44

You are twenty-eight times more likely to be killed by a dog than by a shark. Explain why, and then rank the following states in order of likelihood of being killed by an animal, insect, arthropod, or human: Texas, Wyoming, South Dakota, Florida, and Oregon.

“I need to ask you something,” Rory says as we drive toward the city. “Why did we really come to California?”

“Because of Grandpa. To get his things in order.”

“You could do that this summer. Why now? Why did we have to leave New York in the middle of the year? Why did we have to give up our whole life?”

“You know Dad always wanted to move here. He loved Northern California, the clean air, the big beaches and hiking trails, this whole other life we couldn’t give you in New York City. He thought our noisy apartment with the crazy upstairs neighbor and the cramped little rooms was too stressful.”

“I liked our apartment. I liked my school. You loved your job. All those years, Dad wanted to leave, but you talked him out of it, so why now?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Really,” Rory insists. “Why did you leave your job?”

“I had to.”

“Why did you have to?”

“I made a mistake. A big one.”

“Did you get fired?”

“No, no, nothing like that. After I made this mistake, I couldn’t trust my judgment.”

“Mom, I need more than that.”

I’m thinking about how to word it and, of course, how to say it in an unclassified way.

“I had this friend,” I begin.

“Friend, or”—Rory raises his fingers in air quotes—“‘friend’?”

I smile sadly. “He was a ‘friend’ who became a friend.”

“So what happened?”

“The night after the funeral—”

Rory flinches. I’m not sure I’ve said the word “funeral” aloud to him in all these months. “When you dropped me off at Marcus’s house?”

“Yes. I had to go meet my friend at a hotel.”

“Which hotel?”

“Doesn’t matter. He was in town for only one night. He came specifically to see me. I said I couldn’t get away. I told him that we’d buried your dad the night before, but he still insisted, so I knew it was an emergency.”

“So you went.”

“Yes.” The memory resurfaces in my mind, images I don’t want to see. “A long SDR—”

“Surveillance detection route?”

I nod. “Up to Yankee Stadium, down to the village, around in circles, and then to the hotel.”

“What did he want?”

“He needed to tell me he might have been compromised.”

Rory sits up straighter, frowning, trying to follow. “Compromised? Like he thought his people knew he was your friend?”

“Yes.”

“And a friend to America.”

“Exactly.”

“How did he end up on our side?”

“It’s my job. Making friends. Believe it or not, sometimes I can be pretty persuasive.”

“How do you persuade someone to do something they don’t want to do?”

“You listen to them, you pay attention, you put yourself in that person’s shoes. You figure out what they want or, more importantly, what they need, what motivates them. The most successful people in the spy game are the ones who don’t just exhibit empathy but actually feel it. Empathy is something you can’t fake.”