“I don’t know what you are talking—”

“Save it for someone who wants to hear your whiny spiel about how this is all some kind of an honest mix-up. I’m not in the mood, asshole.”

Police cars raced by, paying no attention to the two men on the sidewalk.

Zack’s earpiece beeped and he answered it. A minute later Brewer picked them both up in her Ford Taurus. Zack shoved Wheeler into the back. Climbing in next to him, he resumed his rough hold on the back of the man’s neck.

Wheeler said, “Suzanne! You know I didn’t—”

Zack elbowed Wheeler hard in the mouth, then leaned forward to talk to Brewer. “To the embassy?”

She started driving off, and she shook her head. “I just spoke with Hanley. We are taking him to Wimbledon.”

“For tennis?” Zack asked. “What the fuck?”

“No, not for tennis. It’s the name of a neighborhood to the southwest of London.”

“Why are we going there?”

“We are to deliver ADD Wheeler to an agency black site we have established in a warehouse.”

Wheeler snorted. “C’mon, Suzanne. Who do you think you are dealing with here? I’m a Support exec. I know all the black sites, and we sure as hell don’t have one in London.”

“We didn’t until we snatched you, Mr. Assistant Deputy Director. But Hanley knows a place, and says it will work fine for his purposes.”

Zack smiled now and looked at Wheeler, who was clearly uneased by what Brewer had just told him. “You hear that, Mr. Assistant Deputy Director? Sure you did, and you know exactly what that means. You aren’t getting the aboveboard treatment. Nope, you’re about to go down the rabbit hole. From this moment on, anything can happen to you, and nobody will know unless and until Hanley decides to put you in the system.”

Wheeler looked at Zack, then made a pained expression. Zack smiled at the man’s discomfort, but he quickly realized what was happening. He grabbed the man’s head and turned it forward, just as Marty Wheeler vomited, covering himself with bile and partially digested coffee and croissant from his in-flight breakfast.

Suzanne Brewer looked back at the scene and shook her head. She just could not understand how her career, her life, had fallen so fucking far, so fucking fast.

* * *

• • •

For the first several hours after her father left her in Belyakov’s mansion, Zoya Zakharova waited under relaxed guard. She was given ample food and drink but told nothing, not until Fox entered and informed her that the helicopter that was going to take her to her destination would be arriving shortly. Eventually it landed, and Zoya was walked to the large black aircraft, surrounded by Fox, the big blond-haired man she had heard referred to as Hines, and a pair of Russian security men with high-quality gear and weapons.

No one told her where they were going, but she could see the setting sun to her left, so she realized the helo was heading north.

They flew into a gray evening, the clouds forming around them. Soon she could see nothing of the terrain below.

After several hours the helo slowed and descended under the clouds.

She’d tried to calculate how long they were in the air, and she thought back to her knowledge of the map of the United Kingdom. They must have gone all the way up to Scotland, of this she was relatively certain, but since she’d seen little in the way of mountains or even severely hilly terrain before landing she doubted they could have gone north of Edinburgh or Glasgow, both in Scotland’s southern third.

No one had laid a hand on her, nor had she attempted to resist at all. There were a couple of times she thought she might be able to make a break for it, right before they boarded the helo and right when they climbed out, but both times she realized someone would just catch up to her and, anyway, she knew that being close to her father and his operation was the best play for her right now. She wasn’t worried about being killed, but she was very worried about whatever scheme her dad was working on, so she decided to stick around to see what she could learn.

The helipad was adjacent to a two-story industrial building; from the looks of it Zoya imagined it had something to do with the oil and gas industry, and as she walked through the rainy night behind Fox and in front of Hines, she saw a sign above the building that said “Edinburgh Pipeline Supplies, Limited.”

Soon she was shepherded into a car, and they headed off. Just when Zoya was about to ask where they were going, a question she knew would not be answered, Fox leaned over to her. “Sorry, Ms. Zakharova, but I can’t let you see our destination.” And with that he put a blindfold over her eyes.

“I’m not going to tie you up, but don’t take it off, or big Jon here will get annoyed with you.” She could feel Fox lean closer, and his breath was in her ear now. “You don’t want that. I would love to watch it, but your father would be mad at me, so let’s all just behave.”

She sighed, sat back, and crossed her arms in front of her.

Zoya suspected it was nearly midnight when they entered a city. This she could tell by the sounds and light that filtered through her mask, and the increasing number of starts and stops on the steeply graded roads. Soon they slowed, made a ninety-degree turn, and began heading down a decline. From the echoes and even more bright light than before filtering through the mask, it registered in her brain that they had entered an underground parking garage, obviously somewhere in Edinburgh.

When the vehicle came to a stop, her blindfold was removed, and she was led out of the backseat. She indeed did find herself in a garage, and she followed the entourage through a door and up several flights of stairs.

Almost immediately she could tell she was in some sort of medical facility or research laboratory. She was led down a cavernous hall past a few open doors, and then Fox asked her to enter the last room on the right. She did so, immediately saw the little cot and the bottles of water and the blankets, and realized this was to be her quarters. She turned around to face the Russian.

“You’re locking me in here?”

“Yes, but I’ll have food brought to you. There’s no en suite, I’m afraid, this is a converted office, but there is a bathroom just back up the hall. Knock on your door and one of my men will escort you.”

“Where is my father?”

“He will be arriving in the morning. Until then, let me know if there is anything I can do to make you more comfortable.”

She looked up at the British man named Jon Hines who always shadowed Fox, the man who had beaten Court so badly some twenty-four hours earlier.

The man smiled at her. “How’s your friend feeling?”

Zoya replied, “Never better. You know, if I’d had one more bullet in my gun last night, you’d be dead.”