He did. Autonomy, being in charge, no limits, exactly what he liked. He gave her a manic grin.

“Of course you do. Now, we’ll have to come up with a way to break ties, in case you and I disagree about how to go forward on an operation. I like rock, paper, scissors. Do you think that will cut it?”

He could imagine future arguments, knock-down, drag-out fights, but not which cases to take, but how they’d proceed, how close they could get to the edge without swan-diving over. The list would go on and on. He felt excited, content, and, he suspected, as happy as she was. He felt—giddy, Nigel’s word. Yes, that was it.

“I can’t wait for our first argument,” he said.

“You’ll lose,” she said immediately, then, “We have so much to do—you know, so many procedures to establish and set into motion, so many rules to see everyone follows—”

He burst into laughter. “I can see our very first argument right over the horizon.”

“That was a joke, lamebrain. Well, mostly.”

Their announcement to Ben, Gray, Louise, and Lia ended in a tie. Shouts all around, loud ones. While everyone was clapping one another on the shoulder, already arguing about who would have the better space, Nicholas called Adam, explained to him about the new unit, For Your Eyes Only, or Covert E for short.

Adam was silent for a long moment, then said, “Like if you tell me to hack into the CIA, it’ll be okay? I won’t go to jail again?”

“Not for even a minute.”

Adam whooped. “Sign me up!”

“Get on a plane. We’ll see you soon. I hope you won’t mind having a cubicle?”

Adam groaned.

Ten minutes later, all of them were walking down the stairs to the twenty-second floor to scope out their new digs when Nicholas’s mobile rang. He didn’t recognize the number, hardly a surprise these days. “Excuse me a moment. Drummond here.”

“Hello, Nicholas. I trust Michaela is nearby?”

“Yes,” he said, his heart thudding. He signaled to Mike, and pressed the speaker button.

A familiar voice said, “This is Kitsune. I need your help.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

“I failed to make the chess team because of my height.”

—Woody Allen

Bobby Fischer and Donald Byrne evidently both met the height requirement. They played what has been dubbed The Game of the Century in 1956 in New York City. Bobby Fischer was thirteen years old and Donald Byrne was twenty-six, a leading American chess master. Midway through the game, Byrne saw that he would lose. Because Fischer was only thirteen, and because Byrne was a gentleman, he finished the game. It was exactly eighty-two moves.

So get out a chessboard and play the moves listed at the top of each chapter. (I’ve made them very clear so you should have no problems even if you’re a beginner.) Enjoy this amazing game.

Why a chess game? This was J. T. Ellison’s brilliant brainchild and played right into the title—The End Game. When she realized we had eighty-two chapters, the same number of moves that are in The Game of the Century, she knew it was meant to be. She could be heard singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” all over Nashville.

In a game of chess, toppling the King is the goal. In The End Game, the moves and countermoves made by the players of both sides lead to an actual end game where either side could win. Fortunately, for all of us, the right side won.

Rudolf Spielmann, 1883–1942, known as the Master of Attack, once said, “In the opening a master should play like a book, in the mid-game he should play like a magician, in the ending he should play like a machine.”

—Catherine Coulter

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