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As if they’d been monitoring his phone calls, a new call vibrated his phone on cue, this time his boss, André Fortinay. The man had put his life on the line for him, Katie, and Dawn last year, and had supposedly been a big advocate of bringing Alex all the way into the CIA fold, but did he dare trust the man?

He took the call. “Hello, André. How are you today?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“Good. What can I do for you, sir?”

“Any chance you could come in to the office in the next day or two? I’d like to talk over possible postings for you. We have too few doctors and too many crises around the globe where people are desperately in need of medical care.”

Not to mention he was a trauma surgeon who could handle the sorts of terrible combat wounds that few physicians were trained to treat. The same sorts of wounds he’d spent the past year learning how to inflict.

And then, of course, there was his other training. The real reason he would get anywhere André decided to send him.

“What’s a good time for you, André?”

“Now, if you’re not busy.”

“I’ve got the baby with me.”

“Bring her along.”

“I can be there in, say, a half hour?”

“Perfect.”

Alex flagged down a cab and pulled up in front of the D.U. office—a restored mansion on embassy row—in more like twenty minutes. However, it took him nearly ten minutes to get past a phalanx of cooing staffers and nurses with Dawn to André’sdoor. He left the baby and a bottle with the Fortinay’s secretary, who was in transports of ecstasy at getting to feed Dawn. He stepped inside Fortinay’s office and threw a harried look at his boss.

“Now you know why your old man used you as a cover,” André observed dryly. “Nobody can resist a cute baby.”

Alex scowled and dropped into the chair in front of his boss’s desk.

“Adapting to parenthood all right?” the man asked.

“Dawn’s great. Family life is…relaxing.” When he wasn’t quietly flipped out over whether or not any of it was real, that was.

“So. Let’s talk about what you’ll do and where you’ll go, next.”

“That sounds like a plan. I’m not the type to sit around the house staring at my toes.” While he talked, Alex reached across Fortinay’s desk, picked up a pen, and scrawled the words,white noise generator?on a sticky pad.

Fortinay nodded and held up a finger. “I hear you. Inactivity makes me lose my mind in short order.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a gadget about the size of an old-fashioned cassette tape recorder and set it on his desk.

“All right. White noise in place. What’s up, Alex?”

“My father phoned me this morning.”

“Did he, now? The man’s not wasting any time calling in the favor he earned by saving your life.”

“He claimed it wasn’t him who gave the order not to kill me last year.”

Fortinay leaned back hard in his chair at that. “Is he still sticking with that line?”

“It didn’t come up, today. But as far as I know, he’s standing by the assertion. Not that I’d know with him if it’s true or not. Best liar I’ve ever seen. No tells at all.”

“Duly noted: never play poker with the man. Or his son, the way I hear it.”

Alex shrugged. He’d made millions gambling at the tables in Vegas and Atlantic City. High-stakes poker had been one of his more profitable endeavors, in fact. It hadn’t all been about being a good liar, though. His undergrad degree in math and master’s degree in cryptography had helped.

“Your training reports are pretty impressive, Alex.”