Ten Years Ago

The young man in the rusted Renault blazed around the curves of the Swiss mountain road. Shadows lengthened around him; it was almost dark. On one side of the car, the granite of the cliff face rose over his head like a craggy, pitted wall. On the other side, inches away from his squealing tires, the land plummeted sharply toward the black lake at the bottom of the valley. He swung the wheel back and forth as he climbed higher, and the old Renault gripped the road like a wild goat clinging to a rocky ledge.

He needed to slow down, but he was late, and he couldn’t afford to be late. Not with these men. Not on his first mission.

His fears came in a rush, fueled by a spike of adrenaline. The road. The men. The meeting. And Monika.

Jesus, where was Monika? Her apartment near the college was empty, stripped of everything she owned, as if she’d never lived there at all, as if she’d never existed! He’d loved her. He’d wanted to marry her.

And she’d betrayed him.

Now she was gone.

Thinking about Monika was a mistake. Focus! Be in the moment! That was what an agent had to do.

But his mind drifted from the road, and he misjudged the next turn. One tire of the Renault scraped over the cliff’s edge, and the car lurched. His stomach somersaulted with panic. He twisted the wheel, overcorrecting, and the vehicle slammed into rock with a screech of metal and a spray of broken glass as the left headlight shattered. He hit the brakes, jerking the car to a stop. His head sank forward, his heart pounding.

His handler, Nash Rollins, had warned him about moments like this. Despite all of his training, he wasn’t ready. Reality was different in the field. He hadn’t learned yet how to smoothly break down his thoughts, organize a plan of action, and tackle each threat one by one. Nash had said that his confidence would come with time, that he should be patient with himself while he gained experience.

You have unique skills. Unique intellect. But professionals are built, not born.

Until then, all he could do was close his eyes and breathe. Forget the distractions, and remember the mission.

The mission is everything.

Treadstone.

But how could he shut it all out? Everything was happening to him at once. A year ago, he’d left his home in Paris to become a teacher of language and physical fitness at a private college outside Zurich. He’d found himself in a small Swiss town in the mountains. In love with a beautiful woman. Then Nash Rollins had appeared, sent by David Abbott, the closest man he had to a father, the man after whom he’d been named. Nash had told him the real reason he’d been brought to the college and explained the rules of the agency that Abbott expected him to join.

That was how his Treadstone recruitment had begun.

Now there was a Glock in a holster in the small of his back and a knife strapped to his ankle.

Now Monika had vanished.

Now the life of David Webb was falling apart.

No! You are not David Webb! You are Cain!

He drove again. Ahead of him, the road leveled off at a meadow framed by jagged snowcapped peaks in the distance. He drove in and out of low clouds that blew across the fields. The cold made its way through the windows of the Renault and got under his skin. Up here, the road was nothing more than two rutted dirt tracks, and the car bumped forward over the emerald-colored hills.

He didn’t have to go far. Not even a mile later, he spotted the chalet.

The meeting point.

It was built of wood and flagstone, with an A-frame roof and huge windows on all sides looking up toward the mountains and down toward the distant valley and lake. Three other vehicles were parked outside, two dark SUVs and a sleek Ferrari in a metallic color that looked like deep purple. One man stood in the tall grass, a semiautomatic rifle level at his waist. A man? No, he was barely more than a boy. Nineteen years old. David knew him as a student in his modern language class. His name was Gunther, from Mannheim, son of the number three executive at one of Germany’s largest auto manufacturers. He was the kind of boy who would have money and power handed to him based on nothing more than his family pedigree. Someday he’d be CEO of that company.

Gunther. Jesus, Gunther was one of them?

But Nash had said Le Renouveau was a hungry spider, trapping the young European elite in its web and wrapping them up to use them in the future. That was why it had to be infiltrated. That was why it had to be destroyed.

The others were inside. They were waiting for him.

David parked his beat-up Renault next to the Ferrari. It was a 458 Italia hardtop model. As he got out, he noticed that the plum-colored sports car had no registration plate. That was the kind of detail Nash had told him to watch. Gunther met him as he got out of the car, with the rifle pointed at his chest.

“Willkommen,” the boy said, but the welcome had no warmth.

“Hello, Gunther.”

“Bitte keine Namen. Nicht hier.”

David nodded. No names. It didn’t matter that they knew each other. Up here, no one had names.

“Haben Sie Waffen?”

“Natürlich,” David replied.

“Gib mir alles.”

David hesitated. If he declined to hand over his weapons, this rich kid would probably shoot him. He didn’t like the idea of walking inside unarmed, but his goal wasn’t to kill anyone. The people in the chalet were nothing but gatekeepers, just leaves on one branch of a larger tree. He needed them to accept him, to believe he shared their goals. Once they did, he could gather intelligence on the entire operation. Find their strengths and weaknesses. Find the men in power. Le Renouveau.

He moved slowly.

Never make sudden movements when a man is pointing a gun at you.

Treadstone.

He spread his fingers, opened the flap of his coat, and handed Gunther the loaded Glock. He thought about not disclosing the knife, but if they searched him and found it, they’d probably use it to cut his throat. So he pulled up the cuff of his slacks and removed the dagger from its scabbard and gave it to the boy.

Smart move.

The next thing Gunther did was sling his rifle over his shoulder, turn David around and force him against the Renault, and give him a pat-down from head to toe. The kid spent more time than was necessary between David’s legs and grinned as he did so. But the search was thorough. Gunther definitely would have found the knife.

Then, rotating the rifle again, the young student gestured at the chalet door with the barrel. David headed that way.

Another student met him at the door, armed with the same kind of rifle. This one was Mario, from Madrid, son of two Spanish lawyers with political connections, the top student in David’s fitness class. Whenever David had seen him outside class, Mario had a different girl on his arm. He always wore a grin, like a mask, and his teeth looked especially white against the gloomy shadows of the mountain estate.

“Der Professor kommt,” he announced cheerily from behind his smile. “Was für ein Vergnügen.”

Then his smile disappeared as he said to Gunther in accented German: “Du hast ihn durchsucht?”

“Ja. Alles klar.”

With a confirmation that David had been searched, Mario led him from the foyer and down a couple of steps into a vast great room with a high angled ceiling. Lush carpet sank under his feet. Tall windows on two sides looked toward the mountains and valley, but the windows had been swathed in heavy drapes, blocking out the view. A couple of sconces on the timber-sided walls, and a fire in the flagstone fireplace, threw strange shadows.

Two other men stood on either end of a four-paneled room divider, which had been painted with a mural of wildflowers. David couldn’t see what was behind the divider. He recognized the two men, as he’d recognized the others. One was another student, an orphan and math prodigy from Prague named Lukas. The other was an economics professor at the college, in his midtwenties like David, a Cambridge Brit named Gavin Wright. They’d had drinks a few times in the year David had been here. Gavin was the one man David had expected to find at the chalet, because Gavin had been his first contact. According to Nash, Gavin Wright was the local field man for Le Renouveau, the one tasked with unearthing the political views of teachers and students and determining who might be potential recruits.

So, three months earlier, David had made a point of drinking too much and going on a rant about Muslim immigration in front of Gavin. Not long after, Gavin had floated the idea of introducing David to some people who shared his disgust with the leftist leadership of Europe and were committed to shaping a very different future for the continent. They were looking for men like David, Gavin told him, men who appreciated the hard choices that would have to be made.

Was David interested?

Yes, he was.

After that first meeting, David had worked his way up the chain, answering their questions, passing their tests, submitting to their background checks, all the way to the formal initiation ceremony on the mountainside. Here. Tonight.

He would finally be accepted as an official member of Le Renouveau.

Treadstone would have a mole inside the most poisonous neo-Nazi cell in Europe.

Gavin nodded at David from his position beside the painted divider, but he didn’t move. He wasn’t the man in charge. David realized there was a fifth person in the great room, a man seated in the corner near a staircase that led to the second floor of the chalet. His face was almost invisible in the shadows. All David could see was firelight glinting on silver-framed glasses and long legs ending in shiny black boots. A cloud of cigarette smoke blew out of his mouth toward the high ceiling.

Gunther nudged David with the point of the rifle, and David knew what to say. Gavin had already explained the protocol.

“Ich bin hier, um der Sache mein Leben und meine Treue zu versprechen,” David announced.

A long silence followed.

David squinted, trying to see the man in the corner more clearly, but his face remained little more than a ghost hidden behind smoke and shadow. David had a sense of glittering eyes—were they blue?—but he couldn’t be sure. He saw the man’s arm move with languid slowness, stripping the cigarette from between his lips.

“Auf Englisch, bitte,” the man said. “Sie sind Amerikaner.”

That voice! David was sure he had heard it before. It was familiar to him. But he struggled to place it.

Who was this man?

But David couldn’t stay silent any longer.

“I am here to swear my life and loyalty to the cause,” he repeated in English.

“Yes, that is better,” the man went on. “Americans sound so foolish when they speak anything but English. Ninety percent of Americans can’t order a fucking cup of coffee in another language, but you amassed so much power that you made the rest of the world learn English in order to cater to your ignorance. Remarkable.”

“I speak five languages fluently,” David pointed out.

“Oh, yes, yes, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not talking about you. And I say this with nothing but admiration for America. What’s the point of having power if you don’t use it?” He took another drag on his cigarette and offered up a nasty chuckle. “Of course, having made English the official language of the world, now you’re doing your best to give it up for yourselves, aren’t you?”

David listened to the man’s voice, still trying to pinpoint why he knew it. The man obviously wasn’t German or American himself, despite his perfect pronunciation. His raspy voice shifted easily between languages, but there was no obvious giveaway of his native tongue. If he’d been speaking Italian, or French, or Polish, he probably would have sounded different with each one.

It made David think the man was trying to hide his true identity. We know each other, don’t we? How?

“America has forgotten the unum,” David replied. “Now it’s e pluribus pluribus.”

“Indeed, but Europe is no better, letting heathens flood our borders.”

“I agree.”

“So I’m told,” the man said, eyes shining in the firelight. “You come highly recommended, but our group searches for much more than philosophy in our members. Philosophy is cheap, easily put on, easily shrugged off. My people say you are blessed with a unique combination of brains and physical skills. That is the kind of man we need. The kind of man who can go far in our organization.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” David said. “That’s what I want. To make a difference.”

“Excellent.” The man’s voice turned sharp, like the edge of a razor. “However, I’m sure you can appreciate that we need to be careful about whom we invite to join us. The oath you spoke about life and loyalty isn’t just words. It must be backed up by action. That’s the only way for us to trust that you are a friend and not an enemy. There are spies everywhere who seek to take us down.”

“I understand.”

“Then I have an assignment for you. From someone who intends to go far, much is expected.”

“What is it?”

The man behind the cigarette smoke and the silver glasses gestured with a flutter of his hand at Gavin, who stood beside the elaborately painted screen. Gavin slowly slid the screen closed in accordion style, meeting his partner on the other end. The two men lifted the heavy screen and pulled it aside, revealing what was hidden behind.

A woman sat in a wooden armchair, wrists and legs tied, a black hood covering her head and neck.

Oh God, no!

She was unmistakable. He recognized her body, the shape of her torso, the wavy blond hair at her shoulders, the curve of her legs. He’d made love to her a hundred times. He was in love with her. This was the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with.

Monika!

Gavin yanked off the hood, and there she was. That perfect face, oval and slim, tanned skin from sunny days on the ski slopes, dark, wickedly angled eyebrows, nose soft and small, deep red lips. Seeing that face made him want to touch her, kiss her, hold her, protect her. But she was in danger because of him. Her luminous blue eyes were wide with terror, her mouth gagged into silence, her ears covered so she couldn’t hear a word of what was happening around her. She stared back at him in shock and confusion, with no idea why she’d been kidnapped and taken here, why she was being held by men with guns, why David was in this room with them.

“I believe you know this woman,” the man in the corner said from the darkness.

David had to drag the words from his chest. “I do.”

“Fine. Then you will kill her, please.”

David blinked, his mind going blank, the words not even registering in his head. “What?”

“Kill her.”

“I have no weapon,” he protested, hunting for excuses, stalling for time.

“A soldier needs no weapons to kill,” the man snapped in an oily voice. “Are you our soldier? Then follow my orders. Do it now. Or I will instruct my men to fire, and they will kill you both.”

David tried to remember his training.

He tried to hear Nash’s voice in his head. What to do next. How to salvage the mission. How to save the woman he loved. But there was no middle ground left for him. The mission was already blown. He’d failed. He’d moved too fast, pushed too hard. They didn’t trust him. They knew. Of course they did. They’d known from the beginning that he was a spy. This had always been a trap.

And now he and Monika would both die for his mistakes.

No!

David Webb might fail, David Webb might die, but not Cain, never Cain! Cain was a survivor. He was the man David Abbott had raised him to be. He was a killer. He was Treadstone.

“As you wish,” Cain said.

He marched toward the woman in the chair. The barrels of four rifles followed him, ready to fire. The closest was in the hands of Gavin, six feet away, just out of his reach. It would take two steps to reach him, but that was one step too far. If he tried, the bullets would riddle his body before he got there.

Cain stood behind Monika, who squirmed below him, struggling against her bonds, screaming into her gag. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that everything would be okay, but he couldn’t.

His boots snapped together. He came to attention.

“I am here to swear my life and loyalty to the cause,” Cain announced loudly.

Then he placed his hands on either side of Monika’s trembling head and prepared to break the neck of the woman he loved.