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How could he have thought that one hour with Zeph would be enough?

He should have left once they’d finished eating.

He shouldn’t have gone to see him in the first place, but when Thomas had told him about their conversation, Jack had no choice.

Thomas had lied. Jack had always been part of this operation against Al-Talib.

He’d not stopped killing. But Jack let the lie stay in place.

He had the feeling Thomas might have lied to him too.

In any case, Jack had now lied to Zeph. The Texan had been a target, not a client.

Zeph lay curled against him, his hand splayed on Jack’s chest. The sex had been fast and furious because Jack had told himself he needed to leave immediately after they were done.

Instead, he’d fallen asleep—shocking when he was operational.

Even worse, he was thinking he wanted Zeph again before he left.

“You’re not British, are you?” Zeph whispered.

Jack showed no visible reaction but that had shocked him. “What makes you say that?”

“Something about the way you said The British flap their hands and not we. ”

“What about Thomas?”

“He sounds British. But then you do too. Just something…”

Jack knew he should be keeping his mouth shut. Telling Zeph the truth was reckless. An unacceptable risk. Yet, he wanted to tell him where he’d been born. Where he’d lived for the first six years of his life. His real name.

“Thomas had me travelling so much from the day he rescued me, I picked up accents from all over the place. Nowhere was home.” Thomas had been his home.

“That’s true.” Zeph snuggled closer. “Have you thought about how you’re going to get rid of Al-Talib?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not going to tell me.”

“No.”

“I could help. I can track him for you on CCTV.”

Jack rolled to pin him down. “No. You do nothing that might draw attention. Stay out of it.”

“Don’t disappear again,” Zeph whispered. “Please. We fit together. This works. Don’t give up on me.”

“I’m not good at this.”

“You’re good at everything. And you are good at this. You make me feel safe.”

But that’s not what I’m doing. He needed to leave before he couldn’t. Jack levered himself out of bed. “I have to go.”

He put on his clothes and kept his back to Zeph. Something he never did. All his training forgotten when he was with him.

“Please come back,” Zeph said. “If you really want out, then make this the last job. We can go somewhere together. Start again.”

“I’ll try.” It was as much as he dared say. Not a lie, though he lied all the time. He was always pretending to be someone he wasn’t, except with Zeph. Mostly.

“There’s been no one else for me,” Zeph whispered. “I told you that before. There never will be. I told you that too.”

Jack should have turned and said the same to Zeph. It was true. But he didn’t utter another word before he left.

Thomas had booked Jack a room in the same hotel as him. When Jack knocked on Thomas’s door, he opened it and gestured for him to come in.

“How did it go?” Thomas asked. “Is he going to make sure you’re not identified?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows.

“It’s not worth the risk. We know Al-Talib is being watched. Zeph knows now that there are people with him or soon will be. I expect he’ll identify them tomorrow. They’ll be the ones they keep under surveillance.”

“I didn’t spot anyone on Oxford Street when I was tailing him.”

“That’s probably because Al-Talib thought he could behave like any other tourist. He’s arrogant. That’s good because he’ll make a mistake.”

“This is supposed to look like natural causes. The CIA don’t want any blame being thrown their way and the Brits would be furious about an assassination on their soil.”

“You still think we’ll manage natural causes or accident? I don’t. Next time he appears, he’ll have his full retinue with him.”

Thomas sighed. “I couldn’t strike on Oxford Street. You couldn’t do it at Heathrow. We can’t take a step in most areas without being caught on camera.”

“So what now?”

Jack listened carefully. Thomas’s plan was good.

Jack would have expected nothing less. Al-Talib was seeing his Georgian banker tomorrow morning.

The meeting was due to take place in a dilapidated office block in Gravesend.

Both men would be heavily guarded. They might be doing business together but they wouldn’t trust each other, largely because Thomas had planted seeds of doubt in both camps.

If they killed each other, it would be a loss to no one.

Not an accident or natural causes but it still worked.

“Three floors, a basement and no cameras,” Thomas said.

“Broken walls, discarded furniture. It’s slated for demolition.

Meeting due to take place on the second floor.

The top floor isn’t sound. The ground floor is more of a mess.

The basement is dark and damp. Doors at the front, side and rear.

Rickety fire escape I wouldn’t want to trust, but an option.

The building is fenced off. No surrounding roofs from which a shot could be taken.

Well, we both know you could fire from an extraordinary distance, but that’s not useful in this instance.

They all have to die without any evidence we engineered it.

I’ll be inside to make sure no one walks out. ”

“I should do that.”

“No. You outside. Me in.” Thomas opened a suitcase and showed Jack the weapons he’d procured.

Then they went over the details of the plan.

The following morning, as dawn broke, Jack was already at the site in Gravesend doing his own reconnaissance because even the most thorough preparations could prove useless. The ability to improvise was essential, so the closer inspection Jack gave his surroundings, the better.