“Third, but the first two are placeholders—no aliases, nothing but kills and skills. Need me to dig around and see if we’ve got any other links?”

“Nah,” she said.

The higher up the list, the greater the threat and more urgent the liquidation priority, but you couldn’t liquidate what you couldn’t find, and there were killers up and down that list who’d been smart enough to stay anonymous, even to the Broker. Placeholders meant the war room knew they existed, but hadn’t identified them yet. They weren’t her problem.

Jacques Lefevre was her problem.

And now, apparently, so was Christopher Holden.

Bart let out a low whistle. “This mother’s a piece of work.”

Kara wanted details, didn’t have time for a verbal lesson, and would need to see them with her own eyes anyway. “Send me the Broker’s original op file,” she said, “and everything we’ve got on him.”

“Same e-mail?”

She didn’t care if the war room knew she was looking, she just didn’t want them to know right now, and her official work account was the only way to protect herself against a clearance violation. She said, “Yeah, but rename before you send, something generic, and then I need to know where Jacques Lefevre ranks on the Broker list.”

A beat of silence followed and lengthened. Bart said, “The name shows up on the flight manifest but not on the list. Maybe he’s one of the placeholders.”

No, that wasn’t right, either.

The war room had known what this guy was even before they’d known who he was, and the whole reason headquarters had mobilized Nick’s team as fast as they had was that he was on the Broker list. Now that they’d locked in on him, the name he’d flown under, even if it was an alias, should still point back to the list.

She said, “I’ve got a second manifest for you to run.”

Bart grunted. “This favor’s turning into multiple favors.”

“And you’re turning into a whiny baby, so I’d say that makes us even.”

“I’m just saying.”

“So am I.”

He grunted again. She gave him the information for the Frankfurt to Berlin flight and waited, focus jumping from street to silence and back again.

He said, “I’m not pulling up any matches.”

“Not a single one?”

“I didn’t stutter.”

“One more,” she said, “and then I’m done.”

“So you say.”

“Go back to the Dallas–Frankfurt manifest. Run every name on it against the war room’s op files, including personnel.”

“Oh, now we get to the part where I need to cover my ass.”

“Just run the fucking manifest, Bart.”

Bart typed and clicked. He said, “You know, if you weren’t such a ballbuster, you wouldn’t have to work so hard to get people to do things for you.”