Afterward, neither of them could remember who said that last line, and perhaps it no longer mattered. Their Mexican standoff was shattered by the sound of a chair crashing. At once, both turned and, as one, raced back down the hall into the room where they had been interrogating Seiran el-Habib, but nothing was amiss there. He still sat on his chair, a mass of misery with no thought of standing, let alone running away. Still, protocol had to be observed, and Whitman called to Flix to come back and watch over their prisoner.

“The kitchen!” Charlie said, suddenly breathless.

She arrived an instant before Whitman. When she’d left, Alice had been asleep in the chair, her head resting peacefully on her arms on the tabletop. Now the chair was on its side, as was Alice, who lay in a spreading pool of blood so dark it looked like oil. One of the kitchen knives, its blade bloodied, lay near one of her hands. She had slit her wrists the correct way, with longitudinal cuts along the veins, rather than across them.

Charlie ran to her, knelt in her blood to take her pulse, but it was too late, there was none. She sat back on her haunches. “Ah, hell.” Her voice was a harsh whisper. “I thought she was stronger than this. But she was just a little girl, lost and terrified.”

Whitman stood over her, staring at the back of her neck. “She was your responsibility, Charlie.”

“I know that.”

“You left her to make a name for yourself in Red Rover by interrogating el-Habib.”

“No.”

“A first step in taking over.”

“Oh, my god, you’re crazy. This is like our last night together. I can’t talk to you when you get like this.”

“Like what?” Whitman crouched down beside her. “And this isn’t anything like that night. I’m your boss, Charlie. This is strictly professional.”

“Nothing is ever strictly professional with you, Whit. You weren’t aware of it, but you made that perfectly clear down in the Well.”

Whitman waved aside her words. “You left your charge and she killed herself. How much intel was still left inside her that we should have gotten?” He put his head close to hers, but there was nothing intimate in his demeanor. “You were negligent. You let her get away, you let the mission get away.”

“Fuck you!” Charlie stood up and strode out without a backward glance.

*   *   *

It was very late, but St. Vincent had no desire to go home. Instead, he pressed a button on his desk and a wall slid back, revealing a monk-like cell, with a narrow bed consisting of a metal frame, a thin mattress, a set of undyed muslin sheets, and a walnut-hull pillow that would put a crimp in anyone’s neck but his.