“What is it?”

“My men in Paris tell me Bianca Medina was rescued from the attack this evening by a lone individual. Local traffic cameras recorded them running through the street north of the hotel. So far there is no information on where they might have gone.”

“This was one of her security team?”

Drexler shook his head. “The bodies of all five of the bodyguards accompanying Medina have been identified at the scene. No one knows who escaped with her from the suite . . . but we are already developing a working theory.”

“Tell me.”

“The day before yesterday, Medina and her bodyguards went to a fitting at a boutique on the Champs élysées. A scooter was given a parking ticket across the street from the shop. The vehicle belongs to a Syrian immigrant, and by looking at traffic cameras my people have found this scooter, and the man on it, outside two more locations Medina visited during her time in Paris. We have determined, with a high degree of reliability, that he was conducting surveillance on Medina.”

“Who is he?” Shakira asked.

“The man who owns the scooter is a member of the Free Syria Exile Union. Are you familiar with them?”

Shakira cocked her head. “It’s an expatriate Sunni medical aid group allied with the insurgents. Why would a group of doctors and nurses be following Bianca?”

“The only conclusion I can make is they have transitioned into a more violent organization.”

Shakira rolled her eyes. “All the real rebels are dead, so now anyone thinks they can pick up the banner. Do you think this Syrian was the man who took Bianca Medina?”

Drexler shook his head. “Nothing in this twenty-two-year-old’s history makes me think he could have done all he would have had to do to get her out of that hotel. But his presence the other day near Medina lends credibility to the theory that the Free Syria Exile Union was involved. I have my people looking into the organization hard right now to see if we can learn anything actionable.”

Shakira Azzam lay back on the sofa and closed her eyes. After several seconds’ silence, her voice broke the stillness. “The failure of your plan has created new dangers. What am I to make of your competence?”

Drexler remained calm. “You can release me from my duties whenever you wish, but just be aware what your options are. You wanted Medina killed by Daesh while she was in Europe. Not by my people. I merely complied with your wishes and passed on the information about her trip to the operational commanders of the Islamic State in Belgium. The information I gave them, that Bianca was the mistress of the emir of Kuwait, ensured that they’d make their attack. I don’t know what else I could have done other than gone up there to shoot her myself.”

Shakira said, “It had to be a group unaffiliated with us. If Ahmed had somehow found out she was assassinated by contract killers, he would have had his intelligence services investigate. There would be a chance the assets could be tracked back to you, or to me, and that would not do. We had to proceed in this manner.”

Drexler said, “Well, apparently someone else found out about the Belgian ISIS cell’s plan. And whoever it is who has her now might be learning things from her that we don’t want getting out to Western intelligence agencies.”

Shakira walked to the window. She looked out over the plains north of Damascus for a time. “Will she tell them about the child?”

Drexler replied. “Perhaps. Perhaps they already knew.”

The first lady of Syria spun back to her Swiss intelligence chief. “If the West finds out about her baby, and publicizes it, it won’t hurt Ahmed. It will hurt me. He’ll find a way to get her back to Syria, and then he will move me and my children out of the palace and move his Spaniard and his son in.”

Drexler looked at the floor. They’d had this conversation before. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I do. As long as she is alive she is a threat to me, and a threat to me is a threat to you. You must go to France and locate her. You must kill her, even if you have to do it yourself.”

Drexler ran a hand along the crease of his suit coat while he thought. “We’ve been through this already. My people in Paris can do the legwork there. As you are aware, there are reasons I am not at liberty to travel freely throughout Europe myself.”

“I know. But I also know you are a crafty man. I am sure you have a plan to get back into Europe. False papers, identities.”

“The problem is the fingerprint scanners at immigration controls. They are damn difficult to defeat.”

Shakira rolled her eyes. “You can lie to others, Sebastian, but I know men like you. You have a plan to run from Syria if your fortunes should change for you here. There is a way around the scanners, and you know it. If you want more money, we can talk about more money.”

“It’s not a question of money.” He stood and crossed the room to her, standing closer than any other man would dare. “I would never run from you.”

She looked away, an expression of indifference or insecurity, he could not tell.

He suspected it was the latter, disguised to look like the former.

Drexler said, “There is a way into Europe. Yes. But it will be dangerous.”

“Then that means you and I both have been endangered by the failure of your operation tonight.”

Drexler ignored the comment and stayed on mission. “The team in Paris will continue to work to find out what happened tonight, and I’ll look into the possibility of going to France myself.”

“When you do, when you find her . . . torture her,” Shakira demanded. “For me. There should be a price above death for her treachery.”

Sebastian smiled a little. “Of course.”

Shakira glared at Drexler for several seconds, still furious about the evening’s turn of events, then looked back out at the moonlit landscape. Far in the distance, easily fifteen kilometers to the east, two flashes of light erupted near each other, just seconds apart. Shakira presumed she was watching an aerial bombardment, perhaps Russian fighters targeting the rebel stronghold of Misraba, just outside the city. She said, “My husband can’t know that I know about the boy, and he can’t know I am involved in Paris.”

Drexler said, “That goes without saying. And if he thought for an instant I was involved in any of this, I’d be shot without a moment’s hesitation.”

She said, “Ever since we met, our fates have rested in each other’s hands. If I go down, you go down. And if you fail in your tasks”—she looked back over her shoulder—“you know I’ll have you killed.”

Drexler bowed to her. “Then I should begin preparations immediately.”

Shakira put a gentle hand on his arm now. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” She kissed him, and he kissed her back. “How will you get into Europe?”

Drexler smiled at her in the dark apartment now. “I will wait for your husband to ask me to go on his behalf.”

He left Shakira standing there, alone, convinced she must have misheard him.

Shakira stayed at the window, watched another pair of bombs strike targets too far away to identify, then returned to the plush sitting area near the TV.

Soon she leaned back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, tears formed in her eyes, and the wrath in her heart burned like acid.

* * *

? ? ?

In the first ten years of their marriage, Shakira and Ahmed al-Azzam had two children, both daughters. Azzam had demanded a son from his wife, so it was to Shakira’s great relief when she bore her husband a male heir shortly before her fortieth birthday. Ahmed Azzam could have chosen any woman in his nation to replace Shakira as first lady, and only when her son, Hosni, came into the picture did she finally feel secure in her place.

Having a male heir was paramount for Ahmed Azzam. There would be an election someday for Ahmed’s successor, but just as had been the case when Ahmed took the reins from his deceased father, the election would have only one candidate. When Shakira presented her husband with a son, everyone in the nation knew the palace would belong to the al-Azzams for another fifty years at the very least.

Shakira had felt secure for the first years after her son’s birth, but when he was five years old a routine medical checkup revealed an inoperable brain tumor, and Hosni died before his sixth birthday.

Ahmed was inconsolable about his son, but beyond mere grief was the realization that his wife was now forty-five, and even for the elite of the nation, five years of war had depleted the medical capabilities inside Syria.

They tried for another year to have a baby, and when they did conceive, the Azzams’ happiness was short-lived. Doctors confirmed she was pregnant with a baby girl, and the pregnancy was terminated soon after.