Chapter 11

11

You hit bottom when you stop digging.

— the Big Book

Brighton Beach

Now

We make our way down the boardwalk, the shuttered attractions of Coney Island disappearing into the night sky behind us. The unencumbered wind hurtling off the water bites and claws at our skin.

We could have walked down Surf Avenue, gotten a little shelter from the weather, but I think Booker and Valencia feel the same way I do: the cold air is clarifying, and we’re all processing the weight of what could happen.

Our destination appears in the distance: Ekaterina, a Russian restaurant and nightclub that spills onto the boardwalk. This part of the neighborhood is referred to as Little Odessa, for the Russian and Ukrainian immigrants who settled here in the 1970s. Even though the Russian Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar, putting their celebration of Christmas on January 7, the place is decked out for the holiday.

People are crowded onto the worn wooden planks, smoking and chatting, many of them wearing novelty necklaces strung with flashing Christmas bulbs. In the sea of slacks and mink coats and sparkling jewelry, we are drastically underdressed.

As we approach the door, Booker pulls the wooden rosary out from inside his shirt and presses the cross to his lips, then breaks off and goes to the ma?tre d’, a man as short as he is wide, wearing a heavy coat and a black ushanka. A few cries go up from the people waiting in line. Booker and the ma?tre d’ lean into each other and whisper, first in a way that is not friendly, and then they warm up, before getting even more unfriendly. I still do not like putting the two of them in this position.

Especially because we’re here to see Zmeya.

I’ve never met her. I don’t tend to deal much with the Russians, though I killed more than a few. They’re a different level of crazy. But you can’t be in this line of work and not know who Zmeya is. She owns this neighborhood and, the whispers say, has a direct line to the Kremlin. In Russian folklore, the zmeya is a many-headed dragon, so I’m suspecting this isn’t going to be a super-chill conversation.

Booker and the ma?tre d’ clearly come to some kind of understanding and he waves the three of us in. We walk through the outdoor patio, where people are huddled under space heaters, and then into the restaurant, where klezmer music slams into us. The place is all gilded and lined with heavy velvet drapes, that ostentatious Russian design sense that seems like a direct rebuke of the brutalism of communism. There’s barely room for the servers to navigate the sea of crowded tables, and across the room is a large stage full of showgirls in sparkling silver dresses and elaborate headpieces just finishing some sort of performance.

The three of us invite a lot of stares. At first, I think the restaurant is almost exclusively white, so a Black man and a Hispanic woman stand out. Then I realize the stares are directed at me. One man stands up, whom I don’t recognize. Then another, and this one I do: Alexsei Zaitsev, a KGB directorate chief.

It’s not every day the Pale Horse walks in, I guess.

My chances of getting out of here alive seem to be trending downward.

We’re led to a door, behind which is a staircase. At the bottom is a storage room, mostly restaurant supplies. The man reaches underneath one of the heavy wooden shelves, flips something, and pulls it aside. The shelf swings out to a large room—an ornate lounge with a bar on one end and tables loosely filling the space. At one, there’s a spirited poker game going.

As we walk through the space, the poker game stops and people stand from the tables, dragging them away, creating room in the middle of the floor.

Booker told us to hang back and trust him, so I’m giving him the leeway on that, but I drop into a loose fighting stance when out of the shadows steps a man who looks like a cross between a Rottweiler and a brick wall. He’s massive, with a shaved head covered in faded, blurry, grayscale tattoos—the kind you pick up in a prison.

Between this Russian and my Russian, what the hell are they feeding these guys that makes them so big?

He smiles and cracks his sausage fingers, then shrugs out of a black blazer and throws it in the corner. He’s wearing a tank top underneath, showing off fighter-jet arms. Booker is squared up: his right foot drawn back, his left heel planted forward, his hands at his waist.

The goon laughs as he moves toward Booker and throws a massive haymaker, which, if properly landed, would take Booker’s head clean off. But he telegraphs it too far in advance, allowing Booker to slip underneath and slam a sharp, nasty hook into the brute’s side.

The Russian winces but doesn’t budge, then puts his weight into an elbow, snapping it down on top of Booker’s head. Booker goes down hard, sprawling on the floor.

People are cheering now, trading dollar bills and rubles. There’s a woman at the back, draped in shadow, so that I can barely make her out. All I can see is the burning ember of her cigarette and a slight sparkle in her eye.

The Russian lifts a massive boot into the air and is about to bring it down on Booker, who rolls out of the way and springs to his feet. He steps back, creating a little more distance, letting the Russian come at him, and his foot snaps out into a well-aimed and efficient teep kick, with just enough force to stop the giant’s momentum.

As he stumbles, Booker follows it with a hard low roundhouse, wrapping his shin around the back of the Russian’s knee. The Russian lands so hard on that knee I think I hear it crunch, even over the yelling. Then Booker follows with another hook, getting his entire body behind it. The tooth-shaking blow lands and the Russian jerks his head but still doesn’t go down.

Booker manages to hook his arm around the Russian’s throat as he throws his body over the man’s back, yanking him to the floor and putting him in a choke hold, moving into a high-elbow guillotine on the ground. It’s a smart move, good for smaller grapplers fighting bigger opponents. The Russian’s head is tucked close to Booker’s torso, and Booker curls his body tight against the man, trapping one arm and robbing him of leverage. The Russian swings wildly but can’t land a solid blow.

From here, Booker just has to hold tight until the Russian tires himself out.

The yelling from the crowd intensifies, which causes Booker to tighten his grip. The Russian’s face is red and he can’t break free. He smacks Booker hard on the back a few times, and Booker lets go. The two of them get off each other, the Russian’s chest heaving like he’s breathing through a straw. They shake hands and the Russian retreats to the back of the room and disappears. Booker comes over to me, his face coated in sweat. He nods to me.

“She’ll see you now,” he says.

I pat him on the shoulder before heading over to the table in the back. The men sitting there get up and move away, leaving me and the woman by ourselves.

She’s ancient, her skin like parchment, gray hair cut in a bob. She’s wearing a black pashmina over a red dress, with minimal makeup and a heavy jewel-encrusted sapphire ring on the hand she’s smoking with, which she uses to gesture to the seat across from her. She looks like she’d blow away on a stiff breeze, but even then, her eyes would be left behind in the wake. She has shark eyes.

“A celebrity in our midst,” she says.

Tables squeal as they’re moved back into place. The poker game resumes.

I nod over my shoulder. “What was that about?”

She stamps out her cigarette in a marble ashtray. “Dmitri and your friend had some unfinished business.”

“Dmitri needs to work on his ground game.”

She offers the briefest flash of a smile and points that ring finger at me again. “I have been telling him this, but he does not listen.” She gives the table a little slap. “Please sit.”

I take the seat across from her. “I’m looking for someone.”

She savors a long sip of wine. “Aren’t we all?”

“He’s tall. Six and a half feet at least. Hair shaved into a Mohawk. On his arm”—I hold up my own forearm—“he has a tattoo. A dot, surrounded by four more. I’m told it’s supposed to mean he was in prison.”

“Yes,” she says. “He was.”

“You know him?”

She smiles at me, disappointed and upset.

Like, How dare you?

“What’ll it cost?” I ask.

She waves a hand, showing off the room. “You are free to make me an offer. Though there is not much in this world I do not already have.”

“I give a pretty mean foot rub,” I tell her.

“Do you know who I am?” she responds, playful.

“Ulyana Semenova,” I tell her, and when I say that, her fa?ade drops for a second, delivered in the form of a fluttering eyebrow; most people probably don’t know her real name. “You were an intelligence officer. A headhunter. You sought out and trained agents, won some American agents over to the Soviet cause. Story goes, you were a major player in Operation Horizon, back in the 1960s. Exposed more than a hundred foreign agents in the USSR and had them expelled from the country. Big victory for Khrushchev, bigger victory for the KGB. You were good at what you did. I suspect you did that until one day you decided you wanted to be rich. And now you’re here. The Zmeya.”

She picks up a box of Russian-brand cigarettes, plucks one out, and places it between her lips but doesn’t light it. “And how do you know this?”

“You know who I am,” the Pale Horse says. “It pays to be a student of geopolitics.”

My experience thus far has been that every time I lean into my real voice, it strikes fear into the heart of whoever hears it.

She just smiles, plucks the cigarette from her lips, and gestures with it like a laser pointer. “In my restaurant, too. What an honor. There are a few people here tonight who would like very much to end your life. They would not do so unless I granted them the permission. Lucky for you, I am in a good mood. But you should be careful on the walk home.”

Well. Looks like I overplayed my hand.

“So, this man,” she says. “I will tell you who he is. Because now I have decided what it is I want from you.” She pauses for effect. “A favor. To be decided upon at my leisure.”

My heart drops into my lower intestine. She sees it happen and just smiles wider. There’s a water glass on the table that looks untouched. I pick it up and drink, hoping it will loosen my throat. “What kind of favor?”

“I cannot tell you,” she says. “I may ask you to kill someone. It is what you do. But I may become curious to know if what you say is true, and ask you to rub my tired feet one night. It will depend on my needs.”

She puts the cigarette back in her mouth and lights it.

“I have money,” I tell her.

“I have more,” she says.

“What else would you consider?”

“Please,” she says. “What is one more life to the Pale Horse?”

“It could put me in conflict with my employers,” I tell her.

She shrugs. “Nothing in life is free.”

“Fine,” I tell her. “You get one favor. But I get veto power.”

She takes a thoughtful drag.

“One time.”

I think that’s the best I’m going to do.

“Deal,” I tell her.

She snaps her fingers, and a man appears with a chef’s knife, a wineglass, and an open bottle of wine, which he places down on the table between us. She drags the knife softly against her papery skin, creating a shallow cut about an inch long on the meaty part of her forearm, and lets a few drops of blood fall into the glass. She wipes the knife with a clean napkin and hands it to me, handle first. I do the same. She then pours a small portion of wine into the glass and drinks before passing it to me.

This right here is why I don’t like to deal with the Russians.

Lunatics.

I take a sip, potentially ruining everything I’ve worked for.

“Viktor Kozlov,” she says. “He is known as the Beast. It is a slightly long story of which I’m not sure all the details are pertinent, but he did spend time in prison. Orenburg Oblast, near the border of Kazakhstan.”

“The Black Dolphin.”

She smiles. “That’s the one. Among the most brutal in all of Russia, and we are not known for our hospitality. He had made some enemies, but when those enemies were deposed and his friends came into power, he was recognized for the asset he was.”

“Kozlov,” I tell her. “I know most of the major players. Never heard of him.”

“He has been in prison for a long time.” She takes a long drag of her cigarette. “Given enough time he could be our you . Frankly I am surprised you have come to see me. Many assumed you were dead. An occupational hazard in this life. But your Agency has found itself on the losing end of a few operations. The loss of their golden child”—she nods toward me—“left a vacuum.”

“What do you mean, losing end?” I ask.

“A bungled coup. A failed assassination. One of your assets was detained in Afghanistan and…broke under pressure. I am not sure by whom, but apparently many of your Agency’s secrets were spilled, like blood across a table. Russia is watching this with a close eye, and is waiting to strike.”

This, I did not know.

If the Agency is on the ropes, of all times to get me back in the game, this was it. Maybe Ravi knows more about this mess than he let on.

“Moscow always talks big,” I tell her. “But you know how it works in an oligarchy. The second one of these knuckleheads thinks they’re going to lose a couple of kopecks, they get cold feet and remind the Kremlin where the money comes from.”

“Once, I might agree,” she says. “Once.”

“How do I find Kozlov?”

She shrugs again. “Wait for him to find you. I have met him, only once. He frightened me a little. I do not scare easy. You”—she waves a hand at me—“you have a kinder soul than I would have thought. Under different circumstances I would invite you to stay for dinner. I suspect we would have many stories to tell each other.” She takes a final, hard drag on her cigarette and stamps it out. “Maybe if you live through this, you come back and see me. Well, you have to, I suppose…”

“I don’t put out on the first date, just so expectations are clear.”

That, at least, earns a genuine smile.

I stand from the table and nod to her. “Thank you for your time.”

“I will be in touch,” she says.

“For what it’s worth, I wasn’t kidding about the foot rubs.”

But at this point, she’s done with me. She waves her hand, and the men who were previously sitting with her come back. They launch into a hushed conversation in Russian. Someone else takes away the wineglass and the knife but leaves the bottle, which she pours into a clean glass.

I return to the bar, where Booker and Valencia are both working on seltzers. Valencia is staring into the mirror behind the bar, but Booker is slowly shaking his head, and I am struck by a sudden, searing sense of shame.

—

We’re barely out of earshot of the restaurant when Booker pushes me hard on the shoulder, nearly knocking me to the ground. “Why’d you take the drink, Mark?”

“I had no choice.”

“You could have gotten up and walked away. That’s a choice, too.”

“You’re the one who brought me here. I needed to know who was after me.”

“And now that you know,” he asks, “what does it change? What have you gained?”

“I know his name, which means I can find out more about him. I know things spiraled at the Agency after I left, so this puts them back on my list of suspects.”

“And now you owe a favor to Zmeya. You know what that means, right?”

I step to Booker and get my nose an inch from his. That dark thing inside me, bubbling up. The scream of it reaching up my throat. “What does it mean? She’ll ask for something and I’ll say yes or I’ll say no. And if I say no, who’s going to do something about it?”

Booker sees where I’m at, and rather than match it, he takes a deep breath and lowers his voice. “This is a blood-in, blood-out kind of thing, Mark. Yours, or someone else’s. We all know who you are and what you’re capable of. But that isn’t really an option for you anymore, is it?”

“Maybe it should be.”

Booker and Valencia freeze at that.

“I’m exhausted by this shit,” I tell them. “What have I gained? A whole bunch of people want to kill me and I can’t do a goddamn thing to stop them because now I’m playing by a different set of rules. All I have to do is take the mittens off and I can know peace. Maybe that’s worth it.”

Valencia puts her hand on my shoulder. “?‘Adversity truly introduces us to ourselves—’?”

I shrug her hand off. “Don’t quote the Big Book at me. There’s nothing in that book that’ll help with this. I don’t need recovery right now. I don’t know what I need. I need…”

I need my sponsor. I need Kenji.

“I need to take a walk.”

I don’t look back at them. I don’t want to see their faces. I stalk off down the boardwalk and they’re smarter than to follow. The lights around me fade and I disappear into the depth of the black thing inside me. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I can wrestle it back into submission.

Or else I’ll just let it loose and have it solve all my problems.

—

The front door of the apartment building offers little resistance. Nor does the front door of Kenji’s apartment.

I stand in the doorway for a few moments, allowing the quiet to settle into the corners, and then flick on the light. The apartment doesn’t look much different than the last time I was here. Bare to the point of barren; the floor is covered with tatami mats—made it feel more like home, Kenji said. There’s a low chabudai table in the main living space, with two zabuton meditation pillows on either side of it. No television. No couch.

The kitchen is scrubbed to a microscopic level of clean. Trash is emptied, as is the recycling under the sink. There are some nonperishable items in the fridge. Nothing fresh. The bathroom is bone-dry; the shower hasn’t been used in days.

Toothbrush and toothpaste are gone.

The bedroom isn’t much more than a cheap mattress on the floor, a pillow and blanket folded neatly on top. The dresser is nearly empty, and there’s no luggage in the closet. Given the hasty arrangement of the clothes, it looks like some stuff was quickly pulled out, the rest left behind.

Knowing what I know about him and about me, I poke around until I find a seam in the back wall of the closet and push it aside, revealing a hidden alcove. Inside is his katana, wrapped in a blanket.

I take it out and unsheathe it, hold it up to the light. Still sharp enough to carve an atom in half. A lot of us have a signature weapon, like my SIG Sauer P365, and it’s recommended we dispose of it when we enter the program. I’m not surprised he still has this, though. He once told me it was made by a famous sword maker, whose practice can be traced back at least ten generations. The man utilizes tamahagane steel, which is incredibly rare and difficult to work with but results in a stronger blade.

This thing is priceless.

The rest of his stuff seems to be gone, but would he really leave without this?

I roam through the apartment, hoping to find something useful: signs of a struggle, something to tell me what happened to this man I loved, who I thought loved me.

There’s a small end table by the door. The last place I haven’t checked. I open it up and find a book-shaped gift, wrapped in sparkling white Christmas paper adorned with candy canes. Written with black felt marker in Kenji’s delicate script is: Mark.

Underneath the gift is the one-year chip he was saving for me. I stick it in my pocket. It’s almost mine anyway.

The gift I consider tossing into a corner, but I can’t help myself. I tear open the packaging.

It’s a handsome leather-bound copy of Crime and Punishment .

Despite myself, as hard as I try not to, I laugh.

—

Astrid is in bed, tucked under the covers, reading a book. She’s scrubbed and showered, her hair still wet, face makeup-free. There are Chinese take-out containers on the little coffee table by the couch in the corner. P. Kitty comes wandering out from where he was napping in the corner. I place the signal jammer on the bedside table and sit on the edge of the bed and he hops on my lap and nuzzles me. I scratch behind his ear and he purrs into my hand.

“Nice of you to finally come back.” She tosses the book to the side. “You’re still in one piece, at least.”

“Around two years ago…” I tell her, and I let that linger in the air for a moment. She seems to understand the gravity of it because the tension disappears from her posture. “I met this woman. She just saw clear to the center of me and I felt seen for the first time in my life, even if she didn’t know the truth about me. Actually thought about quitting. Getting a normie job.”

My feet are hot from walking, which is what I’ve been doing most of the night, so I lean down and take off my shoes.

“Last Christmas, her brother came into the house in the middle of the night. Probably supposed to be a surprise. But my brain goes to DEFCON 1, right? That’s what I’m trained to do. I killed him. And she was pregnant…”

Four seconds in, hold for four, out for four, empty lungs for four.

I pick a spot on the wall, a little water stain on the wallpaper, and make it my entire universe. Something to keep me steady as the words flow out.

“Soon as I saw that positive test, knowing I was having a kid, I had this vision of decorating their ceiling with those little glow-in-the-dark stars. One of the bedrooms I spent some nights in as a kid, it had stars like that. They made me feel safe, because it reminded me there was a whole universe out there. That the world wasn’t so small. That one day I might escape…”

Astrid starts to say something, then thinks better of it, and for that I am thankful.

“My son was born on August nineteenth,” I tell her. “His name is Bennett. I have no delusions that his mom will let me into their lives.”

There’s a bottle of water on the nightstand. I pick it up and down half of it, then turn the bottle over in my hand.

“So then I did quit. Got into a twelve-step program for reformed killers. Kenji was my sponsor. First time I ever had a best friend, and he might have sold me out, or maybe he didn’t. At this point I can’t tell. Either way I need him and he’s not here. The man who attacked me was a Russian named Viktor Kozlov. The Beast. I made a deal with the devil to find out. Probably jeopardized my recovery in doing so.”

I put the water bottle back down and put my head in my hands.

“I want to kill someone. Anyone. Literally, anyone. I mean, not you. But I want to feel someone’s life end in my hands. When I did that, I felt powerful, and now I feel powerless, and power is better. There’s nothing in life that compares to death. In recovery we talk a lot about whether killing is a compulsion, and part of me never wanted to believe it. I’m not addicted , I kept thinking. But I was. It’s how I was trained to communicate with the world around me. It’s the only thing I know. It was how I proved I was a man…”

I consider looking at Astrid, but I’m not ready yet.

“I’m tired. And this is hard. If I find Kenji, and he did betray me, I may end up killing him. The only way to stop Kozlov is to kill him. A Russian power broker is going to call in a favor soon and probably make me kill someone. All roads lead to this. I’ve been running from who I am. You told me to tell you the truth. There it is.”

I finally turn to Astrid.

The expression on her face is blank.

Then she reaches her hand to me.

I take it, feel the warmth of it, her skin, and then I pull her toward me, and I kiss her, knowing that this might be the exact wrong thing to be doing, but I need to feel something, to feel accepted by someone in the searing light of my sins, and to my relief, she kisses me back.

—

I wake to the sun in my eyes and an empty bed.

I think maybe Astrid is in the bathroom, but the door is open and the light is off. The room is empty. Her clothes and bag are gone. I get up from the bed and feel a tug on my stomach. There’s a fresh bandage on the knife wound. I look for the signal jammer on the bedside table, and it’s gone.

There is a lot happening, but for a moment only one thing matters: I’m alone. Astrid is gone. I sat here and cracked open my chest and spilled out my soul and she left. I sit in the silence as it closes in, reminding me what the truth has cost me.

No, not silence. There’s an echo reverberating in my chest. I cock my ear and listen.

It’s the most savage part of me and it’s saying: I told you so.

I slide down to the floor, my back against the bed. P. Kitty jumps into my lap and I tell him, “It’s gonna be okay.”

Except I’m not saying that to him, I’m saying it to me.

And it’s not sinking in.

The shaking starts in my chest until it travels through my body, and then I’m clutching P. Kitty, sobbing into his fur, holding him for dear life, because without him, I have nothing. And to his credit, he just stays close and purrs into my skin.

—

Ms. Nguyen doesn’t answer her door. She’s probably out grocery shopping, or doing tai chi with the other ladies down in the park. I consider leaving P. Kitty in his carrier outside her door, but I don’t want to abandon him like that. What if she’s gone for longer?

I head up to my apartment. As soon as I walked in the front door of the building I smelled the smoke, and it intensifies as I climb the final set of stairs to my loft, which takes up the whole top floor.

The door is busted open and crisscrossed with police tape. I step into the remains of my living room. Everything is black scorch and white ash. I put P. Kitty down at the entrance, and despite the destruction he knows he’s home. He scratches the caged door on the front of his carrier and yowls, but I don’t want to let him out. Too easy to lose him, or for him to get hurt.

“It’ll be fine, buddy,” I tell him. “Ms. Nguyen is going to give you a better life. More snacks, for sure.”

The bookshelf is in ruins. I look for the paper crane Kenji gave me, but it’s gone. After retrieving the password inside I did my best to fold it back up, though it didn’t look as neat and precise as when he gave it to me. Now I can’t even find the ash, like it never existed.

There are still a few pieces of clothing intact at the back of the closet, but they reek of smoke. I get down on the floor and feel around between the floorboards until I find the finger latch, and pull up. The safe underneath is still intact. I key in the combination and open it. There’s a duffel bag crammed into the corner of the closet. I drag it over and load wrapped stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Each stack is ten thousand dollars, so I count off fifty of them. Not too heavy, and enough to get me started.

I’ll earn it back once I get into the groove of working again. Maybe I’ll take the rest down to Ms. Nguyen. Give her a crash course on how to spend it without attracting the attention of the IRS.

Once I’ve got my money situated, I keep digging, to the bottom of the safe. To the thing I told Kenji I got rid of, and didn’t.

But hey, he kept his katana.

My SIG Sauer P365.

A beautiful piece of death-dealing machinery. Striker-fired subcompact, tritium X-RAY3 day/night sights, and a ten-round magazine. Stainless-steel frame with a polymer grip module. I dig a little deeper and find a box of 147-grain hollow-point bullets.

It’s not flashy, but it’s reliable.

It’s also ended a lot of lives.

Just holding it makes me feel like I can take on the whole world.

This is always the way things were headed. I’m not a man. I’m a tactical drone with a heartbeat and a dairy allergy. It used to be that weapon was aimed and fired by someone else, and I allowed it to happen. The only difference now is I’m going to aim it for myself. Find my peace, and then maybe a farm, and woe be unto anyone who dares try to take that away from me.

I am the Pale Horse.

It was silly to pretend otherwise.

I dig around in my pockets until I find both the one-year and six-month chips, and I toss them into the safe. Then I dig out the urban carry holster stashed with the gun and get it set up on my hip.

There’s not much else to do at this point. I go to the bathroom to take a piss. Wonder where Astrid is. Why she disappeared like that. Maybe the gravity of all this sank in. Taking the tracker felt like she was making a point, but I don’t know what.

Whatever. It’s not like I was falling for her. Not like opening up to her was a last desperate attempt to save myself through truth and vulnerability.

P. Kitty meows at me.

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

There’s a commotion from outside: horns honking, someone yelling, so I move to the window and peek my head out. There are four black SUVs blocking the street, and a bunch of cars lined up behind them. I don’t need anything to confirm that this must be for me, but when Ravi pops out of the lead car, I duck back inside before he can look up.

I grab P. Kitty’s carrier and sling the duffel bag over my shoulder and make for the building’s air shaft, which is between this building and the one behind us.

The Agency troops will eventually get around to checking the shaft and they’ll find the handholds I installed, as well as the door at the bottom, which I can slip through to get into the building behind mine. Then they’ll find the unmapped door to a utility tunnel, inside which I carved out enough room to let me slip into the sewer system.

If that door were on a map, they’d have someone stationed down there, but lucky for me, New York City is a maze of shit built on top of shit. Spend enough time looking around and you can find a decent escape route. I’ll be long gone by the time they find it.

I lower myself out the window, holding tight to P. Kitty’s carrier. He doesn’t make a sound. Probably too scared. Thank god. Last thing I need is for someone to look out a window and see me. But given the proximity of the windows between the buildings and the lack of privacy, most people have curtains or blinds.

I make it down about ten feet when I hear “…caught him on a camera around the corner, not ten minutes ago.”

It’s coming from Ms. Nguyen’s apartment. I stop and brace myself, just to make sure she’s going to be okay. Ravi wouldn’t hurt her, probably, but I want to be sure of that.

“I was out running an errand,” she says. “I don’t know if he even came here. I haven’t seen him since the fire.”

“Damn it, Fran, I pay you a lot of money, and you have one job. Keep an eye on him. And you couldn’t even do that…”

“First off, don’t speak to me like that,” she says. “Second, I retired. I was done. I agreed to do this because it was low impact. No chance of getting hurt. I worked too hard to risk my life like this.”

What?

“We’re going to search the area,” Ravi says. “If you see him, you know the drill. Call me ASAP.”

A few moments of silence, and then Ms. Nguyen asks, “What kind of mood is he going to be in?”

“Probably not a very good one. But he has no reason to suspect you, right?”

“Right.”

“He’ll come to us. We have his friend. If he’s going to be pissed at anyone, he’s going to be pissed at me. When he hears what I have to say, he’ll understand.”

Wait.

The Agency has Kenji?

Does that mean he didn’t sell me out?

I’ve lingered too long. But there’s no sound above me. Are they not in the apartment? I wait another second, my free hand hovering by the pistol, which suddenly feels hot and alien on my belt. After a moment, I risk it and climb back up. There’s no sound, no nothing. I clamber back in, then dash over to the window and watch the SUVs pull away from the curb.

If the Agency has Kenji, then he didn’t turn on me.

They’re using him to draw me out.

And since I got rid of my old phone, and the secured messaging app I used to communicate with Ravi, he had no way to get in contact with me.

Breathe in for four, hold for four, out for four, empty lungs for four.

What do I know?

Zmeya told me the Agency had gotten slapped around a bit and was currently on the ropes. So it behooves them to get me back to work. But Ravi knew where I was this whole time; he was paying Ms. Nguyen to keep an eye on me. Which, putting aside the discomfort of knowing that my life isn’t exactly what I thought it was, it raises the question: Why didn’t he come to me sooner?

This all started with Kozlov, who stabbed me, planted me with a tracker, and took my notebook.

He stabbed me, but left me alive.

Oh.

Enough of the picture snaps into place that I can at least see the outline of what’s happening.

This is a power grab.

Some foreign player is looking to depose the Agency.

The notebook serves two purposes: it gives that player a ton of intel about Agency operations, but it also sends me into panic mode, turning me against them—and if you want to hurt an organization like the Agency, your best bet is to turn their biggest asset into an enemy.

The Agency must have some kind of inkling about this. And even if they don’t know about the program, they knew where I was—they must know I’m close to Kenji. So they scooped him up, maybe to protect him, maybe for insurance, maybe to help find me.

I go back to the safe, open it, dig out the six-month chip, press it to my lips, and place it in my pocket. The one-year chip stays. It doesn’t feel right to carry something I haven’t earned yet. I stash it with the gun, remove a few stacks of bills from the duffel bag, and shove them in my coat.

Only one thing matters: Kenji is alive and the Agency has him.

So I’m going to get him.

—

Lulu throws me a little eyebrow when I step through the door of the diner. The place is mostly empty. The old man in the brown suit is doing his crossword at the back, and there’s an MTA worker sitting at the counter, nursing a cup of coffee. I walk to the register and tell her, “I’d like the hungry man’s breakfast, please. No sausage, extra bacon.”

Lulu stares at me for a moment, like she didn’t understand what I said, then without moving her eyes from me, raises her voice and says, “Rodney, we need to close up for the day.”

The MTA worker looks over and shrugs, throws some money on the counter, and leaves. The man in the brown suit remains. Once the door closes behind us, Lulu crosses over and locks it and flips the closed sign, then leads me back to the kitchen. I put P. Kitty’s carrier behind the counter and follow. The kitchen is cramped and immaculate, the stainless-steel surfaces gleaming, like you can’t tell the last time it was used. She takes me to a door in the back, which opens onto a narrow staircase. We head down into a basement that smells like standing water, where there’s another door, and she fishes a heavy key chain out of her apron, then opens it up.

Inside is a room roughly the size of the diner, the walls adorned with lighted panels that softly flicker to life. Each one is loaded with weapons, from pistols to assault rifles.

“What do you need?” she asks.

“Nonlethals.”

“What’s the gig?”

“Agency headquarters.”

A laugh grows deep in her belly and reverberates through the room. “And you want nonlethals for that?”

I shrug at her, and she shrugs back.

“Okay, then,” she says.

Like, It’s your funeral .

Maybe it is.

She crosses to the far wall, pulling a rolling table alongside her. She takes a pair of what look like brass knuckles off the wall, but they’re heavy black plastic with metal tips.

“Just got these in,” she says. “Stun knuckles. Like a Taser.”

“Nothing with electricity. Can’t risk sending someone into cardiac arrest.”

“Jesus, you’re not making this easy. Okay.”

She plucks a pistol off the wall. It’s slightly bigger than a normal gun. The body is black but the slide is orange, and there are two fat barrels on the front.

“Air pistol, loads with pellets that disperse a cloud of pepper spray. The clips hold five pellets each.” She holds it up and points to the bottom barrel. “You drop the CO canister in here. First trigger pull breaks it. When you reload a clip, you have to put in a fresh canister. It’s slow and they sometimes jam if you fire too fast.”

“I’ll take two, and as many clips as you have.”

“Then you’ll want this.” She places a gas mask on the table, with a wide, clear faceplate. “Won’t obstruct your vision. Hypoallergenic coating on the inside to prevent fogging.”

She rummages around in a drawer and comes out with a foam handle about seven inches long. She hands it to me. I test the weight—light as a freshly fallen feather—then snap it out to full length.

“Steel friction baton, twenty-one inches,” she says. “I tend to dislike the grips on most batons, but this one holds up pretty well.”

I slam the point on the counter to close it and put it on the table.

“Great,” I tell her. “Next?”

She lines up thin cylindrical grenades on the counter. Six in all.

“Flash-bang,” she says. “Nonfragmenting, nonbursting aluminum body. Anti-rolling so it’ll stay close to where you toss it. Three bursts of sound and light.” She places a slim piece of plastic next to them. “And you can set any of them to remote detonate.”

“I could use a vest.”

She opens a large drawer and pulls out a black vest and holds it up to me. “Looks about your size. Rated level four, with full side protection, and it has a cooling mesh liner.”

I test the weight, then feel the front, find it free of the telltale level-four bulk. “How do they claim that without rifle plates?” Before she can answer, I find a tag on the side with a Hebrew symbol. “Ah. Gotta love Israeli craftsmanship.”

“It’s still in development, but I got a preview,” she says. “A thirty-ought-six round is going to crack a rib, but it shouldn’t break through.” She sticks an excited finger in the air. “One last thing. This is a fun little bit of business.”

She places a small black box with a wrist strap on the table. I pick it up and put it on.

“It emits a laser that’ll overwhelm the optical nerve,” she says. “There’s a button that fixes on the palm so you can wear it without interfering with trigger pulls.”

I aim the device at the far wall, hit the button on my palm with my middle finger, and a thick dot of flashing green light appears.

“Nice. You got any kill switches?”

She nods, digs around in another drawer, and comes out with a USB stick, which she places next to the rest.

“And I could use some cutlery,” I tell her.

Not that I’m planning to open any throats, but a knife can be useful in so many other ways. She opens another drawer and comes out with an eight-inch blade snugged tight within a sheath. “Clip point, flat grind. It’s not very resistant to corrosion and sometimes gets stuck coming out of the holder, but you can use it as a pry bar without worrying about snapping off the tip.”

I pull it out—the sheath does offer a little resistance, but it’s not bad—and check the edge of the blade. Looks plenty sharp, and the rubber handle is nice and grippy.

“What do I owe you?” I ask.

“Let’s call it thirty grand,” she says. “Your credit is usually good with me, but considering what you’re about to do, I’d like you to pay me now.”

“Business is business,” I tell her, and dig the money out of my coat.

As I stack the bills on the table she asks, “You sure about this?”

“Not really, no,” I tell her.

“What you and the others are doing, the whole group thing—it’s good. You know that, right?”

“How do you know about that?”

She smirks as she places a duffel bag on the counter so I can load up the gear. “You and Kenji don’t keep your voices nearly as low as you think.” She looks around the room as I pack up. “You’re a good customer. You’re probably going to get killed, but it’d be nice if maybe you didn’t.”

“Thanks, Lu,” I tell her. “And you’re tougher than a mouthful of thumbtacks. One last question: How do you feel about cats?”

She nods. “If you don’t come back, I’ll make sure he finds a good home.”

“You’re a doll.” I throw my gear over my shoulder and leave Lulu to get the room straightened up. On the way out of the diner I stop at the register. One last thing: I grab a black felt marker off the pad next to the register.

Never leave home without one.

I put the carrier on the counter and open the door. P. Kitty was napping—I guess he just got used to the travel. I don’t risk holding him too tight, because then he’ll just squirm away from me and get lost in here somewhere. But I hold him up and look him in his eyes—or, eye, considering one seems to be pointed at the wall.

“I’m sorry for all the times I called you dumb,” I tell him. “You saved my life. You are a good cat, and I love you, and I hope to see you again, okay? Either way, thank you.”

“Meow,” he seems to say in response, as I load him back in the carrier.

—

I hang up the phone. Booker accepted my apology, and my thanks. He promised to find Valencia and complete the favor I asked of him. I was worried it might be asking too much at this point, but it wasn’t.

Because the feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us, and it’s on me for forgetting that.

Satisfied that’s covered, I lean over the edge of the roof. Cold wind blows through my hair and my stomach dips. The Agency building rooftop is about twenty stories down. I check the harness around my waist one more time to make sure it’s secure.

Funny the way life comes full circle.

My career with them started, and will officially end, with jumping off a roof.

I move to the other edge, to where I can clearly see the trash can on the sidewalk. There are still too many people around it, so I wait. I don’t have much of a plan, other than to stroll into the Director’s office, introduce myself, show him how easy it is to get to him, and demand they hand Kenji over.

Maybe not the most elegant plan, but I’ve certainly rolled out with less.

I’ve been inside before, but only on the lower floors. It used to be the tallest building on the block, but then developers got obsessed with these super-tall residential skyscrapers, and the security inside them sucks as much as you’d imagine. A bored ex-cop at a desk and a camera system I can walk straight through without attracting any undue attention.

Surely the Agency caught me on the city’s CCTV, and they know I’m nearby. They probably assume I’m coming in the front door. Which I hope they continue to believe. I’m going to help them believe it, if the space around the trash can would just clear a little.

As soon as I land on the roof they’ll register my presence—there are some electronics scattered about that look pretty innocuous but I’m sure can count the pebbles on the surface of the roof. Need to take them out quick. There’s an emergency access panel near the stairwell door that looks promising.

The space around the trash can finally clears, so I take the remote out of my pocket and hit the button. A flash-bang goes off with a thump I can barely hear and a burst of light, then two more in succession. With the way the trash is compacted around it, it immediately catches fire. Bystanders duck for cover or pull out their phones to record it. I wonder if any of them actually call 911 or if they’re just posting it to Instagram.

As soon as I see flames, I jump off the edge of the building, rappelling my way down, and when I land on the roof, I sprint for the emergency panel. It’s locked, so I slip the knife inside and lean into it, prying the panel off. There’s a USB port and a small computer screen with a keyboard, so I stick in the kill switch and run the prompt to start it. The security here is a little more robust than in most places I would use this, but still, it’ll buy me some time, and…

“Hey, Mark.”

I turn to find Ravi standing twenty-five feet away, his hands behind his back, like he’s waiting his turn to order coffee. He’s wearing a white dress shirt, navy slacks, and an expensive pair of Italian loafers. There’s a tactical vest under the shirt and a handgun strapped to his belt.

“Hey there, bud,” I tell him. “You seem awful lonely up here. Where’s the goon squad?”

“I wanted to talk,” he says. “You and me. I figured you’d come in through the roof. I know you. I didn’t share that with anyone else.”

“How kind of you.”

Before he can blink I’ve got one of the air pistols cleared from the holster and trained on the spot directly between his eyes.

He squints and tilts his head. “That a toy?”

“Pepper spray pellets. It won’t kill you, but it won’t feel nice, either.”

He nods slowly and takes a step, keeping the same distance, walking a circle around me. “At this point, I have to figure, you know that I know. Dymphna’s. The paper cranes. The last year. Sara and Lucas. Everything.”

“And you were just waiting to, what? Pressure me back into the game?”

“No, Mark, I’ve been trying to protect you. The Agency has been looking for you since you went into the cold, but do you really think they’d let you walk on killing a civilian? If the Director knew, you’d have been dead within a day.”

“What happened, then?”

He pats his chest. “I did. I made it go away.”

“Do you want a medal?”

“A little thanks would be nice.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“Because regardless of what you might think, I like you, Mark. It was easy enough from the crime scene details to tell it was an accident. I could just imagine how it tore you up. Finding you with the paper cranes confirmed that. I thought you deserved a little peace.”

“And now you want me back. You even assigned me a chaperone.”

Ravi sighs and puts his hands on his hips. “First off, Ms. Nguyen was one of our best agents. She was there to protect you. Second, there’s some shit going on that would take about six hours and a slideshow to explain. Instability in Eastern Europe. Regime shuffling in the Middle East. High-level targets we’ve been watching for years taken out. There’s been chatter about some kind of concentrated effort here, but we can’t see the full picture yet. The only thing I can surmise is that Kozlov was hired to take you out, so the board would be clear.”

“See, Ravi, here’s my problem,” I tell him. “I know that you’re lying.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re breathing. When we had lunch in Singapore, you said you didn’t know who he was.”

“C’mon, Mark,” he says, raising his voice, getting agitated. “I had to play a little dumb. I still had no idea why you showed up. And I’m juggling that with the fact that the Director wants you in his office. Azrael is waiting downstairs, by the way…”

“Good. I could use the workout. Where’s Kenji?”

“He’s downstairs. He’s safe.”

“He better be.”

“I figured whoever was coming after you would chase him down next to draw you out. We extracted him. He knows the whole story. You’d know that if you checked your messages. I’ve been trying to get in contact with you to set up a meet.”

“I’ve been busy.”

He nods, continuing to walk around me, maintaining that distance. It’s not lost on me that the distance is twenty-five feet. I take a few steps toward him, closing the gap. He notices but doesn’t react.

“Come downstairs with me,” Ravi says. “Peacefully. The Director is out for blood. I can talk him down. I’m willing to stake my reputation on it. He’s going to want you back. And that’s something we’re going to need. When you realize what’s happening, you’ll drop all this recovery bullshit and help us put things right.”

“It’s not bullshit.”

“We need you, Mark. We need the Pale Horse. A lot of people are going to die without you.”

“A lot of people will die no matter what.”

“You can make sure it’s the right ones.”

“That’s not true, and it never was.”

Ravi puts his hands together in mock prayer. “Please, Mark. I’m your friend.”

“A friend wouldn’t be telling me to throw out everything I worked for over the past year.”

“A friend is someone who sees you,” Ravi says. “And I see you. I get why you struggle. I do, too. If you didn’t, you’d be a complete sociopath. But in the end, the world needs bad men to keep other bad men from the door.”

“Did you just quote True Detective at me?”

He pauses, a little embarrassed. “Shit, you saw that?”

“Remember what you told me in Singapore? When I asked why you picked me for this?”

Ravi starts to say something, then stops.

“That it was my temperament,” I tell him. “That I wasn’t some militia nut. That I had high scores and a strong will. It was all bullshit. You picked me because I was a scared, lonely kid, desperate to be told he was good at something. Am I right?”

His lip flutters into the makings of a smile, which is all the answer I need. Then he sighs, his body going slack for just a second.

It’s a distraction. I know it is. By the time he’s reaching for the gun on his holster, I’ve got a pellet sailing his way. It lands on his chest with a crack. I expect there to be some kind of hissing sound, or to see a cloud of dust. I wonder if these things are defective, but then he starts hacking and grabbing at his face.

He falls to his knees, choking.

“See you around, Ravi,” I tell him.

—

At the bottom of the stairs is a door, which leads to the elevator bank serving the top floor of the building. Beyond that is a dim office area that looks mostly empty. The Director’s office is, presumably, past that.

Standing between me and my goal are twelve men and women in tactical gear—black body armor and heavy goggles, all strapped with FN P90s, a compact submachine gun designed for tight spaces that spits out fifty rounds in a blink.

At least I have some air pistols.

As they raise their weapons in my direction, I duck back into the stairwell and a voice rings out, “We will shoot to kill.”

“I’m sure at this point you know who you’re dealing with,” I yell around the corner. “You want to go home healthy, now’s the time.”

In response, the lights snap off.

Which is exactly what I was expecting.

My vision goes completely black, and I’m sure the strike team is turning on their night vision goggles. I pull a flash-bang off my belt and throw it through the doorway, not really worried about aiming.

“Grenade!” someone yells.

The first bang hits, followed by a flash. I’ve got my eyes closed and my hand over my face, but even still some of the light seeps through. With their night vision goggles amplifying the light, it probably looks like staring into the face of the sun from ten feet away. It must not feel nice; I can tell that from the screams.

When the third and final bang-flash combo goes off, I swing around the doorway with the air pistols raised. The members of the strike team are yelling and struggling to get their goggles off. I squeeze off the nine shots I have left, not so much worrying about hitting the men and women in the hallway. I just need to crack open as many of the pellets as possible.

I duck back into the stairwell and pull down the gas mask and hear coughing.

“Lights, lights,” someone yells, choking through snot and phlegm. “Hit the lights!”

The first thing they see when the lights come on, if they can even see yet, is me moving down the hallway, the baton raised, placing the weapon onto knees and elbows and helmets. At this point it’s like a ballet. I see every angle, how to move from one swing into the next, hitting the targets that are going to inflict the most damage you can get without killing someone. A few of them squeeze off shots, their guns thundering in the tight space, slamming into the walls and sending up puffs of drywall, but they can’t get a bead on me.

My old friend adrenaline does its job, screwing with time. I’m moving so fast it feels like forever. And by the time I reach the end of the hallway I’m the only person standing. I’m feeling pretty good about it until another guy in tac gear comes around the corner and unloads two slugs into my chest.

Suddenly I’m airborne and I land hard on my back. I tuck my chin so I don’t smash my head against the floor, then slap at the searing pain on my chest to make sure the bullets didn’t go through. Worked fine, and that’s why I go to Lulu.

The shooter moves in, holding the gun out, and I blast him in the face with the optical distractor. He shields his eyes, which gives me enough time to roll out of the line of fire, get to my feet, and throw a sharp hook into his side, where his vest doesn’t cover. Then I snap the blunt end of the baton against his forehead.

The numbers on all the elevators are increasing, so I pull the fire alarm. The emergency lights flash, a high-pitched whine ringing out through the space, and the numbers stop growing. This is too easy. I take a moment to reload the air pistols, then turn the corner into the office area. After turning a few more corners I find a double set of wide oak doors. I’m moving toward them when a figure steps out from an alcove.

The Neck.

His face is bruised, but probably not nearly as much as his ego. He’s furious, and he points a thick finger at me and says, “Time for some payback, motherfu—”

I grab the finger and twist it toward the ceiling and he throws his head back and yelps. I use the leverage to bring him to his knees and then use my knee to shut him up.

Back to the doors. I head for them, when something hits my back and sends me flying. I throw myself forward with the momentum and combat roll to my feet, turning to find Ravi. His eyes are red, his face raw. He’s in a loose fighting stance.

“I was trying to protect you, you dumb son of a bitch,” he says. “Now we’re past that.”

I whip up an air pistol and send a shot Ravi’s way, but he ducks forward hard, bending almost to the floor, and the shot goes wide. Before I even get it retrained on him he smashes into me.

My mistake; he was only twelve feet away.

We plunge to the floor and he grabs me by the throat, setting his grip, and headbutts me hard. My vision goes fuzzy and he brings up an elbow to smash me in the head, but I manage to get a knee between us and then lift him up, sending him flying over me. We scramble to our feet, resetting ourselves.

“Didn’t know you could rumble,” I say.

“Don’t send people to do work you aren’t willing to do yourself.”

He snaps a kick at me, and I grab his foot, yanking him back hard, taking him off balance, and then slam my fist onto his knee. Not enough to break it, but enough that he’ll need to ice it tomorrow. I’m expecting him to go down but instead he leans into me, gets some leverage, and brings the other foot up. He goes briefly airborne before slamming his free foot into the side of my head, and I crash into an empty cubicle, landing in an awkward pile.

He disappears from my field of vision and comes back with a roller chair lifted over his head. I bring the baton down hard on his foot. It staggers him, and I roll onto my hands and horse-kick him in the stomach. He falls, dropping the chair on me, which hurts, but it hurts him more.

Before I can get back to my feet he tackles me, and then we’re grappling on the floor. It stops being a clean fight. The two of us struggling for purchase, trying to find a place to slip in and score a shot. The blows land, but I’m too amped up to feel them. Finally I manage to roll on top of him and throw my fist into his jaw a few times.

He drops back, his eyes swirling in their sockets. I climb to my feet and he says, “Whatever happens next is on you, Mark.”

In response, I take the other air pistol from my belt, reload it, and put a pellet into his chest, sending him into another coughing, spasming fit.

Then I reach for the double oak doors.

They open onto a handsome but sparse office that demonstrates money without bragging about it. It’s longer than it is wide, with a desk at the end, perched beneath floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Midtown. There are two chairs in front of the desk, and one behind it, facing away.

I hold up the pistol, wondering what kind of man the Director is. I never met him. I had dreams that one day I would. He’d call me into his office to tell me how good I was at my job. A dumb fantasy, I now realize. Doesn’t matter. I don’t need his approval. The people at the top are all the same: terrified when faced with the consequences of their own actions.

Otherwise they wouldn’t need people like me.

The chair rolls around and I’m greeted by the last person I expected to see.

“Astrid?” I ask.

Her face looks different. Cast-iron eyes, and that smile. Not like any smile I’ve seen on her. Knowing and mischievous. She’s been waiting very patiently for this moment. She’s wearing a black shirt, black pants, and a harness, strapped with enough weaponry to storm the Bastille.

“Azrael,” she says.

Huh.

“Thought Azrael was a man,” I tell her.

“That’s sexist.” She pulls a gun from her lap and points it at me. She’s more than the minimum safe distance. “And sort of the point.”

“Is that an FN Five-seven?” I ask.

She tilts the gun. “High-velocity rounds. From this distance it stands a decent shot of cutting through a level-three vest.”

I pat my chest. “Level four.”

“Really? It doesn’t look like it has plating.”

“Israeli.”

“Ah, that makes sense. Guess I’ll just go for the head.”

“Kinda wish you wouldn’t. As you can imagine, I have questions.”

Like, a lot. It does verify a few things: why she can fight, why she stuck with me through all this. But those realizations just raise more questions. The one thing I can say for sure is that seeing her, oddly, brings me some level of comfort.

“I bet,” she says. “But first we’re getting out of here. Turn around, hands behind your back. Any sudden movement and you get to find out how good a shot I am.”

With most people, I’d get to work, calculating the odds, figuring out how to turn the tables. Astrid—Azrael—is a pro. I’m not inclined to push my luck with a pro. Better to listen until an opportunity presents itself rather than try to manufacture one.

And right now, at least, it’d be nice to get some answers.

She takes my hands and zip-ties them tightly behind me. Then she shoves me forward.

“March.” As she pushes me through the oak doors, there’s a hiss of static and she speaks into her walkie-talkie. “I’m bringing him out. Clear a path to the parking garage. Director’s orders.”

Ravi is dragging himself to his feet. “I didn’t hear that order.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

There’s a sharp crack from behind me and Ravi’s head jerks back. His body folds to the floor like a rag doll.

A few seconds ago I could have watched him get skinned alive while munching popcorn. But my anger is clouded over by the memories of us traveling the world, eating well, sharing laughs after a job. He was still an important part of my life for a long time, and a deep well of sadness swirls through the anger.

“Jesus, Astrid,” I say.

“He bet on you and he lost. That’s just one in a series of screwups. Like I said, Director’s orders.”

When we reach the elevator bank, the only evidence of the mayhem from earlier is the battered furniture and the bullet holes in the walls. Astrid presses the down button and a door opens.

“Right corner,” she says. “Face the wall.”

I lean against it as the elevator begins its descent. “So,” I ask, “how in the hell did I end up at your apartment before Singapore? Was all that by some kind of design?”

“It was good timing. I moonlight as a black-market trauma surgeon. I was a medic in the Special Forces. That was before I was recruited by Ravi. Patching people up, it’s something to earn a little extra money, and to keep my ear to the ground. Like I kept saying, you boys love to brag.”

“And Ravi didn’t know you were with me?”

“Just kept telling him I was right behind you, and he bought it. I’ve been trying to get my hands on Kozlov. Soon as you mentioned him to your friend on that phone call, I knew it was him. I didn’t have his name at that point, but I knew exactly who you meant.”

“What did Kozlov do to you?”

“He killed someone important to me. He left that scar on my back. Did you ever wonder about why I stuck with you? Anyone with sense would have run. When I found out you were the Pale Horse, I thought I could use you to draw him out. Maybe soften him up. I didn’t know you were the one who went soft.”

“I didn’t go soft.”

“Okay, Gandhi.”

The elevator doors open onto a cavernous parking garage. It’s half empty, spots occupied mostly by black, anonymous-looking sedans and SUVs. Astrid steps out first and tells me to follow. I consider hitting the close door button, but it probably won’t shut on her in time.

“The white van, over there in the corner,” she says.

There’s only one, so I head toward it. “You know, Gandhi said if he had to choose between cowardice and violence, he’d choose violence.”

“Then he’s tougher than you.”

“I’m not a coward,” I tell her.

“Coulda fooled me.”

“You know how hard it is to spend your whole life doing what I did, to be good at it like I was, and to decide to stop? I didn’t make that choice once. I have to make it every single day.”

“Look where it got you.”

“It worked until it didn’t. Why did you take the signal jammer?”

“Once I realized you were useless to me I figured I would draw Kozlov out. But he hasn’t turned up. Then I got the call from Ravi. Figured our paths would cross eventually.”

“Why did you sleep with me?”

She hesitates. “Girl’s got needs.”

I can’t see her face, but from the way she paused, I can tell that’s not the whole truth.

“Where’s Kenji?”

“He was gone two minutes after you disabled the security,” she says. “Saw an opportunity and took it, I guess. Heard it on the radio right before you came in. At this point I don’t need him. I just needed you.”

I stop at the back of the van. She waves the gun so I’ll back off a bit, and she opens the door. The inside is completely stripped, and there’s a metal cage between the back and the front.

“You understand killing Kozlov won’t bring that other person back, right?” I ask.

“Get in the van,” she says.

“You know what anger like that is?”

“What?”

“Drinking poison, hoping the other person dies.”

“Get in the van.”

I climb in and lower myself to the floor as she slams the door. She walks around and hops onto the driver’s seat, stashes the gun on the passenger seat, taps on her phone a little, and drives. We wend our way through the garage and onto the street. It’s hard for me to sit comfortably, so I settle for lying on my back.

After a couple of blocks she says, “I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“The not-killing thing. I know what we do isn’t going to win us a seat in heaven. But how far do you take it? Say you could go back in time, right? Wouldn’t you kill Hitler?”

“Why does it have to be about killing him? If you could go back in time, why not go back further, to when he was a kid, and show him the love and understanding he never got? Dissuade him of all the messed-up notions he had? You haven’t saved seventy million people. You saved seventy million and one.”

“But he’s Hitler. Doesn’t he deserve to die?”

She doesn’t sound like she’s taunting me now, not exactly. She sounds genuinely curious.

“You could make that argument. But this is a thought experiment.”

We drive in silence for a little. Then she says, “You know what pisses me off the most, though?”

Before I can ask what, something smashes into the side of the van and my stomach lurches as we go airborne. I ricochet off the hard surfaces, trying to protect my head, which is impossible with my hands behind my back, and when we finally come to a rest, I think upside down, my vision is fuzzy and my brain feels like a half-deflated and well-used soccer ball.

“Astrid?” I ask.

No answer.

The back door opens behind me. I can’t see who it is, but I can venture a guess. Before I can say something smart, a canister lands next to me, spitting out white vapor. I’m too winded to hold my breath, and it smells sweet, and then…