Page 31

31

Will

T homas folded the newspaper with clinical precision—creased twice down the spine, then once across the middle—and dropped it beside him on the bench. The sound it made was soft, barely audible over the hiss of the train and the shuffle of boots on the platform.

But it was the sound that meant everything.

Abort.

I didn’t wait. None of us did.

Sparrow stood first, veering left down the far edge of the platform, her gait clipped and precise.

Egret moved in the opposite direction, hands in his pockets, casual and unbothered like he’d just realized he’d stepped onto the wrong platform entirely.

Thomas stood last and turned without glancing back.

I was already moving, my eyes down, coat buttoned tight. My heart was thudding too loudly in my chest, but I didn’t let it touch my face.

We moved like clockwork, four pieces breaking away from a center no one else could see.

Behind me, I heard the scuff of boots. Then more.

I cut right at the ticketing hallway, ducked between a trio of elderly travelers, and slipped into the side exit near the café. The air outside bit at my throat. I didn’t stop moving.

Our watchers were no longer subtle.

They scattered like flies. We were too many for them to follow everyone; they were too few to look composed doing it.

I picked up my pace near the tram line.

A quick turn, a half glance.

Yes—there, across the street. One of them had chosen me. Gray coat. Hat too low.

I ducked into an alley beside a tailor’s shop. The scent of motor oil hit me hard as I passed the back of an auto yard.

Left again.

Right.

I crossed a street without waiting for the light and disappeared into a small bakery that somehow remained open later than most of the surrounding shops. The doorbell rang with a jangle. I paused, my head down, careful not to look the woman behind the counter in the eye, then murmured my thanks in garbled Hungarian and waved a hand as though nothing struck my fancy, and slipped out the back as the owner watched in stunned confusion.

Our rendezvous spot was silent when I arrived. The moon was a sliver, and clouds obscured any stars who might deign to shed light. Even nearby lamps failed to shatter the Hungarian night. I shifted from one foot to the other, begging my eyes to adjust more quickly—and for the others to arrive unharmed.

My mind couldn’t take the utter silence, spinning faster than the gears on Farkas’s machine.

What the hell had happened?

What if we were too late?

What if he cracked?

What if the wrong whisper had reached the wrong ear and the Soviets scooped him up before he ever had a chance to escape?

I kept replaying it—his voice at the meeting, low and strained, the way he said, “my daughter,” like she was the last sacred thing left in a burned-down church. He wouldn’t abandon her. Of that, I was certain. Farkas would sooner hand himself over to the wolves than risk them taking her.

So if he hadn’t come, it wasn’t cold feet.

It was something worse.

Or maybe it was us.

Maybe we’d been too visible, too bold, acquired too many glances in too short a time.

Maybe someone at the station had put it all together.

Maybe the watchers weren’t just watching.

Maybe Farkas saw them and ran.

God, what if he was still running?

What if he was out there right now, ducking between alleys with a girl too small for her age and too smart for her safety, clutching her coat and whispering, “Quiet now, little one, almost there”?

Or worse.

What if they came for him, took him from his apartment?

Was Eszter sitting on the floor alone right now, knees pulled to her chest, waiting for a rattle of the door handle that would never come?

I didn’t want to believe that.

I couldn’t believe that.

He was alive. He had to be.

Surely, he’d hesitated for good reason. He would come tomorrow, or the next night, with trembling hands and a story about how the world almost ended but didn’t.

But espionage never ran on hope. It ran on timing.

And we’d missed our window.

My eyes snapped up at a light scuffing, barely audible even beneath the deafening cloak of night. A darkened shape resolved into a familiar form as Thomas appeared. His coat collar was pulled high. One hand rested on the top button, the other deep in his pocket. His eyes bored into me as he approached.

“You clean?” he asked.

I nodded once, not trusting my voice to a whisper.

He motioned, and we stepped farther into the shadows, crouching low behind a brick half wall, hidden from the street. My hand lifted and touched his. The touch, however brief, chased a measure of darkness away. Thomas gave me a tight-lipped grin, as close to a smile as any mission allowed.

Two minutes passed.

Then five.

Footsteps echoed down the lane.

“Sparrow,” I whispered, recognizing the stride.

She rounded the corner a beat later, cheeks flushed, breathing fast. Egret wasn’t far behind her, muttering a string of colorful curses under his breath that carried on the night air.

“What the hell happened?” Egret snapped.

“We don’t know,” Thomas said.

“You mean they chickened out? Or they were picked up? Because it felt a hell of a lot like a trap,” Egret said, his scowl deepening.

“Three watchers,” I said, replaying the scene. “I clocked one with a gun. Thomas thinks another was carrying, too.”

“All three had weapons,” Sparrow said. “I saw one flash his holster when he shifted. The guards on the platform had automatics.”

“It was a net,” Egret said. “And we walked into it.”

“Then why didn’t it close?” I asked.

“Because they were waiting for the fish, not the bait,” Egret said.

“You’re calling us the bait?” I asked.

Egret shrugged, more frustrated than confused. “We would’ve been had he showed. They knew we would be there, knew we were meeting him. They were fucking ready for us.”

“How?” I asked.

“How what?” Sparrow’s calmness clashed with Egret’s rage.

“How did they know we would be there? Lark, Shadowfox, and the four of us were the only people who knew when and where we were to meet. Where’s our leak?”

Thomas raised a palm. “You’re all assuming they were there for us and not the normal complement assigned to a station that flows into the West.” He drew in a breath. “Farkas never showed, so we looked like spooked travelers. Nothing more.”

“Or they were watching to see who we were waiting for,” Sparrow said.

“Then what?” Egret hissed. “What’s our play? What if they grabbed him hours ago? What if he’s already talking?”

“We proceed to Plan B. I’ll signal Lark. Tonight. If she knows anything, that can . . . keep us from having to go there . . .” Thomas’s voice trailed off as he ran a hand over his jaw. “Just be ready, okay?”

The silence that followed was painful.

We all knew what Plan B meant.

Sparrow’s posture shifted.

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.