Hunting The Kobra
Author: Tracy Cooper-Posey
Date: 2019-01-21 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Suspense; Thriller; Romance
Description: No one is who they seem to be. No one at all…When her lover and partner, Denis, dies in a random terrorist bombing, Quinn craves answers no one can give her.An international businessman, Elijah Aslan, who says he once knew Denis well, seems to need the same answers. He alone understands Quinn’s pain.Yet Aslan is not the simple businessman he appears to be. Flagged by the CIA, Aslan’s contact with Quinn sends up alarms and thrusts Quinn into the middle of an affair with unseen roots in Denis’ past, and with world-shaking consequences if Quinn doesn’t play her part perfectly…
Publisher: Stories Rule Press

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Table of Contents

Get Tracy’s Free Starter Library

About Hunting The Kobra

Praise for Tracy’s Romantic Thrillers

Title Page

[1] Maryland, Four Months Ago

[2] Saturday, October 19th

[3] Saturday, November 9th

[4] Sunday, November 10th

[5] One Hour Later.

[6] Thursday, November 14th

[7] Saturday, November 16th

[8] Monday, November 25th

[9] That Evening

[10] Friday, November 29th

[11] Saturday, November 30th

[12] That afternoon

[13] Sunday, December 1st

[14] Wednesday, December 4th

[15] Sometime later

[16] Monday, December 9th

[17] Lunch.

[18] Saturday, December 21st

[19] Sunday, December 22nd

[20] Monday, December 23rd

[21] Later that Morning

[22] That Evening

[23] Thursday, December 26th

[24] Friday, December 27th

[25] 11 a.m.

[26] And after…

[27] 11:46 a.m.

[28] Saturday, February 22nd

[29] Tuesday, February 26th

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About the Author

Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Copyright Information

About Hunting The Kobra

No one is who they seem to be. No one at all…

When her lover and partner, Denis, dies in a random terrorist bombing, Quinn craves answers no one can give her.

An international businessman, Elijah Aslan, who says he once knew Denis well, seems to need the same answers. He alone understands Quinn’s pain.

Yet Aslan is not the simple businessman he appears to be. Flagged by the CIA, Aslan’s contact with Quinn sends up alarms and thrusts Quinn into the middle of an affair with unseen roots in Denis’ past, and with world-shaking consequences if Quinn doesn’t play her part perfectly…

This romantic thriller is the first book in the Project Kobra series.

Praise for Tracy’s Romantic Thrillers

If you love a suspense filled romance, then definitely grab a copy.

It’s a great read that will keep you in your toes and wanting to read more from the author.

Breathless,intoxicating,wonderful! Fulfills its promise! Read it in one sitting.

Non-stop adventure/suspense and a great love story, and as always, her secondary characters are well-drawn and memorable. I was truly sorry to come to the end, even though the story's tension had kept me reading as quickly as possible.

I love when an author can keep you turning the pages furiously and trying to read ahead, LOL!

Once again Ms. Cooper-Posey pulls the reader in immediately with her fast-paced romantic suspense.

A delightful blend of romance and suspense that with each page turned seems to hurtle along at full throttle holding the reader captive and with each twist and depth of emotion turns something ordinary into the unforgettable and impossible to put down.

It has everything -- action, suspense, surprises, romance! I could really see the scenes unfolding on a screen.

[1]
Maryland, Four Months Ago

“I dunno, Mom…for a genius, you sure don’t know much about computers.” Dima’s son, Harry, leaned back in the chair and blew out his breath. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to open emails from strangers?” He looked at her over the top of his glasses.

Dima gave him a wide smile. “I believe they’ve mentioned it once or twice.”

“You downloaded a virus. A nasty one I’ve never seen before.” Harry tapped the enter key a few times. “I’ve deleted it now. If you’ve lost any data, you should probably chalk it up as a small price to pay. Far as I can tell, there’s no other damage, and no break in security.”

Dima rested her hand on Harry’s shoulder, for she had put the kitchen chair beside her office chair to watch what he was doing. “Thank you, darling one. Now, it’s late. You should be home with Melissa and the kids.”

Harry glanced at his watch then leapt to his feet. “Damn, it’s past ten. The twins will be in bed and…I didn’t realize.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “I gotta go.”

“Yes.” She stood and let him shuffle past her. He had his father’s height and his big shoulders, which Jack would have liked—had he lived to see Harry reach adulthood. Dima followed Harry down to the front door, where she handed him his car keys. He had no coat. It was June and even this late at night, the air was still and warm.

Dima kissed Harry’s cheek twice, once for Melissa and once for the children, then pushed him out the door. She trudged upstairs, her mind working.

She settled herself behind the laptop, frowning at the screen. It was a perfectly innocent screen, the same one she gazed at every day. It was her personal computer and severed from her work. The laptop had only the most basic security protocols, for she kept nothing on it but her social network accounts and photos of her children and their children.

With a dexterity and speed which would have astonished Harry, had he seen it, Dima pulled up the command prompt and ran a file list. She sorted the list so the most recent files appeared first.

“Well, hello…” she murmured, staring at the list.

The very top file was new. The timestamp was after she had opened the interesting email which had caused her to ask Harry to use his tech tools to wrest back control of her laptop.

Dima shut off the network, Bluetooth and the Wi-Fi card, then opened the file. She stared at the image. Several men and one woman cavorted in shallow seawater. The waves were small, the beach sand white. Everyone in the background wore as little as possible.

Then she spotted it. Dima leaned forward, as if getting closer to the screen would refine the resolution and give her more detail. “No…!”

She opened the photo in an editor application, then scaled the image until all she could see was one tiny section. She re-sampled the image, to clean it up.

The details were still blurry. With a hiss, she got to her feet. She took three steps away, steaming. Then she turned back. Her breath caught. Standing on the other side of the room from her desk gave her a long view. She stared at the section of photo she had enlarged. Her heart beat harder with rare excitement.

“Allah save us…” Dima whispered.

She glanced at the time read-out at the bottom of the screen and frowned. She reached for her cellphone and hesitated with her hand hovering over it. She decided quickly, snatched the phone up and pushed it into her jeans pocket. She closed the laptop with a snap and tucked it under her elbow, then hurried downstairs and picked up her car keys.

She flipped on the security, turned on the lights and locked both deadbolts as she left. She didn’t bother taking the Glock with her. There was another one in the car and besides, this wasn’t that sort of occasion.

[2]
Saturday, October 19th

When they sneaked to the jazz bar, Quinn and Denis concentrated on the music to give the musicians their due. It would dismay their colleagues and Denis’ students to learn they enjoyed jazz. Their guilt made them appreciate every single note, extracting as much pleasure as possible before returning to the hallowed halls of classical music.

Tonight though, they barely heard the music. It had been a stressful day for both. Denis spent the first set telling Quinn about the political machinations involved in gaining a permanent position at the Conservatory. He was only a visiting professor, yet everyone loved him. The students adored him, he got along with all the professors and he loved his work. It should have been simple.

“Has this anything to do with the fact that you are Austrian?” Quinn asked him. It was the obvious conclusion. He wasn’t a visible minority, he wasn’t female, and he wasn’t American.

As usual, when she mentioned his background, Denis closed down. He didn’t talk about Austria much.

Instead, he shifted the conversation to her problems. She was only a music librarian for the Boston Symphony, yet somehow, she had become entangled in the potentially explosive issue of beta-blockers and who was supplying them to the orchestra members. Today, the lead viola had collapsed during rehearsal, after screaming at Quinn for giving him the wrong score.

Quinn had supplied the viola reduction, as usual, while he insisted he must work from the full conductor’s score.

As she spoke, Denis tucked behind her ear the long locks of hair which always came free of her messy bun. He picked up her hand and held it. His blue eyes were steady upon her face and he nodded in all the right places.

By the time she was done, she felt like the world’s most ungrateful woman. Quinn gave him a rueful smile. “Listen to me rattle on.”

Denis shook his head. “At least you got to listen to Mahler today,” he said. “I love how the Symphony plays the Seventh. My students slaughter it.”

The jazz band finished their tune. There were perhaps two hundred people in the bar and everyone clapped and cheered and whistled.

Quinn grimaced. “I don’t think I heard a single note.”

“Let me get you another glass of wine,” Denis said. “Then we can sit back and enjoy the next set. It won’t be a wasted night, then, no?”

Quinn pushed her fingers through his thick hair, where it shadowed his forehead. “I can think of something which will make sure it’s not a wasted night. In fact…” She looked around, then leaned closer, for there was no music to mask their conversation. “Maybe we should skip the next set?”

The corner of Denis’ mouth twitched. He didn’t leer or raise his brow, yet she recognized the heat in his eyes. “I don’t know…” He managed to look reluctant. “I have been looking forward to hearing this trio for a week.”

Quinn sat back. She kept her gaze steady. “One five-foot-nine redhead with breasts and perfect pitch, or three sweaty, overweight musicians, including one who empties his spit valve onto the floor. Take your pick, Denis Fabian, and pick wisely.”

He actually sat for thirty seconds more without moving a muscle. Not even his expression changed.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “You know, when you tease like that, you’re supposed to give at least a hint you’re not serious.”

“Who says I’m not serious?”

She laughed.

The horn player hit a sour note and Denis winced. “That does it.” He stood and picked up her hand.

Happily, she followed him through the tables toward the exit. They were only three feet from the door when the world lit up and the earth shifted beneath her.

Quinn wasn’t afraid. Not yet.

That would come later.

When she next opened her eyes, Quinn found the world had stopped moving. The sounds were different. The soft beeping to her right was off-key.

Then she recognized the beeping and her heart fluttered. The beeping picked up speed.

Quinn blinked until she could make sense of what she was seeing. Everything was taupe and bland. Or white. She had never been here before, yet she knew exactly where she was.

The glass door of the ward slid open. A nurse in dark green scrubs hurried in. She came up right up to Quinn and smiled. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

“What happened?” Quinn’s heart hurried even harder.

“What do you remember?” The nurse flicked her fingernail at the IV tube and glanced at the monitor, her gaze not meeting Quinn’s.

“Jazz,” Quinn said. “We were listening to jazz. No, wait… We were going home. We were going home.”

The nurse nodded. Her expression was warm, but sober. “No one is entirely sure what happened yet. The building you were in collapsed.”

“Collapsed?” Quinn felt starched sheets beneath her fingers and gripped them. “Denis! Where is Denis?”

“Denis is a friend of yours?”

“My boyfriend. More than that…” Quinn swallowed. Her dry throat clicked. “Is Denis here? Is he all right?”

The nurse smoothed the sheets over Quinn’s knees. She picked up her wrist and took her pulse, even though a perfectly good electronic monitor was doing the same job.

The evasion made Quinn’s heart screech. Fear gripped her throat. “Please… Tell me what happened.”

The nurse shook her head. “There were many people in the club,” she murmured. “They’re still trying to figure out who everyone is.”

Quinn stared at her. A soft shriek sounded in the back of her mind, getting louder. “They’re still trying to identify the bodies,” she interpreted.

The nurse put her wrist down gently. “Someone will come and get your details, then you can tell them about your Denis. Don’t worry, the answers will come. You must give everyone time to recover and get themselves sorted out.”

As it turned out, it took three days for them to identify Denis’s body. He was just one of twenty-five victims.

Quinn disobeyed her nurse’s orders. She worried the entire time. Once she knew the truth, though, she wished she could go back to worrying again. Only, no one was left to worry about, anymore.

[3]
Saturday, November 9th

Like Quinn, Denis had no family. It was one factor which had brought them together, although it had nothing to do with why they stayed together. It gave them common ground. That, and music.

Because Denis had no family, the preparations for the funeral and the wake fell to Quinn. She focused fiercely on the arrangements for they gave her something to do, and something to think about other than the yawning emptiness in her life.

The day of the simple graveside ceremony was the first freezing day of the season. The overcast sky fit her mood.

Quinn managed to not break down while the priest said his few words. Nor did she cry on the way back to their small apartment on the edge of Mission Hill. Even though she couldn’t smile, she managed to be polite to the surprising number of people who stopped by the apartment to pay their respects. Most of them were University staff, or members of the Symphony and the orchestra’s administration members. They knew Denis from the numerous times he attended orchestra social events with her.

Everyone spoke in soft voices. People she barely knew took her hand and squeezed her fingers. They all murmured about how much they had liked Denis.

After two hours, Quinn couldn’t stand another moment. She hurried up the stairs and paused with her hand on the bedroom door handle. This would be the first place people would look for her.

She whirled about and stepped across the corridor to the opposite door and pushed it open. The tiny apartment came with two bedrooms, although the second room was so small, squeezing a bed into it would be problematic. However, it was big enough to hold a desk with Denis’s music editing equipment.

A music stand sat under the mean little window. His violin was propped on the chair as usual. It should be tucked away in its environmentally secure case. Only Denis could treat a Stradivarius with such disrespect.

Quinn stared at the gleaming wood of the violin. All the usual rebukes and admonitions which rose to her lips whenever she saw the violin leaning or lying about came to her now. She even opened her mouth to speak them.

She ground her teeth together. Her eyes ached. For a moment the ground moved, just as it had when the jazz club exploded.

Quinn sank to the carpet, shuddering. She couldn’t catch her breath. The sobs jammed in her chest, squeezing her ribs, creating a unique pain. Quinn put her back against the wall and pulled her knees up against her chest to ease the agony. It didn’t help. She still couldn’t draw her breath, except in shallow panting gasps which made her sound as though she was on the verge of hysteria.

I am hysterical. The thought came to her, sounding like the voice of the stranger. A cold voice. I lost the man I loved because some asshole terrorist blew up a jazz club. Where is the sense in that?

There was no sense. None of it made sense.

The realization let Quinn draw a breath. It released her tears. She covered her face with her hands and gave into them.

Sometime later—she didn’t know how long—when the ache in her chest eased enough for her to make sense of where she was, the bedroom door opened with a fast thrust.

The man who looked in opened his eyes wide. Clearly, he was not where he thought he should be.

His dark honey blonde hair was swept back neatly. A square, solid jaw. He was in his late thirties or early forties, perhaps even older. He was a big man. His head was only a few inches below the top of the door lintel. His hand on the door was big, too.

His eyes were a soft blue, an unexpected color in such a large and powerful man.

Behind him, voices lifted. “She’s been gone far too long. I just want to check on her and make sure she’s okay.”

“Maybe she’s lying down for a bit,” came another voice.

“Excuse me. Have you seen Quinn up here? Do you know Quinn?”

Quinn didn’t recognize the two women who were speaking. All she knew was they were about to find her. She shook her head at the man, trying to convey that she did not want to be found.

The man shut the door. As he shut it, he said to the two women, “This is not the bathroom. No, I’m afraid I don’t know Quinn. I haven’t seen anyone up here. Maybe you could point me to the right door?”

His voice through the door was low and deep and educated. He sounded British.

The women responded. Their voices were lighter and didn’t pass through the door, while his did. Then the voices faded altogether.

Quinn let out a breath, relief touching her. She folded her arms on the top of her knees and rested her head against her forearm. For the first time in too many days she was tired. She hadn’t been sleeping and not for a moment felt she needed to sleep. Only, now the short nights were catching up with her. Everything ached.

The bedroom door opened once more, this time slowly. The Englishman leaned in enough to see her around the edge of the door. He held out his hand. A heavy whiskey glass was in it, holding three inches of brown liquid.

“You look like a woman who likes wine,” he said, “but given your state, scotch will do you more good. I guarantee it.”

Quinn swallowed, her throat dry. “You’d better come in, then.”

He stepped into the room and shut the door with his elbow. A second glass was in his other hand. It held just as much scotch in it.

He held the glass toward her. She took it. Then he moved back to the desk in the corner, as far away from her as the room would let him get. “Given the circumstances, you have to be Quinn.”

Quinn sipped the scotch. She rarely drank hard liquor. The peaty bite of the scotch seemed appropriate, right now. Wine was too ordinary for this moment. She let the scotch slide down the back of her throat, which eased the ache.

“Thank you.” Her voice was rough. She didn’t care.

Apparently, neither did he. He didn’t comment about her voice or her face. Surely her makeup was smeared everywhere. Her cheeks were wet. He didn’t seem to notice.

“You knew Denis, then?” she asked, injecting the polite tone of inquiry into her voice which she had been using all day. Why else would he be here, if not for Denis? He was a stranger to her.

He sipped his scotch. “I knew Denis,” he said at last. “I am sure the last thing you want to do is have a polite, meaningless conversation. Instead of me explaining to you how I knew Denis, which won’t help you a single jot or tittle, why don’t we say nothing? You look as though you need time to just sit.”

She would have thanked him, except even that required too much energy. He was fine with her silence, so she let the silence grow. It didn’t feel awkward.

Her gaze swung back to the Stradivarius. It was sitting on the chair under the window, which would expose it to sunlight and the heat of the day. Even though it was a chilly day, something as simple as a rain shower against the window could throw off the tuning.

Still, she didn’t have the energy to move. She sipped the scotch and let her thoughts wander.

Her gaze returned to the violin.

“It’s Denis’ Stradivarius, isn’t it?” the man said.

“Yes.” She sipped. The scotch spread warmth through her chest and everything relaxed.

The man drank the last half inch of his scotch and put the glass on the desk beside his hip. “I see in the news they think the bomb was made in Afghanistan. Something to do with the ingredients in the C4.”

“The government hasn’t said it was terrorists.”

“What else could it be?” He shrugged. “Terrorists make sense. If terrorism ever makes sense. If it’s terrorists, then it’s sort of understandable. Unforgivable, of course. But understandable in this whacked-out world we live in.”

She looked at him, startled. It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that other people might want explanations, just as she did.

“Unforgivable,” she repeated. “It’s a good word.”

The silence built again. It was comfortable, which surprised her. There was no music to fill it and no urgency to fill it with something else. Below, she heard people talking to each other. Glasses clinked. Plates clattered. Her fridge was stuffed with casseroles people brought for her. The food had bewildered her. Now, she wondered if people brought the food because it gave them something positive to do in the face of such uncertainty.

They couldn’t give her answers, but they could give her food.

“Not that I know much about music at all,” the man said, “Only, shouldn’t the violin be stored in a proper case? This one?” He nudged the nickel-plated industrial steel case sitting on the floor with his leather loafers.

Quinn considered the case. The movement of his foot made it rock. The casing flashed in the light from the window. “Denis was a slob,” she said.

The man’s soft blue eyes met hers. He said nothing.

“I have spent years telling him to put the violin away.” She tucked the lock of hair which always escaped her bun back behind her ear. “I nearly said it all over again when I came in here. Then I remembered he wouldn’t be able to hear me.” She pressed her lips together for a minute to stop them trembling. “It should be put away,” she admitted. “Only, once I put it away…”

“Then it will never come out again,” he finished.

She put the glass on the carpet and wrapped her arms around her knees. She stared at the black crepe stretched across her knees. It was the only black dress she owned.

“It was such a simple life,” she said. “All we wanted was to be happy. It didn’t take much to make us happy, either. Music. Kids, later. Neither of us was super ambitious, although we both knew Denis’s talents would push him higher on the career track. We were fine with that.”

The man still said nothing.

“He was thirty-six,” Quinn said. “He was a kind man, who was not asking anything of the world. Why did this happen to him? There are so many nasty people in the world who should have been in his place.”

The man put his hands together, his fingers interspliced. “If I could answer that, I would. I wish I had answers for you. All I can tell you is that you are absolutely right. There are bigger bastards in the world who deserve it far more than Denis did. I’m one of them. If he had asked, I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat.”

Quinn’s heart gave a little jolt. She stared at him. For the first time she wondered who he was. He hadn’t given a name. Until now, it wasn’t needed.

He shifted his posture on the desk, his long legs re-crossing at the ankles. His gaze returned to the violin on the chair. “Do you think…? Would it make it easier, if I helped you packed the violin away?”

If he had asked three minutes ago, she would’ve been appalled. Embarrassed. She would have told him no. Now, though, it seemed to be a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

She nodded. She pushed on the carpet with her hands to lift herself to her feet. He got to his and held out his big hand.

Quinn took it and he hauled her to her feet. Then he bent and picked up the case.

It left the violin to her. She took the two steps to the chair, then picked the violin up by the neck. Warm wood under her fingers. Slick polish.

The bow was propped against the chair. She picked it up. Her fingertips caught on the coarseness of the horsehair. Denis refused to use any of the man-made substitutes, especially with the Stradivarius.

The man had the case open. He stepped out of the way and she moved over to the desk and dropped the violin into the deep, velvet-lined recess which was made for it. The bow fitted into the clips on the lid. She had done this dozens of times. Hundreds of times. Now it felt as though it was the first time. Every movement was deliberate.

Her vision blurred. Her fingers lingered on the body of the violin.

“Shall we close the case?” he asked.

Quinn drew in a breath. She nodded. They each put a hand on the lid and lowered it. They closed the lid. She fastened the left clip. He did the right-hand one.

Quinn held her breath, waiting.

The man looked at her. “Nothing happened.”

A hysterical little giggle escaped her. She slapped her fingertips to her mouth to shut it off.

“Nothing has changed,” he added.

She nodded. No, nothing had changed. Denis was still dead. He was still with her, too.

The man straightened, his fingertips brushing the case as he lifted his hand toward her. “My name is Elijah Aslan.”

She took his hand. It was warm and dry. And big. “Quinn Sawyer,” she said.

“Hello, Quinn Sawyer.”

“Yes, hello.”

He picked up the empty glass from the desk, moved over to the wall and picked up her glass, too. He paused at the door. “Okay?”

Quinn nodded. She would be okay. Somehow.

He gave her a ghost of a smile, then left.

When Quinn went downstairs five minutes later, Elijah Aslan was nowhere in sight. This time, when everyone spoke to her in their soft voices, fumbling to express their regrets, Quinn gave them the comfort they needed. It helped her get through the rest of the day.

It didn’t give her any answers, though.

The next day, Quinn cleaned up the apartment. There wasn’t much to do, because everyone had scurried about last night and cleaned up for her. A few glasses and the odd paper plate. Otherwise the apartment was as it normally was.

Enough food was stacked in the fridge to last her for months, which gave her no excuse to go shopping.

Quinn stood at the window, gripping her elbows and staring at the pale blue sky. She didn’t need to go back to work until tomorrow, at least. For an insane moment or two, she considered going to work today. Now. Only, as she had learned yesterday, it wasn’t just her who needed time. To turn up for work the day after Denis’s funeral would unsettle everyone else.

She thought about putting on music. Denis had digitized their entire collection, which was vast. She could raise her voice and request any track, and it would issue from the speakers throughout the house.

Only, what would she play? Music, which was usually a comfort to her, was now a bewildering chaos of choices. Each choice was strewn with pitfalls. So many pieces of music were associated with Denis. They had eaten together while listening to dozens of tracks. They had made love to even more. They had listened in the darkness, only their silhouettes showing, yet had been closer than a couple with their arms entwined around each other.

There was music Denis had played or conducted. There was music the Symphony had played which they had both listened to and got lost within.

So many choices. Denis’ presence overlaid all the music she owned before she met him. She had shared everything with him and now, no music did not carry his fingerprints.

When the front door buzzer sounded, she was relieved. It took away the need to choose. Quinn hurried to the door.

The woman waiting at the door had shoulder-length, fine, soft brown hair, a narrow-pointed chin and clear eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. She wore jeans and Keds and a striped Breton T-shirt. She looked as preppy as any student on the University campus.

Quinn blinked. “Leela! Oh… I missed class, didn’t I?”

Lilly shook her head. “I told the yoga studios you wouldn’t be in for a while, and why. They said they would suspend your membership until you’re back on your feet. That isn’t why I’m here.” Leela’s jaw worked. “I’m sorry, Quinn. Denis was a great guy.”

Quinn nodded. She didn’t bother searching for words of comfort. She was tapped out in that regard. She suspected Leela didn’t need support, anyway.

Leela glanced over her shoulder. The apartment was on the first floor and each apartment had its own small front courtyard. Theirs faced the street, which was a low-traffic road. A green Escalade sat at the curb with the engine running. It wasn’t Leela’s car, which was a beat-up Mini Cooper.

“What’s going on, Leela?” Quinn asked.

“I need you to come with me, Quinn,” Leela said. “We need to talk.”

“What about?” Quinn frowned. “Why don’t you come in? I was about to put the kettle on. I want a cup of tea. I’ll make you some of that disgusting coffee you like.”

Leela shook her head. “I can’t.” She glanced over her shoulder once more. “Please just come with me.”

Suspicion stirred in Quinn’s chest. “Why?”

“I can answer all your questions if you come with me. If you don’t, I can’t answer any of them.” Leela gave her a stiff smile. “It’s all right. You’re not in danger.”

“Should I be worried that I might have been?” Quinn asked, her voice rising.

Leela’s smile was wide. As far as Quinn could tell, it was genuine. Warm. Amused—the dry amusement Leela often showed. “Now you worry about that?”

This was the Leela Quinn knew. She didn’t relax, though.

Leela stepped to one side and lifted her chin to look at the Escalade. “A ten-minute ride, then you get answers. Then I’ll bring you home. Promise.”

Answers. The magic word.

Quinn reached back and hooked her denim jacket off the coat rack and her keys out of the dish on the shelf beneath. “Okay,” she told Leela.

[4]
Sunday, November 10th

At the end of the ten-minute drive, which was silent, the Escalade pulled into a strip mall Quinn knew well. She bent to peer through the window, scanning the fashion store, the coffee shop, the comic store, and the 7-Eleven which drew most of the traffic. At the opposite end to the big 7-Eleven store was an equally large storefront which had once been a real estate office. For over a year, the big glass panes at the front of the store had been covered in white paper. A formal notice on the door announced the closure of the real estate office.

Leela, who was a small woman, bounced out of the Escalade and over to the door of the real estate office. She put her hand on the push bar and looked back at Quinn, as Quinn stepped out of the Escalade. Leela raised her brow above the rim of her glasses. “We even have tea,” she told Quinn.

“Who is ‘we’?” Quinn demanded. She followed Leela into the store, her heart stirring uneasily. Only the promise of answers kept her moving forward. This moment was a replica of every suspense movie she’d ever seen. She didn’t think this happened to normal people.

When she moved inside and the glass door swung shut behind her, Quinn was not surprised to see cheap, battered office desks and people. Only, the people were sitting on the desks, all of them holding paper coffee cups and talking in low voices. A carton of doughnuts sat in the center of the desk in the middle of the group, beside cardboard carry trays with more cups pushed into the holders.

Everyone looked up as Leela and Quinn entered.

Quinn came to a halt three steps inside the door. Leela moved on. She lifted one of the coffee cups out of the cardboard tray and hooked a cruller out of the box of doughnuts with a soft sound of pleasure. She lifted herself up onto a desk beside a man with black hair and brows and a widow’s peak at the top of his high forehead.

Quinn knew the man. His name was Lochan, and he was Leela’s boyfriend—or so Quinn had believed. The two of them had eaten burgers with Quinn and Denis a week before the explosion. It had been a fun evening, with lots of laughter and teasing about music nerds versus computer nerds, which Leela and Lochan were.

The one person not sitting on a desk was a middle-aged woman with black hair which waved and curled down to her shoulder blades. The woman wore a dark purple business suit and a white T-shirt. She had beautiful dark eyes.

She came toward Quinn, with her hand raised. It was automatic for Quinn to take her hand and let the woman shake it.

The woman smiled at Quinn with a smile which seemed genuine. “My name is Dima. I’m so pleased you came to speak to us.”

“I was promised answers,” Quinn said.

Dima nodded. “And you shall have them. There are some things we cannot tell you, of course. What we can, I will share with you freely. Would you like to sit down? Would you like tea? Leela tells us you like Irish Breakfast tea. I didn’t think it would be difficult to find, although this is Boston, isn’t it?”

As she spoke, the woman drew Quinn toward the center desk where the cups waited. She didn’t lay a hand on Quinn yet by gesture and body movements, Quinn was shepherded farther into the room.

Even though she didn’t remember agreeing to it, Quinn found the last of the cups in her hand. The strong aroma of Irish Breakfast tea rose from the opening in the lid.

The box of doughnuts was thrust toward her. She shook her head.

“I told you we should have got bagels,” Leela’s voice was muffled by a mouthful of doughnut.

Quinn considered the group. “Who are you?”

“Who do you think we are?” Dima asked.

“FBI? Homeland Security? Undercover detectives? How would I know?”

Dima leaned against the center desk, not quite sitting on it, with both hands curled over the edge as if she was popping herself up. Her pleasant expression didn’t shift. “And if I tell you we are CIA officers?”

Quinn’s heart fluttered. “Are you telling me that?” She shifted her gaze to where Leela was sitting on the desk, munching. “Does that mean you are not a student and not interested in yoga, then?” The question emerged with a sarcastic note which Quinn did not intend. It was a measure of her building fear.

“I like yoga just fine,” Leela said. She grimaced. “I was a student, once,” she said. “I kinda exaggerated that.”

Quinn looked at Dima. Dima waited patiently. “You’re really CIA?” Quinn asked.

“We really are CIA,” Dima replied. “I can show you my shield and my ID. For now, though, I’d like to keep this just on a first name basis. Please, sit down, Quinn. This may take a moment or two.”

Quinn didn’t move. “Why has the CIA been observing me? Has this got something to do with Denis?”

“Denis, like you, Quinn, was an innocent bystander.” Dima frowned. “At least, we think so. You can help us with that.”

Quinn’s gut roiled. “Help you decide if Denis is innocent or not?” Her voice rose. “Of course he is innocent!”

Dima nodded, her expression sympathetic. “How much do you know about Denis’s life in Austria?”

Quinn hesitated. “He was a music professor there, too. He was invited to the Conservatory for a three-year teaching assignment. That was two years ago.”

“You met Denis the week he arrived in America,” Dima said. “You began dating immediately. We have learned about Denis since he arrived in America. It seems we know more than you about his life in Austria, though.”

“He didn’t like to talk about it,” Quinn murmured. Her innards shifted. “He was a professor at the Vienna School of Music and Performing Arts. He completed his undergraduate studies there, too. Denis is a musician. That’s all he is. Was.” Quinn closed her mouth and resisted saying anything more.

Everyone in the room watched her, not with suspicious gazes, but with open interest. She could’ve been introducing herself to a new set of orchestra members. It was the same level of collegial politeness.

Quinn shook her head. “Whatever it is you’re trying to lead up to, why don’t you just spit it out? Denis is dead. There is nothing you can say which is worse than that.”

“Are you sure there is nothing worse?” The question came from one of the men. He had short hair, mousy brown. A closely trimmed beard and a simple business shirt with no tie and the sleeves rolled up. He had blue eyes and full lips and an intense stare. He was also carrying an extra thirty pounds.

“Scott has a point,” Dima said. “What do you know about the explosion at the jazz club?”

Quinn had to clear her throat before she could speak. It felt as though someone was squeezing it with their fingers. “I’ve heard all the usual crap everyone is saying on the Internet. C4 from Afghanistan, maybe the Taliban. None of it makes sense.”

“Oh, it wasn’t the Taliban,” Dima said. “It wasn’t any terrorists we know.” Her expression softened as she looked at Quinn. “We are fairly certain the explosion had only one intended victim.”

“Because the Russians don’t mind taking out an entire city block just to kill an ant,” Scott said, his voice dry, his tone disgusted.

Quinn wasn’t aware of sitting down yet found herself propped upon the nearest desk. Her heart thundered. Her hand trembled enough to make her put the cup down, afraid she might spill it. She gripped her hands together. “They blew up a whole club just to get to Denis?”

No one said anything. It was answer enough.

“Why?” Quinn asked, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

Dima sighed. She pushed her hair away from her eyes. “We are still trying to understand, too. We were hoping you could help us with that.”

“Me? Why would anyone want to kill Denis?” She couldn’t move beyond the idea that someone wanted Denis dead badly enough to kill twenty-four other people. “What have Russians got to do with it? Denis has never been to Russia.” The questions piled up upon themselves, one after another, making her head hurt.

Dima lifted her hand as if she sensed the frenzy of questions in Quinn’s mind. “I can tell you a little,” she said. “It won’t be all the answers you want, but for now, until you agree to help us, I can only give you a glimpse of the problem we’re facing.” She put her hands together, the fingers extended, as if she was praying. She rested them against her legs. “There is a man we have been investigating for several months. He came to my attention via… Well, it doesn’t matter how I learned about him. When we investigated him, we learned of the man’s association with a Russian spymaster called The Kobra.”

Quinn resisted the urge to giggle. No one was laughing. There wasn’t even a smile in evidence. The entire room of people watched her, assessing how she received the news. It told her they meant it.

“Who is The Kobra?” Quinn asked.

Dima nodded, pleased, as if the question was the right one. “The Kobra has been directing a section of Russian intelligence operations for nearly thirty years. No one knows who he is. We have no photo of him. He only uses his alias. Everyone in the intelligence community has heard of The Kobra. He has done more to dismantle American security and intelligence affairs than a dozen other countries put together. After thirty years, we are certain that whoever The Kobra is, he is high in Russian politics. It makes him powerful, a brilliant strategist and deadly to American security. My unit, this unit, is charged with finding the Kobra. It is our single mission.”

Lochan swirled his coffee cup, peering at the liquid inside. “We know next to nothing about him except for the effects he leaves behind—like the trail of a worm.” He grimaced. “Every American intelligence officer who has investigated him has either died or disappeared.”

“Yet you’re investigating him,” Quinn said. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“We are being careful,” Dima said. “We are not directly investigating him. As he leaves trails, we are following those trails.” She smiled. The expression was full of mischief. “If he is human, he can be found. I will find him.”

“And what does this Kobra have to do with Denis?” Quinn asked.

“Directly, nothing.” Dima gave a small shrug. “Indirectly, we think there is a connection there—even more so, now.”

Quinn gripped her elbows. She was cold. “You mean now that Denis is dead?”

“The Kobra has a habit of cleaning up after himself,” said the honey blonde woman sitting on the desk beside Leela. She looked to be in her early forties and was dressed like a soccer mom. Quinn saw a dozen versions of her in the supermarket every day. She would be just another mom rushing around to buy tonight’s dinner ingredients before picking up the kids. “We are wondering if this is what is happening now,” the soccer mom added.

“The man who came to my attention four months ago,” Dima said, “we suspected to be directly connected to the Kobra. We have been watching the man and checking into his background and what we found has convinced us there is a strong possibility he knows the Kobra. That’s when life got interesting.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Does this mystery man have a name?”

“He does,” Leela said. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “He is called Elijah Aslan now.”

Quinn stared at them. Elijah Aslan. The Englishman. The man at the funeral.

The one who had known Denis.

Lochan, the man who had pretended to be Nina’s boyfriend—or perhaps he actually was Leela’s boyfriend—Lochan spoke as if he was recalling data he had memorized. “Elijah Aslan was born in Ukraine. His parents died when Chernobyl blew up. In the aftermath, Ilya Miroslav Aslanov was pushed into one of the state orphanages and disappeared off the Russian radar. It was chaotic, back then. There are no confirmed records of his life until 1989, which likely means he was with the Ukrainian Mafia. In 1989, he paid a lot of money for a student visa and full tuition at Cambridge.” Quinn didn’t recognize Lochan’s accent. He had used the same accent when they shared hamburgers. Perhaps it was genuine. Quinn didn’t know. She was questioning everything, now.

“Aslanov lived in Britain for the next eight years,” Lochan continued. “He earned advanced degrees in chemistry, business and politics. While he was there, he built up a useful network of contacts.”

“While he was in Britain,” Scott continued, “the Ukraine achieved independence and kicked Russia out. Aslan didn’t go home. Possible because the gang he was with before he moved to Britain was dismantled or being monitored by the new government.

“Instead of going back to Ukraine after he graduated, he acquired a green card and moved to Texas. It’s possible he was still working for the Ukrainian Mafia—we’re looking into that. He set up a chemical company, bought a few others and built himself a medium-sized business empire with deep connections to the energy industry and the manufacturing industry. His chemicals supplied half the factories in North America.”

“Why do you think he was still working for the Ukrainian Mafia?” Quinn said. “Maybe he was trying to build a new life. People come to America to do that all the time.”

“Homeland Security won’t say,” Dima said. “We haven’t asked them too loudly or too often, because we don’t want to send up alarm bells in Russia. What we do know is that Homeland Security kicked Aslan out of America after 9/11. That is highly suggestive.” Her gaze locked with Quinn’s. “In 2002, Aslan moved to Austria. For the last sixteen years he has been the premier chemical agent in the world. As far as anyone can tell, he is perfectly legitimate.”

“Austria…” Quinn breathed. “Denis knew him in Austria?”

Lochan picked up the narrative with his even voice. “On April 17, 2013, a fertilizer plant exploded in West Texas. Fourteen people were killed, more than one hundred and sixty were injured and more than one hundred and fifty buildings were damaged or destroyed. At first, there did not seem to be any connection to Aslan. Then we tracked ownership of the plant through dummy corporations and shell companies. The plant belonged to Aslan.”

Scott added, “Once we figured that out, we understood why Homeland Security kicked Aslan out. Records are sealed, although it isn’t hard to presume the explosion was not an accident. A chemical fire burns hotter than anything on earth except for a nuclear fire. It’s an effective way to get rid of evidence.”

“Evidence of what?” Quinn said.

“Of the wrong sort of chemicals.”

Quinn blinked. “I avoided science in high school.”

“There are plenty of weapons in the world which do not explode,” Dima said. “We think Aslan has undermined governments and supplied chemical weapons to third world states for decades. We believe he is the world supplier of Sarin gas. We think he might be dealing with the Russians. Also, the Chinese. Only, nothing has ever been proven. There is not even a warrant against his name. Any interest the American government has about Aslan is unofficial, because everything we know about him is speculation. He might still be in contact with the Kobra. He may not be. He could also be a completely innocent businessman.” Dima’s smile was harsh and straight. “Only, I have dealt with enemies like Aslan before. Many of them. Aslan feels exactly as they did. He leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

Quinn recalled the empathetic and gentle man who had sat on Denis’s desk and given her the only comfort anyone had provided, yesterday. In twenty minutes, Aslan had propped her up and handed her a way to cope with the day.

That man was an agent provocateur supplying chemical weapons to America’s enemies?

Quinn reached for her cup of tea, giving herself time to think. “And this man knew Denis?”

No one answered. Quinn looked up.

Dima smile was gentle. “Aslan and Denis met in 2008, when Aslan became a patron of the music school where Denis taught. They became lovers and remained together until Denis moved to America in 2016.”

Quinn closed her eyes. She put the cup down, fumbling to find the top of the desk. A high C note sang in her mind.

“There’s no evidence Denis and Aslan were maintaining a long-distance relationship of any sort,” Lochan said. “Aslan stayed away from the States until this week, when he rented a private jet and flew directly to Boston. The only thing he has done since he arrived is—”

“Come to my house and talk to me,” Quinn finished.

Lochan nodded. His expression was sober.

Dima stood. “For right now, that is all we can tell you. This man who we think has a direct connection to the Kobra has sought you out, among the thousands of people he knows here. There is an intimate connection between the two of you and he is responding to it. Which is why we brought you here today. We want you to know who has stepped into your life. And we wanted to ask you…” Dima hesitated.

Quinn sighed. “You want me to spy on him.”

[5]
One Hour Later.

“I should warn you I don’t like lying,” Quinn said, as she cracked open the lid on the salmon salad Leela had brought her. She sat at a desk. while Dima sat on the other side with a similar salad in front of her. Dima ate with her fingers and licked the tips between mouthfuls.

Quinn used the plastic fork they had supplied.

In response to Quinn’s statement about lying, Dima looked up from her salad. “You don’t have to lie. At least, not directly. If Aslan does come back to speak to you again, you can be yourself and speak the truth as you always do. There is nothing about your life you must hide from him. He wants to know about Denis and he wants to learn about you because you were part of Denis’s life. He will know if you’re lying, so tell the truth. Just don’t mention this afternoon to him.”

“You want to know about The Kobra,” Quinn pointed out. “Telling the truth won’t get you that information.”

Dima shook her head again. “All you have to do is keep your eyes open and your ears pinned back. If you hear anything suspicious or curious or just plain interesting, you pass it on to us. You don’t have to direct conversations. You don’t have to do anything at all except be yourself and observe.”

Movement from the corner of her eye caught Quinn’s attention. She looked around. The open office had a dozen desks which had been abandoned by the real estate company. The six other people in the room were using the desks for their intended function now. They had chairs in front, most of them fold-up plastic. They had laptops open on the desks and a range of peripherals which did not typically come with computers. Quinn wasn’t sure what some equipment was for. She wasn’t the geek. That was Leela’s department…or so she had thought.

They were all busy on their keyboards. They spoke to each other in low voices as they typed and snatched mouthfuls of their lunch, which sat on the desks beside them. There did not seem to be any tension between them. They sounded like students chatting casually across library tables.

Quinn prodded at her salad. “I keep coming back to Aslan. He was charming. He was a nice man. He was empathetic. I can’t align that with a chemical weapons dealer who kills people to cover his tracks.”

“Hitler was a charming man in person,” Dima said. “Powerful men are often charming. It helps them get their way.”

Quinn swallowed. She had no appetite. “Could I get another cup of tea?”

Dima smiled, as if she understood what Quinn was feeling. She lifted her chin. “Agata, would you mind running down to the coffee shop and getting another Irish Breakfast tea for Quinn?”

The twenty-something blonde girl who was working on the same desk as Lochan, her laptop backed up against his, rose to her feet. Her jeans had artistic slashes at the knees and the floral jacket over her T-shirt had braid and tassels on the hem. Her hair hung to her waist and there were braids among the waves. She had half a dozen bracelets up her wrist which clattered musically as she moved. Her boots had fringes on them.

She tucked a cellphone into the back pocket of her jeans and hurried out of the office.

Dima turned back to Quinn. “You must forget what we have told you about Aslan. He will not tell you himself. Besides, what he does is not our priority here. His connection to the Kobra is.”

“It is hard to forget a man who supplies the world with Sarin gas,” Quinn said dryly.

“Allegedly supplies,” Scott said. He was sitting at the desk beside the one where Dima and Quinn ate their lunch. He hunched over his laptop as if he was willing it to give him the information he was reading. His gaze lifted enough to glance at Quinn over the top of the screen. “Almost everything we know about Aslan is a guess or rumors or unsubstantiated. Who knows? He might actually be a sweet guy.” He went back to his laptop.

“Scott is our realist,” Dima said. “You will get used to him.”

“I don’t have to get used to him, do I?” Quinn said. “I’m supposed to go back to being me, right?”

“You haven’t been you for several weeks now.” Dima lifted her chin to indicate Lochan and Leela. Leela worked on the desk beside Lochan and Agata. “We have been hovering, watching your back, since early July. Whether or not you agree to help us, we will continue to watch your back for a little while longer.”

“And what if Aslan never comes back?”

“He will,” said the soccer mom, lifting her voice. “It may seem accidental, but he will be back.”

“And once he comes back, you scoop out my brain, then I can get on with my life once more?”

“It’s called debriefing. Yes, we will learn everything we can from your encounter with him. Then you can get on with your life.” Dima’s smile was full of mischief again. Quinn liked the smile. Now she was sitting closer to Dima, she could see the woman was older than she had first thought. Fifties, perhaps early sixties. She was a youthful woman, though. The mischief in her smile added to the impression of a woman living gracefully through her mid-years. Quinn hoped she was as elegant in her fifties as Dima.

Quinn stabbed at a cherry tomato, missed, and stabbed again, irritation building in her. “Did Aslan kill Denis?”

Dima didn’t seem shocked or even surprised. “It’s an interesting question. Lea, what do you think?”

The third man in the room was tall, with dark wavy hair and olive skin. He had a tightly trimmed full beard and lucid gray eyes which didn’t match his skin or his hair. He looked up from the laptop, his eyes narrowed. “It’s possible he might’ve been moved by jealousy to hit out at Quinn, although it doesn’t seem likely. Everything I’ve learned about him says Aslan is a careful man. He considers every move. Even his emotional decisions are carefully made. So, no, I don’t think he did kill Denis. If he was going to do that, he would’ve done it two years ago, when Denis and Quinn first got together.” He had no accent at all.

Quinn shivered. It was weird being spoken about in the third person.

“Leander is our unofficial profiler,” Dima said.

Leander was already staring at his laptop once more, uninterested in the conversation.

Quinn drew in a slow breath, trying to calm her heart, which had been running heavily since she stepped into the room. “You keep talking about watching my back. Am I safe? Will this be dangerous?”

“The CIA is not in the habit of sending civilians into dangerous situations,” Dima said primly.

“We leave that up to the Russians,” Scott said. His tone was bitter.

Dima ignored the interjection. “You are safer with us watching your back than you would be crossing the street without us there. Aslan is only interested in your relationship with Denis. There is no danger in sharing any of it with him…or not. You must act as you would normally.”

“I think I’ve forgotten how to do that,” Quinn muttered. She pushed the salad away from her. She couldn’t eat it. “How do you know this guy is actually connected to the Kobra? I mean, you’re going to a lot of trouble. How can you be sure?”

“The Kobra was in Ukraine just before it fell.” Lochan leaned back on his chair to consider Quinn. “Aslan has been tracked back to Ukraine at the same time. Then there’s the tattoo.”

“Tattoo?”

The soccer mom cleared her throat and turned her laptop around so Quinn could see the screen. On the screen was a photo of several people standing on a beach with their feet in shallow water. Two of them had their backs to the camera. The photo had the grainy appearance which said it had been taken with a long lens, from far away. The taller of the two men was familiar to Quinn. “Aslan,” she said. She stared at Aslan’s bare back. His shoulders really were that wide. It wasn’t a product of the suit he had been wearing.

He looked as though he was in intimidating shape.

The soccer mom tapped on the keys and the photo enlarged, then enlarged again, until Aslan’s right shoulder filled the screen. Between the shoulder blade and the top of his shoulder was a tattoo. It was a snake, with its tail curled underneath it to form an infinity symbol. The snake had a flared head. A cobra.

“The Kobra,” Quinn said. She looked at Dima. “You could find a dozen cobra symbols all over the Internet,” she pointed out. “Why does this mean Aslan knows the Kobra?”

“We can’t even be sure the tattoo really exists,” Dima said. “Photoshop is fantastic these days. However, Aslan and the Kobra were in the same part of the world at the same time. It makes the tattoo highly suggestive.”

“Who is everyone else?” Quinn asked, studying the people in the photo.

“The blond man, there, is the reason we know the man with his back to the camera is Aslan,” Lochan said, pointing to the scaled-down version of the photo. “Blondie is Mitchell Peterson—as American as apple pie and as rotten as last year’s milk. He has a prison record, so he is known to us. Military prison, but prison is prison. His association with Aslan is also well known.”

“And the others?” Quinn said.

“We’re still ID’ing them,” Lochan said. “They could be tourists strolling the beach—except for the guy next to Aslan. Those two are clearly talking to each other even though we can’t see his face.”

“I thought you guys can zoom in on anything,” Quinn said.

“If only life was a TV series,” Scott said.

There wasn’t much detail showing on the guy beside Aslan. He was as tall as Aslan and his shoulders were as wide. He wore a plain T-shirt. His hair was black and short. He could be one of millions of men with a similar physique and coloring.

Quinn said to Dima, “I don’t understand how this horrible man had anything to do with Denis.”

“A while ago you called him charming,” Dima pointed out. “I admit we are speculating a great deal, only Aslan’s relationship with Denis is confirmed. They lived together, Quinn.”

Quinn dropped her gaze to her unwanted salad. “I feel as though I never knew Denis at all. Not really…”

“Denis did not tell you about his life in Austria?” Dima asked.

“He hated talking about Austria. All he would say was that his time there was tarnished and he was happy to get away. And even happier to meet me.” She could feel her cheeks heating. “When he mentioned Austria at all, he grew bitter.”

Dima glanced at one of the others. Her brow lifted.

Quinn turned in her chair.

Leander had his chin on his fist. His eyes were narrowed again. “It further confirms their relationship had ended when he came here. It doesn’t sound as though it was an amicable breakup. There’s too little information to speculate on why. I could guess but that’s all it would be—a wild guess.”

Quinn wrapped her arms around her middle. She shivered. “Maybe I don’t want to know, now. I already feel as if my head will explode.”

Dima nodded. “Leela will take you back home. Get on with your life, as best you can.”

“And if—when Aslan contacts me again, how do I reach you?”

The mischief was back in Dima’s smile. “You won’t need to do that. We will contact you.” Her smile faded. “Don’t be afraid, Quinn. This is a simple matter. Talk to Aslan as you would normally. Then you talk to us. Then your part in this is over.”

Leela got to her feet and put on her jeans jacket. She picked up car keys and raised her brow at Quinn.

Quinn got to her feet as Agata came back inside carrying a cup of tea. Agata was as tall as Quinn and half her size. She was slender and incredibly young. Her eyes were a lovely green color which went well with the braid on her jacket.

She glanced at the two of them, then held the tea out to Quinn. “For the road, then.”

Quinn took the tea. “Thank you.”

Leela pushed the door of the office open for Quinn. “After you.”

Quinn stepped outside and looked at the overcast day. She had come here for answers and had got some. There were far more left unanswered.

She didn’t want the answers anymore.

Liar! a small voice whispered in her brain.

Once Quinn had gone, Dima finished her salad with relish, as she thought things through. The salad dressing was excellent, although it left her fingers sticky. She licked them off then drained the bottle of Perrier.

Scott dropped into the chair Quinn had been using and leaned back, watching her. “You’re really going to use her?” Disapproval tinged his voice.

Scott, out of everyone in the room, had reason to be wary of involving innocents.

“It isn’t me who has involved her. Aslan did that,” Dima pointed out.

“You scared her into next Sunday,” Scott replied. “When Aslan rocks up, if she looks at him with those big eyes the way she looked at you while you told her about him, he will know you’re on to him. You’ll never find him again.”

“Exactly,” Lea said. He lowered the lid on his laptop and rested his hand on it. “If Aslan thinks she is in any way compromised, if he even sniffs a hidden agenda, he won’t just be gone—he will scour the trail behind him. He did it in Texas. Fourteen people died to cover his tracks, remember.”

“Allegedly,” Dima said, using the same tone Scott had used when he said the word.

Scott rolled his eyes.

“Most civilians have no idea how to lie with a straight face.” Ren screwed her hair up into a messy bun on the top of her head to get it out of the way. “They always have a tell. Quinn is right, she is shitty at lying.” Ren leaned back and put her sneakers on the desk and crossed her ankles. “We should have followed her. Leela could have stayed on her tail and I could take over when it wouldn’t seem natural for Leela to be there. Even Lochan knows how to tail someone.”

Lochan rolled his eyes. “Thank you,” he said with a smile which showed his even white teeth.

“I think you are all underestimating Quinn,” Dima told them.

“I’ve been reading her profile,” Lea said. He shook his head. “There is nothing in here. She has never experienced anything more stressful than stroppy musicians having a tantrum. She will fold at the first hint of conflict.”

Dima shook her head. “You are forgetting she just lost the man she loved. And now she has learned he isn’t who she thought he was. She is facing conflict right now and still managed to look me in the eye.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Scott’s question was soft. “You will tip off the one source who might lead us to The Kobra.”

“We have no choice,” Dima said. “This is our one lead. Aslan came to her. Now we must wait for him to come back.”

“What if Quinn is right about that, too?” Agata asked, her sweet voice lifting. “What if Aslan doesn’t come back again?”

Dima shook her head. “He will be back.” She said it was far more firmness than she felt. She had to be right on this. She had spent four months learning about Aslan. If she was wrong, it meant she didn’t understand Aslan at all and the skills she had spent thirty years building were useless.

He will be back, she told herself sternly.

[6]
Thursday, November 14th

The rain wasn’t cold, although once it soaked through her jacket, the wind turned her jacket into an ice coat which left Quinn shivering and miserable.

She would have caught a bus except none came along. It was at times like this when their decision to rent an apartment close to the University campus seemed insane. A house in the suburbs and a car each would have cost just as much as the apartment and on days like this, she would be warm and dry.

Quinn hunched inside her coat and kept her eyes on the ground, watching for the deeper puddles. So far, her socks were dry. Her boots were leather, though. If she stepped into too many puddles, they would be soaked through, too.

She didn’t notice the car pull up beside the curb. It was only her name being spoken at a volume higher the hiss of the rain which pulled her attention to it.

The car was black and sleek and elegant. Smoked windows. The back door was open and Aslan lean across the back seat to look at her through the opening.

“Get in,” he said. “I’ll take you home. You’re soaked. You need to get somewhere warm.”

Quinn shivered. It wasn’t the rain and the wind which caused it. Her heart squeezed as she looked at the man. Dark blue suit today, French cuffs on his shirt and heavy cufflinks. The handkerchief in his pockets was the same light blue color as his shirt…and his eyes.

Quinn shook her head. “No, thank you.” She walked again. He was here. He was back. Dima was right.

Her heart swooped in a sickening way.

Remember to act normally, Quinn told herself. Only she didn’t know what normal was.

Tell the truth, Dima had said.

Quinn could manage that.

The car kept level with her. The door stayed open. “You are safe with me,” Aslan said. “You will notice the driver. You can even sit up the front with him if you prefer. Just let me get you out of the rain. It bothers me to see someone so damp when I have a warm and dry car to offer them.”

Quinn gripped her elbows, shivering. She bent enough to look at him. “I’ll get the seat wet.”

“It will survive.”

Quinn looked up the road. There were no other cars. No sign of the bus. There was at least another mile before she would reach home. It would take maybe a minute in the car or another forty-five minutes of slogging through the rain.

Tell the truth, she reminded herself. “I don’t deserve to be warm and dry,” she told Aslan.

His head tilted. He considered her. “Survivor guilt, Quinn?”

Quinn slicked back her hair, which slapped against her back. The one advantage of this rain was that he couldn’t see her cheeks were wet from crying. “Is that what it is?” she asked dully.

He didn’t seem to care that the inside of the open door was getting as wet as the outside. He examined her for a long moment. Then he murmured to the driver, “Give me the umbrella.”

The driver bent and lifted a long umbrella from the front seat and passed it over. Aslan slid along the back seat and stepped onto the curb, opening the umbrella as he got out. It was a coordinated movement which left him dry. She heard the raindrops hitting the nylon of the umbrella. It was big and black.

Aslan closed the door of the car and patted the roof. He moved over to her and put the umbrella between them, so the rain no longer fell on her head. “Are there any rules against you having an umbrella over you while you walk out your penitence?”

“I don’t know what the rules are,” Quinn confessed.

“What does your gut say?”

“I think an umbrella is okay,” she said doubtfully.

Aslan waved toward the sidewalk. “Shall we?”

They walked, and the car kept pace. Quinn barely noticed it. She was far too aware of Aslan beside her. He did not brush against her, yet she felt the heat from his dry, warm body. It made her even colder. That was good. She should feel cold in his presence.

“Who are you?” she demanded. The question popped out before she could censor it. “Denis said nothing about you. He never mentioned your name. You just turned up at the funeral.”

“Now you think I am one of those men who preys on grieving widows?”

“I don’t have the fortune which would make it worth your while to do that.”

Aslan didn’t respond at once. She listened to the rain hiss and patter against the umbrella, until he said softly, “I knew Denis in Austria.”

Her heart squeezed. He had told her the truth. “You lived there?”

“I still live there.”

Quinn glanced at him. “You came all the way from Austria to attend his funeral?”

Again, he hesitated. “I could tell you I had business here and my timing was coincidental. The truth is, I jumped on the first plane I could catch when I heard Denis was dead. He is the only reason I am here.”

“You and Denis were such good friends?”

“We were very good friends. Then we…” He sighed. “We had a falling out. You know what Denis is like. How, when he gets something in his head, he won’t let it go. He wouldn’t let this go, either. I figured I’d give him time to adjust to it and left him alone. Then he announced he was moving to America to teach at the Conservatory.” Aslan shook his head. “If anyone is to blame for this, it is me. Because of me, Denis was in Boston and in that jazz club when it blew up.”

Quinn couldn’t help gasping as she looked at him. Her eyes widened.

Aslan nodded. “We are both suffering survivor guilt,” he told her. “Have you slept much since the funeral?”

Quinn shook her head. “I keep getting angry.”

“Because he’s dead.”

“Because someone killed him and I don’t know why.” Quinn halted and turned to face him. Aslan stopped, too.

“Nobody will say anything officially. Yet everyone knows it was terrorists who set the bomb,” she said. “Only, which terrorists? Who did it? Who decided it should be done? And why a jazz club? Everybody in the world hangs out at jazz clubs. There’re blacks and women and Asians and Jews and every minority in the world. What sort of statement does it make when there’s no homogenous target? Did some asshole blow up a jazz club because it seemed like a fun thing to do?”

Aslan didn’t look shocked, or uncomfortable. “You want to know why.”

“Fuck why! I want to know who did it!” It was a short sentence. Yet she was panting as if she had run a hundred meters in ten seconds. She stared through Aslan, her heart thundering. She recognized what she had said was the profound and simple truth.

She wasn’t interested in letting the system mete out justice. She wanted whoever was responsible to stand in front of her so she could look him in the eye. Then she would understand why this had happened. None of the answers she had learned so far explained anything.

It seemed as though the more she learned, the more confusing it became.

Aslan seemed to understand. He touched her elbow to encourage her to turn and walk again. Under the hiss of the rain, he murmured, “I want to know who did it. Only I am afraid if I find out who did, then I’ll also learn why. I’m not sure I’ll like the answer.”

“Because you think it’s your fault.”

He glanced at her. “That’s astute of you.”

She shrugged. “Survivor guilt. Right down at the bottom of my belly, I know this is my fault. I just don’t know why. It makes sense you would think the same way.”

As she spoke, part of her marveled at the naturalness of her speech. With every sentence she spoke, she was lying and evading and omitting facts which would have Aslan running like a hyena, if he knew of them.

She had forgotten what it felt like to speak as one person and think as another. It was all coming back to her now.

The next half-mile passed in companionable silence.

Then Aslan said, “Of course, neither of us is to blame. It just seems that way.”

“I know.”

The apartment was in sight when he spoke once more. “Denis thought he was one of the luckiest man alive, because he was born in the capital of music. I hate that I might have driven him away from Vienna.”

“He loved his job here,” she told him. “We lived and breathed music.”

“He was happy…” Aslan’s voice was nearly a sigh.

He walked her right up to the apartment door, where the portico protected her and he could lower the umbrella. He shook it off as she dug out her keys. She was still shivering and looking forward to stepping inside.

“You should come and visit Vienna,” he said. “You clearly love music as much as he did. And it’s coming up to ball season. Do you dance?”

Something jolted inside her, as if it had touched a live wire. She shook her head. “I’ve never had time to dance,” she lied. She turned the second deadbolt and put her hand on the door handle. “Vienna sounds lovely. I have my job, though. And now I have twice the expenses to cover.”

“And I am a stranger who Denis never spoke about,” Aslan finished.

She just looked at him. It was what it was.

He opened the umbrella again and stepped out into the rain. “Go and get warm,” he told her. He walked back to the car.

Her shivering was making her teeth rattle. She didn’t wait any longer. She stepped inside, locked the door and ran upstairs and turned on the hot water.

The water didn’t help. For the rest of the night and until noon the next day, periodic shivers rippled through her, as she recalled how nice Aslan had seemed, as he walked beside her and kept the umbrella over her head.

When Leela dropped into the empty chair on the other side of the table at the café and stole one of Quinn’s fries, Quinn was almost relieved. Now she could unburden herself. She could vent the sludge which Aslan had left in her soul.

It was over. Time to move on.

The cold kept most people away from the garden, although there were a few people walking the paths. Dima walked beside Quinn, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. Her hair was tied tightly at the back of her head. She wore jeans and a sweater and flat shoes. If Quinn hadn’t already met her in different circumstances, she may have guessed Dima was in her late twenties or her thirties. She walked with energy belonging to a much younger woman.

“Aslan suggesting you go to Vienna changes things,” Dima said.

“Not if I don’t go to Vienna,” Quinn said.

Dima didn’t speak for a few steps. “You must do as you feel, of course. Although, this is a most unexpected development. How serious was he in his offer?”

“Honestly? I thought he was offering only because it was the right thing to do. He was just going through the motions. It was a gesture. I think he was happy I refused.”

A touch of the cold brushed up her spine. Quinn held her teeth together against the shiver. She couldn’t imagine traveling with the man to Vienna. Even if she didn’t know who he was, if she had never met Dima and the others, then she would still be a fool to go with him. She wouldn’t have known anything about him, other than he once knew Denis. It wasn’t enough to fly off to parts unknown with him, no matter how nice he seemed.

Only, she knew the truth. She knew what he was.

She corrected herself in her own mind—what he allegedly was.

An early afternoon jogger came toward them, glowing in neon and reflecting strips. As the woman passed, Quinn recognized her as the soccer mom from the real estate office.

Dima didn’t glance at the jogger. “This was all too simple,” she said. “I think Aslan will be back.”

Quinn’s heart sank. “No, I’m done. I did what you asked. Now I’ve told you everything he said.”

Dima shook her head. “I’m not calling the shots here,” she pointed out. “Aslan sought you out because you knew Denis. Yet he didn’t ask you directly about Denis at all. He doesn’t want to startle you, so he is approaching you in increments. He doesn’t want you scared. He just wants to learn about Denis. He will be back.”

Quinn shook her head, even though denying this was useless. “I can’t stand talking to him,” she said. “Every time I opened my mouth, I had to think about what I would say if I knew nothing about him. Every time he said something, I couldn’t take it at face value. I wondered what he was trying to get out of me. I was sick from talking to him for twenty minutes.”

Dima never seemed to be in a rush to respond. After a dozen more steps, she said softly, “Many years ago, I was working in the field, passing as the wife of a diplomat. It was a place where women were barely seen and never heard. I worked my way into a terrorist cell and was accepted by everyone as the angry woman who wanted justice.” She shook her head. “I was in the pipe for nearly two years. It got to where I would wake from a deep sleep and still use the northern accent, even before I remembered where I was. Every single moment of every single day I was in the pipe, I was afraid. I couldn’t trust anyone and thought that at any moment they would discover me. A year after I came home, I still had to check my passport before I handed it over, to see what my name was.”

Quinn’s heart thudded unhappily. “Why are you telling me this? Isn’t it classified or something?”

“I gave you no details which would let you identify anything critical. I told you, because despite being afraid, of having to wear a mask for so long, it was worth it. I found the bad guy, Quinn. To this day, he sits in the solitary cell somewhere in the United States. He can’t hurt anyone else, anymore.”

The ringing note in Dima’s voice made the hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck lift. She shook her head, denying it.

“I’m not insisting you do this,” Dima said. “If you rush off to Vienna with Aslan, it won’t be natural. It wouldn’t be something which Quinn would do. If you found a way for it to happen naturally, then you would stand a real chance of finding out who killed Denis.”

Quinn gritted her teeth. “Damn you,” she said. “You said that deliberately.”

“I am reminding you, not manipulating you. The work I do, the work you can help me with, makes a real difference in people’s lives, Quinn. They don’t know it and they will never know it, but you will. It is that fact which lets me sleep at night.”

“You said Aslan had nothing to do with Denis’ dying. If I go with him to Vienna and he had nothing to do with it, then how would I find out who killed Denis?”

Dima shook her head. “I don’t know. Not yet. All I can tell you is that Aslan is mixed up in this. If he is involved and you can stay in his world, then you stand the best chance of finding any hint of what really happened.”

“I’m not trained for this. I’m not you.”

“That is what allowed Aslan to approach you. He thinks you are harmless. And you are harmless.” Dima caught her elbow and bought them both to a halt. “If you go down the pipe with him, you won’t be alone. I will have your back.”

They stood beside the concrete duck with her row of ducklings. The afternoon sun was bright and warm. On a bench under a tree, on the grass behind the ducks, a man read a newspaper. It was Lochan.

Dima gave Quinn’s arm a little shake to draw her attention back to her. “You told Aslan you want to find who killed Denis. Were you lying?”

“Damn it, no.” Quinn sighed.

“Then, think about this before Aslan returns. And he will return. Think about how much you want to find who killed Denis. Think about how much you want to know why.” Dima’s smile was grim. “You are in a unique position for a civilian. You are the key who will find the answers for all of us.”

[7]
Saturday, November 16th

The yoga studio where Quinn had met Leela was in a converted warehouse, which had once been an alehouse. The old wood beams which held up the roof still smelled of hops if one leaned close enough to sniff.

Quinn approached the warehouse with trepidation. It had been nearly a month since the last class, and Leela had been in that one.

That was before Quinn knew what Leela was.

Quinn had seen none of Dima’s people for two days. Dima said she had her back and Quinn wondered if that was true.

Not that she cared. Heading for a yoga class was her declaration that, no matter what, she would live her life.

She had spent two days locked up in her apartment, hiding away from the world. Now, as the sun came out and the temperatures returned to normal, Quinn also tried to come back to normal. Yoga was normal.

She worried that it wouldn’t feel the same anymore. It wasn’t supposed to feel the same now Denis was dead, only life was far more complicated, now.

The warehouse had a pair of benches parked outside, their backs against the wall. Health-conscious yoga practitioners would sit in the sun and soak up their vitamin D while waiting for their class to start.

Quinn came to a halt on the sidewalk when she saw the big figure sitting at the end of the nearest bench.

Aslan got to his feet and came toward her. He wasn’t smiling.

“What, are you stalking me?” she demanded.

Aslan shook his head. “I didn’t think you would be comfortable with me ringing your doorbell. This is at least a public place.”

“What do you want with me, Mr. Aslan?”

“Only to talk, if you will let me.” His suit was black, today, and he wore no tie. He still looked far too overdressed for the Lycra crowd. He was drawing attention. Most of it was admiration.

It irritated Quinn. She didn’t want people to like him.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Aslan. I’m trying to move on with my life—”

She gasped as someone punched her in the gut. At least, that was what it felt like. It was a soft blow. She looked down.

Aslan’s hands were at his sides.

Puzzled, she looked up at him. “What did you do to me?”

The ground was tilting around her, lifting.

Aslan grabbed her shoulders. “Damn, damn, damn!” he muttered, his tone harsh.

Her belly burned. Quinn could barely keep her eyes open. The flat note in her mind was a B, and sour.

She heard a piercing whistle. Soft sounds of curiosity and exclamation from the yoga students heading in and out of the building.

She couldn’t focus on them. She couldn’t focus on anything.

The squeal of tires on roadway sounded. The snarl of an engine.

She was being lifted.

“What happened?” The question came from someone other than Aslan.

“Belly shot. Silencer. Get us the hell out of here,” Aslan said.

She was laid on soft leather, her cheeks against more padding. A car door closed and the air compacted inside the sealed car. More soft engine sounds as the car took off.

Someone tugged at her sweater and lifted it. He hissed.

The heat in her belly turned into pain, radiating out across the torso, making her groan.

“Head straight for the airport,” Aslan shouted. “Tell Toni to dig up a spare passport, something which will cover her. And tell Mitchell to have his stuff ready. Go!”

Someone picked up Quinn’s hands. “Stay with me for a little while longer,” Aslan said. “I’ll take care of this.”

Quinn knew she should be afraid but the pain was overwhelming. It spread like a black wave through her body. She knew no more.

Lochan tore off his headphones and spun the chair to stare at Dima. “It was a shot, I tell you. I know that sound. I’ll never forget it.”

Ren and Scott sat at the other two stations, both speaking into phones with urgent voices. Dima ignored them. She held her hands together and breathed. “Have Leander and Agata quarter the area. Find out where the sniper nest is.”

The door of the van slid aside and Leela jumped in. She slammed the door shut and spun to face Dima. “He took her!”

Dima held up her hand. “Take a breath, Leela. He won’t take her to a hospital. He is traveling on a false passport. He can’t afford to be questioned. He has unique resources, though…” She paused, thinking.

Lochan squeezed his headset, watching her and waiting for his orders. Leela put her hands on her hips, breathing hard.

Dima nodded. “Lochan, contact Logan International Airport. Check to see what flight plan he files.”

Leela dropped her hands. “He’ll take her out of the country?”

Scott disconnected his call, blew out his breath and leaned back in the chair. “It’s a sure bet he leaves the country. That’s Aslan’s thing, running away.”

“He’s not running away,” Dima said. “It is a strategic retreat. He has no resources here. He has them elsewhere. Until he understands what is going on, he will move back to a place of safety. And he will take Quinn with him, so he can get the answers he wants.”

“I could stand to have a few answers of my own,” Scott said. “Who the hell shot her?”

Ren took off her headset. “What if Aslan set it up? It would give him the perfect excuse to whisk her away, when she didn’t want to go.”

Dima shook her head. “It isn’t a simple matter to transport a wounded person across international borders. He could have stayed here and milked her for all the information he needed about Denis. Aslan did not shoot her.”

Leela turned to stare at the monitors, where yoga enthusiasts were mulling around the door of the warehouse, murmuring to each other, trying to figure out what had just happened. It had happened so quickly and Aslan’s reactions had been so fast, that even though their instincts said something dramatic had happened, no one had seen enough to understand what it was.

Aslan’s reactions had probably saved Quinn’s life. A sniper always had a spare. By moving so fast Aslan had taken her out of the sniper sightlines.

Leela grimaced. “It was a belly shot, wasn’t it?” she asked Dima.

“Yes, it was,” Dima said. She didn’t believe in sugarcoating anything for her people. They were trained. Truth was a more useful tool for them.

“Are we going to get her back?” Leela asked.

“We can’t,” Scott said, behind Leela. “If we try, Aslan will know we’re watching him.”

“She’s injured!”

“We watch and we learn,” Dima said. “Aslan will keep her alive. He will use emergency resources and old contacts, he will pull favors and he will make sure she lives. He is on foreign soil and he is hurried. He may make a mistake which exposes him or gives us more leads. So we watch.”

Everyone was looking at her now.

“Lochan, what did the airport say?” Dima said calmly.

Lochan drew in a breath. Then, he swiveled the chair to face the bank of monitors and communications equipment, put his headset back on and made the call.

After a moment, the others returned to work, too.

[8]
Monday, November 25th

The absolute silence did more to wake her, this time, than any loud noise. Quinn felt as if she had been sealed inside noise for days on end. Shouting, jet engines, the basso rumble of a slipstream sliding past the fuselage. Calm voices talking over the top of her. Even the changing light was noise to her pain-riddled mind. Sunlight blasting through portholes. Revolving yellow lights and the sound of forklift vehicles reversing, their beeping throbbing in her brain. The thwocking sound of a helicopter, nearby. The scream of the plane taking off, the engines working hard. The prick of a needle in her elbows. The cold rush of liquid.

And now, nothing. Not even the hiss of air conditioning in a private jet.

The orange light on her eyelids told her it was daylight. Quinn opened her eyes carefully.

An exceptionally large window to her right let sunlight upon her, warming her through the quilt which covered her.

Then she saw the view beyond the window and forgot about warmth and sunlight. She drew in an astonished breath delight.

A row of mountain peaks, snow-capped and jagged. They were blue at the base and majestic.

“Ah! You are awake. Good, good.” The feminine voice had a thick German accent.

As Quinn turned her head to sight the speaker, the woman rounded the end of the bed and came up to her side. The woman wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a warm smile. A stethoscope was slung around her neck. “How do you feel?”

“Like an elephant has been using me as a soccer ball,” Quinn said. “Who are you? Where am I?” The mountains made her suspect she wasn’t in America anymore.

The nurse—or maybe she was a doctor—picked up Quinn’s wrist and checked her pulse. Then she bent and peered into Quinn’s eyes. She waved a little flashlight at them, then patted Quinn’s shoulder as she straightened. “Herr Aslan wishes to speak to you, as soon as you are awake. I told him it would not be long. Are you able to speak to him?”

Quinn swallowed. Her throat was dry. “Can I have some water?”

The woman picked up a cup with a plastic straw from the table beside the bed and put it in a position where Quinn only had to turn her head to take the straw and sip.

Then the nurse put the cup back and raised her brow.

Quinn nodded. She wanted to talk to Aslan to find out what happened, anyway. The last things she clearly remembered was standing outside the yoga studio, and someone punching her in the stomach.

Although now she realized she hadn’t been punched at all.

The nurse hurried away. She closed the door after her with a soft click.

The room looked like a bedroom, although not a typical American one. The highly polished dark wood floor was covered in thick rugs. The walls were wood, too. The planks on the walls ran horizontally. They were a paler wood than the planks on the floor.

There was no horizontal ceiling. The walls angled, coming together in the corner of the room just over her bed. The timbers looked old and worn smooth.

The window pushed out through the walls. A picturesque window seat was beneath. The cushion on the seat was made of gay colors—reds and greens and a blue which matched the sky Quinn could see through the window.

Two doors led from the room. The nurse had used one to leave. The other was possibly an en suite. There was no closet. Instead, a tall and large freestanding wardrobe stood against the wall beside the second door.

The bedside table was of the same ancient wood as the rest of the room. No medical equipment sat on it. It held, instead, a lace doily, a small vase and a bunch of flowers.

The bed Quinn laid in was also wood-framed, the four corners made of heavy logs which might have been felled from the mountains, outside.

The room was bright with sunlight, warm and cozy.

Quinn was still examining the room when the door opened again. Aslan came in. He wore a casual sweater over dress pants and leather loafers. The man was constantly elegant, even at home.

He tilted his head to examine her. “I won’t bother asking how you feel. I can see from your eyes you’re still in pain. I’ll ask Greta to give you something for it.”

He picked up a round-backed chair sitting against the wall and brought it over to the side of the bed. He sat and crossed his leg, then considered her for another silent moment.

“I was shot, wasn’t I?” Quinn said.

“You were. The question is, who shot you?”

“Then you didn’t arrange it?”

He looked genuinely shocked. “Why would I shoot you?”

“So you could do exactly what you have done.” Quinn glanced through the windows. “We are in Austria, aren’t we?”

“Just outside Innsbruck.”

Remember, you know nothing, she reminded herself. “Who are you, to be able to take someone who has been shot out of one country and into another one?”

“It wasn’t easy,” he admitted. “I have unusual resources and people with extraordinary talents who work for me. We managed it and I’m glad we did. I can protect you here. If you had remained in the United States, I couldn’t do that.”

“Why do I need protection?”

“They were aiming for you,” he said. “Three inches higher and they would have drilled through your heart. Someone does not want you talking to me. I need to find out who and why. I cannot do it while I’m dodging bullets in the States. Here, though, I can make inquiries.” His pale blue eyes met hers. “I’m presuming you will want answers, too. This, whatever this is, puts a different spin on things.”

“The bomb wasn’t just for Denis. It was for me, too…”

He nodded. His expression was sober. “For the record, I did not arrange it. Killing you would not give me what I want.”

“To talk about Denis?”

Aslan didn’t answer at once. He shifted on the chair and re-crossed his legs. Quinn recognized his wariness.

Then, with an almost compulsive movement, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a photo. He gave it to her.

Quinn’s arm was heavy as she reached for the photo.

Aslan sat back and crossed his arms, as she studied the photo.

It was a picture of Aslan and Denis, taken several years ago, for Denis was younger. Mountains ranged behind them, possibly the same ones she could see through the window. Aslan’s hand rested on Denis’s shoulder. It was the only intimate aspect of their pose. They might’ve been merely friends, even good friends, except they both wore expressions she had seen before in other photos of happily married couples.

Denis’s expression was the same as one she knew from a different photo. The other photo was on her cellphone, and was of her and Denis.

Quinn looked at Aslan, startled. “I don’t know what to say…”

Aslan dug in his pocket again. This time, he pulled out a cellphone. He thumbed through it, then turned the screen for her to see. “You don’t have to say anything.” The image on the screen was the photo she had just recalled, of her and Denis. She had forgotten Denis uploaded the photo to Facebook, months ago. Aslan had found it.

He turned off the cellphone and put it back in his pocket. “Denis and I were together for nearly ten years. I loved him. So did you.”

Quinn drew in a breath which wobbled.

Aslan’s jaw flexed. Then he spoke with a low voice. “I lost the last two years of his life because I was a fool. I would like to get those years back. I want to know what he was like during those years. You can give me that. In return, I can tell you about the years before then. Between the two of us, we can celebrate his life—his real life, the one which no one in the world knew, except us.”

Quinn pressed her lips together, to stop them trembling. She was helpless to stop the tear which rolled down her cheek, though.

Aslan got to his feet. “You’re tired and you’re still in pain. We can talk later. For now, know you are safe and nothing can reach you here. Your employer thinks you have taken an extended bereavement leave. You can take as much time as you need.”

Aslan left as the nurse returned with a kidney dish which held a syringe. The shot, whatever it was, took away all Quinn’s concerns. She slept.

Sleeping and eating were the highlights of the next few days. Quinn had no visitors except the nurse, Greta, who fussed over her one patient and made sure she was comfortable.

Greta slowly reduced the painkillers, until Quinn could stay awake for most of the day, although she was still far too weak to get out of bed.

When Greta dressed her wound, Quinn examined the neat row of stitches with curiosity.

“Sloppy stitches,” Greta observed. “Mine would be much neater. Though I believe it was an emergency field operation on a moving plane. You should be thankful you didn’t pick up an infection at the same time.”

Quinn was startled to realize the stitches were repeated on her back.

“In and out,” Greta said cheerfully. “Sniper rounds can do that.”

A few days after the stitches were removed, Quinn took her first slow step across the room, to collapse on the chair beside the wardrobe. It was a small personal victory, for now she could go to the bathroom by herself.

When she was not sleeping or reading one of the novels placed beside her bed, Quinn spent a lot of time looking at the mountains. She had no adequate words to describe their beauty. They had moods. They could be dark and forbidding, or jagged and solid. Gray and gay. Sometimes they seem to stand right up over the house, so close she could touch them.

They were remote, uncaring and always there.

Five days after she woke to find herself in Austria, Quinn dressed in clothes provided by Greta. It didn’t surprise her that they fit. With slow steps and Greta hovering by her elbow, Quinn emerged from the bedroom and made her way down a passage with a bright runner. She took a step at a time down the staircase until she stood at the foot.

She looked around the large room she found herself in, astonished. The soaring woodwork which embellished her bedroom also adorned this room. In here, it took on an epic scale. The roof rose twenty feet in the air, arching across the length of the big room. At the short end, a monstrous fireplace as tall as a man’s shoulder held a fire which crackled cheerfully.

From where she stood, Quinn could see groups of sofas and armchairs, and a round table with more round-backed chairs.

Directly in front of her, another staircase climbed half the height of the floor, then turned and rose to the next floor. It was wider than the one she had just descended, telling her it was the main staircase.

To the left, a corridor had doors leading off on both sides. The corridor ended at a set of closed double doors.

Rugs lay everywhere, to keep feet warm.

Greta pointed toward the fireplace. “Would you like to sit for a while?”

Even though she had sat or laid for far too long, Quinn nodded. Moving this far had exhausted her.

Greta took her elbow and shepherded her toward the fireplace. The room was empty but for them, even though it seemed to be a multifunction room for a large house.

Quinn arrowed toward the armchair sitting closest to the fire. Her knees shook and she would be glad to sit. She rested her hand on the back of the chair as she rounded it, to give herself an assist. A small mountain of rope piled on the carpet in large coils, right in front of the chair. The coils were thick, colorful reds, yellows, greens and blues.

Quinn tried to step over the pile to reach the chair. She miscalculated her strength, though. Her toes in her borrowed shoes tangled in the top coils of rope. She tried to lift her foot higher to let the rope drop from her shoes. The ropes lifted with her. Her foot still caught, she wind-milled her arms and tried to twist herself so when she fell, it would at least be into the chair and the softer cushions.

The twist did nothing but hasten her fall. She braced herself, knowing she couldn’t stop herself.

As she fell, a hand gripped her arm and yanked her back up. She was put back on her feet, then pulled down into the chair itself.

Quinn sucked in a deep, trembling breath. She looked up, expecting to find Aslan standing over her.

The man who scowled at her was not Aslan. He was as tall as Aslan, although his hair was black and falling over his forehead in thick locks. They shadowed his dark eyes and the black brows, which were pushed together.

High cheek bones, thin cheeks and deep lines on either side of his mouth made Quinn think the man was under strain.

His mouth was held in a firm line. He was pissed.

“Thank you,” Quinn said. Her voice shook. Her heart drummed far too hard.

“Oh, that was close!” Greta told the man. “You were faster than me and I was closer!”

The man bent and scooped up the coils of rope, threading them onto his forearm. He straightened the rope with rough jerks. “These are lifelines,” he said. “If they get tangled, they don’t save lives.”

Quinn stared at him. She didn’t know what lifelines were, but his general tone irritated her. “If they’re that important, perhaps they should not have been left lying around on the floor, where people can trip on them.”

His lips parted in surprise. Then they pressed together once more and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t touch my equipment again.” He stalked away, trailing steam.

“Who is that?” Quinn asked Greta, keeping her voice down.

Greta shook her head. “One of Herr Aslan’s employees. From the Balkans. He has one of those names with all the letters in them, you know?”

Quinn omitted pointing out that people in America also had surnames full of consonants. She settled properly in the chair and listened to her heart slow. Her shaking subsided.

“I wonder if it is possible to get a cup of tea?” she said to Greta.

“Tea!” Gretta looked doubtful. “I will ask.” She left Quinn alone in the big room.

The only sound was the crackle of the fire. Quinn played again the moment which had just passed, when she had been about to fall flat on her face, only to be saved by a cranky man with black eyes. She recalled his few words. She knew the voice. She tried to remember where she had heard the voice before.

The invisible punch to her stomach…Aslan snapping commands. A voice demanding answers. What happened?

It was the same accent. The same voice. She was sure of it. The man with the complicated surname had been in America, too.

More of Aslan’s snarled orders came back to her. Names. Toni. Mitchell. The man she had just met was neither of them.

Greta returned. The woman who walked beside Greta had rich, dark brown hair cut short and full of waves which gave it volume and life. Her nose and chin were sharp. The rest of her body matched. She was six feet tall, slender and full of angles. Her tailored pants were formfitting, her hipbones clearly displayed.

She wore a cropped jacket in purple leather, with the collar turned up. Her studied elegance made Quinn feel like a slob, in her borrowed gym pants and sweater.

Greta pulled a small table over to the side of the armchair and placed a coffee mug on it. The tag of a tea bag hung on the side. The water was mildly discolored.

Greta smiled. “There was herb tea.” She sounded proud.

Quinn hid her disappointment. She wanted caffeine, not herbs.

The other woman wrinkled her nose. “It smells disgusting.”

Quinn wanted to agree with her.

The woman pushed the sleeves of her jacket up her arms, then crossed her arms and examined Quinn. “You’re still paper white. I suppose it must be your normal color, after all. It goes with the hair.”

Quinn put her hand to her cheek.

“I suppose it means you’re a natural redhead.” The woman’s tone implied natural color was inferior. Like everyone Quinn had met, the woman had an accent. Quinn recognized this one. It was mild, but it was distinctly Russian.

“I’m Quinn Sawyer,” Quinn said.

“Who else would you be?” the woman replied.

“Toni, be nice,” came another voice. A male voice.

Quinn looked around for the speaker. The man heading toward them was about her age, with tight, curly blond hair and light blue eyes. His beard was closely shaved, which reminded Quinn of the man called Scott who worked for Dima.

This man walked up to Quinn and smiled at her with a warm expression. His eyes twinkled. “I’m Mitchell, she’s Toni. It’s silly going through formal introductions when I’ve had my hands inside your belly and your blood smeared up to my elbows.”

Quinn’s eyes widened. “Greta said there was an emergency operation…”

Mitchell put his fingers to his chest. “Field medic. I thought I’d left it all behind when I left the Army, but it catches up with me now and again.”

Toni snorted, a sound of disgust. “And now I am hip-deep in heroes. If I must listen once more to Noah’s description of flying under the radar, I will puke.”

Mitchell rolled his eyes. “He said it once and he was talking from the side of his mouth when he did.”

Greta giggled. “Side of his mouth,” she repeated. “I have never heard it said that way, but it is what he does, isn’t it?”

“When he isn’t hanging off the side of the mountain,” Toni said. She sounded bored. “I presume that is where he is now?”

The ropes. Lifelines. The man, Noah, was a mountain climber of some sort. Given where they stood, it made sense. Apparently, he was also a pilot. Was everyone in Aslan’s household so multi-talented?

“He’s jumping off Drachenwald, today,” Mitchell said. His gaze shifted to the mountains visible through the big windows.

“Jumping?” Quinn said.

“BASE jumping.” Toni’s tone was disinterested. “Where is Eli?”

Quinn blinked. Toni was the first person to use Aslan’s given name, and she had shortened it, too. Quinn considered the woman. Was she closer to Aslan than any of the others?

“He’s probably brooding in his office as usual,” Mitchell replied. He glanced at the heavy-duty watch on his wrist. “The Giants game is hours away yet. So is supper. I gotta get out and get some fresh air.” He winked at Quinn. “Don’t let Toni scare you. She’s really a puppy dog.”

His mention of the Giants caught Quinn’s attention. “You like the NFL?” She asked. “You can see it here?”

Mitchell’s brow lifted. “You like football, too?”

She gave a tiny shrug, her wariness rising. “My… Denis didn’t like it. It wasn’t soccer. I used to watch it as a kid.” It was as close to the truth as she could get. “You’re from New York?”

Mitchell grinned. “Queens. A long time ago.”

Queens. Quinn found herself smiling at him. It would be natural to say, “me, too.” Only she couldn’t say that.

Mitchell stirred and shifted on his feet. “Well… Gotta blow the cobwebs out.”

He headed for the wide corridor where the stairs began and moved out of view.

Quinn found Toni watching her. She gave the woman a stiff smile. “He seems nice.”

Toni snorted. “If you say so.”

Greta stepped forward. “Would you like me to bring you one of your books?” she asked Quinn.

Toni rolled her eyes. “Novels! I don’t know what is novel about them. They never get it right.” She walked away, her long legs swinging. Quinn watched her go, puzzling out the last remark.

Toni was clearly involved in Aslan’s business. She had been on the plane with Mitchell. Noah, too. All three of them helped Aslan with his nefarious work.

Quinn had no trouble believing Toni was involved. She had greater difficulty believing Mitchell was of the same caliber. He was American from Queens and liked football. He was a medic who had saved her life.

While she waited for Greta to come back with her book, Quinn listened to the silence in the room. Through the lace at the windows, she could hear muffled calls and soft talking.

She pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the window. When she pulled the lace curtain aside, she discovered the windows were French doors. She pushed experimentally on a handle and the door opened with a small hiss which spoke of airtight seals.

Cool air bathed Quinn’s face. She stepped out onto the wide balcony. It was edged with flat wooden pickets, with heart-shaped cutouts in them. They were painted a dark green and the railing was white. Wrought-iron chairs and a glass table sat in the corner to the far right.

Quinn moved over to the edge of the balcony and leaned against the rail. The balcony was high on the side of a big house. Below, a large lawn spread, bordered by wide plantings of perennials and bushes.

To the right, hedges surrounded a deep blue swimming pool with a negative edge on the two far sides. Beyond those two edges of the pool was nothing but air. The house was on the high side of the valley. The pool looked out over the valley.

The edge of the lawn also dropped away. The view in all directions was fantastic.

Across the other side of the valley were the mountains Quinn had seen from her bedroom window. Spread out across the valley floor were green fields, thickets of trees, roadways and, to the far right, a large town which might even be a small city. She could see church spires and taller buildings clustered in the middle, surrounded by houses and gardens.

That would be Innsbruck, which Aslan had mentioned.

Quinn considered the town. There would be phones there and ways to reach out and contact people.

Over the last few days, the true depth of her isolation here had registered. Did Dima and her people even know where she was? Somehow, Quinn needed to get word to them. Dima had made her memorize a phone number. If she could find a phone that was not Aslan’s, she would risk a call.

Only how she was to get Innsbruck and arrange to be left alone long enough to make a phone call was a problem she had no idea how to solve.

She would not touch the phones here. She had seen enough movies to know using them was too high risk. They were too easy to monitor.

Dima had anticipated something like this happening. Although Quinn did not think even Dima could have predicted a sniper would prompt Aslan to rush her out of the country.

Quinn had not been happy about traveling to Austria with Aslan. The sniper had taken her choice from her. She was here now.

Until Dima figured out a way to get her out of here, the only thing Quinn could do was be herself as much as possible, tell the truth as much as she could and wait for an opportunity.

The shouting which had drawn her to the balcony came again. Quinn looked down as five men walked onto the lawn. One of them was Mitchell. The others were all dark-haired men wearing suits. Two of them took off their jackets and rolled up their sleeves.

The other two dragged their feet as if they did not want to be there.

Mitchell tossed a football from hand to hand. God knows where he had got it from, unless he had bought it from the States. As he tossed the ball, he pointed with his other hand and gave instructions.

He was setting up a game.

The other four men moved sluggishly as Mitchell coaxed and directed.

Mitchell put the ball on the ground and one of them kicked it to the other. The ball wobbled because it was not round. They played soccer in Austria, which they called football.

Mitchell shook his head and spoke again.

One of them picked up the ball and laughed as Mitchell bent a man over at the waist and patted his back.

Quinn smiled. The rules and plays of American football would look odd to soccer-loving Europeans.

As Mitchell shepherded and cajoled the men into facing off, Toni spoke from behind Quinn. “Crazy fool. He takes America with him wherever he goes. He would turn this place into Manhattan, if he could.”

“Maybe he’s just homesick,” Quinn said.

“So am I homesick, but I don’t make everyone drink Belver Bears vodka just to make me feel better.”

Quinn didn’t know how to answer that, so she said nothing. She watched the reluctant football players for a while longer. When she looked around again, Toni was gone. Quinn had the balcony to herself once more.

She decided she liked it that way.

Where was Dima?

[9]
That Evening

By the time supper was announced, Quinn’s energy had drained and she was more than ready to go back to bed. Greta led her along the wide corridor toward the big double doors, and into a room off the corridor. It was a dining room, with a coffered ceiling, thick beams and a white ceramic stove in the corner. The room felt older than the big recreation room where Quinn had spent the afternoon. The wood had an ancient patina. The low ceiling and small windows were more traditional than the banks of windows and doors the rec room featured.

The big oak dining table looked just as old. It was laid with a white tablecloth at one end, with glittering silverware, flowers and candles. There were only five places set.

“You are not having supper with us?” Quinn asked Greta.

Greta shook her head. “You are a guest. I am a worker.”

Quinn had already figured out the three people she had met today were also in Aslan’s employ, so she didn’t understand the difference.

“I prefer to eat with people I trust,” Aslan said, from the door. His timing made it appear he had read her mind. He was dressed in a suit once more. He nodded at Greta, who stepped around him and disappeared.

“How can you trust me?” Quinn asked him. “You don’t know me.”

“Denis knew you. He trusted you. For that reason I extend you my trust.” Aslan moved to the head of the table and pulled out the chair. “Please, sit down.”

Quinn was more than ready to sit down again. She picked the place furthest from Aslan and settled in the chair with relief. As she unfolded the snowy white napkin, Toni and Mitchell arrived. Shortly after, the man called Noah also came into the room. He was scowling.

They all sat without speaking. A man in white served bowls of soup to everyone. A bread basket was placed in the middle of the table and the meal began. Everyone ate silently.

Quinn had little appetite even though the soup was superb. It was a vegetable soup, with lots of onions and dark beef stock. She ate more of it than she thought she would.

She had nearly finished her small bowl when Aslan spoke. His voice was quiet and his tone was even, as he said to Noah, “Did you defeat the Dragonwall?”

“Drachenwand?” Mitchell said, his accent strongly German. “Haven’t you done that one, like, fifty times before?”

Noah shrugged and reached for another hunk of bread from the basket. “It’s a good jump.”

“No jump which involves flinging yourself from the top of the mountain is good,” Mitchell replied.

Toni concentrated on her soup. She ate hugely, chewing mouthfuls of bread in between each spoonful. She didn’t seem interested in the conversation at all.

Quinn lowered her spoon, staring at Noah. “That is what you did this afternoon? You climbed an entire mountain, then jumped from it?”

Noah didn’t look at her. “I didn’t get to jump today,” he told Aslan. “Someone died before I got to the peak.”

“Another BASE jumper?” Aslan asked.

Noah nodded. He went back to eating his soup.

Quinn’s appetite, which had been dodgy to begin with, failed completely. She put down her spoon. People died doing this BASE jumping?

Noah didn’t seem upset. She wondered if he knew who the other jumper was. No one else in the room seemed to care, though. The silence fell once more.

The waiter came back in and collected the bowls. He returned with a tray carrying three dinner plates with covers. A second waiter carried two more plates with covers. They placed a plate in front of each of them, nodded and left.

Quinn mentally sighed. She couldn’t eat any more. She also couldn’t sit in front of a covered plate while the others ate. She lifted the lid aside.

The meal appeared to be a roast beef dinner. The meat was smothered with gravy, there were roast potatoes and carrots which glistened with glazing. A tiny pot of mint sauce sat to one side.

Quinn picked up her knife and fork, sliced a tiny corner beef and ate slowly. As with every meal she had eaten here, this one was perfectly made and might have been delicious, had she been hungry.

Everyone else tackled their meals with gusto.

“Eli,” Toni said. “I was going through the manifest—”

Aslan shook his head sharply.

Toni fell silent.

Aslan’s gaze flickered toward Quinn. His voice low, he said, “Not now.”

Toni scowled. She returned to her meal, stabbing the slices of meat with the tip of her knife as if she was trying to etch a carving into them.

The silence extended. Quinn was too tired to think of any conversational starters. Perhaps they always ate in this thick silence.

“Well, this is fun,” Mitchell said. His tone was light. “If we can’t talk about work, then let’s talk about—”

Toni groaned. “Please, no.”

“I obsessed about football scores. You obsess about sex. No offence, but I don’t want to talk about sex while I’m eating. Especially not your type of sex.”

Toni’s eyes narrowed. “That is because you’re too gutless to try it. A good night for you is humping the cheerleader on the back seat. I bet you don’t even take your pants off.”

“And a good time is had by all,” Mitchell shot back.

Toni leaned forward, which had the effect of making the front of her shirt fill with her breasts, displaying her cleavage. Her smile was heated. “I could show you a good time.”

Aslan shook his head, picked up his wineglass and drank. He didn’t seem amused. He wasn’t disgusted, either. Were squabbles like this common at his dining table?

Mitchell held his fork in his fist and stabbed a big slice of the beef. He picked it up. With gravy dripping, he pointed with his knife at Noah. “At least I get some, unlike ol’ silent one over there.”

Noah gave no reaction. He kept on eating.

Mitchell chewed hurriedly, so he could continue speaking. He swallowed. “You’ve been here about a year, now,” he said. “In all that time, I don’t think you’ve so much as sniffed at a girl.”

“Or a man,” Aslan murmured.

“Perhaps that is why he throws himself off mountains and bridges,” Toni said, her voice a purr. “He gets his excitement that way.”

“Pleasure,” Aslan said, “is unique to everyone. As you should know, Toni.”

Toni’s smile was small and private. Heat flickered in her eyes. Her gaze was steady upon Aslan’s face. Aslan met her gaze, his own unflinching.

Quinn glanced from one to the other. Was it her imagination, or was there something between Aslan and Toni?

Noah didn’t seem to notice. He hadn’t contributed to the conversation and didn’t seem to be interested in what anyone was saying. Perhaps he was just in the room to eat, as she was.

Mitchell watched Toni and Aslan, a smile plucking at the corner of his mouth. He seemed to understand what was not spoken. He had implied he had been here longer than Noah, so perhaps he did.

Quinn cleared her throat, the silence pushing her into speaking. “I’m wondering…”

Everyone turned and looked at her. Toni looked irritated, as if she had been interrupted.

“I’m wondering if there is a laptop or a computer I can borrow? It’s just that…I haven’t been able to check email for days. I don’t even have my phone anymore. I don’t know where it went to.”

The silence this time was more profound than the earlier one when everyone had been eating their meal. Now they stared at Quinn as if she was a bug crawling across custard.

Quinn cleared her throat again. “I don’t know what day of the week it is.”

Noah put down his knife and fork with a clatter. “You can’t give her access to the Internet,” he growled at Aslan.

Toni and Mitchell looked at Aslan, waiting for him to respond.

Quinn gave a small laugh which emerged nervously. “I only want to catch up with the news. I don’t need the secret launch codes.”

The tension in the room wracked higher. Her small joke had backfired.

“There are newspapers for that,” Noah growled.

“I don’t speak German,” Quinn shot back.

“For the record,” Aslan said, putting down his wineglass, “it is Monday. November 25th, to be exact. Quinn has a point about being cut off. Noah, get the lady a laptop or a tablet, something which will keep her connected and caught up on news.”

Noah shook his head. “It’s too risky.”

“Use a VPN and make everything incognito. Give her access to the dark net, if that’s what it takes. Quinn understands she cannot contact anyone she knows—not until we know what happened in Boston and why a sniper wanted her dead.”

As Aslan spoke, his gaze met Quinn’s. His deep voice made her pay attention.

She shivered. “I hadn’t thought of that. Of course I won’t contact anyone.” She hesitated. “Only, how long do you think it will be until I can? How long will it take to find out why someone wants me dead?”

The question emerged with a wobble in her voice. She might be stuck in a house with criminals running an organization which spread across the world, yet the idea that someone wanted her dead bothered her even more. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve it.

Aslan glanced at Noah and raised a brow in question.

Noah shook his head. “Very well, I will give her a laptop. Only I will block everyone she knows and every channel she uses. No Facebook, no social network.” For the first time, he looked at her. “There will be a worm on the laptop, watching everything you do. If you lift a hand toward the United States, I will land on you from the top of Drachenwand, with both feet and a knife in my hand. Do you understand me?”

Quinn shuddered. She put her knife and fork down and sat back.

“I believe you have made yourself perfectly clear,” Aslan said.

Quinn gripped her elbows. “If you don’t mind, I am going to bed. I am exhausted.” It was the perfect truth.

She didn’t wait for anyone’s permission. She didn’t care if Aslan was okay with her deserting the room before the meal was finished. She got to her feet and moved to the door, anxious to leave. She had been going stir crazy in her bedroom for the last three days. Now all she wanted to do was get back there.

Noah had reminded her that these people were dangerous.

“Thank God she has gone,” Toni said. “We can’t have a proper conversation while the princess is around.” She looked at Aslan. “How long do you plan to keep her here?”

“My answer to you is the same as my answer to her. We need to figure out what happened in Boston and why.” Aslan refilled his wineglass from the bottle which sat in front of him. His bottle was the vintage one.

The others didn’t drink. He didn’t encourage it and they knew better than to show any evidence of bad habits and vulnerabilities, like a drinking problem.

“To that end,” Aslan said, “tomorrow I want you, Noah and Mitchell to dig into any surveillance tapes you can find around the yoga studio. While we were dealing with the shipment, I put it to one side. Now Quinn is on her feet again and functioning normally, we need to dig for answers.”

“I don’t trust her,” Noah said.

“And you have made that clear.” Aslan took a sip of his wine. “Don’t forget, she took a 25mm in the gut. Mitchell will explain how bad it was. She wasn’t faking it.”

“She came within an eighth of an inch of nicking the primary vein in the torso cavity,” Mitchell said. “Besides, there isn’t a single Western intelligence organization which would ask any of their members to take a bullet just to make themselves look trustworthy.”

“She is who she says she is,” Toni said. “We established she was legit before we let you go to America, Eli.”

Aslan nodded. “Thank you.”

“It doesn’t mean I trust her,” Toni added.

“You don’t trust anyone,” Mitchell pointed out.

“Including you, my blond jock,” Toni replied sweetly.

Aslan put down the wineglass. “You can all be as paranoid as you want to be. It will not interfere with me getting what I want from her. We keep her out of everything. She is not here for that.”

Toni leaned forward. “The longer you keep her here, the more she will be a part of everything. You infect people, Eli.”

“Like a disease?” Noah said.

Toni rolled her eyes. “Like a religion,” she replied.

Aslan reached for her hand, picked it up and kissed the back of it. It was a rare demonstration. “For now, she is a guest, and that is all. Understood?”

No one disputed him. They would not dare.

The next day, when Quinn came downstairs and moved to the big armchair in front of the fire, she found a laptop on the chair beside the small pile of books she was reading.

She opened the laptop and tried to boot the email program. No email apps were installed, not even the native program which came with the operating system. Every application which would let her reach out to other people had been uninstalled and deleted. There were no phone apps, no video program, nothing which would give her communication with the outside world.

The web browser could give her access to online email programs. She didn’t bother trying. She knew they would be barred to her, too.

Well, he had warned her he would do that.

She opened the web browser and typed in the Facebook address. She wasn’t surprised when a blank screen came up, with a message telling her access was denied.

The home page of the browser was set to the main page of the Boston Globe.

The message was unspoken but clear. Any information she got out of this computer would be one way only.

She did not doubt for a moment Noah had installed the worm, or whatever it was he would use to watch her every click and swipe while she was on the laptop.

After scanning through the Boston Globe for fifteen minutes, learning the date and the events which had happened while she was gone, Quinn went back to the search page. She typed in “base jumping, Austria,” and hit the enter key.

Forty minutes later, she knew more than she cared to about BASE jumping, winged flight, free climbing, and the even-more-dangerous free soloing, where the mountain climber used no pitons, no rope and no safety gear at all.

The Dragonwall, Drachenwand in German, was the most dangerous BASE jump in Europe. Quinn watched a video of two BASE jumpers climbing the peak, then throwing themselves from the top and plummeting for thousands of feet, before opening their parachutes and landing on the grassy vale.

This was the BASE jump Noah had executed more than fifteen times?

She closed the laptop, her heart beating hard. Someone who jumped from the top of mountains would be ruthless in the extreme, highly disciplined and calculating.

He said he would watch her. She believed him.

How the hell was she going to get a message to Dima?

[10]
Friday, November 29th

Now she was on her feet, Quinn found her days sliding into a routine surrounding her conversations with Aslan. True to his word, Aslan sought her out during the day, to sit and speak with her. Always, the conversation was about Denis.

She slept in late on most mornings, then came downstairs for breakfast, which the staff learned to have ready for her long after everyone else had gone about their affairs. She would eat by herself in the dining room, then seek the big armchair and the crackling fire.

Only a little while later, Aslan would find her there. He would settle on the upright chair which had gravitated to the fireplace. The waiter would put the silver coffeepot and two cups on the table between them.

While Aslan served coffee, he would ask questions which led Quinn to tell him about Denis. She could tell him anything. Whatever small story she remembered and cared to share seemed to please him. While Aslan sipped his coffee, his gaze stayed on her face as Quinn spoke.

It was easy to talk about Denis with the man. Aslan understood Denis, he knew him better than anyone except Quinn. It was possible Aslan knew Denis even better than she did. They had been together longer than she had been with Denis.

Aslan did not interrupt her. It was only after she had finished some little story when he would nod and make an observation about Denis’s character or his feelings, or what he had been thinking in that moment. Aslan was an undemanding audience. He seemed happy to just listen.

Quinn found herself telling Aslan more and more intimate stories about her time with Denis. She realized that talking about Denis in this way was therapeutic. She was grieving in a unique way.

After relating to Aslan the story of one of their rare arguments and the outcome, Quinn was surprised when Aslan said, “He wanted to make you mad.”

Quinn’s lips parted in surprise. “Why would he want to make me mad?”

“He felt guilty. You were right. Only, Denis had the hardest time admitting he was at fault about anything—not right there in the heat of the moment. He made you mad so you would leave him alone. That’s why he came back later and groveled.” Aslan hesitated. “He used to do the same thing with me.” He scratched at the back of his head, ruffling his hair. “I think he couldn’t admit weaknesses because of all his military ancestors and that Prussian pride thing.”

Quinn nodded, smiling. “Yes! He would square his shoulders when he got mad, like this…” She demonstrated.

“And his chin would come up,” Aslan added.

Sadness touched her. “Have you learned anything about the bombing yet?”

Aslan turned the cup on the saucer so the handle circled around. “These things take time. Because I am not a world authority, I must use back doors. You understand?”

“I get the impression Noah could hack his way into anything. He stripped the laptop he gave me down to a skeleton.”

“You mustn’t mind Noah. He has different demons from the rest of us. Suspicion is always the first emotion he feels. It isn’t personal.” His smile was small. “Besides, if Noah was an inch less skilled than he is you would still be in the States and probably dead.”

“I thought it was Mitchell who saved me?”

“Oh, Mitchell will tell you he did,” Aslan said. “Modesty is not one of his faults.” He got to his feet and glanced at his watch. “I will see you at lunch. Thank you.”

It was the way he finished every conversation. They would meet at lunch and they would be the only two at the table. Everyone else was still doing whatever they did during the day.

The conversation at lunch could be about Denis, or a dozen different subjects, all of them innocent and normal. The ball season in Vienna. Winter and Christmas activities in Innsbruck. Music.

Aslan was not a natural music lover. Denis had developed his appreciation for good music. Once he understood Quinn was as natural a musician as Denis, the conversation turned to music more often.

The day after their first music discussion, a compact music player appeared in her bedroom, loaded with hundreds of classic music tracks, including all the music which she had mentioned in her conversations with Aslan.

His memory was flawless.

On the fourth day after she had emerged from the bedroom, Aslan announced the entire household would attend the early Christmas festival in Innsbruck that night. Including her.

Quinn’s heart skipped a beat and hurried on. “We’re going into town?”

“You need color in your cheeks,” Aslan said. “Everyone attends the fair. It’s a traditional thing. Dress warmly, though. The fair is held in the town square and ends with the lighting of the Christmas tree.”

Quinn chewed her lip. “I don’t have any clothes beside what I’m wearing.” She looked down at the gym pants she had been washing in the bathroom sink and hanging to dry on the shower rail overnight.

Aslan, who was an elegant dresser, had failed to notice anything about her clothing or appearance. Now, though, his gaze flickered over her from head to foot. “Do you even have a brush?”

“A comb,” she amended.

He shook his head. “I should apologize. I have been so focused upon what you can tell me, I didn’t notice. I will fix that.”

Aslan went away. She did not see him for the rest of the day. While she ate her solitary lunch at the dining room table, Toni strolled into the room wearing a heavy coat and carrying another over her arm. She dropped the second coat on the table and rested her hand on the back of the dining chair Aslan used. She cocked her hip. “Whenever you are ready.”

“Ready for what?”

Toni rolled her eyes. “I’m taking you shopping. Boss’s orders.” The idea clearly thrilled her.

Quinn’s heart leapt and bounced. It wasn’t just the possibility of finding a way to make a phone call to Dima which made it jump that way. It was also the prospect of stepping out into fresh air and sunshine. She longed to feel cold air on her face. It had snowed for three days. Today, it was cloudless and the sky pure blue. The sun was strong in the window, although she didn’t doubt the heavy coat Toni had brought with her would be needed.

Quinn put on the coat and looked down at her flat shoes.

Toni rolled her eyes again. “Our first stop will be the shoe shop,” she declared. “Hurry up!”

Innsbruck was a picturesque tourist town, surrounded by mountains. At every turn Quinn glimpsed a postcard-perfect view.

Toni didn’t seem to notice the view. She strode at her usual pace, which Quinn discovered was difficult to keep up with, even with her long legs. Toni headed straight for the shoe shop as promised, where Quinn found a pair of winter boots which would protect her toes. She happily swapped her flats for them. The flats were put into a shopping bag for her to carry.

Toni next took her to a large department store, where Quinn selected jeans and trousers, sweaters and tunics. Toni didn’t seem to have any regard for expenses. Whatever Quinn seemed to like she put on the pile of clothes to be purchased. While Quinn tried on garments for size, Toni sat on a chair near the register, working on her cellphone. She had no interest in what Quinn was trying on. She didn’t seem to care for fashion even though she was always dressed in interesting outfits which made the most of her long figure.

Toni also instructed Quinn to find something suitable for evenings. Quinn found a simple little black dress with long sleeves, which would suit nearly every occasion.

Quinn had no possessions whatsoever, so the purchases included lingerie, an overcoat which fit her, gloves and a scarf, a hat, even a handbag, although Quinn had nothing to put in it. There were bathroom items to buy, including a brush, pins and elastic to control Quinn’s thick hair.

They wandered in and out of shops as items in windows caught Quinn’s eye. Toni was good at spotting what captured Quinn’s attention and would steer in that direction. She was emotionless in the task, taking no pleasure in it.

Most of their shopping centered on the big town square in the middle of Innsbruck. The square had been decorated for the festival that night, with a Christmas tree taller than all the buildings around it, built at one end. The short day was already growing darker and all the lights were glittering, as they moved across the square once more.

There were many cafés who kept chairs and tables out in the middle of the square. Tourists sat in the chairs, watching Innsbruck residents prepare for the festival. Many more of them wandered the square with cameras, taking photos of anything of interest. Every direction they looked was of interest, for mountain peaks soared right over the town. Local women wore dirndls and the men dressed in Tyrolean national costume. Everywhere Quinn looked was a view which begged to be photographed.

As they crossed the square, Toni took out her cellphone and checked the time. Quinn glanced at Toni as she frowned down at the screen.

Then Quinn tripped over her new boots and nearly fell flat on her face. She trembled. Leela and Lochan sat at a table nearby. Their heads were together, as they peered at photographs on their phones.

Quinn made herself look ahead, as she would if she had not spotted them. She glanced at windows. Shopping had lost the little charm it had held.

Toni considered her. “You’ve gone all pasty again,” she said, her tone dry. “You really are weak, aren’t you?”

“How about I put a bullet through your gut, then see how you cope with a whole afternoon of shopping and walking?” Quinn’s voice shook. As Toni thought she was exhausted—which she was, anyway—the shakiness would not surprise her.

Quinn hefted the shopping bags in her hands and frowned down at them. It gave her an excuse to look sideways again. She glanced at the table where Leela and Lochan were sitting. Neither of them had looked up. Had they even seen her?

What to do? How could Quinn catch their attention?

Her heart had skyrocketed and now beat in her ears and her mind. Her breath came faster. This was her chance.

Leela and Lochan sat out in the open. She couldn’t approach them. Although, if she could get away from Toni even for a few minutes, it would be enough to find a phone and make a call.

It looked much easier in the movies. The perfect distraction always happened just in time to offload the suspicious companion, dash around the corner and make the call. Yet Quinn didn’t even know where there was a phone she could use. She didn’t speak German and couldn’t ask someone. Besides, everyone used cellphones these days.

Perhaps she could steal a phone from someone. Or pay them to use it. Except she had no money.

The farther they moved away from Leela and Lochan, the more frantically Quinn’s heartbeat. She was running out of time. She had to do something.

“A washroom,” she said desperately. “There must be a washroom somewhere I can use.”

Toni looked down her nose. “You mean a toilet, don’t you?”

“Whatever they call them here, yes.” She looked at Toni expectantly. “I’m kinda in a hurry,” she added. She shifted on her feet and realized she wasn’t lying. The tension in her stomach pressed upon organs and the pressure was rising.

Toni rolled her eyes. “This way.” She abruptly changed directions and headed for the side of the square where they had just come from, angling away from the tables and chairs where Leela and Lochan sat.

The washroom facilities were inside the department store where they had begun their afternoon. Toni strode through the store toward a side door which carried no signage, or even hinted there was a public washroom behind it.

However, when they stepped inside, there were two broad doors bearing the universal man and woman symbols. Quinn walked toward the lady’s door with deep relief.

Toni gripped her elbow, holding her back. “Give me your bags.” She took the bags Quinn held out to her. “Three minutes, then I come in after you.” She leaned against the wall opposite the door, the bags at her feet. She crossed her arms, impatient.

Quinn didn’t care. She pushed inside and into the nearest cubicle, moving fast because the pressure was building.

Just as she was about to pull up her jeans and re-fasten them, a hand appeared under the bottom of the wall, from the cubicle beside her. On the palm rested a cellphone. The screen was on and a text message was visible. At the top of the message, Quinn saw her name.

Her heart beating in a way which made her feel sick, Quinn bent and picked up the cellphone. The hand disappeared.

She read the message.

QUINN. THE LIP GLOSS IS A TRACKER.

What lip gloss?

As Quinn thought the question, the hand reappeared under the wall. A small tube of lip gloss rested on the palm.

She picked up the lip gloss and put it in her jeans pocket.

The cellphone vibrated in her hand. The volume was muted. A new message appeared.

PUT THE CELLPHONE IN YOUR PANTIES UNTIL YOU REACH THE HOUSE. THEN HIDE IT WELL.

Most people did not sign their text messages, so Quinn was relieved when a second brief message appeared.

DIMA.

The toilet in the next cubicle flushed. Quinn got to her feet and fastened her jeans. Then she pushed the cellphone deep inside them. She would have to walk carefully and slowly, although she had been walking that way all afternoon. Now she was so tired, she had even more reason for taking her time.

Aware that time was ticking on, Quinn washed her hands and stepped out into the corridor once more. As she pulled the door open, she saw the woman who had been in the cubicle beside her disappearing through the archway into the main department store. She had mousy brown hair. Quinn didn’t know them. Toni had not recognized them, either.

Toni straightened from her lean against the wall and stepped forward. “Lift your arms.”

“Excuse me?”

Toni made an inpatient sound with her tongue and teeth, grabbed Quinn’s wrists and yanked her arms out to her sides. A man emerged from the men’s washroom as she did it. He made a surprised sound, then stepped around Quinn’s hand with a lurching motion, rolling his eyes as he did it. God knows what he thought they were doing.

Quinn had never been patted down in her life. Even in airports, the security guards waved an electronic wand over her, when she was pulled aside for searching. Toni seemed to have no hesitation in laying her hands on Quinn’s body. Her fingers pressed into her sides, under her armpits and even cupped her ass.

Toni thrust her hands between Quinn’s thighs and squeezed them. She even snapped Quinn’s bra back, perhaps wondering if something might fall out it when she did. She slid both hands down each of Quinn’s leg, to the top of her boots. Then she pushed the jeans up and dug her fingers in the top of Quinn’s boots.

Toni stood back with a frown. She had found nothing and did not seem happy about it.

“Finished?” Quinn said. She was glad Toni was not standing too close to her. It was likely Toni could have heard her heart racing like an overtaxed steam engine, if she had.

Quinn was mortally aware of the rigid case of the cellphone tucked into her jeans. The thick denim had hidden the shape of the cellphone from Toni’s fingers.

Toni turned on her boot heel, with an inpatient click of her tongue. “We’re late, hurry up.” She took off at her frantic pace, leaving Quinn to gather up all the bags once more and hurry after her as commanded.

Quinn would have been more than happy to go back to the house. She was exhausted and also frantic with relief. She wanted to go home and examine the phone. She also wanted to get it off her body. The fact of the phone sat in the forefront of her thoughts. If anyone discovered the cellphone on her, it would be bad. She wasn’t certain how bad it might get. In Aslan’s eyes, she would move from being Denis’s innocent fiancé to someone with a hidden agenda. If Aslan was the man Dima said he was, then that discovery would not end well.

By the time they returned to the square, it had filled up with people wearing heavy coats, scarves and hats, mittens and more. The tourists were far less than they had been before the sun set. Many of the people in the square knew each other. This was a festival for the residents. There were children among the adults.

They were using the chairs and tables the cafés used for their patrons. The cafés had closed. Instead, people carried lanterns hanging off poles. It was a magical, fairytale setting. The music was a light, cheerful background to the noise and chatter of the people gathering near the Christmas tree.

Toni weaved between clumps of people and Quinn followed. She found herself facing one of the larger tables. Aslan sat there with Mitchell and Noah. They all had their hands around steaming cups. A jug sat in the center of the table.

Mitchell turned over two more mugs, picked up the pitcher and poured a dark liquid into the mugs. He pushed one toward Toni, who picked it up and dropped into the spare chair beside Mitchell.

Aslan pulled out a chair next to him for Quinn. She dropped the bags with relief and settled carefully on the chair as the cellphone dug into her flesh.

Aslan pushed the mug toward her. Quinn sipped curiously. It was wine. It was also hot and flavored with what she could only call pumpkin pie spices. This, she suspected, was mulled wine. It was an interesting taste.

Aslan asked how her shopping went. Quinn could tell he was not interested. She gave him a summary of her purchases and thanked him for the garments. He shrugged it off, then turned back to speak with Noah and Mitchell in a low voice.

Around them, more people were sitting at the tables, talking among themselves. Some drank from mugs just as Aslan’s group did. Others were pouring beverages from thermoses or drinking directly from the flasks.

The music grew louder, until they were talking under the sound of Christmas carols. In front of the Christmas tree, a podium was set up and a microphone set on top.

A woman in a fur coat stepped behind the podium and spoke in rapid German. Everyone clapped as she moved back. A man in a dark winter coat took her place. He had an air of authority which made Quinn suspect he was the mayor.

He spoke briefly, with many smiles and nods. People clapped here and there. The applause was half-hearted or wildly enthusiastic, which made Quinn sure this was the mayor.

A woman in high-heeled boots and a short coat which exposed most of her thighs carried to the mayor a box with a large red button.

She held up the box, while everyone cheered and clapped and the mayor pressed the button.

Behind them, twinkling lights climbed up the height of the Christmas tree, turning on layer after layer. Then the star at the top of the tree radiated with bright white light, before fading to a golden, cheerful color.

The children in the audience went wild with delight.

It seemed to be the end of the formalities. Shortly after, the music swelled in volume. It became dance music, with a steady waltz beat which made Quinn’s toe tap in time.

She was not the only one to respond to the beat of the music. Couples collected in the open space between the tables on either edge of the square. They danced among others who still stood watching the tree or talking to each other.

The number of people standing diminished and the center of the square became a huge dance floor. Quinn watched with delight, as couples circled around in time to the music.

“Do you dance?” Mitchell asked her.

Quinn’s delight froze. She uncrossed her legs so she could put both boots on the ground and keep them there. “I don’t dance at all,” she said, injecting a tone of regret.

Aslan was still talking to Noah, their heads close together, so they could not be overheard. At her comment, though, Noah’s gaze shifted toward her. Aslan was still talking and although Noah’s chin did not move, his black eyes examined her.

Quinn’s breath caught. She held still. If she didn’t react, he would not spot the lie. She knew that from long experience. Brazen bluff worked more often than people believed.

Noah returned his attention to Aslan.

Feeling as though she had only narrowly escaped, Quinn hid her trembling. She gripped the cup in her hand and sipped the last of the wine. She wanted to return to her borrowed bedroom.

Instead, another steaming flask of wine was brought to the table by a man in an overcoat. The man pocketed the thick wad of Euros Mitchell shoved toward him with a nod and a smile. The smile was directed toward Aslan. Clearly, Aslan was a known figure here. The locals liked him. Or at least, this local wanted to make a good impression. It implied he knew something of Aslan’s reputation.

Quinn sighed as the second flask appeared. She didn’t understand German and couldn’t speak to anyone not at the table. She didn’t want to, anyway. Instead, she studied the Christmas tree and the mountains which soared into the sky behind it. Even at night they glowed. The snow on their peaks gleamed in the moonlight. The mountains did not seem to care about anything happening below. They were remote and enduring.

She could learn something from that. Quinn made herself pay attention to the conversation at the table. She could listen without contributing, which she did not have the energy to do. However, the conversation was innocuous, just as it had been for the five days she had been at the house. If Dima had not told her about Aslan’s true nature, Quinn might have supposed she had fallen among a group of hard-working entrepreneurs. In a way, it was what they were. Aslan surrounded himself with talented people.

Mitchell complained about football scores. Noah talked about the upcoming weather forecast, which would prevent him from jumping off some bridge whose name Quinn did not quite catch, although the others seemed to know which bridge he was speaking of. Even Toni looked impressed, when he said the name.

They discussed local politics and Austrian national politics, with a lot of names which Quinn did not know. The four of them even spoke about their plans for Christmas, although it seemed that no one planned to leave the house.

“I bought myself a bottle of Absolut,” Toni said. “I will boil myself red in the hot tub while I drink it, eat truffles and watched Die Hard.”

Mitchell snorted. “That movie is fifty years old, isn’t it?”

“It is a classic,” Toni replied. She looked offended. “I suppose you want to watch the man in the iron suit?”

“And what is wrong with Tony Stark?” Mitchell demanded.

“The suit does all the work for him,” Toni replied, looking down her nose. “Take the suit away from him, and I could put him on his back and keep him there, all while drinking my vodka.”

“She has a point,” Aslan said. “There is something more satisfying with doing it yourself.”

Quinn looked at him, startled. Was he referring to violence? Or was this conversation as innocent as it seemed?

“I think it is time we took Quinn back to the house,” Noah said. “She is drooping in her chair.”

Aslan considered her. His pale eyes narrowed. “Noah, would you mind? I have meetings…”

Over his shoulder, Quinn could see several men standing near the deserted podium, their glances shifting to Aslan every few seconds as they spoke together. They were clearly waiting. They looked like ordinary businessmen.

Aslan did not mind mixing business with pleasure, then.

Noah got to his feet without comment. He looked at Quinn, waiting for her.

She got to her feet, true exhaustion pulling at her muscles. It was an effort to bend and pick up all the bags. She missed catching a few of the handles and reached again. Before she could close her fingers over the twine handles, a bigger hand gripped them and lifted the bag.

She straightened. It didn’t surprise her to find Noah standing there, the bags in his hand and a mildly impatient look on his face. He didn’t speak.

Walking took effort. It also reminded her of the cellphone tucked deep in her jeans. Her heart pattered again.

Noah moved ahead of her instead of beside her. Like Toni, he did not slow down. Quinn did not have the energy to keep up with him. He had even longer legs than Toni. He pulled away from her. Quinn did her best to keep him in sight.

Then he realized she was not right behind him anymore. Instead of standing and waiting for her to catch up, he turned and came back to her. This time, he walked beside her. He said nothing again.

His silence made Quinn repress the apology which wanted to form.

They moved along the short road at the corner of the square into a courtyard where cars were parked. Noah dug in his coat pocket and withdrew a key chain. He pressed the key fob and a black Jaguar beeped and flashed its headlights.

It would be natural to sit on the passenger side of the front seat. Quinn didn’t want to do that. It felt as though it would be presumptuous. Besides, she didn’t want to get that close to him.

Instead, she opened the back door, bent and pushed her shopping bags along the seat, then climbed in and shut the door.

Noah did not seem to care.

He eased the car out of the cramped courtyard, onto a narrow road which joined up with a larger one. Quickly, the town fell behind. There was just mountains and meadows. Everything was white with snow and the moon made it glow.

The warmth in the car, the gentle rocking as it traversed the well plowed road, and the mulled wine had their effect. Quinn did not realize she was falling asleep until a hand on her shoulder woke her with a heavy shake. Cold air against her flank told her the car door was open.

She sat up, startled. The Jaguar was sitting outside the big house. The black-haired man was bent to look at her, where she sagged on the back seat. His eyes in the moonlight were all black and as neutral as his nonexistent conversation.

“I’m sorry…” Quinn said, still pulling herself together.

“Don’t be sorry. Be smart.”

She looked up at him, startled.

“Do you need help with the bags?” he finished.

She grasped the bags and leaned through the seats to pick up the two he had placed on the passenger seat beside him. Feeling disoriented and out of sorts, she slid off the seat, dragging the bags behind her. She stepped onto the snow-packed gravel. The cold was doing much to make her wake properly.

Noah closed the door behind her with a solid thud. “Eat a meal. You need the calories.” Despite the empathetic words and advice, he sounded disinterested.

He got back in the Jaguar, which was still idling. While Quinn watched, bemused, he drove away from the house, leaving her standing on the gravel clutching her bags.

Staring indignantly after him would have zero impact on the man. So Quinn returned to the house.

It felt gratifying to have Greta fuss around her and organize a meal for her, to bring color back to her cheeks. Greta scolded her for tiring herself, as Quinn made herself eat the rich stew. Greta also had someone take all the bags up to her bedroom. It left Quinn to drag her own sorry ass up the stairs, calling upon the last of her energy.

When she closed the bedroom door behind her, Quinn fished the cellphone out of her jeans and slid it under the pillow on her bed. Then she stripped off her new clothes, put on one of the nightgowns she had purchased and got into bed. She turned off the light. Moonlight streamed through the window to fall on the colorful rug.

It would have been easy to roll over and go to sleep. Instead, she pulled out the phone and turned it on. She was startled to discover the phone needed her fingerprint to unlock. Quinn swiped her finger, and the screen lit up. The text app was still on top. She closed it down and examined the software. There was nothing but the text message app. Everything else was operating system. Nothing told her who the phone belonged to, or where the text messages went to. No name was attached to the phone number. It was not an American number, nor was it an eleven-digit European number. It was a four-digit number—7937—which told her nothing.

Quinn opened the text messaging app once more. With her heart beating faster, she thumbed out a text.

ARE YOU THERE?

The answer was almost instantaneous. It was as if someone was sitting there waiting for her to reach out for them.

POWER DOWN THE PHONE. YOU CAN’T RECHARGE. 1 AM TONIGHT, POWER UP.

Then nothing. Not even the little row of bouncing dots which told her someone was typing out another message.

Quinn powered down the phone. She didn’t want the battery to run out, either.

Despite how tired she was, she was now wide awake. Quinn sat on the edge of the bed and examined the dark room. Where could she hide the phone? Under the mattress was far too obvious. Anywhere in the bathroom would also be obvious. She couldn’t hide it in the toilet tank because she didn’t have a plastic bag. It didn’t leave many places. She didn’t consider the wardrobe to be an option. It would be the first place someone would look.

She rested her hand on the soft, downy pillow. It would be nice to keep the phone under her cheek. Only, beneath the pillow wasn’t even a hiding place. Someone made her bed every day.

If she put the phone anywhere else in the room, Quinn knew she would panic and worry that someone would find it, if it was not right under her hand where she could protect it. However, she could not move around the house all day with it in her pocket. Sitting and walking tonight had been uncomfortable with it buried in her jeans.

Then she smiled as the obvious hiding place occurred to her. She stripped the cover from the pillow and put the pillow form between her knees. She picked apart the seam holding the casing closed over the stuffing, unravelling enough stitches so two inches sagged open. The white stuffing inside showed. It was just enough space to slide the phone through. First, though she pushed her fingers into the stuffing, separating the fibers. She made a channel and pushed deeper, until her arm was buried up to the elbow in the white, soft fibers. With her hand still buried, she picked up the phone and slid it inside so it slipped down the length of her arm to where her fingers waited. She nestled the phone in the middle of the pillow. She withdrew her hand, picked up the pillow, turned it over and shook it. The phone didn’t move.

Pleased, she stuffed the pillow inside the case and put it back on the bed. She set the alarm on the clock on her bedside table for 12:58. She turned the volume down so the soft burr would not be heard beyond her room.

Then she climbed into bed, put her head upon the pillow, pulled the covers up over her shoulder and went back to sleep again. It wasn’t her exhaustion which let her drift so quickly back to sleep. It was the comfort of having the phone beneath her cheek, within reach.

Noah depended upon rope to preserve his life. This was her version of his lifeline.

[11]
Saturday, November 30th

1.02 a.m.

The next message was waiting for her when Quinn woke and eased the cellphone out of the pillow.

We have your back. You must make Aslan trust you enough to TALK.

Quinn’s heart sank. She thumbed quickly.

Get me out of here!

Don’t you want to know who killed Denis?

“Dammit,” Quinn whispered. She swiped.

Aslan will never trust me. Too smart.

Do something to earn it.

Quinn stared at the screen, flummoxed. A second text message popped up.

Find a dark pocket inside you. Share that with him.

Quinn could almost hear Dima saying it, in her well-modulated, smooth voice.

The answer to who killed Denis is there, where you are. They did not shoot at you until Aslan arrived. Find the connection.

There were so many things Quinn wanted to say at the screen. Text was such an inadequate form of communication. The risk of draining the battery prevented her from dumping all her fears into a message, arguing that they should haul her out now, while they knew where she was.

Was Dima counting on the fact that arguing via text was impossible? Finding Denis’s killer was not Dima’s ultimate aim. She wanted Aslan, who would give her the Kobra. She was a leader of men, a strategist. Quinn had learned that much about the woman during their few hours together.

A final text message appeared.

1 AM, the night after tomorrow. Report in. Good night.

And now her opportunity to argue had gone.

Quinn stuffed the phone back in the pillow and reassembled the pillow and case. She realized she was ramming the pillow around, her anger building. With a soft hiss of frustration, she launched herself to her feet and moved to the window, where the moon was almost directly ahead and just about to go down behind the mountains. She watched and listened to her heart gallop.

She was angry, because she was afraid. She didn’t like this feeling of helplessness. It had been many, many years since she had felt it. Her quiet little world didn’t put her in situations which made her feel this way. It was part of the reason she and Denis had got along so well. He also liked—had liked—ordinary, dull, routine peace. Now she knew a little about Aslan and his world, Quinn wondered if Denis had lived through enough interesting times to make him never want to live through them again.

Movement on the vast expanse of lawn below her window drew Quinn’s eye. Someone was making their way across the grass, on an angle from one corner of the house over to the edge of the lawn where the pool began. She watched the figure move quickly across the grass. They were just a black shadow in the last of the moon light.

At the edge of the pool, the silhouette paused. They turned their head to look toward the house. Was he checking behind to see if anyone followed him? The shift of the man’s head allowed Quinn to see his features, bathed in the moonlight.

It was Mitchell.

He wasn’t hunched over, creeping along on tiptoe, the way a cartoon spy would. Yet he was furtive, anxious to avoid discovery. What was he up to? Where would he be going at one in the morning?

Dima turned the burner phone over and put it down on the coffee table in front of her. She stared at the matte plastic back and the lens of the camera, which glinted in the low light.

It was late. Only one small side lamp still burned in the main room of the holiday chalet they had rented on the outskirts of Innsbruck.

Scott snored on the sofa. His musical notes were the only sound in the room.

Beyond the room, the old timbers of the balcony squeaked as Lochan moved about to keep himself warm and stay alert.

Dima presumed the three women were asleep in the loft bedroom. She didn’t know for certain. Her team was good at snatching sleep when the chance provided itself, so her guess was a good one.

She could never sleep when she was in the deep end of a project. The wait for outcomes prevented her from falling asleep or woke her from sleep if she did manage it. She had learned not to bother trying.

Leander was the only other person awake in the house. He sat in the other armchair, his gaze steady upon her. When Dima’s gaze met his, he said, “Let me guess. She didn’t argue. And it bothers you.”

Dima shook her head. “The woman has a backbone. She has just forgotten it.” She tucked her feet up on the cushions, under one hip. The chair was comfortable enough that if sleep did come to her, she wouldn’t have to move. The fireplace was gas driven, so no one needed to worry about topping it with wood. “Did Scott run the photos through facial recognition before he went to sleep?”

Agata had run about the town square in a dirndl that afternoon, with a camera in her hand, just one of dozens of similarly dressed and occupied women. She had taken close shots of everyone with Aslan, and the dark-haired woman with Quinn.

Ren had taken a second photo of the woman with Quinn as she left the washroom after passing the phone on to Quinn.

Leander lifted the tablet under his hand. “Just waiting for the recognition results to come in. That’s not why I’m sitting here.” His expression was grave.

Dima gave him a small smile. “Let me guess. You watched that silly fool tell Barbara Walters he was former CIA and Black Ops and now you want to cut out your heart because everyone believes him.”

“At least he wasn’t wearing a tuxedo,” Leander replied, the corner of his mouth lifting.

“What is it that keeps you up, then?”

Leander put the tablet back down and pressed his fingers together. His eyes were almost completely colorless. In this light, they glittered sharply. “We only got the secured connection in place this morning, or we might have found it earlier.”

“Is that an apology?”

“An explanation.”

She waited. Peripherally, she realized that Scott had stopped snoring. Either he was awake, or he had shifted into a deeper phase of sleep. It didn’t matter either way.

“I won’t be able to finish my profile of Quinn,” Leander said.

Dima lifted her brow.

Leander smiled, as if he recognized that she was coaxing him to talk by not talking herself. Leander was the least biddable person on her team. He knew all the tricks.

He relented and answered without her direct request for information. “The trail of Quinn’s life stops when she was sixteen. There is a blank wasteland before her transcript for high school begins.”

Dima untucked her feet and leaned forward, her hands between her knees. She opened herself up to the world of speculation that single revelation prompted.

A record which cut off in childhood…

“A juvenile record…?” she murmured.

“There would be other documents, if it were that,” Leander said.

“Witness protection,” Scott said, his voice thick with sleep. His back was still facing the room.

“The US Marshalls make sure blanks like that are filled in,” Dima said dismissively.

Scott rolled over onto his back and turned his chin to look at her. “Not when she was sixteen, they didn’t. It would have been…what was it, Leander? Twenty years ago?”

“Sixteen,” Leander murmured. “2002.”

“The year after 9/11,” Scott said. “Yeah, a lot of domestic stuff slid through the cracks, even then. Homeland Security wasn’t founded until November of that year, although everyone was looking for enemies with brown skin. A sixteen-year-old girl with no history but authentic IDs and white skin…no one would have dug deep.”

Dima considered it. “There is another possibility for a complete lack of documentation.”

Leander’s smile was knowing. “You see Russians everywhere, boss.”

“They planted sleeper agents all over the country. They trained children. Sixteen is the height of impressionability…” Dima didn’t have to finish the thought. She recalled the angst-filled years of her own children. Sixteen had been hell on wheels for both her children—and for her.

“The woman lives the life of a church mouse,” Scott said.

“Sleepers do,” Dima replied. “Until they’re activated.”

Scott shook his head. “She lived in Boston. Boston! There’s nothing there but beans and baseball. It’s a shitty place to park an asset, even one in hibernation.”

Even Dima had to admit it looked unlikely. Nothing of what they did know about Quinn’s life fit the typical pattern of sleeper agents—not the agents they had learned about, at least.

“Witness protection or sleeper agent…or something else,” Leander said. “No matter what the explanation ends up being, the fact remains she’s not who she says she is. It changes things.”

Scott sat up and rubbed at his face with both hands. His dirty blond hair stood on end, skewed at odd angles. “We have to know what lies behind the blank screen,” he muttered. He got to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Dima asked.

“I’m going to head out, think on my feet.” Scott picked up the heavy overcoat at the foot of the sofa and pushed his feet into the boots beside it. “Lochan can come in, get some shut eye, get warm for a while.”

Dima sat back. “Keep digging, Leander. We need to step behind the screen.”

Leander picked up the tablet. “Is there anyone you know in the Marshall’s service?” he asked. “That’s the quickest way to eliminate one possibility.”

Dima picked up the cellphone from the coffee table. It was just past seven p.m. in Washington. She would interrupt his dinner, although he was an old bear—better to catch him at home, where his defenses were not so considerable.

“She knows someone,” Leander said softly.

“Of course she does,” Scott said, as he zipped up the coat.

Dima glanced at Leander and noticed the narrow slit of his eyes. “While we’re waiting for an answer, you get some sleep, Lea.”

“I’m fine,” Leander said.

“That wasn’t a suggestion.”

He drew in a breath. Let it out. Then he nodded and moved with slow, tired movements over to the sofa.

Before the phone in the big house in the exclusive McLean district in Virginia was picked up, Leander was already breathing heavily, his eyes closed.

Quinn slept late the next morning, which was normal for her, so she wasn’t surprised to find that when she got downstairs, no one was around.

She had learned to knock on the kitchen door when she made it downstairs, to ask for breakfast, which they usually had ready to go.

She ate the meal in absorbed silence. If someone had been at the table with her they would have been disappointed in her conversational skills that morning. She had too much on her mind to chat.

Long after the text exchange with Dima last night, Quinn had tossed about, sweaty and nervous. How was she supposed to gain the trust of a man who had reason to trust no one?

And why should she bother? If she continued to behave as herself, she would still get the answers she craved. She didn’t doubt Aslan was doing everything in his power to find the real reasons behind the bombing. When he learned what they were, he would tell her. Why wouldn’t he?

Around four a.m., Quinn had blinked up at the dark angles of the ceiling as a new thought occurred to her. What if those reasons had something to do with Aslan’s shadowy business dealings? Would Aslan tell her the truth behind Denis’ death if the truth revealed more about him and his affairs than he was comfortable with?

Of course…of course! This had to be about Aslan! Only, how could it be? Denis had left Aslan years ago. He had started a new, safe and ordinary life in America. He was a music professor and harmless. So why kill him?

Her thoughts brought her back to the aching bewilderment which had driven her for weeks now. She needed to know why someone had killed Denis and wanted her dead, too. She had to know.

It meant she must make Aslan trust her, so when he learned the truth, he would tell her without reservations.

Quinn didn’t care about Dima’s mission to find the Kobra. It wasn’t Dima who had taken a sniper round in the belly. If Aslan spontaneously blurted out his connection to the Kobra, that would make Dima happy. No way was Quinn digging for it, though. In the movies, people always got caught snooping and their bodies washed up on some beach two days later.

Only Dima was right about Quinn needing to make Aslan trust her. It was easier said than done, though. How the hell could she convince Aslan he could tell her anything and she would not run to the police, or Interpol, or whoever it was around here who would care about his crooked ways?

If he even was crooked—for Dima had offered no proof in that regard, either. Everything was hearsay. Aslan didn’t seem like a criminal.

Quinn massaged her temples as she drank the last of her tea. She would make a shitty spy, she decided. A tiny thing like making someone trust her had screwed her up so much she had a headache and her belly was wound in knots, working up to a good, big ulcer.

She pushed the breakfast plate away and went out to the recreation room. The big fireplace was burning as usual. Aslan was already sitting on the upright chair he usually used. The silver coffeepot was on the table.

Quinn hesitated, as her heart bounced about in her chest. He can’t read your mind, remember! She moved forward again. “You’re here already. I didn’t know, sorry.”

“You’re up late this morning,” Aslan said. He tilted his head. “I got the impression you would go to bed as soon as Noah brought you home, last night. You fell asleep in the car.”

Tell the truth as much as you can.

“I did go to bed, and I did go to sleep straight away. I barely remember lying down,” Quinn admitted. “Only a few hours later, something woke me. God knows what, but suddenly, I was awake. I couldn’t get my mind to shut down after that.”

“Toni mentioned that she thought someone was walking around in the small hours last night,” Aslan said, as he lifted the coffeepot.

Quinn’s heart squeezed even harder. What would have happened if she’d lied and said she had slept like a baby? He would have looked at her sideways, wondering if she was lying and why. Truth-telling—as much of it as she could manage—was better.

Aslan pushed a filled mug to her side of the table. “Something on your mind?”

“Denis,” Quinn said truthfully. “I keep coming back to the basic question.”

“Why,” Aslan said.

“Yes, why? It makes no sense at all. None. Then there’s me. I’m just the follow up, I think. The loose end. Who would want either of us dead?”

“And yesterday and last night you were out in the world, where someone could have freely taken another shot, if they had known you were here,” Aslan added.

Quinn stared at him, horror building. “I didn’t even think of that!” she said, her voice high and tight.

Aslan laughed. It was a rich, rumbling sound. He sat back, coffee in hand. “I would be surprised if you had thought of it. It requires practice in unusual fields of expertise to acquire the mindset.”

“You have the mindset,” Quinn pointed out. She hesitated. “Do you…are you that type of expert, Aslan? I mean…” She looked around the house. “I thought you were a businessman of some sort.”

“I am a businessman of some sort,” he said. “I’ve been around for a few years more than you. My early life handed me the training I needed to think that way.” He grimaced. “More’s the pity.” He drank his coffee.

“Was that in England?” she asked curiously.

His smile was genuine. “One doesn’t learn defense strategies among the hedgerows of Britain.”

Something drew Quinn’s gaze to the smaller windows on the west side of the recreation room. A shadow had dropped over the middle one.

Her mouth fell open. Noah was hanging off the side of the house, out there. His arm was stretched above his head, while he flexed the fingers of the other hand and placed them around the narrow window frame, searching for a good grip.

“What is it?” Aslan said, turning to look over his shoulder. He chuckled, turning back to her. “He likes to climb anything vertical.”

“He isn’t wearing any ropes! No lifelines!” she said, awed. “The ground slopes away on that side…it must be thirty feet from the cellar to the window!”

“Forty-two, actually.”

“What, is he addicted to adrenaline?” Quinn said. “He jumps off mountains and bridges and now he climbs housing where he can find it?”

“Not that I’ve ever asked him, but I am sure Noah would tell you he is merely keeping himself in good condition. No one who works for me has addictions.”

Quinn looked at him, startled. The hard note in Aslan’s voice told her Aslan was speaking a more profound truth than normal.

“Is that a condition of employment?” she asked.

Aslan didn’t answer at once. He drank his coffee, his gaze on the floor. “Addictions are a vulnerability.”

“Vulnerabilities are a bad thing?”

“Vulnerabilities are a weakness. They leave a man open to leverage.” Aslan shook his head as if he was irritated at himself for speaking to freely. “Everyone has a weakness. We count on that.”

Quinn flinched. Had Aslan discovered a weakness about her he could use?

Aslan smiled. “Your weakness is Denis,” he told her softly. “So is mine.”

Quinn didn’t speak the thought which rose. Maybe I have more than one weakness.

She glanced at the window again. Noah had moved across the window, so that his toes were balanced on the outside still. There could only be an inch of space on the sill. The tips his soft shoes pressed against the glass. He stretched up, searching for the next handhold.

“He is crazy,” Quinn declared.

“He has a high tolerance for risk,” Aslan said. “That is why I hired him.”

A soft sound of metal clicking came to Quinn from the far side of the room where, beneath the stairs, more doors led to utility rooms and work rooms at the back of the house on this level. She turned and leaned around the back of the armchair to see what the noise was.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Aslan lower his coffee cup to the table, his gaze fixed on the other side of the room to.

Toni had emerged from a door, there. As she strode toward the fireplace, she raised her hand. There was a gun in it. The metallic clicking sound had been her cocking the gun.

Worse, she was pointing the gun at Quinn. Quinn sucked in a breath. It felt as if she had inhaled the entire room. Shock slithered through her, making her feel hot and cold at once.

“There had better be a damn good explanation for this,” Aslan said. He didn’t sound upset, or even shocked.

“She isn’t who she said she is.” Toni’s voice was just as calm as Aslan’s. The gun pointing at Quinn did not move an inch. The opening of the barrel looked like a great dark eye, sitting in the center of her vision. It looked huge. “Quinn Sawyer didn’t exist seventeen years ago. So who is she?”

Quinn scrambled to her feet, her heart running too fast for her to track individual beats. It was just a hard lump in her chest, vibrating out of control.

Toni bought her other hand to the grip of the gun, her fingers tightening. “Stay exactly where you are!”

“You’re pointing a gun at me! You expect me to just sit in an armchair while you’re doing it?”

Aslan got to his feet, too. He moved more slowly than Quinn did and remained still once he was upon them. Quinn couldn’t stop shifting from foot to foot, as adrenaline tore through her body, giving her the shakes.

She had never had a gun aimed at her before. It shocked her how terrifying it was. How on earth did the heroes in movies think up all the smart come-backs when facing down a gun-toting enemy?

Aslan, she realized, was looking at her. “Is this true?” He spoke with an absence of emotion. Nevertheless, the hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck tried to stand up. There was no threat in his words or his voice, yet she felt afraid.

“Is what true?” Quinn’s voice shook. “Of course I am Quinn Sawyer. If you have resources which let you look into the bombing, then you must’ve looked into me, too. You know I am who I say I am. Denis wasn’t a fool.”

She invoked Denis’s name deliberately. It would remind Aslan of their common weakness.

Aslan looked at Toni and lifted his brow.

The gun had not wavered by an inch. Toni’s gaze did not shift from Quinn, either. Quinn’s denial didn’t faze her. “Of course Aslan looked into you,” she said. “He told me to do it. And now I have discovered that all your personal records stop sixteen years ago. You didn’t exist before 2002. So who the fuck are you?”

Quinn swallowed. She was aware of Aslan staring at her, his eyes narrowed. Suspicion was rising in him. That was bad. This was the scenario she had worried about, late last night.

She squeezed her chest with one hand and pressed the other against her belly. “I feel sick…” She staggered a little, reaching out blindly for the arm of the armchair, or something to hold her up.

She found instead, Aslan’s arm. His other hand came under her. He put her back on her feet with a powerful lift.

“Sit down,” he said, his voice deep and controlled. He pushed her into the armchair, not roughly. It was impossible to resist the strength of his arms and hands, especially with the nausea and fear running through her.

Quinn let herself fall back onto the soft cushions. She wrapped her arms around her and held her elbows, as the shaking intensified.

Aslan and Toni stood over her. The gun had not moved.

“Is that all you found?” Aslan asked Toni. “An absence of records?”

“No one moves through life without leaving records,” Toni said. “It isn’t that they’re hard to find. There are none at all. She had no life before sixteen.” Her smile was grim. “It is as if someone set up a legend which ran deep, because they expected an investigation into the identity to run deep, too. Only they didn’t build it deep enough. Not deep enough for me, anyway.”

Aslan looked at Quinn. “I am afraid I must insist upon an explanation, Quinn. Should I even call you Quinn?”

Quinn licked her lips.

“Holy shit!” Mitchell eased his way across the room, his gaze on Toni’s gun. “What the hell did I miss?”

“Quinn was just about to explain that to us,” Aslan said. His voice was calmer than it had been before. The fine hairs on her neck prickled hard. Quinn knew she was facing a dangerous man. She didn’t know why. She couldn’t explain it. Yet she knew. Her gut knew.

“Who the hell are you people?” she demanded. She couldn’t take her attention away from Toni’s gun.

Mitchell crossed his arms and spread his legs.

“You need to talk, Quinn,” Aslan said. “If this is all a misunderstanding, then we will apologize later. For now, though, you must put up with bad manners. Tell me. Is it true? Why does your personal history halt sixteen years ago?”

Mitchell whistled. He sounded impressed. “Wouldn’t have called that one.”

Quinn bought her hand to her forehead. Her fingers trembled against her flesh, which didn’t help her wipe the dampness there. “I am Quinn Sawyer,” she said. “My documents are genuine. They were issued by the American government, the same as everyone else. Only, I wasn’t born Quinn Sawyer.”

No one moved. Their stares hardened, now she had confirmed she had not always been Quinn Sawyer. Quinn pressed her fingers against her chest once more. Everything inside her chest hurt. “I’ve never told anyone this before,” she said. “Not even Denis. It is…difficult.”

Light steps sounded on the back staircase and the steps creaked as someone climbed down them. Noah strolled into the room. He glanced around, taking in the three tense people ranged in front of Quinn.

He showed no reaction. His steps slowed. He moved up beside the group of three. Unlike Mitchell, he didn’t demand an explanation for what was going on. He just watched. His expression remained impassive, as it always did.

It was just one more person on Aslan’s side, facing Quinn, who sat alone.

Ren tore off the headphones and looked at Dima accusingly.

Everyone else was staring at Dima, too. She stared calmly back.

Leander shook his head. “You told them?”

“I don’t even want to get into how you manage to get word to them,” Scott said softly. “Let’s just stick with what on earth you were thinking.” His voice rose at the end.

“If she is in witness protection,” Lochan said, “then you have put her in a position where she must reveal her true identity. I know you were looking for a way for Aslan to trust her, but this isn’t it. There is a reason witness protection works. There is a reason it is needed in the first place.”

Dima calmed her face to neutral. Caution flooded her. She chose her words with care. “This operation is covert until the first shot is fired. Once that first shot is fired, we lose all chance of learning anything. So does Quinn. She is a smart woman. Keep listening. Let’s see how it plays out. Agata and Leela are still in place, yes?”

Ren nodded, as she was coordinating them for today.

Scott got to his feet and unclipped his handgun from the back of his jeans. He checked the load and clipped the gun in place again. “I will help Agata and Leela. It sounds as if they will need to move on the house. They shouldn’t do it alone.”

“Sit down, Scott,” Dima said sharply.

Scott scowled. He flung out his arm. “She is totally exposed in there!”

“We will give Quinn a chance to sort this out for herself,” Dima said. “Frankly, you all underestimate her.”

Scott threw himself back on the end of the sofa with the sound of disgust.

No one looked at Dima. Ren turned her back, to watch the sound of voices spike the audio output dials on the screen in front of her.

The silence was absolute as they all listened for Quinn’s response to Aslan.

[12]
That afternoon

Quinn knew she could not prevaricate for much longer. The silence had stretched on too long and Aslan wouldn’t wait forever. Only, she wasn’t lying. It was difficult to speak about this. She had been trained for weeks, until not speaking about herself had become instinctive.

“A long time ago,” she said, “I was not Quinn Sawyer. Who I was doesn’t matter. What I was…was a thief.” Her throat tried to close up, which made talking difficult. She paused, to measure the responses of the three people staring at her.

Aslan was the calmest of the three. Even Noah, whose face was normally expressionless, was staring at her with narrowed eyes, puzzling it through.

Mitchell grinned. “You stole from the wrong person…” he said, his tone dreamy. He was enjoying her confession.

Toni rolled her eyes. “Petty criminals don’t get new IDs.”

“They do if they see the wrong thing.”

“What did you see?” Mitchell asked. His tone was eager.

“You were sixteen,” Noah said. “What sort of thief could you be at sixteen?”

“What sort of sixteen-year-old thief could steal something which requires a new ID—a government-issued ID,” Aslan added.

“I was good at it,” Quinn said. “My father taught me.” Her throat closed up and her eyes prickled with hard tears. She hadn’t spoken about her father for decades. Not as a hard truth like this.

The silence this time was solid.

“You are in witness protection,” Aslan said. It wasn’t a question. “You saw something at sixteen which required protection.”

“Actually, it was my father who was the witness. We all had to go into the system with him.”

Mitchell made a soft sound with his tongue and rolled his eyes. “He was the thief. It was his organization he ratted on.”

Quinn didn’t like the word “ratted,” although it was accurate enough. “The people he worked for had moved into sex trafficking. He told me he had seen a girl who looked like me and just my age, locked up in the cargo container. It was too much. Only, he couldn’t walk away from the business. They wouldn’t allow it. So he found the only way out which would protect all of us.”

The silence stretched.

Quinn thought she should relax, once the truth was spoken. Only, their judgmental, speculative gazes kept her pinned and writhing on the chair.

“I don’t believe it,” Noah said. “She admits she is hiding something. So she’s a liar. She will tell us anything she thinks we need to hear.” His voice was a growl.

Quinn shivered. Claiming she was telling the truth would be pointless. She had to let these people make up their own minds. There was nothing else she could say. Except…there was one thing.

“You would like proof, I’m guessing.”

“Can you prove any of it?” Aslan said. Oddly, his voice contained a note of hope. She wondered if he was aware of it.

Toni made an impatient sound. “We should kill her now and be done with it.”

“Aslan,” Quinn said. “May I have that picture of Denis you keep your wallet? Just for a moment, please.”

Aslan’s brows came together. He reached into his jacket for his wallet. Then he froze. He patted the front of the jacket, then his pockets.

“Never mind, I can get it for myself,” Quinn said. She lifted her hip and picked up the wallet from the cushion beneath. She opened it and slid the picture of Denis out of it and held it up for Aslan to see.

Mitchell gave a crowing sound and slapped his knee. His laugh was a subterranean chuckle that went on and on.

Quinn slid the picture back into the pocket, folded the wallet and handed it back to Aslan. He shoved it inside his jacket.

“When she was weak-kneed,” Toni said with disgust. Her gun lowered for the first time.

“I missed the grab,” Mitchell said with a tone of regret. He chuckled again.

“It only proves she knows how to lift things,” Noah said.

Aslan nodded. “It does. We don’t have time to grease the wheels needed to dig into closed records.” He considered Quinn. “It seems you may have more in common with us than any of us guessed. There is a fast way which will prove it.”

“A test?” Mitchell said. His voice lifted hopefully.

“A test,” Aslan said, his tone one of the agreement. His gaze settled on Quinn’s face once more. “I understand you have been going straight since you were sixteen, but would you be willing to lift something for me? Think of it as a show of good faith.”

Quinn kept her gaze steady, even though she still trembled. “I don’t have a choice, do I? If I refuse to perform your test, Toni gets to do what she wants with me, right?”

“Yes, please,” Toni breathed.

Aslan smile was grim. “If you do perform the test adequately, I will explain to you why it is critical you do exactly that. For now, we will take each other on trust. That trust extends only so far, though. Do you understand?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” Quinn lied. “Although I get the critical points. I prove myself. Then you explain yourself. Right?”

Toni made an impatient sound. “There is a quicker way to deal with this…”

“Hacking at the knot doesn’t give us anything useful,” Aslan told her. His gaze shifted back to Quinn. “For now, don’t leave the house.” He walked away, disappearing into the back of the house, where Quinn had never been invited to go.

That left his three minions.

Toni let the gun hang from her fingers, her other hand on her jutting hip. “I’ll be watching you,” she told Quinn. She spun on her heel and moved away, too.

Mitchell grinned at her. “I’d say welcome to the family, but there is a stretch or two yet before I can say that. Although I gotta say, I really like this side of you, Quinn.” He hurried after Toni, catching up with her as they moved through the door.

That left Noah. He studied her under lowered brows. Locks of his thick black hair fell over one eye. “Be careful,” he said.

“Careful of what?”

“Everything.”

“Including you?”

“Especially me.”

He stalked away, heading for the corridor, and walked upstairs. Quinn stayed where she was. A few minutes later she saw Noah climb down the outside of the house once more. He didn’t look at her through the window.

That was fine by her.

Dima relaxed and shoved the Glock back in her coat pocket as Leander ducked under a snow-laden fir branch and crossed over to her position.

“Leela told me you had taken her patrol shift,” Leander said. “Running away?”

“I have nothing to run away from.”

Leander just smiled.

In fact, the tension in the house had driven her outside, but not to run away. She needed to think. Brisk cold would give her a shift of perspective after being contained inside the house for the last twenty-four hours.

“Quinn performed adequately, as you said she would,” Leander said. “How much of what she told them is the truth, do you think?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised to find that nearly everything she said is the truth, looked at a certain way. If she has been in witness protection since she was sixteen years old, she would have learned to lie far more convincingly than any of us. It would be ingrained in her now.”

“Does this test of Aslan’s worry you?” Leander zipped up his coat and shoved his bare hands into his pockets.

“On the contrary,” Dima replied. “Once she passes—and she will—Aslan will trust her. She will learn much, then.” She considered Leander for a second. “Are you counselling me, Lea?”

Leander lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “Everyone is pretty pissed with you, right now. You’ve always been an independent spirit, Dima, but you must surely feel the disapproval. I wondered how that made you feel.”

“No one moves through life without gathering disapproval like mud on their wheels,” Dima said. “The mission is still within operational parameters. We have to keep our eye on the main goal. Aslan can lead us to Kobra. If Quinn gets answers of her own while she is down the pipe, that would please me, too.”

“And if she fails this test, and Aslan kills her?”

“She will not fail,” Dima said as calmly as she could.

“You know that for certain? Did your friends in Washington give you her early history?”

“Not yet. They have to assess whether the risk is worth exposing her to us. The answer could still be no. The Witsec program is cautious about such things.”

Leander looked off into the trees, his breath flogging the air. His eyes were narrowed. “When we met Quinn, she was a bereaved music librarian with a small life, and a dead boyfriend with an equally small life. You had faith in her even then. Did you suspect this side of her was there all along?”

“I would like to tell you this is a function of womanhood. All women have this capacity for strength lying dormant within them. Some need coaxing to discover it. I could tell you that Quinn was one of those women. The truth is, I looked into her eyes and I saw it for myself. She didn’t need to have it coaxed awake. It has always been there. Since she was sixteen, in fact.” Dima grimaced. “It is likely we will have to find a way to contain her, later. Quinn has been hiding from the world. Now she is about to step out again.”

[13]
Sunday, December 1st

By the afternoon, the ambient air temperature was in the forties, even though the snow was still a foot thick. Quinn pulled on her new coat, took her sunglasses and went outside.

Someone had put out a row of sun lounges alongside the pool, to take advantage of the warm afternoon. The pool was empty of water and the snow at the bottom was gray slush. The sun was warm, though, and no breeze stole the warmth.

Quinn settled back on the lounger and closed her eyes. It was the first time since the confrontation yesterday she had relaxed.

The peace did not last long. She heard peculiar sounds coming from the end of the pool. At that end, the corner hung over the edge of nothing and the land dropped to the bottom of the valley.

It sounded as if someone was working at something, beneath the edge of the pool. Only, nothing was there.

Quinn sat up. The guards didn’t bother patrolling that end of the swimming pool because it was impossible for anyone to climb the sheer cliff face. Only, it sounded as if someone was there, now.

Quinn relaxed when she realized who it was. There was only one person it could be. Noah. He had found himself another challenge.

As the sounds grew louder and more distinct, she heard a human breath amongst them, and a gasp of effort. Then Noah’s head appeared above the negative edge of the pool. He gripped the dry edge, his fingers digging in, then hauled himself up over the edge of the pool, hoisted his foot up beside his hand and drew himself up. He stood on the edge of the pool and brushed off his hands. He glanced down the valley at the town below.

“Did you climb up from the valley itself?” Quinn asked him.

He didn’t react to her question. It was as if he had known she was there all along, even though he had not glanced at her as he climbed over the edge of the pool. “Without rope?” he replied. “I am not suicidal.”

“All appearances to the contrary.”

He moved around the edge of the pool, which was only six inches wide on that side. The narrow edge and the sharp drop below didn’t seem to bother him. He walked as he would across the middle of the room. Then he stepped onto the concrete around the pool. He came up to the foot of her lounger.

Dirt clung to his suede jacket and his fingers. The same dirt caked the toes of his boots.

“Don’t rock climbers use special boots with spikes?” she asked him.

“I’m not a rock climber.”

She glanced at the pool, then at the side of the house he had scaled just yesterday.

He understood. “There is a difference between training and a hobby.”

“Then all this, jumping off mountains, throwing yourself off bridges, it is all preparation?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You understand.”

Quinn blew out her breath. “Preparation for what? What work involves being prepared to fall from a great height?”

“I suppose you will find out eventually if Aslan has his way. Until then, though…”

“Yeah, I remember. You don’t trust me.”

“It’s nothing personal. I trust no one.”

“That must make your life miserable.”

“Because yours is such a happy, bland bowl of oatmeal, isn’t it?” His tone was dry.

“I liked my life, thank you very much. I didn’t ask to be blown up.”

Noah didn’t respond at once. He tilted his head, which dropped the locks of hair over one eye again. The sharp line of his jaw moved. “Everyone has assumed the bomb was about Denis, which means it’s really about Aslan. No one has stopped to ask if it is about you. Even you have not wondered.”

“My father died five years ago. Even if someone from his past figured out who he had become, once he died there would be no reason to pursue us.”

Noah shook his head. “You told me that way too fast. I told you to be careful, remember?”

Her heart jumped a little. “You challenged me. What was I supposed to say?”

“You lie, of course. You’ve been doing it all your life. You shouldn’t stop now.” His tone was withering.

She shifted the subject. She pointed to the house behind him. “Can anyone do that?”

“Climb a house? Of course they can.”

“Can you teach me?”

Noah considered her. “What is your balance like?”

Something shifted inside her. The question impacted upon ancient memories. “My balance is as perfect as my pitch,” she said truthfully.

Noah rubbed his jaw. “I could teach you, but not without rope. Maybe tomorrow. That is, if we’re still here.”

“Still here? Is someone planning to blow up this place, too?”

“You didn’t think Aslan would set up a little game in the rec room to test you, did you?” Noah shook his head. “Your test will be live, against a real subject, under real circumstances. And as Aslan does not shit where he sleeps, the test will be somewhere else.”

“You mean, another country? I don’t even have a passport!”

“Yes you do. How do you think you got here?”

She paused. “A fake passport…”

“You seem surprised.”

“It’s just… I didn’t think there was such a thing as fake passports. It seems so 007ish.”

“And you never cheated on your taxes, either, did you?”

“Of course I didn’t!”

He tilted his head again. “You are a mass of contradictions, aren’t you?”

Quinn brushed at the thin foam mattress on the lounger, so she wouldn’t have to look at him directly. “I am perfectly straightforward.”

“Or perhaps you would just like to be.”

Quinn flung her leg over to the side of the lounger and got to her feet. Snow crunched under her boots. “Forget about teaching me how to climb. I don’t need the aggravation.”

He caught her elbow, almost hauling her off her feet as she went past him. “You need to forget about your oatmeal life and embrace the duality you’ve been avoiding. You will need it now.” His voice was low.

Startled, Quinn looked up at him. “Is that what you did? In which case, no thank you. I prefer to keep hold of my sanity.”

His eyes widened and his fingers loosened.

She pulled her elbow out of his grip and moved back toward the house. She didn’t look back. If she did, he would see the fear in her eyes which he had provoked with his warning.

When she walked into the recreation room, Aslan was standing at a door at the back of the room. He beckoned to her. “Come in for a moment,” he told her.

Quinn had always assumed the door was to Aslan’s personal office. He came and went from the room frequently. This was the first time she had been allowed to step inside.

Curious, she moved into the room. Toni and Mitchell sat on chairs in front of the big desk. A third man stood behind the chairs. She didn’t know his name, although she had seen him moving around the property with other men.

Aslan rounded the desk and sat in the big leather chair. He picked up a sheet of paper and held it toward her. “This is your target.”

The paper was a printout of a personal profile, something which might’ve been a professional resume. A three-inch photo of a woman was stuck to the corner. She looked as though she was in her mid-40s, a professional woman wearing a shirt and jacket. She had coiffed hair, blond and wavy, and professionally primped.

Quinn read the name beneath the photo. Diana Hague. She scanned the rest of the sheet. In particular, she studied the top lines. “Deputy Director of the FBI?” She looked up at Aslan. “You want me to take something from this woman? What on earth would she have on her worth the effort involved in lifting it from her?”

“Can you do it, or not?” Toni said.

Quinn pressed her fingers to her temple. “I can lift anything from anyone, if the circumstances are set up properly. I am not a superhero, though. I don’t have mystical talent. Lifting something requires misdirection and distraction. Someone like her will be surrounded by guard details and professional security people. If there is any distraction at all, their attention will snap straight to their subject. They’re trained to ignore commotions.”

Aslan was listening to her. He was not disputing her. He looked at the man in the corner. “What sort of distraction would they take notice of?”

“A genuine threat to the person in question would pull their attention away from their subject and force them to focus upon the threat,” the man said. He had an English accent.

Aslan nodded. “Then the threat must appear genuine.” His attention moved back to Quinn. “The Deputy Director carries in her right-hand jacket pocket an electronic fob which lets her log into the FBI framework from home.”

“There must be thousands of FBI employees who have the same fob,” Quinn said. “Why do you need a high-profile target for that?”

“Because her fob gives her access to all the classified records on the database.” Toni’s voice was dry, as if this should have been obvious to Quinn.

“And as soon as she knows the fob is missing they will change her access and you’ll be back where you started,” Quinn pointed out.

“That is not something you need to worry about,” Aslan said. “Given that the distraction is adequate, can you do this?”

Quinn drew in a breath. “Do I have a choice?”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Aslan said. His green eyes glittered with a hard light she had never seen in them before.

Quinn remembered what Noah had just told her. She said, “Is this woman, this Hague, in Austria?”

Toni snorted. Aslan glanced at her, perhaps in warning, for she contained herself, still smiling.

Aslan looked at Quinn. “The Deputy Director is in Washington, of course.”

Quinn managed to look surprised, because she was surprised. Noah had been right about her test being in another country. What else was he right about?

[14]
Wednesday, December 4th

G Street was only three blocks away from the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, yet Hague had herself driven there in her bulletproof limousine. “It is standard operating procedure, which we can count on,” Johnson, the Englishman, had explained on the long plane ride from Vienna.

Macy’s was just up the road from where Quinn stood. Shoppers strolled on both sides of the street. It was midday. Office workers were outside, looking to buy lunch or catch up on chores. The road was choked with traffic as usual.

Quinn took another glance at the front of the office building where Hague’s car would stop. Quinn was on the same side of the road as the building but thirty yards away. She had tucked herself behind one of the black retro lamp posts.

Aslan waited somewhere inside the foyer of the building. Hague thought she was attending a meeting with a known associate of hers, a businessman with extended industrial affiliations and connections with the trade unions. He was a useful tool in Hague’s work, Aslan had explained. If the businessman sent her a message demanding a meeting to deal with an emergency, she would drop everything and come.

Quinn had to leave that part of the operation up to Aslan. Her role was straightforward. When Hague moved from the limousine to the building, she was to waylay her and lift the fob in her right pocket.

The distraction, Johnson assured Quinn, would be adequate. Quinn had to trust him, too, although she didn’t like it. When she tried to press Johnson for details, he refused. “It’s better that you look just as surprised as everyone else around her,” he told Quinn.

Now everything depended on Hague turning up for the emergency meeting. Quinn monitored the corner where she expected the limousine to appear.

The black Escalade which did pull up in front of the building came from the opposite direction.

Quinn became alert. Hague had done the unexpected, possibly because of the emergency nature of the meeting. Was she already spooked? It would make things harder for Quinn.

As soon as Quinn realized the Escalade was pulling into the curb, she pushed herself off the lamppost and walked toward the building. She timed her pace so she would arrive in front of the building as Hague got out of the car and their paths would cross.

Quinn suppressed the knowledge that at least five people watched her right now. She preferred to operate unobserved. It made her nervous to think that not only were people monitoring her every footstep, but they most likely had guns trained on her, too. At this stage, it was to “protect her”.

If anything went wrong, it was likely the guns would be used for a different purpose.

She didn’t know where anyone but Aslan was. Their part in the operation had been kept from her. Everything had been kept from her, except for her single role at this moment.

She hoped it wasn’t just Aslan’s people watching her. She had not heard from Dima and couldn’t bring the cellphone with her. It was possibly vibrating itself to death inside her pillow, back in Innsbruck. If Dima did have her back, then her people would be salted away somewhere on G Street, watching this unfold, too.

Would they try to interfere? Would they try to steal her away from Aslan’s people? They were on home turf. It was the perfect opportunity for them to get her out from under Aslan’s thumb.

In the thousands of times Quinn had imagined how this might go down, her most fervent wish was that Dima’s people would step in and get her out of this cesspit.

Even though she longed to know why Denis had died, she was beginning to feel that the answers weren’t worth the price. She tried to clear her mind, as she approached the corner of the Escalade. Old and dusty lessons about approaching a mark came back to her.

The door of the Escalade opened and a big man in a suit stepped out. He looked around, his gaze passing over Quinn. Then he opened the back door.

Twelve yards. Diana Hague thrust out one foot and put it on the pavement, then stepped out of the car.

Eight yards.

Hague headed for the building.

“This is for Afghanistan, bitch!” The cry came from closer to the building, halting Hague in her tracks. A man with long, scraggly hair, a full beard and the dirtiest clothes Quinn had ever seen was throwing off a layer of plastic bags and newspapers, to reveal a sawed-off shotgun, which he brought to bear upon Hague.

The suits around her reacted instantly. They reached for their guns and pushed Hague behind them, straight into Quinn’s path.

Quinn tripped over her, as Hague crouched. Quinn gave a little scream, as someone would if they spotted a man with a gun in public. She stumbled and staggered forward, as she untangled her foot from Hague’s flank. She put her hands out to save her fall.

The security guards shouted at the homeless man, telling him to put down the gun. One of them fired, a soft sound under the shouting. The man with the shotgun fell back with a cry, as Quinn pushed herself to her feet once more. A guard picked up Hague and shoved her in the car.

Quinn strode, putting distance between her and the car.

The guard who had put Hague in the car straightened and pointed at her. “You! Stop right there!” He bought his gun up and pointed it at her. Quinn turned to face him, painting her face with shock and fear. It wasn’t hard to do. “Me?”

The guard got the attention of the only other suit left guarding the car, as the other three tackled the homeless man.

Pedestrians gathered close by, drawn by the drama yet wary enough to stay at a distance. People across the road watched the action, too.

“She took something from the director,” the first suit said to the second, pointing at Quinn.

Shit.

Quinn looked around. She had failed to account for the congestion of sightseers watching it go down. Her escape route, the one she had planned, was gone.

Her heart hammering, Quinn kept her hands up. She didn’t want to get shot today.

The two guards headed toward her. She had to do something in the next few seconds, or it would be too late. Only how the hell had the guard seen her lift the fob?

It was a question for later. She had to act. Now.

She couldn’t take her gaze away from the black round ends of the guns pointing at her. A pound or two extra pressure on the trigger and she would be dead.

Think, she commanded herself.

The lead guard was only three feet away from her when a small black mountain rocketed across her field of vision and took him out. The guard sprawled on the concrete. Quinn heard the smack of flesh upon flesh and a soft groan. The guard grew still.

Noah bounced to his feet. His black wool hat was pulled down low over his forehead and ears, disguising most of his face. The thick scarf around his neck rose to meet his ears and covered the lower half of his face. At this time of year, it was the perfect disguise. He had taken off his sunglasses, though.

His black eyes met hers. Then he turned to deal with the second guard, who dropped to the ground with a soft sigh and closed his eyes. Noah bent and picked up the two pistols and shoved them in his coat pocket. Then he spun to face her, grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the building. “Move your ass, Quinn!”

She staggered toward the building. Behind her, Noah bellowed, “Find Elijah!” He didn’t speak Aslan’s last name, not even in the heat of the moment, because somebody might hear it.

The guards dealing with the homeless man paid no attention to her. She ran past them, the heel of her hand slapping the glass door before it could open for her. She pushed it faster than the mechanism moved and heard the hiss of pneumatics.

Then she was inside. Artificially warmed air bathed her face. The foyer was almost empty. Six people stood between the elevators, waiting for a car to arrive.

Aslan stepped around the elevator shaft at the other end of the foyer and beckoned.

Quinn ran, skidding between people, which made them glance at her with startled expressions. Their attention had been on the fuss outside the building. Now they had noticed her.

Aslan was already running. Quinn caught up with him and he picked up speed. He turned right and then left, and the corridor narrowed down to a service shaft running toward the back of the building. There was a door at the end which he shoved open and let her through.

“Take off your coat,” he told her. “And your hat.”

As they ran down the concrete-lined passageway, Quinn stripped her coat and hat from her and tucked them over her arm. Aslan did the same. He wore one of his silvery, silky suits beneath, while she had on a simple sweater and jeans. It was warm in the passageway. If they had to go outside, cold would become an issue.

There were many doors coming off the passageway, most of them steel-lined doors with emergency bars. Some of them had small steel reinforced windows in them. Aslan ignored all but one, which he shoved open with his elbow.

It was a fire escape. Instead of heading up, Aslan went down. Quinn almost slid down the steps, trying to maintain her speed.

At the bottom Aslan hit the bar on the door and shoved it open. They ran out into a parking garage filled with cars and the sound of air vents gusting tepid air.

Aslan opened the lid of the dumpster sitting right beside the door. He threw in his coat and waited for her to do the same. Then he dropped the lid with a clang and ran once more.

On the far side of the garage was a sloped ramp up to the street level. They burst out upon the street, which was one over from G Street. Quinn didn’t know Washington well. This street looked far too similar to G Street. The same business buildings, streetlamps, pedestrians and traffic.

Aslan dived across the road without regard for the traffic. A car stamped on its brakes and laid on the horn. He paid no notice.

Quinn glanced at the Mustang, startled. The driver looked right at her.

Vexed, she surged forward, out of the way the Mustang. She chased after Aslan. Now the driver had seen her face.

Aslan slowed to a jog, heading for another professional building. The glass doors opened for him and Quinn caught up with him as they closed behind. Aslan walked fast through the foyer, turning his head. “Ah!” he murmured, sounding satisfied.

He changed direction, heading for a door in the wall of the foyer. It was a glass door and through it, Quinn could see the fixtures and fittings for a café. As they drew closer, she smelled coffee.

They stepped into the coffee shop, which was packed full with a lunchtime crowd. Strolling as if they were another pair of workers looking for lunch, Quinn followed Aslan to the end of the line waiting to be served.

He studied the menu board for a moment, then looked around casually. Quinn kept her gaze on the board. She didn’t know what Aslan was trying to do and looking around wildly would draw suspicion.

It was hard enough to keep herself from panting like a sprinter. She worked on regulating her breath, so she wouldn’t sound as though she had just run away from something.

Aslan looked at his watch and made an impatient sound. “This will take all day,” he said, modulating his voice so even though he didn’t speak loudly, his words would travel. “Let’s go to that soup joint across from the office, instead.”

“I have a meeting at one. That sounds like the good idea,” Quinn said. She spoke as if she was only addressing Aslan, although she didn’t lower her voice.

Aslan turned and moved toward the exit onto the street. There were rows of tables on either side of the entrance, most of them full. As they passed an empty one, Aslan picked up the coat hanging over the back of the chair to save the table. “Don’t forget your coat.” He held it out to her.

“Thanks.” She pushed her arms into the sleeves and pulled the coat around her, as he opened the door and let her through.

They moved back onto the street but didn’t stay on the pavement long. Aslan seemed to have an intimate knowledge of the connections and byways of Washington. They moved into stores and through connecting doors to other stores, into parking garages, then onto different streets. They moved through alleyways and occasionally through building foyers. They pivoted and changed bearings several times. Quinn’s sense of direction was good. She knew they were heading north more often than they were moving in any other direction. Aslan had a destination in mind.

Quinn focused on keeping up with him, which wasn’t easy, for her energy was flagging. Aslan set a murderous pace.

Finally, they turned onto a sidewalk in a street which seemed to have less traffic than the others they had been in. Aslan strolled, rather than striding. He glanced at her, gave her a stiff smile. She saw his gaze move behind her. He was checking for any familiar faces or signs of pursuit.

“Move to my other side,” he told her.

She stepped around him and continued walking on his left. He glanced at her again and scouted the area behind her and on either side. It gave him a three-sixty scan of the street.

He nodded and kept walking.

“We are nearly there?”

“No questions yet.” There was tension in his voice.

Quinn shut up.

He grew wary as they moved farther along the sidewalk. They approached the entrance of a parking garage and Quinn realized why he was wary. The parking garage was their destination.

“If they intend jump us, now is the time to do it,” he murmured.

They walked down the ramp, instead of using the pedestrian door and the stairs. The parking garage was like any other, with 9-to-5ers’ cars sitting in neat rows. There were few spaces left.

Aslan angled over to where the central stairs wound down and up to the other levels. Now they were off the street, he turned and openly scanned in all directions as they move toward the stairs.

Quinn understood why he was so nervous. This place was a bottleneck. If this was their destination, then they could not afford to move away from it. It meant there was no bolt hole if anyone tackled them here.

A squeal of rubber sounded from somewhere above them.

Aslan sighed. “Run!”

He was faster than she thought a man of his size would be. Quinn had trouble keeping up with him and she was a sprinter. Or she had been, once. She almost slid down the stairs. She gripped the steel handrail with a death grip to save himself.

They moved down the stairs to the lower levels as the sound of the squealing tires and gunning engines grew louder.

On the second subbasement level, Aslan stepped off the stairs and moved out between the cars. There was a wider space in front of the stairs, designed to give access to them. Aslan moved to the right, ducked behind the minivan there and slotted himself between the minivan and the Jeep Cherokee on the other side.

He turned to face the driving lane. “Stay behind me.” He reached under his jacket and bought out a handgun, expressed the clip, glanced at the load and shoved the clip back in.

Her heart jumping, Quinn stood behind him as instructed. She was breathing harder than she should have for the amount of exercise she’d got. Walking and jogging used to come effortlessly to her. Being shot in the stomach had stolen all her fitness.

“Stay crouched down low,” he told her without looking at her. He stood with the gun hanging at his side and looked relaxed. Quinn suspected it was an illusion.

She crouched down, her hands on the cars on either side to balance herself.

The squealing tires came closer. The sound of the engines grew louder, drowning out the stressed rubber sounds. It sounded as though more than one car headed their way.

Then she saw the wheels of the car rolling down the ramp on the other side of the garage. Only a single rail separated that level from this one.

Aslan lifted his hand, the gun coming up and holding steady. He didn’t turn to sight the car as it appeared. He kept his gaze on the driving lane where the car would eventually show.

His finger curled around the trigger. “When I tell you to run, you run like hell for the stairs.” His voice was tight but steady and calm. “Go down two more levels. Then wait. Someone will come.”

“And where the fuck will you be?” she demanded. Fright raised her voice.

“I plan to be right behind you,” he said.

Plan.

Tires squealed as the lead car rounded the tight corner at the end of the ramp. It was on their level now.

Quinn held her breath.

Aslan’s hand didn’t waver. The gun remained steady. Then, even before she saw the car between the noses of the minivan and the Jeep, Aslan fired. It was a soft sound. She thought a gun would sound louder.

The hood of the car she could see between the van and the Jeep skewed sideways. Aslan fired again, twice. The black nose of the car plowed into the family sedan parked on the other side of the lane. It came to a stop, the engine running unevenly.

More gun fire. Overhead, the glass in the Jeep smashed. Glass confetti rained over her head. Quinn covered her head with her hand and closed her eyes. Then she realized she couldn’t see what was going on. She opened them again and tried to peer out from under her elbows, as the glass pattered over her.

Aslan was not firing a rapid rain of bullets the way she thought someone might when faced with an overwhelming number of enemies. He waited, even while bullets whined and dinged the sides of the cars they were standing beside. One of the Jeep tires blew out. The Jeep sagged to the side.

Shouts sounded. Quinn couldn’t see anyone from here. Aslan stood behind the Jeep and fired over it. He had a clear view of what was happening. She realized that by shooting out the lead car and causing it to crash, he had blocked all the other cars from coming any farther down the ramp.

Wouldn’t the men in the cars all get out and pursue on foot? It was what she would do. Only, they had to face Aslan and his gun.

“Ready?” He asked it calmly.

“Yes.”

“Stay down low. And…” He didn’t blink as he gazed over the top of the Jeep. He seemed to be waiting. Then he fired off three shots, correcting his aim each time. Quinn heard someone cry out. “Go!”

Quinn pushed herself up with her hands on the car and remembered to bend and keep low, as she scrambled for the stairs. She almost flew down the stairs, skipping every second one and hauling herself forward with both hands on the rails. At the bottom, she turned to fly down the next set and paused.

Aslan was not behind her. She looked up the stairs, her heart screaming. Aslan stood at the top, still facing to the right where the men would come from. He fired off another careful shot as she looked.

“Come on!” she shouted.

Aslan fired one more shot, then turned and hurried down the stairs. Unlike her he took every step. Then she saw why he was being so cautious. He gripped the rail with white knuckles, which spread the front of his jacket. The shirt beneath was bright red with blood.

“Go! Go on!” He said it irritably. He turned and fired up the stairs, then reached inside his bloody jacket and pulled out another clip. He dropped the empty clip and tried to catch it but missed. Quinn lurched forward and picked it out of midair and slipped it into the pocket of her stolen coat.

He nodded at her and shoved the new clip in. He cocked the gun and jerked his head toward the down steps. “Go on.”

Quinn crept down the stairs. Deep reluctance pulled at her. As Aslan backed down the stairs, his gun up and ready to fire, she took the stairs in front of him, only a step or two in front.

Feet appeared at the top of the steps and Aslan fired. He jerked and his shoulder shifted backward. He hissed.

Quinn gritted her teeth. He had taken another bullet.

She rounded the stairs and started down the next set. Then she glanced back to see if Aslan was still with her. He was still on his feet. He shuffled, one hand gripping the rail.

This flight of stairs was the last. There was only gray concrete beyond, scored by millions of tires. Quinn turned around at the bottom and looked up. Aslan was backing down. Covering her rear.

A new engine sounded, this one coming from her left.

Quinn caught her breath. Were they trapped in a pincer movement? She looked up at Aslan. “Another car!”

Aslan nodded. For the first time, the gun wavered and her heart halted. He was growing weak.

She looked to her left, where the car was coming from. The lane turned sharply and disappeared behind a concrete wall. The car was coming from the other side of that corner. She wouldn’t see it until it was right on them.

Aslan lifted the gun again and fired. Quinn heard a choked cry, then a man tumbled down the steps past Aslan, to fall at her feet. His eyes were open and didn’t move.

Quinn slapped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t dare say anything, because she suspected that if she spoke it all, what would emerge would be hysterical. Her heart was thudding in her temple and beating in her brain.

Aslan walked down the steps then turned to look up them once more. He was breathing hard. The hand which held the gun was coated in blood.

Despite that, he stood straight.

The approaching car skidded around the corner, the inner wheels almost lifting from the ground as the g-force of the tight turn made itself felt.

It was a charcoal gray Ford sedan, identical to thousands on the road. The best thing about it, though, was Noah behind the wheel.

Quinn gave out a shuddering gasp. She tugged on Aslan’s sleeve. “Hurry!” she shouted, as the Ford came to a sharp stop right beside them. She pulled Aslan over to the Ford and fumbled the back door handle and yanked it open. Aslan dropped onto the seat and she slammed the door, then ran around to the passenger side and got in.

“Go! Go!” she yelled at Noah, as she slammed the door shut.

“Put your seatbelt on,” Noah told her, his voice as calm as Aslan’s. He put the car into gear.

Quinn felt her jaw drop open. There was no time to argue. She snatched up the buckle, drew the belt over and clipped it closed. She looked up and saw that the only thing ahead of them was a solid concrete wall.

Noah gunned the engine. She squeezed the seatbelt, her heart trying to climb out through her mouth.

He dropped the clutch. The car lurched backward with a squeal of tires. At the corner, he wrenched the wheel. The car did a neat flip, so it was facing forward.

He threw it into first and trounced on the gas. The car shot forward into yet another parking garage which had been connected to this one, far down on the bottom layers. A short, sharp ramp climbed to the other garage floor level. The Ford bounced as it lurched over the top of the ramp, the suspension compensating wildly.

Noah glanced in the rear vision mirror. “Elijah?”

“He was shot at least twice,” Quinn said.

Noah nodded. “There’s nothing we can do about it until we get back to the plane. Mitchell bought all his gear.”

“Is that where we are going?”

“The jet, then back to Austria. We have to get you out of country.”

Quinn’s heart sank. She was wearing a black wig, but too many people had seen her face.

The truth clarified in her mind. She was a federal fugitive.

[15]
Sometime later

Ren finished going through the pocket of the expensive winter overcoat lying on the table. She straightened and put the small tube of lip gloss in front of Dima. “She doesn’t have the cellphone on her, either. It’s still pinging from Austria.”

“Now we can’t track her,” Dima concluded.

“Question is, did she ditch the coat deliberately?” Scott said. His tone was dry.

Dino pointed at the black merino wool overcoat lying beside the green coat which Quinn had been wearing. “Aslan got rid of his, too. They were changing their appearance so they could get away.”

“And it worked.” Scott shook his head. “They ran to a new subdivision out on the north of the city. The jet used the road as a runway. It took off and stayed below the radar until it was in international waters. Then it climbed to cruising height and altered direction. Before they fell off our radar, their heading was on a nice steady line for Europe. Although they only have to shift direction by a couple of degrees to head for North Africa and refuel there before sliding into Austria. Even Gibraltar won’t ask too many questions.”

“If they are even heading for Austria,” Leela said. She looked just as unhappy as everyone else. Leela genuinely liked Quinn. Now Quinn’s motives were in question, Leela was also questioning their friendship.

“Did Quinn take the fob?” Dima asked. She looked at Leander.

Leander sighed. “Yes.”

Dima sank on to the cheap vinyl kitchen chair sitting beside the table. It was a nasty hotel near the airport but they wouldn’t be staying long. As soon as they knew where the jet landed, they would head there themselves.

Her group stood about the table, watching her. There were looking to her for the next direction.

“Run the tape again, please,” she said. Something about the clip bothered her. There hadn’t been time to sit and analyze it. Perhaps she needed to do that now.

Lochan turned the laptop around, leaned over it and pressed the space bar. The video had been cued. It played silently, for it was security footage from the camera across the road from where Hague had been fleeced.

Dima watched as Quinn strolled along the street, as Hague got out of her car and headed for the building. Quinn looked like any other shopper. The black hair was startling, although it was definitely her. Same height, same high cheekbones. Same direct way of looking at the world.

Besides, they had listened to Quinn accept Aslan’s test as a way of proving herself trustworthy. Dima has set her up for that. She had told Quinn to find a way to make Aslan trust her. Quinn had taken the obvious route.

Dima was glad they had reached out to Hague before the incident and arranged for her fob to be harmless.

She watched the screen as the guard raised his gun and pointed it at Quinn. Quinn turned and raised her fingers to the middle of her chest, her eyes opening wide. The picture of innocence.

“Please stop there,” Dima said.

Lochan tapped, freezing the video.

Dima frowned at it. “Did any of you see her lift the fob?”

Scott shook his head. “She’s damn slick. I didn’t spot it. And I’ve watched the clip six times now.”

“We know she took the fob and despite knowing, we still can’t detect it.” Dima looked at everyone. “So how did the guard know?”

Silence.

“Linear logic says he didn’t see it,” Leander said. “He couldn’t have. He was facing the opposite direction, looking at the gunman. Then he shoved Hague into the car. He never looked at Quinn until he shouted at her to stop.”

“He knew she would do it before she did,” Scott said.

Dima nodded, unhappiness settling even deeper into her bones.

“So who was the guard working for?” Agata asked. “Did Hague clue her guards in?”

Scott shook his head. “This whole thing was classified. None of her detail are cleared. She would’ve been breaking laws if she told them.”

“If she didn’t tell the guard, who did?” Agata asked.

“The million-dollar question,” Scott said. “We didn’t, and it’s a fair bet Hague didn’t. It leaves a short list of people who knew this would happen.”

Leela took off her glasses and rubbed her nose where they rested. “I don’t like the look on your face, boss.”

Dima sighed. “I don’t like the look on my face either. When Quinn figures the guard already knew and outed her deliberately—and she will figure it out sooner or later—she will draw the same conclusions as we. Either it was Aslan’s people or us who set her up.”

Scott tapped his fingernail against the lip gloss. “Maybe she has figured it out already. Maybe that’s why she tossed the trackers. Maybe she has figured it out the wrong way.”

“And maybe she got rid of the trackers, because Aslan’s lifestyle was irresistible,” Leander said.

“That is why I do not like the look on my face,” Dima said with a sigh.

Unlike Quinn, when she had been shot, Aslan remained awake while Mitchell swore at him for not ducking properly, as he dug the bullets out. Toni acted as a scrub nurse, while Johnson sat with a laptop and plugged into news feeds and other sources of information, to assess the damage.

When Aslan was resting on a stretched-out lounge chair, Mitchell dressed a small scrape Quinn had received from falling glass, handed her a Tylenol and patted her shoulder.

Quinn took the Tylenol, then got to her feet and moved over to Aslan’s lounge chair. She dug in her jeans pocket and pulled out the electronic fob. It had a digital readout on the side, which showed a different collection of numbers and letters every time she looked at it. She held the fob out to Aslan. “For what it’s worth, here you go. Although by now, they will have changed her security settings. This is useless. Just as I warned you it would be.”

Aslan took the fob and put it on the table beside his chair. “Actually, it has already served me well.” He considered her. His eyes were pain-filled, although he was as alert as always. His judgment did not seem to be impaired. “Don’t worry, Quinn. We will take care of you now.”

She pushed her hands into her jeans pocket and hunched her shoulders. “I don’t understand what went wrong. No one should have seen me lift it. It was a perfect score.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Aslan replied. “Get some sleep, Quinn. We will be busy when we land.”

She wanted to ask where they would land but didn’t have the energy for it. It wasn’t simply physical exhaustion. She was tired of the games. She was tired of the lies.

Quinn moved forward to the cramped bathroom at the front of the jet, just behind the cockpit. Similar to commercial jets, this plane’s facilities were designed for pygmies. Only, it had a door which closed, which let her be alone for a few short, blissful moments.

Quinn stared in the mirror at her scratched face and her eyes, which were larger than she remembered them being. She looked as if she was stunned. It wasn’t inaccurate.

She was now an international fugitive. She had no way to reach out to Dima. She couldn’t even explain why she had done what she did. Dima and her crew would have watched Quinn inexplicably help Aslan and his people.

The only thing which might redeem her would be to learn about Aslan’s connection to Kobra. She would have to go down the pipe, become one of his people and earn his trust, dig for the truth and find a way to give that information to Dima.

She was on her own.

A tap sounded on the bifold door. It was soft, designed to capture her attention and no one else’s.

Quinn squeezed herself back and opened the door a few inches to peer out. Another bathroom was at the back of the jet. It wasn’t as though someone was impatiently waiting for her to finish so they could use this one. There was only six people on the jet.

Noah leaned so he could see her through the two-inch space between the door and the frame.

“Who is flying the damn plane?” Quinn hissed.

“Autopilot,” he said. “We’re in the middle of the Atlantic, three hundred miles from any commercial traffic lane. I will take a nap after I finish talking to you.”

“That’s exactly what you want to hear the pilot of the plane say,” Quinn whispered back. “What is it you wanted to tell me?”

He lifted his hand so she saw it through the open space. A white pill lay on his big palm.

“I’ve already had a Tylenol,” Quinn said.

“This is something different. Mitchell is only a medic. He can’t risk pushing pills because he doesn’t know the chemistry.” Noah’s gaze was steady. “You’ve had a rough few hours and a lot on your mind. When we land, you will have to hit the ground running. Everyone else here is used to the pace. They are used to people chasing them and always keeping their heads turned away from security cameras. You will have a headache for weeks yet, from keeping it all in the forefront of your mind. Take the pill. It will knock you out and let you sleep. It will be the last peaceful few hours you will get.”

Weeks of it. Quinn felt her stomach churn uneasily. “Am I going to be hooked on painkillers or something after this?”

His one eye rolled. “Take the damn pill, Quinn.”

Quinn reached out and plucked the tablet of his palm.

“Last time I will be nice to you,” he muttered.

“That was nice? Telling me to take a pill because I’m gonna hate myself for weeks?”

“Talk to me in six weeks about this. I guarantee you will feel differently.”

He would’ve closed the door, only Quinn got her fingers up against the edge and hold it open a bare half inch. They had already been keeping their voices down, for reasons Quinn didn’t quite understand. Now she dropped her voice even lower. “Did this happen to you?”

He closed the door without answering her.

Quinn turned back to the basin, pulled a paper cup from the tube attached to the mirror, and poured water. She considered the tablet. It was plain, with no brands stamped into it. It wasn’t a capsule.

Could she take a tablet given to her by a relative stranger? Only, people did it all the time. They took tablets handed to them by nurses they didn’t know, prescribed by doctors they only knew by the name stitched on a white coat pocket.

She remembered the pat on her shoulder Mitchell had given her as he packed up his medical kit. Even Toni’s sarcasm was muted. She had contained herself to a simple observation about the poor quality of the coat which Quinn had stolen. “You couldn’t have found an Armani while you were stealing outerwear?”

Aslan had taken bullets in his shoulder to get her out of the boiling pot.

And now Noah showed an empathetic streak, predicting what her life would be like for the next few weeks. Even though she didn’t like the prediction, was it a reason to distrust the messenger?

She took the tablet and told herself she could trust the man that much and no more. It was as much as she could trust any of them.

It would be a long few weeks. Or perhaps even longer.

How long did it take to uncover a Russian spymaster?

[16]
Monday, December 9th

If there was a heart and soul of music, Vienna would be it—at least in Quinn’s mind. She fought to stop the rush of sentimentality from overwhelming her as they passed the Vienna Opera House.

She had been in Vienna only three days and already had been inside the opera house on two occasions. She had not wasted her time here. Even so, to see the opera house was to remind her of all that was good about this city. The opera house symbolized the glorious music history of Vienna.

Denis had always refused to consider going back to Vienna, not even for a short visit so she could tour and touch icons such as the opera house. There was so much music history in this one city, she could live here for months, explore daily and still not experience all of it.

When she could no longer see the opera house, not even with her chin to her shoulder and her eyes straining to see the silhouette from the corner of her vision, Quinn sat back on the seat with a sigh.

Aslan, who sat on the other side of the back seat, said, “You look just as Denis did, every time he passed that building.”

“It isn’t a building,” she said. “It is the Vienna Opera House.”

Mitchell, who was in the far back seat, chuckled. “I can hear the capital letters when she says it.”

Quinn would have ignored him, except that was what old Quinn would have done. “Just as I can hear capital letters in your voice, when you talk about that pathetic football team of yours.”

“You’re calling the Giants pathetic?” Mitchell sounded wounded.

“And what was the last year they won the grand final?” Aslan asked.

“2012, and it is the Super Bowl, not a grand final. And that is beside the point.”

Quinn smiled. It was easy to rattle Mitchell.

Aslan touched her shoulder and pointed through the two front seats. “The Danube.”

The river was not blue, except in her imagination. Quinn leaned to look through the seats at the twinkling river. The road they were on was multilaned and busy. It passed over the river on a low bridge which propped itself up on an island in the middle of the very wide river.

Noah, who was at the wheel, eased the exotic SUV out of the lanes of traffic and on to an exit lane. The ramp declined and Quinn saw the bridge from the side, before the surrounding buildings hid the bridge from view.

They were among long, low buildings which made her think of warehouses and factories. It was a more industrial aspect of Vienna which took away some of the romance.

Her heart gave one of the little scurries of fright which it suffered through several times daily, whenever she remembered why she was here. It was a constant background pressure in her mind. Most of the time she ignored it. When she had been sixteen and told her life was essentially over and she must start a new one, she remembered facing the same daily pressure to remember who she really was.

They had been in Vienna for three days. Aslan owned a residence in the Meidling district of Vienna, which was southwest of the city center. The current Chancellor of Austria also lived on the same road in Meidling and was on a first name basis with Aslan. Quinn knew that, because she had seen them talking out on the pavement in front of the building which Quinn had first thought was an apartment building. That was before she learned the entire building was Aslan’s private residence.

Aslan had many residences around the world. The house in Vienna and the estate in Innsbruck were his two permanent residences. He split his time between them, in between traveling the world to arrange business deals.

Business was the reason they were in the car, traveling to the warehouse district along the banks of the Danube. At dinner last night, Aslan had announced he would go into the office tomorrow. He suggested Quinn go with him, to see the warehouse and the factory, for something to do.

Quinn’s middle froze, for she understood what the invitation meant. So did everyone else. Silence fell upon the table. There were seven people dining that night. As Quinn had learned, while Aslan was in Vienna, it was business season. He seemed to conduct much of his business from the dark paneled office in the house on Haydngasse, with people coming and going at all hours of the day.

For the same reason, it was not unusual to find strangers sitting at the dinner table. Mitchell, Toni, and Noah were fixtures. They lived in the house. The Englishman, Johnson, who was a trusted lieutenant, was frequently at the table. There were other men—and they were all men—who sometimes joined Aslan for dinner. They would sit in the first empty chair along the long table sited beside the tall windows.

Despite taking two bullets in the shoulder, Aslan had not slowed down at all. Once they had arrived in Vienna, he disappeared. Toni, who acted as a chief of staff when needed, showed Quinn to a bedroom suite and suggested she make herself at home.

Because the old Quinn would have worked to leave as little a mark as possible upon her borrowed surroundings, Quinn took Toni at her word and made herself comfortable.

The day after they arrived in Vienna, Quinn asked Toni how she might go about arranging supplies for herself which she needed. Toni nodded as she thumbed something on a cellphone.

An hour later, Toni found Quinn in the large common room with its twenty-foot ceilings and dropped a credit card on the table in front of her. “Knock yourself out.”

Quinn picked up the card. “I should just go shopping? You don’t want to escort me to make sure I don’t get into mischief?”

Toni snorted. “You can run away if you want. Where would you go to? Every intelligence and security authority in the United States is looking for you. Every security force in the Western world has been primed by the States to watch for you. The Austrian authorities already know who you are. As long as you don’t misbehave while on Austrian soil, they will let you be because you’re living in this house.”

“Aslan has friends in high places, here,” Quinn surmised. She remembered the man she had seen Aslan talking to out on the pavement. It had been a shock to her to see the man on television that night, with the Chancellor title underneath his name.

Toni nodded. “So go ahead, run away. If you do, you’re more of a fool than I thought you were.”

Quinn went shopping. The old Quinn would have bought the bare essentials to keep herself looking tidy and acceptable. Quinn fought the inclination. Using the German phrase book she had found on her bedside table, Quinn asked the taxi driver to take her to the most exclusive shopping area in the city. The Goldenes Quartier was host to international brands Quinn recognized but had never patronized. As a simple music librarian, Louis Vuitton, Armani, Prada and St. Laurent were far beyond her budget.

Feeling more nervous than she had been facing Diana Hague and her gun toting security staff, Quinn made herself step inside Armani and browse the store.

One of the staff spoke excellent English. Maria seemed to sense what Quinn wanted. Two hours later, Quinn stepped out of the store with shopping bags over her arm and a complete change of clothes, including a new, warm coat.

Dressed in a way which seemed to fit Aslan’s luxurious house, Quinn felt braver about stepping into other stores. The Swarovski store was the first to suggest they take her bags from her and have them sent back to the house. After that, Quinn asked for all her purchases to be sent to the house, copying the address from the slip of the paper Toni had given her.

She stopped at a café and ordered coffee. Then, with a disjointed English and German conversation, where her phrase book became more well-thumbed, Quinn ordered a lunch to go with the coffee.

While she sat there eating her solitary lunch, Quinn looked around and absorbed the fact that she was actually in Vienna. If Toni wanted to let her loose with a credit card, then Quinn should take advantage of this unique opportunity.

Quinn found another taxi and asked the driver to take her to the Opera House. She strolled into the box office and asked what the night’s performance would be. Not that it made any difference. Whatever was on the schedule, she didn’t care.

It was an evening of Mozart. Because it was a single ticket she wanted, one was found. Better still, it was in the stalls.

Quinn tucked the ticket into her new wallet then asked the lady behind the counter where she might go to have her hair attended. The woman’s gaze flickered over Quinn, then she wrote in a name and address on another slip of paper. She smiled as she handed it over. “Enjoy,” she said, in her thick accent.

Quinn glanced at her watch, calculated times and decided she had enough. Just. She found another taxi and presented herself at the salon. It was in the same area as the Goldenes Quartier. Ninety minutes later, Quinn went shopping again, this time for something to wear to the Opera House for the evening.

Purchases in hand, because she did not want to wait for delivery, Quinn found another taxi to take her back to Aslan’s house. It was as she hailed a taxi that she saw the man across the street, watching her. She knew his face. He was one of the men who had often wandered around the house at Innsbruck.

He was watching her now.

As she settled in the taxi, Quinn reasoned it out to herself. They may have given her a credit card and told her to indulge himself but it didn’t mean they fully trusted her. Not yet. Under the circumstances, she would have done the same. She would’ve wanted to keep an eye on her, too.

Quinn did her best to dismiss the tension and squeeze in her gut. She went straight upstairs and prepared for her evening. Her heart fluttered a little as she got dressed. She was actually going to the Opera House!

When she walked down the wide, white marble and wrought iron staircase to the main floor, she found Aslan sitting on one of the low, comfortable sofas. He had a whiskey glass in his hand.

He looked up and raised his brow. “You are going somewhere?”

Quinn smoothed down her silk skirt. “An evening of Mozart at the Opera House,” she said.

Aslan considered it. “Enterprising of you,” he said. “Denis said tickets were impossible to get unless one bought them months before the event.”

“Usually that is the case. The lady at the counter was nice. Single tickets are easier to find, too.” Quinn shook her head. “I couldn’t wait. This is Vienna!”

Aslan’s smile was small. “Perhaps we should arrange for pairs of tickets in the future. It can’t be as enjoyable if you do not have someone to share it with.” He got to his feet and pulled out a cellphone. He thumbed the text. “Take the car. It will be easier than fighting to find a taxi, later. Faber can drive you there.”

It was a magical evening, although in one respect Aslan was right. It would’ve been better if she could have shared it with someone. It would’ve been better if Denis had been there.

The next morning, she ate a late breakfast in her room. The bedroom suite was large enough that a small, round table and four chairs could sit at the sunny window and not be in the way. There was also a desk, the bed, a walk-in closet which looked pathetically empty with her few garments hanging in it, and an en suite with a walk-in shower almost as large as her entire bathroom in Boston. It featured marble tiles and gold fittings.

Everywhere through the house was decorative molding and pristine white paint. Silk damask drapes hung from the ceiling to sweep the floor, making the tall windows look even taller.

Thick white rugs kept feet warm and must have been cleaned daily, because there was never any dirt on them.

While she ate breakfast the first morning, Quinn built herself a shopping list of “necessities” she must buy if she was to sink into this Sybaritic lifestyle. She didn’t ask for anyone’s permission, after that day. They watched her. They would soon tell her if she strayed outside invisible boundaries.

She bought herself a new laptop and a music system for her room. She also bought a handheld device which would help her learn German, and help German speakers understand her. It became invaluable as she navigated her way around Vienna. It also came with Google Maps built in, which was a blessing.

Each day she would lunch at the same café. The staff taught her local idioms and corrected her German. She was painfully slow at first. By the third day, she could string together sentences which made sense to them.

With her new laptop, she built a list of things she wanted to do in Vienna. She included visiting the Haus der Musik museum, the cemetery where Beethoven was buried, and a dozen different houses where famous composers had once lived. Because it was the Christmas season, some music-related attractions around the city were closed. Even so, there was still a long list of events and places to go. The list did not include the live performances which were nightly events, here. They were on a separate, much longer list.

There were outdoor concerts during the day. For those, Quinn arranged with the kitchen staff to supply her with tea in a flask and the cup to drink it from and dressed warmly.

The four days since she had arrived in Vienna had been busy and full of music. Despite her circumstances, Quinn enjoyed herself. This was a lifetime ambition—a bucket list item.

She tried to ignore that everywhere she went, she often spotted a familiar face in the distance. More than once, it was Noah. He did not acknowledge her, and she turned her back on him.

At dinner on the third night, Aslan made his proposal that Quinn accompany him to the warehouse the next day, to familiarize herself with just one aspect of his business.

The electrifying silence which followed told Quinn this was a big deal. She already knew it in her gut and from the wild beating of her heart. Everyone’s stiffness and silence and the underlying shock confirmed it.

Quinn reached for her wineglass to give herself something to do, as she composed an answer for Aslan. “Is it something you want me to do? Become familiar with your business?”

Aslan didn’t seem to notice the stiffness and silence. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and put it on the table. “You are looking for answers about Denis. So am I. If you want to understand what happened, then you must know this side of my affairs, too.”

“I do want answers,” Quinn said. It was the truth.

“Good. Then I will give you a tour of the warehouse tomorrow.”

Quinn glanced at the others as they returned to their meal—all but Toni.

Toni scowled as she shoved her half-eaten plate away and reached for the glass of vodka she always drank instead of wine. At least one person didn’t agree with Aslan’s plan to bring her inside. Who else disagreed with Aslan?

This morning, Quinn got up early and joined the household in the small dining room used for breakfast. Everyone spoke as easily as usual. Mitchell beat his chest over how badly the Giants had lost, last night. None of the tension from the supper table lingered. Toni was as sarcastic as usual, but not surly.

Quinn was growing familiar with the layout of the major roads in Vienna. She had a good sense of direction and had been studying maps for three days. This was the first time she had come close to the river. The Blue Danube. Just thinking of the famous piece of music made her smile, as the car pulled up in front of a long, low building. Quinn might have mistaken the building as an office block, had it been in America. Ordinary fixed, rolled glass windows covered the front.

“This is the warehouse?”

“The warehouse is behind. This is the administration block which runs the warehouse and the factory.” Aslan waved her toward the front door. “Come in and have a look.”

The interior of the building was the same as millions of offices the world over. There were cubicles, telephones, computers and printers. People rushed about looking frazzled or were hunched over their screen. The only difference was that everyone spoke German.

As Aslan and his group passed through the main office, people sat up and looked even more busy. He had been recognized.

The office manager held up both hands as he hurried over to Aslan, then shook his hand, babbling German. Quinn recognized a few words, enough to sense the manager was welcoming Aslan despite the lack of notice, and that his time was at Aslan’s disposal.

Not that the manager could afford to say anything else.

Aslan spoke, his German slower and underpinned with the rich cadences which a British education imparted. He waved toward Quinn and switched to English. “May I present Ms. Quinn Sawyer.” He motioned at the manager. “Herr Luka Franz,” Aslan added.

“Herr Franz,” Quinn repeated.

“Please, Luka. I am pleased to.” His English was stilted, although his good intentions were clear in his smiling eyes. Quinn wondered if he knew the shadowy side of Aslan’s business. This office building seemed to be legitimate.

Franz and a secretary escorted Aslan and his group through the building. Everyone looked bored. Quinn realized this tour was for her benefit. She saw conference rooms, offices and all the usual amenities of business, including a cafeteria lunch room which served organic food and daily supplements for the staff.

“This is not your only office, is it?” Quinn asked Aslan as they passed through a corridor lined with glass-walled offices, allowing them to see the workers inside.

“There are a few others here and there,” Aslan said indifferently.

“What is your business?” she asked. “This building could be the administration center for any business at all. I couldn’t read the signs on the outside of the building.”

Aslan halted in the middle of the passage and turned to face her. “I have a finger in many pies.”

“Okay, then,” Quinn said. “What is your primary business?” She lifted a finger to point at the ceiling. “What does this office control?”

“About three hundred million in imports and exports,” Toni said. “Euros, of course.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. Toni’s snark was wasted, this time. Euros and US dollars were almost on a par with each other. Three hundred million was three hundred million. “That wasn’t what I asked,” Quinn said. “What is it you do? What do you import and export? Or is it just a euphemism for some other form of business?”

Aslan’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you ask that?”

Quinn rolled her eyes, deliberately imitating Toni. “Import and export? That has to be the world’s corniest cliché. Either you really are importing and exporting, or you are a world-class criminal.”

The tense silence which had gripped the dinner table last night fell again. Even the manager, Franz, who had trouble following rapid English, seemed to sense that wariness was required. He watched Aslan.

Noah laughed. He smothered the soft sound with his hand. His eyes danced over the top of his hand.

Aslan pulled his mouth into a grimace.

Noah shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it is funny.”

Aslan’s tight expression moved into a smile. He relaxed. “Let me show you the factory,” he told Quinn.

A covered walkway stretched between the office building and the factory itself, connecting the two upper floors. The factory looked like a warehouse. It had solid concrete walls and no windows yet soared to the height of three stories. The flat roof held a small mountain’s worth of air conditioning and environmental units, smokestacks and air scrubbers, and much more. The equipment on the roof hummed, audible even inside the glassed-in corridor. It implied there was a great deal of activity inside the blank wall.

The manager, Franz, did not accompany them into the warehouse. It seemed his responsibilities ended at the walls of the administration block.

Quinn sensed the difference in the atmosphere as soon as they stepped into the warehouse. The air was cool, but not cold. A small foyer with two chairs had signs on the wall in German and English, telling visitors to pick up the phone and dial zero to announce their arrival, then wait.

Three wide corridors ran off the foyer, their linoleum flooring gleaming with care and polish.

“I thought warehouses were big rooms with forklifts and crates,” Quinn said.

Aslan nodded at the corridor running off to the left. “There is a big room with many forklifts and thousands of crates, down there. Come this way first. You asked what business I was in. Come and see.”

He moved down the center corridor and Quinn followed. The walls along the corridor were glass from waist height to the roof. The glass was solid, at least an inch thick. She suspected it was bulletproof.

Curiously, she looked through the windows. Her steps slowed, as the industry on the other side of the glass caught her attention.

It was one huge room on that side of the glass, and it was as far from a warehouse or factory as anything could get.

The first impression to strike Quinn was that she was looking at a science-fiction setting. The floor was pristine white and everyone wore white, including white paper slippers over their shoes. There were benches with esoteric equipment for which she couldn’t guess the function. More counters held stacks of glassware, including trays of test tubes, beakers, cups, pipettes and big jars of different colored liquids.

Chemicals. Most of them had large labels with fine writing. All the labels had symbols on them she recognized as warning signs of caustic and toxic substances.

Big banks of computer equipment took up the far corners. Shelves of supplies stretched between them and in the middle sat a desk with a laptop and the remains of someone’s lunch. Behind the laptop was a toy poodle with a bobble head.

The human touch was almost a shock.

“Chemicals,” Quinn breathed.

“That is the business I am in,” Aslan said. “I have an advanced degree in chemistry and have been working in this field my entire life.”

“Chemicals make you rich?”

Aslan did not take offense at the question, as he had the last. Noah had deflected him into a better frame of mind. “The right chemical, sold to the right people, can make anyone rich.” Aslan reached out and picked up the interpreter device in her hand. “Everything needs chemicals. There is chemical etching on the titanium chip which runs this device. The casing is made of plastic, formed in a factory just like this one. The protective film on the screen was developed in a laboratory run by men wearing coats just like those people in there.” He nodded his head toward the white lab coated technicians behind the glass.

“Most of the clothes you wear are made of textiles created in a chemical bath. Anything man-made began life in a chemistry lab like this one. So yes, chemicals made me rich. And I am at the start of the food chain. People buy what I make and make even more money.”

Quinn frowned. “Start of the food chain?”

“I supply the base chemicals which other chemistry labs use to create the end products.”

“Ultrasuede,” Noah said. It sounded as if he was prompting Aslan.

Aslan nodded. He reached out and fingered the coat Quinn was wearing. It was faux suede and felt luxuriously soft against her fingers. It was the warmest coat she had ever owned.

“This material began life as a thermoplastic set polyethylene terephthalate,” Aslan said.

“And polybutyrate,” Noah added.

Quinn blinked.

Aslan gave her a small smile. “I always forget about the polybutyrate, because that is not a chemical I manufacture. The PET is one of our biggest sellers, though.”

“I thought PET is what pop bottles are made of,” Quinn said.

“They are. So is most of the clothing you’re wearing right now.” The corner of Aslan’s mouth turned up in a small smile. “I would say everything, only you might be wearing silk lingerie, which, unfortunately, is not a part of my business model.”

“If he could figure out how to make silkworms produce on demand, it would be, though,” Mitchell said. He was grinning.

Quinn shook her head, overwhelmed. “I had no idea…” She peered into the laboratory once more.

“Come and see what happens to the chemicals once I have produced them,” Aslan said. He moved down the corridor, which ended at a large glass window. Quinn could see the sky beyond it.

She walked down the corridor behind him, the others following. The laboratory and the windows ran to the entire length of the corridor. There were doors along the length of the corridor, all of them leading into tiny glass cubicles with more doors on the other side. She realized they were airlocks, designed for security and safety.

Now she understood why so much equipment was on the roof of the building.

As they walked, Noah said softly, “Germany is the biggest producer of chemicals in the world. Second behind it is the United States. The world market for basic chemicals increases every year.”

The window at the end of the corridor had been designed to provide a viewpoint. It stretched from the roof to the floor and across the width of the corridor. It was a spectacular view. They stood on the second floor of the building, looking out over the Danube.

Below them, and spread as far as she could see along both banks of the river, were piers and docks. Massive container ships were tied up at most of the piers. Gantries and cranes lifted containers onto the ships or removed them.

“The Danube is the second longest river in Europe,” Aslan said. “It runs through ten countries, including Germany. Those ships you see travel the world, distributing containers. From here, I can supply chemicals to anyone who wants them.” He pressed the side of his fist against the glass and leaned on it, peering down. “A staggering number of people want them.”

Mitchell stepped to one side and waved Quinn toward the window, where he had been standing. “Take a look.”

Quinn stepped up beside Aslan and looked down at the foot of the building. A container was being filled with plastic barrels which looked like oil drums, only they were white. They had seals and warning stickers plastered all over them. The forklift carrying the pallets of drums into the container was massive.

“There is your forklift,” Aslan told her.

She gave him a rueful smile.

“The floor beneath us is all one large warehouse,” he added. “It runs twenty-four hours a day.”

“And this is just one of your warehouses,” Quinn murmured. “Among a few others here and there,” she added, deliberately repeating his words.

His smile was small.

“Why Austria?” she asked.

Aslan looked at her. He raised his brow, his green eyes puzzled.

“If Germany is the biggest producer of chemicals and the United States is the second biggest producer, then I would have expected you to set up shop in the United States or Germany. Only you’re here in Austria. I wondered why.”

“I had a factory in Texas, once,” he said. “The United States did not work out for me.”

One hundred and twenty people dead. The statistic came to Quinn. She could hear Dima speaking the number. Quinn should have felt the revulsion she had experienced the first time Dima had told her how a chemical factory had mysteriously exploded and killed so many people. Only, for days now, Quinn’s gut had been clenched and her heart elevated, as she juggled lies and tried to remember who knew what about her, while judging what she could say and not give herself away.

Noah had been right about the tension—just not in the way he thought. She had forgotten this low-grade chronic terror which drove everything she said and did. It reminded her constantly to watch what she said, to remember how much she knew and how much everyone else thought she knew. She did not have the headache Noah had promised. Because she was permanently braced, though, the reminder of Aslan’s dark side did not make her or react.

She met his gaze steadily. “Do they not like you in Germany, either?”

Aslan dropped his fist from the glass and glanced at his watch. “It’s time for lunch.”

[17]
Lunch.

Quinn should have expected that lunch would not be a standard meal, not with Aslan directing it. Everyone went back to the big SUV and piled in. Noah circled back in the direction they had come from. This time he turned right on to Lassallestrabe and headed northeast. It took them over the Danube, and Quinn got to appreciate how wide the river was. It was easy to appreciate it was the second largest river in Europe.

Noah exited off the busy freeway as soon as they crossed the river. He wound through minor roads then turned into a parking lot beside the river. Tied up at a low dock was a riverboat with glassed-in decks. The size and shape made Quinn think of paddle steamers, only it didn’t have the big wheel on the side.

People walked up the sloping gangplank in small groups, talking to each other. Through the windows, which twinkled in the mid-winter light, she could see tables with white tablecloths and silverware. It was a floating restaurant. Possibly a cruising restaurant. The ropes which held the boat to the jetty did not look permanent.

Quinn had taken the time to dress well this morning, not because she had anticipated anything like this, but simply because she could. She had time to spare to take pains with the details of her clothing and hair and makeup. It was not something she had ever done before. In keeping with her determination to not behave like the old Quinn, she fussed over her appearance.

Now she was glad she had done so. It occurred to her that Toni was always well presented, even if she favored trousers and leather. While neither Noah nor Mitchell wore suits as Aslan did, they also were well-dressed at all times.

It was as if everyone was prepared for anything. If Aslan was often this spontaneous then they would need to be. Quinn suspected Aslan would not put up with employees who wore jeans and sneakers. Even the men on the estate in Innsbruck wore more formal jackets and dress trousers, not casual pants and jeans.

Aslan, of course, always wore fashionable business attire. Quinn knew nothing about couture, although she could tell from the gleam of the fabric in his suits that they were expensive. She guessed they were also tailored for they fit perfectly, without a wrinkle or bulge.

Aslan’s group were not the only well-dressed people sitting at the tables on the floating restaurant. As the ropes were tossed and the boat eased away from the jetty, Quinn studied the other diners. Everyone spoke softly, barely above the noise of the well-muffled engine.

She did not feel out of place among these people yet only a few weeks ago, she would not have fit in at all.

As the boat drifted upriver, waiters issued menus and served wine. Stronger drinks could be ordered. Quinn stuck with wine, though. She was not used to drinking, not even wine—even if it was the best.

Lessons given to her by uniformed marshals, years ago, lingered still. The dangers of alcohol and how it loosened tongues. How slips could be made when inhibitions were lowered.

So Quinn drank the wine. Between mouthfuls, she drank water. She was not the only one pacing herself. Because she reached for the water pitcher so often, she noticed that Noah drank just as much water as her.

The meal was delicious. Chicken served with a delicate gravy which exploded with flavors on her tongue. The conversation while the meal was served was the same pleasant, often amusing back-and-forth which the four of them—Noah, Toni, Mitchell and her—had fallen into the last few days. Aslan sometimes joined in, although he spent more time observing. He did not object to the banter. It amused him.

Quinn asked for cheese for dessert, while Mitchell requested pie and ice cream. Everyone else took coffee, while the waiter put a porcelain teapot in front of her. The scent of bergamot rose. It was Earl Grey tea.

Once Mitchell had destroyed his pie, mashed his ice cream to a batter and scooped it with relish, Aslan lifted the coffeepot and filled his cup again. He glanced around the table. “Give me the table for a while, please.” It was not a question.

Without hesitation, everyone got to their feet. Even Mitchell, who spooned the last of his ice cream as he rose. Belatedly, Quinn pushed her chair out and got to her feet, too.

Aslan looked up at her. “Quinn, please stay.”

The other three did not look startled, or even question it. Perhaps they were used to his curt tone. They threaded through the other tables to where the glass doors gave access to an open deck at the end of the boat. They stepped through the doors, zipping up their coats and buttoning them. There were few diners out there, for a wind blew down the river which made it chilly.

Quinn sat down once more. She would have felt trepidation, except her constantly elevated heart wouldn’t let her.

Aslan didn’t glance around for eavesdroppers, although his gaze shifted from side to side. This was an exclusive restaurant. They had not jammed the tables in so diners jostled elbows. There was plenty of room between the tables for the waiters to carry their trays and serve their customers.

The nearest table was over six feet away and those diners leaned together, murmuring in a language which was not German.

“You have enjoyed yourself these few days, haven’t you?” Aslan said.

Quinn smiled. “This is Vienna. How could I not enjoy myself?”

“It doesn’t bother you that you are a fugitive?”

Quinn let her smile fade. “I try not to think about it. Every time I do…” She pressed her fingers to her belly and then against her chest, over her heart.

“You will grow accustomed to it,” Aslan assured her.

Quinn considered him. “Then you are one, too.”

He reached over and picked up the teapot and poured her a cup of tea. “Do you know what a precursor is?”

“Not without context to guide me,” she admitted.

His smile was small. “Fair enough. Do you remember me saying that to understand what happened to Denis, you must understand me better?”

“It is the reason I am here.”

“You have put a lot on the line to get your answers, haven’t you?”

Quinn picked up the teacup and sipped. “I have to believe the world makes sense. At the moment, without knowing why Denis died, it doesn’t make sense at all. I feel that if I go on without answers, the craziness will reach inside me. It isn’t intellectual curiosity which drives me. I need to know for my sake.”

Aslan’s eyes were warm. Empathetic. “I imagine answers and sense were rare commodities when you were a child.”

Quinn’s throat tightened. She put the cup down, afraid she might spill it. “I was a dancer,” she said. “A ballerina. My parents were already taking calls from dance companies in New York. The Boston Ballet phoned them every week. They held them off, told them I must graduate high school first. It was all locked in place.” She grimaced.

Aslan sat back and shook his head. “Then that life was taken away.”

Quinn sighed. “There was a churning in my middle, when they told me I could never dance again. I couldn’t even risk a line dance at the local bar. The emptiness in here—” She touched her belly again. “It’s the same sensation I get whenever I wonder why Denis died. Why they tried to kill me. I have to wonder if it’s something I did, even in a karmic way, to bring this upon me. Twice now.”

“You did nothing,” Aslan said. “There are more unexplained and shitty coincidences in this world than most people are comfortable with. More hard luck goes around than good luck. Good luck doesn’t exist until you make it for yourself. Hard luck is as common as dirt.”

Quinn swallowed. “Yes, I want answers. I’ve come this far, because I need to have them.” She paused. “So what is a precursor?”

“In chemistry, a precursor is a chemical, either an element or compound, which goes into making another chemical. It reacts with other chemicals when mixed in a certain way.”

“You said you produce basic chemicals,” she said. “Does that include precursors?”

“Very specific precursors.” His gaze was steady. He might’ve been talking about the weather, for his tone did not waver. “Methyl difluorophosphite is just one of them.”

Quinn’s heart picked up speed. She hadn’t thought it capable of beating any harder, yet it was. She felt as though she was standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, peering down and wondering if she should jump.

Then Aslan spoke and took the choice away from her. “Methyl difluorophosphite is a chemical weapon precursor. It is a Schedule 1 substance controlled by the Chemical Weapons Convention, administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, in The Hague.” His gaze held her. He waited.

Quinn put her hand on the table, to feel the steadiness of the structure beneath it. She pressed her fingers against the linen. “What is it a precursor for?” Her voice was weak.

Aslan did not hesitate. He did not drop his voice. “Among other things,” he said evenly, “Methyl difluorophosphite is used to produce Sarin gas.”

The beat of the engines at the bottom of the boat, the susurrations of water along the side, the murmur of the diners, even the whistle of the wind in the eaves of the boat, all swelled together to become a high-pitched note in her mind.

Only, Aslan had not finished yet. “In the warehouse you stood over, this morning, is three metric tons of methyl difluorophosphite. Two weeks ago, I opened bidding for it. At the moment, Russia is leading. They badly need Sarin. All they can produce is Ricin, which grows unstable after a few weeks. Sarin never goes off.”

It was an oddly curious factoid for a surreal subject. Did you know Ricin is so unstable it goes off after a few weeks, rendering chemical weapons useless? Damn, huh…?

Quinn realized she was breathing shallowly, her fingernails digging into the linen. She had lost sight of Aslan, even though her gaze had not shifted from his face. Everything had blurred. It was all true. Everything Dima had told her about Aslan was true. She was sitting at the lunch table with a monster.

He loved Denis, too. It was the smallest of whispers, yet she grasped it and held on. It was her lifeline. It made sense, when nothing he had said in the last few minutes did.

This was why she was sitting here. She was doing this for Denis.

Denis. Remember that.

Quinn made herself breathe and blinked to refocus on Aslan’s face once more. He had watched her reaction and likely had read her dismay.

He said in the same conversational tone, “I have made a great deal of money selling base chemicals around the world. It is pocket change compared to what I have made selling precursors. Countries who want no one to know they are sourcing chemical weapons in defiance of the Chemical Weapons Convention will pay far above the fair market value. The prices they pay guarantee discretion.”

Quinn reached blindly for her teacup. If she took her gaze away from Aslan’s face to see where the cup was sitting, something inside her might break at the movement.

Aslan picked up her cup and put it into her hand. He seemed to understand her reaction.

She gripped the cup in both hands. The warmth against her fingers told her how cold she had become. She sipped. Then she cleared her throat and tried to speak. She cleared her throat again. “You think your business is why Denis died, don’t you?”

Aslan didn’t answer at once. It was as if he needed to gather himself to respond, too. “Like you, I cannot go on without knowing the truth, because you are right, Quinn. There is always a reason for even the most senseless events. If you are courageous enough and dig hard enough, you can find those reasons in the murk at the bottom. I have to believe Denis’ death makes sense, so I search for an answer I know I will not like.” He reached into his jacket. “I will feel as you do, when I have my answer.”

He put a flat velvet box on the table. It was dark blue and about four inches square. He rested his fingers on it. “This is a reminder for both of us of why we are doing this. We need the reminder, because it will become very dark before we see the light.”

He pushed the box toward her. Quinn opened it and caught her breath, as the necklace was revealed.

It was gold. The chain was simple, although it looked strong. The pendant which hung from it was gold, too. She touched the pendant and traced the shape. It looked like a backward “E” with a thick bar in front of it.

Quinn looked at Aslan. “Denis gave me one of these, on our second date. I was wearing it the night of the bombing. I lost it during the emergency. It’s probably still under rubble somewhere…” She cleared her throat, which was tightening again. Her eyes were aching. “How did you know?”

“The photo in your apartment of the two of you. You were wearing it in the photo. I recognized the symbol. It’s musical.”

She nodded. “They call it a soprano clef. Most jewelry uses the treble clef—the one which looks like an ampersand. Denis said it was too common for me…” She couldn’t finish.

Aslan sat back. “You don’t have to wear it. Keep it as a reminder.”

She closed the lid on the box. “Thank you for this.” At least she began to say it. Nothing emerged. Her throat was too tight and her eyes ached. The words scratched the back of her throat, hurting. Then the tears dripped.

Quinn lowered her head, fighting to gain control. She couldn’t break down and weep here in public. People would remember her. Aslan would think less of her.

Soft cloth pressed against her palm, where her hand laid on the table. She curled her fingers around it. A handkerchief. Silk, of course.

“What is it Noah?” Aslan said, annoyed. He didn’t appreciate the interruption.

“I wasn’t sure if you noticed we are nearly back at the dock,” Noah said.

Silence for a heartbeat or two. Quinn kept her head down and dabbed at her eyes, trying not to smear her makeup.

“Thank you,” Aslan said stiffly. Then, “As soon as it docks, start the car. Let it warm up, so we don’t all have to sit in the cold.”

“I will,” Noah said. Quinn saw his figure pass her chair. She didn’t look up.

The boat engines dropped down a few gears, as it slowed on its approach to the dock.

“Noah means well,” Aslan said. “He and I are the same in many ways. He came out of Croatia after the war. We are both survivors of disaster. You are, too. The next time Noah irritates you enough to scream at him, you might remember that and give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Quinn sniffed heavily and looked up. She blinked to regain her focus. “I don’t like him. He scowls all the time.”

“Exactly my point.” Aslan smiled at her. It was a nice smile. He was a charming man. She found herself smiling back.

Remember he is a monster, she told herself. They were just words, though. The blue velvet box beneath her fingers was warm and soft and real.

[18]
Saturday, December 21st

Leela was freezing her ass off. Never mind that it would be Christmas in four days’ time and the chance she would be home for it was less than zero. Not that her family even celebrated Christmas. It was the principle of the thing. And the principle was that she should be home for Christmas.

Being cold didn’t help her frame of mind. She had been up on this roof for only two hours. A single rotation was six hours. She knew she wouldn’t last another four hours here.

“Let me add for the record,” she said, “that I am fucking freezing and I hate you all.”

The bug in her ear gave the tiny beep which told her someone was about to speak.

“And we all love you too, Leela,” Scott said. He was acting as her analyst coordinator. He never failed to respond when she spoke. “If you’re very nice, I will send someone to take your place in thirty minutes.”

“Aawwwhhh… He does love me.” Leela put her eyes to the rangefinder and stared at the house across the road. The house was huge. It looked as though there were four floors, only when they had got hold of the blueprints, they learned there was only two. It made each floor at least twenty feet high. It was a palace, not a house.

For more than a week now, there had been no movement in and out of the house. Vienna was going through a cold snap which kept everyone indoors.

Dima’s team were the only ones mad enough to stay outside. One by one, they took their turn on this cold roof, nestled on their bellies on a flat pad of foam, with a sleeping bag over the top to maintain warmth. They stared through the viewfinder, monitoring the house, because Dima didn’t trust the security feeds they could find in the area. She wanted real eyes on the house.

Lochan, who trusted nothing which wasn’t electronic, had also hacked into the security feeds. It made Leela feel less lonely to know he was bent over four laptops, monitoring the areas which she could not see from up here.

She scanned the house once more, turning the viewfinder to peer down the side street at the old servants’ entrance. “Well, it’s past my suppertime and nothing is moving.” She paused. “This is day six we have been freezing our asses off up here. Is anyone at any point going to ask the obvious question?”

“Is Quinn in the house?” Lochan asked. His voice was scratchy because his pickup was the wonky one.

“I am reminded of something Scott often says,” Dima said. Her voice was smooth and rich, like honey. The deep cadences were not like those of a man but they were oddly reassuring for Leela, especially when Dima spoke in her ear as she did now, through the earbud.

“Three things cannot be silenced,” Dima began. “Shells being ejected, the breaking of the sound barrier—”

“and a falling body,” Leela finished. She wasn’t the only one to say it. She heard everyone else echo her.

“Only we don’t have a bug inside the house, so how are we going to hear a falling body?” Agata’s young voice sounded lighter than ever through the earbud.

“I believe Dima was speaking metaphorically,” Leela said.

“You can’t hide the sound of a falling body and you can’t hide a dead body for long, either,” Scott said. “It’s been a week we haven’t spotted her, but we haven’t found her body either. Ergo, there’s a good chance she still alive. We just have to keep watching.”

“Thank you, Scott.” Leela could tell from Dima’s voice that she was smiling.

“And why are we not putting a bug in the house?” Agata asked.

Dima was in an expansive mood. It must be because it was Christmas. “It’s too much of a risk to enter a house full of suspicious people,” Boss Lady said. “Ashtad admits the blueprints we have are out of date, which heightens the risk we wouldn’t find a place to hide a bug these professionals wouldn’t find. If they found the bug, suspicion would instantly turn upon Quinn. I won’t risk it.”

Ashtad was their local coordinator. She was an American who had lived her adult life in Austria. She was as a tour guide for any intelligence services who needed to tap into local resources. She was also a walking fountain of information and contacts, yet even she had come up blank on more recent blueprints of the house, or a confirmed current owner. The paperwork for the house was hopelessly out of date. It made sense, as it was Aslan’s house. If he was truly the man they thought he was, then obscuring information about assets and financial affairs would be second nature to him.

Little traffic used the frosty road, so when two black SUVs emerged from the side road and pulled around the corner, Leela sat up, her attention caught. “Hello…”

“What’s up?” Scott said.

“Two black Escalade type vehicles just stopped in front of the house,” Lochan said.

“They are Mercedes-Benz GLE 400s,” Leela said. “A lovely car, thank you very much.”

“Glad to see the guy patronizes local businesses,” Ren said. Her voice was remote, because she was working on sound feeds and monitoring other channels, besides.

“Driver got out of one, other is staying in place,” Leela reported. “I don’t recognize the driver.” She watched. “Now knocking on the door. I think we’re about to have action here.”

She resettled herself on the foam pad and put her eye against the viewfinder once more. She wanted a good close up of every face which came out the door. She put her finger on the shutter button for the built-in camera.

The door opened. The first through the door was the man they had decided was Mitchell Peters. He looked Aryan, sounded American, and they were still trying to dig up his real origins. Like Aslan, his employees were good at masking their trail.

“Mitchell Peters,” Lochan said, as Leela let the camera snap away.

The blond man looked happy as he bounced down the steps. His overcoat opened, giving Leela a glimpse of black and white and satin.

“Oh my, we are all dressed up to go to the ball,” she breathed.

“It is ball season in Vienna,” Ashtad said softly.

“Really? There’s actually a ball season here?” Leela asked.

“My poor child.” Scott’s tone was patronizing.

“Yeah, well, my expertise lies a little farther east than Austria,” Leela said defensively. “There’s the dark-haired one. Noel. Can’t see under his coat, but there are satin stripes on his pants.”

“Noah Stojanovich,” Dima corrected her.

“Yeah, that one. And here comes the Ice Queen.” Leela whistled, despite whistling making everyone else’s ears ache. “She scrubs up pretty.”

“As usual, Leela,” Lochan said with a dry voice, “you have indulged in spectacular understatement.”

“Whatever,” Leela said. “She can only wear a dress like that because she’s so skinny.”

“Let me see, Lochan,” Scott said.

Leela grinned.

“… Mama!” Scott said with a soft sound.

Leela ran her eyes over the Ice Queen, better known as Antonia Washington. The Washington part of the name didn’t fit with her Slavic features. It was likely everyone in the house used a name they weren’t born with. Even Quinn was, now.

Antonia Washington put her hands on her hips as the driver opened the back door for her. She wore carmine red satin which hugged every straight line of her body. As she moved, the dress split to show her thigh. The short coat she wore over her dress was white, stopped at her waist and was probably real fur. She wouldn’t be big on conservation. She flashed more thigh as she got into the car and pulled the hem of the dress in after her.

There seemed to be a delay at the door. People called into the house.

“Come on, come on!” Leela breathed. “And heeeeeeere’s…Aslan!”

The man himself stepped down to the pavement and turned to hold his hand up to the door. It was an old-fashioned courtesy.

“Aaww!” Leela breathed. “Lochan, how come you never help me down the steps?”

“Because you would break my fingers if I tried,” he murmured.

Leela drew in a soft controlled breath, as the last person stepped out of the house. “Holy sheep dip, Batman.”

“Second that,” Scott said. He was clearly peering over the Lochan’s shoulder. “Now that is a princess!”

Quinn stepped carefully down the brick steps to the sidewalk beside the 400s. She wore a large, warm shawl around her shoulders instead of a coat, which gave an intriguing glimpse of her shoulders. She also wore long black gloves. The shawl prevented Leela from glimpsing the top of the dress, although the bottom half told the full story, anyway. It looked like it was green velvet. None of that passé satin or silk or lace. Velvet was an unexpected choice.

The skirt flared from the waist, which made Quinn’s waist look tiny. Leela glimpsed layers of petticoat beneath, holding the skirt out. “That is one hell of a gown to wear to a ball,” Leela said.

Then Quinn turned to speak to the blond guy, giving Leela a look at the back of the dress. Leela’s breath caught again. At the front, the dress just touched the ground. Behind, it spread out in an elegant curve—not an extended train, but a halo of green velvet. “Wow!”

“And not an inch of thigh in sight anywhere,” Dima said. Leela thought there was pride in her voice.

“Let the record reflect that there was no dead body,” Scott said. “Told you so,” he added.

“Actually Dima told us,” Leela pointed out.

“She quoted me,” Scott said. “You do want me to relieve you in thirty minutes, yes?”

Leela blew a kiss at him. Scott was a good second and wouldn’t leave her out here after promising her a shortened shift. She watched Aslan and the others help Quinn into the car, tuck the endless yards of skirt in after her and shut the door. Then all the men got into the cars, the doors were shut and the cars pulled away.

“Cinderella is off to the ball,” Leela reported. “Right now, I’d be more than happy to roll about in the cinders instead. At least I’d be warm doing it.”

She watched the tail lights of the second Mercedes-Benz disappear up the street and out of sight. Her grumpiness about Christmas had evaporated. They’d seen Quinn. She was still alive.

“Now we can make plans,” Dima said over the earbud, as if she had been reading Leela’s thoughts.

“Damn right,” Leela finished.

The formalities for the ball were over, the debutantes had been presented and now everyone danced. The huge ballroom was filled at the edges with banquet tables and chairs, where everyone rested between dances. There was even a real-live orchestra instead of canned music, for everyone to dance to.

Quinn didn’t consciously listen to the orchestra, yet even in the back of her mind she rated them as merely adequate. They had not been rehearsed enough and their sequences were uncoordinated. A better conductor might’ve held them together, but this one was not quite up to the task. Perhaps he resented being relegated to a corner of the huge ballroom, a coordinator of dance music, rather than the center of attention. Lord knows, conductors were flighty and hysterical, putting even opera divas to shame.

Waiters dressed in 18th-century costumes, complete with breaches and wigs, served champagne in crystal glasses. Bowls of strawberries were laid out to go with the champagne.

Aslan picked up his flute and held it in the air. He waited.

Everyone scrambled to pick up their glass and join him, even Quinn. She had no intention of drinking champagne, although she did like the way it tickled her nose when she pretended to sip. She felt heady enough just being here.

It has been Aslan’s idea that the entire household attend the winter solstice ball, one of the first of the formal Viennese ball season which would stretch into February. He had mentioned it only a week ago and told Toni and Quinn to find pretty dresses.

Toni looked down her nose. “I refuse to go outside this week. I will find something online.”

Quinn’s attention perked up. Browsing online would save a lot of running around the city looking for the appropriate dress. She used her new laptop to search the inventory of every store in the city. She tracked down the dress via a link on the Swarovski page.

She glanced down at the bodice of her dress, once again marveling at the intricate beadwork which made the green velvet roses glitter with every breath she took. She had fallen in love with the dress the instant she saw it. It was exactly her color. The top half of the dress was made of almost invisible mesh. Embroidered cover the top of the mesh were vines of roses trailing from her waist, up her torso and along the length of her arms, gradually thinning out until her shoulders were bare. The roses were arranged to maintain her modesty, for she was bare beneath the mesh.

Each rose was picked out with Swarovski crystals, some of them the same green as the velvet and some of them a frosty white.

No jewelry could compete with such a dress, so she wore none. Her hair was piled on the top and back of her head and pinned so it looked like a waterfall of curls.

She felt wonderful in the dress. Drinking too much champagne would dull that feeling. It was not a difficult decision to avoid alcohol. Quinn lifted her glass with the others and looked at Aslan expectantly.

Aslan’s gaze moved about the table. Johnson and the little Italian man everyone called Giorgio, also sat at the table. They were the most frequent guests at Aslan’s dinner table. They had driven the cars. “No one gets to sit outside, tonight,” Aslan had said.

Now Aslan looked at everyone and gave a small smile. “To one of the most successful rounds of bidding we have ever had the fortune to host—and I mean that literally. Also, Merry Christmas.”

Quinn pretended to sip her champagne, then put her glass down.

The others were slower to respond. She saw their gazes swivel toward her, then back to Aslan. Aslan had created this little ripple of consternation in his people for the past week. Since he had told her about the nature of his affairs, he had spoken freely about business when she was in the room.

The first time he spoke about the logistics of the shipment, which they were still sorting out, everyone froze. No one looked at Quinn directly in case their glances warned her Aslan had spoken about something he should not.

Aslan said in a slightly louder voice, “Mitchell, the railcar?”

Mitchell shook his head and stirred. He turned his attention back to Aslan, then warily provided him with the information Aslan had asked for. Trains were still one of the better ways of transporting goods across Europe. The shipment could not be arranged until the bid was finalized, though. Gradually, everyone relaxed.

The same freeze-and-check reaction had reappeared all week. Even now, as Aslan spoke about records bids, Quinn could feel everyone trying to look at her without looking, to measure her reaction.

Quinn reached for a strawberry. She suspected Toni was the most violently opposed to her knowing about Aslan’s true business. Over the last week, Quinn realized that Toni did not like her. Either it was because she was a woman—for Toni did not get along with women—or it was something more personal. Maybe both.

However, Toni tolerated her because Aslan wanted Quinn to hand. The conversations about Denis continued on an almost daily basis but not always at the same time. In Innsbruck, despite working, Aslan considered himself to be in vacation mode. The pace was easier. Here in Vienna, though, business stepped up a notch. He worked long hours as far as Quinn could tell. He didn’t go to bed before she did and she was a night owl.

“Are the bids…” Mitchell began. He cleared his throat, his gaze flickering toward Quinn. “Are the bids really that good?” It was a diffident attempt to follow Aslan’s lead and include Quinn in the conversation. Quinn liked him for it.

Aslan didn’t answer immediately. He sipped the champagne and took his time selecting a strawberry. He looked relaxed. “A competing bid came in this afternoon. There were eight figures.”

Over ten million for three tons of Sarin precursor. Quinn’s mind sheered away from that. If she let herself think too long about what all these fantastic bids were vying for, she felt ill. Better to pretend it was an auction over real estate. Then she could look at urbane as everyone who sat around the table.

With her new laptop, she had researched a little about Sarin gas. What she learned had left her sleepless for a night. Sarin gas was so lethal it was considered a weapon of mass destruction. That put it on the same level as nuclear warheads and thermonuclear missiles.

Exposure to the gas was lethal at even low concentrations. If one was exposed to a lethal dose, they died within ten minutes. It wasn’t an easy ten minutes, either. It wasn’t like carbon monoxide poisoning, where the victim went to sleep.

Oh, no, not at all.

Whoever invented the damn thing hadn’t thought it sufficient to merely kill everyone. They had developed a weapon which would deliver the most gruesome death possible. Ten minutes didn’t seem like long, normally. For someone unable to breathe because their lung muscles were paralyzed, ten minutes would be a small ice age.

Victims didn’t just stop breathing. They also vomited, defecated and urinated. While being murdered by the truckload, people lost all their personal dignity, too.

And to make it even worse, because it was a gas, it was easy to spread about. On top of that, if the gas settled on skin or clothes, then it could be transmitted the same way people transmitted the common cold.

Even nonlethal doses could leave someone with permanent neurological damage.

Quinn now understood why the precursors which made the gas were so heavily controlled. What she didn’t understand was why anyone would want to have a stockpile of Sarin gas in the first place. How could anyone with a conscience use it?

Whenever she thought of this and looked at Aslan, she felt a shuddering revulsion and the need to run away.

It was easy to suppose Denis had died because of this awful business, although the connection was still not clear to her. The longer she stayed among these people, the more she needed to know exactly what happened to him. There was still the question of why she had been a target, too. It could not simply be because she was with Denis, surely? That seemed excessive.

Only, anyone who helped manufacture Sarin gas wouldn’t hesitate to take out the innocent partner standing next to their target.

No one in the house monitored Quinn, anymore. No one had stripped her laptop of communication software. No one told her not to leave the house. She could easily hop on a train and head for Paris or London and on the way contact Dima. No one would stop her, she was sure of it.

So why was she still here?

Quinn studied Aslan’s pleasant features. The charming man in the excellent suits. The man who had loved Denis so much, he sucked Quinn into his life just so he could capture the last few years of Denis’s life for himself. Surely a man who felt so strongly about another person could not be all bad?

She couldn’t make sense of the dichotomy of Aslan’s nature.

The deeper she was drawn into the cesspit, the more determined she was to see this through and get the answers she craved. She desperately needed everything to make sense. Finding out why Denis died would help her make sense of it—at least, she hoped so.

“Ten million plus for three tons is excessive,” Noah said. “Is there something else going on? Another factor we haven’t considered?” Unlike the others, Noah didn’t react stiffly whenever Quinn was included in the conversation. He just didn’t care.

Aslan nodded. “The United States Embassy in Berlin was evacuated last week. The staff had breathing difficulties.”

Quinn remembered hearing about it. “So the Berlin authorities shut down all the chemical plants in the region,” she guessed.

Aslan’s smile was warm. A reward. “They inspected them but didn’t shut them down. For our competitors, though, an inspection is the same has being shut down. They can’t operate under severe scrutiny. That leaves us as the only suppliers in Europe.”

Toni drained her champagne and held her glass out toward Aslan. He took the glass from her and refilled it. “Did you arrange for the Embassy evacuation?” she asked Aslan.

Quinn looked at Aslan, horrified. She hadn’t even thought of that. Only it had conveniently cleared the way for Aslan to receive record breaking bids on his precursor chemicals.

Aslan shook his head. Quinn felt a trickle of relief. “It was a coincidence,” he said. “The world is filled with coincidences.”

The world is filled with hard luck. You have to make your own good luck.

Aslan handed Toni her refilled glass. Her fingers slid over his and her gaze was steady. It was the most direct kind of invitation.

Quinn had been slow to realize that Toni didn’t just live in the house, she was Aslan’s partner. It seemed like a loveless arrangement, perhaps merely a convenient one. Neither of them was demonstrative, which was why it taken Quinn so long to figure it out.

However, this week, Toni had physically reached out to Aslan on a number of occasions and now she stared at him with intimate, bedroom eyes. Any other man might’ve picked up her hand and taken her somewhere private right now. Toni at her most powerful would be hard to resist.

Aslan, though, ignored her. He got to his feet and moved between the tables. Like the restaurant on the boat, the tables were not jammed in, giving the dancers plenty of room to move between them. It was just as well, for Quinn was not the only woman wearing a dress which took up a lot of room.

Aslan stopped beside her and held out his hand. “Dance with me.”

Quinn’s heart started. “I…I don’t dance.” She dropped her voice. “Remember?”

Aslan bent and picked her hand out of her lap and tugged her to her feet. “When you’re with me, you can do anything you want. Including dancing.”

There was nothing she could say to that. Any protest she made would draw attention to her past and make everyone wonder about her all over again. Besides, Aslan’s low declaration had made her heart beat even harder. Could she do this? She had disciplined herself against it for so many years.

Then her choice was taken away from her. Aslan’s gentle tugging brought her onto the dance floor. Her feet twitched as she felt the rhythm and music. It was a three-quarter time. A waltz.

Aslan put his hand around her waist and she scrambled to pick up the back of her dress and loop it over her wrist, just as he turned her into the first spin.

Her breath caught. She was dancing!

She had often wondered that if she dared to dance, would she have forgotten how. Yet, like riding a bicycle, it came back to her with effortless ease. This was ballroom dancing, not ballet, but the principles were the same. She let her partner lead.

Quinn had immersed herself in music, her substitute for dancing. Now she was dancing, too. It was heavenly.

Aslan watched her face as they danced. Then he smiled. “There. See? The world did not implode.”

She laughed. It was a carefree sound she had never made before. “Oh, you have opened Pandora’s box now. I hope you are prepared to dance all night, because I don’t think I could sit down, now.”

He didn’t answer her directly, although his eyes gleamed with a light she thought might be his acceptance of her challenge.

Then, as they rounded the dance floor and she saw everyone at Aslan’s table watching them, she stumbled. Aslan kept her on her feet but he couldn’t stop her heart from throwing itself against her chest.

Toni watched them. Her face was still and expressionless while her eyes held bloody murder.

[19]
Sunday, December 22nd

The orchestra was still playing and everyone was still dancing. When Aslan declared they should go home, the dance floor was just as crowded as it had been at the start of the night.

Everyone threaded their way through the ballroom to step into crisp night air. It was a shock to Quinn to see the sky was growing lighter. Dawn would be here soon. She had danced the night away.

Aslan looked at Johnson and Giorgio. He lifted his brow.

“We left them farther down the street. The car park was full,” Johnson said, his tone apologetic. “Give us a few minutes and we’ll bring them around.” He dug in his jacket pocket for keys.

Aslan shook his head. “It’s too cold to stand around waiting. We will all walk to the car. Walking will keep us warm. Lead the way.”

Johnson and Giorgio led them out from under the portico, on to the wide sidewalk. Quinn pulled her shawl around her, glad of its warmth, even though she was so full of energy the cold didn’t register. She could have continued dancing for hours yet.

Everyone at the table had switched with Aslan to keep her on her feet. Everyone except Noah. He sat like the Rock of Gibraltar, his brows together. “I don’t dance,” he said gruffly, when Aslan suggested he traded places and dance with Quinn.

Quinn hadn’t minded. Mitchell was an adequate dancer and was happy to dance as long as she did. Even Johnson and Giorgio danced with her, giving her an excuse to stay on the dance floor.

Perhaps Toni gravitated toward Noah because they were the only two people to remain at the table. They drank champagne and ate the strawberries, while everyone else danced.

At one point, as Quinn was being turned about the floor, she glanced at the table and thought that Toni had draped herself on Noah’s shoulder. She was talking quietly, her mouth not far from his ear. What poison was she pouring into him?

Whatever she was saying, it seemed to have no effect on Noah. His scowl did not deepen. He didn’t react to her. Although, he was not shrugging her off his shoulder, either.

Quinn dismissed it from her mind. She was dancing and didn’t give a damn about anything else.

Now, as she walked along the cold, white pavement, the energy and joy of the evening lingered like champagne in her veins.

They turned the corner and headed down a narrow side street filled with parked cars, leaving barely enough room for a single car to drive through. Vienna side streets were all this way. They had been built long before massive traffic and multiple cars per household were common.

Mitchell glanced at his watch as they moved deeper into the side street. “By the time we get home the Giants game will be just starting. I could watch it live, instead of on replay. There’re six cans of Red Bull in the kitchen fridge. Anyone want to join me?”

“I am going to bed,” Toni said, her tone chilly.

Mitchell raised his brow at Quinn. “I bet you want to stay up.”

Quinn shook her head. “No offense, Mitchell, but I’ve just had a wonderful evening dancing. Watching football would be anticlimactic.”

“If you put money on it, I might be talked into staying up to watch a game,” Johnson said, over his shoulder. “Only, you must explain the rules to me.”

Mitchell halted and Quinn bounced off him. He jerked his chin up. “Someone at the car,” he murmured.

Quinn glimpsed a shadowy figure in the broadening light. They were pressed against one of the SUVs and fumbled at the door.

She only caught the single glance before Noah took off. He had been behind her. She felt the wind of his passage as he rocketed past her.

Less than a second behind him, Toni and Mitchell followed.

Toni kicked off her shoes as she ran and lifted the dress over one elbow, freeing her legs.

Noah reached the man first. All three of them moved silently and so swiftly they were upon him before he detected their approach. He threw up his arms as Noah reached for his neck.

Noah closed his fingers around the man’s neck in a painful pinch and gave him a little shake. “Do you have any idea whose car you are messing with?” he growled, in English.

The man swiveled his chin with a wince of pain. He glanced at Aslan, who remained on the sidewalk with his hand inside his jacket. Did Aslan have a gun in his jacket? Had he been wearing it all night?

Quinn studied the man, feeling a touch of pity. He did not look tough. She had learned what tough looked like, these last few weeks. It wasn’t like in the movies. Real toughness could only be detected by watching someone for a while. It wasn’t a factor of shoulder width or a strong jaw. It was an internal factor, an ability to never give up.

The poor man Noah held had thin hair and a sharp nose. His eyes were watery. He moved his gaze back to Noah. “My mistake,” he said in German.

Mitchell stepped up beside Noah and shoved his hand inside the man’s dirty coat. “Let’s find out if you’re just desperate or stupid, too.” He grunted and pulled out a small, black handgun. “Stupid it is.”

The man looked scared for the first time. “I was looking…somewhere warm!” He spoke English badly.

“Because a car which has been parked for hours is the warmest place on earth,” Toni said dryly. She hadn’t dropped her skirt. She looked as though she was braced for instant action.

“Let him go, guys,” Aslan said. “It’s Christmas. And it’s cold.”

Noah looked over his shoulder at Aslan. “He has a gun and he knows who you are.”

“It just makes him a career criminal who knows who the players are in this city,” Aslan said. “Let him go, Noah.”

Noah dropped his hand and stepped away from the man. “Get out of here before I change my mind,” he growled.

The man straightened and shrugged his coat back into place. “Do I get my gun back?” he asked in German.

Mitchell held up the black gun. “This one?” Still looking at the man, he moved his fingers over the gun. The clip dropped to the ground, then the gun fell to pieces, clattering unmusically on the cement. Mitchell held up the trigger guard on his forefinger, all that was left in his hand. “Ooops.” His tone was flat.

Toni took a step toward the man. “Can I have a little fun with him before we let him go?” She reached under her gown, pulled out a flat black knife and held it up, so the first rays of sunlight glinted on it.

The man bolted, running as if the hounds of hell were behind him. He reached the far corner of the next block, turned it and disappeared. It took less than ten seconds for him to make the distance.

Toni laughed and relaxed. She slid the knife back under her gown. She must have a thigh holster, Quinn realized.

Noah turned to Aslan. “It sends the wrong message. We should have dumped him in the river and let him swim for a few hours against the current.”

As Johnson unlocked the car with an electronic warble and Giorgio headed to the second one, Aslan shook his head. “If they’re uncertain about when the ax will fall, fear does more to keep people in line.”

Quinn shivered. Suddenly, she was cold.

The charm of the evening was broken. Like Cinderella, Quinn crept back to her bedroom, feeling ill at ease. Being bought into the inner circle around Aslan meant being reminded of his true nature. She had ignored it until now.

She was still wide awake when she reached the bedroom. Quinn put the shawl aside and wondered how on earth she would sleep when the sun was shining in the window.

The Pandora’s box Aslan had opened was still idling in her middle, making her want to dance, then dance some more.

Quinn loaded up music tracks she remembered being played last night. As Mozart and Strauss filled the air, she tried to fall back into the spell dancing had woven. While dancing, she could feel none of the weight bearing down on her for the last few weeks. If she could just slip back into that mood…

Only, her mind kept returning to the way Mitchell disassembled the handgun with one hand. She thought it could only be done in the movies, with special effects. He had broken down the gun with the expertise of a man with more than a passing familiarity with small arms. Of course, he had been in the military, but still…

As she turned in gentle circles around the room, Quinn remembered something Dima said while they were eating their salad lunch. Quinn had asked why the CIA were interested in a businessman and contractor, instead of investigating other governments. “Isn’t it your job to find out the secrets of Russia, and China?”

“Political espionage has become perverted over the last decade. Governments are in bed with businessmen, industries build their own political parties. If a multinational loses their secret formula for manufacturing synthetic oil, it isn’t just the multinational which fails. The country’s economic stability is destroyed. Such economic disruptions topple governments. We spend as much time investigating economic and technical espionage as we do hunting down spooks.”

Quinn had almost forgotten that offhand observation. Now she remembered it, and coupled it up with Mitchell’s expertise with the handgun. He was ex-military, yes. Could he be more? If intelligence organizations spent as much time investigating industry as they did governments, how unreasonable would it be to expect they may have someone inside Aslan’s organization?

There was no direct proof of Aslan’s criminal activities. If what Dima suspected was true, it made sense to put someone inside to learn more or find proof. After all, Dima had inserted Quinn into Aslan’s household.

She had managed it by taking advantage of lucky breaks. Only, if there was no such thing as good luck, except for what one made for themselves, then Dima had made her luck. Only, she wasn’t directly interested in Aslan, only his connection to the Kobra.

Given Aslan’s biological weapons interests, surely other intelligence organizations would be interested in him? Was Mitchell, the American former military man, working for another intelligence organization?

Her thoughts were not helping her relax enough to sleep. Quinn picked up the hem of her dress and tried a few more experimental turns. It wasn’t quite the same as dancing in a ballroom full of people, yet the music still held the magic.

She spread her arms and rose onto her toes. Then, her heart thundering, she bought her knee up sideways, and executed a pirouette. Her arms came up into the fifth position, their motion giving her impetus to complete the spin.

Noah was standing at the door, watching her.

Quinn dropped her arms and let the loop of her dress drop off her wrist. Her skirt settled back to the floor. “How long have you been standing there?”

“I heard the music. Isn’t that what they were playing tonight?” He moved farther into the room even though she had not invited him. Had she left the door open? She couldn’t remember. She had been distracted, so perhaps…

Noah tilted his head as Tchaikovsky came on. She knew that expression. It was the face someone wore when they were transported by music.

Startled, she said, “I got the impression you couldn’t stand the music, that you couldn’t wait to leave.”

Noah stayed six paces from the door. Because the room was so large, it put him closer to the door than anywhere else. “I don’t dislike music,” he said. “I just don’t know anything about it. Not the way you do.”

“We all start where you are,” she said. “The trick with music is to listen. These days most people have forgotten how to listen properly.”

“That is all it takes? Just listening?”

“Well, it is a start.” Quinn shifted on her feet. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“It’s not that I won’t dance,” he said, his voice low. “It’s just…I don’t know how.”

Quinn’s breath caught. She had not once considered this possibility. Even Giorgio, who had never had a dance lesson in his life, swung her about the floor with more enthusiasm than technique, and it had been fun.

She didn’t know what to say. Noah was trying to make amends for the evening. It was so unexpected, she was flat-footed and wordless.

He didn’t move from the neutral position by the door. The door was open behind him and anyone passing the room would see him there. He was minimizing any threat she might feel from his presence in her room.

“Have you had any more headaches?” he asked her.

She was embarrassed. Did she think so little of the man that his attempt at polite conversation left her speechless?

Her uncharitable perception of him made her try to meet him halfway now. She gave him a small smile. “It isn’t exactly a headache. It’s more like a constant pressure. Here.” She touched her temple. “Even worse here,” she added, pressing her fingers to her belly. “You know?”

“I do know,” he murmured. “Mine has lasted three years so far.”

Quinn looked at him again, trying to re-examine him in this light. “What could you possibly have a headache about?”

Noah turned his head as Tchaikovsky ended. The deceptively simple piano notes of Ludovico Einaudi’s L’Origine Nascosta rippled through the air.

Quinn hurried over to where Noah stood and held up her hand. “Listen!” She urged him. “Listen to every note. Listen as it builds up.”

Noah’s gaze shifted to the middle of nowhere as he listened. Quinn listened, too. She loved this piece. It was so simple to start with. A few notes on the keyboard. Then it built up. Violins swept it up and up, like a sun bursting above the horizon. “And here…” she whispered, as the music gathered and rose.

As the final note rippled through the air, Noah lifted his hand to the back of his neck. He didn’t speak, although she recognized the gesture. The music had sent fingers up his spine. He had responded to it.

She smiled at him. “See?”

Noah nodded. He looked puzzled. Stunned, even.

Music hath charms that soothe the savage breast. The quote popped into her mind unbidden.

“If Einaudi can do that to you, then you should try Prokofiev,” she told him.

“Prokofiev,” he said, sounding doubtful. He stumbled over the pronunciation.

“Or any of the Russians,” she added. “Try Prokofiev first. He is a little more accessible if you never listened to music before.”

Noah rubbed the back of his neck again, this time more with frustration than with wonderment over the magic of music.

Someone stopped outside the bedroom door in the middle of the passageway, drawing her eye. Quinn looked past Noah. Mitchell held up two bottles of beer. “The Giants go live in fifteen minutes.”

“It’s five in the morning, Mitchell.”

“And yet, you’re still awake. I’ll be in the theater!” He walked away.

Noah moved toward the door. “American football. That’s a sleep inducement, if ever there was one.”

Quinn giggled. She pressed her fingers against her mouth to keep the sound in.

Noah gripped the bedroom door handle and brought the door almost closed. “Good night,” he told her. He shut the door.

Quinn reluctantly took off her gown and packed it away in the closet. She looked at the bed. She would not sleep, not for an instant.

Instead, she dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and the one pair of sneakers she owned. She underpinned her hair and scrubbed her scalp where the pins had been pressing against it.

She moved through the silent passage to the back of the house, where a previous owner had installed the soundproof home theater. She pushed open the door and was assaulted by the sound of a marching band and frantic commentators talking about injuries and contracts and who would come out on top today.

Mitchell sat up from his slouch in one of the big reclining lounge chairs installed on the four tiers at the back of the room. Each tier held eight of the recliners. He was alone in the room.

His smile was radiant. He picked up the other beer bottle and held it toward her.

She settled in the lounge chair beside his and took the beer. “Please tell me you have popcorn, too.” The big screen at the front of the room showed all the pregame razzmatazz.

He tapped the neck of his beer bottle against hers. “For you, I will sprint to the kitchen and make some.”

Quinn tucked her feet under her. “I bet a twenty on the Redskins.”

“Done.” He didn’t ask her what currency she was betting with. It was if they both knew. US dollars, of course.

Three hours later, Quinn thought she was just about ready for sleep. She felt mellow as she made her way back to her bedroom. It was nearly eight-thirty yet the house was still and silent, which let her hear music through a bedroom door as she passed.

It was not her room, so the sounds of Wagner at high volume was startling. She stopped, her head down, listening.

Before she reconsidered the wisdom of it, Quinn pressed her hand on the door handle and opened it slowly. It was not a huge surprise to see Noah inside.

He had stripped the tuxedo jacket and tie. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone. Otherwise he had not changed his clothes.

He had not noticed the door open. It was a measure of how sharply he focused upon the music. Noah would not normally fail to notice someone entering any room he was in.

Quinn shut the door, to spare anyone else who was trying to sleep. She crept closer to the chair he sat upon.

Perhaps it was the movement in his peripheral vision which warned him. He looked up at her, his brows coming together.

Then he got to his feet and moved over to the sound system. She thought he would halt the music and lifted her hand to protest that he should not disrespect Wagner, of all people. Instead, he spun the dial. The volume dropped to a level which let her hear her heartbeat once more.

“From Prokofiev to Wagner,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

“There have been a few steps between. I listened for a few minutes. I thought it might put me to sleep,” he admitted with a grimace. “Now I can’t seem to stop.”

Quinn nodded sympathetically. “It can sometimes happen that way,” she assured him. “I’ve seen it before. What were the stops between?”

“This one, just to begin.” He tapped at a computer tablet propped up against the sound system. The tablet was the source of the music. He’d signed up for a live streaming service, so he could range across the music and dip in where he was curious.

Wagner stopped. A lilting melody replaced it. Quinn recognized it. “Die Fledermaus,” she murmured.

“I only know that because it says so on the screen,” he said. “It’s fascinating. There are pauses in there which make me hold my breath. They seem to stretch and make me wait for the next note.”

Quinn smiled. “I don’t know who, but someone said music is only possible because of the silences between the notes. Otherwise they would just be one blaring note.”

His gaze met hers. “That actually makes sense. Does it happen…I mean…people just stumble over music this way?” He seemed puzzled. Even distressed.

“People who fall in love with music late in life do tend to get hit by it, like a runaway truck.” She studied him. He did not seem to be faking his enthusiasm. It was he who had spoken about the silences between the notes first. It was he who had run his fingers up the back of his neck in reaction to Einaudi.

He had learned to listen.

Noah lifted his finger, to point at the speakers. “They played this last night, didn’t they? I didn’t hear it then. Now it’s as if I can’t unhear it.”

“They played this and a great many more like it. This is a Viennese waltz,” Quinn told him. “And this is Vienna, the home of the waltz.”

They both listened for a few more moments. Noah stepped closer to her and picked up her hand. “Is dancing like listening to music, I wonder?” He turned, bringing her around with him. It wasn’t inelegant.

“Do that again,” she said. “Small circles within big circles.”

He shook his head as he turned her around once more. “And that makes sense too.” He completed a few more circles. His footwork smoothed out as he familiarized himself with the movement. “There has to be something more to it than this,” he breathed.

“At its most basic, no,” she said. “You listen to the music and move the way the music tells you to.”

“Basic?” The corner of his mouth lifted, then he bent her over his hands in a classic dip, which was only a little rough. Quinn did not fight the movement, because throwing her weight against it might injure either of them. She let herself be lowered, keeping her balance on his hand.

Noah’s black eyes met hers. “You were a good dancer, weren’t you? You made that easy for me.” He put her back on her feet without effort.

Quinn’s heart gave a little jolt. No one had ever told her that before. “There is a trick to it. Mostly, not fighting it so neither of us is hurt. Even the lightest dancer is still a hundred pounds of weight you have to move about.”

She spoke absently, only half her attention upon what she was saying. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Noah’s face.

He lowered his head slowly, giving her all the time in the world to halt this. It didn’t occur to her to step away. His lips touched hers. She knew he was sharing the joy he had just discovered.

Their bodies came together, his arm around her. His lips pressed harder. The kiss shifted from an easy sharing of pleasure to something deeper, more profound and yet simpler.

It was only when he released her and took a small step back that Quinn realized she had not considered for a moment telling him to stop. She blinked at him, the broad daylight too bright for her vision.

Noah was breathing hard. His gaze shifted away from her face. “You should get some sleep.” His voice was rough. “When you are sleep deprived, your judgment goes out the window.”

She nodded. She didn’t have the courage to speak because she thought her voice would betray her. It would reveal her trembling. She opened the door, stepped out and closed it again.

She stumbled back to her room, feeling deep exhaustion pulling at every muscle. She tore off her clothes, got into bed and pulled the covers up over her and laid shivering.

It was exhaustion, just as he said. It explained why she had kissed him. Why she had let him do it.

Sleep deprivation. That was all. If she slept, this would not happen again.

[20]
Monday, December 23rd

Quinn didn’t think she would sleep. It was a shock to wake and discovered it was dark outside. Her alarm clock told her it was past midnight. She had slept so heavily she hadn’t moved on the bed at all.

The house still silent beyond her door. Nothing moved.

As she drank water and used the bathroom, she felt the ache in her face and the lethargy in her limbs which said she was still tired. Sleep was pulling her down again.

She didn’t argue with it. Quinn rolled back into bed and closed her eyes.

She woke early the next morning, fully alert. She showered and wondered if it was too early to go in search of breakfast. Normally she rose much later. She did not know the household routine at this hour.

Quinn caught herself humming as she took time to do her hair and makeup. She almost laughed at herself. A single night of dancing and she reverted back to childhood. It was pathetic.

Besides, she couldn’t forget whose house she was in. It was why she fussed over hair and makeup and dressed in silk trousers.

Quinn didn’t expect to find anyone else up as she made her way downstairs. Yet, when she stepped into the small, informal dining room they used for breakfast, she found Aslan there. He looked up from his newspaper and returned the tea cup he was holding back to its saucer. “And I thought everyone would sleep for another day, yet.”

“I won’t disturb you if I have some breakfast?”

He shook his head. “I must be about soon, anyway. Did you enjoy yourself at the ball?”

“You know I did.” She pulled out a chair one down from the head of the table where he sat.

“There is a whole season of balls yet to come,” he said. “That is, if you would like to repeat the experience?”

Quinn couldn’t help smiling. “Pandora’s box, remember?”

Aslan looked pleased. “I’ll have Toni get tickets for the opera house ball in January. That’s the big event of the season.” He looked as if he was about to say more but halted. His eyes narrowed. “You’re wearing the necklace.”

Quinn put her hands to her neck to touch the gold pendant. It had seemed perfectly natural to put it on this morning, as if she had done so a thousand times before. Which she had, only not with this necklace.

“I was reminded of the power of music recently,” she told Aslan.

The maid stepped into the dining room and looked at Quinn expectantly.

“My German isn’t up to it this morning,” Quinn told Aslan. “Could I please just have tea and some toast?”

Aslan spoke to the maid, who smiled at Quinn and went away.

“I also told her to bring the new bottle of preserves and some cheese. You need protein.”

Cheese seemed manageable, at least.

Aslan was still staring at the pendant. Quinn cleared her throat. “It was just habit,” she said softly. “I’ve put it on so many times before, you see.”

“It was your favorite necklace…” He seemed pleased.

The tea and toast arrived, with a small plate holding slices of cheese of different varieties, including a soft cheese which she discovered was warm.

Quinn concentrated on the tea, though. She was parched.

Still, Aslan did not move.

Quinn remembered he had said he was about to leave, yet he was studying her.

Quinn put down her teacup, her heart giving a funny little jerk. It hurried on, hurting. She was afraid to look at him directly. It might prompt him to say something she didn’t want to hear.

If she had any courage, she would leave the room.

“Quinn,” he said.

Quinn sighed. She made herself look at him.

“Are you afraid of me?”

Quinn swallowed. “Yes.”

“You shouldn’t be. I would never hurt you.” His gaze was calm and steady. His green eyes were warm. He was the charming man she had first met.

He leaned back in the chair as if he was trying to minimize whatever threat she felt. He wore a striped business shirt, and the heavy watch peaked out from under his cuff. His tie matched the handkerchief in the pocket of the jacket which hung over the back of his chair. He was urbane and seemed to understand far too much about her. What right did a man like him have to be so empathetic?

“Do you believe me when I say that?” he asked her.

Quinn put her fingertips to her temples, her elbows on the table. “I want to,” she told him. “Only you loved Denis, and Denis…”

“He died because of me, is what you will not say,” he finished.

She flinched.

“I have loved two people in my life,” Aslan said. “Denis was one. And there was another, a long time ago.”

Quinn’s breath caught. Was he talking about the Kobra? Was that the connection?

Aslan continued speaking in his low, rumbling voice. “I thought that, after Denis, there would be no one else for me. Now I wonder if I have yet a third chance. Since you arrived, you have been a lucky charm, Quinn. I suspect I have opened up your life, too.”

She could not dispute him. He had widened and enriched her life in so many unexpected ways. Dancing was the least of it.

“We are good for each other, Quinn. I would like to find a way for you to not be afraid of me anymore.”

She dropped her hands. “If you want me to not be afraid of you, then you should not have told me who you really are.”

He considered her for a long moment. “Perhaps,” he said. “Even someone like me grows weary of the lies. You lived a lie all your life, too. Only, in the last two weeks you have not. You have been yourself and you like it.”

Quinn sighed. “Yes.”

Aslan nodded. “I want that same freedom.” His voice was so low, Quinn thought she had imagined him saying it.

She looked at him, startled. “Denis didn’t know what you are…” It all came together in a rush. She sat up straighter, her chest aching.

Aslan met her gaze. He wasn’t denying it.

“That’s why Denis came to America, isn’t it?” Quinn put her hand to her chest, pressing in where the ache was worst. “You told him and he couldn’t handle it.”

Pain shadowed his eyes. “For years I let him believe I was just a businessman, an entrepreneur with international interests.” He grimaced. “He thought I was English. I didn’t have the courage to tell him the truth. The longer he stayed with me, the harder it grew.”

“Until you couldn’t stand the lies anymore,” Quinn guessed.

Aslan sighed. His gaze shifted from her face. He looked toward the window. “For a while after I told him, I believe Denis genuinely hated me. Then he said he was picking up the contract for a professorship in the States. Boston. That was when I knew he would never accept me. Not the real me.”

Quinn reached for her teacup. She didn’t want tea. She didn’t want to eat, either. She rubbed her temples again. “He never spoke about you…but you know that. He would never speak about Austria at all. He refused to consider coming to Vienna even for a vacation.”

She looked at Aslan, who was still not meeting her gaze. “He was so bitter and I never understood why, until just now.” She hesitated. “They say hate is the other side of love. If he truly despised you, then he wouldn’t have hated you. He would have been indifferent. Denis was anything but indifferent about his life in Austria. He would never talk about it, yet it hung over us.”

“For that, I am sorry,” Aslan said. “It may sound odd, but I would have preferred him to be happy, even if it wasn’t with me.”

Quinn drew in a deep breath and let it out. The exhalation seemed to vent the last of her regret for Denis’s passing. “I feel as though I didn’t really know him at all.”

“I suspect that if Denis was still alive, he would say the same thing about you. I, on the other hand, do know you. I understand you and what drives you.”

Quinn could not dispute that, either.

Aslan glanced at his watch and got to his feet. He picked up the jacket and slid it on. “You do not have to answer now,” he said. “But I would like you to consider having dinner with me.” His gaze met hers. “Tell me you will consider it. Please.”

“I will consider it,” Quinn made herself say.

He didn’t smile or show any reaction. He simply nodded. “When you are ready, let me know.”

When he had left, Quinn wrapped her arms around her and held her elbows. It was warm in the dining room, yet she was cold.

She didn’t finish her breakfast. Not even the tea.

She had not eaten a proper meal in too many days. Only a few hours later, Quinn was starving. It didn’t matter that her conscience was beating her up, or that every time she thought of Aslan, she felt nauseous. Her body was rebelling because of the lack of calories. She had to eat and she could think of nothing else.

However, it was midmorning and as usual, everyone who lived in the house had gone about their business for the day. She was likely alone here and would be for many hours yet. Lunch was three hours away.

Quinn emerged from her bedroom and went down to the main floor. She was unfamiliar with the back of the house so she followed the sound of dishes clacking and murmurs. She found herself in a big kitchen with commercial fittings and three people hurrying about.

Quinn dredged up the German phrases she had been learning. The maid who had served her breakfast came over to her with a small smile and said something in German.

Quinn shook her head. “Something to eat?” she said in slow German.

As she spoke, the back door was thrust open. Bright sunlight spilled inside, along with a billow of crisp, snowy air.

Everyone looked up as Toni stalked in to the kitchen. She wore boots which came over her knees, skintight pants and a black mojo jacket with gold zippers. Her sunglasses were mirrored and she did not take them off. She was a walking cliché. Despite that, Quinn shivered.

Toni came to a halt as the door slammed shut behind her, cutting off the light and the cold. She put her hand on her hip and her chin turned, taking in Quinn where she stood at the counter with the maid.

Quinn couldn’t help it. She shrank back.

It was the wrong move to make.

Toni took off her sunglasses and toss them on the nearest counter. She pushed her sleeves up her arms, over her elbows. “Do you know what I have been doing this morning?” she said, her voice low.

Quinn shook her head.

“I have been standing in line at the opera house to buy stupid fucking ball tickets…for you.”

Quinn flinched. Aslan must have contacted Toni immediately after their conversation at breakfast. Toni was his de facto Chief of Staff.

“You do like him,” Quinn breathed.

It was absolutely the wrong thing to say. Toni’s face worked with fury. Before Quinn could react, Toni threw herself at her. The staff hopped out of the way with little shrieks, as Toni’s hands came around Quinn’s neck.

They fell back. Quinn’s spine ground up against the counter. Her back creaked. The pressure on her throat was the real threat, though.

She gripped Toni’s wrists and tried to tear her hands from her throat. “You don’t understand!” she squeaked.

“I understand perfectly well,” Toni hissed. Despite the fury in her eyes, she looked almost happy.

With a jolt, Quinn realized Toni was enjoying herself. She liked giving out pain. She liked to see her victims’ fear.

Quinn reached behind her, her hand flailing as she searched for anything to use as a weapon against Toni. There was nothing within reach. Then she found a rough handle and picked it up. The weight and balance told her she was holding a cast iron skillet.

Did she dare?

She looked into Toni’s eyes and knew the woman could kill her.

Quinn swung the skillet, smashing it against the side of Toni’s head.

It was a partial blow. Toni’s arm was in the way and the skillet only deflected off her head. Toni staggered back, shaking her head. She put her fingers to her head and looked at them. They were bloody.

She screamed. It was a scream of outrage, of defiance, filled with anger.

Then the taller woman launched herself at Quinn again. Quinn sidestepped and ducked under her reaching arms. She couldn’t afford to let Toni grasp her throat again.

Toni flexed and snatched Quinn’s arm, her reactions as quick as a cat. Then she spun hard, bringing Quinn with her. She released Quinn’s arm.

Quinn flew across the kitchen to slam against the big commercial range. Her hand landed on the hot plate and she screamed as she threw her body away from the heat.

As she spun away, Toni came up to her again. This time she had the skillet in her hand. The skillet whistled through the air and Quinn ducked, another cry stuck in her throat.

Toni had been expecting her to duck. Even as the skillet whistled over the top of her head, Toni’s other fist smacked into Quinn’s face.

Quinn fell to the floor on her hands and knees. She was blinded by the flare of pain in her face and blinked to clear her vision.

Before her sight could come together, Toni kicked her. Toni’s boot buried into the soft tissue just beneath her ribs. Quinn fell on the floor. She curled up, her knees and her arms protecting her belly.

She groaned, feeling sick. She didn’t know if she could take another one of those. It felt as though Toni had put her full weight into the kick. She couldn’t breathe properly. She panted in shallow sips.

Toni shrieked. It was a sound of frustration which made Quinn force her chin up and blink to clear her vision, so she could see what was happening.

Noah had Toni pressed up against the white tiles, his forearm locked against her throat. He stared into her eyes. “Take a breath. Take a breath and back off.”

Toni struggled, the fury in her eyes making her look unhinged. She would kill Noah if he let her go. She kicked and flailed.

Noah pressed harder against her throat. The lack of air made her movements slow. She hissed at him with the last of her breath. Noah backed off the pressure on her throat.

She sucked in a breath and scowled at him.

“I don’t know what you were thinking,” Noah said. His voice was low, calm. “I don’t want to know. If you believe Aslan will let you get away with hurting Quinn, then you have misjudged him. Are you listening, Toni?”

Toni swallowed and licked her lips. The fury in her eyes was draining. “He is mine.” Her voice was hoarse because of the pressure Noah had put on her throat.

Noah shook his head. “I told you, I don’t care why you did this. Think it through, Toni. I am trying to help you.”

Comprehension returned to Toni’s eyes. She was still angry, but she was processing now. She swallowed again.

“I suggest you catch a flight up to Innsbruck and stay there for Christmas. Think things through,” Noah said. “Tell Aslan whatever you want. Tell him you are taking me-time. I don’t care. And tell him once you are back in Innsbruck.”

“How dare you!” She hissed it, her fury building. “You are trying to kick me out of this house? Do you know who you are talking to?”

“No,” Noah said gently, as if he was speaking to a small child. “Listen to me. You can’t stay in this house, anymore. Not now.” He glanced over his shoulder at Quinn. Then back at Toni. “Do you understand?”

Toni licked her lips, her gaze flickering over Noah’s face. “If I don’t go, you’ll tell Aslan,” she said, her tone bitter.

“I won’t need to. Look at her. You think Aslan won’t figure it out? You must get yourself far away from him until he calms down.” He considered her for a moment longer. “I can stand here all day if I must. I’m not moving, until you understand that one way or another, you are leaving this house. Go to Innsbruck. Don’t go to Innsbruck. I don’t care. If you have the sense of a peahen, you will leave Vienna, at least for a few days.”

Toni gave a growl in the back of her throat.

“Can I let you go?” Noah said.

The fury drained from her all at once. She sagged. Then she nodded.

Noah let her go. He stepped back. He was still wary. He didn’t take his gaze from her.

Toni lifted her hand to her head one more time and hissed as her fingers came away bloody. She glared at Quinn.

“Walk out of here,” Noah warned Toni. He stood between her and where Quinn laid curled up on the linoleum.

For a moment, it seemed Toni was still deciding if she wanted to make more of this. She glanced at Noah. Then her gaze slid to Quinn. Quinn got the sensation that if the odds were not quite so in Noah’s favor, Toni would come at her again. Only, Noah was stronger, taller and outweighed her nearly two to one, and most of it was muscle.

Even Toni was not crazy enough to defy those sorts of odds.

“I will not forget this, Stojanovich,” she told Noah.

“Neither will I,” Noah said. There was a flatness about his voice which made Quinn suspect he was telling the simple truth.

Toni stalked out of the kitchen. If it was possible for someone to trail steam, then Toni did.

As soon as she left, Noah turned and bent over Quinn. “Can you get up?”

“As long as I don’t have to move fast, yes.” Quinn tried to prop herself up with her hand and hissed as the burn made itself felt.

Noah put his hand under her arm and hauled her to her feet. He lifted her hand and examined the burn. He looked at the staff gathered in the back of the kitchen, cowering together and spoke in German. Quinn heard the word for ice.

They replied and pattered about the kitchen. As they worked, they spoke rapidly. Noah answered them back, his voice low and even. He seemed to be calming them.

Quinn leaned against the counter and pressed her fingers into her side where Toni’s foot had landed. It throbbed at the touch. She would have a bruise there by tomorrow.

The maid shoved a bowl at Noah. Quinn heard ice tinkle in it. He thanked her and hooked a towel off the rack on the wall. He glanced at Quinn. “Can you walk?”

“Slowly,” she said. She took a step toward him and winced.

“As slowly as you want,” Noah replied.

[21]
Later that Morning

Quinn expected Noah to lead her into the common room, or perhaps the small dining room, which was closer. Instead, he crossed the common room and climbed the wide staircase, juggling the bowl so it didn’t spill. He glanced behind him to see how she was managing, as Quinn took the steps one at a time. Lifting her knee hurt. Her hand throbbed. Her face felt as if it was on fire.

It surprised her when he opened her bedroom door and stepped aside for her to enter.

“Why here?”

“Because the only way to stop Toni coming after you with a machete and a machine gun is to stay silent. As long as we don’t rat her out to Aslan, she will stay away. If Aslan learns what she did, she will have nothing left to lose. So you get to stay in your room for the rest of the day, and we do what we can to make sure no bruise shows on your face when you next see Aslan.”

As he spoke, Noah put the bowl of ice on the table, unfolded the cloth and laid ice cubes along it. He folded it up again, then pulled out the chair from beneath the table and patted it.

Quinn lowered herself onto the chair, wincing. Noah pressed the cloth against her cheek. The cold made her hiss again.

“Hold it there, while I look at your side. It is your side, isn’t it?”

Quinn held the cloth against her cheek. The cold hurt. She knew it was necessary to prevent swelling and minimize the bruising. She pointed to her side. “She kicked me.”

Noah’s face grew still. Nothing showed. He nodded. “Can I lift your shirt and look?”

“Are you a medic, too?” she asked him.

“Not even close.” He crouched and lifted the hem of her black chiffon shirt. “I’ve had lots of experience with bruises and cuts…and other wounds.” He frowned as he peered at her side and pressed gently with his fingers. She flinched away.

He stood. “I want to keep an eye on it for a while and see how it goes. It’s probably just a bruise. Time will tell.” He held out his hand. “Let me see the burn.”

She lifted her other hand, palm up. He took her wrist and turned her hand so the light from the window fell on it. Then he hooked another chair out from beneath the table with his foot and sat. He picked an ice cube out of the bowl and held it against her palm.

Quinn tried to wrench her hand out from his grip because it hurt like hell. His grip tightened, keeping her hand still. “The pain will subside in a minute,” he assured her. “Hang in there. Breathe.” He ran the ice cube directly over the burn, letting the ice-cold water from the melting cube bathe the wound.

Quinn peered at her palm. The red spot on the heel of her hand was smaller than she thought it would be. “It felt as though half my hand was burned.”

“Next time, don’t put your hand on the stove.”

“There won’t be a next time. I have no intentions of confronting the woman again.”

“Why on earth did you confront her in the first place? Toni isn’t the sort of woman to restrict herself to mere insult.”

“I didn’t confront her. She was already pissed at me before she saw me.”

Noah dropped the sliver of ice cubes into the bowl and picked up a fresh one. He inspected her palm. The ice had done its work, for the bottom half of her hand was numb. Yet, even in the few seconds while the ice cube had not been resting directly on the burn, it throbbed again.

He put the cube back on her palm and raised a brow at her.

“Aslan told her to buy tickets for the opera house ball in January.”

Noah frowned. Then his frown smoothed out. “She’s threatened by you.”

Quinn once more ran through her mind the moments in the dining room with Aslan. “I think it’s more than that,” she said.

Aslan’s calm façade, the way he had opened up to her…the air of confession and hope.

Quinn shuddered.

Noah’s eyes narrowed. He’d seen the shudder. “Why is it more than that?” he coaxed.

Quinn couldn’t look at him any longer. She was too uncomfortable. She could feel her face heating. Her whole body seemed to grow warm and prickle uncomfortably.

Noah dropped the ice cube back in the bowl and put her hand on her knee. He sat back. “Quinn?”

She could barely speak the words. “He wants to have dinner with me.” They emerged in a high, strangled tone.

Noah’s silence stretched for too many heavy heartbeats. She looked at him.

His eyes were still narrowed, the brows together. He wasn’t looking at her and she got the impression his mind was racing. Only, nothing showed on his face, except for the scowl.

“You don’t want to have dinner with him, though.”

Quinn’s middle squeezed. “It’s not even that he’s so much older than me,” she said. Suddenly the words were there, pouring from her. “It’s not that. He’s—I thought he and Toni were together and that’s why she did what she did in the kitchen, only it’s not even that. I don’t know him at all. The little I do know, the bit he’s shown me…” Abruptly, she cut off the flow of words by holding her teeth together.

Noah worked for Aslan. He must share some of the same values, at least. She had nearly forgotten. In the last second, she had stopped herself from blurting out her primary objection—that the business Aslan was in, his morals and values, repulsed her.

If she said it, Noah would know she was not the pick-pocket criminal willing to learn Aslan’s trade because she had nowhere else to go.

Noah’s brow smoothed out. “You’re afraid of him.”

Quinn pressed her uninjured hand to her belly. “Aren’t you?” she demanded. “His power and how he uses it…you all jump to his orders because you know what will happen if you say no. If I say no…” She swallowed. Her fear bloomed even larger. “He wants this…me…a lot. He didn’t say so, but I could see it in his eyes, Noah. He wants me because…because…”

“Because having you would, in a way, give Denis back to him,” Noah finished. “A version of Denis who didn’t run screaming from his life as soon as he learned the truth.”

Quinn drew in a breath which shuddered. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

Noah fell back into his deep silence. He did it a lot, Quinn realized. He didn’t speak much at all. Did it mean he was thinking heavily all the time?

He got to his feet. “Come with me.”

“To where?”

His gaze met hers. Noah bent and kissed her.

Quinn vented her surprise in a little gasp against his lips. The surprise was erased by the leap of pleasure, which brought all her nerve ends alive. All her senses, too. She inhaled his scent—sandalwood and low-key spice—even as she realized his lips were soft with an underlying hardness. His hair was silky soft and thick, with not a hint of coarseness…and that was when she realized she had slid her fingers into his hair.

Someone gave a soft moan. She didn’t know who.

Noah lifted her to her feet and pulled her against him, as the kiss continued. He really was a tall man! Quinn was not used to kissing a man so tall, but she grew to like it—she liked that she was shorter even wearing heels. She liked that she had to turn her mouth up to his. She liked that she felt small and feminine and petite against him, when she had never been petite in her life.

They fitted together.

The power of the kiss spread through her, making her weak and wanting more. Much more.

She trembled when he let her go. Noah picked up her hand—the uninjured one. His gaze was steady yet there was heat in his eyes which she understood. “Come with me.”

Quinn went with him. He moved up the wide corridor to his room on the other side and pushed the door open.

Quinn glimpsed the dark wood paneling, molding, burnt gold trim…then Noah drew her into his arms once more and claimed her full attention.

It was good. It was so very good. Even while she wondered what was driving Noah to this, Quinn still reveled in the earthy pleasure of mind-blowing sex.

He was careful to not stress her bruised side, or her hand or the side of her face. He obeyed no other limitations. He turned her senses inside out with his hard body and hands and lips. He left her quivering, over and over.

During a quieter moment, while they both laid with splayed limbs upon on the big bed, catching their breath, Noah pushed himself up with a flex of his torso, giving her a view of his wide olive-toned back—which the casual jackets hid.

He bent and retrieved his pants and fished in the pocket. He pulled out his cellphone and turned it off with a soft electronic warble. Then he tossed it on the nightstand, turned back to her, scooped her up against him and got busy with his mouth.

In the calmer moments, afterwards, Noah still kept his fingers busy, stroking her, exploring curves and sensitive spots. His touch meant Quinn couldn’t fully relax despite her depleted body begging for rest. She turned onto her belly and closed her eyes.

She would have to think about this. Only, later.

Much later.

It was much later when Quinn was forced to think—and fast.

The knock on the bedroom door wasn’t a soft, discrete tap. It was a solid hammering which made Quinn jump. She realized she had fallen into a doze.

Noah pressed his hand to her shoulder. “Shh… Relax.” He got up.

Quinn cracked open one eye to appreciate the view as he padded over to the door, his buttocks working.

A toweling robe hung on a hook on the back of the door—a prosaic note in such an elegant room. Noah lifted it off the hook and slid into it as he opened the door. He barely got the front of the robe closed as the door opened.

“I’ve texted three times,” Aslan said. “Did you fall asleep…”

Horrified, Quinn sat up, pulling up the sheet around her. She shifted from deeply relaxed to afraid in the space of a heartbeat.

Aslan looked from her to Noah. And back. His face tightened.

All the emotion left his face and his eyes. He switched to the sophisticated businessman she remembered from the first time they had met. He looked at Noah. “You are late. We should have left ten minutes ago. I will meet you downstairs.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Noah said.

Aslan didn’t respond. He didn’t nod or acknowledge Noah. Instead, he turned and walked away.

Noah shut the door and took off the robe again. He dressed with rapid movements.

“God, Noah…!” Quinn breathed.

He shook his head. “He’s not uncivilized. Not that way, at least.”

“He was livid—I saw it in his eyes.” She clutched the sheet to her chest.

“He won’t do anything,” Noah told her, his voice flat, designed to reassure, only it didn’t. “That isn’t the way Aslan works. He’ll take this as your definitive ‘no’ and he’ll move on.” He thrust his arms into the suede jacket he wore most often and straightened it.

Quinn stared at him. “You were counting on it, weren’t you? You turned your phone off so he’d come to find you…” She smoothed out the sheet, trying to ward off the disappointment creeping through her.

Noah sat on the edge of the bed. He curled his hand around her neck, so the palm cupped her cheek. “It wasn’t all calculation,” he said gently.

She nodded. “I should thank you, I suppose. I said I didn’t know what to do. You solved that for me. It was…kind of you.”

His gaze was sharp. “There were a dozen different ways you could have given Aslan your answer, with or without my help. This way happened to come with side benefits I’ve wanted since Boston, so before you melt into a puddle of mortification and self-pity, think about that.” He kissed her. It was brief and hard, but could be nothing else, for time was ticking on and Quinn was defensive.

Noah headed for the door. “Stay here as long as you want,” he told her, and left.

It was only then, listening to his footsteps as Noah moved down the corridor to the stairs down to the main floor, when Quinn identified the large omission in Noah’s reassurances that Aslan would be civilized about this.

Noah had spoken only about how Aslan would react to her. He had not said what Aslan would do to him.

[22]
That Evening

Quinn stayed in her room for the rest of the day. Not long after the sunset, she heard murmurs and the opening and closing of doors. It meant most of the household had returned for the day and was preparing for dinner.

Quinn considered having dinner sent to her room. Her courage was not sufficient to face Aslan. Not now.

Only, Noah had spent the afternoon with Aslan. Noah had the courage to face the man, probably with his chin up. After all, Noah was fearless. Confronting Aslan was nothing compared to throwing himself off mountains.

Suddenly, she wanted to see Noah to assure herself he was okay, that he had survived the afternoon unscathed. It wasn’t for any romantic reason, for that was not the arrangement between them—not if she understood Noah properly. Although, she did have some responsibility for the risk he had taken.

One she had reasoned it out, Quinn dressed for dinner, making sure her makeup was immaculate and hid the bruises on her face and wrist. She chose her clothes with care. Because the old Quinn wanted to dress as conservatively as possible—sackcloth and ashes would be appropriate—Quinn deliberately chose something provocative. The black lace dress was not as in-the-face as Toni might have chosen, although it hugged her figure and bared her shoulders. The long sleeves came to a point over the back of her hands.

She brushed her hair and coiled it so it hung in a long wave down her back.

Then, because there were no more excuses left to keep her in the room, Quinn made her way downstairs. Her nervousness rose as she moved through the common room to the big formal dining room where evening meals were always served.

The main dining room was a gargantuan size. The table could easily seat twenty or more people. The walls were made of smoked mirrors, with gold hued wood panels beneath. The huge chandelier over the table was reflected in the mirrors, which made the room appear to be full of light.

She had lingered so long, everyone was already at the table. Dinner had not been served, yet.

Aslan looked up from the head of the table, and his eyes narrowed as he saw her. “Finally.”

She sat in the first available chair, which was beside Johnson. It put her three chairs away from Aslan. That suited her fine.

Mitchell and Noah sat on the opposite side of the table. Mitchell was closest to Aslan, which put Noah directly opposite Quinn. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

She let her gaze move over Noah. He was still whole and in one piece. There were no wounds. His gaze was steady. It seemed he had survived the afternoon.

Of course he had. She was blowing this all out of proportion. If Aslan was as civilized as Noah insisted, then the worst Noah might have faced would be verbal frost.

Aslan looked at his watch. “Has anyone seen Toni?”

Quinn kept her eyes on the white tablecloth. She had forgotten about Toni altogether. The woman had left the house as Noah had insisted.

“Toni isn’t here,” Noah said. “She went back to Innsbruck.”

Aslan considered his response. His gaze was withering as he looked at Noah. “Innsbruck,” he said heavily. “Another domestic arrangement you’ve made behind my back?”

Everything in Quinn’s middle seemed to crunch down. The bruise which was forming on her side throbbed.

Noah shrugged, as if the matter was meaningless to him. “I’m just the messenger. She left this morning. She was pissed.” Noah considered Aslan for a moment. “Did you two have an argument?”

Quinn held her breath. It was sheer bluff, yet it was what someone would have said, if they knew nothing about what Toni had done to her in the kitchen. She wouldn’t have remembered to respond that way, if it had been her in Noah’s place.

It was these conversational abysses and trip wires which kept Quinn’s heart rate constantly elevated.

Aslan scowled, but said nothing in response to Noah’s gambit. He reached for the bottle of wine and poured himself a glassful. He did not offer the bottle to anyone else.

Johnson, sitting to Quinn’s left, picked up the bottle of red and held it out to her. “Would you like some Cabernet, Quinn?” His tone was polite and friendly.

Quinn accepted the glass, although she had no intention of drinking.

The waiter hurried in with the heavy tray of dishes. Soup was placed in front of them and the waiter hurried away, while Aslan drank silently. No one spoke.

It was almost a relief to pick up the spoon and eat. It gave her something to do and an excuse for not speaking. The only sound in the room was the clatter of spoons against bowls as everyone else did the same.

Aslan took two or three mouthfuls of the soup then dropped his spoon, reached for his glass of wine and sat back. He drank moodily.

Quinn tried to keep up the pretense of eating. She held the spoon and moved it around the creamy soup. She watched mushrooms rise to the surface. She worried, as she stared at the bowl.

Noah had been convincing when he said Aslan was civilized and would do nothing more now she had symbolically told him no.

Only, Aslan’s behavior at the table made her wonder if Noah had misjudged him. Aslan was pouting. A powerful man, when he was slighted, had too many ways of exacting revenge.

Noah ate steadily. His gaze touched her face sometimes and moved around the room naturally. He didn’t appear uncomfortable.

Quinn realized she was perspiring. It wasn’t just the soup. Fear was making her heart work too hard. The longer the silent meal continued, the stronger her trepidation grew.

“Christmas in two days’ time,” Mitchell said, his tone conversational. “What’s everyone got planned? Expensive goodies for me, I hope.”

Aslan put his glass on the table and picked up the wine bottle. “Maybe you should go back to Innsbruck, too.” He was looking at Noah.

Quinn responded without considering the wisdom of what she was about to face. It was pure instinct, driven by the thought which flashed in her mind—that if Noah went back to Innsbruck, it would leave her alone here.

And Noah would be alone in Innsbruck. Toni was not an ally. Not anymore.

She would consider later why the thought jolted her so deeply. She spoke quickly. “Oh, Christmas in Innsbruck would be heavenly! Noah, can we travel there by train, tomorrow? Are the trains running on Christmas Eve? It would be so romantic…”

Mitchell’s gaze swiveled to her. Surprise showed in his eyes, along with sudden wariness. He didn’t look at Aslan, yet his focus was upon the still man at the head of the table.

Quinn’s heart beat in her ears. She did not dare look at Aslan directly. She kept her gaze on Noah, a bright and inquiring smile on her face, trying to appear wildly happy at the idea of a snowy tryst in the mountains for Christmas.

Was it her imagination or had Noah stopped breathing, too?

“We have business meetings, tomorrow,” Aslan said. “Everyone will be busy. We will spend Christmas in Vienna.”

Quinn made herself meet Aslan’s eyes. “I don’t attend your business meetings. There is no need for me to be here. If Noah is going to Innsbruck, I will go with him.”

There. She had stated it plainly and out loud. Quinn drew a breath for courage and kept her gaze locked upon Aslan’s face.

Johnson, beside her, let out a slow breath. No one else spoke.

The waiter came back into the room, which gave Quinn an excuse to shift her gaze away from Aslan. Her stomach was doing cartwheels.

She got to her feet and put her napkin on the table. “I am suddenly not hungry,” she said. “I’m going upstairs.” She looked at Aslan directly, daring him to tell her to sit down again.

He said nothing.

Quinn knew it was a temporary victory. There was one more thing she needed to do to lock it in, though. She rounded the table, not hurrying, and passed behind Aslan, so she came up behind Noah. She rested her hand on Noah’s shoulder. “I will see you upstairs.” She made it sound as though she was speaking only to Noah, but her voice was loud enough that everyone at the table could hear.

She left, still not hurrying, even though her heart was pumping like a piston, making her want to run at full tilt. She made herself walk across the common room and head upstairs.

Quinn waited in Noah’s room. She sat on the edge of the bed but did not take off her shoes or do anything other than just sit in the dark, listening to her heart rattle like a window in a storm.

She wondered if she would have to wait long.

It took thirty minutes. Noah strode into the room, almost slamming the door behind him. He came right up to her and stood over her. “You are certifiable. Of all the stupid things you could do… He was mad at me! He is always pissed at me. He’s never trusted me, I haven’t been around for years like the others. I know how to take the heat! Now you’ve ruined it.”

Quinn’s heart leapt and bounced around, even more than it had been. Aslan’s anger was scary, yet Noah’s fury was unsettling in a way she didn’t quite understand and didn’t like. She shook her head. “Toni’s departure undermined you. Even if he doesn’t know what happened in the kitchen, he blames you for it. Of course he does—Toni is gone, and you’re right there. It’s a good excuse to get pissed at you because he won’t let himself stamp his foot in rage because you got me and he didn’t.”

Noah shoved his hand through his hair. “You don’t understand. I’m his backup chemist. I make sure no one is trying to screw him in the laboratory. He needs me, no matter how pissed he is at me.”

“Aslan called me his lucky charm,” Quinn said. “He wants me to stay around, even if he doesn’t get me. I made it clear tonight that if he wants me to stay here, then you must stay here to. He was trying to separate you and get you alone.”

“I know what you’re trying to do. Now everyone else sitting at the table does, too. Don’t you get it, Quinn? Aslan will keep me around as long as I’m useful, or until the chafing is too much, while you… Until tonight, you were invulnerable. He wouldn’t have touched a hair on your head. Now, though, you’ve publicly attached yourself to me. Now, your usefulness will last only as long as mine does.”

Quinn got to her feet, glad of the dark, which hid her trembling. She moved closer to him. “I don’t know much about you. I do know I feel safer with you than I do with him.” She reached up and brushed the heavy locks of hair off his forehead. “And perhaps I’m indulging my self-interest, too.”

He let out a heavy breath. He was expelling the last of his anger. He drew her to him. “Well, it’s done now.” He kissed her.

Sometime later, they laid beneath the heavy quilt, facing each other. A streetlamp right outside Noah’s window shed a warm orange light over them which flickered as snowflakes fell through the lamplight.

“My headache has gone…” Noah breathed in wonder.

It seemed Aslan had lied about the business meetings scheduled all day Christmas Eve, because no one left the house. The snow was falling and although the temperatures were warmer than a week ago, the depth of the snow kept everyone indoors.

Mitchell retreated to the home theater. Everyone could still hear through the soundproofed doors the football games and movies he watched.

Quinn stayed in her room and tried to figure out what she should do next. She was here because she wanted to find out the truth about Denis. She wanted to know why he had died. And now she must find the Kobra if she wanted to return to the States and redeem her life. Dima would settle for nothing less. Quinn was certain of it.

She didn’t know how it worked in intelligence organizations, only it seemed to her that the lack of communication and attempts to find her meant she was in the doghouse. If she didn’t return with an olive branch, then she would face charges of theft and terrorism, or worse.

Only, she had alienated Aslan and put a barrier between them. How could she learn more about him, now?

How could she extricate herself from this house and Aslan’s organization, once she had the information she needed to be able to return home?

How could she leave Noah behind?

For the first time, she realized how complicated she had made things.

Perhaps there was a way to bring Noah in, too. That was, if he wanted to come in. And how, exactly, would she broach that conversation with him?

She couldn’t blurt out that she was a CIA plant, sucking up information about Aslan in order to find a spymaster in Russia. That conversation would end with a bullet in her brain, put there by Aslan, or Noah himself. She could not ignore that Noah worked for Aslan, no matter how it felt to be in his arms.

On Christmas Day, Quinn forced herself to face the household. She had remained hidden in her room, or Noah’s, since facing off with Aslan. If she was to further her plans to learn more about Aslan, she couldn’t stay there forever.

She went downstairs for breakfast and froze at the door of the small dining room, because Aslan was there. Also Mitchell and Johnson.

Aslan looked up, then returned his attention to his newspaper.

Mitchell winked at her and pulled out the chair beside him. He patted it. “They made me pancakes for breakfast!” he said happily. “Would you like some?”

“I am absolutely starving,” Quinn admitted. “Pancakes sound heavenly.”

Aslan said nothing throughout the meal. Quinn ate enormously. The pancakes were excellent, the warm maple syrup even better. She drank a rare cup of coffee and suspected she might have to roll out of the room. She had eaten too little food over the last few days. Breakfast made up for it with a vengeance.

She clinked her coffee cup against Mitchell’s. “Merry Christmas.”

After breakfast, she took her e-book reader into the common room and settled on the chair and tucked her feet beneath her. The big fire was burning, the flames dancing behind the glass shield.

A few minutes later, Mitchell and Johnson wandered into the room, their heads together. They settled on one of the sofas and picked through the enormous tray of chocolate sitting on the coffee table.

When Aslan appeared, Quinn froze. She kept her gaze on the ereader and couldn’t see any of the words. From the corner of her eyes she could tell Aslan was moving around the room. She didn’t check to see what he was doing.

When he came closer, her breath caught.

“Would you like a glass, Quinn?” Aslan said.

She looked up. Aslan was holding a decanter with pale golden liquid in it.

“What is it?”

“Sherry,” he said. “Vintage.”

Quinn nodded. “Yes, then. Thank you.”

He put a tiny stemmed glass on the table beside her chair and topped it with the golden liquid. “It will warm your middle,” he told her. He lifted his head and his gaze met hers. “Merry Christmas, Quinn.”

She let out a breath. Her middle relaxed. “And to you, too.”

Noah came downstairs a little while later. Quinn again found her breath pausing. Noah did not search for her. He walked over to the big buffet under the stairs, when newspapers from a dozen different countries were laid out each morning. He walked along the buffet, glancing at the headline.

“Noah,” Aslan said.

Noah looked around. So did Quinn.

Aslan was sitting at the small round table under the window. There was a chessboard on the table. Aslan picked up a white pawn and held it up for Noah to see. “Come and play. Let me kick your ass for you.”

Noah hesitated. Then he shrugged. “And if I beat you?” he asked as he crossed to the table.

Aslan shook his head. “No one had beaten me since I was fourteen.” He spun the board around. “You can be white.”

Quinn relaxed again. If Aslan wanted to slap Noah around in a symbolic way by using the chessboard, she could live with that.

The rest of the day was one of silence and introspection. Everyone was polite to each other. The Christmas dinner was excellent, as all the meals were. It was not turkey, but roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. The fruit mince pies for dessert came with a thick coating of custard.

“English cooking is usually disgusting,” Aslan had observed as he sharpened the knife before carving the beef. “However, there are some meals they have perfected. This is one of them.”

After the meal, Aslan asked everyone to gather around the fireplace in the common room one more time. There, he uncorked a bottle of Roederer Cristal Rose and poured everyone a glass. “None of us here are natives of this land, yet we have made it our own. Here is to a successful year for all of us.”

Quinn sipped the champagne curiously. The rare vintage was worth the fuss, she decided. It was delicious. She let herself enjoy almost a full glassful.

Later that night, Noah tapped on her bedroom door. When she opened it, he lifted a second bottle of the same vintage up in his hand. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to get drunk on champagne. Shall we find out?”

They didn’t find out that night, because neither of them finished more than a glassful before their attention wandered to other matters. Noah did not go back to his room, either. When she woke in the morning, he was still there, and it seemed almost frighteningly appropriate.

Her uneasiness made her creep around the room to avoid waking him. She dressed warmly, grabbed her coat and hurried from the house. There were still taxis plying their trade even on Boxing Day and more shops were open than she expected. Quinn had the taxi to take her to the Goldenes Quartier, where she wandered the lonely roads. There were few people about. She looked in windows, considered buying things which caught her eye, but didn’t.

The restlessness was gnawing at her belly. The questions she had been asking herself about the future returned in full force. Christmas Day had been no-man’s-land, with everyone behaving themselves. Would it continue? There was no guarantee.

The chill of the fresh snow and cold temperatures drove Quinn to the little café where she had learned most of her useful German. It was open, which delighted her. She pushed inside. Warm air touched her cold cheeks. She sniffed the scent of tea and coffee. She could also smell a sweet pastry cooking in the oven at the back of the store. The air was delicious, filled with spices and caffeine.

Quinn took off her gloves and headed for the counter to order her usual pot of tea. She came to a halt, three paces away, as the barista turned to take her order with a smile.

Blonde hair, plaited and pinned over her head in typical German fashion, dirndl and pink cheeks. A sweet smile, and big blue eyes.

It was Agata.

Dima had made contact.

[23]
Thursday, December 26th

Quinn made herself step forward as she would normally. She gave Agata a stiff smile. “You are new here,” she said in bad German.

“I started today,” Agata said in English. Her accent was thick, yet understandable. The last time Agata had spoken directly to Quinn, she had spoken English like any other North American.

“You are English, yes?” Agata added. “Your accent…” She shook her head ruefully.

“I know, my German is just awful. I’m learning fast. Actually, I am American.” The passport Toni had given her before the Washington fiasco had been an American passport. The name on it was not hers, though.

“What can I get you?” Agata asked.

“The last time I was here, there was a stash of Irish breakfast tea. Could I have a pot of that, if there’s any left?”

“I’ll see if there is. Have a seat.” Agata turned away.

Quinn went to the table by the window, where she preferred to sit. She liked to people-watch. Not that there were many shoppers today. She pulled out her ereader, instead. There was no one else in the store she could study, either.

Agata carried over the big white porcelain teapot and a coffee mug. She put them both on the table, turned to the next table and grabbed the sugar pot and put it beside Quinn’s coffee cup.

“Cream,” Agata said, as if to herself. She hurried away.

Quinn opened the teapot to inspect the tea and judge if it was ready to pour yet.

Agata came back with a small milk jug, which she put on the table and stood back. “Is there anything else?”

Quinn wondered if the question was as straightforward as it seemed. “For now, I’m good.”

Agata smiled brilliantly at her, then went back to wash dishes. Dishes clattered and steam vented from the espresso machine. It sounded perfectly normal.

Quinn took the lid off the sugar pot and paused. Sitting on top of the lumps of sugar was a small tube of lip gloss.

Quinn slipped a lump of sugar from the bowl and dropped it into her tea. As she put the lid back on the pot, she eased the lip gloss out and put it in the pocket of her pants.

She drank her tea and wondered if there was something else she should do. Did Dima want her to report in? If she had, surely they would’ve slipped her cellphone or some other communications device. A simple tracker implied they were merely keeping an eye on her.

She felt more relaxed than she had for many days, knowing Dima and her team were nearby. Quinn fought the inclination to pull Agata to one side and talk to her. Agata had not tried to do so herself, which meant no one in the store knew who she was. Quinn couldn’t blow her cover.

All Quinn could do was be herself. Dima had told her to do that from the start. She had to leave everything else to Dima.

Although, with Dima in the area, did it mean her time was growing short? She still had no answers and could give Dima nothing which would help her find the Kobra.

The uneasiness which had driven Quinn from the house evaporated as she finished her tea. Feeling far more positive than she had for many days, Quinn went back to the house. She had with no shopping bags and nothing to show for her time except a change of attitude.

No one stopped her when she got in the house and demanded to see her shopping bags.

She went up to her room. Noah was not in the bed where she had left him. She had not seen him in the room downstairs, so it was possible he had driven Aslan to the factory already. Even for criminals, business was a year-round affair.

Quinn had nothing to do. She didn’t know what she should do to help Dima, either. She had to trust that Dima would reach out to her when she wanted her to do something and would contrive to tell her what that was.

In the meantime, Quinn couldn’t shop endlessly. It left her little else to do. Aslan had never given her any formal responsibilities. Until recently, she had still been in recovery from the bullet wound.

She didn’t dare hop on to the social networks to check statuses because it would send up red flags with every intelligence organization in the United States.

For lack of an alternative, Quinn curled up on the bed and tried to read. Inevitably, the last few nights of little sleep and excess fear, along with a great deal more physical activity than she had indulged in lately, plus the covert signal that Dima was nearby and the relief it provided, all did their work. She slept, more heavily than she had slept in a long time.

She rose through layers of sleep to realize the quilt had been placed over her. As she stirred, an arm tightened over her middle. There was a warmth at her back, too.

“You are safe,” Noah said so softly, she barely heard it. His lips pressed against her neck.

Quinn slept again.

When she woke the second time, Noah was still there. He sat at the table, scrolling through his cellphone. He looked up at her movement.

Quinn saw covered plates on the table and silverware.

“Aslan suggested we stay in tonight,” Noah said. He raised a brow.

“He is being civilized, just as you said he would,” Quinn said, as she threw the quilt aside, slid to the edge of the bed and got up.

“A snake sleeping in the sun is still a killer,” Noah said, as he removed the covers from the plates.

Startled, Quinn looked at him. “You’re not just being metaphorical, are you?”

“In this business?” He picked up his knife and fork. “Come and eat before it gets cold.”

Quinn thought her appetite would not recover from that observation, only the scent of the curry drew her to the table. She sat and ate.

Afterwards, almost as if Noah had read her mind, he took her back to bed.

Much later, when the house was still around them and not even the sound of Mitchell’s beloved football game could be heard, Quinn stirred and lifted herself up on one elbow to look at Noah. She knew he was awake because his fingers had not stopped moving against her flesh. “How ruthless is he?”

Noah’s fingers stopped moving. “You have to ask?”

“He supplies chemical to anyone who pays. It’s illegal, but it’s not a South American cartel. Or is it? That’s my problem, I think. Everyone is so polite and Aslan is so elegant.”

“Yet in your gut, you’re afraid of him. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“My gut says be afraid, yes,” she said. “Only I don’t know why. I mean, I can guess. If I knew for sure, then I would have a measure of him and be able to respond appropriately.”

Noah didn’t answer at once. He considered how much he would say.

“If you’re worried about me blabbing, remember there isn’t a single person in the United States I can talk to, even if I wanted to,” she reminded him. “Everyone I know outside the United States is in this house, except for Toni and two baristas at a café.”

Noah sat up. There was no moon and no streetlights, so his face was in shadow. She couldn’t see his eyes, which bothered her more than she thought it might. “You want blunt fact. That is what you’re asking for, isn’t it?”

“I suppose, yes.”

“Are you sure you want to go there?” He paused. “You won’t like it, once you step over that line.”

“I don’t like standing on this side of the line and guessing. Maybe I’m so afraid because my imagination paints everything larger than it should be. Maybe the truth will let me sleep better. I cannot always sleep with you curled around me.”

He didn’t speak at once. Even though she couldn’t see his eyes, Quinn knew he was back to thinking heavily again. Noah weighed everything well before he spoke.

“Have I seen Aslan do murder?” he said. “No. He does not trust me nearly enough.” He shook his head. “Do I think he is capable of murder? Absolutely. He is one of the biggest chemical weapons suppliers in the world. One doesn’t become successful in this business without leaving a few bodies behind. Probably more than a few.”

She let out a breath which shook. “It is as bad as I imagined.”

There was enough light in the room for her to see Noah staring at his hands, turning them over and over, as if he weighed something in his mind.

Then he drew a deep breath and blew it out heavily. “It is easy to imagine murder, only you do not properly understand how ruthless he can be. Murder is just snuffing out a life. It’s terrible, yes, but it is not the worst thing you can do to a person.”

“There is worse?” Her heart worked hard.

“There is what he did to you.”

She flinched. “What did he do to me?”

Noah shifted on the bed so he was facing her directly. “In your gut, you’ve known all along. It’s why you fear him.” He hesitated. “He set you up in Washington, Quinn. I saw him do it. He had Toni arrange with Diana Hague’s guard to blow the whistle on you and make you run. My job was to push you toward the building Aslan was in. He intended to turn you into a fugitive, because it would cut you off from everything and everyone, then he could have you to himself.”

Quinn barely breathed. She felt sick. At the same time, though, she acknowledged Noah was right. She had suspected something like this. She had known all along Aslan was capable of it.

“He took a bullet…he took two bullets in the shoulder, to save me.”

“Would you have trusted him, if he had not? Would you be living in his house, being polite to him, if he had not made himself look like a hero to you?” Noah spread his hands. “That is how ruthless he is.”

Quinn pulled her knees up against her chest, the thick quilt over the top of them. She put her chin on her knee. “Why are you working for a man like that? You know what he is like. I don’t think you are like that, so why are you here?”

“People put aside their morals and work for people like Aslan because they’re either in love with money or power, or both.”

Which one did Noah love? Quinn didn’t ask the question aloud because she was afraid of the answer. She didn’t want to know. “How did you start with Aslan? It’s not like they have a job board for people like you.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word criminal, either. Not in association with Noah.

“He poached me.” Noah leaned his hands together. “There are not many people like me, with my skills, in Aslan’s world.”

“It is your world, too, isn’t it? You were working for someone else.”

“Aslan gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. The money…” He gave a small shrug. “When I feel like indulging in foolish pipedreams, I think about the house I will build on the Costa del Sol, one of these days.” His tone was bitter.

Did he believe it would never happen? Was he addicted to the money and couldn’t make himself get out? Exactly how did someone like Noah retire?

Or was there no such thing as retirement in this world? It would explain the bitterness.

Quinn was almost overwhelmed by the need to tell him the truth. To offer him a way out if he came with her. The only thing which stopped her from opening her mouth and letting it all slide out was the kernel of doubt she had about Noah. He seemed to be a good man when he wasn’t scowling. He was good company when he was on his own, and no one could see him. He had been genuinely moved by music, which gave them one more thing in common.

Only she could not get around the fact that he worked for Aslan. He knew what Aslan was, yet he still chose to do Aslan’s dirty work—literally.

It was that smudge which stopped her from speaking, even though her heart ached with the need to offer him a glimmer of hope.

Instead, she said softly, “When we first got into Witsec and I was going out of my mind trying to remember who I was, and not break down every day because I couldn’t dance, there were things I used to tell myself to get myself through it.”

He tilted his head. “Such as?”

“You haven’t failed until you quit. And you never know what is around the corner.” She shrugged. “It got me through the day. Then I would get up the next day and do it over again.”

Noah resettled the covers and laid on his side. He pulled her closer. “It’s tomorrow. Let’s find out what is around the corner.”

Noah woke Quinn the next morning. He was wearing a suit and tie and his hair was slicked back, still damp from the shower. “I’d let you sleep, only Aslan wants everyone on deck—including you. One of the bidders is coming to sample the shipment.”

Quinn felt sick. The shipment. She clutched the pillow. How bland the word was! “I need to be there for that?”

“I’m just passing the message along. Toni used to supply the glamor and dazzle, but…” Noah shrugged.

Quinn drew in a deep breath. “Well, now I know what my role is, at least.”

While Noah waited and watched with heated interest, Quinn hurried through a fast shower and dressed in something she hoped would say glamor and business at the same time.

The black pinstripe suit had a tight skirt and a jacket which looked normal down to the nipped-in waist. The peplum was full and turned into waves at the back. It lengthened at the back, too, so the hem brushed under her butt. The sleeves were also full circle ruffles. The insides of the ruffles and peplum were bright red.

A white camisole was all that was needed beneath. To avoid competing with the over the top peplum, Quinn wore only the simple gold chain and soprano graf. All the other jewelry she had bought—all of it high quality costume jewelry—was too dazzling and glittery.

She was getting faster with her makeup. She finished it with red lipstick which matched the lining of her suit.

She pushed her feet into Louboutin ankle boots. The black suede boots had solid square two-inch heels. With this outfit, she should wear the finest of stiletto heels. Only, walking on ice and snow with stilettos would be impossible. The boots had good, solid grips on the soles and heels, so she wouldn’t slip and slide.

She grabbed the red merino coat with the black fur collar. The red matched the lining of her suit, too. She shoved her wallet into a black leather clutch and raised her brow at Noah.

“Yes, I think Aslan will be happy with that,” Noah said, getting to his feet. He glanced at his watch. “Five minutes to spare. Let’s go.”

The black SUV waited outside the house and Johnson was at the wheel once more. Had Noah been promoted?

Aslan pushed Mitchell toward the front passenger seat and waved to the open back door, indicating Quinn should get in. Like Noah, Aslan was dressed in the finest of business suits, with an expensive camel overcoat. Mitchell wore a basic black suit and seemed ill at ease in it. He was a jeans and tee shirt guy at heart.

Noah slid onto the back seat from the street side of the car, which meant she was seated between Aslan and Noah—both big men. The car was roomy, although there was little room left with the three of them on the seat.

Quinn felt like holding her breath all the way to the factory.

Giorgio stood at the front doors under the portico, waiting for them.

“Hello…” Noah said. “He’s bleeding.”

Aslan peered through the windows as the car eased around the curve and stopped at the front door. “Johnson, find out what’s going on. The client will arrive at the top of the hour. I don’t want them wondering about the quality of our security when they get here.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnson said crisply. He turned off the engine and pocketed the key, then hurried over to where Giorgio stood mopping his bloody temple with a white handkerchief.

Aslan moved straight past the pair of them and into the building.

Quinn eased herself down to the ground and moved over to the front doors to follow Aslan.

“Mitchell, a moment, if you don’t mind,” Johnson said.

Mitchell was just ahead of Quinn. He turned back to look at Johnson with a touch of impatience.

Noah caught Quinn’s arm. “Keep moving,” he murmured. “No need to get involved.”

“Wait up, Noah,” Mitchell said. “Aslan will need to deal with this.”

Noah barely paused. “We’ll be in the main board room. You can talk to him there.” He hurried ahead to where Aslan moved through the interior doors into the primary administration area. Noah quickened his pace to catch up with Aslan, who paused with his head down to hear what Noah said. Then he nodded.

Noah pointed to the left.

“Board room it is,” Johnston said. He gave Quinn a stiff smile. “Go ahead. If you follow them, you’ll find your way there. We’ll catch up. We have something to pick up first.”

Mitchell moved toward the glass doors, which slid aside for him. “I know the way,” he told Quinn. “Come on. Boss man won’t put up with too many delays, today.”

Quinn nodded and matched Mitchell’s pace through the corridors inside. A quiet hum of industry sounded behind the corridor walls. It was a week day and technically not a holiday, although as in North America, many of the German workers took the intervening week between Christmas and New Year off. There would be a skeleton staff here today. Perhaps it was why Aslan’s guests were visiting today and not a day when everyone would be in the office.

Perhaps it was why Aslan wanted an entourage with him, to bolster the appearance of a successful operation.

They climbed a broad flight of stairs which Quinn remembered from the last time she had been here. It led to the second floor, where the enclosed catwalk to the laboratories and warehouse crossed between the two buildings.

The top floor of this building was the executive wing of the administration building. The carpet grew thicker and muffled more sound. The walls were painted an interesting teal color. Artwork dotted the walls.

They turned left instead of heading to the right, which was the way they had come when Aslan had toured her about the building.

A pair of heavy double doors were just ahead. One of them stood open. Inside was a curving table with leather executive chairs around it. The far windows were floor to ceiling, giving a spectacular view of the river, the busy wharves which lined it, plus container ships and other cargo carriers drifting along the waterway.

Mitchell pushed open the other door. Quinn stepped into the board room.

Aslan stood in the big, open space between the oval-shaped wings of the table. He had his hands on his hips. Impatience radiated from every angle. He didn’t look at Quinn or Mitchell. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

“I got the gist of it,” Mitchell replied. “Enough to know Johnson called it right. You need to deal with this directly.”

Noah rested his hips on the curved table and crossed his arms. He looked bored.

Sound whispered in the corridor beyond the board room. Mitchell turned to look out. “They’re coming.”

They—Giorgio and Johnston, Quinn assumed—had to be making a lot of noise to be heard from here. The thick carpet had deadened any sound she and Mitchell had made on their way up the stairs.

Mitchell gripped the door handle as if he intended to close it as soon as the two men stepped into the room.

Then Quinn saw Johnson and knew why.

He dragged a woman by the arm. She had lost her footing and was being hauled. She kicked and struggled, making grunts and noises which were muffled to soft mono sounds because she was gagged. Her hands were tied and her face was bloody and bruised.

Johnson tossed her so she rolled onto the floor at Aslan’s feet.

She groaned as she flipped herself onto her back to take the pressure off her bound hands.

It was Leela.

[24]
Friday, December 27th

Dima watched Scott murmur to Lochan, keeping his voice low.

Lochan nodded miserably in response.

Scott patted his shoulder and moved to where Dima sat behind the range of monitors Ashtad had acquired for them.

The empty warehouse was another find Ashtad had supplied—it was between leases. The owners kept the heat running so the building didn’t fall into disrepair. Ashtad had paid them money under the table for a short-term, no-questions-asked rental.

“How is he doing?” Dima asked Scott when he reached her.

Scott straddled the office chair he had been using and picked up his headphones. “Suffering, but not distracted.” He grimaced. “Not now, anyway.”

Scott had noticed Lochan’s attention slipping. He was an excellent 2IC and had taken a moment to talk to Lochan and bring him back to focus upon the priorities.

“Summary, please,” Dima said.

“Leela failed to report in for the last three hourly checks. Her tracker has gone dark. It could have been a deciding factor, except for something else. The three no-shows on their own are not suggestive enough to respond.” He pointed out the window, where, half-a-mile down the road, the factory/warehouse/administration facility was located. “There’s no sirens. No alarms.”

“And the something else?” Dima asked.

Scott spun the chair to face her. His smile was grim. “That’s where it gets interesting. Fifteen minutes ago, Quinn’s tracker was heading for the same spot. Ten minutes ago, it went dark, too.”

Dima peered through the long windows at the other warehouse. “She’s in there, too.” She drummed her fingers on the table, feeling an old, familiar itch. “Scott, I think we need to get closer. Much closer.”

“Feet crawling, boss?” Scott asked, halting his gentle swing on the chair.

Dima drew in a breath. “So itchy, I can’t keep still. Let’s take everything with us, just in case.”

“I’ll stir the others.”

“Leave Ashtad with Ren to monitor and coordinate,” Dima told him. “We can always back off if Leela is still in play, but…”

“Got it,” Scott said. He bounced to his feet. “Yo! Eyes on me!” he bellowed, moving toward the center of the big room. “We move out in five minutes! Full weapons compliment, body armor, everything you can carry and still look street-worthy! This is a live—”

Dima stopped paying attention to Scott’s directions. He wouldn’t miss anything.

Instead, she turned to preparing her own personal arms store and realized she was shifting on her feet, twitching to leave.

Yes, very itchy indeed.

“What the hell, Johnson?” Aslan growled. He no longer looked impatient.

Johnson nudged Leela’s hip with his toe. “Giorgio saw her eating breakfast in the staff cafeteria this morning. New hire, local admin support. Only she cut up her eggs with her knife and fork, then put the knife down and switched the fork over to her other hand to eat it.”

“American style,” Mitchell breathed.

“That’s not enough to warrant this,” Noah pointed out, jerking his chin at Leela.

Quinn couldn’t tear her gaze away from the woman on the floor. Leela wasn’t wearing her glasses and her hair was pinned on the back of her head. She wore simple, well-fitting clothes which a million other Austrian women wore to work each day. Flat, sensible heels and a sweater over a shirt with a rounded collar.

The collar had soaked up blood which had run down her neck. The collar was a dull pink, now.

Someone had fastened Leela’s wrists with zip ties. Now they were bloody and chaffed from the teeth on the ties, for the ties were turned inside out, so the jagged zip was against her flesh.

Leela didn’t seem to understand anything said over her. They were speaking English, yet she lay unmoving, breathing hard, her eyes glazed. She hadn’t looked at Quinn. Not even once.

“I agree it wouldn’t have been enough to warrant this,” Johnson said. “Only, when Giorgio had her brought to the manager’s office to question her, he didn’t like her answers or her German and pulled his gun. She clipped him with a stapler and took off.”

“That makes a difference,” Noah said, studying Leela.

Horror curled through Quinn’s middle.

Aslan moved closer to Leela and looked down at her. “ID?”

“Just local documentation,” Giorgio said. “Says she is Hannah Juchnow. No one with that name shows up on the social networks—not a single one of them. We’re still running the official documents, but they take time.”

Mitchell, who had closed both of the board room doors, stood with his arms crossed and his legs spread, guarding it. He said gruffly, “Doesn’t matter who the fuck she is. She’s not Hannah Juchnow. Take her out the back and shoot her. Problem solved. Boss, we got bigger fish to fry. This will just trip us up. Let’s clean it up fast.”

Aslan nodded. “I agree. First, a couple of questions. Take the gag off her. If she makes too much noise, shoot her through the temple. If she understands English, then she’ll cooperate.”

Giorgio bent and pulled the rag out of Leela’s mouth. She spat and wiped at her bloody lips with the back of one hand, which did nothing but spread more blood around.

“Do you speak English?” Aslan asked her.

She looked up at him and said nothing.

Aslan said something in another language. Quinn was startled, for it was familiar. It was a Slavic language. She suspected it was Russian.

Leela just laid there.

“You profess to know German,” Aslan said, in German. “If you do not answer this time, I will have one of my men shoot you in the temple where you lie. I am short on time and you are a complication I would dispose of quickly. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Leela said, her tone sullen.

“Who are you?”

“Hannah Juchnow.”

“Hannah Juchnow, if she existed, would be screaming about personal rights by now. She would have melted into hysterics at the sight of Giorgio’s gun and not flung a stapler at his head. You are not who you say you are. What are you? Interpol? MI6?”

Leela smiled. It was a ghastly expression, for her teeth were covered in blood, too. “If I am, then aren’t you worried my backup will come busting in here at any second?” She spoke with a German accent.

“CIA,” Aslan said softly. “English people don’t speak about busting in anywhere.” He spun away from Leela with a hiss of frustration.

Quinn gripped her clutch, her fingers making the metal frame bow. She could do nothing at all. There were five men in the room and she didn’t doubt for a second every one of them was armed, probably with more than one gun.

She watched Leela, her heart singing a high aria in her mind, making it hard to think.

Aslan kept his back to everyone, thinking. Then he raised his hand and pointed at Noah. “Take her somewhere. Get rid of her so nothing comes back.”

Quinn’s throat squeezed shut, cutting off her cry of protest, turning it into a tiny little whistling gasp.

“Boss, are you sure?” Mitchell said softly. “If she is CIA, then she’s not working alone. There’ll be a pit crew somewhere, ready to come in with all guns blazing if she doesn’t report in on schedule.”

“I don’t care!” Aslan shouted, rounding on Mitchell. His face was red. “I want this cleaned up and this entire building locked down and controlled.” He pointed at Noah again. “Do I have a problem with you, too?” he asked, his voice deadly soft.

Noah considered. “Nope.” He got to his feet.

Quinn thought she might throw up. Or pass out. Hot and cold waves washed through her and she couldn’t think for the screaming in her mind. The need to do something was throbbing in her temples and making her arms twitch. Only, she couldn’t think what to do.

Her horror steadily built as Noah walked over to Leela and hauled her up by one arm. He handled her as he might haul a heavy bag. He headed for the door, Leela dragging behind him, her head lolling.

“What are you going to do to her?” Quinn cried. It burst out of her, driven by her panic.

Aslan’s eyes narrowed. “That isn’t a question you should ask. Not now.”

Quinn held out her hand in a placating gesture. “I’m not stupid, Aslan. I have a good idea, only…there must be another way to handle this?”

“Not in a way which won’t take up hours of time and resources I need right here with me,” Aslan replied. “You have eaten at my table, Quinn Sawyer. You cannot now protest about the cuisine because dessert is not to your taste.”

Quinn dug her fingernails into her other hand, until the skin broke and pain speared into her wrist. Pain was good. Pain helped her keep her mouth shut. It short circuited every instinct which screamed at her to do something. Doing anything would get her killed. She could see it in Aslan’s eyes.

Aslan considered her. “Are you my next problem, Quinn?”

Her vision blurring, Quinn shook her head. She sagged back until the board table smacked into her thighs. She sat, trembling, as Noah dragged Leela out of the room.

Quinn listened to Leela’s heels whispering across the lush executive carpet as Noah dragged her down the corridor.

Mitchell shut the doors. Quinn couldn’t take her gaze off them.

Noah had taken Leela away to kill her. He had said Aslan didn’t trust him fully and now Aslan had set him up to prove his worth.

Quinn saw Aslan was watching her closely. Even though his expression had not changed, she was sick with certainty he was smiling to himself.

Now she understood the other horribly clever side of what he had done. Aslan had asked Noah to kill Leela and get rid of the body because he knew Quinn would never want to touch or speak to Noah again.

Quinn lurched to her feet. “I need…” She swallowed and realized she was not pretending. “Washroom…” she whispered, pressing her fingers to her lips.

Aslan sighed. “Mitchell, show her the way. Hurry. I don’t want to have to clean up after her, too.”

Mitchell gripped her elbow and hauled her out of the boardroom and down the wide corridor. Ahead was the junction to the left where the catwalk began.

On the other side of the intersection were two white doors with the universal symbols for men and women.

Quinn fell against the ladies’ door and staggered inside. The washroom was empty, the three stall doors ajar. She shouldered the nearest door open, fell to her knees in front of the toilet and threw up so hard her eyes danced and her throat strained.

She had not eaten breakfast, so there was little volume. Instead, the heaves tore at her throat and chest and belly, making everything ache.

Every time she recalled the image of Noah dragging Leela behind him like a sack of coal, Quinn heaved once more.

When she thought she was done, she stripped the coat from her, for she was far too hot…and also too cold. Cold was better, though.

Quinn pulled herself over to the basins and washed her mouth. She wet some paper towels. By then, her knees were too weak to hold her up.

She lowered herself to the floor and put her back against the cold tiles and pressed the wet paper to her face. She had to steady her hand with the other to do it.

The washroom door swung open. Mitchell leaned against it and folded his arms. He considered her. “That sounded comprehensive,” he said, smiling.

Quinn closed her eyes. She couldn’t joke about it. Her stomach rolled warningly.

“First time is always a tough one,” Mitchell added.

Quinn swallowed. “Can we…not talk about it?” she whispered, for she could not speak any louder. It hurt to try.

“Wanna talk about the Giants?”

She shook her head. “I want to stay here with the tiles against my ass and my back and pretend the last ten minutes didn’t happen—just until I can get up again.”

“Well, okay,” Mitchell told her. “Only, boss man will want everyone on hand when the Russians arrive. That’s about fifteen minutes from now. Don’t piss him off, huh? Not even you, his favorite lucky charm, will get a pass today.”

Quinn nodded, keeping her eyes closed. There were white spots dancing in front of her eyelids.

“Got any blush in that bag next to you?” Mitchell asked.

“I…um, yes,” she said. “Why?”

“Put some on before you come back to the board room. You look like rotten cream cheese right now.”

She cracked one eye open and rolled her head toward him. “Thanks for the tip.”

He straightened. “No problem. I’m heading back. Aslan might want someone useful at hand.” He let the door swing shut on her.

Silence, except for the slow drip of water in a cubicle and the soft hiss of the tank filling in the toilet she had used.

The image reinserted itself in her mind, over and over.

The worst of it was that even though Leela knew she was being carried to her execution, she still had not looked at Quinn. To the end, she had not given Quinn away.

Quinn knocked her head back against the tiles. If only she had done something. Anything. Leela had worked right up to the end to help her, yet Quinn sat on her ass in return.

“I can’t just sit here,” she whispered. Not and let someone die. Where would someone be taken, here, which would be private and out of sight?

I’m his backup chemist. Noah’s voice, whispering in her mind. The day they had toured here, Noah had filled in all the chemicals Aslan had missed when explaining precursors to her.

Where would a backup chemist work, if he was supposed to watch over all the other laboratories to make sure they weren’t playing anything fast and loose?

She knew where the laboratories were. Noah’s work area would be somewhere close.

Quinn pressed her hands against the cold floor, then levered herself upward, sliding her hands up the wall, until she was standing. She still shook. She was hollow inside.

She washed her hands again. She would need to irradiate them to feel properly clean again.

Then she checked her face in the mirror. Her mascara had smudged and the smoky effect of her eye shadow was ruined. Now she resembled models who wore so much black around their eyes they looked like unlucky boxers.

She didn’t have all her makeup in the bag, so it would have to do.

Her face was white. She could see the veins in her cheeks and the skin looked transparent. Around her lips, the skin took on a gray tinge.

No blusher would compensate for that. Perhaps moving and doing something would.

She picked up the clutch from the ground and stood swaying, holding the basin, until the dizziness passed. Then she stepped out of the washroom. At the far end of the corridor, one boardroom door was open. She couldn’t see anyone in the open doorway. She heard the chink of glasses.

A libation. Celebration? Or nerve soother?

Either way, they were not waiting for her. Hopefully, Mitchell had reported to Aslan on her pallor and the special sound effects she had created, and like typical men they had turned their attention elsewhere to take their minds off anything to do with sickness.

Quinn moved across the passageway. She didn’t hurry and she didn’t creep along. She walked as normally as she could manage, which would not draw the eye of anyone who might look out through the door opening. She stepped into the catwalk and moved between the two buildings.

The hushed, air-controlled atmosphere of the laboratory level enclosed her as she stepped off the catwalk. She moved over to the windows of the laboratory on the right and looked in.

There were dozens of people in white coats working with absorbed attention upon their tasks.

Quinn knocked on the glass. It took four attempts to get someone’s attention. She could feel through her knuckles that the glass was thick.

A man with no hair but a luxurious white goatee stepped over to the glass. He pointed to Quinn’s left.

She looked. A wall phone was mounted on the solid panel beside the door.

The man headed for the door himself and she understood. There would be another phone on the other side. It was a simple way of communicating with people in the room without having to dress in sterile gear and go through the door lock.

Quinn moved down the corridor and picked up the phone, composing simple German phrases in her mind.

The man said something in German, too fast for her to follow, as he looked at her through the glass.

She shook her head at him. “Noah Stojanovich…where does he work? Where would he be?” It pushed at the limits of her German to speak that much. It also strained her scratched and burning throat.

The man frowned. He answered her, still speaking too quickly, although she heard Noah’s name in the middle of it. She waved her hand at him. “Slow…slow…please,” she said in German.

“Why do you want to speak to Herr Stojanovich?” he demanded, speaking in slow but comprehensible English.

“Elijah Aslan is here in the boardroom. He wants Noah to report to him and sent me to collect him. Have you seen him? Where does he work?”

The invocation of Aslan’s name was enough to make the man straighten. He didn’t ask why Aslan didn’t simply phone Noah. Such was the power of Aslan’s name and reputation. He said, instead, “Noah’s lab is the third door on the left, from here. Just keep going down.” He pointed farther down the corridor.

Quinn thanked him and hung up. She moved down the corridor toward the floor-to-ceiling feature window at the end of the passageway, where they had stood and watched the wharf and container ships.

The third door on the left looked as though it belonged to one of the labs on either side. There were no people in those labs. There were also doors to the far side of each lab. This door was in the middle. By leaning and looking through the windows for each lab, Quinn could see a wall running down each side of the door, separating it from the labs. A corridor laid behind the door. Clearly, a lab was located behind these two, and the passageway gave access to it.

It had to be where Noah was.

She examined the door and tried the handle. It didn’t budge.

A phone hung on the wall beside the door, just as a phone hung by every door along the main passageway. Unlike the other doors, though, this was an old-fashioned intercom with press buttons and a speaker.

When she was a small child, her father had set up an intercom like this between the house and the garage. Her mother would use it to call her father to the dinner table. He did a lot of mysterious things out in his garage. After Witsec, she had learned why he kept his activities hidden from them.

Her heart churned. Was Noah hiding his work for the same reasons?

She pressed the big white button on the intercom, holding it down. “Noah? Are you in there?”

She waited. If Noah was busy doing what she suspected, then he wouldn’t have a hand to spare to use the intercom.

Her forehead and temples grew damp. Quinn held the button down again. “Noah, if you don’t let me in, I will start screaming and keep screaming, and run through the administration building yelling about terrorists and guns and Sarin gas, until everyone can hear me. Let me in.”

He didn’t have to press any buttons to hear her. The intercom broadcast her voice at the other end.

Quinn pressed the button again. “Noah, I don’t care what you’re doing. I just need to speak to you. Open the door.”

This time, she let the silence lengthen. He liked to think things through. So she gave him time.

The intercom gave a clicking sound. “I’m busy, Quinn.” The intercom clicked off.

“I know you think you have to demonstrate your trustworthiness to Aslan. This isn’t the way to do it. Noah, for God’s sake, let me in. Think about it. Think about what you’re doing.” She leaned her head against the wall and propped herself up against it. She was still weak.

When the door unlocked with an electronic thud, she felt it through her hands. She straightened up, staring at the door in surprise. She had expected it would take more to convince Noah to open the door.

She pushed on the door, before he could change his mind.

[25]
11 a.m.

The door opened sluggishly, for it was heavy. The passage beyond was stark, lit by fluorescent tubes, with white paint and light gray linoleum on the floor. It was soulless.

Quinn barely paid any attention as she rushed down the length of the corridor to the door at the other end. That door was white and had a simple handle.

She yanked the handle open and hurried into the room beyond.

As were the other laboratories she had seen behind the glass walls, this one was clean and sterile, with white linoleum, white walls and a ton of stainless-steel shelving and benches. Glassware littered the horizontal surfaces.

Equipment beeped and blinked, all of them with electronic control panels which would take an advanced degree to operate.

Noah stood in the middle of the room, his legs spread. He had taken off his suit jacket. Over the top of his shirt and pants he wore a black, gleaming apron which looked like heavy-duty plastic or rubber. He didn’t have his arms crossed as usual, because they were encased in gloves which came up to his elbows. The gloves looked as tough as the apron.

Quinn’s pulse beat heavily in the side of her neck. Weakness threaded through her. She didn’t understand what the protective gear was for, yet her gut was screaming at her.

“What are you doing?” she demanded of Noah. “Where is the woman?” At the last minute she remembered not to speak to Leela’s name. As far as anyone here was concerned, she was protesting out of a sense of human decency, not because she knew Leela personally.

“Why are you here?” Noah demanded.

“I want you to think it through. There has to be another way to do this. You don’t have to kill her.”

Noah’s jaw worked. “What would you have me do? Give her a cup of tea and send her on her way? She has been spying on Aslan. We turn her loose, she tells everyone. Then men descend bearing guns and more.”

“You could keep her captive. Hold her until the shipment has gone and nothing is left to be found. This place must have withstood hundreds of official inspections. Once the shipment is gone, there will be nothing for them to find. You could let her go and she could say whatever she wanted, and no one could do anything about it.”

Quinn realized she was wringing her hands. She made herself relax and put her hands back at her side. She didn’t want to look as though she was pleading, even though it was exactly what she was doing. “I don’t believe you are like Aslan. You’re better than him.”

Noah raised his brow in question. His face remained impassive. “My, you are a shitty judge of people, aren’t you?”

Quinn squeezed her fingers into fists. “What do you mean?” Her voice was bodiless. Her gut was still screaming at her, louder than ever.

Noah lifted his encased hand and gestured with his fingers. “Come and see.”

Quinn didn’t remember taking the steps necessary to cross the floor from the door to the counter where Noah stood waiting for her. She followed him to the stainless-steel counter and saw it was a monstrous sink, five-foot-long and three feet deep. It was the size of a bathtub.

It was full to the brim with…something. Whatever it was, it bubbled and stank. The smell was so revolting, she moaned and put her elbow over her mouth and nose. She could tell it was caustic from the way it tore at the back of her throat and nose.

Things seem to swirl within the bubble. Insanely, the swirl of pink, red, gray, and black looked like marbling to her.

One of the more solid objects rolled over and surfaced. It was the tip of a flat leather shoe with a sensible heel.

Quinn staggered away. She came up against another counter and propped herself upon it. She moaned and her gorge rose, only nothing was left for her to vomit. She stood with her head hanging, breathing hard.

Movement from the corner of her eyes made her glance up, her instincts on high alert. Mitchell stood just inside the laboratory door, his arms crossed. He was grinning.

He and Noah exchanged smiles. A wealth of unspoken commentary was in those smiles. Brothers, recognizing each other and acknowledging their common bonds.

Quinn tottered across the floor, her legs barely holding her up. With each step, strength came back. Hysteria built inside her. She tamped it down, knowing she must keep a clear head.

Nothing she thought she had understood was correct. She trusted no one in this place, not even slightly. She was on her own.

She couldn’t stay here. The horrible truth overwhelmed any desire she had to find out more about how Denis died. His death looked clean and quick, in comparison to what she had learned today.

She would be a fool if she stayed. Dima must find another way to learn about the Kobra. Quinn would face whatever the consequences were for her actions in Washington. Anything, even jail, was better than this insanity.

She almost ran along the passage to the outer door, wrenched it open and staggered out onto the carpeted corridor. She didn’t want to turn right and head toward the board room. It would take her back to the same madness.

She turned left instead and found herself at the blank end of the corridor, looking through the feature window. There was nowhere else to go.

She pressed her hand against the cold glass, leaning against it, breathing heavily.

A hand patted her back, in sympathy. Quinn swiveled her head to the side, to see who it was.

Mitchell put his back against the wall, his elbow brushing up against the window. He wasn’t smiling anymore, although warmth showed in his eyes. “You need anything, kiddo?”

The “kiddo” bothered her. She was older than Mitchell and she was taller, especially in heels. Right now, though, she really was a babe-in-the-woods. She clamped down on the need to laugh because it wouldn’t be a healthy expression of humor.

The hysteria pushed at her. It would be much easier to let go, to vent her despair and horror, to fling it from her and let it fall over everything in the vicinity, careless of how it made her appear, or the danger it would put her in.

Just for a moment, she longed for a padded room where, for five blissful minutes, she could let herself react to everything she had seen and heard. Only she couldn’t do that. If she let go now, she would die. She knew it as surely as she knew the notes of Mozart’s Fifth Symphony.

Quinn dug her fingernails into her palm, accepting the pain and the orientation it gave her. She stared out the window. “I thought I was beginning to know Noah. I wasn’t even close. I don’t understand how I was so wrong.”

Mitchell’s reaction was also unexpected. He snorted in derision. “Poor you. You have no idea what lost faith means.”

Quinn was beyond any capacity for surprise. She just raised her brow because she knew how effective it was in coaxing someone to continue speaking.

“I was in Afghanistan,” Mitchell said. “Four tours. I was the only one who came back from the last one. Twenty-five of us in the unit and here I stand.”

“What happened?”

“What always happens. We were let down.” Mitchell rolled his eyes. “There were a lot of explanations. Administrative error. Computer failure. Networks hacked. Intelligence analysts guessing wrong.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We were left out there with our asses hanging in the wind.” His gaze met hers. “Don’t speak to me about people letting you down. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“How can you work for Aslan, after that? You know what his products do. You’ve probably seen it for yourself. How can you say people let you down, then turn and hand the same people even more of the weapons which destroyed your team?”

Mitchell’s face tightened. His brow came together. It was the first time she had seen him scowl. “Aslan does more to protect the world than anyone out there. Military leaders have to deal with political bullshit, budgetary restrictions and leadership by committee.” His mouth turned down. “Aslan makes sure the right people get the right tools and makes sure the wrong people never get their hands on this stuff.”

Quinn was astonished. Mitchell honestly believed it. His words were energetic, his face fired up with genuine enthusiasm. He was as warped as everyone else here and all this time she believed it was a cover.

“You’re insane,” she breathed. “You must be to believe that.”

“I was stupid, then I woke up.”

“Aslan is the sickest son of a bitch I’ve ever met. So is Noah.”

Mitchell laughed. “You have no idea what real power is. The people I work for—” He cut himself off so abruptly, it was as if his voice had been chopped by a guillotine. The expression in his eyes and the way he worked his mouth was what people did when they wished they could take something back.

Quinn drew away from him. Only, there wasn’t anywhere to go. The other wall of the corridor pressed up against her back. She found herself hemmed in by the glass window on her left and something attached to the wall on her right. She didn’t dare take her eyes away from Mitchell to see what it was blocking her way. “You work for Aslan—or is that all a lie, too?”

Mitchell shook his head. It was an expression of regret. He moved toward her. “See, you had to be all doe eyes and stupid.” He reached for her.

Quinn lurched to her right. The object attached to the wall jammed her shoulder and slowed her down. It was solid, green and heavy.

Mitchell shoved her back against the wall. He shook his head again. This time it was an order to stay still. “Why didn’t you just die when you were supposed to?” He reached behind him as he spoke and withdrew a matte black knife with holes in the handle and a short sharp blade. Even the blade was black. It looked lethal. “You fucked everything up from the beginning.”

Quinn reach to her right and felt out the shape of the thing blocking her escape.

“Of course I don’t work for Aslan!” Mitchell ground out. “He’s just another soft fool. He wouldn’t deal with Denis when he should have.”

Quinn moaned. “You killed Denis…”

“I gave the order. Someone had to. He was talking to the wrong people. Known CIA contacts. Aslan didn’t believe Denis would betray him when the man was already doing it. Denis would have destroyed everything.” He hefted the knife. “Sorry about this. It’s nothing personal.” He swung the knife.

Quinn ripped the funnel off the top of the fire extinguisher on her right, slid her fingers through the ring at the end of the pin and yanked it out.

She felt the blade of the knife slice past her hips, for she had twisted out of the way. The blade jammed in the long peplum of her jacket. The material ripped.

She slapped the silver handle of the extinguisher. Immediately, the air filled with white fog. It enveloped Mitchell’s face. He staggered back, waving his arms. He cried out, covering his eyes. The knife dropped.

Quinn knew it wouldn’t be enough to stop him. She had learned something about ruthlessness in the last few weeks. She gripped the handle of the extinguisher, unbuckled the harness holding it to the wall and swung it with all her might.

It whistled through the air, dispersing the fog, and slammed into the side of Mitchell’s head. She heard a wet crunching sound. His hand dropped from his face, the fingers at odd angles. She had broken his hand.

He lunged for her, his good hand scrabbling at her throat. Quinn swung the extinguisher one more time, feeling sick. This time it hit the back of his head and he fell forward against her.

Quinn gave a breathless cry and shoved him away. Mitchell dropped. He didn’t slither to the floor—he fell like a chopped tree.

Quinn dropped the extinguisher and rolled him over. His eyes were open. He wasn’t breathing.

She fell onto her ass, coldness filling her. At the same time, the glass of the big windows shivered and cracked. Something buzzed by her cheek, with the low sound of a heavy bee.

A sour whine followed. The window of the laboratory, five paces away, billowed and shifted in its frame. A white streak speared across it which hadn’t been there before.

Quinn fell back on her elbows, shock stealing her strength. She turned her head and saw a star-shaped streak on the big picture window. A hole appeared in the middle.

Someone was shooting at her.

Quinn rolled onto her hands and knees and scrambled up the corridor. She was panting and making little sounds in her mouth which might’ve been screams as if she’d had enough strength for it.

She lurched to her feet and staggered. She couldn’t run, her legs wouldn’t cooperate. She reached the end of the corridor, where it branched to the left and right. To the right led to the warehouse. Straight ahead was the catwalk to the administration building. Would Aslan and the others still be in the boardroom? Were they still waiting for their Russian guests?

The administration building had an exit out to the street. If she could slide past the boardroom and go down the stairs, she could escape.

Quinn made herself walk as normally as possible. She wanted to run, only that would imply panic to anyone who saw her. If she walked normally, they wouldn’t take any notice.

She strolled across the catwalk, trying to get her breath under control. She remembered how her face had looked in the bathroom mirror. She needed to get her expression under control, too. She made herself breathe deeply, to flood her body with oxygen, which would calm her. It would return color to her face.

White powder splattered her suit. She brushed at it and straightened her jacket. All she had to do was seem normal enough to get out the front door, then she could escape into the streets of Vienna.

She stepped off the catwalk and turned right to head toward the stairs which went down to the foyer.

The boardroom doors were open. The room looked empty. She moved along the corridor, keeping her gaze on the top of the stairs and the escape they represented.

Then Aslan moved into view in the boardroom. He carried a heavy crystal glass, filled with ice and a dark liquid she presumed was scotch or something similar. He looked toward the door. When he saw her, he waved her into the room.

Quinn debated bolting down the stairs and running. Only, there were too many people in this building with guns and ways to get rid of bodies. She would have to bluff her way out of this. She had to pretend she was the new Quinn just a little while longer.

She maintained her strolling pace and moved into the boardroom. She even managed to give Aslan a shaky smile.

He studied her. “How do you feel now?” His tone was warm. “I’m sorry if I was abrupt. There is a lot of money riding on this deal. We have it under control now, though.” He tilted his head, his face filling with warm empathy. “Mitchell said you reacted badly. I should apologize for that, too. I could have eased you into it better.” He turned and took his glass to the buffet against the wall, where trays of decanters sat. He made himself another drink.

Quinn stared at his back, appalled. He made getting used to dead bodies and murder sound like swimming lessons. As if it was the difference between the paddling pool and throwing someone in the deep end.

Quinn shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. The movement rubbed her jacket against her neck, which stung. She put her hand up to her neck, sliding the tips of her fingers under the lapels of her jacket. She winced as her fingers pressed the flesh there. She pulled them away. There was a smudge of blood on them.

Quinn groped at her neck. Her necklace was missing.

Shouts sounded from the catwalk. She heard running feet on the thick carpet. Quinn whirled to face the door as Giorgio and Johnson ran into the room.

“Mitchell is dead,” Johnson said.

Aslan put his glass on the buffet. “What happened?”

“Someone took him out with a fire extinguisher.” Johnson shook his head. “There’s something else you should see.”

“Where is Noah?” Aslan said. His tone was suspicion-laden.

Quinn rode out her shock and kept her face stiff and neutral. Did Aslan think Noah killed Mitchell? Did he not trust Noah that much?

“Noah is in his lab,” Giorgio said. “Cooking things.” He grinned.

Aslan took a deep breath. “And where is Mitchell?”

“In the labs. I can show you,” Johnson said.

Aslan glanced at Quinn. “Stay with me. It’s the safest place in this building until we figure out what is going on.” He glanced at Giorgio. “Call in your men. Set up a perimeter. I don’t know what is happening yet, but something is going down. Let’s assume we’re under attack until we know better.”

Johnson headed for the door. Aslan followed. Reluctantly, Quinn trailed after them. She glanced at the stairs as she passed them and considered hurrying down the steps before Aslan realized she was no longer behind him.

Giorgio was only halfway down stairs. He would spot her, for sure.

Not yet, she told herself. She continued after Aslan instead. Both men set a fast pace which forced her to keep up. The exercise helped disperse the adrenaline and restored some calmness. She could think better.

Mitchell was where she had left him. He was covered in white powder. So was the surrounding carpet. Footsteps showed in the powder, although they were not distinct. The fog had settled after she left. Her own distinctive footsteps did not show.

As Aslan and Johnson moved closer to the body, Quinn’s heart raced. Was her necklace the other thing Johnson wanted to show Aslan? She peered at Mitchell’s broken hand, then at the other one, which laid with his fingers curled in a relaxed position. The necklace was not in either hand.

“Don’t get too close,” Johnson warned.

Aslan stopped ten paces away and let out a heavy breath. “Christ.” He glanced at the green extinguisher. “Halon. It would have blinded him.”

“While he was blind, they hit him in the temple and the back of the head with the extinguisher,” Johnson said. His tone was gruff. He pointed at the window. “Someone shot through the window, too.” He turned and pointed at the laboratory window. “It bounced off.” Then he moved over to the opposite wall and put his finger against a deep furrow there. “Bullets buried itself in here. We can dig it out if you want, although I can tell you now it was a large caliber.”

Aslan glanced at the big picture window, with its star-shaped crack. “Sniper…” He looked at Quinn.

She shivered. “Are they still out there?”

“The only way to find out is to stand at the window and I’m not doing that,” Johnson said.

Quinn glanced at the window then let her glance drift downwards, looking for a glitter of gold anywhere beside Mitchell’s body. Perhaps it was under him?

“Johnson,” Aslan said. “Find Noah. Bring him here. I want to see his face when he looks at Mitchell. I want to look into his eyes as I ask him about this.”

Johnson nodded and moved up the corridor to the heavy armored door which gave access to Noah’s laboratory. He punched in a code on the phone and the door unlocked with a heavy thud.

It was how Mitchell had followed her in, Quinn realized.

Aslan stood with his hands by his sides, studying Mitchell’s body. He had no expression, yet Quinn felt the anger building in him. He was winding himself up to deliver justice.

Only, he would be punishing the wrong man.

A tiny voice in her mind said to keep her mouth shut. What did it matter if Noah carried the blame for this? Noah was as sick as Aslan and as ruthless as any of them. He wore a nicer facade, although it didn’t change who he was.

Only, if Aslan punished Noah for this and she said nothing, it would make her as bad as everyone in this nuthouse. It would make her as guilty as Noah.

She could face the consequences here, or she could face the outcome of her actions in Washington. Either way, she must face them.

Quinn raised her chin. “Aslan.” She waited until he looked at her. She took a deep breath and said the words, even though it felt as if every word was being torn from her. “I killed Mitchell.”

[26]
And after…

Aslan didn’t move a muscle. Despite the lack of motion, his face changed. As the awareness filtered through him, as he understood the truth, she could see him reassess her and realigning everything he knew about her.

The most surprising emotion on his face was disappointment.

“Why?” he demanded. “Why?” He seemed bewildered.

“Mitchell killed Denis. He tried to kill me, too. Maybe it was his order behind the sniper shooting in Boston. I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Mitchell wasn’t working for you, Aslan. He boasted about it. He called you a soft fool. He takes his orders from someone else and they directed Mitchel to arrange for Denis to be killed.”

As she spoke, a single tear slipped down her cheek. She wasn’t aware of the buildup of the tears, for she felt no great upset. She was afraid and she was sad, for now she knew the truth and it changed nothing.

Aslan turned on his heel. He walked a few paces up the corridor, then back. His face worked. “I helped him. He was drowning, running from demons. I took him in.”

“Maybe he changed allegiances later,” Quinn said. “Perhaps he fooled you all along.”

Aslan’s fists worked. For a man like him, being told he had been systematically betrayed for years would be a blow. He spun again to face her. “Why did he have Denis killed?”

He had not questioned what she said. He believed her, at least for now.

“Mitchell said Denis was speaking to the wrong people.” She hesitated again. “Mitchell said Denis had been seen talking to known CIA operatives.”

Quinn had figured out the operatives Denis had been seen with were Leela and Lochan. They had presented themselves as a couple whom Denis and Quinn had got to know socially.

Aslan shook his head. “Impossible. Denis would not betray me that way. Not Denis.”

“Perhaps Denis didn’t know they were CIA,” Quinn said. “I don’t know anything about that business, except what I see in the movies. Spies always disguise themselves as ordinary people. Maybe it’s what they did to Denis. Only the wrong people—Mitchell’s people—saw them talking to Denis and didn’t like it.”

Aslan continued his restless pacing. This time in the opposite direction.

As soon as he drew close to the window, a soft crack sounded, along with another whining sound. A cloud of dust rose from the wall close by where the last bullet had buried itself in the plaster.

Aslan threw himself backward. “Who is that?”

Giorgio came pounding down the passageway. His face glowed red from exertion. “We’re under fire! Both sides! All exits! Warehouse too!”

Quinn could hear firing muffled by bullet-proof walls and windows. The heavy metallic rattle of machinegun fire sounded.

Aslan reached into his coat and withdrew a nickel-plated handgun which looked as big as a cannon. “Tell Franz to get rid of the staff. Send them home for the day. Activate everyone else. Go!”

Giorgio nodded and spun away. Before he could take a pace, the door to Noah’s laboratory burst open. Johnson spilled out, breathing hard. “He’s not there! He’s gone.” He came hurrying to Aslan, on the other side of the passage from where Quinn stood.

Quinn raised her hand and opened her mouth to warn Johnson.

A third flat crack and the same dull thud sounded. Johnson opened his mouth as if he was about to speak, while a red dot on the center of his forehead grew bigger. His knees buckled. He dropped to the ground.

The tendons in Aslan’s neck worked hard. “What in hell is going on here?”

As he spoke, the whole building shifted under Quinn’s feet. The floor tilted and swayed like a boat deck in high seas. A low rumbling swiftly became a deafening roar. Everything shook.

Quinn put her hand against the wall to keep herself on her feet. She slapped her other hand over her ear to deaden the sound.

Between the cracks in the picture window, she saw smoke and dust rising into the air, outside. It formed billowing clouds.

“The warehouse!” Giorgio cried. “That explosion came from the warehouse!” He sprinted down the corridor, turned the corner and was gone.

Aslan spun again, this time to look at Mitchell’s body. He bent and reached inside Mitchell’s jacket. He felt on both sides, then in his pockets and his pants. He straightened up. “Gone,” he muttered.

He stepped toward Quinn and raised his gun. He didn’t quite point at her. “Open your jacket and your purse.” His voice was quiet.

Quinn opened her jacket, confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Mitchell’s security pass to the warehouse has gone. Someone took it off his body.” As he spoke, Aslan patted her down. It was impersonal and thorough. He even squeezed her breasts, to determine if anything rigid was nestled inside her bra cup.

Quinn didn’t feel any embarrassment. She felt nothing at all. “I don’t know where the factory is! I didn’t know a pass was needed to get in. It wasn’t me who took it.”

Aslan removed the lip gloss from her little front pocket and turned it over. He shoved it back in her pocket to free his hand, then took her clutch and rooted through it. He tossed the bag to the floor and took her arm.

The trembling of the building was growing worse. The explosion had done some serious structural damage.

“You seem to know more about what’s going on than I do,” Aslan said. “You and I will have a long talk, somewhere where we won’t be interrupted. Come on.”

He pulled her along the corridor, his gun hanging in his other hand. He didn’t seem to care who saw it. The grip on her arm was relentless.

As they crossed the catwalk into the administration building, the sound of guns firing came clearly through the glass. Quinn flinched, although the firing was far away.

Aslan hauled her back into line and moved forward. “The firing is all on the ground,” he said. “They’re not shooting at us.”

“Don’t you want to see who it is?” Quinn asked. “They’re attacking your facilities.”

Aslan didn’t answer.

They stepped into the administration building. Aslan shoved the gun back inside his coat. “It doesn’t mean I won’t use it if I have to,” he told her.

The sound of panic was louder in the administration building. Quinn could hear people babbling.

Aslan walked her through the building. No one paid any notice. They were too busy scrambling to evacuate the building. The explosion and the gunfire were enough to send everyone screaming.

Quinn was glad it was so. Aslan’s order to empty the building meant all the innocent workers could leave the area and get to safety.

Aslan didn’t let go of her arm as he pushed open the front doors of the building and moved under the portico to the footpath beyond.

As he crossed the road, Quinn buttoned her jacket and turned the collar up with her spare hand. She had no coat, although they were walking fast and the jacket had a decent lining. She wouldn’t freeze, not even in this temperature, if they kept moving.

Behind them, the sound of weapons firing was much louder. Without a building insulating her, Quinn could hear the flat crack of bullets breaking the sound barrier. There were shouts and underneath it all, the sound of flames crackling.

She turned to look over her shoulder and sucked in a gasp at the billowing clouds above the warehouse. The clouds were thick and fire burned within them.

“Don’t look back,” Aslan told her. “It will slow us down.”

“The warehouse!” she cried. “I’m not worth turning your back on this!”

He hauled on her arm, pulling her around and making her turn her back on the buildings and the chaos there.

Aslan scrambled down the other side of the road to a narrow alley between the buildings. He pushed her through, keeping a grip on her arm and making her walk. She stopped trying to protest or to suggest he go back.

Aslan seemed to know the area well. He moved between buildings, crossed streets and dived down alleyways. Every time a door appeared, he tried the handle. Everything was locked and Aslan would continue on. He appeared to have a destination in mind. As Quinn did not know Vienna at all, except for the major shopping areas, she could not guess where he was heading.

Then suddenly, they were there. After trying more doors with increasing frustration, Aslan led her through a narrow crevice between old buildings barely two feet apart, into green space. It was not just any green space.

Quinn sucked her breath as she looked up. And up.

The Ferris wheel was one of the biggest she had ever seen. It looked old, though. It looked as though it had been there for many years. Like the London Eye, it had closed-in cabins hanging from the wheel, not open chairs.

Aslan pulled out his gun. It hung from his bare hand. He pushed her forward. They crossed the grass toward low-lying buildings surrounding the foot of the Ferris wheel.

Dusty memory nibbled at the back of Quinn’s mind. She couldn’t say for sure, but she had a feeling that once, this Ferris wheel has been the largest in the world. Then the London Eye had come along. Perhaps there were others by now. Perhaps the Saudis had built one which no one could ever compete with.

Just ahead were rough buildings which had been slapped together, with no attempt at decoration. As they were sited behind the Ferris wheel, Quinn guessed they were maintenance buildings or work sheds—something to do with the maintenance of the wheel. Perhaps it was where the engine was kept which ran the wheel. She didn’t know anything about Ferris wheels.

Both of them froze when they heard voices. As they froze, their breath fogging the air, the silhouette of a man crossed the window of the building they stood beside.

The voices came again. Two men, murmuring to each other. Metal clinked coldly.

Aslan hurried her forward as if he had made a decision. They moved through the buildings and emerged into a public space which was tidy and paved over.

It was the base of the Ferris wheel. A neat picket fence surrounded it, preventing the public from walking beneath the wheel.

Two men stood at the open gate, one of them watching while the other worked on a motor with a ratchet in his hand. The motor casing was folded back. The casing was painted a pretty green, which would help it blend in when closed.

Aslan walked right up to them. At first, because they were harmless citizens, and not naturally inclined to suspicion, the two men just glanced over their shoulders.

Aslan gave them no chance to think it through. He raised the gun and fired.

Quinn screamed. The man who had been supervising clutched at his side, then collapsed as he tried to put weight on the leg. He laid holding his bleeding thigh, groaning. The other man, the mechanic, raised his hands. His eyes were so wide, more white than pupil showed. He looked terrified.

Quinn was back to shaking again.

Aslan waved the gun. The mechanic did not take his eyes off it. He watched it wave and swallowed.

“Get it going again,” Aslan said, in German. At least, Quinn thought it was what he said.

Apparently, so did the mechanic. He glanced at the Ferris wheel cabin which hung directly in front of the concrete steps, ready for people to climb aboard. He looked back at Aslan with amazement. “But…”

Aslan took a step closer, “I can always shoot you in the knee. You can still use your hands, even if you’re a cripple for the rest of your life.”

The man reassessed Aslan. He nodded. “Yes, yes! A moment…a moment and I will have it going.” He turned back to the motor and put the case over it, so it was hidden beneath the pretty green. At the back of the case were red and green buttons. The tiny engine was not enough to drive the whole Ferris wheel. There had to be a bigger motor somewhere else, possibly in one of the sheds they had passed.

This motor was the starter motor, giving control to whoever was standing there. In an emergency, they could hit the red button and shut it down.

She wondered how many emergencies there had been in the Ferris wheel’s life.

The motor hummed, then a deeper sound came from farther away. That would be the main motor which drove the wheel. The Ferris wheel itself shuddered.

Aslan pushed her to the concrete steps, then up them. He pulled open the door of the carriage and nudged her inside. He stepped in after her and shut the door.

The whole carriage shuddered then gave a little shake as it moved. It crept along, picking up speed. She didn’t imagine the Ferris wheel moved fast even at full speed.

Aslan had found his place to be alone with her. No one could interrupt them while they were circling around this monstrous great wheel.

Quinn pressed herself up against the far corner of the carriage. It was wood-paneled and carpet covered the floor. The panels had dull gold flourishes painted in the middle. Polished brass sconces were mounted on the wall, hinting at an elegance of a bygone era. The carriage looked old but well-maintained.

The glass was spotless and surrounded the carriage on all four sides, designed to give the passengers a full three-sixty view. There were grab rails all around the carriage, made of the same polished brass as the sconces. They ran across the windows, which were framed in black.

Up at the apex of the peaked roof, running through the gable on both ends, was a metal rod at least eight inches wide. The entire carriage hung on the rod. It swiveled so no matter where it was on the wheel, the carriage was upright. The carriage swung gently as it adjusted to every new angle, as the wheel moved around.

They were still climbing.

Quinn hugged herself. Even though they were technically inside, it was colder in here than it had been outside. Now she had stopped moving, too.

Aslan spread his feet for balance. The gun hung at his side once more. His expression was calm, yet his tense jaw told Quinn his calm was a lie. “Who are you?” he demanded.

She shuddered. “I’m Quinn Sawyer.”

He shook his head. “The Quinn Sawyer I knew, the woman from Boston, she could not have killed Mitchell. I ask again, who are you?”

“Mitchell k-k-killed Denis! When he told me that, I stopped thinking. There was just a noise in my head. And he had his knife out. He even apologized for killing me!”

“You didn’t answer my question. Who are you?” He took a step closer. He didn’t lift the gun. He didn’t need to.

Quinn’s heart leapt in sickly jerks. “You are right. I’m not the woman you knew in Boston, not anymore. Not after what has happened the last few weeks. Not after what I’ve seen. That pathetic, innocent woman from Boston could never have killed Mitchell. Only, he was going to kill me and he killed Denis.” She shrugged. Then she gave a great shiver.

Aslan studied her, his eyes narrowed. Then he shrugged out of his coat and held it out to her. “I don’t want you freezing to death before I’m done with you.”

She would prefer to refuse his gentlemanly gesture, only she was too cold. She took the coat and thrust her arms into it. It was far too large. She folded the first three inches of sleeve up.

Aslan peered through the window at the spectacular view of Vienna lying before them. Quinn might have been impressed by the view at any other time. She could see for miles and miles. All her attention was on Aslan, though, and the gun which still hung from his fingers.

He lifted the gun and pointed it at her middle. “You’re lying. You know something about what happened back at the warehouse. What is it? Who is attacking it? Tell me.”

Scott got to the Ferris wheel first. He raised his gun. The man standing at the gate held up his hands. He looked terrified.

Dima rushed up to the man. “Stop the Ferris wheel! Turn it off!”

The man had no problems understanding her, even though she had not spoken German for many years and the Teutonic languages were not her specialty to begin with. He shrugged. “There is a stop button on the other side.” He pointed.

Scott swore, lunged past the man and bent over the engine casing the man stood beside. He slapped at the back.

The engine missed a note. Sizzling sparks flared from beneath the green casing. Smoke rose. The acidic smell of burning electronics washed over them.

Dima glared at the man.

He shrugged. “I’m just a mechanic.” He pointed to the unconscious man on the ground, bleeding from the leg. “He’s the electrician.”

Scott swore again.

“Find the main engine,” Dima told him. “Stick a wrench in it, blow it up, I don’t care what. Just stop this thing.”

Scott took off.

“If you’re just a mechanic,” Dima said to the man, “why were you working on an electric engine?”

“I wasn’t,” the man said. “He was.” He looked at his unconscious buddy.

“Then what were you working on?”

He pointed up at the top of the wheel. “That carriage,” he said grimly.

[27]
11:46 a.m.

Quinn held up her hands. She wasn’t aware of doing it. The gun pointing at her made them rise all by themselves.

Aslan took another pace toward her. As she was already cowering in the corner, there was nowhere for her to go. She couldn’t go out the door. The carriage was close to the top of the wheel.

“I like you,” Aslan said. “You are different from anyone I have ever met, except Denis. I don’t know if it was the music which you had in common, or your idealistic outlook on life—you shared that quality, too.”

“If we shared anything at all,” she replied, “it was that we were both hiding from our pasts.” It was the truth. Aslan always responded to the truth, even when it was not what he wanted to hear. Only, she didn’t know what he wanted to hear right now. Would anything make him put down the gun?

The carriage creaked and groaned as it reached the peak of the wheel. Slowly, it slid down the other side.

“Was everything a lie?” Aslan asked. His voice was still soft.

Quinn was shaking despite the coat. It wasn’t cold which made her tremble. She couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. He only needed a little more pressure on the trigger and she would be dead. He didn’t seem to be conscious of what he was doing with it. He was so wrapped up in extracting her secret.

Someone screamed. Quinn jumped.

It was a female voice, and it sounded familiar. It seemed to come from above the carriage.

Aslan looked up just as Quinn did, although neither of them could see through the roof.

Something landed heavily on the roof, at the far end of the carriage from where Quinn stood. The carriage shuddered. Stressed metal groaned and shifted.

She clutched at the rail, her breath evaporating as fear leapt in her chest and belly.

Aslan turned to face the other end of the carriage, his instincts alerted. His gun was still raised, although there was nothing to aim at.

Footsteps sounded on the roof. Quinn gasped.

Aslan spun on one heel to look at her. His expression was accusatory. “You sent for someone! Somehow…” The gun was pointing at her again.

“No! How could I have? I don’t have my bag anymore.” She remembered with a jolt that the lip gloss was in her fob pocket. The replacement lip gloss which Agata had slipped her.

“You know something,” Aslan said. “What is it?”

The footsteps moved toward Quinn’s end of the carriage. Then, shockingly, a gun roared from close by.

Quinn flinched.

It was not Aslan’s gun which had fired. A hole appeared in the roof and another in the floor. Daylight showed through both. Aslan grunted and clutched at his back. He threw himself forward and sprawled on the floor.

There was a great wound on his back. Blood spread across his beautiful suit jacket.

Quinn looked through the windows at the spectacular view, trying to spot who had shot Aslan.

The gun roared again. Two more holes appeared in the roof and the floor, this time closer to Quinn. Whoever it was, they were trying to shoot her, too!

Aslan groaned and rolled onto his back. His face was white. His eyes were open and alert.

Quinn was more worried about the gunman on the roof. They seem to know where she was in the carriage. She had to move without them spotting her.

She didn’t want to go near Aslan. She eased herself sideways, toward the other corner.

The gun roared again and two more holes appeared in the corner where she had been standing.

Her new position gave Quinn a wider view of the rest of the amusement park. She could see the top peaks of a roller coaster ride, the wooden structure painted in gay red and white.

And clinging to the top of the wooden beams, just beneath the rail itself, was Noah. He had a rifle in his hand and peered through the sight.

As Quinn drew in a shaky breath of shock, he fired.

She heard the bullet sing. A grunt sounded. The gunman on the roof fell heavily. Metal clattered and scraped over the roof. Another rifle, this one long and large, slithered over the edge of the roof and fell to the ground.

The gunman on the roof screamed in frustration. It was a woman’s voice.

“Toni!” Quinn breathed. Even though she could not see her, Quinn knew her guess was right. Toni made sense.

Noah had just shot her, though. He had shot Aslan, too. Yet they were his people…

The impact of Toni’s weight landing on the roof made the metallic groaning and vibrating speed up. The carriage didn’t just shiver. It convulsed.

Aslan stirred and tried to get to his feet. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees. The carriage lurched.

Quinn clutched the railing as it dropped at the other end. Abruptly, the entire Ferris wheel came to a creaking halt. The inertia was too much. It still hung on the rod which passed through the middle, although the rod was not attached at that end, anymore.

Quinn heard Toni scrambling at the roof, panting. She slid along the roof and dropped over the end. For the first time Quinn saw her. To save herself, Toni flung out her hand, looking for anything to clutch. She found the door handle and grabbed it. The door slid open.

Toni’s weight swinging on the door was too much for the old carriage. The door hinges gave a groan, then the door splintered and pulled away.

Quinn cried out as she watched Toni’s body fall and disappear from view.

The carriage gave another shudder and sagged even more. How long would the fastening on the other end hold?

The shaking and the sharp tilt of the floor was too much for Aslan in his weakened state. He slid down toward the door, scratching at the floor with his fingers to halt his slide. He gave a despairing cry.

Quinn threw herself forward, slithering along the sloping floor. She grasped Aslan’s reaching hand just as his legs shot through the open doorway. His weight turned Quinn. When she reached the end of the carriage, her knees and her shoulders slammed into the door frame. There was nothing beneath her but thin air and the door frame she was wedged across.

Aslan’s full weight yanked at her arm and her shoulder became white fire. She held her grip, panting. Her pants had little cries inside them, for the pain was more than she could bear.

Aslan looked up at her. A calm expression was in his eyes. “If you are who I think you are, you will let go of my hand. I’m already weak. I won’t be able to hold on for long. So who are you?”

“Start it again, Scott!” Dima cried in his ear. “The carriage will fall! Start it up! We have to get the carriage down!”

Scott felt sick. He stared at the computer screen, seeing the truth for himself. “I crashed the system to make it stop. It has to reboot before I can start it again.”

“How long?” Dima screamed.

The $50 million question.

“I don’t know,” Scott said truthfully.

The pain was so intense. Quinn felt it detach itself from her and lift away. It didn’t disappear. She knew it was there, only the pain had enclosed her in a shielded bubble, where she could think clearly. Or perhaps it was the adrenaline. She was afraid but even the fear was distant.

The carriage shook and groaned. It wouldn’t last long. She was running out of time.

She met Aslan’s gaze. “The Kobra. Who is he?”

Aslan’s eyes widened. Then he frowned. “That is what you want? All this time, all the things I’ve done…and you want the man who made me?”

“Tell me who he is,” Quinn said. “I think Mitchell was his man. I think the Kobra gave the order to have Denis killed because he thought the CIA had reached out to you, and that you would give them the Kobra. He was cleaning house, Aslan.”

Aslan’s face worked. She could see soul-destroying pain there. “No. He wouldn’t…”

“Tell me who he is, Elijah. Tell me and I’ll make sure the Kobra is dealt with. For Denis.”

Aslan’s eyes glistened. Tears. “I chose Vienna,” he said softly, “because Denis was here.”

Then he let go of her hand.

Quinn screamed.

The Ferris wheel jolted and moved again. Quinn scrambled to stand on the edge of the door frame, which was now the floor. The movement of the Ferris wheel made the carriage shimmer. She could see it was sliding down the central pole.

Quinn tore off Aslan’s cumbersome coat and threw herself up the sharp-sloping floor of the carriage. She gripped the rail on the windows and hauled herself up. She used the toes of her boots to lever against the window frames and made her way to the other end of the carriage. She hung from the rail and struggled to open the other door.

With a hard shove, the door swung open. Quinn gripped either side of the frame with her hands and dangled for a moment. Her shoulder flared in pure agony. Her vision grayed out.

Another shudder of the carriage warned her to keep moving. She took a deep breath, then hauled herself up through the door. She sat on the edge of the door frame, on the outside of the carriage. The wheel was moving more slowly than before and she knew the carriage would not last. She could not stay here and wait for the carriage to reach the ground.

Quinn worked herself up on to her feet and balanced there. She had once been able to balance on her toes for endless minutes. She had danced in The Nutcracker as Princess Aurora, which required her to greet every courtier while balanced on one toe.

She could do this.

Quinn looked up. Overhead was a huge beam which looked to be the width of her hips. There were holes drilled into it, which made her think of Meccano pieces. The beam ended with a bracket which held that end of the rod from which the carriage hung. The carriage had slid down the rod…and was still sliding. The beam was a foot above her head. She would have to jump to reach it.

The carriage gave another shimmy and slid a few more inches down the pole. It was going. She could feel the gathering speed under her feet. She had run out of time.

Quinn took a great breath and bent into a plié. Letting the breath burst from her, she threw herself up, her arms reaching. She aimed for a hole in the beam and curled her fingers over the edge of the hole.

She had forgotten the beam would be icy. The cold bit into her fingers and they slipped. With a cry, Quinn threw her injured arm up over her head to grip the other side of the beam. Her shoulder gave another angry protest, making her vision swim.

She felt the beam under her fingers and inched them forward until she found her other hand. She clamped her fingers together, one hand holding the other.

With a shriek of wood against metal, the carriage slid off the end of the pole. Then it splintered and cracked as the support struts of the Ferris wheel smashed it to pieces. Timber and glass rained down, while the wheel shook with the impact of the carriage against the supports.

Quinn could only listen. She hung desperately, afraid to even turn her head to look.

It seemed to take a month before the Ferris wheel descended far enough toward the ground for her to drop to the oily soil beneath. There were people standing right beside the Ferris wheel, waiting for her to reach them.

As soon as she dropped into a crouch on the soil, her fingers of her good arm pressing against the dirt for balance, two people hoisted her to her feet. They carried her out from beneath the Ferris wheel, down the concrete steps and onto the pavement.

She was put on her feet and hugged. Quinn cried out, as the hug squeezed her shoulder.

“Oh my God! I’m sorry!” Leela cried, letting her go.

“Leela?” Quinn said, bewildered. She took in Leela’s clothes, which were skimpy at best. A white lab coat buttoned to the chin and a pair of Wellington boots. Her legs were bare. She wore a borrowed overcoat over the top which was far too big for her.

“I thought Noah killed you. I saw you in a tub of acid…” Quinn said.

Leela shook her head violently. “It was supposed to look like me. It wasn’t me. There’s no time. Come with me. We have to get you somewhere safe.” She picked up her hand and tugged.

For the first time, Quinn took notice of the other people milling on the pavement. Most were in uniform. Viennese police and special forces unit in their black uniform.

Quinn spun to study the roller coaster. From here, it was a lacy network of white struts.

There he was.

Noah was halfway down the structure, climbing agilely. The rifle was over his shoulder.

“Leela, get her out of here!” Dima yelled.

Leela yanked on Quinn’s arm. “Hurry, Quinn!”

Quinn tried to shake off Leela’s hold. “I have to talk to him!” Noah was jumping from level to level, making the descent look easy. He was clearly in a hurry, though.

“No time!” Scott yelled.

“Take the shot,” Dima said, her voice firm.

Scott brought a rifle up to his shoulder and bent his head to peer through the sights. He was aiming at Noah.

Quinn sucked in a terrified breath. “No!” She lurched forward. Leela held her back.

The rifle fired with a flat crack, jerking Scott’s shoulder.

Noah slammed up against the white beams, thrown against them by the bullet. He hung by one arm.

Quinn pressed her hand over her mouth to hold everything inside.

Noah dropped. He made no attempt to break his fall. He fell into the bushes at the foot of the roller coaster structure, behind another pretty white picket fence.

Quinn moaned, her head hanging. Now she understood why Aslan had let go. For this one moment, if she had been in Aslan’s place, she would have let go, too.

The Viennese police took off at a run, to recover the body.

When Leela coaxed Quinn toward an ambulance which stood waiting at the edge of the park, Quinn let her. She had nothing better to do, now.

[28]
Saturday, February 22nd

Because Jenny was contracted by the CIA and had top level clearance, Quinn didn’t have to watch her tongue. She could say exactly what she wanted to say. Only, she didn’t feel like saying anything at all. She attended the weekly sessions because it was part of the agreement which kept her out of jail.

Jenny had been enthusiastic about Quinn returning to work. When Jenny pressed Quinn on her first week back with the orchestra, Quinn shrugged. “I went through the motions. Just as you told me to. It was a week.”

Jenny nodded. “And did you listen to the orchestra playing, at all?”

If she had any capacity for caring, Quinn knew this aspect of her return to Boston would have upset her the most. “It was meaningless.” She paused, considering. “I think music is lost to me.”

Jenny was the upset one. Her face fell. “Well, it’s still early days. Give yourself time. After something like this, you can’t expect to return to your old life in exactly the same way.”

“It isn’t my old life. My old life had Denis in it.”

Jenny raised a brow.

Quinn added the truth which had been forming in her mind for the last few weeks. “None of this is my life, any more.” Maybe that was why music had lost its charm.

Jenny put her chin on her hand, balanced on her elbow. For a psychologist, she was very casual. She had bright, big brown eyes, which could ooze sympathy or dance with amusement, in turn. Unlike any other psychologist Quinn had ever met, Jenny didn’t seem to mind showing her emotions.

“If your old life is not your new life, then what is your new life?” Jenny asked.

Quinn sighed. “I haven’t got a clue.” The absence of alternatives yawned before her, keeping her awake at night, as she puzzled through why she had no ambition to figure it out. She didn’t have the enthusiasm or energy to do anything at all.

It wasn’t entirely true. There was one thing—only, it wasn’t an ambition. It got her out of bed in the morning, though.

It had started off as a simple inquiry, because answers—too many answers—were missing. She had been bundled up into an ambulance and transported to an anonymous hospital somewhere in the outskirts of Vienna and kept there for three days. Nothing was wrong with her shoulder beyond bruises and she had no other injuries, yet she didn’t move beyond the room with the bed.

Instead, people came to her.

Most of the people wore suits, spoke with American accents and asked detailed questions. They took no notes. It told Quinn any sound in the room was being recorded.

Quinn didn’t bother lying about anything. There was no point. Whatever anyone asked her, she answered in full. The questions seemed to be endless. They included requests for a list of things she bought on Aslan’s credit card, to describing the men she saw upon the estate in Innsbruck. The layout of the house, there. The color of the sofas in Aslan’s apartment in Vienna. Her impressions of Aslan. Her impressions of Toni.

One person to question her was a fat, old man with a silver beard and young eyes. He stayed for four hours, his legs crossed, his hands on his knee. He asked the most bizarre questions.

He gave her a small smile as he settled on the chair beside the bed. “Tell me how Noah smelled when he fought with Toni in the kitchen.”

No name. No introduction. No one had offered their name.

Quinn crossed her legs and raised her brow. “How he smelled?”

The man with the silver beard just nodded.

Quinn thought back to the moments in the kitchen when Toni attacked her. When Noah appeared so unexpectedly.

How had he smelled?

What scents had she detected at the time? A casserole bubbling on the range. The remains of breakfast still lingered in the air. The sharp soap scent from a commercial dishwasher chugging away under the counter. Pine…

Abruptly, not only the smells came back, but she could hear once more the sound of Toni’s sharp grunts as she lashed out. The soft growl Noah made as he launched himself at Toni.

The moments in the kitchen came back to her almost as fresh as if they’d just happened. “Body odor,” Quinn said softly. “Only, it was sour.”

The man with the silver beard nodded as if she had answered correctly. “Adrenaline. Most likely mixed with a healthy dose of fear.”

“Noah was afraid?” She shook her head. “He showed no emotion at all.” She could see his face clearly now. Recalling smells, then hearing sounds, had painted in details she had nearly forgotten.

“When Toni had you by the neck, what did her hand feel like?” the man asked.

With a jolt, Quinn remembered. She remembered everything. She handed it all over to the man with the silver beard, as he asked his unexpected questions. They prompted her back into the memories with a freshness which made her feel the fear, sickness and aching tension all over again.

Quinn slept after the man was gone, even though it was still the middle of the day. She slept until a new visitor arrived to ask her more questions.

Then the questions stopped. People stopped visiting. One of the last visitors was Leander. He nodded at her.

“Is Dima coming to see me? I have questions,” Quinn said.

“I’m here just to bring you up to speed,” Leander said. He stood at the end of the bed and spread his fingers on the untouched cover. “Normally Scott would do this, but I suspect you don’t want to see Scott.”

Quinn’s gut tightened. The memory inserted itself. Scott raising the rifle. She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to see him.”

Leander nodded, as if he had watched the memory play in her mind. “A lawyer will visit you tomorrow morning. He will ask you to sign a lot of papers. My advice is that you sign them all.”

“What are the papers?”

“Among them will be a document which binds you to secrecy. You can’t talk about what happened in Austria, or the real reasons behind Denis’s death. You can’t talk about anything which has happened since Denis died. In exchange, the government will not pursue any lines of inquiry which emerge from your actions.” Leander gave her a small smile. “In other words, you will be protected from prosecution.”

“As long as I don’t say anything to anyone,” she finished.

“You know how to do this,” he assured her. “You did when you were a child. This is the same thing. You are closing a door. The door must stay closed if you want to have a normal life.”

“And is anyone ever going to answer my questions? Why did Noah protect me? Why did Toni try to kill me? Why did Noah shoot Aslan? What happened at the warehouse? Was the shipment halted? Did anyone catch up with the Russians?”

Leander held up his hand, making her stop. “For reasons of national security, most of your questions will not be answered.”

Quinn gripped her fingers together. “National security? As I was actually there, right in the middle of it, explaining to me what happened will certainly destabilize the entire country.”

Leander’s smile was small. Sour. “Trust me, Quinn. Even if we answered every single one of your questions, it would not satisfy you. Every answer would generate a dozen more questions and if we answered those, they would spawn another thousand questions.”

She scowled.

Leander gave a tiny shrug. “Besides, when you’ve had a chance to think it through, I suspect you will come closer to the real answers than any of us. You got to know these people. You can figure it out.”

It was the politest “no” anyone gave her in those three days.

The next day, as Leander promised, a lawyer arrived with a small mountain of documents. Quinn signed them all, as Leander had suggested.

That afternoon, she was flown back to the United States. She arrived in Boston in time for New Year’s Eve, so jet-lagged she was forced to go to bed at seven p.m.

On New Year’s Day, she sat at her kitchen table and tried to encompass that she was back home once more. Her apartment seemed more unrealistic and dreamlike than her bedroom in the luxurious house in Vienna.

It was easy to tell her she couldn’t have answers, only it didn’t stop the questions endlessly circling in her mind. As there was no need to rush back to work, she had no structure to her days, and nothing pressing to do, which let the questions plague her.

When she went to buy groceries for her fridge and pantry, Quinn discovered her bank balance had increased by over a hundred thousand dollars. When she looked into it, the bank manager himself confirmed that Denis’s life insurance policy had indeed been paid out.

Quinn said nothing to the bank manager. Only, she knew Denis had not owned a life insurance policy of any kind. He would not submit to the cross checks and questioning involved in buying one.

Quinn floated through her days, spending more time in her head than she knew she should. It wasn’t healthy to obsess that way, but she couldn’t stop. To stop asking the questions, even if she asked only in her mind, felt as though she was giving up. She had no idea what she was giving up on, yet she didn’t want to let go. Not yet.

Quinn found an email address on the CIA website. She knew the address would be a sorting station, but it was somewhere to start. Her first email was simply a request that someone contact her who could speak to her freely about the events in Vienna. She did not expect an answer. She didn’t get one.

Two hours later, she sent a follow-up email. In it she quoted the case number which she had memorized from the documents she signed. Two hours after, Quinn sent another email, a summary of both the previous emails.

In total, she sent eighteen emails that first day.

Her days settled into a rhythm despite the lack of structure. She attended her required twice weekly meetings with Jenny. In between, she cleaned and tidied her apartment. And she sent emails.

Eventually, she received a canned response suggesting she cease and desist in her line of inquiry.

Quinn sent all her emails to that address. She added that if Stephen Price was not the man she should speak to, please provide her with an email address for the person who could answer her questions. Eventually, Stephen Price did suggest another contact—she suspected she browbeat him into it by sheer volume.

Every time she was referred to someone else, Quinn diverted all her emails to the new person. She would ask for answers, or the name of someone who could give her the answers.

Quinn recalled the passage of days since she returned to Boston, as she contemplated Jenny’s question about what sort of life she wanted.

She didn’t have a single idea. She had not once thought about the future. She had been too focused upon the past.

Jenny sat up. Quinn knew she was shifting ground. “And are you still angry with Denis?”

Straight for the gut. Jenny had some strange ideas about therapy.

“Did someone tell you what happened?” Quinn asked.

Jenny shook her head. “What happened?”

“Before I went to… Before I went away, I didn’t have the guts to open the box the police gave me. It had Denis’ personal affects in it. I just shoved it in the back corner of the closet. I forgot it was there until I found it a few days ago.”

“And you opened it,” Jenny said, her tone certain.

Quinn nodded. “As far as I was concerned, what was in there would be meaningless. It was a dead man’s personal things. A man I didn’t really know.”

“What was in there to make you change your mind?”

Quinn stroked her thumb over the arm of the chair. The armchair was covered in a faux suede which, depending on which direction she stroked it, was either lighter or darker. She could make patterns in the arm. She made stripes this time, working on keeping them straight.

“Quinn?”

Quinn smeared the stripes with her palm. She looked up. “There was all the usual stuff. His wallet, clothes.” They had been filthy and reeked of smoke.

“And what else?”

“A box,” she said. The box was small and square, covered in paper rather than blue velvet, yet still Quinn’s heart pattered to a stop when she saw it. She lifted it and turned it in her hands, afraid to open it. Only, the search for answers had defined her life in the last few weeks. Quinn knew she must open the box.

“It was an engagement ring,” she told Jenny. “Emeralds, not diamonds. I don’t like diamonds and Denis knew that.” She went back to making stripes on the arm of the chair. “I’ve spent days thinking I never knew Denis at all. Turns out, Denis was exactly what he said he was. He told me he loved me, and he really did. He was going to marry me.” Her eyes stung and the tears flowed. Quinn pressed her hand to her chest and blinked at Jenny. “Why does it bother me so much?”

“Why does what bother you so much? That you found out only now Denis did love you, that he was the man you believed he was? Or that you are not more upset about missing a lifetime with him?”

Quinn pressed her hot face against her knees. “If I’m right about Denis, then I was right about all of them. I thought I couldn’t trust my own instincts anymore. I thought I was so far wrong about everyone that I should never trust myself again. Only I was right about Noah—”

“You mean Denis, don’t you?”

“That’s what I said.”

Jenny shook her head. “You said Noah.”

Quinn closed her eyes and pressed her head against her knees once more. “It doesn’t matter. They’re both dead.”

Four days later, as Quinn walked home from the bus stop, a bright green Audi pulled up alongside her. It was the same stretch of road where Aslan stopped to pick her up in the middle of a rainstorm.

It wasn’t raining today.

Quinn bent to look into the car, to see the driver.

The glass lowered. Dima leaned closer and spoke through the open window. “Hello, Quinn. I think it’s time we talked.”

[29]
Tuesday, February 26th

The snow was so high around benches lining the paths of Boston Common that it packed beneath the dark green slats and sat higher than the benches.

The cold kept nearly everyone away from the Common, especially this time of the afternoon, when workers were heading home for supper. The lamps were already on.

Dima didn’t seem bothered by the location, the cold or the snow. She brushed the snow off the bench with her gloved hand, then settled onto it with a tired sigh.

Quinn sat beside her but didn’t relax. She perched on the edge of the seat, her arms on her knees, turned so she could watch Dima as the woman spoke.

“Why now?” Quinn said. “I’ve been asking for weeks.”

“Exactly,” Dima said. “You stopped emailing, four days ago.”

“I’m surprised anyone noticed.”

“I think you underestimate the attention people pay to you. It’s one of your more endearing qualities.” Dima said it with the pride of the mother.

Quinn shook her head. She didn’t believe it.

“You’ve been stirring things up with your email,” Dima said. “So I am here to answer your questions. I will be breaking laws and protocol with every word I speak. Only, you have been insisting on answers despite Leander telling you that you would not like any answers you got. So you shall have your answers. This is a one-time deal, Quinn. Once we are done here, there will be no more information provided. Do you understand?” Dima’s voice was low, heavy with warning.

Quinn threaded her fingers together and squeezed them. “I understand.”

Dima nodded. “Ask your questions.”

Now she was about to receive the answers she craved, Quinn hesitated. She didn’t know where to start. How long would she have? She tried to sort her questions into priority order, then jumped to the first question which rose in her mind.

“Why did Noah save me? Why did he shoot Aslan and Toni? And why did you shoot him?”

“Noah Stojanovich was known to us, although we knew very little. Even less than we knew about everyone else in Aslan’s house. He had only been there for a year. He was a high-adrenaline junkie. He was also a self-taught chemist. There were rumors he cooked methamphetamines for anyone who would pay him, until he became too hot to stay in Croatia. Not even the gangs there would protect him. So he fell in with organizations across Europe, moving from gang to group to organization. That is how Aslan met him. He was working for a Ukrainian organization, testing the quality of the cocaine they got from South America. Aslan saw his potential and recruited him.”

“It explains why he was working for Aslan. It doesn’t explain why he tried to kill him.”

“I can only speculate about that.” Dima frowned. “Perhaps he saw an opportunity. Perhaps he was paid to do it. There were people besides us watching Aslan’s organization. Maybe one of them reached out to Noah and made an arrangement. Perhaps he was shooting at Toni all along. He and Toni were enemies of a kind. Or perhaps he did it because Aslan was threatening you. We will never know.”

Quinn shook her head. “That’s no answer.”

Dima let out a sigh. “We tried to warn you. Even the most direct answers we can give you won’t satisfy you.”

“I don’t understand how Toni came to be there at the end.”

“Toni never left Vienna.” Dima shrugged. “She wasn’t the type of woman to crawl back to Innsbruck just because Noah told her to. He angered her by interfering with the fun she was having with you. Again, we are guessing, but we know more about Toni, so our guess is more certain. We know she took up a post on top of the stack of containers on the wharf, where she could monitor the warehouse. She had a nest there which we found later. The rifle she had on her shoulder when she fell from the Ferris wheel was a Timberwolf, one of the best sniper rifles out there. Maybe she took it from the house when she left. Aslan had a small arsenal in the basement.”

“She tried to kill me because Aslan wanted to take me to a ball? That seems…” Quinn shook her head again. “She must have loved him very much.”

“We think it was Mitchell she loved. Aslan was just her ticket.”

Quinn’s lips parted. “Excuse me?”

Dima nodded grimly. “Toni and Mitchell were lovers. Of course they hid it from Aslan.”

Quinn rubbed at her temple. “I spotted Mitchell sneaking around one night in Innsbruck. It’s what started me thinking he was CIA and undercover.”

“I read the report where you mentioned it,” Dima said. “We believe Toni’s attachment to Mitchell was deeper than anyone suspected. You can imagine her reaction when she watched through the scope of her sniper rifle and saw you kill Mitchell, right there in the window.”

“She fired, right after Mitchell fell.”

“And kept firing at anyone who came close to the body, after. It was you she really wanted to kill, though. So when you and Aslan emerged at the front of the building, she followed. She scrambled on top of the roof of the Ferris wheel carriage next to yours and for half the circuit, her carriage was under yours. Then your carriage reached the top of the Ferris wheel and started down the other side. It put her carriage above yours. So she jumped.”

Quinn could still hear Toni’s feet hitting the roof of the carriage. The jolt and swing of the carriage in response.

Dima grimaced. “I witnessed that part. All I had was my Glock, unfortunately. Even Scott’s tricked-out rifle was on the other side of the park.” She smiled. “Your guess about Mitchell, what you told Aslan about him working for the Kobra, was inspired. We looked into it. It turns out, Mitchell spent five years in Russia before turning up in Eastern Europe.”

“I was right?” Quinn was astonished. “I mean, it made sense to me at the time. Only, I told Aslan what I thought would mollify him and get me off the hook for killing Mitchell.”

“It made sense to Aslan. Aslan and the Kobra go back a long way. Aslan showed no surprise that the Kobra was still keeping tabs on him. It was Aslan’s lack of surprise which made me study Mitchell closely.”

“You still don’t know who is the Kobra is?”

“Thanks to you, we are a long step closer to figuring out who the Kobra is.” Dima said it complacently. “Aslan spoke about being made by the Kobra. It implies an association from a long time ago. We’re digging into his past, unearthing the older documents and examining everything as closely as possible. The Kobra is back there, somewhere. Now we have a direction to look, we will find him.”

Quinn shifted on the seat, so the slats were not digging into the same place on her rear. “Aslan said he loved two people in his life. Denis was one. Was the Kobra the other?”

Dima’s gaze was sharp with interest. “You didn’t mention that anywhere in the debriefing.”

“Was that what those three days were? A debriefing?”

“If his other love was the Kobra, then we are even more certain to find him. Such a close association will leave traces no amount of history-scrubbing will remove.” Dima seemed speak to herself. She stirred, as if she remembered where she was. She raised her brow at Quinn, inviting another question.

“Did Leela intend to be caught by Aslan?” Quinn said.

Dima’s smile was full of warmth. “That is an astute question. What makes you ask?”

“Giorgio grew suspicious because Leela ate using her knife and fork American-style. Only, Leela is too smart to do something that stupid.”

Dima nodded. “Those things we learned first and earliest stay with us. When we relax our guard, they emerge. Leela is very smart, so smart she sometimes scares me. On this occasion, though, it was a slip. We do make mistakes. We’re human. Leela was concentrating on making sure her German was perfectly natural. She let her guard down and reverted to using her knife and fork the way she was raised to.” Dima pursed her lips for a moment. It looked as if she was about to say more but she didn’t speak again.

“And it was enough for Aslan to kill her out of hand? I mean, she didn’t die, but Aslan sent her to be executed—all because she ate the wrong way?”

“You said Aslan was hurried. That might account for it. Only I felt as you did—that Giorgio’s reaction was extreme. He was already suspicious of her when he had Leela in his office to question her. He leapt to the conclusion that she had infiltrated the factory with no basis to draw upon.”

“Then he already knew,” Quinn said. “He just needed an excuse and because he was watching Leela so closely, he found it.”

“That is our conclusion, yes.”

“How did he know?” Quinn said.

Dima sighed. For a long moment she said nothing. Then, “Giorgio knew because someone in my unit told him.”

Quinn sucked in a harsh breath, staring at Dima. “You have a mole?”

“I wondered if I did,” Dima said softly. “Now I know I do. What I don’t know is if the mole is working for the Kobra, who told Giorgio. Or if they just went directly to Giorgio. It makes more sense that the Kobra placed someone inside my unit, as our sole objective is to find the Kobra.”

Quinn was appalled. “How on earth can you achieve anything, if the Kobra knows every move you are making?” Then she connected the various facts, and gasped. “It was the Kobra who killed Denis.”

Dima nodded. “What you told Aslan was correct. Denis had been seen talking to the wrong people. The Kobra knows the people in my unit. As soon as Denis was seen talking to Leela and Lochan, the Kobra made a move to eliminate the risk to him. He doesn’t want the CIA looking at him too closely. It means he is still active, still out there, and even more powerful than we believed.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Now, I need to go mole hunting.” Dima said it was a grim smile. “And once I have found the mole, then I am going after the Kobra.”

“It’s personal, now, isn’t it?” Quinn asked.

“Four people died directly because of his manipulations. Many more, indirectly. One of my own nearly died, but for Noah’s latent streak of humanity. When we mopped up the warehouse after the raid, there were twelve bodies. Most of them were dockworkers, who had no idea what they had got mixed up in. Then there were the people who died in the bombing of the jazz club, all collateral damage the Kobra dished out in his effort to get just one man.” Dima smiled grimly. “This is so fucking personal my teeth ache with it.”

“Let me help you,” Quinn said.

Dima sat up, considering her. “Are you sure, Quinn? You can’t sleep and you have nightmares when you do. While you were down the hole, you suffered headaches and you were sick most of the time. Austria changed you and you can never go back. If you were to help me, all you could look forward to would be more of the same. It is not easy work for anyone.”

“I don’t care about that. You’re right. I’ve changed. I can’t stand my life anymore. It’s so small and closed in. For years, it was all I wanted. Now…”

“Now your nature has reverted to what it should have been all along.”

Quinn shook her head. “No. Well, perhaps that is true. It isn’t why I want to help you. I want to catch the Kobra myself. Like you, my teeth ache with it. He killed Denis. He is responsible for Noah dying.” Quinn hesitated. “You haven’t said anything about me being an untrained civilian.”

Dima shrugged. “Training is something we can give you. No one can give you the fire in the belly which keeps you relentlessly working toward what you want. No one can train you into having the balls to talk your way out of a situation when a man is pointing a gun at you. People with that sort of grit are rare, and you are one of them. Are you sure, Quinn? Your life will never be the same if you say yes, so think it through.”

Quinn opened her mouth to speak.

Dima got to her feet. “Really think about how it felt, while you were in Austria. Weigh up your options. All I can offer you is interesting times and a possible early and undeserved death. Kobra will play for keeps. So must I.”

She turned and walked away.

“Are you not going to wait for my answer?” Quinn called.

Dima didn’t look back. “I’ll be in touch!” she called over her shoulder.

The pair of tickets to the Mahler concert had been stuck to the fridge for weeks before the bombing at the jazz club.

At first, Quinn had no intention of going. It was too pathetic to sit in a concert hall beside an empty chair. Besides, she was numb to music, now.

After speaking to Dima, though, Quinn spent two days going about her life and hating it. Now Dima had dangled the possibility of a different life, Quinn couldn’t stand this one.

Because it was a break with routine, Quinn went to the concert. Nothing in her wardrobe was suitable, not after her spending sprees in Vienna. Off the rack dresses felt nothing like Armani.

At the same time, she didn’t have the energy to head out and buy something she would feel comfortable wearing. After all, who was there to give a damn? Certainly not her. Three days of deadly routine had flattened the enthusiasm which Dima had fired to life.

The music did not touch her, as usual. Quinn sat through the first half of the concert, her thoughts elsewhere.

If she could not help Dima with the Kobra, then she must start looking for a different life. She had no idea what that life might be, only that it would not be here in Boston. She might have to try on different lives, to find which one would fit. Thanks to Denis’s “life insurance” payout, she had time to figure it out.

She just didn’t have the drive to do it.

As the house lights came up, Quinn shuffled along to the aisle, intending to head for the washrooms, then snag a glass of champagne from the bar. Everyone in the concert hall was doing the same thing. She moved along the aisle in slow steps as everyone filed out.

Smarter people than Quinn were staying in their seats until the first rush died down. She glanced at them disinterestedly as she moved along the aisle.

She halted. Her breath stopped. Everything stopped, as she watched Noah get to his feet.

Hot and cold shivers slipped over her. Quinn reached out and gripped the back of the nearest chair and prop herself up. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t shift her gaze from Noah. If she looked away, when she looked back he might be gone—a product of her imagination.

Only, he was wearing a suit she had never seen before. He pushed against the tide of people and came up to her. “Are you alright ma’am? Here, let me help you out of here. I’ll find somewhere quiet for you to recover.”

He had no accent she could detect at all. Not even the mild middle-European one he’d had in Austria.

Quinn managed to nod.

He took her elbow and walked her down the aisle. Because of his size, no one jostled him. They moved out into the foyer and he led her to a spot under the stairs to the balcony.

Quinn looked up at him, trying to assess if she was seeing things. Had she mistaken some poor slob for Noah? What she so desperately in need she had conjured him up from nothing?

“Can I get you something? Water?”

“Champagne,” she breathed.

He nodded. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Quinn turned to watch him go, doubt gnawing at her. His voice was the same. Yet he had said nothing that a stranger would not have said.

The man she thought was Noah came back with two champagne flutes. He handed her one. “It might help put color back in your cheeks. You’re very white.”

“Shock does that to me.” She drank. It wasn’t the vintage champagne she remembered, but it would do. Carefully, she said with the polite tone of a stranger, “Thank you for your help. From a moment I was overwhelmed.”

“I’ve heard music can do that to people. I get shivers up the back of my neck.”

Quinn stared at him, her heart squeezing. She held out her hand. “I’m Quinn Sawyer.”

She waited, her breath held.

He took her hand, squeezed it a little and said, “Noah Bailey.”

His hand in hers. It was so familiar her heart ached. The fat man with the silver beard had made her remember everything about Noah—how he smelled, how he felt. Now she would never forget. This was Noah. It really was.

Quinn trembled. She wasn’t imagining this. But there were so many questions…

Noah drained his glass and put it on the nearest tall, narrow table. He glanced around with a casual motion. His gaze came back to her. “This might seem crazy, considering we just met, but how would you feel about blowing off the rest of the concert and having coffee with me?”

“I wasn’t enjoying the concert, anyway,” she confessed. Her heart lifted.

“Give me your coat stub and I’ll collect your coat for you.” He held out his hand.

Quinn gave him the stub and waited impatiently for him to return with her coat. As a perfect stranger would do, he did not take her arm or her hand. Instead, he waited for her to walk alongside him, as they headed for the doors.

The night was foggy and cold, the snow was thick and the clouds danced. The small moon and every light in the city reflected off the clouds and the snow, so the night glowed with its own light. It was one of the mystical, magical nights which Boston occasionally experienced.

“I don’t have a car here,” Noah said.

“Neither do I.”

“Taxi it is then.” He changed direction, so they walked toward the taxi stand. No one waited for a taxi. Also, there were no taxis. The spread of concrete in front of the concert hall was empty of people. It was too cold to linger.

“Oh, I forgot,” Noah said. He halted and dug in his coat pocket. “This is yours, I believe.” He held out his hand.

Lying on the palm of his hand was a soprano clef necklace. It was the one which Aslan had given her.

Quinn sucked in a breath which quivered. Overwhelmed, she threw her arms around his neck and trembled against him. “You took it from Mitchell. You covered for me. You saved my life!”

His arms came around her, just for a moment. He pushed her back. “Oh, hey, we’ve just met!”

Quinn pulled herself together. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I guess the music affected me more than I thought.”

Noah nodded. “Let’s get that coffee and talk.”

Quinn knew the coffee bar because it was only a few blocks from her apartment. She suspected it was not a coincidence Noah brought her to this bar. Because of the cold night, the bar had no customers. They picked the table farthest from the counter.

Noah took the seat beside her, not one across the table. He put black coffee in front of her, pushed sugar toward her, then sipped his own.

It thrilled her that he hadn’t asked her what she wanted. He had just known.

She broke open sugar packets.

Noah said, “By the way, Dima asked me to tell you that this is her getting back to you.”

Quinn jerked. Sugar sprayed across the table.

Calmly, Noah pulled another packet out of the tub and handed it to her. He brushed the sugar granules over to one corner of the table and wiped off his hand. “Don’t spill that one.”

Quinn rested her forehead on her hand for a moment, letting it sink in. “Were you with Dima all along?” she asked softly.

Noah shook his head. “A different unit, a different task force, not remotely connected. Noah Stojanovich bounced around from group to group across Europe for over three years. No one seemed to question that every time he started working for a different organization, not long afterward the organization suffered the most terrible luck. Raids, arrests and the group would be broken up. Then Noah Stojanovich would find employment with someone else.” He gave the smallest of shrugs. “When Noah met Aslan and was pulled into his group, contact with my field director was lost. I had been hanging in there for a year, trying to find a way to reach back to Langley. Then you came along.”

Quinn sighed. “I thought you resented me. For the longest time you wouldn’t even look at me.”

“Stojanovich would have resented at you.” Noah picked up a teaspoon and stirred his coffee, even though there was no sugar in it to dissolve. “I lived and breathed that legend for nearly four years. I was at the end of my stamina. It was time for Stojanovich to die. You gave me the bolt hole I needed.”

“So when you got Leela out of there, you arranged for Scott to pretend to shoot you.” Quinn remembered Dima speaking of Scott’s tricked-out rifle.

“More than that.” Noah shook his head. “Everyone was focused upon Leela and forgot to be suspicious of me. Leela told me her unit would move in on the warehouse now she was AWOL. Then I found Mitchell…” His smile was grim. “He had your necklace caught up in his fingers. I took the necklace and his key to the warehouse. Finally, finally, I got inside the damned place and saw for myself the full shipment of Sarin precursors.”

“You blew up the warehouse!” Quinn breathed.

Noah’s smile was brief. “The benefits of an MIT chemistry education. The warehouse was full of explosive compounds. I set a fuse on the more volatile ones—those sitting farthest from the shipment—and got the hell out of there.”

“The shipment—it’s been confiscated?”

“I helped load the containers onto the American freighter which took it back to Virginia. Yes.”

“Then what happened?”

“I followed you and Aslan to the Prater.” Noah drank. “I believe you remember how that went,” he added. His tone was casual.

Quinn rubbed her temples. She wasn’t interested in the coffee. “So now you are working with Dima’s group?”

Noah’s gaze met hers. “Dima told me about her conversation with you. That you figured out about the mole in her group as fast as she did. That’s why Dima arranged for me to be pulled over to her unit. Out of everyone in her unit, I’m the one person she can trust. And now, there’s you.”

Quinn jumped. “I haven’t said yes, yet.” She hesitated. “If I hadn’t asked Dima if I could help her, would you have ever let me know you were alive?”

Noah’s gaze didn’t quiver. “I was coming to see you, despite direct orders not to. They threatened me with criminal charges if I did, so I resigned. Then Dima pulled me to one side and proposed I come and join her group. I tore up the resignation, but only after Dima agreed to Noah Bailey bumping into Quinn Sawyer on a casual basis and getting to know her that way.”

“Noah Bailey,” Quinn said slowly. “That is who you are now?”

“I was born Noah Bailey.” His gaze was steady. “The man sitting before you is the real man, the one who lost his heart in Austria to the woman who saved his life. He has been terrified for weeks now that he only imagined Quinn’s feelings for him.” His voice took on a hoarse note.

She leaned closer and kissed him, no longer uncertain about this part of her life. He held her against him, almost drawing her from the chair. It was the sweetest kiss she had ever had.

Even after he let her go, Quinn leaned against him. “I still don’t know anything about you, except that you are Noah Bailey.”

“It works both ways, Quinn,” he said gently. “You were playing a desperate game of charades in Austria. I don’t know how much was truth, or what was lies. I don’t know anything about you, either, except that you are smart, a quick thinker, principled and your courage under fire is something I’ll never forget. I watched Aslan threaten you through the scope of my rifle and nearly lost it. That’s when I knew I loved you. Even though I didn’t know if a single detail about you was true, I knew the important things and they were enough.”

Quinn stroked his hand. “They are,” she agreed.

“Besides,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting. “You’ve unleashed a demon. Now I can’t stop listening to music. Mahler, tonight… It was the first time I’ve heard him. Now I can’t unhear the tune.” He tapped his temple. “It’s in here.”

Quinn sighed. “I haven’t been able to hear music since I got back.”

Noah turned her so she was facing him properly, so he could see her face. He picked up her hand and held it in his big warm one. “A highly intuitive, beautiful woman taught me to appreciate music in the space of an hour. She reached into my heart and plucked a chord and I have never been the same since.” He kissed her fingers. “Let me do the same for you.”

Quinn’s heart soared. “Please do.”

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The next book in the
Project Kobra series.

The next book in the Project Kobra series will be released in July 2019.

In the meantime, if you enjoy romantic suspense:

Dead Double
part of the Romantic Thrillers Collection

The woman he must now protect looks exactly like the one he once hated.

An Iranian physics genius in hiding wants to give the west his world-changing theories, but will only give them to Micky Wilde, whose beauty once charmed him. The only problem? Micky is dead. Logan Wilde involved his wife in his grim business and it got her killed. For Logan the guilt runs deep.

Sahara Taylor-Hughes is a San Francisco beachbum with a life and personality a million miles different from Micky’s caustic ways, but she is Micky’s double in appearance. Duped into playing Micky to get the plans, Sahara destroys what little peace Logan has left.

Zaram, a potent renegade terrorist, learns of the plans. He will hold the western world to ransom if he gets them first. Logan must help Sahara beat Zaram, collect the plans and make sure she stays alive, or else lose his mind…and his heart.

This romantic suspense novel is part of the Romantic Thrillers Collection.
Dead Again
Dead Double
Fatal Wild Child
Terror Stash

A world of palpable danger and political intrigue. Right from the very start the intensity seeps off the pages.  Night Owl Romance

Get your copy of Dead Double now:

https://tracycooperposey.com/dead-double/

About the Author

Tracy Cooper-Posey is a #1 Best Selling Author. She writes romantic suspense, historical, paranormal and science fiction romance. She has published over 95 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.

She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year. Tracy won the award in 2012, and a SFR Galaxy Award in 2016 for “Most Intriguing Philosophical/Social Science Questions in Galaxybuilding” She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.

She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian Canadian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.

Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey

For reviews, excerpts, and more about each title, visit Tracy’s site and click on the cover you are interested in: http://tracycooperposey.com/books-by-thumbnail/

* = Free!

Scandalous Scions

(Historical Romance Series – Spin off)
Rose of Ebony
Soul of Sin
Valor of Love
Marriage of Lies
Scandalous Scions One
Mask of Nobility
Law of Attraction
Veil of Honor
Scandalous Scions Two
Season of Denial
Rules of Engagement
Degree of Solitude

Once and Future Hearts

(Ancient Historical Romance—Arthurian)

Born of No Man
Dragon Kin
Pendragon Rises
War Duke of Britain
High King of Britain
Battle of Mount Badon
Abduction of Guenivere
Downfall of Cornwall
Vengeance of Arthur
Grace of Lancelot
The Grail and Glory
Camlann

Kiss Across Time Series

(Paranormal Time Travel)
Kiss Across Time*
Kiss Across Swords
Time Kissed Moments
Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Time Box One
Kiss Across Deserts
Kiss Across Kingdoms
Time and Tyra Again
Kiss Across Seas
Kiss Across Time Box Two
Kiss Across Worlds
Time and Remembrance
Kiss Across Tomorrow
More Time Kissed Moments

Project Kobra

(Romantic Spy Thrillers)

Hunting The Kobra

Vistaria Has Fallen

Vistaria Has Fallen
Prisoner of War
Hostage Crisis
Freedom Fighters
Casualties of War
V-Day

Romantic Thrillers Series

Fatal Wild Child
Dead Again
Dead Double
Terror Stash
Thrilling Affair (Boxed Set)

Beloved Bloody Time Series

(Paranormal Futuristic Time Travel)
Bannockburn Binding*
Wait
Byzantine Heartbreak
Viennese Agreement
Romani Armada
Spartan Resistance
Celtic Crossing
Beloved Bloody Time Series Boxed Set

Scandalous Sirens

(Historical Romance Series)
Forbidden*
Dangerous Beauty
Perilous Princess

Go-get-‘em Women

(Short Romantic Suspense Series)
The Royal Talisman
Delly’s Last Night
Vivian’s Return
Ningaloo Nights

Blood Knot Series

(Urban Fantasy Paranormal Series)
Blood Knot
Southampton Swindle
Broken Promise
Vale
Amor Meus
Blood Stone
Blood Unleashed
Blood Drive
Blood Revealed
Blood Ascendant

The Sherlock Holmes Series

(Romantic Suspense/Mystery)
Chronicles of the Lost Years
The Case of the Reluctant Agent
Sherlock Boxed In

The Kine Prophecies

(Epic Norse Fantasy Romance)
The Branded Rose Prophecy

The Stonebrood Saga

(Gargoyle Paranormal Series)
Carson’s Night
Beauty’s Beasts
Harvest of Holidays
Unbearable
Sabrina’s Clan
Pay The Ferryman
Hearts of Stone (Boxed Set)

Destiny’s Trinities

(Urban Fantasy Romance Series)
Beth’s Acceptance*
Mia’s Return
Sera’s Gift
The First Trinity
Cora’s Secret
Zoe’s Blockade
Octavia’s War
The Second Trinity
Terra’s Victory
Destiny’s Trinities (Boxed Set)

Interspace Origins

(Science Fiction Romance Series)
Faring Soul
Varkan Rise
Cat and Company
Interspace Origins (Boxed Set)

Short Paranormals

Solstice Surrender
Eva’s Last Dance
Three Taps, Then….
The Well of Rnomath

Jewells of Tomorrow

(Historical Romantic Suspense)
Diana By The Moon
Heart of Vengeance

The Endurance

(Science Fiction Romance Series)
5,001
Greyson’s Doom
Yesterday’s Legacy
Promissory Note
Quiver and Crave
Xenogenesis
Junkyard Heroes
Evangeliya
Skinwalker’s Bane

Contemporary Romances

Lucifer’s Lover
An Inconvenient Lover

The Indigo Reports

(Space Opera)
Flying Blind
New Star Rising
But Now I See
Suns Eclipsed
Worlds Beyond

Non-Fiction Titles

Reading Order

(Non-Fiction, Reference)
Reading Order Perpetual*

Copyright Information

This is an original publication of Tracy Cooper-Posey

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2019 by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Text design by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Cover design by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
http://wickedsmartdesigns.com

Edited by Mr. Intensity, Mark Posey

All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

FIRST EDITION: February, 2019

Cooper-Posey, Tracy
Hunting The Kobra/Tracy Cooper-Posey—1st Ed.

Romance—Fiction
Thriller—Fiction
Espionage—Fiction