I said, “Come on. She won’t go nuts. She’s smitten with me. You jealous?”

Jennifer jerked her hand out of mine and said, “Have you lost your mind? She’s a cold-blooded killer. And she’s a lesbian. You know that.”

Which was true, but didn’t alter the facts. Our relationship was a little complicated, but it was a relationship. I said, “I know. But she’s still smitten with me. Or maybe it’s you.”

Jennifer glared at me. I started walking down the hill and she pulled my sleeve. She said, “I think you’re smitten with her, and it’s clouding your judgment.”

The comment took me aback. I stopped and turned to her. I knew she hadn’t said it out of jealousy. Jennifer was way beyond that. She instinctively knew that I’d follow her into hell just to smell the sulfur if she asked. Truth be told, we’d already been through the fire, and she understood me more than anyone else on Earth. More than myself at times. Like now. Maybe she had a point. Maybe I was forgetting Shoshana’s less-than-stellar edges.

I looked at her, seeing nothing but concern. I said, “Okay, I won’t do anything stupid. Let’s just see what she’s about.”

She squinted at me and I said, “I promise. No antics, but we can’t let her walk, and there’s no way we can follow her if she’s working with a Samson team.”

She shook her head to let me know she thought it was a mistake, but said, “Okay. Okay.”

I turned and strode down the hill, reaching the small rope that marked the deck of the outside patio. I stepped over it and got within ten feet of her table before Shoshana shifted, sensing my approach. She looked up and I saw her eyes widen. She showed no other outward sign, maintaining her nonchalant tea-drinking attitude.

I sat down at her table, then looked at Jennifer standing behind me. I said, “See. Told you.”

Shoshana shook her head, a bemused grin on her face. “Nephilim Logan. I suppose this is some prophecy coming to life.”

Shoshana had always had a strange attraction to my given name, thinking it meant something more than the hippie purpose my parents chose in giving it to me.

She said, “Should I draw my weapon?”

“Do you have one?”

She laughed and said, “No. Actually I don’t.”

“Where’s Aaron? The rest of your team?”

“Aaron’s around. In fact, he’s listening to you right now.”

She glanced to the ground, and I realized she had in an earpiece. She said, “No problems. Don’t break position.”

She paused, then said, “Yes, you heard right. Believe it or not, I’m sitting with Pike and Jennifer. I don’t know why. I’ll call in a second.”

She looked at Jennifer and said, “Might as well have a seat. As Pike would say, this has turned into a circus.”

Jennifer did so, and Shoshana said, “You’re looking good. I have to say I missed you.”

Only it wasn’t to me.

I said, “Don’t start that shit. You can’t push my buttons like that anymore. Not after Brazil.”

She laughed, a genuine thing, and said, “Okay, I missed you too.”

She picked up her small glass of tea. Saying nothing. Waiting on me.

I said, “What are you doing here? I mean, we’re here to look at some UNESCO heritage sites, check on their deterioration, that sort of thing. You know, for my company. We were walking around this little enclave, and holy shit, Jennifer saw you.”

She said, “You guys want something to drink?”

“No. I want to know what you’re doing in the same damn coffee shop I was going to plant Jennifer in.”

She looked at Jennifer and said, “So, this heritage site is probably inside that apartment building across the street.”

She is on our target set. But maybe the apartment complex was just a jihadist hotbed. It could still be coincidence.

I said, “Yeah, it is, and you’re becoming like Uncle Kracker at a Kenny Chesney concert.”

She scrunched up her eyebrows. “What does this mean?”

“It means people are paying to see me in concert and you keep popping up in the middle of it.”

Jennifer rolled her eyes, realizing my clever response was lost on an Israeli. She said, “It means we’re on a mission here as well, and we’re wondering if you’re chasing the same guy. Like last time.”

“So you are Uncle Kracker?”

I said, “No, damn it, I’m Kenny Chesney. . . . Never mind. What are you doing here? What is Mossad doing here?”

“I’m no longer in government service. Aaron retired, and we’re on our own.”

“It’s just you and him?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re a gun for hire now? Who are you working for?”

She said, “It’s complicated.”

Of course.

My earpiece came alive. “Pike, Pike, trigger. Target just left the apartment complex. He’s walking with an unknown.”

Shoshana’s eyes narrowed, but she couldn’t have heard the call. I followed her gaze. She was looking at Hussein and the unknown, walking up the street and retracing the route Hussein had taken earlier.

She was tracking our target.

Her eyes still on them, she stood, saying, “I have to go.”

I grabbed her wrist, drawing a flash of anger, a deep well that I had seen in action before. Jennifer clamped her hand on my arm and said, “Let it go, Pike.”

I looked into Shoshana’s eyes and saw she was begging me to not push the issue. Begging for me to back down. But I also saw she was willing to push it to the limit, and I’d seen what that entailed. I released her, saying, “You’ve only got two. We can help here. Let’s work together.”

She threw some money on the table and said, “Like old times?”

“Yes. But we get the target. He comes with us.”

She said, “He’s not going anywhere but into a pine box.”

At those words, I stood, saying, “I don’t know how you got on this target, or who’s pulling your strings, but I can’t let you kill an American. Friends or no friends.”

She whipped her head to me and said, “American? What are you talking about?”

27

Omar al-Khatami stared into the mirror, the steam from the hot water fogging the glass. A stranger stared back.

His hair now cut short into stubble, he’d finished the transformation by shaving his beard. The first time he’d done so in . . . in . . . he couldn’t even remember. The only thing that remained were the eyes. Something that could pose a problem. Even he saw it, staring into the hotel mirror. He’d never be mistaken as a church group leader, no matter what he did. His eyes had seen too much, and had filled up with the death, like a blood bucket in a slaughterhouse. The carnage of his past now leaked out no matter what he looked like.

He pulled a towel from the rack and blotted his face, putting the thought aside. It was something to worry about later. First, he had to get the instruments of destruction from Albania, and he wondered if he was walking into a trap.

The contact call had gone fine. He’d answered with the correct responses, even as he feared using the traitorous satellite phone. He’d been given a clean email address, and he’d demanded that the phone be used only for emergencies, and the man on the other end had agreed. There was nothing outward that gave Omar pause. The man hadn’t said anything wrong, but he’d sounded tinny, as if he were talking through a pipe. Or talking through some technology that was recording what Omar said.

Maybe I’m paranoid. But it wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last. Especially given the email.

Omar had received the message tonight on his new account. He’d been told it would simply be a test to ensure they could talk. He was just to reply, letting them know he’d gotten it, but the email had more than innocuous test words. It said the meeting in Albania had been bumped twenty-four hours. A change that raised the hair on his neck. The excuse given was some problem with the Albanians, which very well might be true, but the delay made him wary for reasons more than just his skin.