I slide my fingers between his and drift away.
16
ROMAN
We dropthrough warm air in the late afternoon. The light turns the wing gold. Mina watches as the runway rises to meet us. The wheels take the ground. The engines throttle down. The cabin holds a new silence, the kind you get when the worst part is over and the next part has teeth.
The next part makes us bait.
The crew opens the door. Humidity pushes in, full of salt and plants. We step into the heat. A small reception team waits at the bottom of the stairs. Two people place flower garlands around our necks. The transfer is a short drive and a longer glide by boat.
I hold Mina’s hand and let the sun touch my face. We look like exactly what we say we are—just unassuming newlyweds here for a good time. Not two people waiting for an assassin.
Marcus rides in the boat behind us. Tanner stays with the plane to handle the paperwork that will make it look like we’re here longer than we are, and also shorter. Both rumors will travel.Both are useful. I do not make one story when two will serve me better.
The truth is, we leave when I say we leave.
The resort sits on a private islet. Coconut palms. Sand that wants to be a postcard. The main lodge rises out of timber and glass. Boardwalks stand tall from the lodge out to the oversea bungalows. Mesmerizing blue water laps at the white seashore.
The manager waits with the smile of a man on a dental billboard. We shake hands. “Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Black.”
One of many aliases. I keep my voice quiet and my eyes on the sight lines. “We appreciate privacy. We reward it.”
“You will have it, I assure you.” He walks us down the boardwalk. The water under the planks is clear enough to see the shells on the sea bottom. Fish flash through shade and light. A stingray lifts and falls like a breath.
The bungalow is the last one on the line. That was not an accident. It sits over a shoulder of water that deepens fast. There is one walkway in and a ladder into the lagoon. Glass runs across the far wall. The bed faces the horizon. It is the kind of place I’d like to bring my wife back to, once this is all over.
I want to give Mina every vacation a map can hold. Sun that warms her bones. Snow that makes the world quiet. Corner tables where no one knows our names. Trains, ferries, tiny planes that land on water. She deserves that and more.
She carried my sons and walks through fire. Unlike me, she was not raised with the threat of violence constantly over her head. This is all new to her. She grew up normal, and despite the factthat she’s scared, she does the scary things anyway. I will reward that bravery.
I want to plan weeks she does not have to plan. Take her places she’s always wanted to see. To pack first aid and snacks and make the sleeping bags face the view, so she can wake up to beautiful wilderness. Let her be pampered within an inch of her life in some foreign hotel’s spa. Try the finest dining in existence.
We are still learning each other. I do not know what her ideal vacation is, or where she’s always wanted to go. I do not yet know all her habits or half her favorite places. Still, the urge to give her everything knocks at my chest like a fist. If she asks for a horizon, I will give her ten.
Mina steps inside and stops. The room is wood and white linens. A basket of fruit on a low table. Nothing fussy. She goes straight to the glass and presses her hand to the view. The late sun throws a path across the water. Her face loses a line I have been looking at since we left the city.
“It’s so quiet,” she says.
“Good quiet?” I ask.
“Yes.”
The manager leaves us to it, and I check the place out. The deck is three strides by eight. The rail is low. The line of the boardwalk reaches us and stops, which means one watch is enough. I note the screws on the hinges and the lock pins on the sliders. I lift the lid on the storage bench by the door. Towels. I close it. I tap the frame where I’ll have my people place what looks like a decorative bracket but is really a sensor that notices weight where weight should not be.
Mina turns in a circle and lets the view pour over her again. She closes her eyes and lifts her face to the sun. A breath later she is at my side. “Tell me what you see.”
“One long approach. Three ways off the deck. A white boat anchored a hundred meters off starboard that is not a tourist. That’s one of ours. The resort has one camera on the far pylon. We let it be. We put our own in the palm behind the last hut. No one will see it unless they climb the tree. The wind is good. It pushes sound away from us.”
“What about the ladder?”
“It is fine. If he comes by water I want him to think a choice is his, and that I don’t have contingencies for exactly that.”
She looks at the open curtains again. “It would make sense to close those.”
“It would,” I say. “We leave them open.”
She breathes out through her nose. “To make it look like we’re careless?”
