Nir’s plan was to finish most of his work, then watch the video on YouTube. When Mila heard what the video was about, she decided to stay late too. Sometimes Nir thought she had to suspect his other life, particularly when he disappeared for days or weeks at a time. But she never asked questions, and more than anything else, that made her a keeper.

“A few weeks ago, in a great intelligence achievement, Israel obtained half a ton of the material inside these vaults. And here’s what we got. Fifty-five thousand pages. Another 55,000 files on 183 CDs.”

“Breaking into vaults and stealing secret files? It doesn’t even sound real,” Mila said.

Nir grunted his affirmation as he watched the prime minister revealing shelves full of binders and rows of CDs affixed to a large poster-board. His mind drifted back to the helplessness he’d felt when Nicole was in trouble. Then he thought about how, when he’d finally seen her again, he’d somehow taken a terrible situation and made it worse.

From what he’d been told, once the South African Department of International Affairs and Cooperation had become involved, the wheels had moved quickly. An angry call from the South African ambassador in Tehran reached the right person in Iran’s government, and within five hours Nicole was on a plane home to Milan.

It took Nir a little longer to extract himself from his team in Azerbaijan. Three days passed before he caught up with Nicole at her flat.

When she answered the door, he couldn’t believe what he saw. The left side of her face was darkly colored with blue, purple, and black. Her left eye was swollen and bloodshot, but at least it was open.

“Nicole,” he’d said as he wrapped her in his arms. He wanted to just hold her, but after a few seconds, she pulled away.

“Come on in. Sorry for the way I look. It hurts to put on makeup.” She walked past her kitchen and eased herself down onto the soft sectional. Nir closed the door and followed.

“No, please. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I tried to get here sooner, but there was no way.”

When he sat next to her, she turned toward him, hugging a pillow as a fluffy wall between them. He was getting a weird vibe from her, but he figured it was from the trauma. Who could blame her after what she’d gone through?

“You got here as soon as you could, I’m sure.”

An awkward silence followed, something that rarely occurred between them. He wanted to fill it with something. “I got the run-down, and it sounds like you were amazing. I can’t believe how hard you fought.”

“Why can’t you believe it? What do you think I should have done?” she asked, for some reason defensive.