“How far from where I am?” He gave her the intersection he passed.

“Five minutes, with traffic. You don’t have much time to stop this.”

“Stop this? No chance you can get any backup on the way to me, is there?”

“I really need you to handle this alone, Romantic.”

Zack then asked, “Wait. You’re in London. You’re in your car, and you’re near the embassy. That’s less than ten minutes from me. Why don’t you get your butt over here?”

“Wait a second, Romantic. I . . . I am not trained for—”

“I need a car to help me tail, box, and extract Wheeler. My vic is blown to the oppo.”

She hesitated. After a moment she said, “Okay, I’m not a field operative, but I’m in Whitehall, less than five minutes away from you, in fact. I can head that way, but only to help with the tail. I don’t have a weapon in my car.”

“C’mon, then. I’m going to break off this tail and go up a side street. Haul ass to the Peruvian embassy. If I can get in front of them I can be waiting for them when they get there.”

“Good.”

“Rules of engagement?” Zack asked.

Brewer said, “Listen up, Romantic. I don’t want them taking him someplace we can’t reach him. I am giving you authority to detain Assistant Deputy Director Marty Wheeler at this time.”

“I’m not gonna ask who gave you the authority to give me the authority to do that, but I am gonna ask you what I’m supposed to do when the Russians protecting him express their displeasure in my actions.”

Brewer replied with, “Only escalate if absolutely necessary. But meet force with equal force.” And then she added, “You have lethal authorization.”

Zack waited no time before giving his response. “Hot diggity damn, Susie! I love it when you talk sexy. Call me when you are a couple minutes out.” And then he touched his earpiece, ending the call.

* * *

• • •

   In the passenger van, Marty Wheeler looked down at his shaking hands. He’d so hoped to just slip away, to be a quiet problem for the CIA, the assistant deputy director who one day disappeared in Europe. He’d fantasized about living in luxury in Russia, watching American satellite TV shows about his own disappearance and presumed death.

He’d been looking forward to it since Mr. Black reached out to him months earlier.

But it wasn’t going to happen now; that was obvious. The CIA knew he was the one they’d been looking for; the murder of Deputy Director Renfro had not caused the heat to be turned down on Wheeler, and now the only thing he could do would be to overtly run to the other side, get spirited out of the potential clutches of the Americans, and be whisked off to Russia, where he’d always have to watch his back, worrying about the CIA knowing exactly where to go to settle an old score.

He’d still have the money he made selling secrets to the Chinese, the Iranians, and the enigmatic Englishman who seemed to be laser focused on protecting the interests of a group of Russian oligarchs, as well as a long-dead general whose name had popped up in a CIA printout just days ago and who had seemed to precipitate this entire affair.

He hadn’t a clue what a dead general named Zakharov had to do with all this shit, and he wondered if he’d ever know.

Wheeler first decided to sell secrets to the highest bidder just days after he was moved out of Operations and into Support and then bypassed for the deputy director position there. Matt Hanley, the new deputy director of Operations, had been his friend and his superior officer in Fifth Special Forces Group. They’d served together in Grenada, in Panama, in the Gulf. Wheeler appealed to Hanley to intervene to save him from the move into Support, because even though it was a promotion, leaving Operations would be a career-ender for a guy like Wheeler. He was an Ops man, always would be, and Support was no place for Ops men.

But Hanley refused to intervene. The director wanted the move, and Hanley was playing ball to curry favor for his own reasons.

Immediately, however, Wheeler found out more about those reasons. It became clear in just weeks that Hanley was setting up his own off-book operations, all with the director’s tacit blessing. Wheeler was constantly getting calls from Hanley asking for aircraft, safe houses, offshore dummy corps, and the like, always with a wink and a nod to check it out with the director if he had any doubts. It seemed clear enough early on to the new assistant deputy director of Support that Hanley had moved Wheeler over to Support to have his own inside man there who could make things happen without any red tape.

Wheeler did as his old friend and superior asked, but inside he fumed.

Meanwhile his asshole boss, the former congressional staffer and lazy prick Lucas Renfro, treated him less like a second-in-command and more like a petty underling. Wheeler thought seriously about the private sector, but every time he got the feeling it was time to leave the Agency, his anger at what he saw as his mistreatment by his superiors left him with a desire for vengeance.

He knew things, he knew a lot of things, and the one place he knew he could pass information to others with little fear of being caught was in the sub rosa realm. Matt Hanley, like his predecessor, was going full tilt now on secret ops. Wheeler didn’t know details of the programs themselves, but as a Support executive he was privy to transportation needs, safe house security, and other elements of these off-book initiatives, and passing this intel off to parties who would pay handsomely for it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

His first sale was to Chinese intelligence, letting them know that a CIA aircraft would be landing in Hong Kong as part of a code-word operation. The Chicoms paid handsomely for this, so Wheeler then sold info to Iran, as well.

After a potential deal with Russian intelligence fell through, Mr. Black appeared from nowhere, told Wheeler everything he wanted and how much he would pay for it, and Wheeler obliged.

And now he was racing for his freedom through London, hoping like hell he could make it into the Peruvian embassy, from where he’d be snuck out, delivered to some out-of-the-way airport, and flown to Russia, or Peru, or . . . at this point just anywhere where no agency in the Five Eyes could lay hands on him.

It was all such a fucking mess.

He looked up from his shaking hands as they turned onto Sloane Street. He’d checked the map himself on the plane the night before, and he knew the Peruvian embassy was just up ahead on the left. He tried to look out the front windshield to see it, but instead he saw an oncoming gray four-door, its driver-side door open, veer out of its lane and into the lane right in front of the racing van.

* * *

• • •

The Russian driver stomped on his brakes, but the sedan slammed grille first into the van at speed, sending the van’s driver forward, his head pounding the steering wheel and rendering him unconscious.