“Unfortunately for you, the courses of action open to you are inherently different for each option, so in order to help you, I am afraid I need to know which it is. I am sorry, that is my price.”

She sat there, impassive, and watched the cogs turn over in their heads. Neal looked from her to Barrett, and back to her. Barrett, however, kept his eyes firmly on the floor, clearly very deep in thought. After about a minute of absolute silence, he looked up, and she saw immediately the conflict in his face. He wanted to protect her from whatever it was they had to say to her. She had never seen such a thing from him. She was touched, but she was also deeply disturbed by this level of emotion from a man such as he.

He broke the eye contact, clearly coming to a decision and moving forward with it immediately, before he could change his mind. “Neal, she is ready. Tell her the truth, all of it, and do not spare any details. She is easily as intelligent as we are, even you, so give it to her straight. We’ll worry about her loyalties afterward.”

Neal nodded somberly, looking at his friend and taking his cue from him, then turning, almost sadly, to the guest. “Maybe you could tell me your name first, your real name?”

She smiled. Then she decided that she was clearly about to be let into something that Colonel Barrett Milton, with all of his years in the Pentagon, considered a big secret. If Neal was willing to trust his life to her on Barrett’s word, she was willing to meet him partway.

“My name,” she said, “is Ayala Zubaideh. I am retired now, and I live in Denver, Colorado, which I have called home for five years. But I was born in Israel, grew up in Saudi Arabia, and worked for HaMossad leModiʿin uleTafkidim Meyuḥadim, the Mossad to you, until my retirement five years ago. I met Barrett when he was stationed in the Gulf in 1991. He did not know who I worked for until I retired, when he decided he could not, in his position, stay with a member of a foreign intelligence agency, even a retired one, however close an ally Israel may be at this particular time. We got divorced and I have not seen him since.”

Neal struggled with the idea of the colonel married, and to such an exotic woman, and then with the fact that he had ended it so utterly. Finally, Neal struggled with the fact that he had just been told he was sitting in a room with a member of the feared Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. The Mossad to its friends, and its enemies.

Not for nothing, but Holy Shit, thought Neal.