Nick was with Felicity in Jacko’s friend’s office, monitoring everything. He’d brought along handcuffs, just waiting for Blake to slip up.

Joe watched Isabel’s face on his iPad. Before an op he was as focused as a human could get. Focused but with situational awareness. He realized finally that he was completely out of the game because he found it hard to tear his eyes from her face. It was the face of his future.

He was going to grow old with this woman. He was going to have kids with her, a family, and they’d eat really, really well for all the years of their lives. He’d work for ASI because they were great but they wouldn’t have every part of him the way the navy had. Because his heart belonged to Isabel.

He shook himself. This op was the most important one of his life because his life was sitting quietly on a chair near the window waiting to accuse a monster of mass murder and treason. A man like that would have no problems killing Isabel.

So he had to stop thinking of her and go over lines of fire and escape routes in his head.

“Five mikes.”

So far everything had gone smooth as shit through a goose. Joe had been by her side when she took Blake’s call at ASI. Felicity had routed it so that it looked like her cell was being used in her house.

When Blake had called, Isabel had been brilliant. She sounded flustered, depressed. Bathroom pipes broken, water everywhere. Let’s meet somewhere nice. It’s been a long time since I’ve been anywhere nice. Hotel Monaco? No, it’s really busy. Let’s meet at this nice restaurant I know, Three Windows. In an hour. I’ll finish up here and meet you there.

“Contact,” Nick said quietly in his ear and sure enough, on Joe’s monitor the tall, very elegant figure of Hector Blake appeared in the doorway and walked over to Isabel. The metal detector didn’t register any weaponry.

He was wearing a full length black overcoat and a black fedora, sunglasses. A thick scarf covered the bottom of his face.

Joe shifted uneasily. If he didn’t take that scarf off there would be no facial recognition possible.

He stopped by Isabel’s table, sat down, took her hand. They were talking. Isabel looked so sad, so vulnerable.

Joe’s skin prickled.

And then the lights went out. His tablet went dark.

* * *

“Hello, Isabel,” Hector Blake said as he stood next to her.

During the planning, Isabel had promised herself she would remain cool, not go for his throat. Not stare at him with hatred. And while promising herself that, she hoped she could do it.

She could. She could stay in character.

She gave a small smile, dipping her head. Sad Isabel, seeing an old family friend. “Hello, Uncle Hector. Nice to see you.”

He sat across from her, without taking off his hat or unwinding his scarf. A prickle of alarm ran through her. If he was planning on staying only a few minutes she wouldn’t have time to get him to incriminate himself.

“You’re not staying?” she asked, indicating hat and scarf.

He didn’t answer. He simply reached across for her hand. Oh. So this was how they were going to play it? Dear Uncle Hector, holding her hand while saying all over again how sorry he was she’d lost her family?

He held her hand in his gloved one, palm up, thumb over her inner wrist.

“Your heart is racing,” he said, with a cold smile. “You know, don’t you?”

Oh. So that was how it was going to be.

“Yes.” She gave him the cool smile right back. “I know everything. And you’re not getting away with it.” Her smile broadened. “Guaranteed.”

The lights went out.

Isabel looked around briefly and felt something cold against her wrist. She looked down and saw a white ceramic knife with a very sharp blade pressed against the inside of her wrist. Held by Hector in such a way that with one swipe he could slice right through the artery. She’d bleed out in seconds.

She looked back up into that face, not bothering to hide her hatred anymore. She could barely see him. It was dark in the restaurant, people murmuring, stirring. She blinked twice.

“I am getting away with it. I’m not here at all. I have all sorts of people back in Washington willing to swear in court that I am there. Not that it will ever come to that, of course.”

“People know you are here.”

“Yes?” He looked around. “I don’t see anyone I know. If you have friends who are watching this over a video feed, too bad. Because I just killed everything with a chip in a hundred-yard radius. Nothing is being recorded, nothing will be recorded and you—” He pressed down hard on the sharp knife and she felt him slice through the skin. Blood welled up at the knife’s edge. “You are coming with me.”

“No.” She looked up steadily at him.

“Developed a backbone, have we?” Hector murmured, words muffled by the scarf. “Be the first one in your family. Just so you know, I have a sniper watching through night vision optics and he can see perfectly clearly. The first person who comes up to you gets one right through the head. Maybe a waiter, maybe someone you’ve recruited, maybe even a friend, but someone gets killed. So move.”

Joe was seconds from running over to her.

Heart thudding, Isabel stood.

Hector was good. He managed to keep the knife at her wrist without it looking awkward. They walked to the door and Isabel kept her gaze down, at the floor. A sign she desperately hoped Joe would interpret as stay away!

Hector had already cost her everyone she loved. Mother, father, brothers. Aunts, uncles, cousins. She wasn’t going to give him Joe, too. Not sweet, brave Joe. She’d rather die herself.

It was dark inside the restaurant and outside, too. No lights at all. If Joe was coming out, he was coming out blind. He’d shown her night vision and she knew that whoever was out there with a sniper rifle could see just fine, and they were blind.

Whatever Hector’s plan was, though, Joe and his guys were smarter.

They were crossing the threshold of the restaurant, Hector pushing open the door into the cold night. Behind her, restaurant patrons were murmuring. She knew her team would be scrambling to deal with the situation.

“Forget about anyone coming after you,” Hector said, bending toward her. An uncle out with his beloved niece. “I just set off a limited EMP. That same EMP that killed video cameras and cell phones and any tracking devices you might have on you? It also killed any vehicles with electric circuitry. But I have acquired a vehicle that doesn’t have electronic circuitry. Ah, here we are.”

A dilapidated van screeched into the driveway, backed up. The rear doors opened and before Isabel could react, she was shoved inside and Hector climbed up next to her.

The doors were pulled shut and she bounced against the hard steel wall as the van took a corner and sped away.

Hector was wrapping something soft around her wrists in a figure eight. He knotted the ends and let her go. She tried to free herself but they were like handcuffs, only soft.

The van was moving fast. Every few minutes the driver took a sharp turn. She was lost in minutes.

Hector was looking out the back window with binoculars. “Don’t even think of trying to get away, my dear.” He put the binoculars down and spoke to the driver. “Nobody following us. We’re clear.”

She was trapped in a van with a man who wanted to kill her. Who had killed her entire family. Nobody knew where she was and no one could find her.

Hector was going to win this.

* * *

“Fuck!” Joe wanted to scream but he knew he couldn’t. Silence on an op had been beaten into him. He was blind. And deaf, he discovered as he tapped his earbud and got a whole lot of nothing. Complete silence. He couldn’t go running toward Isabel in the restaurant, that would tip Blake off.