“Your help,” Ash said simply. “Your help to get the Interfaithers out of Israeli Intel.”

“And I should care about this because…?”

Ash’s perfectly made-up eyes widened. “I would think you’d be the last person to ask that question.”

“Are you about to become the next rich Ring-sider who takes one look at my DNA and thinks she knows what I should think and who my friends should be? It’s a long line. You’ll have to take a number.”

“You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Well, I’m not very bright, I’m afraid. You know how those Xenogen constructs are. Bet you’ve sat through any number of nice dinner parties where your mother complained about how hard it was to turn them into decent kitchen help.”

Ash’s lips tightened in anger.

Li—finally—allowed herself the faintest of smiles.

We have a decision, gentlemen. Bottom card fight to the lovely Miss Catherine Li on a technical knockout. And may it not come back to bite her in the ass when it really counts.

“Fine,” Ash said. “Here’s what Nguyen told me, and you can do whatever you want with it. I’m just the messenger. No need to shoot stray voltage my way.”

Stray voltage? Just the messenger? Had the woman watched so many action spins that she thought people actually talked like that?

The baby hiccuped twice and seemed about to cry. Ash leaned forward and patted absently at his diapered bottom. Amazingly, the gesture seemed to calm him.

“Mind if I smoke?” Li asked, taking out her cigarettes.

“Yes, actually. I never got used to it Ring-side.”

“Thought you were from the Ring.”

“Not exactly.” And there it was again: the momentary sensation that the real person behind the mask had appeared and just as quickly vanished. Like those times in hard-vac ops when a teammate cleared his visor to get an unmediated look at the field of battle. Mirroreyesmirror. All in such quick succession that you were left doubting you’d even seen the face inside the helmet. “It’s complicated.”

“Can’t see how that would be.”

The real person—or whatever it was in there—peeked out once more. “I’d say I was surprised to hear you say that if I didn’t think you’d jump down my throat again.”

“And I’d ask you what the hell that meant if I thought you’d tell me.”

“Right then.” Ash leaned forward, jeans hiking up over ankles that were, okay, yes, Li could admit it, fabulous. Even if the woman was sent straight from the treacherous hands of General Helen Nguyen.

Li sat up, blinking at a sudden and surprising thought. Was Ash Nguyen’s latest and greatest protegée? Had this lovely package filled the void left behind by Li’s defection? Well, Helen had always had eclectic taste.

“You heard Didi’s briefing. Everything he said was true. But there’s more. And that more is why I’m talking to you. Didi was surprised by Absalom’s resurrection. We weren’t. We’ve been tracking high-level leaks for a while now. Information has gotten out that was very, very tight band. So we took a page out of Gavi Shehadeh’s book—or should I say Didi Halevy’s book?—and cooked up a few barium meals of our own. We sent them through Didi’s office. And had them pop out in some of the last places anyone wants to see them.”

“The Interfaithers,” Li hazarded.

“Try KnowlesSyndicate.”

“The Interfaithers and the Syndicates aren’t exactly fellow travelers.”

“No, they aren’t.”

“But the Syndicates and the Palestinians are another matter. So we’re back to Absalom.” Li caught her breath. “Or are you suggesting that someone in Didi’s office is directly tied to Korchow?”

“Does it matter?” Ash let the question hang fire for a while. “You know about the prime minister’s list?”

“The kidonlist?” Legend had it that there was a list, the single most classified document in Israel, containing the names of men and women with Jewish blood on their hands whom the Mossad’s kidon,or assassination teams, were cleared to kill as and when opportunity presented itself. “Sure. I’ve heard of it. So what?”

“Gavi Shehadeh’s name is on it. Naturally. But the prime minister hasn’t initialed it, so they can’t do the hit. Didi’s the one who’s keeping it from happening.”

“So they’re old friends.”

“Did I say different?”

No. Just walked me up to the brink and let me look over the edge all by my little self. Helen couldn’t have done it better.

“What are you saying? That Didi is Absalom and framed Gavi to keep from taking the fall himself? Or that Gavi really was Absalom and Didi’s in it with him? Or…I mean, what actually? You open up that can and you’ll find out it’s pretty hard to get the worms back inside.”

“Look, if Helen’s wrong, then no one will be happier than me. But if she’s right, we’ll be glad we played our hand close to the vest.”

“The problem with Helen—can I have a drink of water?”

Ash rose wordlessly and padded to the kitchen. Li heard the clink of glasses jostling each other in the cupboard, the burp of a bottle being uncapped, the rippling pour of water.

“The problem with Helen,” Li said loudly enough for Ash to hear her in the next room, “is that sometimes when she gets a hard-on for someone, it’s patriotism. And sometimes, at least in my experience, it’s just politics. And I really dislike being the hatchet man in a back-alley political brawl.”

“This isn’t political.” Ash came back to stand in front of Li, glass in hand, water dripping off her long and immaculately manicured fingernails. “I’ve seen it unfold firsthand. I’ve seen the spinfeeds and the office logs. This is the real deal. Your country calls. Rough men report for duty.”

“The last time Helen quoted Orwell at me, she ended up trying to kill me.”

“You just got between her and Cohen. It wasn’t personal.”

“Bullshit,” Li snapped, dangerously close to losing her temper. “Killing’s always personal. I know. I fucking do it for a living.”

“Not anymore, last time I heard.”

They stared at each other. This time Ash didn’t budge or blink or even smile.

“Tell me true, Catherine. ’Cause there are some people up at UNSec HQ who really want an answer from you. Are you ready to come in from the cold?”

And there it was. The long drop. With no warning at all to let you steel your nerves and your stomach for it. One step you’re on solid flight deck, next one you’re free-falling into the gravity well of some godforsaken ball of dirt that looks like you could fall past it into open space if you twitch wrong.

Ash was a messenger from Helen Nguyen, as she had so subtly insinuated she might be the other night at Didi’s house. And Helen Nguyen had just handed Li her own personalized, customized dumb blonde in a red Ferrari.

She wanted it. She couldn’t deny that. She wanted the power. She wanted the independence. She wanted the sense of setting her own course in life rather than being dragged along in Cohen’s wake. She wanted the ego-gratifying feeling that she mattered: that she was one of the rough men who stood ready to wreak violence so the good people of the world could sleep peacefully in their beds at night. And, yes, she wanted the adrenaline and the danger. She wanted the life, when you really came down to it.

But she knew exactly what Cohen would have to say about all this, when she eventually got around to telling him. Which she would. Eventually.

What she didn’t know was where that left the two of them.

She met Ash’s eyes. The other woman was watching her as intently as a cat tracking a songbird’s erratic progress toward its claws.

“Very poetic.” Li’s voice was steadier than she’d thought it would be. “Is Helen offering a main course after the entrée of worn-out clichés?”

“She said to tell you that there’s a proposal on her desk to allow individually cleared genetic constructs to work for the Security Council on an independent contractor basis. It would be done quietly, administratively. Without a General Assembly vote. But the effect would be the same: You’d be a Peacekeeper again, without an official commission, of course, but with everything else. Everything. She’s ready to bring you all the way in. You just need to give the nod and let us know you’re ready to come back.”