I couldn’t bear to look at them. If I turned away I knew I’d still see them that way in my mind. If I covered them, then that would be my last memory of them. Or so I hoped. Any lingering regrets I might have had for shooting Iñigo drained away and left no trace.

I turned away and searched the upstairs for weapons and found nothing that provided any answers. So I stole one of Mr. Mouradipour’s clean shirts from a hall closet. In the bathroom I washed the blood off my face and throat, ran fingers through my hair, and took a moment to look at the blue eyes in the mirror. They were filled with doubts and questions.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked the man in the mirror. He had no answers at all, so I went back downstairs.

I found Ghost standing in the living room staring at Krystos, who stared back as if mesmerized. I clicked my tongue and Ghost looked at me with a strange expression in his brown eyes. He was not trembling as much as before, and there was more wolf than shepherd in the look he gave me. Maybe it was the smell of fresh blood or the sight of wounded prey. Or maybe the stress had pushed him into a different head space.

“Ghost,” I said, and for a moment he did nothing except stare.

I took a step toward him. It’s a pack leader move, challenging and demanding. He would either back down or go for me.

“Down!” I ordered.

And, with only the slightest hesitation, he lay down. He didn’t roll. I wasn’t asking that of him. But he obeyed my order.

I squatted between Ghost and Krystos. I don’t know if the Greek had participated in the horrors upstairs, or if he even knew about it, but he was part of this team. Apparently the leader of the team, and that put the whole thing on him as far as I was concerned. He could read those thoughts from my expression. He read other things too.

He began to cry.

Chapter Fifty-eight

Chapter Fifty-Eight

CIA Safe House #11

Tehran, Iran

June 15, 12:59 p.m.

I stared at Krystos for a long time without speaking. Twenty, thirty seconds. It always feels longer when you’re holding the low cards. He may have been a tough guy when he had a gun and a crew, but when it came to toughing it out with me, he was holding four low cards and a joker.

Silence and patience were my cards while I waited for him to break.

“P-please…” he said in a hoarse whisper. “For the love of God.”

“Is that what you are, Krystos? A man of God? A true believer?”

“Yes.”

“Your friends, too?”

He glanced around at the dead. “Yes.”

“What’s that mean exactly, being a ‘man of God.’ To you, I mean.”