“I don’t have much of a choice now!”
“There’s always a choice.”
She supposed he was right. She could abandon her job, flee the state, change her name. Not an appealing idea, but neither was death. She thought about a future a bit like Hartgrave’s past—in hiding, except with no plans for valiant action. She glanced at Willi and Bernie, oblivious to her crisis of faith, and turned back to Hartgrave, whose expression revealed nothing of what he wanted to hear.
“I’m not backing out,” she said. “I can run and hide just as well after as before. This is important. You need me.”
“I do.” The look he gave her suggested he wasn’t just talking about the mission. “And I have no intention of letting them get their hands on you.”
Willi, still at the table, said, “Is it time?”
“Time,” Hartgrave muttered, and dug into a pocket as he called out, “One more minute.”
He produced a delicate watch, its face an antique map. For her? Rather than simply giving it to her, he took her hand—gingerly—and put it on.
“Synchronized with mine,” he said.
“It’s beautiful,” she said hesitantly, “but won’t I just ruin it?”
“It’s not a quartz watch. No microchips.”
She gave him the closest approximation of a smile she could manage. “Brilliant.”
A flurry of final preparations followed. Everyone took a turn in the bathroom, like a warped version of a nursery-school field trip. Hartgrave checked Bernie and Willi’s cell phones—both set to the tracking program—and connected them in a three-way call. The men slipped on earpieces, testing that they could hear each other.
The next step was leaving. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, looking to Hartgrave for the signal.
“I have it on good authority,” he said, leaning against the door, “that I should give a rousing speech.”
Well, that was one way to restrain fear. Drown it in embarrassment.
“Remember that lives are at stake,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s rousing, but it’s to the point. Remember too that it won’t do the cause a bit of good to get ourselves killed, so the second you think you’re in over your head, you come back here. Understood?”
Bernie nodded. Willi simply crossed his arms, which tipped her back toward panic. Was he going to deviate from the plan?
Hartgrave, for his part, must have seen nothing alarming. He clasped Willi’s arm and said,“Viel Glück.”
And after all, it wasn’t Willi’s performance in this effort that offered the best reason for apprehension. Shethrew her arms around Bernie, who looked strange without one of his oddball hats pulled over his salt-and-pepper hair.
“Please be careful,” she whispered, avoiding his skin.
He gave her a pat on the back. “Likewise.”
Willi, on tap to go first, had his arms outstretched, preparing for the jump. Hartgrave put a hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”
He opened the door. With a shimmer, Willi disappeared.
Hartgrave yanked the heavy door back into its frame and the three of them crowded together, his screen still zeroed in on Grand Avenue while Bernie’s showed continental Europe.
Five seconds later—Emily counted it off in her head—a green dot appeared on Bernie’s map.
For a long, awful minute, nothing happened and no one spoke. Then Willi jumped in quick succession from France to Denmark to Sweden, where he paused as planned. Baiting the hook.
Five more minutes went by, each an age.
“Come on,” Hartgrave muttered at last, staring at the two red dots—still on Grand Avenue.
“Maybe I should jump now,” Bernie said. He wiped beads of sweat off his forehead with a trembling hand. “Maybe if there’s two of us—”
