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WHEN JACK COYOTE arrived at a popular tavern in Annapolis ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, he looked forward to leaving work behind, having a few laughs, and drinking a couple of beers.

Aneila Chowdhury arrived separately by car. They worked together at the Homeland Intelligence Division, HID for short, or HIDden, or sometimes just the Firm, its headquarters located just down the street. Officially, HID was a data collection agency. Unofficially, it oversaw sensitive and often clandestine activities on behalf of other agencies whose directors didn’t want to get their hands dirtied.

They walked into Club Seven together. A boisterous crowd from HID had already converged on the horseshoe bar. Two barkeeps manned the station, making for a lengthy wait. Aneila was the diversion. She was in an uncommon mood, talkative and giddy. She pointed out this co-worker and that director, naming names and providing commentary about who slept with whom, who was up for promotion, and who was about to be canned. Eventually she brought up the rumors circulating around the office. HID’s databases had been breached. The source of the breach was being investigated. Everyone feared it was Russia. Others blamed Saudi Arabia. Still others thought it was China or North Korea or Israel. The infiltration was supposed to be confidential, but details were dribbling out.

The club was buzzing, making it difficult to hear everything Aneila said, but Jack caught the salient points and wished he hadn’t. She gazed at him, anxious for his take. “Well? What do you think?”

“About what?”

“What everybody’s talking about. The breaches. The hack.”

He shrugged dismissively.

She took a long hard look at him. He was being evasive, and she knew it. He ignored her irritation with him. It was easy to ignore her. A lady in black had caught his eye. She was sitting alone at a high two-seater table, elbow perched on the surface, chin resting in the curved palm of her long-fingered hand, eyes staring at nothing and no one ... until she inclined her head and gazed directly at him. She had interesting eyes, almond-shaped and vivid green. She looked away and pretended he wasn’t taking in every detail of her appearance, from the blonde hair fanning around her exceptional profile to the slim legs that went on forever, dancer’s legs.

Jack immediately despised the shallow parts of himself. The empty heart. The hungry eyes. The impulsive needs. He learned to live within the limits of those shallow parts. What would his carefree friends or even his serious-minded workmates think of this incomplete man. This crippled man. This milquetoast man who kept his thoughts to himself and hid them behind self-deprecating humor. This tallish, slimish, aloofish man. This brown-eyed, brown-haired misfit who didn’t fit in anywhere. This wooer of woman, this hacker of code, this practical joker, this light drinker, this loud laugher, this sarcastic son of a bitch, this night owl and late riser, this outsider who would never be an insider, this war-painted warrior who didn’t belong anywhere or to anyone, this disbelieving reject who should have been born centuries earlier, this stranger among men, this outcast.

“Know her?” Aneila asked, breaking his spell.

He lifted the beer to his lips and drank. Her eyes were inquisitive, almost laughing at him.

“Well, it looks like you’re about to. Not that I’m jealous or anything.” She shrugged as if she didn’t give a damn, even though she obviously did.

Jack nodded toward the bar. “I’m buying. Why don’t you find a table?” She shouted out her drink of choice before gesturing towards one of the back rooms. An efficient lady and organized to a fault, off she went, disappearing into the crowd. She glanced back only once. The argument, if there had been an argument, was forgotten.

Several customers pressed ahead of him. Jack used the time to assess the parade of patrons filing into the tavern. More colleagues from HID arrived. A few acknowledged him with silent greetings. He moved up in line and called out his order.

The female barkeep wasn’t his type. Her hair was pulled into a French braid at the back of her head. Her black-and-white striped shirt wasn’t flattering. Neither were the wing-tipped vest or red necktie. Yet there was something interesting about her. She was a compact package made for long days and short nights. Her manner was severe, her demeanor no-nonsense, and her face bland, making her vaguely intersexed. When her eyes fastened onto him, they twinkled, softening her otherwise steely expression. She moved with ease, making wine glasses, highballs, and beer mugs magically appear, and payments and tips disappear. He changed his mind. Despite her stocky build, she was all girl, down to her long-tipped fingernails and her pettish smiles. Her eyes repeatedly glanced in his direction as if she wanted to know him. Jack had that way about him.

The barkeep hustled back with his order—one draft beer and one white wine—and slid them across the bar. A sequined glove arrived first. “Sorry. Mine.” The lady in black handed the barkeep a large bill, enough to cover the drinks, the tip, and a favor. She was hooker bait, but classy hooker bait. Winking at him, she gathered up the drinks and ambled away.

A knowing smile on her lips, the barkeep arched her eyebrows before saying, “Next one is on the house.”

Watching the green-eyed lady move away, Jack decided she was a tall and limber girl, about thirty or so, yet carried about her the air of a woman who had experienced many more years. She was delicately put together but tough enough to withstand hurricanes. Her skin was Mediterranean cocoa and fine-pored. Her platinum hair, silky and swingy. Her perfume suggestive of tropical islands. The leather halter dress fit as if she had poured herself into it. In the fineness of her hands, in the delicacy of her wrists, in the sweep of her neck, and in the sensuality oozing from her every pore, she epitomized femaleness in all its varying degrees.

Halfway back to her table, she drew to a stop. Patrons were forced to step around her. She posed for Jack’s benefit, peering at him over a shoulder. He couldn’t help but stare back. The outline of her face was finely drawn, as if she gazed daily into a mirror to make it bend to her will. The corners of her lips curled catlike. She gave off an aura of being exotic and apart, arrogant and aloof. She was drawing certain conclusions about Jack. In his tallness. His scruffy choice of clothes. His dark features. And his arrogance. She lifted her shoulders as if to say he wasn’t the man for her, not this night or any night. She was a woman with lofty standards. She was also trouble waiting to happen.