They were diving. Fast.

  He looked out the window next to him and was shocked to see the Kuwait airport directly below.

  That’s when Chaucer understood the Baghdad approach. Normally, planes approach from miles away, slowly dropping altitude. For the Baghdad approach, you start off above the height of missiles, fly directly over the airfield, then turn and burn your way down to the deck, bleeding off enough speed to land while dropping altitude at the same time.

  It was smart. But it came at a cost.

  Chaucer reached for an airsickness bag.

  A minute later, the bag was full, and suddenly the plane lurched left, pulling out of its death spiral. Chaucer grabbed the bag tightly and managed to keep control of it, just as the landing gear slammed into the Kuwait City airport runway.

  The plane taxied at triple the usual speed to a private hangar, where they were told to wait. The flight attendant approached them. “We’re going to have to leave some of your bags on the plane.”

  Tempest looked out the window and saw a Kuwaiti security force preparing to do a customs inspection. “This usual?”

  The flight attendant shook her head. “Neither is a Baghdad approach over Kuwait City, but the locals are freaking out a bit.”

  Twenty minutes later they’d cleared a very thorough Kuwaiti military customs and immigration and left the hangar. Weaponless on the tarmac, they could see the Kuwait City skyline nearby. As was fairly typical of the region, it was a group of gleaming and impressive skyscrapers, and then nothing but miles and miles of desert.

  A Mercedes S- class was waiting for them on the tarmac. A Kuwaiti national in a plum hijab held the door for them.

  Once inside the Merc, Safira introduced herself. “I’m Safira, your local contact. Sorry about the customs check, but there is no way around it.”

  Tempest said, “We’ve got no small arms. I’m assuming you’ve got backups for us?”

  Safira glanced at Tempest in the rearview mirror. “I do not. You heard about the ISIS threat? There hasn’t been a threat on Kuwait City since the early 1990s. Given what happened back then, my countrymen are taking this seriously. I was subjected to two searches on my way into the airport. There are checkpoints everywhere.”

  Tempest sat back. “So, no weapons. You could’ve just said that.”

  Safira said, “It is as it is, Tempest MacLaren.”

  Tempest shot back, “Yeah, well, I guess we’ll just take on the Venture with sharpened fingernails and bad breath.”

  Chaucer jumped in. “You’ve got to forgive my friend, but it would seem this is a particularly bad time to be stealing something from a downtown bank, wouldn’t it?”

  Safira nodded. “It would indeed. Maybe we are fortunate?”

  Tempest stared at Chaucer as if he were mad. “When in our entire lives have we ever lucked out?”

  Safira smiled faintly. “I have a hotel room for you. Intercontinental.”

  Chaucer interrupted. “No. We need to start right away. We have no idea what kind of timeline the Venture is on. For all we know, the op could be happening now.”

  Safira smiled. “As you wish.”

  Chaucer said, “Just so we’re on the same page: we know there’s a package in a secure bank in downtown Kuwait City. We know Chaban and his people are making a play for it. We know it’s happening soon.”

  Safira nodded as she turned onto the six-lane highway heading into downtown. “Then we can assume this package is in a secure vault. That tells me where we need to go.”

  Tempest pulled herself up so that her head was resting on the front passenger seat. “Oh, he hasn’t told you the best part. Chaucer, tell her who we’re on the lookout for. Who are our antagonists?”

  Chaucer shrugged. “They could be anybody.”

  Safira shook her head. “Surely not anybody.”

  Tempest stared at Chaucer, relishing the moment. “No. Literally anybody. And the fun part? The fun part is you could be part of this organization!”

  Chaucer interrupted. “It’s not as bad as all that. He can’t just use zombies.”

  Safira looked confused. “Zombies?”

  Tempest replied, “Manchurian-candidate types. They don’t have an extensive network of agents. And why exactly can he not use them?”

  “Training. They’re sleeper agents, but they have no skills other than what they have in their normal lives. So unless he’s made a sleeper of the exact person—correction, the exact two people—with keys to that safe, they have to break in. At some point, it becomes an op. For that, Chaban needs operatives.”

  Tempest mulled it over. Chaucer could see her mentally agreeing with the logic. She said, “Of course, we don’t know what their operatives look like, either.”

  “When do we ever? Remember what Chaban said. This new organization needs to remain undetected. It also needs manpower. The zombies are the way around that. The implication is that the org is light on operatives. Recruit too many, and they’ll trip wires. They’ll raise flags. They’d become what they'd worked so hard to avoid: being a known entity.”

  Tempest sat back in her seat and checked the bar in the center console. “I don’t know. Sounds like some magical thinking there, buddy.”

  Tempest poured herself a scotch. Chaucer wanted to admonish her. But would it do any good? His second thought was to ask her to pour him one. He fought the urge.

  Because the truth? The truth was this mission? It was as if they were looking for a needle in a haystack, and they had never seen a needle in their lives.

  CHAPTER 43

  Safira parked the Mercedes in an underground parking structure and led Chaucer and Tempest to ground level, in the center of the business district. Skyscrapers loomed in all directions, with wide pedestrian walkways interrupted in all directions by military checkpoints. Chaucer had no firm sense of how many people would normally be on these promenades, but today it was a ghost town.

  Chaucer said, “Good security.”

  Safira nodded, “This is the financial district. The military set up a two-block cordon here. Everything going in gets checked, thoroughly.”

  Tempest took a deep breath. “Where are we going first?”

  Safira said, “The most secure banks in Kuwait, with the best vaults, are all within five blocks. The National Bank of Kuwait, Gulf Bank, Financial House Kuwait, Al Ahli Bank, and Commercial Bank of Kuwait. We’ll start with the biggest. National Bank of Kuwait.”

  Tempest frowned. “You left out Industrial Bank.”

  Chaucer glanced over at Tempest, surprised.

  Safira nodded. “Industrial Bank is far smaller and has a very different clientele, but secure vaults? Yes, I suppose they have that, at least enough to meet the description you gave me.”

  As they approached the nearby security checkpoint, Chaucer maintained his stare. “Tempest, I’m getting the feeling you’ve been here before?”

  “I’ve been a freelancer for well over a decade. You think in my line of work I didn’t have contracts in the Middle East? There was a time they were my bread and butter. High pay, medium risk. Yes, I’ve been to Kuwait City.”

  They stepped up to the security checkpoint and presented their passports and visas to the sergeant who demanded them. One by one, they were directed through a scanner portal that Chaucer did not recognize. Brand new, whatever it was.

  As they left the fourth bank, Al Ahli Bank, and crossed it off their list, despair set in. Chaucer stared out at the still waters of the Gulf and admonished himself. Magical thinking, indeed.

  Safira was the first to speak it. “It seems we don’t even know quite what we’re looking for.”

  Tempest barked, “Yes, Safira. Thank you, Safira.”

  Chaucer turned to Tempest. “When do we start thinking about a Plan B?”

  Tempest shot back, “I’m all ears, buckaroo. That’s the problem, right? There is no Plan B. And Plan A? I’m starting to see Plan A is hoping for blind luck.”

  Safira said, “We still have one bank to check off. Financial House Kuwait.”

  Tempest sighed. “Two banks, Safira. Industrial Bank.”

  “Yes. Two. Sorry.”

  They entered the lobby of Financial House Kuwait. It looked nearly identical to the four lobbies before it. Ornate gold filigree over white Persian marble. Jade shades on the desk lamps. Staff decked out in impeccable suits in various shades of sand.

  But the moment Chaucer walked in, he knew Financial House Kuwait was different. He knew it because he was staring right into what seemed to be the eyes of Betsy Clark.

  Tempest noticed as well and stiffened. “What the hell is going on? When I called those people zombies, I didn’t mean literally.”

  Safira moved them to the other side of the bank, to a plush waiting area where they had more privacy, at least for a moment. Junior bankers appeared with mint tea, which they graciously accepted.

  One banker, the most senior among them, asked, “Are you here to see someone specifically?”

  Safira answered, “We are waiting for a colleague, and then we will be right with you.”

  The junior banker gave the region’s perfect quarter nod and retreated.

  Tempest spoke out of the side of her mouth. “What the hell, Chaucer? We were told she was dead.”

  Chaucer realized their mistake. “She is dead.”

  Tempest stared right at the woman. “The hell she is⁠—”

  Chaucer put it together. “That’s not Betsy Clark. Remember her boyfriend? He said Betsy had a brother who was a dentist and a sister⁠—”

  Tempest got it. “Who worked in a bank.”

  Chaucer added, “Who took it particularly hard. He said we could understand. He said we could understand because he assumed we knew…”

  Tempest finished the thought. “They’re twins. But why take Betsy and not…what did he say her name was?”

  Chaucer said, “Lorna.”

  “Right. Lorna. Why not take the right one? Why not do their voodoo on Lorna?”

  Safira chimed in, “Working here, in the Middle East, especially in finance, it’s different. Long hours. Six-day weeks. Virtually no time off.”

  Chaucer said, “Bertrand said she wasn’t going to make it back for her own sister’s funeral.”

  Tempest nodded. “That’s why. The process at Tongata takes days, and she would not have that. Not on their timetable, anyway. So they were going to pull off a switch.”

  Safira asked, “So what do we do? Go talk to her?”

  Chaucer said, “Easiest way to end up in a Kuwaiti prison, warning a banker about an imminent threat with no evidence. But we do know one thing. The Venture are scrambling like we are.”

  Tempest looked surprised. “How’s that?”

  “They had a zombie on the inside. Now they don’t.”

  Tempest said, “So then they’re on Plan B too. What would their Plan B entail?”

  “We have to assume that everything else in their plan is intact. That means they would only need Betsy’s sister for access.”

  Safira asked, “Access?”

  Chaucer casually glanced over in her direction, the plate on Lorna’s desk. “She’s the vault supervisor.”

  Tempest frowned. “That’s still not telling me what a Plan B would be.”

  Chaucer shook his head. “What is a Plan B ever? It’s violent, it’s swift, and it is lethal.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Just then, Chaucer caught something out of the corner of his eye. It was Lorna Clark, quickly suppressing an emotion. Her eyes turned to the bank entrance.

  Chaucer knew it. Even at a hundred feet, he knew it. Lorna Clark was on the verge of panic.

  Chaucer put his mint tea down in such a way that he could get a quick glance behind him at the four men in black business suits who had just entered the bank. The men who caused such a strong alert reaction.

  In one second’s glance, Chaucer knew five things.

  One: The suits did not belong to the men.

  Two: The briefcases were nearly empty.

  Three: They did not walk like bankers. They had the economy of movement of soldiers.

  Four: None of them had been in country for longer than a few days.

  Five: He recognized the last man to enter.

  He caught just a glimpse of him running up the stairs on the platform at Waterloo Station. He was the one who hadn’t made the train.

  Chaucer checked himself. A one-second glance in London, and one second here. What was his confidence level? The answer came back: ninety-nine percent. Add to that Lorna’s alarm, and a chill ran through Chaucer’s spine.

  It was happening. It was happening right now.

  He leaned toward Tempest and Safira. “It’s going down. Now. Safira, don’t look.”

  Chaucer said it softly, but it was a firm command that stopped Safira as she turned.

  Tempest replied, “How many rabbits?”

  Chaucer said, “Four. And rabbit number four was at Waterloo Station. Let’s not get made.”

  They didn’t have to worry about that.

  The four men turned away from them and headed straight for Lorna Clark’s desk.

  Tempest got a better glimpse of them. “Military. Trained. And armed. How the hell did they get guns in here?”

  Chaucer guessed, “Zombie at the checkpoint?”

  Safira said, “My nearest arms cache is in a safe house five miles away.”

  Tempest frowned. “Shit. Is there an exit on the side of the building?”

  Safira kept her voice low, “To our left.”

  Chaucer didn’t understand, “Wait? Exit?”

  Tempest ignored him. “As one, we get up, we turn left, and we leave.”

  Tempest didn’t wait for a reply. She stood up, turned, and walked out, keeping columns between her and the four men at Lorna Clark’s desk. Chaucer extended his stride to catch up with Tempest without seeming to hurry.

  “You’re telling me we’re leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Tempest frowned. “Because it’s raining. It’s fucking raining.”

  Safira looked confused as they stepped out into the bright, cloudless Kuwait City day. Safira glanced at Chaucer, an unspoken question in her eyes.

  Chaucer said, “Trust me. She knows what she’s doing.”

  Tempest walked across the promenade to the gleaming white building next to Financial House Kuwait. This was an older building, constructed in the 1970s, most likely. It topped out at ten stories, a dwarf among the modern Kuwait City landscape.

  The sign over the front door read: Industrial Bank of Kuwait.

  “Tempest, you got a rainy-day cache here?”

  Tempest’s frown persisted. “Unless the Venture got to this one too.”

  Safira asked, “Couldn’t we just take the weapons from the bank’s security?”

  Tempest sneered at Safira. “Those guys in there? They’re hardcore operators. They’re marking every security man on the floor. We make a move in that direction, we get made and shot before we even say hello. No. This is the only way.”

  Tempest marched right up to the security desk, the equivalent of the vault supervisor’s desk at the other establishment. She grabbed a slip of paper off the officer’s desk and jotted two sets of numbers—one fourteen digits, the other twelve.

  She addressed the man behind the desk curtly. “I have a privacy box here. I need access to it immediately.”

  The man behind the desk punched in a four-digit number, then entered the twelve-digit passcode. He stared at the screen for a long moment, then at Tempest’s face, then back down at the screen.

  “Very well, Mrs. Jones. If you’ll follow me.”

  As he stood, he glared at Mrs. Jones’s two companions.

  Tempest made it clear. “They’ll be coming with me. I’m in a rush.”

  The clerk manning the security desk had dealt with other such people with privacy boxes who were in a hurry. He dashed to the elevator, ushered them inside, and took them to the privacy floor.

  On the privacy floor, the clerk entered his code and palm print at the biometric scanner outside the elevator. Tempest did the same at a second biometric scanner on the other side of a large vault door.

  A moment later, a deep clang sounded as metal struck metal. The door swung open via automatic motor and revealed a gleaming stainless-steel vault. Inside were hundreds of smaller boxes.

  One of those boxes clicked and popped open ever so slightly.

  The clerk dutifully turned away. “Take as long as you need, Mrs. Jones.”

  Tempest, Chaucer, and Safira hurried in.

  Tempest pressed the button on the inside, closing the vault door behind them, while Chaucer went to her personal box, about the size of four shoeboxes. He pulled open the door and stared at its contents.

  Inside were twenty-four one-ounce bars of gold bullion, a velvet bag with a drawstring, a submachine gun, and two silenced pistols with extra magazines for all.

  Chaucer whistled. “How much rain are we expecting?”

  “Enough to gather the animals two by two.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Tempest turned to Safira. “Tell Jefferson he’s going to finance another rainy-day box for me. This shit takes a lot of time to set up.”

  Chaucer pulled out a pistol and a magazine. Eyes on the prize. “This op is going down now.”

  Tempest tossed Safira the second pistol and slung the submachine gun for herself.

  Chaucer asked, “Where do you hide that?”

  Tempest replied, “Hide what?”

  Tempest wrapped her headscarf around her head in such a way that it blossomed around her chest and took the submachine gun into the folds. It wasn’t perfect, but it took advantage of the discomfort of the male gaze. Caught staring too long, they might lose their jobs.