The digital clock read 6:45 a.m. on the last day of the old year. Ambient light from streetlamps crept around the curtains. London stirred in the dark, dawn’s first appearance at least an hour away.
Brian Foster propped himself up on an elbow and watched his wife breathe in and out. Suzanne lay on her left side with her back to him. One arm was extended under the covers, the other wrapped protectively around herself. She looked to be deeply asleep. Brian hoped she was, although he doubted it. The position was one she adopted in Wales. She’d kept a pistol under her pillow.
He wanted to stroke her face, but he didn’t want to risk disturbing her. Even in the shadows, he could see that she’d hollowed out in the last week. He’d feared for his son’s life so much at times that his chest hurt. He still feared for his wife. Beneath the reserve and years of enforced self-discipline lay a darkness unresolved even by the leveling influence of her family.
Brian knew something about human psychology. Genetics and environment both played a role in shaping the psyche. He’d grown up in a loving home with two parents devoted to their family. Brian and his sister had never lacked for attention or inspiration. Friends and cousins provided an endless supply of playmates. The siblings had access to the best of French and British traditions from which to draw.
Yes, Peter Foster’s accidental death had been a tragedy, but it had been within the realm of the ordinary. Adult children lost parents and survived. Brian had certainly done so, though his family had faced some financial challenges for a time.
Suzanne’s early life lacked stability, to say the least. True, she’d remained physically in place within a single neighborhood in San Francisco. On the other hand, she’d been essentially rootless, a child whose parents’ gross neglect constituted abuse. She’d chosen her own guardians, beginning with the people who took her in when her mother threw her out. Then she met an older couple who looked after her when she briefly ended up homeless in Seattle. She’d even found herself a mentor in the Army. Suzanne knew what she needed: structure and a sense of belonging, a way to feel connected. Family.
She didn’t choose Victor Kemp, though. He chose her. She found herself in his sights because she killed the men she thought hurt her roommate. Why on earth did she get involved? She hadn’t been in any imminent danger. Killing those people didn’t necessarily guarantee her safety, although she might have believed it would. Why did she act on behalf of a woman she didn’t really know? Was she motivated by youthful hubris? Blood lust?
Brian didn’t believe his wife to be a psychopath. He wasn’t naive or blinded by love. He relied on analysis. The killing in Nashville spoke to Suzanne’s sense of justice, her instincts for dealing with a perceived threat, and perhaps a degree of misplaced confidence. He supposed most men who found themselves in the same position wouldn’t think to question their motives, let alone their actions. Suzanne did, as much as she protested otherwise.
Brian likened her years with Kemp to being a captured soldier forced to work for the enemy. She’d been, if not brainwashed, then thoroughly intimidated. She undoubtedly felt herself to be in jeopardy.
He understood that feeling. Even his line of work, which relied mostly on information gathering and assessment, became dangerous from time to time. He’d twice taken a life and caused the deaths of several others over the course of his career. Leaving aside the body count, how different were her actions from his?
If Suzanne didn’t try to explain away her past (and neither he nor Michael ever expected her to), she clearly worried about what that past had made her and what it had done to her family. Pragmatic and initially taciturn, she developed the habit of apologizing for putting them all in harm’s way. Michael finally asked her to stop.
“If anyone’s to blame, it’s the maniac who’s pursuing us. Okay? Let’s focus on bringing him down, and we’ll all sleep better.”
After they succeeded in doing just that (or so they believed), they returned to London. Freed from the strain of hiding and fearing, Suzanne nonetheless remained guarded, on the lookout for threats from without and within. Only recently had she agreed to see a therapist in order to sort through her experiences and, as she put it, “come to terms with what I am.”
“What you are is a brave, resourceful woman,” he assured her.
“But do you think I’m also a natural born killer?”
Suzanne had posed the question just six weeks earlier as they lay together under their goose feather comforter. Brian considered before he answered.
“We all are, aren’t we? I mean, we’re all geared to survive.”
She raised her head, her blue eyes fixed on him. “That’s what my friend Skeeter used to say.”
“Your Army instructor.”
Suzanne had trained under Jon “Skeeter” Hutchinson, a marksman with the infamous 9th Infantry Division. The division became a model for the Army’s first sniper school and set some sort of kill record during the Vietnam War. It’s no surprise they formed a connection, especially after she learned he was a closeted gay man. Two outsiders bonding over a rifle.
“He was in a position to speak to the issue, don’t you think? And you said he’d made peace with it.” This is what passes for intimate pillow talk between people like us, Brian remembered thinking, people who not only see but also fully immerse themselves in the muddy underbelly of the world.
He looked her full in the face, his green eyes intense. “If what you’re asking me, Suzanne, is whether I see you as someone who kills without compunction, the answer is no.”
“I have, though, haven’t I? Killed without compunction. So how can you say that with any assurance?”
“Because you ask the question. Because my answer matters to you. Because you care how your past actions and even your present impulses affect those closest to you. Because your question indicates the presence of compassion. And because I love you.”
He worried the last bit was too cavalier. He did love her, mightily. But love was a complicated tangle of generous and narcissistic impulses. Attraction played a role, as did affection. Most of all, love acted as a mirror of one’s own sense of worth. Suzanne made him feel strong, intuitive, even privileged to have access to the real woman hidden from the rest of the world.
She reached a hand to his face in the dark, her touch soft against his cheek.
“I love you, too.” Then she fell asleep.
That night, after she dozed off, something else occurred to him. Long-distance killers, whether behind a scope or in the cockpit of a bomber, have the luxury of being removed. The reality of modern warfare was that the warrior didn’t have to look into the eyes of the target. It didn’t change the soldier’s duty, but it might change how that soldier felt about killing. Brian’s two experiences had involved close encounters. Suzanne had a few of those, but she never stayed around, never looked down at the lifeless bodies of her victims. For all her experience with death, she had little blood on her hands.
That wouldn’t stop her from exacting revenge on Victor Kemp, if he lived. If he lived. She remained convinced he did. No body had been found, no evidence of life. Kemp had been seventy when he went into the water. Even a young man would have been unlikely to survive the sea, let alone the blast. That Kemp may have seemed impossible. Stranger things had happened, though.
One thing Brian knew: the woman who appeared so fragile and drained as she slept would strangle the man with her bare hands if she had a chance.
He slipped out of bed and padded into the kitchen, only a bit surprised to find his nephew dressed and with his laptop open on the tiny kitchen table.
“Good morning. I didn’t want to risk waking you by making coffee. Or are you a tea drinker?”
“Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon. I’ll get a pot going. I don’t know if we’ve got much to eat, though. We were expecting to be in Wales.”
“I picked up some milk and some pastries last night. Figured those would do.”
Simon set out two plates and a box.
“Here you go. Belgian patisserie. I actually located an open shop. Oh, and Mamà sent along some cheese and dried fruit, which I put in the fridge.”
“It’s good to have you here.”
It was an understatement. Next to his son, Brian loved Simon most of all. How he would have liked to keep Michael in a relatively stable situation with his Belgian relatives instead of leaving and returning, only to run again. All to prevent Victor Kemp from discovering he hadn’t succeeded in murdering the Foster family. The very thought of Kemp produced in Brian an all-consuming hatred hotter than any flame. Suzanne wasn’t the only one to feel the full effects of a deep rage.
“Are you all right?” Concerned, Simon pulled out the chair. “Sit down, okay?”
“I’m fine. Tired.” Tired and old, Brian thought. His sixty-third birthday had come and gone with a minimum of fuss, just a quiet dinner out with Suzanne. His doctor assured him everything was in working order and then some. Sixty-three was the new something or other. But Brian understood that a life of subterfuge had worn on him. He would be eternally grateful to SIS for insisting he keep on working, albeit discreetly and in disguise, during his twenty years on the run. It took a secretly sanctioned operation to wipe out the scourge that had ruined their lives.
Now he questioned whether they had truly succeeded.
“Uncle Brian, I have something to discuss with you relative to Victor Kemp. I think you’ll find this very interesting.”
“Do tell.”
The two men turned to see Suzanne standing at the entrance to the kitchen, wrapped in a lavender fleece robe, her tousled dark-blonde hair spilling over the collar. She looked rested, although dark smudges remained under her eyes. Husband and nephew popped up at the same time, nearly bumping heads. She laughed, the sound magical to Brian’s ears. He hadn’t heard her laugh in some time, hadn’t known if he ever would again.
“Don’t worry, you didn’t wake me. It was the smell of coffee. Honestly, I can’t think of a more luxurious way to get up in the morning. Well, unless . . .” Suzanne caught Brian’s eye and they both blushed.
“All right, you two, not in front of the young person. Auntie, may I get you a cup?”
She inhaled, took a sip, and sighed with contentment.
“Perfect. And stop calling me Auntie, Simon. Unless you want me to feel old.”
“Phtt, you are ageless.”
“Thank you. That’s just what a woman wants to hear early in the morning. Wait, are those mattentaarts? I love them! Where on earth did you find an open bakery? Simon, your resourcefulness astounds me.”
She bit into a cheese-filled pastry and groaned with delight. Her sugarcoated grin lifted Brian’s heart.
His energy had surged with the appearance of his wife. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. She looked beautiful. Her appetite had clearly returned. He noted with amusement that she reached for a second pastry before she finished the first. All of this suggested that at least superficially, Michael’s terrible ordeal hadn’t done his mother any permanent damage. What it had done to her emotionally—what it had done to them both—was something they would discover in time. Right now, they needed to deal with a host of unanswered questions.
As if she’d read his mind, Suzanne put down her pastry. “What is this interesting news you have, Simon?” she asked.
Uncle and nephew exchanged a glance. No sense in keeping anything from her.
“I’ve been checking regularly with my contacts. I know you’ve got plenty of resources at your disposal, Uncle. And you’ve got Charlie to help and your other colleagues. Given how preoccupied you’ve been . . .”
“Call me Brian, Simon. And don’t worry about hurting my feelings. You’re as equipped as I am to gather intelligence. Perhaps more so.”
The Metropolitan Police Force, also known as New Scotland Yard, led the investigation into Daniel Guzman’s motives. Because the incident occurred at the house of a member of Parliament, a special operations group within the force known as CTC, or the Counter Terrorism Command, had been activated. CTC worked closely with the domestic and international counterintelligence divisions, M15 and MI6, as well as with other intelligence partners. Brian had no concerns about slipping out of the loop. That didn’t make him any less grateful for Simon’s engagement.
Most people who knew (or thought they knew) Simon Vauclain believed he was employed by Friends of Europe, or Les Amis de l’Europe. The ostensibly nonpartisan think tank had been around for more than forty years. Its staying power owed to its efforts to remain relevant and widen its appeal. Though it began in Brussels, it developed over the decades a decidedly pan-European approach and a focus on citizen involvement. As far as anyone knew, Simon worked as director of social media.
In reality, he was employed by a non-aligned, nongovernmental organization so clandestine most agencies around the world didn’t know it existed. Like his uncle, Simon spoke several languages. Like Charlie Campbell, whom he greatly admired, he excelled at morphing into whoever he needed to be. His job also involved activities that required mental and physical prowess, or so Brian once confided to Suzanne.
“Super-spy stuff. Think James Bond, then double it.”
“He must report to someone, Brian. Who is it? Who signs his paycheck?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t know who does. I assume his bosses are the good guys, all things being relative.”
Now Suzanne wrapped both hands around her mug and gave Simon her full attention.
“Please go on.”
“There’s a coordinated effort to locate Daniel Guzman, as you can well imagine. I don’t need to tell you, Brian, heads are going to roll over the security at Lord Edgerton’s party. Basically, it failed. It’s not like Guzman snuck in a plastic pistol he made from a 3-D printer. He had a Glock, for God’s sake!” Suzanne flinched, but Simon didn’t seem to notice. “Initially, intel had him hopping a flight to Dubai or maybe Christchurch. Still other leads pointed to an escape to Moscow or Chicago. Each of these leads turned out to be not just false but deliberately constructed to throw us off the scent.”
“In other words, he could be anywhere.” Suzanne’s voice was flat, but Brian picked up on the underlying tension.
Simon shook his head. “He could be, assuming he had all sorts of sophisticated help. Which he clearly had. His phone records have been wiped; his computer is missing. The Met’s only clue as to where he’s been the past two years comes from an assortment of people he partied with. They’re being questioned, at least those who aren’t off on some sort of holiday. I doubt anyone will give up anything useful. For one thing, it’s not at all clear that anything Daniel told them is true.”
“What about the father? I mean, Francesco Guzman?”
“Ah, now there’s an interesting story, Uncle, er, Brian. The senior Guzman sold his company just two weeks ago.”
“That’s remarkable timing, wouldn’t you say, gentlemen?” Suzanne seemed curious but not fearful.
“Absolutely,” Simon agreed.
“I’ll follow up from my office. Simon, do your sources know where he might have gone?”
“He’s reported to have retired, although the location is unknown. One woman at his headquarters”—Simon drew air quotes around the word— “claims he decided on Costa Rica. Only he’s not there. Or if he is, he’s living under an assumed name. We’ve checked. Another thing: none of the staff remembers Francesco Guzman mentioning a son. Not that they actually met the man. The conversations were all by telephone.”
Suzanne took a sip of coffee. “I understand the elder Guzman never married.”
“Correct, at least according to what we’ve been able to find out. So, what is his relationship to Daniel Guzman? Illegitimate or adopted son? Grandson? Nephew? Interpol has no DNA for either of the Guzmans.”
“And both of them have disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“What do either of you know about Daniel Guzman’s mother?”
“According to the few people we’ve contacted, Daniel never talked about a mother or any siblings, only about how rich his old man was and how he was in the shipping business.”
“You do know Victor Kemp’s mistress is—was named Luisa Guzman.”
“We know. It’s a common name.”
Brian looked down at his mug. The thick coffee obscured the bottom of the cup. “There’s still a lot left to uncover.”
“If it’s any consolation, there are any number of agencies still looking, including my group. If there are layers, we’ll pull them back.”
“There are always layers.” Suzanne set down her cup and left the room.