Back at the safe house, I was checked over by a doctor—after he had seen to Christine’s fake terrorist, who had been hit in the leg, but who would survive. No permanent injuries, he told me with a smile.

Christine watched over us all like some sort of mother hen. I wanted to speak to her, to tell her how grateful I was that her quick thinking had saved me, but she was determined to keep her distance; even more so than after we had slept together on the plane.

Every time I approached her, she would suddenly feel the need to speak to the doctor or make an important phone call, and she worked hard to make sure we were never left alone together.

Finally, I had no choice but to talk to her with Luc listening in, no matter how embarrassing I found it.

“I wanted to thank you,” I started, making both of them jump. “That plan, that was amazing work. I was sure when Warick wanted to arrange an exchange that one or both of us was going to end up dead.”

I paused. If thanking another agent for saving my stupid skin was hard, then the next bit was going to be even harder. “And I wanted to apologize.” Christine kept her eyes firmly fixed on the table, and poor Luc didn’t know where to look.

“Christine,” I persisted. “I want to say I’m sorry. For fighting you over Warick. I put us both—put us all—in danger. And all because I refused to accept that I might have made a mistake, and that you might be right about him.”

Luc coughed nervously and got up from his seat, mumbling something about making fresh coffee. Christine finally looked up at me, but her eyes were not filled with the forgiveness I wanted to see; she looked angry.

“Damn right, you should be sorry,” she hissed at me, keeping her voice lowered despite her anger. “You put this whole operation in danger because you were blinded by your friendship with that man. How could you not even consider that he might be up to no good, given the evidence? I mean, the only conclusion—”

Christine suddenly stopped speaking and shook her head sadly. What conclusion? What had she been about to say? That she thought I was in on it, too? I know things had gone incredibly wrong with Warick, but she had to believe that I knew nothing about his plans.

“Christine, please talk to me. I want more than anything to make this right, but you have to give me a chance to explain.”

She lifted her head again. “OK,” she began. “Explain to me. Explain how this criminal supposedly had you hoodwinked for years; fooled you into believing this insane story about an Islamic terrorist blowing up diamond shops; fooled you into not even seeing the evidence in front of your own eyes?” Christine stood up from the table, as if ready to leave. “I’m beginning to think that I’m the one who’s been fooled here.”

Now I was angry, too. She really did think that I was in on it somehow, or that, at best, I had known what Warick was doing and had covered for him. If that was what she thought, then I knew that this conversation was going to end up with one or both of us saying something we’d regret.

“Just say it, Christine. You think I’m involved, don’t you? You think I’ve, what, been his inside man all this time, throwing the investigation off his scent, and feeding him information? You don’t think that I feel just as betrayed as you? I thought Warick was my friend; more than that, he was almost like a father to me.” I took a breath and tried to calm down. “Did that make me blind to his faults? Yes. Does that mean that I’ve made mistakes, mistakes I bitterly regret? Absolutely. But I am not involved in his operation. You have to believe me.”

Christine and I watched each other cautiously for a moment, both of us tense and alert. I wanted to back down so badly, but I was hurt and upset by her lack of trust. Finally, she relaxed.

“I don’t really think you’ve been involved in his gang the whole time,” she sighed. “But I did worry that you’d had your head turned, and that I was walking into a trap when I came to make the exchange.” She grinned. “I mean, more of a trap than it already was.”

My head turned? Did she think I would sell her out for Warick’s millions?

“You really think Warick could buy me off?” I asked quietly, deeply hurt by her suggestion. She waved her hands in something like despair.

“I don’t know, Jason. We’re talking about a lot of money here. There’s a lot of people who would happily look the other way for even the tiniest share of his take from all these diamond heists. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t even consider it.”

“Well, I didn’t consider it,” I told her quietly. I laughed. “In fact, he didn’t even try and make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

Christine looked surprised. “He didn’t try and buy you off?”

“No; he never even mentioned a deal. It was all about getting me—and you—off his tail so he could go off and live a life of luxury somewhere. That’s his plan now. One more heist here in Antwerp, he says, and then he skips the continent and heads somewhere they don’t have extradition deals. Even now that we have Al-Farook, and know what he’s up to, he still says he’s going to carry out his heist as planned.”

I moved my chair closer to hers. “I realize I’ve given you no reason at all to trust me, but we have to work together now. That’s the only way we’re going to stop Warick from hurting anyone else, and to make him pay for all those lives he’s already destroyed.” Including mine, I thought to myself, with more than a little self-pity.

“We have less than three days until Thursday the 18^th. We have very little time to figure out exactly where he’s going to attack and put a plan into action, so we can’t waste our time sulking or arguing.” I nudged Christine in the arm jokingly. “We can do all that when the investigation is over.”

I had hoped that I could coax a smile out of Christine, but she just stared at me seriously.

“What?” I said, suddenly feeling a little afraid.

“We have even less time than that,” she told me. “Aquil said they’re moving the operation forward. I’m waiting for the all clear from the doctor before we can go and speak to him again.”

I felt my blood run cold. Of course Warick wouldn’t just wait around in Antwerp for us to catch him. If his plan really was to pull off one more heist and then disappear forever, then he would want to do that as soon as he possibly could.

I stood. “What are we waiting for, then? We need to speak to Al-Farook now, whatever the doctor says.”

Christine laid a calming hand on my arm. “His name isn’t Al-Farook. It’s Aquil. Aquil Siddiqui. And he’s a victim, not a suspect, remember?” She paused. “I don’t know if you can fully grasp that, given you’ve been hunting him for months.”

As much as I wanted to start interrogating Al-Farook—Aquil—as soon as possible, I knew Christine was right. Would I be able to treat him as a victim, when his face had dominated my every waking hour for the last three years?

“I need to see him, Christine,” I pleaded. “I know this sounds really phony and American, but I need closure on this.”

Finally, Christine’s face broke into that beautiful smile. “You’re right—that does sound really phony and American.” She sighed. “OK, when the doctor gives us the all clear, you can come into the room with me. But you let me do the talking.”