought them back to England. In his message Whit wanted to know where Shaw was. He wrote, “Make sure he can’t find Harrowsfield.” She emailed him back and told him that Shaw was no longer with her and that she would make sure she wasn’t followed.

Walking down the street Reggie stretched her arms and worked the kinks out of her legs. The boat ride had been horrible, pitching and swaying nonstop. Shaw had taken the ordeal easily in stride. He’d never once become sick. He just sat at a table, reading a book and even eating, and would hand her towels and a bucket when she needed it, which was frequently.

When she would glance up at him for sympathy she didn’t receive any. Then she felt guilty for even seeking it. It was an unforgiving business and one had to tough it out. He certainly had. She, on the other hand, had come up a little short with her sea legs. At least she was safely back in England, as was her entire team. While it was true they had missed Kuchin, things could be far worse.

She rode the Tube to Knightsbridge. She was heading out to Harrowsfield later to brief the others but had something to do first. She had a sixty-millimeter-size safe deposit box housed at a company that specialized in storing people’s valuables. It had all the latest technological security devices-biometric scanners, access cards, and each box wired directly to the closest police station while closed-circuit cameras monitored the vault. This level of security cost nearly a hundred pounds a year and was worth every penny to her.

She entered the building and successfully passed through the various layers of security. Alone in the vault room, she accessed her box and slid out the contents. Making sure her back was between the camera overhead and the items she was looking at, Reggie sat down at the table and began to read through things she knew by heart.

This was her ritual. After every mission she came and did this. All other times she had been successful. This was her first miss, her first loss, her first ass-kicking. But still here she was. It was important.