She leaned forward slightly, composing her answer as she did so. Ludvine said, “You will need to find a way to share with Tempest the parts of you that are most important for her to understand. She will either come to terms with this, or she will not. But it must be you who does this work, no?”

  Ludvine’s expression changed. Her eyebrows raised. Chaucer could see she picked up on something. What he could not say. “Go deeper,” Ludvine said. “You already know all of this. So what surprised you?”

  She was good. Chaucer had to admit that. He considered the question for a long moment and came to a surprising realization. It would seem there was one person who could lie to the Oracle. The Oracle himself.

  “I think I hid something from myself,” Chaucer said. “A vision. That someday, far in the future, I would return to some semblance of normal. That I wouldn’t be forever alone—disfigured by what I went through.”

  He paused. It suddenly occurred to him. “But this incident with Tempest… I couldn’t get her to understand. I told her there’s a good chance that may never happen. And I think I’m truly alone in this world. The likelihood is that no one will ever really understand it.”

  Ludvine nodded slowly. Chaucer could tell she was processing this just as carefully.

  “You might be right,” she said. “But is that not also true for every human being on the planet?”

  She leaned back slightly.

  “It is a matter of framing. How you interpret the word understood. How you interpret the word alone.

  If you fixate on the fact that we all die alone, then life is a curse. If you focus only on misunderstanding—on the gaps between people—then yes, we are all lost in a sea of strangers.

  “But that does not make those interpretations true.”

  She met his eyes.

  “We have to make peace with the world and with our place in it. That is an action. Karma, no? Peace does not simply arrive. We must define the terms by which we live.”

  She softened her voice. “But finding someone who can truly, deeply understand what you have been through? I must be honest—there is a good chance that will be beyond you. I wish I had better news for you.”

  Chaucer sat with that for a long time.

  “You’re right,” he said finally. “Of course you are. But in my case, it’s more than just a reframing.”

  Ludvine waved that away gently.

  “Perhaps. But you are alone now. Most of us are not alone forever. And if you had even one person who could truly understand you, your burden would be lighter.”

  She stood.

  “We do the work of living not because it is easy, but because it is hard. I wish you well, Malcolm Chaucer. I’m taking a week’s vacation—long overdue. And if you have the chance, please tell that psychotic ex-wife of yours not to darken my doorstep again.”

  Chaucer smirked. “It will be done. And… I’m sorry. I created blowback.”

  With that, Ludvine gave him a final Gallic shrug and cut the call.

  She tried to give no indication that she was pleased—no sign that she felt anything other than professional frustration. To most people, it would have worked.

  But Chaucer saw it.

  A dozen faint micro-expressions that added up to a woman who genuinely cared—at least a little—about Chaucer and his journey.

  It put the smallest bit of wind back into his sails.

  CHAPTER 3

  Albert Farr had a new cane. A fancy one. Metal-tipped on both ends, ebony black in the middle.

  Chaucer thought to himself that few people could pull off a cane. But Albert was taking a valiant stab at the effort.

  He was three-quarters of a block away when Albert noticed his approach. Albert smiled at him—comfortable, easy. The kind of smile friends give one another. Given all that Chaucer had put this man through, that smile was a minor miracle.

  When they had met recently, Chaucer had hired Albert Farr as an impromptu bodyguard while he was being hunted in New York. The result was that Albert Farr died several times on an operating table—from extreme blood loss because of a sniper wound.

  He survived that encounter, only for Chaucer to avail himself of his services again. And again Albert had been shot. By comparison, it was a garden-variety winging—but even so, for Albert to smile at Chaucer instead of run the other way—a minor miracle indeed.

  “Chaucer! My friend,” Albert’s voice carried cheer as he greeted him.

  Friend. Chaucer realized that word was true now. They weren’t just colleagues who shared a dark past. He and Albert were friends.

  A voluntary smile crept across Chaucer’s face as he crossed the last ten feet between them. Albert did not put out his hand to shake.

  Chaucer’s smile broadened.

  Maybe no one could truly understand Malcolm Chaucer, but Albert Farr understood enough not to initiate physical contact. Chaucer was feeling good that day, and he accepted the silent greeting Albert offered.

  “How are you faring?” Chaucer asked.

  “It’s been months since I’ve been shot,” Albert said. “Feel great.”

  Both men laughed as Chaucer ushered them into the small Lower East Side coffee shop ahead of them.

  Chaucer had chosen the place because he knew the big man liked his coffee. It was one of the few shops in the neighborhood with a decent selection of loose-leaf tea—none of that bagged garbage.

  The bell above the door rang as they entered a small, yellow-walled cafe that felt quaintly welcoming in the middle of the city.

  Chaucer’s hypervigilance immediately kicked in. Nine people inside. Six men, three women.

  It was cold out, and everyone was well-bundled. He saw no obvious signs of weapons, but winter clothing was such that this observation meant little.

  A lone barista finished preparing a business executive’s order, handed it over in a go cup, and waved as he left. The remaining seven patrons either stood along the counter by the window, or sat in wire metal chairs at small round tables.

  Albert stepped up and ordered. Albert ordered for Chaucer as well, choosing a silver needle white tea—one of Chaucer’s favorites. An excellent choice, Chaucer thought. Some people really know you.

  Albert paid for the drinks.

  Chaucer considered making a fuss. After all, he’d gotten this man shot twice. But somehow—against all odds—Albert Farr still felt indebted to him.

  Chaucer had given him a new profession: private investigator. And by all accounts, Albert was a natural. Somehow, the fact that Chaucer had also given him his limp didn’t factor in.

  Albert Farr was good people.

  “Thank you,” Chaucer said. He sat down at the small table nearest the door, and Albert joined him.

  Albert shrugged. “What’s been up with you? Any travel to exotic locales?”

  Chaucer shook his head. “Since we last spoke? One trip to Europe, one to the Caribbean. Everything else has been domestic.”

  “Business slowing down?”

  “Not exactly,” Chaucer said. “I’m getting… choosier.”

  Chaucer had something else to say. He had been practicing his small talk, something that a year ago would have been unthinkable. But with Albert, small talk came easily. Almost naturally. Almost. But then, Chaucer seized up.

  They had been in the coffee shop for not quite two minutes when Chaucer felt it—a sudden, terrible sensation in his gut. It came on fast, like food poisoning.

  The barista hadn’t even finished making their drinks, yet Chaucer knew something was horribly, terribly wrong.

  He ran a mental inventory, reviewing every data point his hypervigilance provided, trying to isolate the problem.

  But that was just it.

  There was no single thing wrong.

  Everything was wrong.

  Of the seven customers in the cafe, only two were speaking—and they did so in hushed tones. Nothing exactly wrong with that, but even so—for Manhattanites, they were unnaturally still.

  The man nursing coffee in the corner lingered far too long on the same page of the New York Post. The tall man and slight woman nearest the door sat in silence with earbuds in—but Chaucer was fairly certain nothing was playing through them.

  It felt like he had wandered into an alien still life: outwardly normal, but utterly unreal.

  Albert noticed Chaucer’s unease. Chaucer noticed that Albert noticed—and realized the mask he normally wore had slipped.

  He glimpsed a man at the window watching him through the reflection.

  “Everything okay?” Albert asked.

  Chaucer shook his head slowly. He raised his voice so that the entire room could hear.

  “No. Nothing is okay. Except for the barista, all these people here are watching us.”

  Albert laughed—a deep, hearty sound.

  It died in his throat.

  As one, every other patron in the cafe stood and turned toward them.

  A man at the door spoke. He was clearly the one in charge. “There’s nothing to be alarmed about, Mr. Chaucer. We’re simply waiting for a moment alone so we can discuss a job of some urgency.”

  Chaucer’s eyes darted between the seven faces. He saw caution in every gaze, but no open hostility.

  He considered making a move. Then he realized how they had done this.

  “You hacked my comms,” Chaucer said.

  The tall man nodded. “Yes, sir. Hope that’s not too alarming.”

  Chaucer nodded once. “I’m impressed, more than anything. I thought my comsec was pretty good.”

  “Better than pretty good,” the man said. “We just had you outgunned.”

  Albert finally snapped. He stood abruptly. “Excuse me? What the fuck is going on here?”

  A woman standing closest to him reached out and gently touched the back of his neck.

  Three seconds later, Albert’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed. She guided him carefully into her chair.

  Chaucer glanced at the barista, terror written across her face.

  “Jayla, isn’t it?” he said gently. “Why don’t you take a smoke break out back. Ten minutes. I promise no one will steal anything.”

  Jayla didn’t speak. She just nodded vigorously and rushed out the back door.

  Chaucer turned back to the seven.

  “You knocked out my friend. He’s been through quite a year. You will compensate him for this, regardless of whether you hire me. Understood?”

  The tall man nodded.

  “Now,” he said. “What is this all about?”

  CHAPTER 4

  Chaucer strongly considered the possibility that he was being pranked. He knew how unlikely that was. But given his current situation, he couldn’t rule it out.

  The tall man in Manhattan, he never did get a name, gave him the barest parameters of the job. It was for a government agency, but none of the usual three-letter players. It involved the interrogation of a DARPA scientist. It involved getting on a plane, then a boat. Whoever they were, these people were more tight-lipped than even the DIA, and those people were Easter Island statues when it came to conversation.

  Nonetheless, they promised Chaucer that beyond his usual fee, he would meet their boss, and that meeting would be highly beneficial. What that could mean, Chaucer did not know, but it intrigued him.

  Now, however, he stood on the foredeck of a sleek white yacht, six hours out of Seattle. Despite Chaucer’s time in the Navy, he was never what you would call an able seaman. He moved into Naval Intelligence the moment his ASVAB scores came in. But despite his lack of seamanship, Chaucer was fairly certain that if you steamed six hours west of Seattle, you would find nothing.

  And so the question swirled in his mind. Was Chaucer being tricked?

  He glanced over at his minder, McCoy. McCoy was thirty-five and prematurely balding. A classic stress case, more bureaucrat than agent. But it eased Chaucer’s mind to see that McCoy wasn’t worried in this moment. The tics and twitches that McCoy had been giving off for the last ten hours said that he was a nervous sort—just not now.

  Chaucer asked, “How much longer?”

  “Any minute now.”

  The chances of Chaucer being pranked skyrocketed. What the hell was going on out here? If there weren’t an island, then the black site could be a ship. Chaucer knew there were a few such ships roaming the seas in the years post-9/11, but to his knowledge those programs had been shut down some time ago. And no such ship would ever have been stationed so close to the U.S. coast. And besides, not five minutes ago he was on the yacht’s bridge, and there wasn’t another ship within a hundred miles of them on radar.

  “Who exactly do you work for, McCoy?”

  McCoy smirked. “All will be revealed. You just got to trust us.”

  Trust us. How many times in Chaucer’s life was that phrase uttered? How few times did following that directive ever pay off.

  A moment later, however, Chaucer’s trust was utterly restored. A hundred yards off the starboard bow, a Los Angeles–class attack sub breached like a humpback putting on a show. Chaucer glanced at McCoy. McCoy shrugged. “Welcome to our black site.”

  Attack subs had external markings on the conning tower and the forward gunwale, but this boat had nothing in either location, so it was impossible for Chaucer to identify it specifically, but he had spent a bit of time on a Los Angeles–class, and he guessed this was one of the early ones. But Chaucer wasn’t really thinking too much about the sub. He was wondering, who are these guys?

  Within minutes, the yacht pulled alongside the sub, and sailors extended a gangway between the two vessels. The sea was more than a little rough, so walking the gangway was like riding a mechanical bull, but Chaucer and McCoy managed it. Two sailors in standard Navy-issue wet-weather gear helped them onto the sub and down the nearest open hatch.

  Waiting at the bottom of the ladder was a slight Korean man in his late thirties, wearing the spotless, pressed brown uniform of a sub captain. “Mr. Chaucer, welcome aboard. The name’s Park.”

  Chaucer noted that while he wore a U.S. military uniform with four gold bars across the epaulettes, showing the rank of Captain, he didn’t introduce himself as such. Neither did he identify the boat Chaucer had just boarded. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Park. Just Park. We’ve passed through the looking glass down here, sir.”

  Curiouser and curiouser. Park snapped his fingers, and a large, red-headed man with pale, freckled skin stepped up. “Smitty, take our guests to the brig.”

  Chaucer’s eyebrow raised at that one. Park smiled, happy that Chaucer got the joke.

  Park barked, “Seal all hatches. Take us down, standard bearing.”

  Smitty led Chaucer and McCoy down two levels and forward most of the length of the sub before Chaucer realized it wasn’t entirely a joke.

  The interior of this part of the sub had been heavily modified. Gone were the Tomahawk weapons bay and torpedo storage, and half of the crew quarters as well. In their place was…well, a brig. A black site, to be more specific. Chaucer thought he spotted several small detention facilities and at least two “boxes,” in the parlance of his world. Each box was an interrogation facility, complete with a “blind” where observers could monitor what happened in the box proper. It was a very professional setup, nearly ideal. Several subjects could be held here without ever interacting with each other, or even knowing of each other’s existence. Multiple interrogations could be conducted simultaneously.

  All in all, Chaucer was impressed.

  Smitty brought Chaucer to two waiting people, neither of whom wore BDUs. One of them Chaucer had never seen before. The other was unmistakable.

  A little more than a year ago, this man wore a charcoal-gray suit and showed up at Chaucer’s brother’s funeral. Chaucer and his ex-wife, Tempest MacLaren, had been set up as a diversion from the theft of a biomedical miracle, and it got extremely messy. The man in the gray suit promised to clean up the mess that sprang from that tragedy, and near as Chaucer could figure, he kept his word. Chaucer remembered being shocked when not a single law enforcement or intelligence agency questioned him about events that became anything but covert.

  The man in the gray suit was tall and fit, with dark brown skin and piercing brown eyes. The entire package projected calm authority. He said, “Mr. Chaucer, thank you for the leap of faith it took to come here. As you can see, our organization puts a premium on privacy. I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced. I’m Henry Jefferson.”

  Lie. Nothing hostile or malicious. Just the standard lie told hundreds of times in the intelligence business. Chaucer knew one thing for certain. This man’s name was not Henry Jefferson.

  Chaucer said, “The one time we met, you said you represented something new. A different kind of intelligence organization. Should I assume this is it?”

  “This is part of it, to be sure.”

  Chaucer looked around a bit more, taking in a full medical bay just down the corridor. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  “I was hoping you’d think so. When this was designed, the directive was simple: build a black site that even Malcolm Chaucer could find no fault in.”

  Chaucer felt it creep up on him. Pride. It shocked him. He thought himself immune to flattery, but clearly this was not quite the case.

  Jefferson stepped aside so that the woman beside him could come into better view. “Oh, and this is Guerra. Careful. Guerra bites.”

  Guerra smirked at the inside joke. But Chaucer could tell Jefferson wasn’t entirely kidding. Guerra was five-nine, with dark chestnut hair and a slim face that Chaucer guessed might be Cuban, and her eyes were bright and sharp.

  The eyes told Chaucer that Jefferson wasn’t joking. Guerra had been studying Chaucer from the moment he appeared. They bounced all over his body, taking in every data point they could get. Chaucer guessed the feeling he had was not unlike how others felt when they met him. The woman was meticulous, and Chaucer had no doubt that if the moment called for it, she could be a stone-cold killer.