“Emilia alone or Emilia plus team?”

“She got into the taxi alone, but Daniel Cho and Peyton What’s-his-name were on the flight. There might be someone else. Did you know?”

“No.”

Kara said, “Clues to why she was there?”

“I assume she had a target of her own.”

“On the same flight?”

Nick let out a loud frustrated exhale.

He knew exactly where she was going with this.

Frankfurt as major gateway into Europe was a logical transit hub, but two sandboxed liquidation teams in such close proximity created a high risk of right-hand, left-hand confusion. If Emilia and crew had been in pursuit of a target that wasn’t on that flight, headquarters would have never booked them on it. But Emilia had been there, which meant there’d been a second target on board, or it meant more than one tactical team pursuing the same target.

Both scenarios created a shit storm of potential problems.

He said, “You didn’t want me out here to ask about Emilia.”

“I did,” Kara said. “But there’s more.”

She sat on the floor, opened the laptop.

She didn’t like making statements without a clear set of facts to back her up, and right now she was about to point fingers in the war room’s direction while doing just that. “You need to see this to understand,” she said.

Nick slid down the wall and sat beside her.

She said, “You remember the feeds earlier today, when target did that disappearing act?” She tabbed the window, zoomed in to enhance the hat.

She outlined its shape and highlighted the panel seams.

“That’s him on the concourse,” she said. “Now follow this. Angel sent you to gate twenty-four, and I couldn’t figure that out. Too much distance in too little time, but she was convinced, confirmed it twice.”

Kara flipped the feeds and enhanced the frame.

“Gate twenty-four,” she said. “Same attention-grabbing hat.”

Nick leaned in toward the screen. A low growl rose from his throat.

Earnestness seeped into her voice. “He has an accomplice, Nick, someone just as skilled as he is, and while we were busy hunting for him in our hotel, they both boarded that flight for Berlin.”

He inched his shoulder away from hers and looked her in the face.

She said, “It gets even better.”