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And that had come from me. I’d called George Wolffe, pulling my get-out-of-jail card. He was stymied about how to free them without making it look like Israel was releasing terrorists or compromising the unit, and I’d come up with the solution.

I’d called the detective Lia Vairo in Rome, and George Wolffe had worked through Amanda Croft, the secretary of state, coordinating an “extradition” to Italy to “face questioning” about an ongoing murder investigation. It let Israel off the hook, and allowed Aaron and Jennifer to go free.

Lia, of course, really did have a multitude of questions, and was pleased to learn that Garrett was dead, but upset she couldn’t put him on trial in Italy. And she’d had a few questions about Knuckles as well.

Jennifer took Amena’s hand and said, “Good to see you stayed out of trouble while we were gone, doodlebug.”

My little refugee had a habit of getting in trouble whenever we were gone. I saw her glance at Veep and Kylie, and knew something had happened. I said, “What did you do?”

“Nothing! I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Kylie glared at me and said, “She was fine. Everything was fine.”

I knew she was hiding something, but now wasn’t the time to find out. I simply shook my head, letting it go. I turned to George Wolffe sitting next to me and changed the subject, saying, “What’s up with the Knights of Malta? Did they admit to anything?”

“No. Well, they admitted it was a mistake to hire Garrett and didn’t try to hide anything he’d done, giving the United States and Israeli intelligence access to all of their computers. But we’ve agreed to let sleeping dogs lie. The attacks on the Israeli diplomats were never acknowledged as having been by Keta’ib Hezbollah, and our attacks were met with tit-for-tat air strikes. The Vatican itself became involved, weighing in with both the United States and Israel. We agreed to just let it go because doing otherwise could simply inflame more tensions with Iran if the news came out that a Catholic organization was killing people.”

“The final Turtle? The one who tried to blow up the Dome of the Rock?”

“He disappeared in the crowd. He escaped, but the Knights gave us his real name. He’ll be found soon.”

I nodded, not liking the answer as I looked at Jennifer’s black eye. I said, “And Iran?”

Wolffe chuckled and said, “That back channel is still working. The CIA now has a dedicated case officer in Beirut talking to him. Iran can read the news and knows they escaped total destruction. Theycouldcrow about the attacks, pointing a finger at someone else from the West for short-term international political points, but they aren’t. They’re smart about this, taking the long game and using the back channel. Nobody wants a war.”

The waiter came over and he quit talking about Iran, saying, “I didn’t even look at the menu. What should I get?”

Jennifer said, “Bone-in filet. Extra rare.”

He said, “I don’t want extra rare.”

She said, “Me neither, but that’s what Pike gets every single time.”

Amena said, “And me.”

Jennifer shook her head and said, “He’s training her to be a savage. I can’t get her to eat anything that he doesn’t.”

Wolffe laughed and gave his order, letting the waiter travel around the table. Knuckles pulled his head up from the menu and said, “Pike, you sure about this? Get whatever I want?”

I said, “Yeah. It’s on me. You’ve earned it.”

He said, “I’ll take the seafood tower,” and my mouth dropped open. That thing was damn near a hundred bucks in and of itself. Greedy bastard.

The waiter went to Brett, who smiled and said, “I’ll have the same thing. And I don’t even like seafood.”

He gave me an evil grin and said, “Youdoowe me.”

The waiter left us alone and I said, “Owe you for what? Saving your ass in Syria? If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be tied up in a Hezbollah torture chamber.”

Knuckles scoffed and said, “I’d already figured our way out. If I hadn’t decided to do the right thing for Israel and the United States, that is.”

“What happened?”

He got into story-telling mode, which is a talent unique to military people. Meaning, I was about to hear some exaggerations about standing knee-deep in grenade pins while he fought the horde of killers all by himself.

He said, “We found that Tariq guy and he was all about helping us, but said we had to wait until nightfall. Since we were sitting in a house full of dead Hezbollah guys, I told him that wouldn’t work, and we needed to jump TOC somewhere else.”

He looked at Brett, who said, “I’m the one who said we should justleave and not worry about the other UAVs. I mean, there were two of them, which means there are probably two hundred throughout the country. Getting rid of them is like trying to stop the rain by blocking a few drops.”