“Yes.” Her voice grew gentle. “I would.”
We sat there for a moment, the three of us, bound by history and trust and the simple fact that we had chosen each other, again and again, through danger and darkness and all the terrible things the world had thrown at us. Then the Baroness released our hands and straightened in her chair, her imperious mask sliding back into place.
“Now,” she said briskly. “William, you will go to the bakery for croissants. Chocolate, not almond, if you please. I require something sweet after such a grim conversation. We have a great deal to do before tomorrow, and I refuse to do any of it on an empty stomach. Thomas, you will pack for the two of you, because I have seen the way William packs and it is an affront to organized people everywhere. “
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
Even now, even with shadows closing in on all sides, the Baroness was magnificently, impossibly herself.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, snapping off a mock salute.
“Do not be impertinent.” But she was smiling. “Now go, both of you. We have a conspiracy to unravel, and I will not do it without proper pastries.”
3
Will
Ipulled my coat tighter and headed toward the bakery on the corner, my breath fogging in the frosty morning light. The Baroness wanted chocolate croissants. Thomas wanted me out of the flat so she could reorganize our kitchen without my interference.
I wanted a moment alone to think.
We were about to do something reckless.
The Baroness’s revelation had changed everything.
A murdered monk. A resurgent Order. Compromised ministers and Soviet connections and a conspiracy that reached into the heart of Swiss government.
She needed our help, and we had agreed to give it without hesitation.
But we were CIA operatives, not freelance adventurers. We had protocols, chains of command, and obligations that didn’t disappear simplybecause a friend asked for help. If we vanished into Switzerland without authorization, without even informing our handler—
I stopped walking.
There was a pay phone on the corner, its glass booth fogged with condensation. The receiver hung crookedly from the hook. I stared at it for a long moment, my hands shoved deep in my pockets against the cold.
I knew what I had to do.
I also knew what the answer would be.
The emergency contact number for Manakin routed through a series of cutouts—a furniture store in Virginia, a shipping company in New York, finally a crackling overseas line that connected to wherever our handler happened to be at two in the morning Washington time.
He answered on the fourth ring, his voice sharp with the particular alertness of a man who had learned to wake instantly.
“This had better be fucking important.”
“Manakin, Emu.”
A pause. I heard him shifting, probably tossing back covers and sitting upright in bed.
“Paris station said you’d gone dark. I was about to send someone to check on you.” His tone carried a warning. “Where the hell have you been?”
“We had a visitor. The Baroness von Hohenberg.”
Another pause, longer this time. When Manakin spoke again, his voice had changed. It was still sharp, but with an undercurrent of interest.
“What did she want?”
