The developed land on I-15 ended a few miles south of the heart of Las Vegas. One last collection of cookie-cutter houses and clay roofs baked in the sun, and beyond them, the scrub mountains took over again like a moonscape. Johanna pulled off the highway on the motorcycle she’d rented at McCarran. She stripped off her helmet, letting her blond hair hang free, and drank from the bottle of water clipped to her belt. A barren hill rose behind her, low brush clinging to dirt and stone. To the north, she could see the towers of the Strip through smoggy brown haze. Cars flashed by her on their way back to California.
Johanna hiked to a barbed-wire fence strung along the base of the rocky slope. She was alone out here in the middle of nothingness, and the empty desert reflected the emptiness in her heart. It bothered her. She’d spent her life shutting down anything that made her vulnerable, and yet here she was, obsessing over Jason. Yesterday she’d been caught up in the adrenaline of working with him again. Sleeping with him again. God, they were good together.
But Jason was also the most dangerous man she’d ever met.
She couldn’t lie to herself. She needed him. She loved him. She hated that he was on his way back to Los Angeles without her.
On his way back to Abbey Laurent.
Jason had sworn his relationship with Abbey was over. She wondered if that was really true. Months earlier, before he knew who Johanna was, before they’d become involved, he’d told her about Abbey. She knew he hadn’t gotten over her. It was written all over his face. Now that they’d been thrown back together, it seemed impossible that they could stay apart. Johanna tried to keep the images out of her brain, but they assaulted her anyway. Jason in Abbey’s arms. Jason in Abbey’s bed. Her jealousy burned as hot as the desert sun. She wondered what she would do if she ever found herself face-to-face with Abbey Laurent. The two of them. Alone.
Could she stop herself from pulling the long dagger from her pocket and burying the blade in Abbey’s chest?
Johanna shivered.
Behind her, she heard a car engine pulling off the highway. She took a breath, calming herself. Her skin was dry and red from the heat. She didn’t need to look back to know who it was. The car engine cut off, but the door didn’t open. Johanna turned around and studied the smoked windows of the silver Mercedes. Then she walked over to the passenger door and climbed inside.
Callie Faith sat behind the wheel, expensive pink sunglasses over her eyes. The stony line of her jaw revealed her impatience.
“Well?” Callie asked.
Johanna chose her words carefully. She assumed Callie was recording her. If push came to shove, and the congressional hearings began, Callie would throw her under the bus and see her rot for the rest of her life in a federal prison.
“The Files are a Chinese AI engine combined with an ongoing data hack driven by multiple apps,” she said. “I know that much.”
“I don’t care where they came from,” Callie snapped. “I want to know who has them.”
“Bourne and I tracked down a programmer who was probably one of the lead coders in creating the Files. But the Chinese got to him first. He’s dead. So are the other members of his team. I assumed that one of them would have been putting the Files on the market, but if it’s not them, then I don’t know who it is.”
Callie clucked her tongue in disgust. “Do you think the Chinese know?”
“That’s the good news. I doubt it. Or if they do, they don’t know where the person is. If they did, they’d already have the Files.”
“What about Bourne?”
“He’s following up on Garrett Parker. Whoever has the Files wants him dead, and we want to know why. If we can figure that out, it should give us what we need to identify him. Then we move in.”
“Or Bourne moves in on his own,” Callie said. “He grabs the Files and gives them to Shadow, and you and I get fucked.”
Johanna wanted to say: I trust him.
But she couldn’t. Because she didn’t. Just like he didn’t trust her. Bourne had his own agenda in this hunt, and he was keeping the truth from her.
Why won’t you tell me what’s going on, Jason?
“You don’t need to worry about Bourne,” Johanna told Callie, despite her own misgivings. “I’ll keep him close. When we know who we’re going after, I’ll get there first. Ahead of Treadstone, ahead of the Chinese, ahead of everybody. I told you I’d deliver, and I will.”
Callie’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “No.”
Johanna’s brow furrowed. “No? What does that mean?”
“No, that’s not how we’re going to play this. I let you run with Bourne because you said you could control him. I don’t think you can. All we’re doing is giving Shadow’s agent a head start, and I won’t take the risk of letting her win. Plus, we’re running out of time. If the Files hit the open market, we have no idea in whose hands they’ll end up. We need to act now before that happens.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“We do it my way,” Callie snapped.
“Which is?”
“We make a deal. Whoever has the Files reached out to me. I say we give him what he wants.”
Johanna heard the steel in Callie’s voice. “I know you want action, and you’re right, we need to move quickly. But this is a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know who we’re dealing with. There’s too much risk of it blowing up in our faces, even assuming the contact really did come from whoever has the Files. You have no idea who reached out to you. This whole thing could be a fake.”
“It’s not.”
“How do you know that?”
“This person has information that couldn’t come from anywhere else,” Callie said.
“What kind of information?” Johanna studied the flush on the congresswoman’s face. “Information about you?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Is he threatening to expose you?”
Callie ignored her. “The bottom line is, I hired you to get the Files yourself, and you failed. You struck out. I can’t give you any more time, not when there’s an offer on the table right now. We do a deal.”
Johanna raised her eyebrows. “The offer was for fifty million dollars. Do you have that kind of money lying around? Because if so, I’m raising my fee.”
“Of course I don’t.”
“Then what’s your plan? Can you redirect money from the intelligence budget?”
“In the past? Maybe. Not now. Shadow’s watching the pipeline. If I go after the money, she’ll know.”
“So what do you want to do?” Johanna asked.
“We lie. We pretend we’ve got the money, and we set up the drop.”
“The person behind this isn’t a fool. Whoever it is will want to know how you did it. He’ll want proof you can really make the transfer.”
“Proof can be faked. You can fake it.”
“Let’s say you’re right. We make them believe we can deliver the money. What then? What happens at the drop?”
Callie’s head turned. Her brown eyes zeroed in on Johanna. She reached into her purse and took out her phone. With a cold smile, she switched off the voice recording she’d been making, and she deleted the file in a way that Johanna could see it.
“Then you grab the laptop and kill the bastard.”
*
Tati awoke in a huge white featherbed, so plush and comfortable she felt as if she were floating inside a cloud. At first, she thought she was still dreaming. During the nights inside Cody’s house, she’d escaped with Jason in her mind whenever she fell asleep. He’d come for her, and they’d run away together. She’d imagined the two of them speeding down a highway. Then she would wake up, and the gruesome reality of her situation would catch up with her. The rats. The guards. The fear of what lay ahead.
But not now.
Now she was free.
She got out of bed. Her room was located in the attic of a farmhouse, twenty miles from Cody and Narva. She wore cotton pajamas, soft and warm, which Frau Mikkel had given her. When she went to the attic window, she looked out on wide-open land, not a soul to be seen in any direction, just two horses exploring the snow-covered field inside the fence and a dozen pigs gathered for breakfast at the trough. As she watched, Herr Mikkel and his oldest son emerged from the horse barn. The two men crossed the field side by side, leaving their footprints behind them. The father’s instincts must have told him she was there, because he glanced over his shoulder and waved at her in the high window, his plump face breaking into a kind smile. Next to him, Jan, twenty-three years old, did the same.
Tati waved back.
She couldn’t believe how lucky she’d been. By all rights, she should be dead, frozen on the hard Estonian land somewhere. Or back in the hole of Cody’s basement. When she’d panicked, seeing Kirill’s body on the floor of the wine cellar, she’d fled the mansion with no clothes, no food, and no idea where to go. She’d run through the snow, her white skin growing even whiter as the frigid wind assaulted her. In minutes, her limbs stiffened, her feet growing numb from the snow, her fingers curling up like claws. But still she’d run and run, until Cody’s estate disappeared behind her and she couldn’t see it anymore. She’d run until her legs could take her no farther, and then she sank to the ground like a mannequin on the shoulder of a rural road that came from nowhere and went nowhere.
That was where the Mikkels had found her.
Friedrich Mikkel, heavy and happy, fifty years old. His wife, Berthe, forty-seven. Their four children, all boys. Jan was twenty-three, James twenty-one, Gerd twenty, and Franken just eighteen. The entire family had been stuffed into a tiny Škoda on their way back from a monthly journey for farm supplies, when they spotted the naked blond woman on the side of the road, frostbitten and unable to speak.
They rescued her. They took her home.
Fortunately, Tati had recovered enough in the warm car to beg them not to call a doctor and, most of all, not to call the police. If anyone knew where she was, she warned them, men would come to get her back. All she needed was a couple of days to rest and recover, followed by a quiet, anonymous drive in the trunk of their car to the Baltic coast. When she got there, she could finally escape the country—to Finland, or Denmark, or Sweden—and find a way to make contact with Jason. This chapter of her life would be over.
That had been two days ago. Two days of freedom, food, warmth, and laughter with a family that was generous and happy. Tati felt like herself again, her strength slowly coming back, her wounds healing. Today Herr Mikkel would take her to the ferry in Tallinn, and she would put away the nightmare of the past year. It didn’t matter where she went, as long as it was far away.
Jason!
She had to find Jason.
Tati left the attic bedroom. She went down a narrow flight of stairs to a guest bathroom, where she stripped and showered. There was plenty of hot water. She stayed under the spray until her skin was pink, and she washed her hair twice. Ever since she’d come here, she’d washed her hair over and over, trying to lather away the smell of the wine cellar. But nothing got rid of it; nothing removed the terrible stench. She realized the smell was stuck in her brain, not her nose.
After drying herself with a thick towel, she wrapped it around her skinny body. As she returned to the attic, she found herself whistling, which she hadn’t done in a long time. She was hungry, too. Downstairs, she smelled bacon. Her appetite had come back; she’d been starved in Cody’s basement, and now she wanted to eat until she couldn’t eat anything more. First, she’d have a big breakfast. Then she would say goodbye to Estonia.
Tati changed into fresh clothes. Berthe Mikkel was heavier than her, and shorter, so the clothes she’d given her didn’t really fit. But Tati didn’t care about that. She put on a loose sweatshirt that barely reached her waist, and she zipped up jeans and tied a belt as tight as it would go to keep them up. She looked around the cozy little room with the angled timbers, wanting to remember it forever. The red paint. The fresh flowers. The heavy duvet that had kept her warm.
She went back to the window to memorize the view.
It took her a moment, looking at the farm below her, to realize that something was different. Something was wrong.
Everyone—everything—had fallen down in the snow. To Tati, it looked as if some strange sleeping curse had rolled across the world.
The horses.
The pigs.
Herr Mikkel.
His son.
They all lay on the ground now. Then she looked closer. Where the bodies lay, the snow had turned red, like cherry slushies spilled around their heads. The color of blood. Tati’s hand flew to her mouth. Her chest gagged with horror. They were all dead. The animals, the people. Shot. Killed.
She ran.
Below her, in the second-floor hallway, she came across Berthe’s body first, three bullet holes in her back. Tati leaped over her and took the next set of stairs two at a time. In the ground-floor hallway, she found James, his throat cut like a grotesque smile, his blue eyes still open and wide with disbelief. A few feet behind him, there was Gerd, face down, not moving. Tati opened her mouth, but the scream that came out made no sound. She couldn’t even drag the air out of her lungs.
Like a corpse, like a woman already dead, she shuffled toward the kitchen. They knew she was here; they were waiting for her. She came to the doorway, where the bacon was burning on the stove, smoke flowing from the pan.
“I’ll have some of that bacon,” Cody said when he saw her. “Get it for me, my love.”
Tati complied without a word. She went and got a plate from the cupboard and tipped the blackened bacon onto it along with the grease, and put down the plate in front of Cody. He sat at the head of the table, where Herr Mikkel usually sat. His monster’s body filled the chair. A heavy oilskin coat, drenched with blood, covered his huge torso. His dirty hair hung below his shoulders, thick and black. His pirate beard came to a point below his chin, and a devil’s smile tipped up his mustache.
Half a dozen men stood around him, some with automatic rifles, some with pistols and suppressors, all of them pointed at her. But the worst of the scene was the kitchen table itself. Stretched across the large butcher block table was Franken Mikkel, the last of the family still alive. The teenager was tied spread-eagle to the four table legs, wearing nothing but old white underwear. His mouth was tightly gagged, muffled shrieks wailing from his throat. Franken squirmed and struggled, the smell of his body foul with fear. His eyes had the wild knowledge of everything that had already happened and everything that was about to happen.
Tears slipped quietly down Tati’s face.
“Let him go, Cody,” she murmured. “Show some mercy. He’s a boy. Kill me instead.”
“Kill you, Tati?” Cody retorted, chewing on the bacon, his voice booming. “No, no, no, I can’t do that. You’re my golden goose. Cain expects you to be alive. He needs an incentive to bring me what I want.”
Tati stared at Franken. This poor, desperate boy. Every spark of life had drained out of her, leaving her voice sullen and lost. Her freedom had been snatched away, and her recklessness had killed the people who’d tried to save her.
“Then take me with you. I’ll do whatever you want. Anything. Just let the boy live.”
“You defied me, Tati,” Cody replied calmly. “Defiance has a price.”
Her eyes closed. She steeled herself for whatever he would inflict upon her now. For the pain that was coming. Nothing mattered anymore.
Oh God, Jason!
She would kill herself. That was her only way to escape now. When she was back at the mansion, locked in the wine cellar again, she would take one of the broken bottles and slit her wrists until she bled out. But it was as if Cody could read her mind and know what she was thinking.
“Kill yourself, and the boy dies,” he went on in a silken voice. “Be a good girl, and he lives. You have my word.”
Tati’s eyes flew open again. “Oh my God! Thank you!”
“No more escape attempts?”
“No!”
“You’ll be good? You’ll do everything I say?”
“I will!”
“Excellent.” The huge man’s face hardened, becoming a mask of ice. “But I told you, Tati. Defiance has a price. It carries a debt that must be paid. If not by you, then by someone else.”
Cody dug in one of his coat pockets. His hand emerged with a red-handled pair of farm shears, their silver blades long and sharp. Tati’s relief vanished, and a wail of horrified anticipation burst from her throat. She couldn’t take the agony. Not again. She wanted to run, scream, find a high building and throw herself to the ground.
But as bad as it already was, it got worse. So much worse.
Cody snapped his fingers. A guard came forward. He didn’t go to Tati but to Franken. To the teenage boy tied to the table. The guard yanked the boy’s underwear to his thighs, exposing him.
“You promised to do whatever I say,” Cody reminded her. “It’s time to prove you meant that.”
He slapped the shears into Tati’s hand, and he closed her fingers around the handles with his crushing grip. “You need to show Cain that my patience is running out. Show him what happens to those who get in my way.”