“I’m sorry. Give me time, please. Life’s a little . . . ”—he exchanged looks with his colleague—“ . . . hectic right now.”

Middleton strode over to the tall wardrobe in the living room, a hulking, ugly piece of furniture—the only out-of-place item in the room and one hidden in shadow so that it couldn’t be seen from the long double window that gave out onto the street. The cottage was in a narrow Georgian lane in a backwater of Bloomsbury, walking distance from the West End and the concert hall where she was due that afternoon for a final rehearsal. It was a quiet, discreetly wealthy part of central London away from the crowds and the tourists, a village almost.

When he threw open the wardrobe’s doors, Felicia found herself looking at the object she had found there when she was poking around the place two days before, after arriving from New York—a black, heavy-duty metal security cabinet with a rotary combination lock, like that of an old-fashioned safe. Middleton dialed the numbers then pulled on the handle to open the door. Felicia caught her breath, though in truth she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. A small armory—pistols, rifles, boxes of ammunitions, other items she didn’t recognize—was neatly lined up inside.

Leonora Tesla put down her shoulder bag, joined him and starting picking at the hardware. Middleton had brought two grey hold-alls for their booty. The two of them looked like a couple in a fancy chocolate store, trying to decide what delicacies to take away with them.

“So the Volunteers are back in business,” Felicia said.

“Supply and demand, kid,” Tesla replied, taking down what looked like a pack of small metal balls. Grenades of some kind maybe. “Be grateful you’re in a nicer business.”

Middleton and Tesla were so utterly absorbed Felicia didn’t feel too bad about poking around at something else while they were so preoccupied.

After a minute, she said, “I am grateful. Yet still, in your new job, you find time to buy nice jewelry. Nora, is this for you?”

They stopped packing weaponry into the soft grey cases and turned to look. In her delicate pale fingers, Felicia held the glittering object that had caught her attention as Leonora Tesla placed her bag on a chair by the dining table, the top half open. The article was enclosed in a transparent plastic evidence packet and tagged with a NATO label bearing the previous day’s date, and what sounded like a French name. It occurred to Felicia that they must have been in a hurry indeed if they sought weapons before delivering what must, she imagined, have been something of importance.

“You know, when we first got to know one another I don’t recall you being in the habit of going through people’s things,” Middleton told her.