Mars sat behind the pilot while a trio of Israeli security officers, all armed with subguns and pistols, sat to his right and behind him. He looked out the window on his left at the estate as they descended; its impressive landscape lighting throughout the grounds shone brightly in the overcast night on a backdrop of rolling hills dotted with other multiacre mansions.

Upon landing, Mars and his three body men climbed out and turned away from the thirteen-thousand-square-foot home and instead walked towards an immaculate horse barn. A half dozen beautiful Arabians ran around in the lighted paddock outside, but Mars did not look at them. The barn was statelier than many mansions, but Mars did not register this.

He marched on towards the open barn door, his security detail surrounding him.

Inside it was utterly spotless, but again, David Mars just walked along, single-minded of purpose.

His men stopped halfway down the hall, but Mars proceeded to the far end of the barn and stepped up to two men standing outside a closed stall door.

Mr. Fox wore a blue polo and khakis. He held a mobile phone in his hand.

Next to him, Fox’s bodyguard, the colossal Englishman Jon Hines, wore a white undershirt, drenched in sweat, and boxing gloves on his hands.

Mars opened with, “Visser’s talking?”

Fox shook his head. “Only to swear he doesn’t know anything.”

Mars looked to Hines now, and Fox understood. “Jon did as much damage as he could possibly do without killing the poor bastard. At this point I have to wonder if Visser is telling the truth.”

The older man shook his head. “No. Nothing else makes sense other than that the leak came from him.”

Fox replied with, “Yes, sir.”

They entered the stall and Mars found Dirk Visser sitting in a chair, his arms bound at the elbows and wrists behind him. He was ashen faced, except where the deep bruising around his eyes and nose colored his skin with blues and grays.

Mars saw the man staring, not at him, but at Hines. He was utterly terrified.

“Good evening,” Mars said. When the man did not react he shouted. “Do you know who I am?”

Visser’s head turned, half hung, but his eyes scanned Mars’s face.

“No . . . no, sir. I don’t.”

Mars nodded. “Where did you come across the name Zakharov?”

Visser closed his eyes and tears pinched out the sides. “I told your colleagues, sir. I don’t know a Zakharov. I have many Russian clients, yes. It is possible I just don’t recognize the name because he works for one of the smaller entities I manage.”

“No. He doesn’t work for anyone. He’s dead.”

Mars pulled up a folding chair waiting for him and sat down in front of the detainee. “Here’s the problem, old boy. Feodor Zakharov was the top man in Russian military intelligence, a twenty-five-year career going back to the Soviet Union. He dropped off the map, killed in battle, and CIA put his file on a shelf and forgot about him. That is, until just one single day after they picked you up. Now the Yanks are looking into him quite closely, and I, Mr. Visser, am not a man who believes in coincidence.”

“Who . . . who is he?”

“His name is related to some transfers into an account you manage. Transfers that were converted into Bitcoin by you.”

The Dutchman squinted through his swollen eyes. Sweat dripped from his lashes. “If he . . . If he died, sir, then how is he related to the transfers?”

David Mars sat up straighter in the chair. “His name is tied to a shell corporation involved in the transaction you managed.”

“I don’t understand. How would I know who is tied to a shell?”

“Jon, please remind our friend again about who is asking the—”

“No!” Visser shouted. “I get it. No questions. Don’t hit me!”

Jon Hines held back.

Mars next asked, “How did you know about Zakharov?”

“I never heard the name before—”

Mars stood up from the man, took a half step back, and looked at Jon Hines again. The former boxer snapped out a jab in a blur that connected with the seated man’s right eye, swelling it instantly.

Mars said, “You are being difficult, which means this is going to take a while. I am annoyed to have to stand here in a barn and ask you the same thing over and over, but I’m certainly not as put out as you are going to be about your obstinance.”

For the next hour Visser was asked over and over about Zakharov, with Hines punching him, breaking ribs, and turning his head into a bloody pulp.

He revealed nothing.

Finally Mars left the stall and walked outside the barn. Fox and Hines followed along, with Hines only now taking off his boxing gloves.

Mars looked to Fox. “He’s good. But the question remains unanswered.”

Fox said, “We must at least entertain the possibility that whoever the woman at the safe house was, she knew your name from some other way. She tipped off the Agency, and she isn’t affiliated with Visser.”

Mars said, “I’ve been here a long time and, to date, there has not been one compromise to my operation. Days from the culmination of my life’s work, and this security leak happens. We’ve been careful, exact. I must know why CIA is looking into a long-dead GRU general now.” Mars looked up at Fox. “Perhaps I have a traitor in my midst.”

Fox sniffed at the older man’s comment. “Do you think I’m working for the Central Intelligence Agency? What, I was turned by the allures of the West?” He looked down at his $5,000 suit and brushed the sleeve with his arm. “I have all the allures of the West I can handle right now, Mr. Mars.”

Mars smiled a little at this. No, Fox wasn’t a traitor.

Fox said, “There is someone else here in the UK who knows the truth about Zakharov.”

Mars’s eyes narrowed a moment. Then he shook his head. “No . . . if there is one man I trust, it’s him.” Mars looked to Fox. “You’ll come back with me to London. I’ll sleep on this tonight and decide what to do in the morning.”

Jon Hines had been standing silently next to them. As Fox and Mars turned for the helo he spoke the first words in some time. “And Visser, sir?”

Mars looked back over his shoulder, directly at Hines.

“Dump his body in the Thames.”

“Understood, sir.”

Hines turned back towards the barn, not bothering to put his gloves back on. He could snap the little banker’s neck with ease, and that way he wouldn’t hold up the return flight to London.