This was the day he’d hoped would never come. The contingency he had wanted to prepare for and Christine had wanted to deny. As he’d been doing all the way across an ocean, Slaton tried to shape his response. He was a product of training and methods that strove for predictability, because the predictable could be controlled. Yet for the first time ever, his attempts at thoughtful design seemed to drift. Unmoored by last words and gestures, things left unsaid. He had seen others wrestle such complications. A spotter on his sniper team with a sick child. A surveillance partner going through an ugly divorce. Personal issues always got in the way—that was a determination Slaton had long ago made. This time, however, it was different. This time it was happening to him.

To have gotten this far was simple enough—it had been the only course. Get to Stockholm as quickly as possible. But now what? Unlike the old days, he could expect no help. Funding, intelligence briefings, embassy staff, diplomatic immunity. Those were the things Slaton had once taken for granted. The things that someone in an office, deep in Mossad’s engine room, had always made happen. Now, whatever he and Christine were facing, they were facing it alone.

The line inched forward, branching into five smaller lines. As Slaton approached the podium he studied the immigration officer. She was middle-aged, attractive in a peroxide-over-tortoiseshell-glasses kind of way. There was no wedding ring on the well-manicured second finger of her left hand. Her uniform was crisp and neat, her physique trim. Perhaps a runner. He saw a faint tan line around her eyes, as if she’d recently spent time outside wearing sunglasses. If he were to venture a guess, a 10K race over the weekend. It struck Slaton then how long it had been since he’d appraised a person in such a way.

He moved to the podium.

“Passport,” she said, her words clipped and precise.

He handed over the document and she swiped it into her machine. Her eyes lingered on a display that would be full of information on an American named Edmund Deadmarsh. Full legal name, place of birth, age, vital statistics. Might there also be a flag? Slaton wondered. To this point, he’d had no reception. No police, no Ministry of Justice, no Swedish Security Service. The longer it stayed that way, he decided, the better.

She asked, “How long will you be staying, sir?”

“Only a few days.”

She handed his passport back and smiled, this time holding his gaze a bit longer than necessary. “Enjoy your stay in Sweden, Mr. Deadmarsh.”

And that was the moment it struck Slaton.