Rubbing her face, she cursed into her palms.

He had given her this to prove himself—and as much as she wanted to find some lie in and among the files, some fiction that revealed itself in contradictions among the nitty-gritty, too much of it was verifiable when it came to current events. She’d seen the articles, the newscasts, the commentaries around these deaths for herself over the years.

This was real….

This was the story of a lifetime.

51

Across the street from Mels’s house, Matthias stood in the lee of a large maple, arms crossed over his chest, feet planted a hip’s distance apart.

He could see her in the upstairs dormer, at her desk, her head bent, her brows down hard in the light shining from the ceiling above her. From time to time she eased back in whatever chair she was sitting in and stared straight ahead—then she returned to her laptop.

She was going through everything.

His job was done.

So why didn’t he feel at peace? Surely this was his prove-it-or-lose-it crossroads, this confession through her that was going to go out to the world? On that single flashdrive, he’d undone his years of work, sending his organization into a free fall that was going to wipe it out: The operatives would scatter for cover. The politicians would go ultra-earnest and disavow all knowledge. A congressional or senatorial special committee would be convened. And at the end of countless taxpayer dollars and months of inquiry, the matter would be closed.

And then another arm of the operation would be started by someone else: Dirty work was still going to be sought by this otherwise lawful nation, because sometimes you had to sink to the lower level of your enemies and play ball in their sewer.

That was reality.

So why the hell was he not, at this very moment, dragging himself to Manhattan, getting his cache, and hitting the road for parts and countries unknown?

It wasn’t Mels.

Leaving her was the death of him in a lot of ways, but he was okay with that. His disappearing was the right thing for her, and that was all that mattered—even though he was going to miss her for every heartbeat between now and when he actually died and stayed that way.

And it wasn’t his conscience. He didn’t feel the need to turn himself in just so his enemies could find him and kill him in a prison. His only chance of survival was out in the real world—and it wasn’t like the constant hiding was going to be a party.

That shit was just a movable set of bars.

He was going to pay for the rest of his life for what he’d done.

So what the hell was his problem?

Abruptly, a scene in the desert came to him, the recollection of him and Jim in that crude hut, the sand under his operative’s feet…the bomb under his own.

Matthias hadn’t remembered anything after the explosion, not the horrible pain he must have been in, not the miles through the dunes or the Jeep that Isaac Rothe had come in or that first, endless night after he’d blown himself apart. But he knew what had happened a little while afterward: Jim had come to his bedside and threatened to expose what he’d nearly done to himself.

He had granted Jim his freedom from XOps then, giving the man a pass to get out.

The only one.

And then, after two years, their paths had crossed once more, up in Boston. In contrast to what had happened on the other side of the planet, that slice of the recent past was still unclear to him, the precise ins and outs of what had gone on fuzzy, even as the rest of his life was clear as a bell—

At the end of the block, a man turned the corner at a lazy pace and entered into the pool of light beneath a lamppost. He was walking a dog, a large dog, and he was dressed in some kind of suit…an odd suit, something that looked old-fashioned—

It was the man from the Marriott’s restaurant.

Matthias put his hand into his pocket and settled his palm on the butt of the gun he’d gotten from Jim.

When you were in the situation he was, just-in-case was the only way of thinking.

The man came closer, going out of the reach of the illumination briefly before reentering into the lit skirt of the next streetlamp.

The dog was a wolfhound, an Irish wolfhound.

And as the pair passed, the man looked at Matthias with eyes that seemed to glow. “Good evening, sir,” he said in an English voice.

As Mr. Dapper kept going, Matthias frowned. There was something off, something wrong….

The guy didn’t throw a shadow, he realized. Except how could that be?

Matthias quickly looked up to Mels’s window. She was okay, still sitting there at her desk, reading about him—and when she dialed her phone and put it to her ear, he wondered who she was calling.

Time to go.

It was his theme song with her, wasn’t it.

He glanced back, expecting to see the man and the regal beast.

They were gone.

Okay, he was losing his ever-loving mind.

Turning away, he walked over to his rental car and took out the key with its little laminated tag. As he opened the door, Jim Heron was still on his mind, almost as if the guy had been placed there, like a cognitive billboard.

Matthias got in, locked the doors, and started the engine. Doing a three-sixty with his eyes, he double-checked that there was no one around, making sure that dog and the Englishman hadn’t decided to magically reappear—

At that moment, a sedan turned in off the main road and traveled at a slow pace right to the driveway of Mels’s place. The garage door went up, and a tidy-looking woman got out and went inside, pausing to hit the button to reclose the panels.

Mels was not alone.

This was good.

Matthias hit the gas and took off, thinking about the information, the challenge, the opportunity he’d given her. The good-bye that he hoped, maybe over time, would recast their short tenure together in her mind.

He was an evil man, and she had brought the only good out in him he’d ever had. Perhaps she would believe that someday. After all the truth was ugly, but hopefully it had served a purpose—

Matthias jerked in the driver’s seat, shock flooding through him as the last thing he’d looked at before signing off on that desktop at the Marriott came back to him: his profile, his live profile, his current one that had not been included, on purpose, in his cache of exit strategy intel—

Jesus Christ.

That made no f**king sense.

As far as XOps knew, he was dead—it had been right there, so blatant he hadn’t paid any attention to the red check by his picture.

So why the hell had they sent an operative to Caldwell for him?

He hit the brakes for a stoplight at the very moment it all became clear. “Oh…shit.”

The first operative had come to the Marriott. The second had shown up at Jim’s place at that garage. And in both cases, everyone had reasonably assumed the assassins had been sent for Matthias.

Except he wasn’t the target.

Jim Heron was.

The man’s dossier had been marked orange, which meant his death hadn’t been confirmed in person when he had “died” in Caldwell. So as far as the organization was concerned—and they were right—Heron was living and breathing.

And they were going after him.

The first rule of XOps always had been no loose strings. And there had been a number of people who had disapproved of Matthias’s letting the man go—and now that he was out of the picure?

Heron was fair f**king game.

52

It wasn’t that Jim couldn’t appreciate the thoroughness, but come on. The CPD had shown up in the early afternoon, and it was now close to nine at night and the boys in blue were still hanging around.

The initial breaking-and-entering had just led to a walk-through. The real fun and games had come when they’d called the landlord—who, after he’d been informed his tenant had died well over a week ago, came at once and gave them permission to search the property in a legit way.

Funny, the old guy had still been wearing a traditional butler’s uniform—and still looked like he should have been in a home instead of marching up and down stairs and offering everyone “refreshments.” But he’d been very gracious, and opened up all manner of doors—except for one.

Even he hadn’t been able to crack the crawl space where Eddie was kept. Then again, the spell that guarded that compartment had turned its panels into those of a bank vault.

When the cops had wrapped up their preliminary stem-to-stern, they hadn’t found much. No weapons, because Jim had collected them all. No laptop because it was under his armpit. A couple of casings out in front from his playing target practice—but they already had one of those. Cigarette butts in an ashtray and some food in the fridge—big whoop.

Annnnd then it was time for round two, with the nitpicks arriving with their fingerprinting brushes and their big-ass Scotch tape, and the photographer snapping everywhere, inside and out. Finally, the yellow police tape had been run around and nailed into a tree on either side of the pea gravel. Kibitzing. Followed by a couple more exterior photographs.

Finally they were pulling out—and at least it hadn’t been a total waste. Halfway through the penetration, as it were, Jim had sneaked off with the computer and his phone and made arrangements to rent another place in Caldwell.

There were advantages to having kept a couple of his homegrown aliases alive—and he and his three boys sure as shit couldn’t stay here anymore.

As the last squad car took off and the CSI van pulled out, Jim put Dog down. “I thought they were never going to f**king leave.”

The animal chuffed in agreement and sank into a big stretch, even though he’d hardly been traumatized: He’d slept soundly on Jim’s arm, draped boneless as a waiter’s cloth. Now, however, he wanted out.

Jim took a piss first, though. And texted Adrian that the coast was clear.

Opening the door to the outside stairs, he broke the nice official seal the CPD had put on things. “Oops.”

Carrying Dog down to the ground floor, he let the furry little guy do his thing in his favorite stretch of bushes.

Just as the animal trotted back and Jim started walking him back up the staircase, a car came tearing along the main road at the far side of the meadow, going at a dead run and skidding onto the lane that led to the garage’s front door.

Matthias was behind the wheel.

Jim could sense the imprint clear as day. And Ad was with him, as instructed—had been all along, providing a stream of text updates: apparently, the angel had trailed the guy from a meeting with Mels at a Barnes & Noble downtown to a car rental place where Matthias had gotten himself a shiny new Ford product…to outside that reporter’s home, as if the guy were doing a final check-in.

Certainly appeared as though Matthias had followed through on the XOps data dump, giving over the keys to Pandora’s box to his woman.

So…what the hell? If that was the crossroads—and it seemed logical it could be—at any moment the man should get subsumed into Heaven, the win complete. Instead, he was pedal to the metal, coming here?

Unless the reporter had to follow through before it counted?

No, that was her will, not his—and Matthias was the focus. What he did, his actions and choices, was the issue—Jim had learned that one in the initial round with the guy: When Matthias had pulled the trigger on that gun, with the intention of killing Isaac Rothe, that had been enough to condemn him—the fact that the kid hadn’t died had not been dispositive.

Intent had been the key.

Jim put Dog inside and jogged back down the stairs, wondering what the twist was.

The driver’s-side door opened before the car was in park—probably not a good sign.

Matthias jumped out and ducked under the police tape. “We were wrong.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The operatives were coming for you. They think I died—I saw it in my file. And XOps doesn’t waste time on the dead, unless they’re reclaiming them.”

Jim frowned. He’d assumed the organization believed he was taking a dirt nap as well. “They think I’m still breathing?”

“I went into the system, and it’s right in your dossier—status unconfirmed.”

“But you came to check on me.”

Matthias frowned like he was fighting with his memory. “I did?”

Well, that explained why the XOps record read as it had.

Matthias slashed his hand through the air like the particulars were the least of their problems. “Look, the assassins only came when we were together, and that first one may have seen me, but he was dead before he could pass the intel along. Think about it—they were coming for you the whole time.”

So what, Jim thought. It wasn’t as if they could kill him.

And then it dawned on him. “So what are you doing here? I thought you were leaving town?”

The man looked around, searching the shadows. “I wanted to make sure you knew so you’d watch your back.”