He’d have one shot at this and one shot only. If a single thing went wrong, he’d spend his last agonizing minutes staring into the face of Charles Van Sciver. But for now there was nothing more he could do.

He dressed for morning and lay back on the bed. He let go of the grueling events of the day, tuned out his fears for tomorrow. There was only the present moment, his body on the soft, soft mattress, the faint sigh of his breath. If this proved to be his last night, then he wanted to enjoy every second.

This time when the gas came, he welcomed it.

51. A Shout into the Abyss

51

A Shout into the Abyss

For once it was nice not to pretend. Candy didn’t have to act like Ben Jaggers’s wife or his whore or his partner in photojournalism. It was all out in the open. They were two deadly trained operatives, here to reclaim a government asset. And to permanently decommission him.

Unfortunately, she still had to share a room with Jaggers.

In other circumstances it might’ve been romantic. Crackling fireplace, homey quilts thrown over matching queen beds, snowflakes clinging to the windows—it was like a friggin’ Viagra commercial.

She let her dress fall around her stiletto boots and stepped clear of it. Bending over, she unzipped her boots and tugged them off. She put on a pair of silk pajamas, the fabric a salve against her throbbing back.

Not surprisingly, Jaggers didn’t bother to turn around. He sat on the bed facing the sliding glass door. From behind he looked frail and weak. His shoulders seemed bird-thin, and there was a slight hunch to his spine. He was the unlikeliest Orphan she’d ever encountered.

“What’s your story?” she said.

He still did not turn around. “What story?”

“How did you get here? Become an Orphan?”

“That information is classified. You know this.”

“No shit. But it’s me and you in a snowed-in chalet in the middle of Godknowswhereistan, and we can’t fuck because you’re lacking the requisite hardware. So I figure a little conversation might help us while away the hours.”

At last he turned, but only enough to give her his profile. That drippy nose, the runny chin. He was a sight. “If you continue to break protocol,” he said, “I’ll report you to Orphan Y.”

“Van Sciver,” she said, “has bigger concerns.”

Now Jaggers faced her fully. Sitting on the mattress, he drew his knees to his chest. He looked scrawny, an embryonic vulture. And yet those eyes held his power. Flat and hard like river-smoothed stones, the eyes of a shark gliding effortlessly through the depths in search of prey. Those eyes told the truth, and the truth was that there was no story, no background to make sense of, because men like Ben Jaggers didn’t make sense. They just were.