“Of course, Your Highness.” Michel bowed his way out of the room. When the door was closed, Hannah dropped her hands to her sides. Her stride firm, she walked to the desk. “We’ve gotten a break. You’ll have to call Reeve immediately.”

*   *   *

“I’m not easy about this,” Armand said some time later when his son-in-law sat across from him. “How can we be sure Deboque will be fooled by the information Hannah will feed him?”

“Because it’s so nearly the truth.” Reeve downed his second cup of coffee. “Unless Hannah can give him something important, something he has no other way of getting, she’ll never get close to him.”

“But will he believe her?”

“It’s my job to make sure he does,” Hannah said quietly. “Your Highness, I know you’ve had objections to this operation all along, but up to this point it’s worked exactly as we’ve wanted.”

“To this point,” Armand agreed, and rose. He gestured them both back into their seats so that he could pace in peace. “Now I’m in the position of asking a woman, a woman who both my family and myself have become very fond of, to go alone to meet a man who kills as much for pleasure as for profit.”

“She won’t be alone.”

At Reeve’s announcement, Hannah sat straight up. “I have to be. If Deboque or one of his men have the slightest clue that I’m not, the whole operation goes up in smoke. I won’t have it.” Now, she rose as well. “I’ve given this two years of my life.”

“And I intend to see that you live a bit longer,” Reeve said mildly. “We suspect that Deboque has his headquarters in a small villa about five miles from here. We’ll have men watching it.”

“And they’ll have Deboque’s men watching them.”

“Leave that part to me, Hannah, and do your job. You have the blueprints and the specs on the security systems?”

“Yes, of course.” Annoyed, she sat again. “And I know I’m to give them to no one but Deboque.”

“You also know that at the first sign that things are going wrong, you’re to pull out.”

She nodded, though she had no intention of doing so. “Yes.”

“There’ll be two men stationed at the café.”

“Why don’t you just send up a flare?” Hannah tossed back.

He understood her frustration, but merely poured a third cup of coffee. “It’s a choice between that or wiring you.”

“The last agent who attempted to get a wire into Deboque’s organization was sent back to the ISS in three boxes.”

Reeve moved his shoulders. “Your choice.”