Savich introduced her to three other agents in the area before he led her into the glass-windowed conference room. Savich paused a moment when Shirley came into the conference room after them with tea and a plate of cookies. He thanked her, said to Olivia, “Shirley is famous for her sugar cookies, they’re made with Splenda, actually.” He poured Olivia a cup of tea, offered her a cookie.

So this big man bothered about cookies. Olivia felt more of her uncertainty fade away. She drank the tea, nibbled on the cookie, swallowed, took a deep breath. The blanket of fatigue lifted a bit.

“As I said, Olivia, we don’t know each other yet, but we have two common goals—finding Mike Kingman and the flash drive, and bringing down whoever is behind this. Well, that’s three actually, but I imagine we’ll find out soon enough they’re each a part of the whole. By the way, you can call me Dillon.”

“The most important to me is finding Mike. Alive.” She hated it but felt tears burn her eyes. “Your agents, they all seem nice.”

Good, she was trying to keep herself together. Savich said, “They’re the best. Now, before we break off today, you’ll give me all of Mike’s usual haunts, even those you’ve already checked yourself. Names of relatives who live in the area, their haunts, you know the drill. I gather you know Mike well?”

“Yes,” she said, then added, “Okay, truth is, I know him more than just well. We’ve worked together at times for the past several years, in most of the hot spots on the globe, primarily the Middle East and Northern Africa, since both of us speak Farsi and Arabic. He’s smart, Dillon, and besides being a macho idiot, he has great intuition. I’ve often been afraid for him, because when there’s obvious danger, he runs toward it, not away, and he never second-guesses himself. He risked his life to save me in Iran, to try to save Hashem, the operative we were sent to bring out.”

Savich saw the tears on her cheek. “You’re more than teammates.”

She blinked at that, started to shake her head, realized it was true. “Yes, I suppose we are. Our assignments have separated us for periods of time, so we’ve been on and off, I guess you’d say. But I’ve trusted him with my life many times.” She paused and another tear trailed down her cheek. She brushed it away angrily. “I’m sorry to be so weak, but Mike is very important to me.”

“Have you seen him at all since your injury?”

“Yes, he came to see me, in Balad, but I was too confused to speak to him. It’s possible he wanted to warn me, tell me he’d discovered something was off, but he couldn’t. I was dead to the world.”