It’s just a phone call, Hayward told himself, hoping to calm his nerves enough to unclog his mind. He needed to be sharp. He stared at his face in the Malaga hotel room mirror. His eyes were hollow and dark. He had lost weight since the last time he’d studied his reflection, and his cheekbones were more prominent than he remembered. The ordeal was taking its toll on him, but he was certain his experience didn’t come anywhere close to the horrors Katrin was enduring.
He closed his eyes, drew a long, deep breath, and pushed the green button on the new burner phone. It rang three times, then he heard a clunk and a series of clicks. The call was being re-routed and probably also recorded, he surmised.
“Hello.” The voice was efficient, dispassionate, empty of almost every human quality. But it most definitely belonged to a human, familiar to Hayward. Artemis Grange.
Grange was a legend, at least in the extremely small circles of the clandestine service. In the first half of his career, Grange was the quintessential CIA operator. He was brutal, efficient, resourceful, and feared. Then he became the consummate manipulator, and he now swam as a consultant in the murky waters where politics and statecraft and big business met spy craft.
The Agency had placed Hayward under Grange’s tutelage for a time after Hayward’s Cologne meltdown. Hayward had never been an eager student, trapped as he was by circumstance and his own penchant for disaster-making, but he took what lessons were available from Artemis Grange.
“Grange,” Hayward said. “Why are you doing this?”
Grange didn’t reply. Trademark. Make the other guy reveal himself. Hayward wearied instantly of the mind games.
“You want something,” Hayward said. “I have it.”
“I’m listening.” Grange’s voice sounded preternaturally calm. It was well beyond an affectation. When you’d spilled as much blood as Grange had spilled over the years, it put other matters in their proper perspective.
“My terms are two lives in exchange,” Hayward said.
“Yours and who else’s?” Grange asked. Hayward heard the smirk in his voice.
“You will spare Joao and Katrin Ferdinand-Xavier,” Hayward said.
“You don’t want to grovel for your own life?”
Hayward ignored the taunt. “I will specify a destination and a time. You will arrange transportation for them, and you will provide security. You will see to their every need. When they arrive safe and unharmed, you will receive further instructions.”
“Such skill,” Grange chuckled, “managing your emotions and managing your mark. You had a bright future.”
“You will provide me with proof of life within the hour,” Hayward said. “You will do this via live webcam. I will send a specific phrase, which Katrin and Joao will read aloud. You will email the link for this webcam arrangement to my account.”
“Your confidence is inspiring,” Grange said. “Such a contrast from when we first took you in. You were like a little lost puppy. Except for the way you choked the life out of that poor girl. What was her name?”
Hayward fought for composure. “You have sixty minutes, Grange. Starting now.”
“Nora,” Grange said. “Nora was her name. Wasn’t it? You fancied her, slept with her, maybe even fell in love with her a little bit?”
Yes, Nora was her name, you fucking asshole. She was smart and beautiful and mind-blowing and thoroughly corrupted. It happened in Cologne. She set him up, let him fall for her, then played him right into the CIA’s hands. He snapped, lost his drunken mind, and in his nightmares he could still feel the sinew in Nora’s neck yielding to his grip.
Hayward blinked away the onslaught of guilt and shame. He carried Nora with him every day of his life. She was one more reason—maybe the most powerful reason—he couldn’t let anything happen to Katrin.
“Fifty-nine-and-a-half minutes,” he said. “Then I burn the ChemEspaña file.”
Grange didn’t let up. “You killed her with your bare hands. You didn’t just tiptoe over the line, did you?” That cold laugh again. “You leapt right over it.”
“Goodbye, Grange.”
Hayward ended the call. His hands shook and his mouth was dry. Grange had a ruthless talent for evisceration, for hitting right where it hurt the most. Hayward balled his fists and cursed.
Then he gathered himself. There was work to do.