Faik dropped to the ground and covered his head with his arms. He closed his eyes and waited.

Chapter Twenty

Bryan Duffy dropped the unconscious body of the protester in the shaded courtyard between the administrative buildings where Manage Risk planned its work in Energy City. There were a dozen men and a few women there already, all of them recovering from their forcible removal from the area near the gates. Duffy’s man had been jostled into him amid the crush, and he had pistol-whipped him across the forehead, knocking him out. He prodded him with the toe of his steel-capped boot and flipped him over onto his back. Blood was running freely from the deep gash in his scalp, and his head lolled on floppy muscles. The team would wait until they were recovered and then ship them back to the city. There would be charges for vandalism and public disorder, a quick trial and a long stay in the new al-Mina prison.

Duffy was responsible for security at Energy City. It was a demanding job, but that was why the company had been able to charge ten million a year to keep the place safe. Duffy had shares in Manage Risk, and it was in his best interests to project the right image. Tough. Ruthless. No pity for anyone who threatened the status quo. He took his job seriously, and he was good at it.

They had quelled the riot before it could get started, but he was not happy as he pushed open the swing door into the air-conditioned oasis that was the hub of the operation. He was not happy at all.

“McNulty,” he said.

“Yes, boss?”

“I need you to put a team together.”

“For what?”

“I thought I saw someone today,” he said absently. “In the crowd.”

“Someone?”

He waved a hand. “Someone I used to work with. A long time ago. I haven’t seen her for a while.”

He took out his phone, opened his photos and selected the one that he wanted. It was ten years old, the most recent one their contact in the Group had been able to find. The picture was of a smiling Beatrix Rose in the Sahara Desert with an officer from the Moroccan army who stood alongside her. She had long, straight, blonde hair; beautifully crafted features; porcelain skin; and a slender figure. Her eyes were an icy blue, the bluest that he had ever seen.

He slid the phone across the desk, and McNulty looked at the picture. “Good-looking woman,” he said with leering grin. “If it were me, I’d be looking for her, too.”

“No,” he said. “Trust me, you wouldn’t.”

Duffy looked at the photograph again. He remembered how attractive Beatrix had been.

Had he seen her?

If it wasn’t her, it was someone who looked very much like her.

Normally, he would have passed it off as a mistake or a trick of the light. But he knew what had happened to Oliver Spenser and Joshua Joyce. And then, just the day after he had spoken to her, someone had put a bomb under Lydia Chisholm’s car and detonated it with her inside. It was difficult to look at the trail of dead and not see the pattern.