Emma lowered her gaze. “Division caught hell for the operation. Congress wanted to shut them down, but the president’s given them one last chance.”
“Another chance? Is he crazy?”
“I told you,” said Emma. “Division is like the Hydra. Cut off its head and ten more grow in its place. Division has its uses. The president knows better than to limit his options.”
“Have you spoken with them? With Division?”
“You’re joking.”
“I just mean-”
“What do you mean?”
“With all your contacts, I thought you might find a way to explain why you had to disobey your orders. They’d have to understand.”
“I’m rogue, Jonathan. I didn’t just disobey orders, I went completely off the reservation. I tried to take down the whole ship. That makes me the enemy.”
“But you stopped a passenger jet from being shot down.”
“But nothing. Besides, you saved the plane. The first time I show my face, I’ll get a bullet in the head. I thought I’d explained that to you. You think I’m living like a war criminal for the fun of it?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure I don’t know half of what you’ve been through.”
“No, you don’t.” Emma drew a breath. “Look, the new man running Division is a complete bastard. His name is Frank Connor. He’s not one of us. I mean, not trained in the field or any of that. His whole career he’s been behind a desk, and now he’s making up for lost time. God knows how they chose him. He’s smart enough to realize that his overseers won’t let him lift a pinkie until he takes care of me.”
“Are those his guys downstairs?”
“Probably.”
Jonathan sensed that there was more. “What happened, Em? Has he already tried? That scar on your back-what’s it really from?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters.”
Emma stood and faced him. “Then, yes, Jonathan, he’s already tried. It’s what we do, remember? We target enemies. We find them, we follow them, and when we’re good and ready, we take them out. The only difference is that this time it’s me wearing the bull’s-eye.”
Jonathan nodded. He wanted to reach out and hold her, but he knew better. “Where were you?”
“ Rome.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Seeing old friends, Jonathan. At least, I thought they were my friends. I was wrong. Anyway, there I was in the Borghese Gardens, standing on a corner, waiting for a ride to dinner. I broke every rule in the book. I was alone without backup in a city I didn’t know well. For ten minutes my guard was down. And that’s when they came at me.”
“Jesus Christ, Emma.”
“Blakemore likes his knife,” she said offhandedly as she fingered the livid scar. “He forgot I knew that. I got away with twenty-seven stitches and a lacerated kidney. Guess I’m lucky.”
“But how did they find you?”
“It was you.”
“Me?”
“You called. It was in April. They had your phone in their system.”
“But that’s impossible. I bought that phone in Nairobi. No one called me except my colleagues at camp.”
“I told you. They have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“But it was just the once…”
“That’s all they needed. They got my number, my GPS coordinates. They engineered a phony meet. They used the name of an old contact. Someone they knew I would trust. As I said, I broke every rule.”
“I’m sorry.” Jonathan sat down, crestfallen.
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should never have kept the phone. The fact is that I wanted you to call. I wanted you to tell me that you had to see me. The hard part about running is that after a while you get tired. You forget that they’re there even if you can’t see them. You get lazy. Or, worse, sentimental.”
“And him?”
“Blakemore? He’s dead.” Emma said the words without emotion. It was her agent’s voice, the one she used when she talked about her work, businesslike and matter-of-fact, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about a man putting a knife into your side and you killing him in the ensuing struggle.
Jonathan looked on as Emma rubbed a finger across the scar. He saw a faint smile trace her lips. Where the hell did that come from? he wondered. A sense of victory? Survival? Revenge?
“I can go somewhere,” he said. “I can hide. After a couple of years, they’ll give up.”
Emma shook her head but said nothing.
“There has to be a way,” he continued.
Emma walked to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and looked into his eyes. “Do you have any idea what it took to see you this evening? Can you even begin to imagine the risks I ran to get into this room tonight? Sure, I may know my way around a locked door, but I can’t outguess every goon in town. You know what the first thing is that they teach you? In every op, you only get one chance: your first and your last. I’ve used up my nine lives, Jonathan. I’m running on faith. What I did tonight was just plain stupid. The problem is that I knew it all along and still I did it. I had to see you. You’re dangerous, Jonathan. You’re my poison.” Emma let go of him and walked toward the window. She stood, framed by the dawn sky, the curtains billowing gently around her bare legs. She turned to look over her shoulder and smiled sadly. “Emma Ransom died tonight.”
Jonathan stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He had mourned her once. He knew the misery that came with the loss of a spouse. But somehow this was worse. The idea that Emma was out there alive somewhere and that he could not see her was too much. A profound sadness settled on him.
They stood that way for a long time, watching as the sun warmed the trees in Hyde Park and the horses and their riders appeared along the serpentine trails, listening as the impatient, mechanized sounds of the city rose around them.
Emma’s phone rang. Without a word, she freed herself from Jonathan’s arms and found her phone. She checked the incoming number, then looked up at him. In an instant her disposition had changed. Her eyes stared at him with abandon, as if he were a stranger or, worse, the enemy.
Emma turned away and walked into the bathroom. She did not answer the phone until she’d closed the door behind her. When she came out two minutes later, the transformation was complete. She was no longer Mrs. Jonathan Ransom. She was the woman he had discovered went by the call sign Nightingale, a former operative for the United States government, and now a fugitive at large.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, gathering up her clothes in her arms.
“Who was that?”
“It doesn’t concern you.”
Emma sidestepped him, but Jonathan quickly blocked her path. “Where are you going when you leave here?” he demanded.