He smiled now. “Tell me about Poison Apple.”

Zoya’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Zakharov regarded his daughter for a long time. “Either you have learned to completely mask your microexpressions, or you are telling the truth. I find it curious you don’t know the name of the CIA program you are a part of, darling. If you really don’t know, then your new masters are keeping something from you. What else might they be keeping?”

“How do you know about this?”

Zakharov said, “I am an intelligence officer. I have a mole in the CIA.”

“Not high enough to tell you about me.”

The bearded man raised an eyebrow. “Touché. But that doesn’t help your case, it only tells me you are a prized possession of the enemy.”

Zoya looked down at the floor. Finally she said, “What else could I have done but what I did? I just needed to get away from SVR. The Americans grabbed me in Thailand and brought me back to the States. I wasn’t a prisoner; after the debriefs they told me I could come and go as I pleased, but if I chose to stay, they had work for me. Combating terrorists, proliferation, things of that nature. Not against Russia. I told them I’d stay with them as long as I agreed on the missions, and they told me they were fine with that.”

“That is impossibly naïve, daughter.”

“No, it’s not. There is another asset there who has the same relationship.”

“Then he is Poison Apple, as well.”

Zoya shrugged. She had never heard the code name. “It was either work with the U.S. or head back to Europe where, sooner or later, SVR would find me and assassinate me. I know exactly what happens to disgraced operatives. I wouldn’t have a chance.”

Zakharov stood, dragged his chair a little closer, and sat back down. He put his hand on her knee, and she did not pull away. “But now you are back among family, my darling.”

“Lucky me. My only family is a father who kills people.”

“You are a daughter who kills people.”

“Not innocents. I don’t know what you are doing here in Scotland, but I’m no fool. You are preparing something. Some retribution for Mom and Feo and . . . and for what you see as my betrayal.”

Zakharov put his hands on his own knees now. “You always were perceptive.”

“You have gone mad,” she said softly.

“Zoya, darling, many great men were called mad in their time. But on such individuals of singularity and conviction, the world turns.”

She looked away again, and Zakharov stood. “I have work to do. But someday soon we will talk again.”

“What are you doing in Scotland?” she asked again.

He ignored the question. “Part of me wants to make you disappear. Can you even imagine the shame I will feel the moment I report your . . . reemergence? It is a black cloud on my otherwise perfect record as a patriot of my nation.”

“Then why don’t you just let me go?”

Zakharov shook his head. “You will be escorted back to Russia, delivered to your leaders at SVR. They will figure out what to do with you. I will speak to some people, old friends to whom I don’t like owing favors, but I will make certain they do not end your life. You are still my daughter, even though you have disgraced me.”

* * *

• • •

Fox was standing just out of view in the hall next to the open door when Zakharov stepped out and closed it behind him, then locked it. He began walking away, and Fox trailed him.

“Fox, contact SVR in London. Tell them we will deliver Zoya to them. I want you and Hines to do it personally.”

“Yes, sir, but I’m sure they’d be happy to come get her.”

“Do it yourself. Stress to them that if anything happens to her, either here or in Moscow, there will be consequences for them.”

The elevator door at the far end of the hall opened, and Janice Won appeared in her lab coat. She stepped out and waited for Mars to come closer, then said, “It is complete. The bacteria is fully weaponized, combined with the aerosol, and placed in the four canisters that will be loaded onto the aircraft.”

“Very well,” Mars said, but she clearly noted a distracted look on his face.

“When will the weapon be delivered to the staging area?”

“I’ll take it up to the Highlands right now.” He looked to Fox, who just nodded and pulled out his phone, ready to order men to transfer the biological weapon into the trunk of the Mercedes waiting downstairs. “Are you ready to come with me? I want you to oversee the loading of the goods on the aircraft before we get you out of the area.”

“I need two or three more hours here to remove any trace of activity from the building.”

Mars nodded. “Very well. I’ll leave you a half dozen men for security, with orders to bring you up to the Highlands the moment you’re finished.”

Won said now, “I am finished with my two lab assistants. They won’t be able to help me further, so, if you had some sort of a plan for them . . .”

Her voice trailed off and Mars glanced again at Fox, who was still on the phone to one of the Bratva men somewhere in the building. He just looked up to Hines and gave him a quick nod, and the big Englishman turned and began heading for the elevator to take him down to the first-floor laboratory where the technicians worked, far away from the weaponization lab on the third floor. He’d break the two women’s necks, and he wouldn’t even remove his suit coat to do it.

Mars started for the elevator to catch it along with Hines, but when he moved Janice Won was able to see down to the end of the hall. Two men sat in chairs outside a closed door.

“What’s going on? Why are there guards at that door? Who is being kept in there?”

Mars sighed. “My daughter, actually.”

Won screeched her reply. “The CIA agent?”

Mars entered the opening elevator, then turned and faced her. “Don’t worry about her. She knows nothing, and she will be leaving us shortly.”

As the doors closed, Mars thought about Zoya and wondered if he was condemning her by sending her back to Moscow. He hoped not, but his utter conviction to his cause determined his decision.

He realized now that even though this would not be the outcome he wanted for her, he possessed sufficient conviction to, potentially, anyhow, send his daughter to her death.

And it filled him with a sudden and unexpected feeling of strength.