‘The world doesn’t stop because Will Slater has a midlife crisis.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I thought you might have been preoccupied.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ she said. ‘I’m only in this state because I care about Will.’

  ‘So what did your people find?’ King said. ‘With Donati?’

  ‘It’s early stages,’ she said. ‘But there’s something happening in California.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We came across what we believe to be a live criminal operation. There were … how do I put this? There were discrepancies in some of the files we dug up in the wake of Donati’s death.’

  ‘I told you there would be.’

  ‘But as this unfolds…’

  She trailed off.

  He said, ‘Just tell it like it is.’

  ‘This is horrible timing.’

  ‘I know. But the timing’s never right, is it?’

  She said, ‘We might need you.’

  He massaged his temple with two fingers spaced wide.

  She said, ‘There’s a unique opening. Alonzo found it. Before I tell you more … I need to know whether you’re in or not.’

  ‘What if Slater needs me?’

  ‘That’s the problem.’

  ‘How urgent is it?’

  ‘You don’t have to accept,’ she said. ‘But…’

  But.

  It said everything.

  But this is still your job.

  But innocent people are in danger.

  But bad people will get away if we don’t act now.

  The same old story.

  This time, a little different.

  But ultimately the same.

  King said, ‘What are his chances?’

  ‘Slater’s?’

  He nodded.

  She tightened her mouth, but her eyes remained kind. The age-old “your guess is as good as mine” expression.

  He tried to weigh it all up, analyse it logically, come up with the most optimal solution. Just as he’d done his whole life. It only took him a couple of seconds to realise it wouldn’t work here. There were too many variables. Too much pressure. He’d simply have to decide, and commit to his decision.

  He looked at her.

  He thought about Slater.

  But Slater wasn’t standing here. The man had made his own choices. He’d put himself in a volatile situation. Violetta was still here, doing her job, persevering in the face of hardship. He respected both choices, for different reasons.

  He said, ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He nodded. ‘Let me guess. It’s a one man job?’

  She nodded back. ‘There’s only a window for one operative. You just came back from Moscow. Ordinarily, if these were normal circumstances, I’d ask Slater. So you two were even. But…’

  But.

  As always.

  He said, ‘California, you said?’

  She gave a barely perceptible nod.

  He said, ‘So, if I get killed in California, it’s Slater’s fault?’

  She didn’t answer.

  Just stared at him.

  Then said, ‘You know, maybe you’re not in the right state of mind for this gig.’

  ‘You got anyone else?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You got anyone else like me or Slater?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That I don’t have.’

  ‘There’s got to be dozens of SF boys with the same reaction speed as me,’ he said. ‘You’ve had over a decade to screen for it. I pioneered the division, but surely I’m a relic of the past.’

  ‘Not yet. There are younger men with the same reflexes as you. But they don’t have the experience. They don’t have the cool-headedness. You’ve been on hundreds of solo operations and you’re still alive. That’s the real unicorn.’

  He said, ‘You honestly need me?’

  She said, ‘Yes.’

  He said, ‘Then it doesn’t matter what my state of mind is, does it?’

  She said, ‘That’s the answer I wanted.’

  ‘I’m tired. I want to go to bed. Can we turn work mode off?’

  ‘Not yet. We need to wait.’

  ‘For what?’

  Her silence answered the question.

  He said, ‘How do you think he’s doing?’

  After a long pause, she said, ‘I don’t know.’

  35

  The Navigator’s driver was the only occupant.

  Slater got in diagonally behind him, sliding into the rear passenger seat. He sized the man up, which revealed nothing. The guy was almost deliberately ordinary — shapeless, flabby, and white, with thin sandy hair and a pair of faded spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose.

  Slater said, ‘Are you my boss?’

  Keeping both hands on the wheel, the driver looked over his shoulder. Behind the spectacles, his pale eyes were ice. ‘What?’

  ‘I was making a joke.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The guy turned back to the road, put his blinker on, and carved the Navigator away from Slater’s tower.

  It was late enough that they made good time. Good for Manhattan, at least. They took FDR Drive north until it became Harlem River Drive, and then crossed the Hudson River via George Washington Bridge. The late evening traffic receded, and then the driver wordlessly got on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. It ran parallel to the Hudson for eight miles and then weaved north-west, crossing the New Jersey/New York border. They were heading toward Bear Mountain. Slater had done the occasional hike up there.

  Quiet country.

  Backwoods.

  His stomach twisted.

  The view out the window of estates and industrial zones dissipated in density as they moved through Mt Ivy, and then the darkness became all-encompassing as they plunged into the woods of Bear Mountain State Park.

  They hadn’t been on the road for any longer than an hour, but to Slater it had been an eternity. He ran a finger restlessly over the cool metal of the Glock, feeling it there in its holster. The driver hadn’t confiscated it, or even demanded to frisk him.

  Which meant they didn’t care that he was armed.

  They were either so far ahead that any resistance he attempted would prove futile, or they simply wanted to talk.

  He had never been the optimistic type.

  Dark tree trunks flashed by, framing the Navigator, threatening to swallow it whole.

  Halfway through the state park, Slater said, ‘Just where the hell are we going?’

  ‘You can’t honestly expect me to tell you that.’

  ‘What if I put a gun to the back of your head and asked politely?’

  The driver didn’t turn around, or even register the threat.

  His dark silhouette remained fixed in place.

  Quietly, he said, ‘Then they’ll know you did, and when we get there, they’ll bury you.’

  Above the low hum of the motor and the whoosh of tree trunks flashing past, the silence was deafening.

  Slater took his finger off the Glock.

  Killing the temptation.

  He sat a little straighter, and breathed a little deeper, and hoped like hell he’d live to see the sunrise.

  They burst free from the woods and crossed back over the Hudson at Purple Heart Memorial Bridge. From there they drove up through Garrison, then Cold Spring, until finally they were racing further north with the dark, silent river on their left. Ten minutes later the driver veered inland, putting a natural barrier of trees between the Navigator and the river.

  Finally he eased off the accelerator.

  The SUV crawled to a halt on the side of the road, its wheels rumbling against the gravel.

  Then it stopped.

  Slater sat motionless in the back. He didn’t go for his gun, but he didn’t play along, either.

  The driver said, ‘This is you.’

  Slater looked outside. Saw the outlines of trees, black against the blacker backdrop. He thought he could make out the moonlight glinting off the Hudson, deep in the background, but he couldn’t be sure.

  He said, ‘What is this, exactly?’

  ‘There’s a dinghy waiting for you on the riverbank,’ the driver said. ‘Use it to get yourself over to Pollepel Island.’

  ‘What?’

  The driver spun in his seat, mildly irritated. ‘There’s an island out there in the middle of the Hudson, maybe a thousand feet from shore. It’ll be a quick trip. You can steer a dinghy, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Slater said. ‘I can steer a dinghy.’

  ‘Go to the island. You’ll see Bannerman Castle. Go there. They’ll find you.’

  Slater said, ‘Are you fucking with me?’

  ‘I assure you I’m not.’

  ‘Will I find a magic scroll there? Maybe a lost civilisation? The long-buried tomb of an emperor?’

  ‘It’s not a castle anymore,’ the driver said. ‘It’s a pile of abandoned ruins. My employers are cautious. That’s where they want to meet you.’

  ‘A great place to bury a body, no doubt.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the driver said, unapologetic. ‘Probably. That’s none of my business though.’

  ‘And if I decide to take the dinghy elsewhere?’

  ‘They’ll know. If I had to guess, that’s why they wanted me to bring you all the way out here. Because you have a gun, and I’m sure you have wilderness survival training, but that won’t be enough. You won’t make it back to the safety of the city in time.’

  Slater stewed restlessly.

  The driver shrugged. ‘You came. You dug your own grave. But maybe they don’t want to kill you.’

  ‘Do you know what they want?’

  The man smiled wryly. ‘I don’t even know who they are.’

  Slater fidgeted.

  The man said, ‘Good luck.’

  Slater took that as his cue. He nodded, found the handle, popped the door, and stepped out of the Navigator. The temperature had plummeted. His phone told him it was a shade after nine p.m. He exhaled softly, and a cloud of breath whispered out and dissipated.

  He closed the door behind him, and the car pulled away. It looped a U-turn and then rumbled off back the way it had come. When it was out of earshot, Slater tasted the silence.

  It didn’t offer him comfort.

  But if darkness and treachery and uncertainty deterred him, he wouldn’t have made it a week in his profession.

  So he turned and made straight for the tree line and the uncertain fate beyond.

  36

  The dinghy was small and metal and rusting.

  Slater guessed it could only fit three or four people without capsizing, but that wasn’t something he needed to worry about. It was abandoned on the shore, half in the water, half on the wet dirt.

  He pushed it into the river, held it in place by putting a palm on the outboard motor, and used his other hand to yank the ripcord three times in a row. It sputtered to life, and he pushed off the bank and leapt in. He kept the Glock in its holster. The driver was right. Resistance was futile. He knew there’d be a minimum of three snipers with night optics trained on his head from separate vantage points.

  You can’t kill what you can’t see.

  All his surroundings were pitch black, but even still he could make out Bannerman Castle. He’d thought it odd that the driver hadn’t given specific directions, but now he realised there was no need. The ruins loomed on the eastern side of the island. Even the silhouette was foreboding. If they were truly abandoned, then they’d normally be festering with junkies, vandals and the homeless, but Slater had no doubt any witnesses had been driven out long before this meeting.

  He steered toward the castle.

  The outboard motor ruptured the night with its throaty chugging. It was practically deafening on the quiet lake, but it didn’t perturb him. They knew he was coming regardless, and even if he was quiet as a mouse they’d still have eyes on him.

  He figured he might as well announce his arrival as bombastically as possible.

  Get this over and done with.

  He pulled up to the eastern shore of the island, largely unfazed. If they thought shadows and old ruins and a permanent sense of foreboding would rattle him, then they hadn’t even bothered to have a glance at his case files.

  He drove the dinghy straight onto the dirt bank, where it ground to a halt. He used the momentum of the boat slowing to vault off the damp wooden bench within and leap out over the hull. He landed in the dirt, and in one motion drew the Glock from its holster and stuffed it in the pocket of his leather jacket.

  He kept both hands in his jacket pockets, to throw up a decoy smokescreen.

  Then he advanced toward Bannerman Castle, trudging through overgrown weeds and scores of bushes.

  It was dead quiet. Now that he could see the looming ruins up close, he thought he recalled a faint echo of information about the castle from his military days. He’d heard it mentioned before. It used to be an old military surplus storage facility, or something of the sort. Now it was only a tourist attraction from a distance, visible along the Amtrak route.

  Out of curiosity, Slater touched two fingers to his neck, measuring his pulse.

  Perfectly normal.

  You’re going to need to do better than that, gents.

  Dealing with fear was his greatest strength.

  Only a couple of dozen feet from the castle, a handful of key features became visible. One wall had collapsed entirely, and modern steel supports propped up what was left of the edifice. A moss-covered set of concrete steps, framed by uneven brick banisters, led to a regal archway.

  Darkness loomed beyond.

  Slater mounted the steps without hesitation. There was no one visibly waiting for him. Not even a temporary lighting setup. He reached the archway and stepped through, into the ruins’ interior.

  Which turned out to be nonexistent. What remained of the castle acted as a U-shaped perimeter for an uneven patch of hillside exposed to the stars.

  There was no roof over his head, and his eyes were adjusting to the lack of light, so when he came to rest between a couple of small boulders he made out the four silhouettes immediately.

  They were there, motionless, waiting for him in the centre of the ruins.

  Four old men in suits.

  Apart from that, their features were indiscernible.

  Slater exaggerated a shiver, making sure they knew he was mocking them. ‘Scary stuff.’

  No one offered a response.

  They all stared.

  Like rock golems, frozen in time.

  Now, Slater had to stifle an actual shiver.

  The old man on the far left said, ‘It’s discreet.’

  His voice was low, and commanding, and utterly confident. Every syllable had a purpose. He didn’t waste words.

  Slater said, ‘An apartment in Manhattan is discreet. This is unnecessary.’

  ‘We think it’s perfectly necessary.’

  ‘Because you have multiple vantage points?’ Slater said. ‘So your men can draw a bead on me? You’re a suit. You don’t spend time in the field. So you didn’t think about the fact that,’ — Slater’s Glock materialised in his hand in a half-second, its barrel aimed rigidly at the old man’s forehead — ‘I’m a hell of a lot faster than your men. And now you’re fucked. It’s a standoff. Your man shoots me, and you die. You’re not ready to die.’

  ‘I am,’ the old man said, supremely confident.

  Slater didn’t blink.

  The man continued. ‘If you pull that trigger we’ll have Alexis Diaz cut up into little pieces while she’s still alive.’

  Slater’s stomach knotted. He didn’t budge.

  He said, ‘You wanted me here to talk. So talk.’

  ‘Not before you put that gun at your feet and kick it over.’

  ‘Not a chance in hell.’

  The man on the right, in a husky, gravelly voice, said, ‘Then your girlfriend is already dead.’

  Like they’d synchronised their speech beforehand, the man on the left continued, ‘We don’t even have to give the command. It’s my men who are watching who will. Maybe they already have. You’re acting awfully threatening. One of my best men is probably strangling the life out of her as we speak. Every second you keep that gun aimed at my head is another second she can’t breathe.’

  Slater put the gun down.

  He kicked it over.

  He said, ‘Talk.’

  Even in the darkness, he saw them all smile.

  Wicked smiles.

  They’d tasted victory.

  His heart skipped a beat.

  37

  Slater had the humility to realise all his skepticism about the dramatic nature of the location had been posturing.

  Really, deep down, he knew he was fucked.

  The men in front of him had full control. They had the resources of a global superpower at their fingertips. They could do whatever they wanted with total anonymity. They could snap their fingers and have both him and Alexis wiped out in seconds. There’d be men watching her apartment, lying in wait for her to try and make a run for it. They’d snatch her. It wouldn’t be hard.

  He quickly realised the only option he had was to play along.

  No matter what they wanted.

  The man on the left said, ‘We understand you are no longer satisfied with your career.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Choose your words carefully.

  Don’t overcommit.

  The old man said, ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘I’ve given my life and my health to my country,’ Slater said. ‘My brain will be mush twenty years from now. I probably won’t live to see old age, even if I don’t take another scratch. Because of accumulative damage. I want to enjoy what little time I have left on this planet. Is that good enough?’

  ‘You’re a useful asset,’ the man said. ‘So is King.’

  ‘King isn’t leaving.’

  ‘You don’t know that. The two of you are inseparable. Perhaps he promised to stay, but that’s probably a false platitude. He’s probably going to reconsider less than a week after you leave.’

  ‘Is that what this is about?’

  ‘We’ve got hotheaded operatives with similar physical gifts,’ the old man said. ‘What we don’t have are the pair of you. You’re not easily replicable. Maybe we could forge a couple of killers into what the two of you are, but it’d take us years. We’re in the process. But we’re not there yet.’