XPC COMPOUND
LAUTERBRUNNEN VALLEY, SWITZERLAND
MAC DROVE THE TRUCK to a lakeside intersection in the next valley over to rendezvous with Eddie. The thieves jumped out of the box truck, laughing and joking. But when Tyler shouted at them, “All of you, shut up and get over here!” the team went silent.
Talia could see the rebuke ready on his lips as they all gathered around. She knew why. Eddie had failed to account for all the personnel in the compound. Thus, Darcy had done nothing to block the office door, allowing a drunken brute with an ice axe to come after them. To cap it off, Talia had hesitated, waiting too long to put the man down.
Tyler scowled at the group. “After Milan, I wasn’t sure this group could work as a team. After tonight, I know”—his frown cracked into a smile and he pulled a cooler out of the bay—“you are a team.” Tyler tossed them each a bottle of Socata, the same citrus drink he kept on his Gulfstream. He raised one in toast. “To small victories, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s hope the final heist goes as smooth.”
It took a moment for Talia and the others to catch on, and then Finn popped the cap of his bottle and held it high. “Hear, hear!”
Soda bottles clinked. “Hear, hear!”
Finn and Darcy chuckled over the fireworks on the dormitory exits. Mac commended Eddie for his work watching over them.
“I did good, right?” The geek balanced his fidget spinner on his index finger.
“Yeah, you did.” Mac clapped him on the back hard enough to knock the spinner into the grass. “That’ll do, Wee Man. That’ll do.”
Talia stood apart from the thieves, quiet. Tyler came over to join her. “Something wrong?”
“No. That’s just it. I had . . . fun.”
“And that’s bad?”
She shrugged, lowering her voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “Maybe. It should be bad if I’m having fun while committing a crime.” She bit her lip. “The man I shot. He’ll be okay, right?”
“He’ll be fine.” Tyler finished his drink, set the bottle down in the grass, and popped open another. “So will his buddies. And you can bet Brennan will approve an anonymous donation that covers their loss. With interest.” He paused to watch Mac entertaining the others with a reenactment of his backward driving. “Sometimes the moral ambiguities of covert work are hard. We do the job with the legal blessing of one government, acting against the laws of another.”
Talia pursed her lips. “Yeah. I took those classes at the Farm. We serve the greater good. That’s fine, but the instructors were never too clear on a full definition of the term.”
“In that case, you should feel bad, or perhaps concerned. Never serve something you can’t define, Talia. Personally, I don’t bother with the greater good.”
I don’t bother with the greater good. The statement sounded positively villainous. Talia tried to laugh it off, bumping his shoulder. “Look, if you’re about to tell me to embrace the dark side, I—” Her voice fell away. Tyler was looking at her without one hint of sarcasm in his eyes. “Um . . . Okay. Why would I not serve the greater good?”
“The greater good is malleable.” He turned his eyes to the thieves again, tipping his bottle toward the Scotsman. “Mac’s greater good is money. Our chemist’s greater good is art and political self-righteousness. Finn’s is the thrill of the heist.” Tyler shrugged. “To the Supreme Leader of Iran, the greater good involves wiping Israel off the map. If you don’t believe me, check his Twitter account. The greater good is shifting sand. You can’t trust it.”
“So how is a spy supposed to know what’s right or wrong?”
“I told you when we first met.” Tyler returned to his drink, giving her nothing else.
Talia searched her memory and read the words of their first conversation as if they were text. Tyler had quoted Jefferson. I know but one code of morality for men. “God,” she said slowly. “To Jefferson, morals were not malleable. They were absolute, and they came from one source.”
Tyler affirmed her answer with a single nod. “Don’t focus on the greater good. Focus on a higher power—the higher power. That’s how we put what we do to a moral test.”
Over by the truck, the celebration was winding down. Finn and Mac climbed into the bay and began securing the equipment for the long drive home.
“What’s left?” Talia asked.
“Only one thing.” Tyler picked up his empty bottle and dropped it into a plastic bag. He collected hers as well, raising his voice so the others could hear. “We’re down to the final step. Val has to get Gryphon’s voiceprint ID from Ivanov. She says she’s close.”
Finn poked his head out from the cargo bay. “How long?”
“Less than twenty-four hours. Tomorrow, Ivanov presents the Mark Seven and the Gryphon concept to the expo. That’s when we make our play.”
Talia rode home in GROND, with Mac at the wheel and Eddie at his station, while Tyler and Finn hung back to refuel the truck. She didn’t wait up for them at the chateau. The team still had preparations to make, but her body would not let her stay awake another minute. She would nap for a few hours, and then get back to work.
After a yawning good night to Eddie, she kicked off her shoes and climbed into bed. Sleep came on quickly, perhaps thanks to Franklin’s information. Her dad’s murder and history with the Agency were a shock, but they were answers—real answers. She found solace there. Tyler would help her through the rest. She had misjudged him.
WHEN TALIA NEXT AWOKE, she found the late morning sun pouring through the break in her curtains. How long had she slept? She had no idea. The room had no clock, and she hadn’t checked the time on her phone before passing out. After a quick shower, she walked down the hall to knock on Eddie’s door.
No answer.
She pushed in, one hand covering her eyes. “Eddie, if you’re in the shower, say something. Quick.” But she heard no running water from the bathroom. She dropped her hand. “He’s probably in Mission Control.”
In no particular hurry, Talia tromped down the stairs to the next floor and rounded the corner into the big media room. “Eddie, you should have—”
Empty.
Downstairs, the great room was empty as well. The fireplace was cold. “Where is everybody?” Looking past the fireplace, she saw the double doors to Tyler’s master suite hanging open and walked in. “Hey! Tyler! Are you in here?”
A shaft of light shone in from the balcony, spilling across the carpet. The bed was made. The bathroom door was open. She turned in a slow circle until her gaze fell on the largest of Tyler’s Orthodox oil paintings, hanging on the wall above his desk. The scene depicted a wolf and lamb lying peacefully in a deep green valley underneath a quote in gold Cyrillic lettering.
A blinking green light beneath the painting caught Talia’s eye. Tyler had left his laptop open on the desk, with a thumb drive active. Talia walked over. Maybe the last thing Tyler had been working on would tell her where everyone had gone, assuming she could guess his password.
“Oh, Tyler. Really?” There was no password. She frowned at his poor security as the screen came to life. There was only one file in the thumb drive folder, one with a file extension Talia didn’t recognize. She tried clicking on it. A document full of garbled symbols opened.
A fraction of a second later, the computer ran an automatic decryption program. Line by line the symbols resolved into names and numbers. The column headings were BIDDER, RESERVE, and ACCOUNT NUMBER, and the center column of every line read $250,000. This was an auctioneer’s list of buyers, with their earnest money stored in separate escrow accounts.
Scrolling down, Talia found the auction notes.
ITEM FOR SALE: DETAILED DESIGN FOR AIR-BREATHING HYPERSONIC MISSILE
BROKER: THE ENGLISHMAN, STANDARD FEE
BIDDING TO COMMENCE FOLLOWING PROOF-OF-CONCEPT DEMONSTRATION
It looked like Tyler had found a list of Lukon’s buyers, compiled by the Englishman, the third-party broker referenced in the Dark Web post he had shown her back in Tiraspol. It was a serious lead. Why hadn’t he shared it with her?
Talia lifted her eyes from the laptop to the wolf and lamb painting. She focused on the Cyrillic, a scripture reference in archaic Russian—something about a wolf dwelling with a lamb. The word for “wolf” gave her trouble. In her language studies, Talia had learned that older Russian and Cyrillic often borrowed words and letters from Greek. She sounded out the phonetics in her head. What she came up with made her world tilt on edge.
LUKON.