We’d managed two hours of sleep. It would have to be enough.
I found everyone in the kitchen. The Baroness sat at the table, looking as though she hadn’t slept at all—or perhaps as though sleep was a luxury she’d decided to do without. Bisch was at the stove scrambling eggs with the grim efficiency of a man who had fed soldiers in worse conditions than this. The CIA team had claimed one side of the table, their unnamed leader studying a map while Marcus and Danny cleaned their weapons.
Will stood by the window, a cup of coffee cradled in his hands, watching the wintry landscape out the back window.
“Morning,” I said.
He turned. Something in his face softened the moment he saw me. “Hey you. Coffee’s fresh.”
“Bisch’s doing?”
“The Baroness’s, actually. Apparently she makes excellent coffee even with—” He stopped, glancing at her bandaged hands.
“Even with these,” the Baroness finished for him, though there was no self-pity in her voice. “Some skills do not require fine motor control. Others . . .” She looked down at the maps spread before her. “Others I have had to delegate.”
I poured myself coffee and took a seat across from the American woman. She looked up, studied me for a moment, then returned to her map.
“Condor,” she said. “Sleep well?”
“Like a baby. Woke up every two hours crying.”
That surprised a laugh out of her. “You’re funnier than Emu. He’s only funny because he blushes so easily.”
“Hey, I can be funny!” Will protested as he settled into the chair beside me.
“No, you really aren’t,” the woman said. “But he”—she pointed to me—“is a delicious drinkof water.”
“You mentioned that last night. Right before you commented on my chest.”
“It’s a nice chest.” She didn’t look up from the map. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Which head?” I teased.
“Thom—Condor!” Will almost forgot himself.
The woman snorted but didn’t engage.
“You never gave us your name,” Will prompted.
The woman still didn’t look up. “No, I didn’t.”
One side of her lips curled as she continued her work.
Eddie was notably absent. I glanced around the kitchen, counting heads.
“Your man,” I said. “The quiet one. He’s already out?”
“He left at dawn.” The woman looked up, then checked her watch. “He should be in position by now. He’ll take his first pass at the warehouse, then he’ll work his way around the perimeter. We should have his report by midafternoon.”
“And if he doesn’t come back?”
She met my eyes. Her expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind it—an acknowledgment that the question wasn’t idle.
“Then we’ll know they’re more alert than we hoped,” she said. “And we’ll adjust accordingly.”
This woman was cold and painfully professional. I respected it, even as part of me recoiled from it.
“He’ll come back,” Marcus said quietly. He was reassembling his pistol without looking at it, his hands moving from memory. “Eddie’s the best I’ve ever worked with. If anyone can get close without being seen, it’s him.”
