“Bug might be able to salvage more of the damaged files. I’ll reroute a local asset to pick up the flash drive. Wait for his call.”

“I don’t think I should leave the country while—”

“You’re not. You’ll be taken to a safe house you can use as a staging area. We’ll evaluate the situation so be prepared to go after that device in Iran. I’ll have Echo Team rendezvous with you there.”

“Speaking of my team … did everyone make it out okay?”

“Everyone but you. Safe and sound and over the border.”

“Outstanding. What about the packages?”

“The three young people are with their families. They’ll go to London for a thorough physical, and we’ll have them home in forty-eight hours.”

“Not seeing anything in the news.”

“Iran hasn’t acknowledged the incident. There’s some question here about how they’ll play it. Fifty-fifty split between them producing dead soldiers and claiming that we launched an illegal attack that resulted in casualties; or they reach out to us on the sly and agree to a public statement that they worked with us to insure the safe release of suspected spies who have since been cleared. My money is on the latter. State is prepping a variety of responses,” he said.

“Be nice to have the good guys win. Those three kids were pretty tough. They didn’t break, and we both know the Iranians didn’t go light on them.”

“Admirable,” Church agreed, and that was about as sentimental and weepy as he ever gets. “What do you need, Captain?”

“I’m equipment-light. I need weapons and gear. Can your asset drop that stuff off?”

“I can arrange weapons, but he won’t have a field kit. Echo Team will bring the party favors. And I’ll have Bug send you the latest disarming protocols.”

“Once last thing, Boss,” I said. “Do you think this is the return of the Seven Kings?”

“Impossible to say at this juncture,” he said. The line went dead.

In my best impersonation of Church I said, “Why, thank you, Captain Ledger, damn fine work.” Ghost gave me a look and went back to his dried goat.

I studied the picture of the bomb. Jesus. Someone wanted to nuke the entire Mideast oil fields.

Understand, I gave just about half a warm shit about the whole oil wars thing. I cared even less about the politics of it. But there were hundreds of millions of people in the region. I thought of all the people coming and going in the café. Their families, their kids. All of them. Working, eating, sleeping, loving, and living on top of four, maybe six, nuclear bombs. Maybe more.

I stood up, swayed for a moment, then ran like hell into the bathroom, dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and vomited. It was so immediate and desperate that I could hear myself screaming as I threw up.