King said, ‘Rough day?’

  Slater eyed the Glock in King’s lap, angled up at Violetta. ‘For us both.’

  Violetta said, ‘Can I speak now?’

  King saw something dark flash in Slater’s eyes.

  Slater said, ‘The first thing out of your mouth better be a promise to call off the threats on Alexis’ family.’

  ‘I’ll do you one better than that,’ she said. ‘I’ll make a different kind of promise.’

  ‘I don’t want a different kind of promise.’

  Violetta looked across, staring deep into King’s eyes. He felt he could see through to her soul. She was laying it all bare. She wasn’t lying.

  She said, ‘Yes he does. Convince him to listen.’

  King looked over his shoulder. ‘Listen. Even if it leads nowhere. It’s worth listening.’

  He could see Slater using every ounce of forged willpower to stay motionless.

  King turned back to her. ‘Better be good.’

  ‘It’s good,’ she said. She twisted round in her seat, so she could look straight at Slater. ‘I got Alonzo to falsify official documents that I fed to my superiors. The address they have for Alexis’ parents leads to an abandoned warehouse in an industrial estate in Bradford. Every trace of their official records has been buried. You’ve seen Alonzo in action. He’s the best. They’re safe.’

  Slater stayed motionless.

  Violetta said, ‘So let’s go get her.’

  66

  Slater refused to let relief wash over him.

  He wasn’t about to lower his guard until all was well, and all was certainly not well yet. But at least the pure despair receded. It wasn’t a desperate ploy on Violetta’s behalf to save her own life. She knew he was technologically savvy. He could gain access to public records, corroborate her story, figure out whether she was bullshitting or not. She wouldn’t have lied to him. There was no point buying herself more time if all roads led to the same destination.

  He said, ‘Give me your phone.’

  She handed it over. He dialled Alexis’s number from memory. He wasn’t sure if she’d answer an unknown number.

  She did.

  Her voice was tentative, and behind it he could tell she was crushed. ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me,’ Slater said. ‘Where are you?’

  She didn’t answer.

  He said, ‘Alexis. I love you. Where are you?’

  ‘Still at the Airbnb. I was just about to leave…’

  ‘Stay there.’

  ‘What are you doing, Will?’

  He bit his lower lip.

  She said, ‘What is this?’

  ‘I’ll explain,’ he said. ‘Trust me, I swear to God, I’ll explain. Just stay there. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

  ‘What if I don’t want you to be?’

  He didn’t answer that.

  She said, ‘You can’t do this. You can’t throw my life into turmoil like this. You just abandoned me.’

  ‘I told you I’d explain.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it. I need you to trust me.’

  She sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll stay.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘There’d better be a damn good explanation for this.’

  ‘There is. See you soon.’

  He ended the call, brought the phone away from his ear and pressed the top of the device to his forehead. He closed his eyes and exhaled.

  King said, ‘All good?’

  ‘All good. Let’s go get her.’

  They both stared at Violetta as she drove, unsure what the hell was going on, unsure where allegiances lay.

  King looked at Slater and said, ‘I’ll ask it if you won’t.’

  Slater shrugged. ‘Be my guest.’

  King looked at Violetta. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I’ve spent this whole time wanting to explain,’ she said. ‘Are you finally going to let me?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ve been forced to do certain things,’ she said. ‘Things I’m not proud of. Yes, I sent you to California for little reason. Yes, I did it so you wouldn’t be here when Slater went rogue, as everyone knew he would. But they weren’t my ideas, and I had no choice.’

  ‘You always have a choice.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘It’s all well and good being morally righteous, but not when there’s a gun to the head of someone you care deeply for. So I had to comply, but I did everything I could to buy time. I made sure Alexis’s family wouldn’t be touched, which risked everything. I fought for them not to blow Slater’s head off with a long-range weapon. I bought him a day or so. But the pressure was too much. They wouldn’t budge. And they could tell I was stalling. The tactical team they surrounded my apartment with was just as much to keep me prisoner as it was to protect me.’

  King stared at her. ‘There was never a gun to my head.’

  She said, ‘I’m not talking about you.’

  He sat still.

  She said, ‘There’s things you don’t know.’

  ‘Care to explain?’

  ‘Is this the place?’ she said, craning her neck to look out the windshield as she pulled up out the front of the three-storey walk-up.

  Slater nodded. He tapped the same number on the contact screen of Violetta’s phone. When it was answered, he said, ‘Come down. We’re here.’

  She appeared on the second-storey landing moments later, a small backpack slung over her shoulder. Slater knew it would contain the laptop, along with a handful of smaller possessions. He’d never met a more alert and intuitive civilian — it was as if she had combat experience hardwired into her system from birth — so she would have known to remove every trace of evidence from the small apartment, no matter the circumstances.

  She spotted the Land Rover, and the outline of his face through the tinted glass of the rear windows, and descended the stairwell.

  He couldn’t wait.

  He got out and crossed to her. She was holding herself together, but not by much. He outstretched his arms, and she fell into them.

  ‘Why?’ she whispered.

  He told her the truth. Kept it straightforward, kept it objective, kept it unbiased. She deserved that much. Deserved to know what might have been.

  When she stepped away as he finished, her green eyes blazed. Her skin had paled.

  She said, ‘You were going to die for me. For my parents.’

  He nodded.

  He said, ‘They’re safe. No one will touch them. Violetta’s computer guy draped a veil over them. They can carry on living their lives, but as far as the U.S. government is concerned, they no longer exist.’

  She doubled over and put her hands on her knees.

  Trying not to hyperventilate.

  When she stood up, she said, ‘Don’t ever do that to me again. Just give me it straight from the get-go. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.’

  He said, ‘I promise.’

  ‘Christ,’ she said, rubbing her eyes. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’

  He led her to the car, and they got in the rear seats.

  Tense introductions were made all round, which wasn’t helped by the fact that as King introduced his girlfriend he kept his gun pointed at her stomach.

  Alexis said, ‘This is weird.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Violetta said. ‘It’s weird.’

  Slater said, ‘What the hell happens now?’

  ‘We have a few hours before they find out King’s gone rogue too,’ Violetta said. ‘When the tactical team is discovered, and they find me missing, it’ll be absolute carnage.’

  ‘So what should we hope to achieve before then?’

  ‘I have access to safe houses across the city, but then so does everyone I work with.’

  ‘No need,’ Slater said, jerking a thumb at the landing above their heads. ‘I have a safe house of my own we can use temporarily.’

  Violetta looked at King.

  He nodded.

  They all piled out.

  67

  There’s things you don’t know.

  King needed to know.

  They scaled the flight of stairs as discreetly as they could, each shooting paranoid glances out over John Paul Jones Park, but it was largely unpopulated. Alexis unlocked the door, and they all spilled through, and King saw the knowing glance Slater and Alexis exchanged as they entered the cramped space.

  We need to talk.

  Slater looked at King, who nodded his understanding. Go.

  They moved to the corner of the room, out of earshot, and sat down on the sofa. Hushed words were exchanged almost immediately — apology, acceptance, forgiveness, trust.

  King turned away from them, allowing them their privacy, and sat down with Violetta at the kitchen table.

  She eyed the Glock in his hand.

  He looked at it.

  Looked at her.

  Then put it down on the countertop between them, and spun the barrel away.

  She reached out and put a hand on his knee, then leant forward and kissed him briefly on the lips. It conveyed everything they both wanted to say but couldn’t.

  This world is madness. Let’s not make this personal.

  He said, ‘Can you tell me?’

  She cocked her head.

  ‘What they threatened you with.’

  She sighed.

  She said, ‘If I do, it means that I lied to you. Back when we first met.’

  He nodded.

  She said, ‘How will you take that?’

  ‘Depends,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you did it for the right reasons.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then let’s hear them.’

  ‘Do you remember when we discussed losing the people we’ve loved?’

  King nodded. ‘Our exes. Klara for me. Beckham for you.’

  ‘Do you remember what I said happened to him?’

  ‘First you said he was mugged. I saw right through it, so you revealed he was tortured and murdered by the cartels in Guadalajara. He was over there working on a story, right? An investigative journalist. He must have done his job too well.’

  ‘That’s all true,’ she said. ‘But they didn’t kill him.’

  King didn’t respond. He let her compose her thoughts, so she could communicate them the right way.

  She said, ‘Plato o plomo. Silver or lead. That was true. They offered him a bribe to stand down, and he refused. But they didn’t force him into a car, and his body didn’t turn up three days later. They shot him like a dog in the street. Four times. Walked right up to him on the sidewalk and pumped him full of lead. One of the bullets hit his spine. He survived, but it paralysed him from the neck down. He’s a quadriplegic.’

  King said, ‘Christ.’

  ‘He hated me for it,’ she said. ‘He blamed me. I remember telling you he had the mentality of a junkyard dog. If he found something worth investigating, he’d sink his teeth into it and wouldn’t let go, no matter the consequences. That’s … partially true. He didn’t start out that way. I shaped him into it. I kept pushing, because he wanted to do stellar work as an investigative journalist, but he was too hesitant, too shy. I was deep in my own government work at that point, and I was stubborn. Foolhardy. I told him, If you want to do something big, go after the cartels. Don’t bow down to them. I poked and prodded until he agreed. Then it took on a life of its own, and it consumed him, but I was the spark that started the flame.’

  ‘That’s not your fault,’ King said. ‘We make our own choices.’

  ‘I don’t blame myself,’ she said. ‘But I understand why he does. He broke up with me, and cut off all contact. I didn’t care about the injury. I loved him. I still do, in a way. But he wanted nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She sighed. ‘It’s emotionally complicated. I don’t even feel comfortable talking about it now. I beat myself up about it all the time. It’s not … something I wanted to unload on a man I’d just met, a man I really liked. And then … well, it never came up again after that. Until now.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘The cartels caught wind that he’d survived. They started pulling out all the stops to finish him off. Paying off whoever they could get their hands on. It didn’t take long for them to make real progress. That’s when I offered to step in.’

  ‘WITSEC?’

  Violetta nodded. ‘I knew he despised me. I didn’t blame him for it. I figured it was a way for both of us to move on. I used the connections I had to get him straight into the program, and they set him up with a whole new identity, a whole new life. Found him a top-of-the-line disability home that catered to his every need. They didn’t tell me where it was. He vanished, and I went all-in on my career. The more I worked, the less time I had to think about what he might be thinking of me. That’s how I got to the heights I did. Because I slept, I ate, and I worked. Until you came along.’

  ‘They threatened to kill him if you didn’t comply?’

  Violetta nodded. ‘They knew where he was. I didn’t. Eventually I got Alonzo to find out, but it didn’t do any good. Any government resources I marshalled to rescue him would be known to my superiors. They had him in the palm of their hand, and they could crush him anytime they wanted.’

  King said, ‘This is a lot to process.’

  Violetta said, ‘You know what? Now that I’m vocalising it … maybe I do blame myself. Maybe that’s why I obeyed. Because I feel like I owe him everything.’

  ‘You admire him. You loved him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it’s not that you owe him,’ King said. ‘It’s that you’d do anything for him, voluntarily.’

  She looked at him. ‘Just like you do. For all the people you save. The people you protect.’

  ‘That’s what I try to do,’ he said, then looked down at the Glock he’d been aiming at her all morning. ‘I’m far from perfect.’

  ‘You are to me.’

  ‘I just kidnapped you.’

  ‘You had your reasons.’

  He reached down and took her hand in his. It was tiny in comparison — her fingers small and gentle, his massive and coarse.

  He heard movement behind him, and turned to see Slater getting to his feet.

  He turned back to Violetta. ‘He needs to hear this.’

  68

  Slater sat and listened.

  All throughout, he realised Alexis was his rock. Now he could see everything with clarity. He could methodologically determine what was right, and what wasn’t. Back in the Land Rover, he’d been ready to kill Violetta without listening, and now he understood it was because he’d been plunged back into isolation again. He’d lost the person he cared about most.

  Now Alexis was back.

  Now he could relax.

  Now he could forgive.

  As Violetta finished up, she added, ‘There was no win-win. I had to conspire against you, Will, or they’d kill Beckham, they’d kill Jason, and they’d probably kill me too. I had to be objective, even though it was the last thing I wanted. And every step of the way I fought for you. I protected Alexis. But if you want total honesty from me, then so be it. If I had to choose the only two men I’ve ever loved, as well as the lives of a civilian and her family, over you, I’d do it. I’d do it every time. Ask yourself what decision you’d make if you were in my shoes.’

  Slater sat, brooding.

  She said, ‘If you want to kill me, kill me. I had no choice. I can’t go rogue like you two can. I can’t drop everything. The government had me in their grip, and they wouldn’t let go. They dangled Beckham over my head. They were saying, You’re responsible for his condition. Don’t be responsible for his death, too.’

  Slater held up a hand.

  She stopped talking.

  He said, ‘I’d have done the same.’

  She froze.

  She said, ‘We’re good?’

  He nodded. ‘We’re good. You did the right thing.’

  ‘I like to think so.’

  Now, he felt relief. Like nothing he’d ever felt before. Out there, in the big wide world, everyone was now their enemy. The whole country, the secret world, everything that existed in the shadows. But here in this room, the four of them were united for the first time since all this shit had unfolded.

  Across from Slater, King said to Violetta, ‘Answer me one thing.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said.

  ‘Why didn’t you at least fill the container with something?’

  She cocked her head again. Confused. ‘What?’

  ‘The container from Donati Group. The payload you faked. You could have at least put guns in it, or packages of fake fentanyl. You must have known I might have been able to sneak a look inside at some point.’

  She stared. ‘You saw inside?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon,’ he said. ‘I handled Ryan Duke and his crew, and then went straight to the port. It was empty. That’s when I called you.’

  She stared harder.

  Her face paling.

  He said, ‘What?’

  ‘The fentanyl thing was bullshit,’ she said. ‘I said that just in case you were thinking about leaving. To make it seem more important. But the actual container wasn’t fake.’

  Again, he said, ‘What?’

  ‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘Something’s not right here.’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘Jason, that was a genuine op. It wasn’t as important as we thought it would be, but we didn’t plant that container. We actually got it from Donati Group’s paperwork. It can’t have been empty.’

  ‘It was empty. I saw it with my own eyes.’

  ‘That can’t be. Why would Donati go through all that trouble to ship a decoy container?’

  King put his head in his hands.

  Slater observed all this from a distance. He didn’t interfere, and he didn’t ask questions, but he could imagine King’s short-term memory flaring. The man was running through a categorised replay of his time spent in Los Angeles.

  When he looked up, he said, ‘Oh, fuck.’