The giant just grinned at her. “If I’d had three more bleedin’ seconds last night I’d have snapped both your skinny necks.”

Zoya looked to Fox now. “How tough are you when he isn’t by your side?”

To this Fox laughed. “I would not know. He’s always by my side.”

Fox and Hines turned and left the room, the door clicked shut, and then Zoya heard a lock being engaged.

She sat down in the windowless room that, she couldn’t help but notice, was set up much the same way as her room at the CIA safe house back in Virginia. There was significance to this, she decided, something to do with the fact that both sides saw her as both a potential asset and a potential threat, but she was too tired to think it over right now. Instead she lay back on the hard little cot and closed her eyes.

The door opened once when a Russian mob goon wearing a scowl delivered her a bowl of stew and a bottle of white wine. She ate every bite of the stew and drank all the wine, and soon the same man came to retrieve it. Zoya looked around the room a moment and saw the camera that had shown him she was finished.

This group of Russian mafia men seemed to run their holding cell just like the CIA did.

Soon she just lay back down on her cot and wondered if Court was doing any better than she was right now.

CHAPTER 48

   Marty Wheeler had been lashed to a chair in an empty white room, his shirt and pants had been removed, and the bearded man with sideburns who had captured him squatted against the wall in front of him, giving him constant stink eye when he wasn’t picking at his badly scraped elbow.

Marty was hungry, Marty was cold, Marty was tired, but he was hopeful, as well. Hopeful the British voice over the phone, the man who had paid him for his intelligence product, was right now working on some sort of plan to get him out of this mess.

But hope faltered as he thought it through. He’d already given him the information about Ternhill, the information about Poison Apple and Matt Hanley and Lucas Renfro. The Englishman didn’t really need Wheeler any longer, and this pierced his heart like a dagger.

As an asset, Barnacle was spent. No one would be coming for him and he knew it now.

The man with the sideburns took a call. He talked quietly for a few moments, said “Yes, sir,” a half dozen times, and once glanced malevolently towards Wheeler. Soon the door opened behind Wheeler; he didn’t even try to look back over his shoulder to see who it was, because his bindings were too tight to turn his head more than a few inches.

He heard the voice of his old friend Matt Hanley. But it didn’t relax him now. No, it terrified him.

“Romantic, I need you to give me some time with the guest.”

“Yes, sir.” The big man stood and passed by Hanley as he stepped around in front of Wheeler, and soon the bound man heard the door clicking shut behind him.

Wheeler thought Hanley would take the chair, but instead he stood just feet in front of his old comrade and friend.

“Why, Marty? Why the fuck?”

“It’s all a mistake, Matt. You know me. You know I—”

“Don’t embarrass yourself. We’ve got all we need on you.”

Wheeler deflated slowly, then said, “Wish I had an exciting story for you. But it’s just the same old tired thing, I guess. Passed over for a promotion, pissed off and vengeful, ready to burn some shit down and get paid for it on my way out.” He made another effort to shrug, gave off a hint of a smile. “Nothing you and me both haven’t heard a hundred times.”

Hanley’s thick neck reddened.

“I guess now you’re going to beat a confession out of me. Or get that junkyard dog of yours who’s been following me for days to do it.”

Hanley shook his head. “A confession? No. Not necessary. I want to know what Zakharov is planning, though. Any chance you could fill me in on his endgame?”

“Zakharov?” Wheeler was confused. “The dead GRU chief? What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t know Zakharov was the one who paid you for the intelligence on Dirk Visser?”

Wheeler said nothing.

“He goes by an alias. Maybe that would help. David Mars.”

The bound man shook his head. “Don’t know him.”

“Englishman, or appears to be, anyway.”

Wheeler cocked his head now. “You said he was the GRU general. How is he English?”

“Zakharov is a trained linguist. He’s also a murderer. And you helped him.”

Marty looked at the floor a long time. Then said, “Okay. Okay. I knew my contact as Mr. Black. But that’s all I know. Never met him, didn’t know he was Russian.” He looked around the room. “I want to speak to whoever is in charge here.”

“Save it, Marty. It won’t help you.”

With more fear in his voice, Wheeler said, “I don’t know anything. I just don’t.”

“Then what the fuck do I need you around for?”

Marty Wheeler realized what Hanley was saying. “Wait . . . I do know things. My extraction. I was supposed to hook up with the Solntsevskaya Bratva here in London, get a ride to the Peruvian embassy, and hang out there until I was shipped off to the port to take a freighter to Russia.”

“But none of that happened, so that’s pretty fucking irrelevant, isn’t it?”

Wheeler looked down.

Hanley said, “You know something, Marty.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know shit. He didn’t involve me—”

Hanley interrupted. “I’m not talking about Zakharov. I’m talking about what you know about the Agency.”

“What . . . what do you mean?”

“You’ve seen some faces a guy like you isn’t supposed to see. You know some things a guy with morals like yours shouldn’t be allowed to know. You aren’t making a case for why I should keep you around.”

The bound man looked uncomprehendingly at the DDO. “Because . . . because you’ll go to prison if you make it to where I’m not around. Jesus, Matt. Power has gone to your head.”

“You got a lot of good men dead, Marty. And you standing trial . . . that would be a mess for the nation.”

Wheeler thought he understood. With a crack in his voice he said, “You’re going to get your asset to kill me, Matt? Is that it?”

“Of course not.”

Wheeler breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m going to do it myself.”