In the glow of the streetlight, Fatima’s eyes were huge and terrified. “They’re not here for me!” she said, hysteria at the edges of her tone.
Delilah didn’t understand the reaction. Not here for her? Why—
There was a loud pop and the door swung violently inward — a specialized charge to take out the lock.
Too far to attack. Delilah leaped back toward the bed and threw her body over Fatima’s. If Kent had known in advance that both she and Fatima were here, they were dead. But if he hadn’t known, there was a chance. “Don’t shoot her!” she cried out. “If you do, you have to shoot both of us.”
Fatima was struggling to get out from under her, shouting something in Urdu. Delilah looked up and in the dim light saw Kent, wearing night vision goggles as she’d expected. That was the point of taking out the electricity.
There was a moment’s pause. Kent said, “What the hell?”
Fatima froze, suddenly silent. Delilah said, “Just take the laptop and go. Go!”
But he wasn’t here just for the laptop. She knew that. If he’d wanted only the laptop, he would have taken care to arrive when he knew Fatima was out. Or he would have picked the lock, which would have taken time, rather than blowing it for instant entry.
“What on earth are you doing here?” he said. From their nakedness and the lateness of the hour, the question was largely rhetorical, but it was also a huge relief. He hadn’t been expecting Delilah. She had leverage. She had a chance.
“It’s on the desk. Take it and go!”
He eased the door closed behind him. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Put your clothes on and come with me.”
“No. You’ll have to kill both of us.”
“I’m not going to kill you. But I’m afraid she’s a different story.”
Delilah felt Fatima tremble in terror. “No, she’s not. Unless you want to explain to my colleagues how you killed me, too. Maybe your organization’s management could smooth that over with mine, I don’t know. But I assure you, my colleagues won’t be so understanding.”
“I don’t mean to be unkind, but you’re hardly in a position to be issuing threats.”
“It’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact.”
“I don’t think you understand. Do you know she had two operatives who were on their way in just as I arrived? Why do you think they were here? What do you think they were going to do to you?”
Suddenly, she was confused. It didn’t make sense. But… who were those men? And they had been heading straight for the flat. She’d seen that.
All at once, she understood why Fatima had said, ‘They’re not here for me.’ Why she’d been shouting in Urdu.
A long, silent moment spun out. “Fatima,” Delilah said. “Is it… true?”
Fatima sagged beneath her. “Not the way he says it.”
Delilah felt like everything around her was spinning. “How did you know?”
“Momtaz,” Kent said. “It was a test. You didn’t pass. A bit too cool for your good, I’m afraid. Too handy with that knife. I see you’ve got it right now, in fact.”
“A test… but those men. One of them was hit so hard he could have died.”
“What was it Cecil B. Demille said, when someone asked how he could afford all those stuntmen? ‘We use real bullets,’ I think that was it. Definitely ups the realism, doesn’t it, Fatima?”
Another long moment went by. Fatima said, “I’m sorry, Delilah. I didn’t know.”
Kent said, “Get out of my way.”
She had to think of something. “But you don’t need her. It’s the brother you want, and the laptop gets you to him.”
Fatima struggled again. “No!”
“She’ll warn him,” Kent said.
“What if she does? He’ll have to move. He’ll be out in the open. You can track him.”
“No!” Fatima said again. She struggled to get free, but Delilah clung to her and pressed her down. If she got loose, Kent would drop her in a second.
“The woman is a conduit,” Kent said. “Her brother runs the classes, true, but the woman is practically the admissions committee. Now, if you’d be so kind.”
It wasn’t a good sign that he was referring to her as “the woman.” It was distancing, objectifying. The kind of thing many operatives needed to do before pulling the trigger.
“Don’t do this,” Delilah said. “Her parents have buried two children already. Don’t make them bury another. Don’t become what you hate.”
“Get out of my way,” he said again.
He was too smart to close with her. As long as he kept his distance, she had no chance of disarming him.
She thought of the hotel bars, the hide-in-plain-sight, the overconfidence about his lack of tradecraft generally. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had left.
“Did you miss the surveillance camera on your way in? You took out the electricity, but are you sure there was no backup generator?”
There was a pause. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I? Then go ahead and shoot us. But you better hope your people can retrieve that tape from wherever it backs up to before anyone finds our bodies. Of course, you’ll have to explain to them how you created the problem in the first place by missing something so obvious.”
“I really don’t—”
“And even if you can retrieve the tapes, are the London police such lapdogs to your organization? I hope so. Because two naked women with gunshot wounds might stir some detective’s conscience. Or a prosecutor’s. Do you expect your people to have your back then? Or will they turn on you for missing something so obvious as a security camera in a civilian flat?”
He said nothing, but she could swear he was almost smiling beneath the night vision goggles.
“The hell of it is, I actually want to believe you. And I suppose you have a way of persuading me I’ll be all right in spite of those two bodies in the street?”
“I imagine they were on multiple watch lists. They may even have been illegals. I doubt anyone will care. If you move fast, you and your people can clean up the mess. You have someone on site, the person who cut the electricity, yes? But you’re wasting time.”
He stood very still for a long moment, the muzzle of the suppressor pointed at them. Then he lowered the gun, walked over to the desk, and picked up the laptop.
“I’m going to tell my people no one was here,” he said. “It would be a shame if anything were to contradict my story.”
Delilah didn’t respond. She was too afraid to let her breath out.
He walked to the door, opened it, and turned back to them. “You know, all my life, I’ve hoped to wander into a scene pretty much exactly like this one. So I hope you’ll believe me when I say, I wish we all could have met under different circumstances.”
He left. Delilah waited a long moment, afraid to believe it, afraid he was simply trying to separate her from Fatima so he could return for a clear shot.
When she was satisfied he was really gone, she stood. She checked the window. He was moving down the street, talking into a mobile phone, presumably summoning a cleanup crew. He raised a hand and waved as though he knew she was watching.
Delilah started pulling on her clothes. “You need to go,” she said, sliding up her panties and getting a leg into her pants. “You can’t stay here anymore.”
“Who are you?”
Delilah got her other leg in. She zipped up and snapped the button. “Who do you think I am?”
“My people think you’re French intelligence. Are you?”
“Because of what happened at Momtaz?”
“That. And they say you’re impossible to follow. After Momtaz, they told me to break contact.”
“Why didn’t you?”