Questions Ade would never ask.

  Chaban hung up without even asking for an acknowledgment of the orders he had given. Ade realized it meant the boss had faith in him.

  Ade stepped out of his perfect blind and glanced both ways down the street, looking for a newsstand that might sell stationery.

  By the time their tea was finished, Chaucer knew everything there was to know.

  And what there was to know was of no use.

  Whatever purpose this mysterious organization had for Betsy Clark, nothing in her background, or her family’s background, seemed to have any connection. She was an accountant. Plain and simple.

  Not a single client of hers could in any way be considered an asset. Her parents, long dead, were humble, salt-of-the-earth folk. Her brother and sister were a solicitor for a non-profit and an assistant manager at a bank, respectively.

  The question rang in Chaucer’s ears: why Betsy?

  The answer could be as mundane as the fact that she looked so perfectly harmless. Such a person, people like Chaucer and Tempest would never see coming. But something told Chaucer that this wasn’t it. He was missing something. He just couldn’t put his finger on what.

  They bid Bertrand Harris their goodbyes and left the way they came. As they stepped onto the stoop, Tempest was the first to speak. “Sorry about in there. I’m still used to having to do my own interrogations. I messed up your voodoo. Did you get anything?”

  Chaucer shook his head. “I got all there was to get. Absolutely noth⁠—”

  Chaucer glanced down at the bottom step of the stoop. There it was, gleaming in the morning light.

  A red envelope.

  Tempest saw it and immediately scanned the neighborhood. Nothing out of the ordinary. Chaucer read a hundred signals indicating her paranoia skyrocketed to extreme levels.

  Chaucer examined the red envelope.

  Tempest grabbed his arm as he reached for it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Chaucer looked back at her. “You think there’s a bomb in the envelope?”

  “Could be. Or a contact poison. There are some nasty ones out there.”

  “Possible, but if someone knew where we were, this is hardly the best way to take us out.”

  Tempest said, “Maybe. Maybe not. Look. It’s addressed to us.”

  Sure enough, the envelope was addressed to Mr. Chaucer and Ms. MacLaren. Very formal. Only the handwriting broke the illusion. It was hasty, imprecise.

  Tempest glanced down at it. “Don’t.”

  Chaucer picked it up anyway. He took out a key and opened it from the side, then glanced inside, detecting nothing but paper.

  The paper was a plain white sheet, the kind a budget letter writer would use. The letter was simple, written in the same pen and hand as the address on the envelope.

  Requesting the pleasure of your company today, 1 p.m., Waterloo Station, Track 23. Answers forthwith.

  Signed,

  Management.

  CHAPTER 29

  Chaucer looked at Tempest, but she didn’t look back. She scanned the street for the third time in the last 60 seconds, but saw nothing out of place.

  Chaucer asked, “What do you think?”

  “What do I think? I think this has become deeply weird. I don’t like it. They followed us, and all I saw was that damned street sweeper. We could be dead right now. You realize that, right? They didn’t need a bomb in a letter to do it either. We’re blind out here.”

  Chaucer asked, “So why do they want to meet?”

  “That’s the billion-pound question, buddy.”

  “So, what should we do?”

  Tempest shrugged, “Decline politely. Decline your pal Jefferson, too. This ain’t our fight, and this ain’t worth it.”

  Tempest started back down the narrow street toward the main thoroughfare.

  Chaucer stood on the stoop, staring at the letter.

  Tempest realized he wasn’t following and stopped. “What?”

  “Betsy Clark should’ve had a ring.”

  Tempest blinked hard. “What?”

  “Betsy’s dead because of me.”

  “Because we discovered her being brainwashed? That’s a stretch⁠—”

  “No. Not us. Me. Whoever these people are, they’re using a variation of what I use. They’re using Po’s teachings. You kill a soldier or a spy? Fine. They signed up for this. They knew the risks. But an accountant from East London, just trying to help her community? Hoping her boyfriend saved up enough for a ring? She didn’t sign up for any of this. How many Betsy Clarks are out there?”

  Tempest sighed. “You know the problem with a bleeding heart, don’t ya, Chaucer? It’s fatal. Yeah, there are probably other Betsy Clarks out there. And some of them could be looking at you through a sniper scope as we speak. I repeat: not our problem.”

  But it was too late.

  Chaucer had made up his mind. “You go. I’ll catch up with you later. But I’ve got to go to the meet.”

  Tempest growled audibly. This asshole was going to get her killed.

  Waterloo Station was the second busiest train station in London, which had to put it among the busiest in the world. Half of the structure was a glass edifice that let natural light permeate most of the cavernous interior. It made surveilling such a place easier.

  Chaucer arrived via the Victory Arch, the main entrance, at the agreed-upon time, with Tempest by his side. Tempest’s eyes got quite the workout, scanning the hundreds of people moving to and fro.

  Track 23 was on what one could consider the outer shell of Waterloo, abutting the glass dome wall itself.

  To get there, they passed by a smattering of shops. Pret, Boots, and all the other usual assortment you’d see in any neighborhood in the city. As they headed for the stairs to the second level, they heard a voice.

  “Mr. Chaucer. Ms. MacLaren. I thought this would be more civil than a train platform.”

  The man seated at the small table nearby was nondescript in the extreme. He sat outside a generic cafe with open-air seating.

  He was five foot ten, fair-complected, with sandy blond hair and a close-cropped goatee. His clothes nearly matched those of everyone around him—a buttoned-up and proper businessman. On closer inspection, the suit was high end, if the tailoring was looser than Savile Row would allow.

  Neither Chaucer nor Tempest recognized Piotr Chaban.

  As they approached, Chaucer asked Tempest, “Anything?”

  “Three possibles, one definite. Don’t let the server get behind you.”

  There were two chairs set out at the small table in front of Chaban. With a simple hand gesture, he motioned them to sit.

  On the narrow table was a pastry plate. Neither Tempest nor Chaucer paid it any attention.

  Tempest was still scanning the crowd, looking to confirm her three possibles or identify others.

  Chaucer only had eyes for Chaban. Pulse: even and slow. Eyes: partially dilated. Posture: alert but relaxed. Jaw: relaxed but set back. Not nervous. But… excited?

  Chaban spoke first. “Thank you for accepting my invitation. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

  Chaucer began, “You signed the letter, ‘Management.’ What does that mean?”

  Chaban didn’t shrug, didn’t tilt his head, didn’t make any extraneous moves. It was odd, Chaucer thought. That was a stillness that just didn’t exist.

  Chaban said, “Forgive me if I was being coy. The only context in which you might know me is as a management-level employee of an organization you recently encountered.”

  Tempest chimed in, “If you’re talking about the Venture, we kicked your asses.”

  Chaban responded with the slightest hint of a smile. There are over a dozen muscles involved in a genuine smile, half that with an insincere one. Chaucer still detected fewer than half that in the smile Chaban offered.

  It was as though he knew how to control every involuntary tell in the human body. Until today, Chaucer had thought there was only one person on the planet who could do that.

  Himself.

  Chaban said, “This meeting is a courtesy. I don’t truly have time for it, so, Ms. MacLaren, with the greatest respect, I’d prefer most of this conversation to happen between myself and Mr. Chaucer.”

  Tempest’s eyes continued to scan the crowd. “Fine. Fuck you too.”

  She was coming up with nothing. People coming from all directions, never the same face twice, no one with any of the signals she was trained to identify that would suggest an interest in three people sitting down to a pastry plate.

  Chaucer stilled his body. He adopted the pose and demeanor of his opposite.

  The moment he did so, he saw another hint of a smile from Chaban, as though he were well aware of what Chaucer was doing.

  Chaucer asked, “Why me?”

  Chaban replied, “Because we are currently adversaries, and I do not wish us to be.”

  “We’ve never met. We don’t have a history. Why would you care whether we are adversaries?”

  “Half of that is correct. We don’t know each other. But we do have a history.”

  Tempest stopped her methodical scanning and went deep. She began with the blond, dreadlocked busker sitting against a column fifty feet away, playing No Woman, No Cry poorly.

  Other than the fact that he wore sunglasses indoors, there was zero indication that he was an enemy actor.

  She moved to the proprietor of the newsstand, standing in front of a shop. Again, nothing. Not a single indicator of interest or attention.

  She moved past the two cops slowly patrolling through the area. Every bit of their uniform and demeanor was correct. If they weren’t Metropolitan Police, they would have had to train for weeks to get all these details right.

  Tempest frowned. She was drawing dead.

  Chaucer asked, “A history? Do tell.”

  Chaban’s eyes bored into Chaucer’s. It made him slightly uncomfortable. Chaucer suddenly realized this was exactly the effect of his own eyes. Chaban said, “Kindred spirits might be the better descriptor. I believe you have felt that you are entirely alone in the world. An alien, set adrift on a planet that could never understand you.”

  “I’m to assume this describes you as well?”

  Chaban replied, “Well done. What are we at our essence? As an interrogator, you must have an opinion. Products of nature or nurture?”

  Chaucer answered, “Both.”

  For the first time, Chaban displayed actual emotion. Annoyance. “Don’t be facile. Elaborate.”

  “Genetics and epigenetics. Genetics is the sketch. No matter what happens after that point, you will never not resemble the sketch. But what happens past that point in your life, the epigenetic, can make for radically different paintings.”

  Chaban asked, “And what would you say makes a painting resemble the sketch less and less?”

  “Trauma. The greater the trauma⁠—”

  Chaban finished the sentence. “The greater the distortion. Adapt or die. Malcolm Chaucer, you and I are Picassos in a world of Michelangelos.”

  Chaucer understood the metaphor immediately. He was claiming great trauma—so great that he barely resembled who he was. Chaucer knew the metaphor was one hundred percent true for himself.

  But for the stranger to equate himself with Chaucer’s experience?

  It was frankly insulting.

  CHAPTER 30

  Tempest felt the sweat trickle down into her bra. She couldn’t see a single eye on her, but she felt like she was surrounded by the enemy. It was deeply unnerving. She put her hand in her jacket, caressing the Sig that Praxis arranged for her to pick up just moments ago.

  It failed to calm her the way it usually did. She wondered if there were enough bullets in the world for what they might be facing.

  She made another visual sweep of this section of the station. The busker, the shopkeeper, the cops, the commuters. All looking impossibly, maddeningly normal. Only the server at the cafe gave the telltale signs of an operative, and even he was keeping to himself at the other end of the cafe.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. She came up empty.

  Chaucer searched the man sitting in front of him, looking for some sign to interpret what he was saying. He received—nothing. Chaucer replied, “We’re the same. Is that so?”

  Chaban exhaled slowly. “You’re wasting your time. Both of you. Tempest, you could sit here for hours and you won’t see my people. Chaucer, stop trying to read me. It won’t work.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “What have you read so far?”

  Chaucer mulled it over in his mind. This man knew he couldn’t read him. That was far worse than he had been thinking. Chaucer had assumed he was exceptionally trained. A hard read. There were hard reads, even for Chaucer. People on the autism spectrum, for instance, could be a challenge—at least until Chaucer could determine their affliction. Once that happened, once he found that key, they opened up to him. Psychopaths were another category. Their emotional mechanism was broken, muted, sometimes to the point of near imperceptibility. A true psychopath could fool Chaucer, but only for a time. He learned that the hard way. But what the man sitting before him was suggesting was that he was neither of these. He was suggesting that he knew of Chaucer’s skills, and possibly his method, and was certain he was impervious to them.

  Chaucer replied, “You’ll have to forgive me, but I have a hard time believing there’s another Picasso like me.”

  Chaban allowed himself a genuine smile. “I understand. You’ve never been aware of me, whereas I have been quite aware of you. As painful as it was to lose the operation at the resort, I took some consolation in the fact that it was you. It led us inexorably to this moment, which I always hoped would one day happen.”

  Tempest scanned the crowd, but couldn’t help but interject. “Chaucer didn’t mess up shit. I killed your people.”

  Chaucer was starting to see genuine emotion on Chaban’s face, and the moment Tempest spoke, it all shut down.

  Chaucer said, “Tempest, just let me⁠—”

  Tempest interrupted, “No. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t plug him right now. I don’t care how many people he’s got. They’d never get to me in time.”

  Chaban smiled that half-smile that said nothing he didn’t intend to communicate. “I truly would hate for you to see the result, Ms. MacLaren.”

  Chaucer put up a single hand, holding Tempest off. “You clearly want to tell me something. So, how about you tell me?”

  Chaban’s nostrils flared ever so slightly. Chaucer guessed it was an indicator of some level of excitement.

  Chaban fixed Chaucer with his most intense stare. “I have felt, for a long time now, completely and utterly alone in this world. This feeling, this knowledge, allows me to see the world in a new way. It has transformed my life and the lives of others around me, but the essence of it, the feeling itself, has always been deeply painful. To truly know your aloneness, your isolation, your difference from every other being on the planet. I wanted to meet you, Malcolm Chaucer, because you feel it too. And because only together might we find we are not completely alone.”

  Chaucer couldn’t see any marks on the man sitting in front of him, but he knew a torture victim when he saw one. Much like himself, this man had turned his own PTSD into a strength. Into a weapon. And in this way, he found a will to live. But it wasn’t enough. The emptiness would always return, and men like them, they might identify with a fellow victim for a while, but whatever this man before him experienced, Chaucer was sure it could never hold a candle to the torment of Torturer Po for those eight long years.

  Chaban said, “I see you don’t believe me.”

  Chaucer noted that he too was being read, or perhaps it was just a guess. Chaucer said, “I believe you’ve been through hell. I believe you’ve survived something that would have claimed nearly anyone else. But something that would truly form a kinship with me? No, that I don’t believe.”

  Chaban reached for a scone and added some jam.

  “It’s a shame. Because I too have climbed the ladder.”

  Chaban popped the bite into his mouth and chewed, watching as Chaucer processed that new piece of news.

  Chaucer knew he was being evaluated, but he didn’t care. He went through the possibilities. Likelihood number one: someone used the White Book and attempted to recreate Po’s effects on this man. He knew that had happened. The Chinese, the Russians, even the Israelis had tried it. But if that was what the man was alluding to, no brotherhood would ever be found. Po was tasked with writing down his techniques to pass them on, but that was never his intention. The most devastating effects of his process could never be achieved by another. No, he wrote the White Book as a testament to himself, not as a guide for others.

  Chaucer said, “Who did it to you? The Russians? The accent you’re trying to hide is clearly from the Urals. Your physical features match that as well. An operation gone wrong?”

  Chaban took a moment to lick his fingers, then fixed Chaucer again with his stare. “You don’t understand what I’m saying. I climbed the ladder, not a ladder. The cave on the mountain was my home too.”

  Tempest stopped looking for the enemy. Now she was staring at Chaucer. He had told her about the cave on the mountain. Chaucer 2.0 might have been able to hold back any emotion at this revelation, but not Chaucer 3.0. His eyes went wide. His breathing sped up and became shallow.

  Still, he wasn’t ready to believe.

  Chaucer said, “You’re claiming that you suffered under Po.”

  Chaban nodded slightly. “You are looking at his first Western victim.”

  Chaucer didn’t want to believe it, but suddenly everything about this man’s manner made sense. The muted responses. The stare. Suddenly, Chaucer was staring into a mirror.

  If this were a con, Chaucer was sure this man would pay for it. “Then tell me something no one would know. Tell me something from the cave. How many chairs were there?”