You get what you pay for.

Hunter would pay Borys if he’d accept more than room and board.

No chance.

This had been the only place to hide the former snitch from Poland seven years ago when the CIA went after Borys, who had been the European connection between a Los Angeles crime family and a Russian mob they supplied with black-market weapons. If Borys hadn’t tipped off Hunter that he and his female partner had been made, the Russians would have tortured Hunter, slowly removing body parts for days while interrogating him. His female counterpart would have faced worse.

Hunter couldn’t let the CIA hand Borys over to the Russians when they conveniently forgot how Borys had helped their agents.

But right now he needed Borys to get the hell out of the room so he could contact BAD.

“I take it black,” Hunter told the ornery cuss still fussing over a coffee mug.

“I know what you drink, dammit.” Borys brought a thick white ceramic coffee mug with RUBY’S DINER printed in blue ink on the side. The one Hunter had used for over ten years after Eliot lost one of their famous “high-stakes” bets on a Texas firing range.

The loser had to produce a worn diner mug with blue ink that couldn’t be bought and couldn’t come from a state bordering Texas. Eliot rode his classic Triumph Bonneville motorcycle sixteen hundred miles over three days, searching for the mug.

Compared to what they both did for a living, the only high stakes worth betting on were creative ones.

Hunter smiled at the memory until a fist squeezed his heart.

“You want breakfast?” Borys asked.

“Do I ever eat breakfast?”

“Hell if I know what you do when you’re gone.” Borys walked away, mumbling, “Guess you don’t bring women here either, but that’s better’n seeing you with a man.”

Hunter shook his head and waited until Borys reached the door. “I don’t want to be disturbed. Would you close-”

The door slammed shut.

He glanced at the front-door security light once more, then dismissed his concern over Abbie trying to leave. She’d been rattled in the woods last night. She wouldn’t face the wilderness alone.

Turning back to the computer, Hunter scooted up to the table and tapped keys to boot up the videoconferencing software. He reached over to a control box that resembled a low-profile stereo receiver and pressed buttons to close blinds inside the double-paned glass windows to darken the room. The only thing anyone at BAD would see when they came online was Hunter with a blank wall behind him.

Eliot had set up this computer system that routed to a different location every time Hunter had to make direct contact, which he rarely did from his safe house in Montana. No one, not even BAD, knew about this location. Until now, he’d never had a reason to keep his distance from BAD. Today’s feed went to a location in Canada. The minute he ended communication, he would dial a number by phone that would trigger a minimal explosive, destroying the computer hidden in the basement of a telemarketing center and ending the satellite link to the site.

His forty-eight-inch monitor flashed with the image of a retro-looking video countdown like the old television sets used to have in the sixties. The number 1 appeared, indicating the link was secure.

Joe’s bold face and broad shoulders filled the screen, his gray-blue eyes as hard as his tone. “Start explaining.”

Hunter hadn’t expected pleasantries from BAD’s director, but he had thought Joe would ask for his current location first. “I followed the Blanton woman to her apartment and tagged her with an audio transmitter. An intruder grabbed her before I could get inside.”

He couldn’t very well tell the head of BAD he had Abbie with him at a location he wouldn’t share the coordinates on. If he did, Joe would end the conversation and order them both to headquarters. He had the information Joe wanted and with a little luck he’d pull even more out of Abbie, then worry about what to do with her.

“Where is she?” The quieter Joe spoke the more an agent should worry.

“Don’t know. Her apartment was hit with tear gas. When I left, I picked up a tail I couldn’t shake. Protecting the memory stick I retrieved at the Wentworth estate came first so I took a jet out of Midway. I’m at a safe house. Didn’t want to risk coming into headquarters in case I didn’t lose the tail.” Hunter paused for more feedback from Joe to test the strength of his lies.

“What safe house?”

“Belongs to a friend.”

Joe didn’t ask what friend. In their line of work everyone had “friends,” and no one gave up a name with trust at stake.

To deflect attention from that subject, Hunter asked, “What happened to Gwen Wentworth?”

“In ICU at the Kore Women’s Center, stable but not promising. She’s pregnant.”

Another surprise, only because Hunter remembered her losing a baby during childbirth two years ago, then her husband dying not long afterward… a sailing accident. “What about the three men suspected of being Fratelli? What happened to them?”

“Gone.” Joe’s voice dropped with disgust. “Seven matching Land Rovers exited the estate at the same time and split up in different directions in a matter of minutes. We didn’t have enough resources on-site to cover them all and the three we followed each entered a parking lot, then exited with an additional matching vehicle on its tail before they took separate routes.”

That meant all seven had contingency plans. It would have taken an army of agents in separate vehicles to track them.

“I need that memory stick now,” Joe interjected.

“I can bring it in.” Risky. Joe might use that to lure Hunter back to headquarters only to put him in lockdown if Joe silently suspected anything. “But in the interest of saving time I reviewed everything on the USB key and downloaded the data into one of our secure electronic vaults. Our informant explained the Fratelli hierarchy as twelve Fras who operate as a ruling unit on each continent but said little about their identities.”

“Give Gotthard the vault code in a minute,” Joe said. “He received an electronic missive two hours ago from our informant about the Fratelli in North America gearing up for an operation on U.S. soil in conjunction with a product developed by a UK Fra who’s supposed to be noted on the memory stick.”

“He is,” Hunter said. “Here’s the short version of what I downloaded. Vestavia is at odds with Fra Bardaric from the UK. Last night at the Wentworth event, I got a look at the man I think was Vestavia, but he was too far away to render a decent sketch. There may be a connection between the JC killer and this Bardaric.”

Hunter continued, careful not to show any change in his voice rhythm when revealing what he’d learned about that murdering JC bastard from Linette’s memory stick. “Peter Wentworth told Vestavia about ten male babies born thirty-two years ago in North America. All ten were taken as a group and raised in China to be disciplined killers completely loyal to the Fratelli. Five proved to be incapable and were terminated. Three died on missions. Of the two that remained, one was training the next generation, but he committed suicide. The tenth one entered MI6, spent four years in the organization, then disappeared five years ago. He’s known only as the Jackson Chameleon, because of the titanium baby spoons he leaves when he completes a mission and the spoon image he stamps on confirmation kill photos.”

“He could be MI6 or a double agent for them and the Fratelli or just plain rogue.” Joe let his opinion of “rogue” come through clearly on a note of disgust.

“What’s the chance of getting MI6 to admit they have a rogue agent?” Hunter doubted the possibility, but Joe had contacts everywhere.

Joe’s eyes turned the dark shade of honed steel. “About as good as getting me to tell them anything on one of mine.”