“A man like me sent to kill a man like you.”

Essai laughed. “The best-laid plans.”

After meeting up at the café early in the morning, the two men had shared a coffee. They talked about home, about nothing at all. Then they went for a long walk, but even then nothing of consequence passed between them. This was how they wanted it, how it had to be. Theirs was a relationship so buried in conspiracy, deceit, and deepest cover they often had difficulty communicating simply as human beings.

Essai had reserved a sailboat at the rental dock, and they had set sail just after lunchtime, when the world of Cadiz was still drowsing in siesta. All the other boats had pushed off just after dawn, so they wouldn’t return until late afternoon. No one saw them; no one but the rental agent was around, and his sole interest was in the euros that crossed his greedy palm.

The day was clear, just some high clouds passing, the sun beating down, flattening the water to beaten brass. Still, the wind was up, and Essai maneuvered the small sailboat expertly, effortlessly, as if he had been born on the water. The edge of Cadiz slipped away, a Saracen’s massive scimitar, its hilt encrusted with jewels winking in the sunlight.

It wasn’t until the sun lowered, the western sky turning into a palette full of gaudy colors, that they got around to talking.

“El-Arian still thinks you hate me, yes?” Essai said.

“More than ever, I think.” Etana’s skull was gilded, but his thick beard extinguished the light. “I wanted to go after Bourne, but Benjamin assigned me to you.”

“The wily bastard recruited Viktor Cherkesov. Cherkesov has Boris Karpov in his back pocket; he’s the only one who does.”

From his seat in the cockpit, Etana stared down into the water, cobalt with streaks of orange interspersed with an inky black. “I don’t think that’s the only reason he recruited Cherkesov.”

Essai turned from checking the wind, one hand on the wheel. “Oh?”

Etana pulled into himself, elbows on stringy, muscular thighs. “Cherkesov’s first assignment wasn’t meeting with Karpov. El-Arian sent him to the Mosque.”

Essai felt a chill run through him. The light was wavering before his eyes, turning from gold to blue-black. “The Mosque in Munich?”

“The very same.”

“But why?”

Etana sighed. “I’d have to be a sorcerer to know that.”

“He sent a Russian ex–FSB director to the Mosque?” Essai shook his head. “El-Arian must be mad.”

Etana raised his eyes to Essai’s. “We need to come up with a better explanation, and quickly.”

“What about the plan?” Essai didn’t want to think about the Mosque. The Mosque and the people who now ran it were the reason for the hatred burning inside him.

“El-Arian briefed the directors before I left Paris, but of course I wasn’t part of the meeting. No one has said a word.”

“I wouldn’t expect them to.”

The wind changed and the sails were beginning to luff, rippling like a flag. Essai rose briefly, made an adjustment, then returned to the cockpit and tacked starboard.

“Careful,” he said.

With a crack of the sail, the boom swung past them.

Essai kept the boat close-hauled, the quartering wind pushing out the sails like a fat man’s cheek. They skimmed through the water, roughly paralleling the shore.

Etana steepled his brown fingers, long as a pianist’s. “I admit you were right, Jalal. There’s no doubt the Mosque’s influence over the Domna is increasing every day.”

“This is Abdul-Qahhar’s doing,” Essai said bitterly. “Servant of the Subduer, indeed!”

“But how did El-Arian come under their control?”

Essai kept the boat steady on its course. “One has to go back decades, to a man named Norén, a deep-cover operative who infiltrated the Domna. Now and again, the Domna required a bit of wet work, and they used Norén. He was a ghost—a reliable ghost—which is the most important thing. But all the while he was on assignments for the Domna he was compiling lists of names, dates, facts, and figures.”

“To use against the Domna.”

“They were used. We lost twenty-one operatives in the span of three weeks.”

“But who was he working for?”

“No one knows, though many people within the Domna and under its control tried to find out.” Essai squinted off to the west, where thunderheads were building. The wind grew gusty, the water choppy, and he turned the wheel, heading for shore. “Norén was killed.”

“What happened?”

“He was overmatched on one of his assignments.”

Etana grunted. “Who was the target?”

Essai maneuvered the boat so that it was running before the wind, the hull cleaving the water, spray slapping them in the face with each wave crest.

“A man named Alexander Conklin shot him dead.” Essai gave his companion a glance. “Heard of him?”

Etana shook his head.

Essai kept one eye on the roiling thunderheads. “Conklin was the head of Treadstone. In fact, he created it. One of the primary missions of Treadstone was to take down the Domna hierarchy. That’s why Conklin became a target.”

“And after Norén?”

“The whole idea of terminating Conklin was deemed too risky,” Essai said. They were nearing the shore now, the gusty wind pushing them fast, so that he had to begin a long tack in order to slow them.

“Here, take the wheel and hold it steady.”

With Etana’s hands on the wheel, Essai stepped out of the cockpit, went forward, and reefed the jib in order to cut their speed even more. He could feel the storm’s damp slap on his face, though it hadn’t yet broken.

When he returned to the cockpit, he retook the wheel.

“Conklin and Treadstone scared the Domna,” he said. “That was when El-Arian reached out to Abdul-Qahhar.”

“Without getting the other directors’ prior consent?”

“Just like El-Arian. I have a strong suspicion that he and Abdul-Qahhar had a prior relationship when they were young men—though I haven’t been able to substantiate it yet.”

“That would make sense.”

“But what is clear is that Treadstone’s assault was the excuse El-Arian needed to forge an alliance between the Domna and the Mosque.” Essai shook his head. “That kind of Arab influence goes against the Domna’s charter of East-West cooperation. It was a watershed moment for the Domna; it was when everything changed.”

Etana was sitting very still, his hands had a death grip on the bench, and he seemed green around the gills. Essai said nothing, out of respect, and, soon enough, he reefed the mainsail and they glided into the dock. He threw the bowline to the rental agent.

“I was getting worried,” the man said as he drew the boat slowly in. “This storm front looks very bad.”

“No need to worry about us,” Essai said. “No need at all.”

Don’t you pass out on me,” Tyrone Elkins shouted.

Peter Marks, his arms tight around Elkins’s waist, rode the motorcycle, dizzy and weak. There was a fire raging through his body, and he kept going in and out of consciousness, like an exhausted swimmer in the surf. That drowning reference again. Dimly, he wondered where that came from.

“Is that you laughing back there?” Tyrone shouted across the wind.

“Maybe,” Peter said. “I don’t know.” He let his cheek rest against the thick leather of Elkins’s jacket. Since when did CI allow one of its operatives to wear a leather jacket, he wondered. Then the thought was lost in the swirl of the inner surf that buffeted him.

“No hospital,” he said.

“Gotcha the first time, Chief.”

Peter gave a start of deep-seated anxiety. Who knew who was after him, what places they’d be watching? And waiting. “Please.”

“Fear not, Chief,” Tyrone said. “I know jus’ where to go.”

“Someplace safe,” Peter mumbled.

“Please,” Tyrone said. “Gimme a fuckin’ break.”

They arrived at Deron’s house in Northeast DC seven minutes later, Tyrone having broken every traffic ordinance known to the district. Tyrone, brought up in this African American ghetto, had never held any truck with traffic laws, and now that he worked for CI he never gave them a second thought. Any cop stupid enough to pull him over got a face full of his federal ID and backed off faster than a rat looking at a cat.