Etana stiffened. “It must be by my hand.”

Essai sighed. “Give it up, Marlon.”

“I can’t,” Etana said. “I won’t.”

“You have no choice.” Essai rose.

Etana was on him before he had fully reached his feet. The two of them tumbled over the back of the chair, but, despite the Makarov, Essai was in the vulnerable position. When the back of his knees struck the chair seat he lost his balance and couldn’t get a clear shot off. Instead he swung the elongated barrel, opening a red crescent just below Etana’s eye. Etana struck him a vicious blow on his sternum, and stars exploded behind his eyes. His breath felt hot in his throat and his lungs had trouble sucking in air.

The two men fought silently and efficiently. They were evenly matched, if not in strength, then in their intimate knowledge of each other, accumulated during their years of friendship. None of that mattered now, the shared history, the scheming together, watching each other’s backs. Now only a desperate struggle for survival mattered. One of them would not leave the bedroom alive, and they both knew it.

Essai heard the metallic click, sensed Etana’s switchblade, and drove his elbow hard into Etana’s stomach. He could see the blade then, thin and wicked looking. It reflected the moonlight as it arced in toward him. But Etana’s pass at him was off the mark. The tip of the blade grazed his shirt, the fabric rent open. His skin prickled as if being overrun by ants.

He drove Etana back, fighting to break away so that he could use the Makarov and end the battle. But Etana grabbed hold of him with one hand and would not allow him to gain advantage. Close in, the switchblade was the weapon of choice. If wielded correctly, it could do more damage in one swift cut than a five-minute pounding by a pair of fists.

Essai struck Etana in the mouth. The lips split and blood filled Etana’s mouth, staining his teeth vermilion. He spat blood into Essai’s eyes and, as Essai reeled back, slashed him with the knife. Essai felt the hot slash and gasped inwardly. He tried for Etana’s mouth again, missed, his fist smashing into Etana’s cheek instead.

Etana reeled away, taking Essai with him. Essai’s hip struck a night table, the lamp tilting against him. He snatched it up and slammed the base against the back of Etana’s hand. The switchblade skittered across the floor, fetching up on the rug at the edge of the bed. Etana swung Essai around and smashed his arm against the wall. He tried to claw the pistol out of Essai’s hand, and Essai drove his elbow into Etana’s rib cage.

The two men stumbled backward and hit the floor, rolling over. The pistol went off as it hit the floorboards, the bullet burying itself in the ceiling. Etana’s head struck the bed frame, and Essai began a flurry of punches that had Etana’s head swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Etana slumped over, and Essai glimpsed the switchblade out of the corner of his eye. Shoving Etana off him, he stretched out to grab it. As he did so, Etana chopped the edge of his hand down on the back of Essai’s neck. Snatching up the switchblade, Etana pulled Essai’s head back and slashed his throat from ear to ear.

Patterns of shadow and light crawled across the hotel room’s standard-issue carpet, mimicking the vehicular traffic on the street outside. Maggie stood in the room to which she was supposed to bring Christopher. One hand was at her temple, the other at her side. Silently, she counted the lenses of the miniaturized video cameras: in the bar, the TV cabinet, one corner where the ceiling met the wall. Even the bathroom had one hidden in a strategic position. The microphones were all on standby, waiting for a word to be spoken. Through one of its many subsidiaries, the Domna had rented this room for a month. The day after it was booked, three of its techs spent several hours painstakingly installing the electronic equipment then, using plaster and paint, covering up their work.

It was lonely in here, and she felt the pain of that loneliness as if it were a loss of a limb. The room had been prepared so lovingly, and yet now she hated it with every fiber of her being. She was not the same woman who had arrived in Washington, DC, to do Christopher in. The change had occurred magically, overnight, and it staggered her. She sat on the bed now, head in her hands as the lozenges of shadow and light danced slowly around her.

She had less than twenty hours to lure Christopher up here, to seduce him into a constellation of compromising positions, and get him to say the words that would lead to his disgrace. Weeks ago the plan seemed stellar; it also seemed like fun. Unlike other countries, which the Domna had successfully infiltrated through political and financial means, the United States had proved far more difficult, due to its diverse population, vast expanses, and resounding resilience. It, among all the developed nations, had a highly elaborate network of checks and balances that had foiled the machinations of even the Domna hierarchy.

She had been against attacking America’s currency through manipulations of the worldwide gold market, which had been the Domna’s plan until Jason Bourne had stopped it cold last year. But she had to admit that changing the target to the Indigo Ridge mine and its vast rare earth riches was brilliant. Members of the Domna’s Chinese arm had been successful in choking off the export of rare earths, and now the US military’s orders for cutting-edge weaponry were at a complete standstill. Phase One complete. Phase Two, far more difficult to achieve, was the Indigo Ridge mine itself. Through its American operatives, the Domna had received advance word of the US government’s intention of reopening the mine by floating an IPO on the stock market. Security was bound to be the primary issue on the American president’s mind. Benjamin El-Arian had made a list of the people the president was likely to appoint to direct security at Indigo Ridge. Maggie had seen the shockingly short list, which contained only three names: Brad Findlay, the head of Homeland Security; M. Errol Danziger, the director of Central Intelligence; and Christopher. Danziger was out because, as Benjamin told her, CI’s bailiwick was outside the precincts of the United States. The obvious choice was Findlay, but Benjamin knew that the president trusted Hendricks over the others. In El-Arian’s opinion, the extreme high priority of the security mission made Hendricks’s appointment a fait accompli. Therefore Christopher had been targeted. The idea was to cause a scandal that would derail the security plans while, at the same time, diverting key people’s attention from Indigo Ridge during the time the Domna needed to accomplish Phase Two.

But now… Now Maggie didn’t know. From one breath to the next everything seemed to have shifted around her, or maybe she was seeing the world with different eyes. Which was why she had taken the astonishing opportunity Christopher had laid in her lap during their picnic lunch. She had advised him to give up duty at Indigo Ridge—she knew precisely what he had been alluding to—and dump it into Danziger’s incompetent lap. That was the only way she could think of to save Christopher—and, by extension, herself. Once off Indigo Ridge, he would be of no use to the Domna. She could fold her operation and flush it.

She wondered why Benjamin hadn’t called her yet. Surely he would have gotten word of the security shift by now. The suspense was like a knife in her gut. With a soft groan, she reached over for the phone, dialed room service, and ordered a porterhouse, steak fries, and creamed spinach. She might as well eat well in her misery.

She lay back on the bedspread, her arms outstretched on either side. She inhaled the recycled air of the room while she stared at the ceiling. Traffic sounds filtering in from outside now seemed cold, alien, lethal. She shivered, even though her body seemed feverish. Shadows sliding along the pale blue ceiling created images like clouds in the sky. Startlingly, she saw her father. When she dreamed of him, he was always leaving, the shadow of his great woolly overcoat filling the doorway to their house in Stockholm. Beyond, there was only the snow, sparkling in the wan northern sunlight like piles of sugar. And always he would fade into that sea of whiteness, as if he had never existed. She would wake from these dream-memories thinking that she knew what his life had been like. Other times, she wasn’t so certain. And sometimes she was afraid that her memories of him were part of a fantasy she had concocted as a child, afraid that it would all fall apart in the light of day. But no, she had to have faith, she had to believe the path she had chosen was the right one, the only one she could have taken. Yet so much blood had been spilled, so much grief and heartache. Her mother gone, and Mikaela dead. She had to believe that these deaths had a purpose, otherwise she would lose her mind.