She inhaled and exhaled heavily for a few moments, catching her breath. “You’re a rogue,” she said. “Somebody who’s betrayed everything that ever mattered in his life, somebody who murdered for money. Lowest kind of dirtbag there is.”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit’s what you are. Double-crossed everything and everybody you could. Sold out the agency, sold out your country. Good agents are dead because of you.”

“That right? They say why I went bad?”

“You fucking snapped, or maybe you were always a piece of shit. Don’t matter. Every day you live is a day when our lives are in danger.”

“That’s what they told you?”

“It’s the truth,” she spat. Another writhing attempt to throw him off her passed through her body like a powerful shudder. “Shit,” she said. “At least you don’t have bad breath. I should be grateful for that, huh? So what’s on the agenda? You gonna kill me, or is it just gonna be a lot of dry humping?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “A sharp cookie like you—you believe everything they tell you?” He grunted. “No shame in it. I did once.” Their foreheads were still pressed together, nose to nose, mouth to mouth: the strange and unsettling intimacy of lethal combatants.

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You got another story? I’m listening. Can’t do anything else.” But she made another convulsive effort to shake him.

“Try this on. I was set up. I served in Consular Operations for over two decades. Look, you seem to know a lot about me. Ask yourself if what they’ve told you about me really fits the picture.”

She said nothing for a moment. “Give me something real,” she said. “If you didn’t do what they say you did, give me something to show you’re telling me the truth. I realize I’m not in any position to negotiate. I just want to know.”

For the first time, she spoke without hostility or japery. Was it something in his own voice that gave her pause, that made her wonder if he was the villain she’d been told he was?

He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding next to hers: again, an odd, unwanted intimacy. He felt her relax beneath him.

“OK,” she said. “Get offa me. I ain’t gonna rear, ain’t gonna run—I know you’d get to the rifle first. I’m just going to listen.”

He made sure her body was completely slack and then—a crucial decision, a moment of trust in the midst of deadly combat—rolled off her in a quick movement. He had a destination in mind: the Beretta, now nestled under a nearby ash tree. He grabbed it and stowed it in his front waistband.

Looking wobbly and uncertain, the woman rose to her feet. Then she smiled coolly. “Is that a gun in your pocket, or—”