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Her shoulders tightened, and her head snapped to the side, eyes narrowing toward the far end of the alley.
“Don’t move,” she whispered. “Don’t turn.”
I didn’t. Thomas didn’t.
Egret shifted just enough to murmur, “What is it?”
“Gray suit. Tall. Hat down. He’s scanning the block like he’s hunting.”
My spine turned to ice.
“Could be nothing,” I said.
“He see us?” Thomas asked.
“Not yet, but he’s looking. Hard.”
“Shit, there’s another,” I added, pointing with a gaze in the opposite direction.
Egret stepped back toward the fence. “We have to move.”
“Same plan,” Thomas said. “Two and two. Back to hotels. Don’t talk. Don’t go straight. Circle twice.”
“You sure we weren’t made?” I asked.
Thomas didn’t answer right away.
“We’ll know after tonight.”
Sparrow turned. Her eyes met mine for a beat too long.
We didn’t say it aloud.
But our mission had just flown off the tracks, and none of us knew what would come next.
32
Thomas
Willwasstillasleepwhen I slipped from the sheets, his body curled toward the place I had been. The morning light hadn’t yet bruised the sky, and the windowpanes were fogged with our breath from the night before.
My coat was still damp from the night air. The collar stiffened with cold as I pulled it high and fastened the top button. The street outside was silent but not still. It never was, not in Budapest, not anymore.
My usual tail was back. He fell into step a few dozen yards behind as I wandered two blocks east of the hotel. I passed an old kiosk advertising American cigarettes and Hungarian pop singers, and turned sharply down an alley flanked by broken railings and crumbling plaster.
The turn I took was quick enough to allow a slight gap in surveillance.
I stepped inside a shuttered candy shop, abandoned for months, maybe years. A hand-painted sign hung crookedly in the window, its slogan long faded, but the pane beside the door was what mattered.
My breath fogged as I reached forward and flipped the wooden placard hanging inside.
From “ZÁRVA” to “NYITVA.”
Closed to open.
By the time I slipped out the back of the shop, my tail was lurking outside, scanning the street to locate his missing target. I was fairly certain he hadn’t seen my tradecraft.
I hunkered down between a massive waste bin and an overgrown chain-link fence and waited exactly forty-two minutes. I rose, dusted off my trousers and coat, then circled once, walking the block twice to keep my feet warm, never moving more than a hundred meters in any direction.