Built in the early 1920s as the Florida winter retreat for a wealthy New York banking family, Avalon House now had different tenants. Weathered bronze plaques mounted near the main entrance told visitors the building currently housed the Concannon Language Institute, the Sobieski Charitable Foundation, and Sykes-Fairbairn Strategic Investments. Their faded, old-fashioned lettering conveyed the impression of stolid respectability appropriate to organizations founded in the late 1940s.
Flynn suppressed a smile. In truth, of course, none of the three were really respectable at all… at least not in the sense that most people would use the term. They were actually front organizations for the Quartet Directorate — some of the many different groups created to conceal its clandestine recruiting, training, and operational activities. Avalon House had been deeded over to Four by one of its founding members, an heir to that same prominent New York banking family. He’d served in World War II as a member of Office of Strategic Services, the OSS — the precursor to the CIA. At his recommendation, the mansion had been converted into the headquarters of Four’s American station.
At first, Flynn had thought it was odd that the Quartet Directorate had decided to locate one of its major operational centers so close to Orlando. Once known for orange groves and as a refuge from harsh northern winters, the area was now a tourist mecca more famous worldwide for Disney World, Universal Studios, other big theme parks, and sprawling vacation resorts. A private intelligence organization seemed completely out of place in such a setting. But gradually, he’d figured out the shrewd reasoning involved.
Even seventy-plus years ago, Washington, D.C., and its environs had been crawling with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, foreign operatives, prying journalists, and political busybodies. The situation had only grown worse in the intervening decades. Amid D.C.’s toxic maelstrom of intrigue, spies, and counterspies, it would be virtually impossible for the Quartet Directorate to operate undetected. In contrast, Orlando — especially with its recent emphasis on global tourism and business and travel — was an ideal location for a covert group that wanted to avoid drawing inconvenient official attention. The region’s bustling international airport also offered good connections to and from virtually anywhere in the world, like the flights that had brought him back from Milan via London’s Heathrow the night before.
Finally, from Flynn’s personal perspective, Florida’s warmer and sunnier climate was a huge plus. Between duty in Alaska’s far north and his aborted mission to Austria’s Tyrolean Alps, he figured he’d already seen enough snow and ice to last a lifetime.
He pressed the buzzer firmly and looked up into the surveillance camera mounted overhead, allowing its biometric sensors to scan the contours of his face and confirm his identity. After a moment, the door swung open, revealing a brown-tiled foyer with a large reception desk. More doors on either side led deeper into the building. At the far end of the foyer, a wide curving staircase swept up to the mansion’s second floor.
A petite Korean American woman sat primly behind the reception desk. In her stylish red blazer and cream-colored silk blouse, she appeared completely unthreatening, but Flynn knew that was only an illusion. Though strands of gray streaked her dark hair, she was still trim and remarkably fit-looking. More to the point, however, Gwen Park had spent years running intelligence and counterterrorist operations in some of the most dangerous parts of Southeast Asia’s drug-infested Golden Triangle before taking over as the chief of Avalon House’s small security detail. Among other hidden talents, she had a reputation as a crack shot and was said to be death in high heels in hand-to-hand combat.
“Welcome back, Mr. Flynn,” she said briskly when he came inside. The front door closed automatically behind him. “How was your trip?”
“Somewhat more eventful than I would have liked,” he admitted.
Her eyes flickered in barely concealed amusement at the wild understatement. “So I heard.” She nodded toward the nearest interior door on the right. “Mr. Fox is expecting you.”
“Do I get a blindfold? Or just a cigarette?” Flynn asked wryly, pausing with his hand on the doorknob.
A tiny smile danced at the edges of her mouth. “Neither, I suspect,” she told him with mock severity. “Please keep in mind that our limited operating budget doesn’t allow room for frivolous luxuries.”
Flynn shot her a grin and strode through the doorway and down a short hallway. There was another closed door at the end, this one marked: sykes-fairbairn strategic investments, carleton frederick fox, managing director. Pulling his shoulders back straight, he rapped once and went straight in.
The office beyond was small and furnished very simply, with just a desk, a couple of comfortable chairs, and an inexpensive-looking desktop computer. Its most prominent feature was a large window that opened onto a lush tropical garden full of bright-colored flowers. Fox, a thin, middle-aged man with graying hair, turned away from the window. Bright eyes gleamed knowingly from behind a thick pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Except for those eyes, anyone meeting him for the first time would have assumed he was just the boring money manager or anonymous midlevel government bureaucrat he so often pretended to be.
“Take a seat, Nick,” the older man said quietly as he crossed the room and sat down behind his desk.
Flynn obeyed. Despite his plan to be oh so cool and casual, he caught himself sitting almost at attention.
Fox smiled. “Expecting a reprimand? Or something worse?”
“Well, yeah,” Flynn admitted. “After all, I can’t exactly claim to have covered myself with glory on this assignment.”
Fox snorted softly. “Glory isn’t something we care much about in Four,” he said mildly. “We’re far more interested in people who can obtain the intelligence we need… and get out alive, if that is at all possible.” He peered at Flynn over his glasses. “Based on the fact that you appear to be breathing, I’ll take that as a significant mark in your favor.”
“I may be breathing, but Arif Khavari sure isn’t,” Flynn pointed out tightly.
“True,” the older man agreed. He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Then again, since the enemy — whoever they may prove to be — clearly mounted a maximum effort to eliminate our Iranian friend, that is scarcely surprising. In the circumstances, I consider the fact that you got off the mountain alive, and then escaped the larger trap set for you, to be something of a miracle.”
“Maybe,” Flynn said. “But if so, it was a miracle with Laura Van Horn’s name written all over it.”
A half smile sleeted across Fox’s face and then vanished as quickly as it had come. “Laura can be something of a force of nature in a tight corner,” he concurred. He leaned back. “Judging by the fact that the Austrian authorities haven’t reported finding any more dead bodies littering their scenic slopes and highways, I think we can safely assume the motorcyclist she killed was, in fact, a member of the opposition hit team… and not some unfortunate local police officer in the wrong place at just the wrong time.”
Somberly, Flynn nodded. Sure as he had been that Laura’s split-second decision to shoot the man who’d pulled them over was justified, it was still a relief to have that confirmed. Unlike the CIA, the UK’s MI6, France’s DGSE, and other government-run spy services, the Quartet Directorate’s agents had no safety net, no mythical “license to kill,” to protect them from imprisonment or even execution if they overreacted on a mission.
“What about Khavari?” he asked.
“His body was discovered earlier this morning, Kitzbühel time,” Fox said. “By members of the ski patrol checking the slopes before they opened. Apparently, it had been dragged into the woods to delay any premature discovery.”