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“Say you’ll do the job,” Joe Chronister said.

“How do I know this is true?”

“Because of how it resonates. You know it’s true, Camille. Deep down inside, you know it.”

Chronister gave her another stack of photos. On top was one of Hunter with a woman who looked like she had stepped out of the pages of a Neiman Marcus catalog. The bitch was obviously edgy, high-maintenance and totally out of Hunter’s league. She was probably insane, which would make her within his reach, but not his grasp-his favorite type of gal, totally Hunter. “He could never afford a woman like that-not even if his official death had absolved him of alimony and child support.”

“But you know he’d have the hots for a broad like that, don’t you?”

Camille tossed the photos onto the desk. “Pictures can be doctored. Give a trained monkey Photoshop and you could be showing me shots of Marilyn Monroe giving him head.”

“Stella-Camille-he faked his death so he could get away from you to be with her. It wasn’t cold feet, it was a hot-”

“Stop. Don’t say it.” Camille held up her hand and looked away from Chronister so he couldn’t see her fighting back tears as she remembered his lame excuses. Hunter had played her for a fool and she let him do it-over and over again.

“But in case you want more evidence, here are some intercepted emails between-”

“Email is the easiest thing in the world to fake. Untrained monkeys can do that.”

Chronister reached back into his attaché and pulled out a thick dossier. He handed it to Camille. “You’ll also find copies of several handwritten cards, love notes and letters with his signature.”

Camille flipped through the pages, shaking her head. The handwriting was his. The adoring sticky notes were familiar-too familiar. She slapped it closed and pressed her hands against each side of it.

“I’ve seen enough.”

“No, you haven’t. I still have copies of statements from his joint bank account with her. Three months ago when Rubicon started raiding Black Management job sites, it went from chronically overdrawn to a six-figure surplus.”

Camille threw the folders onto the desk and looked at Chronister. “As I said, I’ve seen enough. You have my attention. So why isn’t the Agency handling this job in-house?”

Chronister took a deep breath. He recognized the look on Camille’s face and he liked what he saw. Things were progressing better than he had hoped, thanks in no small part to the Marine father-figure who had unknowingly softened Camille up for him. In thirty-two years with the Agency, he had recruited hundreds, maybe even thousands of spies, convincing them to betray their countries for one reason or another. Money. More often than not money made them do it, but sometimes it was for love, other times for revenge. Every once in a while some poor sap gave his country the Judas kiss out of a belief in peace, democracy or the American way. The real art in turning someone into an agent was getting under their skin and figuring out what they needed deep down inside. And he knew exactly what Camille needed. There was something she yearned for from both her father and from him-an apology. They had both pushed her relentlessly and made her promises that she could become something that she would never be allowed to be because of her gender: a Special Forces operator.

The only difference between Chronister and her father was that her father had really believed it could happen for her one day. In the late eighties, after her father had taken her along on a covert mission to Soviet Uzbekistan to clean up some Agency business and he had debriefed them both, Chronister knew he had to have her working for him. He had never seen raw talent like hers. When she was old enough, he had dangled the opportunity to enter the CIA’s paramilitary force in front of her to convince her to join the CIA over the Marines, even though he knew a woman didn’t have a chance with the Agency’s Special Activities Division either.

He glanced at Camille so see if his dramatic pause had gone on long enough. She was starting to look concerned.

“Is something wrong?” Camille said. “I asked you why the Agency isn’t handling the hit in-house.”

Chronister took another handful of M &Ms and talked while he chewed them. He took a deep breath and looked directly at her with the most remorseful expression he could muster. “Because I owe you.”

He caught a glint of hope in Camille’s eyes. She wants it.

“What do you mean, you owe me?”

“I’m facing retirement. Things look different when you get older and that lifelong dream of a fishing cabin in Michigan is only a few months away.”

“What are you saying?” Her face softened, but her arms were still crossed.

“I’m saying you start to regret mistakes when you get older. Maybe even want to make things right.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“Maybe. Like I said, you were like a daughter, but I shouldn’t have protected you. I should’ve sent you over to Iggy and the Special Activities Division with my blessings. You would’ve made a damn fine operator for them.” He sighed and shook his head, pretending not to notice the tears he saw welling up in her eyes. “Camille-Stella, forgive me. I’m sorry.”

She turned away for a second and wiped her eyes. It almost felt genuine to him as he got up and hugged her. He cared for her.

He really did.

As he hugged her, he thought about how perfectly his plan was falling into place. He had worked too long and hard on SHANGRI-LA to allow one of Force Zulu’s wannabe spooks come in and fuck it up. The last thing he wanted was the Pentagon muscling in on the project. Convincing Camille Black to take out Stone was the cleanest way to get Zulu off his ass. The Pentagon would write it off as a crime of passion, a lover’s spat. No one would suspect the CIA’s hand in the murder of a US military spy. It was too bad he could never explain it all to her, because Camille was one person who would really appreciate the genius in his design.

He touched her face and wiped away a tear

Camille pulled away and sat down. “Sorry.” She averted her eyes in shame from the tears. “What’s your timeframe?”

“Soon as possible. But it’s not a straightforward wet job. We need information from Stone. He’s had SERE training from us and the Marines. He’s not only been a guest of Saddam without breaking, he was held by the North Koreans for weeks before we bought him out. You’ve seen his fingernails. The man is not a talker.”

“He’ll talk to me. What do you need?”

“Stone is a bit player trafficking arms to al-Zahrani because his wife has high maintenance costs. But he knows who al-Zahrani’s main man is inside Rubicon. I need you to extract this information for me, then kill him. You can make it as slow and painful as you want.” Chronister knew the Force Zulu types-they were the über-patriots who teared up when they heard the “Star Spangled Banner.” One of them would never work with al-Zahrani’s organization, unless he was doing so under orders, orders that were bringing him too close to SHANGRI-LA. He wanted to know Stone’s mission, but doubted even Camille could get it out of him.

“You sure you don’t want him back alive?”

“Come on. You know how the world works. If an Agency analyst betrays us, US courts try him for treason. If a case officer betrays us, we eliminate him. Stone betrayed us.” Chronister took another handful of candy and ate a green one. “Stone’s made a fool of you-more than once. What say you, my dear?”

Chapter Thirteen

A former US army colonel, Alex Sands, declared: “The whole point of using special operations is to fight terror with terror. Our guys are trained to do the things that traditionally the other guys have done: kidnap, hijack, infiltrate.”