FORTY-EIGHT

Court and Zoya made it to his Spandau safe house thirty minutes after leaving the Adlon. He parked his bike in a weed-strewn asphalt lot behind the building, the two of them climbed off, and he showed her the way upstairs.

He was winded on the climb. The fight had taken too much out of him, and even with the drugs in his system to keep him going, he felt utterly drained.

At the top of the stairs Zoya saw this. “What’s wrong?”

Court wiped yet another heavy coat of sweat from his forehead; it replenished itself immediately, and he pulled out the key to his apartment. “We’ll talk inside.”

A moment later Zoya stood in the middle of the bare flat, and she looked around the drab space. “Living the good life, I see.”

“I didn’t get a fancy suite at the Kempinski.”

“I hear one just became available.” She stepped closer to Court, took him by the arm, and looked at the bloody hand towel tied there. “Although housekeeping might need a few minutes.” She took off the towel and examined the wound. “Nice one. Do you have a blowout kit?”

“In the kitchen.”

Together they stepped into the small kitchen, and here she opened a black bag full of trauma supplies that sat on the counter. While she did this, Court opened the refrigerator and took out two bottles of water.

While Zoya prepared the items she needed to dress Court’s wound, she said, “Back in the suite. You wouldn’t let me take the shot. Something about overpenetration?”

“I saw four kids go into the room on the far side of that wall, less than an hour earlier. Don’t know if they were there still, but I didn’t want to shoot one, and didn’t think you did, either.”

“Well, I guess it didn’t matter, in the end. I’d heard Akulov was insane, but I didn’t know he thought he could fly.”

Court eyed her a moment while she began gauzing his biceps. “Akulov, as in, Maksim Akulov?”

She nodded. “That was him.”

“No kidding?” Court said. “I’ve been hearing that name for years.”

“Yeah, he was kind of Russia’s . . . you.”

“Well, I wasn’t that impressed, to be honest.”

“You didn’t get him at his best.”

“Suits me. I love assassins that suck.”

She tied off the wrap, a little tighter than Court would have wanted, and then he went to the bathroom and grabbed a roll of toilet paper, then came back and wiped dried blood from her face that had dripped from her nose.

“Do you have any vodka?” she asked.

“I don’t, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s fucking ten a.m., Zoya.”

She laughed at this, and he laughed, too, then said, “Hey, back there . . . did you throw a ham sandwich at one of those guys?”

“I threw whatever the hell I could get my hands on. I think there was a ham-and-cheese croissant. Which means, not only were they bad assassins, but they also got my breakfast order wrong.”

“I think I saw an omelet in the air, too. Did Russia teach you that shit at spy school?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was throwing the plate, not the food on the plate.”

“Whatever.” He looked at her now. “It’s good to see you.”

They stepped back into the empty living room.

Zoya sat on the small wicker sofa. “You always turn up in the strangest places.”

“Where I immediately bump into you.”

“You didn’t bump into anybody. You’ve been following me.”

“You saw me?”

“No,” Zoya admitted. “You’re invisible when you want to be. But Brewer told you where I was, I assume.”

“Yeah.”

Court sat down next to her. Even with the sickness and the injuries that racked his body, he wanted to move closer, to press himself against her, to kiss her. But instead he kept a couple feet of distance, because he found her body language hard to read.

“How have you been?” he asked.

“Since you shot me, you mean?” Court had indeed shot Zoya in the hip months earlier in Scotland, the instant after Zoya shot Brewer because she thought Brewer was about to shoot Court.

With extreme understatement, he said, “Yeah . . . that was a mess.”

He rubbed his forehead; perspiration dripped to the floor.

Zoya softened a little. “Something . . . something is not right with you. Are you sick?”

“Picked up a little infection. The fever comes and goes. I’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

She looked at him like she didn’t believe him, then said, “You need to get to Templeton Three, in Maryland. They’ll patch you up. Then Hanley will come yank you out of your hospital bed and throw you back out to the wolves.”

Court sniffed out a tired little laugh. “That kinda sounds like something he might do.” He added, “Hey, sorry about your friend.”

“What friend?”

“Ennis.”

She looked at him with confusion. “He wasn’t a friend. He was my contact at Shrike.”

“Okay,” Court said, and Zoya cocked her head now.

“What?”

“I mean, last night, at dinner. It kind of looked like you guys were getting along.”

Zoya pushed a long strand of dark hair back behind an ear. “I was working him.”

“Okay.”

“I was.”

Court nodded now, took another gulp of water, and looked away.

When he did not speak, she said, “Ennis was my only route up the food chain at Shrike. He was also a gossipy fool, if you want my opinion.”

Court said nothing.

Zoya cocked her head again, and a little smile grew. “You’re . . . jealous?”

Now he turned away, but affected a laugh. “Yeah, that’s it,” he said, with poorly sold sarcasm.

“That’s hilarious.” She said this with a little smile, and then her smile went away.

It seemed every time Court encountered Zoya Zakharova, there was both affection and mistrust in the air. So far, on their previous meetings, he’d been able to eliminate the mistrust over time, but he worried this was getting harder and harder to do.

Shooting her hadn’t helped, but that wasn’t the only rift between them.

Zoya replied, “We aren’t good, you and I.”

“I know,” he responded, though, in truth, her words saddened him.

“But,” she added, “you saved my life back there. Not for the first time, either.”

Court thought back to the mad battle in the hotel suite, running it quickly through his mind like an organized after-action report. “Well, you shot the big dude, and the little dude did a header out the window. I’m not sure I did anything more than create a diversion.”

“Yeah. Well, you are my walking, talking flash bang grenade.” She smiled at him again, squeezed his good arm. “It’s good to see you, too.”

Court’s right arm hurt, his left shoulder burned, he was exhausted and feverish, but this small moment of human interaction made him the happiest he’d been in months.

Since the last time the two of them shared a tender moment.

He knew what this meant, of course. It meant he was in love with her, and he worried still that it would be his undoing.

He shook his head to clear these thoughts away, and she looked at him strangely, wondering what must have been going on in his mind. But before she could ask, he got back to business. “Anyway. You’re out, now. This op is over.”

“Oh . . . great. This is where you start telling me what to do, isn’t it?”

“No, I just—”

She shook her head. “It’s not over. Not even close.”

“What do you mean? You’re blown.”

“I’m blown at Shrike, but I can’t leave Berlin yet. Something is about to happen.”

“Yeah, you’re about to get shot by Russian assassins.”

“Not with you watching my back.”

Court shook his head. This was an insane argument. “I’ve got assholes running around Berlin trying to kill me, too, Zoya. Sticking around till one of us gets schwacked is the dumbest thing imaginable.”

“So . . . you are leaving town?”

Court took a few slow breaths. “No. Hanley needs me to—”

“Right,” she interrupted. “I can’t handle it here. But you can.”

Court didn’t know what to say; he was trying to keep her safe, but she was taking it to mean he was trying to control her, to hold her to a different standard than he held himself to. He changed the subject. “What do you mean, something is about to happen?”

Zoya didn’t want to change the subject; this was clear from the expression on her face, even to Court. But after a moment she said, “Ennis said the company’s contract with their client will end. The Germans will be handed the intel they needed to put EU sanctions back on Iran.”

To this Court shrugged. “Okay. Great. So, Shrike are the good guys. Why do we need to get in the middle of that?”

Zoya shook her head. “But that’s not what this is all about. Shrike Group is running a scam. They’re trying to set the Iranian embassy up to take the fall for some sort of future terror attack by Quds Force. Ennis told me this morning before he died.”

Court nodded at this. “I have to talk to Hanley.”

“No. We have to talk to Hanley. And then we have to find Haz Mirza, the Quds Force cell commander here in Berlin.”

But Court wasn’t having it. “The Russians know you’re here, and if there aren’t more than the two we killed already looking for you, and the two you saw in the lobby of the Adlon, you can bet there will be a shit-ton more in town by nightfall. You know I’m right. You aren’t helping the Agency, you are jeopardizing this mission by staying here.”

She put her head in her hands, and Court saw that she understood.

Court said, “I’ll take over the op.”

“Do you have any sort of a plan?” Zoya asked.

Court shrugged. “Not really. I guess I’ll try to find this Mirza asshole.”

“Ennis said Dittenhofer is the one surveilling the Mirza operation. Remotely. She’s in one of his phones, she can hear his conversations.”

Court nodded. Resolute now. “Then I have a plan. I’m going to find Annika Dittenhofer, shake her down for the intel that Hanley needs about Shrike, and get her to lead me to Mirza.”

“And what are you going to do to Mirza?”

“I’m not going to throw a ham sandwich at him, I can promise you that.”

Zoya rolled her eyes.

Court said, “I’m going to kill him, and then I’m getting the fuck out of here myself before the dickheads from yesterday track me down again.”

She said, “That’s a big operation for a sick man with a wounded right arm and a fucked-up left shoulder.”

“I appreciate your confidence.”

Zoya smiled a little now. “You’ll need support in the field. If not me, you need to get Hanley to link you up with Berlin station.”

Court looked at her like she was crazy. “Why would I do that? The station is burned to Shrike Group.”

Zoya turned to face him. “What are you talking about?”

“PowerSlave.”

It was quiet in the empty apartment for several seconds. “I’m supposed to know what that means?”

“Jesus.” Court understood. “Brewer and Hanley didn’t tell you because they didn’t want you to know you were working without a net in Berlin.” When she shrugged, he said, “PowerSlave is a tool stolen from NSA. A biometric database containing all American intelligence personnel, linked to a program that can identify them on camera feeds. Sort of a master key to expose spooks and operators in the field. It was created by an NSA official named Clark Drummond, who worked directly for Dittenhofer, and it’s been up and running for most of a year for Shrike here in Berlin.”

Zoya looked up to the ceiling. “I knew nothing about this. They told me I’d have support if Moscow found me. And when I told Brewer that Moscow found me, they told me to sit tight.”

Court cocked his head. “You told Brewer that Moscow found you here? She didn’t say anything to me about that.”

Zoya put her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “That’s Brewer for you. You’re right. Even without what happened today, I’m burned here as an asset to Shrike Group.”

“You’d just make it more dangerous for me if you stayed, not less. The Russians aren’t targeting me.” He amended that. “Well, they aren’t targeting me like they’re targeting you.”

Zoya didn’t argue the point, but she did ask, “What about Hightower? Why isn’t he here helping us?”

“Because he’s in a jail cell in Caracas.”

She was surprised by this. “What’s he doing there?”

“Not a whole lot, would be my guess. SEBIN has him.”

“At Helicoide prison?”

“How did you know?”

“I know a little about Venezuela. I did . . . a . . . thing there once.” She shrugged. “Once or twice.”

Court knew better than to ask. She wouldn’t say, and he really didn’t want to know.

She surprised him with her next comment. “If I could get him out, would he be able to help you?”

Court nodded. “Well, sure, I could use his support here, especially if anything kicks off with the Iranians, but I don’t know how you are going to be able to—”

“I know some people.” She smiled a little. “More importantly, some people know me. I’ll call Matt and see if he’ll approve it.”

Court shook his head adamantly. “With Matt, often it’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.”

The Russian brunette nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. I’ll just disappear for a couple of days. I’ve got access to an Agency account in Cyprus. It’s not a ton, but I could probably get the money I need to go down and get Hightower.”

Court said, “And I have access to an Agency account in Antigua. I’ll give you the account and routing numbers.” He added, “But the most important thing is that you leave here now.”

They exchanged contact information, and Court passed over his banking info. This wasn’t a CIA account; in truth, it was his own personal money, but he’d amassed a small fortune there in his years as a freelance assassin, and he wanted Zoya to have all the resources she needed.

When this was done, both of them rose, each helping the other up. As they stood face-to-face, close for the first time, Zoya’s expression turned even more serious.

“What is it?” Court asked, concerned.

Zoya didn’t respond. Instead she grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him hard on the mouth. He kissed her back, and they lingered close for a long moment, wrapped in the silence of the morning.

Finally, she backed away a half step.

Court didn’t know what to say. He felt that way a lot around Zoya.

She repeated herself from earlier. “We’re not good, you and I.”

Court nodded slowly, as if he understood. But he did not. Women bewildered him.

She said, “But . . . everything you do, Court, you do it with the best of intentions. You’re not perfect. Sometimes, you’re wrong. Sometimes, you’re so incredibly wrong you fuck things up royally. But I’ve never met anyone in my life, other than my late brother, who is such a fundamentally good person.”

Court didn’t think he was all that great, but he appreciated her saying it. They embraced again; he was careful to keep his new injury out of her grasp as he did so.

Court shook away the soft stuff and got back to business yet again. “Get out of here. If you can get to Zack, send him this way. If you can’t, then don’t worry about it. I’ve made it this far on my own. Also, dump your phone. And remember about Hanley. You can trust him to do what’s best for the USA, but you can’t trust him to tell you the truth. About anything. He manipulates people like us into doing some crazy shit, and I think you need to try to get out of the crazy-shit business.”

“Look who’s talking,” she said with a little laugh.

“Yeah,” Court responded, and he motioned to his body with a wave of his hand. “Look who’s talking.” He was wounded and sick, and he looked like death warmed over.

“You make a good point,” Zoya said, and she kissed him one more time, then headed for the door.