Page 12 of Skotos (Of Shadows & Secrets #6)

Thomas

W ill hung up the phone, his face drawn tight, as though the voice on the other end had spoken some final judgment neither of us could refute. We sat in silence, staring across Red’s desk while seconds ticked by.

Red broke the quiet with a snort, folding his arms. “Well, that sounded like a hell of a vacation you two just got assigned. What’s the story?”

I exhaled slowly, still absorbing the weight of Manakin’s words. “They’re not treating this like a one-off anymore.”

“No,” Will said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “They’re treating it like a war without a name. Tier One directive? We’ve never been given one of those.”

Red gave a solemn nod. “Washington doesn’t pull a Tier One out of a hat.

The President’s fingerprints are all over this.

If they’re putting you in play at that level, it’s because they think whoever’s behind the assassinations is going to keep going—and they might be worried they’ll cross the pond to do so. ”

Will leaned forward. “We need everything you have on the second hit. Witnesses, timelines, surveillance, the works.”

Red reached into a drawer and pulled out a manila folder thick enough to kill a small rodent. “Way ahead of you.”

He slid it across the desk, and we both leaned in.

Red stood, walked to a cabinet I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the room, and returned with two more folders, handing one to each of us.

“Your new legends,” he said. “Effective immediately, you’re both FBI liaisons assigned to assist French, Swiss, and other allied services with post-war intelligence coordination.”

I opened my folder to find a crisp new FBI ID card, a passport, and a few other cover documents: trainings completed, language certifications, official directives from Washington authorizing our travel, and access to diplomatic resources.

The whole thing was a backstory ordinarily memorized and then rehearsed over several days.

We had the luxury of a few hours.

Will flipped through his. “Will Barker?”

“What are you, a retriever?” Red snorted.

I smirked and held up the first page in my packet. “Thomas Snead sounds like a man who owns a dry goods store in Ohio. ”

“Or moonlights as a serial killer,” Will said dryly.

Red chuckled. “Don’t get too attached. If this goes south, you’ll be back to being ghosts.”

He pulled a fourth folder from his desk drawer and opened it flat on the desk.

“Contacts,” he said. “In France, your primary is étienne Ravel at the S?reté. He’s discreet and loyal, with a distaste for anything that smells like fascism.

In Greece, the Foreign Ministry has quietly green-lit access through a junior attaché called Demetri Papadakis.

He’s young but connected—his uncle’s in Parliament. ”

Red flipped a page. “Switzerland’s trickier. They’re officially neutral but are also one of our closest allies behind the scenes. You’ll be working with a senior inspector named Anton Giger out of Bern. Keep it quiet with him—he’s good at his job but surrounded by people who aren’t.”

Will nodded, soaking it in. “What about resources?”

Red pushed over a final envelope. “You’ll have a burn fund courtesy of Treasury and encrypted channels through diplomatic pouches for written comms. Use those only in extreme cases where you either need to inform Washington of something imminent or seek direct authorization to go beyond your mission brief.

Last resort, go to the embassy wherever you are and use the station’s secure comms room.

That will expose you to any foreign service watching our embassy, so try to avoid it if possible.

If things get too hot, we’ll extract you through Vienna.

Pull points and details are in this folder. Otherwise, you’re on your own.”

I tapped the table. “What has Paris station picked up so far? There’s got to be something on the wire.”

Red sighed, his eyes dropping to the table as he scratched the back of his stubbly head. “Not much. It’s only been a few nighttime hours, and most people are still recovering from the shock.”

“That’s not good enough,” I said, pressing. “You know something, Red. I can see it.”

He hesitated, then leaned in and dropped his voice, despite our cloistered location two floors below the US Embassy.

“There’s chatter out of Athens, but we haven’t had time to verify any of it.

I . . . I really shouldn’t influence . .

. well, shit. You need to know this. My Greek counterpart flagged an undercurrent of discontent following the king’s death—radical elements, mostly from the far left, are calling for another revolution.

People aren’t happy with the appointment of the foreign minister as regent. ”

Will frowned. “He’s a hardliner, isn’t he?”

Red nodded. “Think of him as Stalin’s little buddy.

The left hates him. Liberals are planning the usual disruption tactics, but this time .

. . this time it feels different. The temperature’s rising faster than I’ve seen since the war.

Some are talking of taking out Constantine and putting a whole new family on the throne, one who wouldn’t require a regency.

My contact, usually more cautious than a house cat, is afraid this is already turning into another civil war aimed at dynastic change. ”

He reached into his desk and pulled out a single photo: a close-up of a spent shell casing recovered from the Palais.

“There’s also this. It’s not in any public report yet, and I don’t think the S?reté or DGSE have shared it with anyone but us and the Brits.

From what I hear, the cops didn’t even want to share it with the spooks, but President Auriol insisted we all play nice together. ”

Will and I leaned closer.

Drawn into the brass casing shown in the photo was a faded symbol. It appeared etched by hand but was neat enough to be an artist’s rendering.

“Recognize it?” Red asked.

“A spear? Looks like an ancient style, but that’s all I can tell.” Will squinted at the casing and shook his head. “It doesn’t look like any manufacturer’s mark or military stamp I’ve ever seen.”

Red raised a brow in my direction, so I shook my head.

“Our boys spent all night comparing manufacturers, present and past, and came up with nothing.”

I glanced at Will. “Looks like someone left a calling card.”

Red gave a humorless chuckle. “Then consider yourselves officially invited to this party.”

“We’ll start in Athens,” I said, my jaw tightening. “Before we lose the chance to follow the trail.”

Red’s face took on the ashen color of a man who’d seen far too much death. “You’d better move fast, because when Greece burns, everyone else will be too busy watching the flames to save your asses.”

He paused, then leaned against the desk with an even more guarded look.

“One more thing. Watch your backs—not just from the enemy but from our friends, too. We’ve got French S?reté, Swiss internal services, the Brits, and even a few West German observers sniffing around.

Everyone wants a piece of this, but none of them want to share the credit.

Hell, outside the Brits and the French, most won’t even share information.

You’ll get smiles to your faces and knives in your backs. ”

“We know a thing or two about getting stabbed by an ally.” Will’s gaze brought me back to Budapest and memories of a betrayal I’d rather forget. “So no hand-holding with someone who has a pretty accent?”

Red smirked, his expression returning to the nonchalance he’d worn throughout most of the meeting. “Not unless it’s got fingerprints and blood on it. They’ll cooperate—until they don’t. Keep your intel compartmentalized and your instincts sharp. ”

He handed me the final sheet. “That’s the updated schedule for your briefing points across Paris, Athens, and Bern. Expect delays, obstructions, and bureaucratic bullshit. But also—expect moments when you’ll need to decide if trust is a liability or an asset.”

Red flipped open a slim black ledger and turned it around.

“Now, listen closely. We’ve secured two safe houses for you—one in Athens, the other in Bern.

” He tapped the first address. “Athens safe house is in Pangrati, near the National Gardens. Looks like an old artist’s flat.

The key’s under the flowerpot on the rear terrace.

Inside you’ll find basic arms, a radio coded to our shortwave frequency, two clean sets of ID should your legend get burned, and a map of consular escape routes.

Your nearest fallback point is the US Embassy. ”

He tapped the second. “Bern’s safe house is more discreet—above a shuttered watchmaker’s shop on Junkerngasse. The shop’s front is still registered under a dummy Swiss national. Use the rear alley entrance. Similar kit inside, but the extraction there runs through Zurich, not Vienna.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “What about emergencies?”

Red’s face grew serious. “Extraction protocols are simple. If compromised, use dead drop Alpha-Romeo-9 to signal. If there’s no response in twelve hours, proceed to the emergency fallback point—coded ‘Blue Chapel’ in your folders. Full burn kits are hidden in the chimneys of both safe houses.”

“Travel into Athens?” Will asked.

Red tapped one of the folders. “TWA tickets are here. You leave tomorrow morning. I tried to get you out sooner, but flights are limited because of all the idiocy down there. Not even the palace could arrange it sooner, and they tried. We thought about sending you down there in a military aircraft, but Washington said that might look a little too cagey to anyone watching closely. You’re traveling as guests of the royal family, as FBI agents collaborating with official channels, so there’s no need for secrecy, at least not on this first leg. ”

“Anything else?” I asked.

Red’s chair wailed as he rocked back and forth. He looked from me to Will, his expression darkening, his tone flatter than usual—almost resigned.

“Yeah, one last thing—and I never said any of this. Not one word .” He wagged an index finger, a nun chiding her pupils.

“Washington will deny everything. If you get picked up in Soviet territory—hell, even in neutral zones—they’ll deny knowing you.

Your cover IDs might slow things down, buy you a phone call if you’re lucky, but that’s it.

The second you step outside friendly borders, you’re ghosts.

There’ll be no rescue mission, no diplomatic cables, no cavalry charging in, and whatever goodwill Washington says we have with our allies? Don’t bet your lives on it.”

He paused, then leaned forward, his chair giving one last exasperated cry.

“Your only safety is in these folders, in your legends and your contacts. Everyone else is a coin flip. Smile when you have to, lie when you must, and run if you’re smart, because whoever’s behind these killings isn’t afraid of borders.

Shit, I doubt they’re afraid of anything, not if they’ll kill a president at a state dinner.

If you cross the wrong one, the only thing waiting for you might be one of those fancy spear bullets. ”

“You’re all sunshine and peaches,” Will said sardonically.

Red’s smile thinned. “Let me be more plain. Don’t fuck this up because no one’s coming to clean up your shit.”