“Calm down, kid. It’s fine. Call your control and they can—”

“No!” the man said quickly. “He’ll ship me off to New Guinea for fucking up something so simple.”

Court said, “Close enough for government work. Let’s just let it go. You know I passed the ID check. If you have the items in your car I’ll take them off your hands and nobody ever has to know you forgot ‘Juliet.’”

The young CIA case officer snapped his fingers angrily. “Fucking Juliet. Damn.”

Court had moved on. “The equipment? You’ve got it?”

The redhead popped the trunk of the little Volvo and Court looked in. Lying there in an open case was a short-barreled HK rifle with a variable-power Nightforce scope, a suppressor, a laser designator, and a flashlight. The weapon was already loaded with a polymer magazine, which Court dropped with the mag release button to check the ammo. Two more loaded magazines lay next to it.

The young man said, “A .300 Blackout, as requested.”

“Subsonic?”

“As requested.”

“Well done, then.”

The young man pulled out a backpack that had been lying next to the rifle case. “Electronic surveillance kit, high-end binos, night viz shit, more ammo for your rifle, a Glock 19 with night sights and a high-lumen light, extra mags. A Glock 43 in an ankle holster, and a Benchmade Infidel stiletto. Some climbing and rappelling equipment, as well.”

The kid still seemed nervous, but he stretched out a little smile. “Whatever you’re up to, it’s gonna be badass. You need a wingman?”

Court zipped both bags tight and left them in the trunk. “Better you spend your time working on memorizing your ID checks.” Court stepped up to him, then stopped and slapped the young man on the shoulder. “Just messing with you. Anybody who tells you they’ve never fucked up an ID string is lying through their teeth. Forget about it.”

He then put a hand out. “Keys?”

The CIA officer handed over the keys, and Court took them. “Always back in, front grille towards the exit. That’ll save your life someday.”

He climbed behind the wheel of the Volvo and drove off, backing half the length of the roof before executing a J-turn and disappearing down the ramp.

The young American stood there in the parking lot and watched him go, and only then did he realize nobody had said anything to him about the asset taking the car.

“Dammit,” he said aloud.

CHAPTER 24

   Zoya slept fitfully, freakishly in tune with any noise in her building or even in the street below, but at ten p.m. she climbed right out of her sleeping bag, propelled on by her intensity. She rolled the bag tight and tied it, left it in the closet, then did twenty minutes of intense yoga in her underwear so as not to foul her clothes with her sweat.

After a shower she ate a quick meal of tuna fish, drank some more water, and then dressed as if she were a jogger.

Once in her track pants and formfitting pullover, she took several tools purchased that day at the hardware store and taped them to her back and ribs with liberal amounts of duct tape. That way they wouldn’t rattle when she moved in a stealthy fashion, and she wouldn’t have to worry about a backpack.

The .38 she tightened into her drawstring pants; she felt confident the leather holster would keep it in place, even if she had to climb or run.

Over this she slipped on her black Nike raincoat, and then she grabbed the yoga mat carrier. She rolled the thick rubber welcome mat she’d purchased earlier in the day, forced it inside, and slipped the case over her shoulder.

A few minutes later she walked towards the underground station and, although there were no real crowds at eleven p.m. on a weeknight, even here in central London, she managed to slip the billfold out of the back pocket of a man climbing up the stairs next to her as she descended. She then walked confidently to the turnstiles. Reaching into the wallet, she pulled out the man’s Oyster card, and she held it over the reader and was allowed in.

On the train she stole a look into the wallet. She pulled out seventy pounds and crammed them into her pocket, thumbed through the man’s credit cards but left them where they were, then flipped through a small group of wallet-sized photos.

In the first picture the man she’d just robbed sat with his wife, their little daughter in his lap. They were all smiling, even the two-year-old girl.

Zoya looked at the father, at the daughter, and she shut her eyes tight, barely holding in her emotions.

She closed the wallet and slipped it into her pocket before she opened her eyes again and wiped them with the cuff of her jacket.

Calm down, Zoya, she told herself. This is just a job. Just a job.

* * *

• • •

Shortly before midnight she climbed out of the underground at Victoria Station and zipped her waterproof jacket tighter as she reached ground level because a steady, tepid rain had begun to fall. She started jogging a route she’d memorized by looking at maps, both at the library in D.C. and then on her phone the evening before.

She entered Belgravia, one of the nicest and most expensive parts of London, though from the street this was difficult to tell. The back entrance to Buckingham Palace was just a few blocks ahead of her as she turned off Belgrave and onto Chester Street, but she wasn’t infiltrating the queen’s residence. Instead she quickly made her first right onto Wilton Mews.

It looked like a nondescript row of buildings on both sides of a street barely wider than an alleyway, but Zoya had done her homework, and she knew that every home and every flat in every building on this tiny street cost in the tens of millions of pounds and were packed with all manner of high-end technology.

She passed by an archway and made a sharp left into an alley off Wilton Mews. From here she ran through the darkness until she came to a brick wall on her left.

From Google Maps she saw that on the opposite side of this wall was a back garden for the mansion at 1 Milton Mews. She leapt into the air and grabbed hold of some vent pipes affixed to the brick wall. Scaling her way up to the top, she encountered a row of three-inch-high razor-sharp spikes.

Zoya unslung the yoga mat carrier off her back, put it between her knees as she held on to the pipe with one hand, and reached inside. From out of the tube she pulled the welcome mat. Zoya carefully draped the mat over the top of the brick wall, covering the spikes. She climbed the wall, used great effort to distribute what weight she did have to load there as evenly and lightly as possible and, on the far side, she dropped down into the backyard, crouching between perfectly manicured topiaries.

Zoya pulled the knit balaclava down over her face.

It was a narrow garden, only ten meters to the opposite brick wall, but long. There was a back wall, the same size and with the same metal spikes as the other two, and to her left was the rear of the house.