Tesla was seated next to Charley Middleton on the last leg of a series of exhausting flights that would ultimately end in Kashmir. The coach compartment was crowded, adding ample camouflage to the clever subterfuge they’d enacted inside Orly Airport. Aware French authorities would be looking for them, as well as Archer Sikari’s people alerted by the suspicious communications over Jana’s salvaged cell phone, Tesla had disguised Charley as an old woman. The ruse was accomplished with a combination of make-up, hair product and clothing, all culled from shops inside the terminal, the transformation handled inside a handicapped restroom stall. Obtaining a wheelchair from the airline proved a simple matter and Tesla had booked the tickets by phone so as not to arouse suspicion spurred by a walk-up sale.

Harried authorities on the alert for two women meeting Charley and Tesla’s descriptions would have no reason to pay heed to an old woman slumped in a wheelchair, chin resting near her frail chest and snoozing while her daughter eased her through the terminal. Sikari’s people would be more astute and discerning, but Tesla doubted even their ability to marshal significant forces in so short a period of time. To throw them further off the track, she had tucked Jana’s phone into the carry-on of a passenger bound for New York, leaving them to chase their GPS tails around the world.

Tesla met Charley’s gaze in the coach seat next to her and managed a reassuring smile. “You’ll be with your father in no time.”

“That doesn’t mean we’ll be safe.”

“Perhaps you don’t know your father.”

“You could be right. I don’t know anything anymore.”

The make-up Tesla had used to age Charley had begun to cake, and she noticed tear streaks down both her cheeks, evidence she had been crying in the moments Tesla had managed to steal some sleep on this final stretch of their exhausting journey.

She didn’t bother to deny the younger woman’s assertion. “You’re right, Charley. Once you go down the road we’re on, there’s no going back.”

“How do you live with it, what you do?”

“Easily, because not doing it is much worse.”

“At the expense of everything else,” Charley muttered, shaking her head.

“If we fail, there will be no everything else. The stakes are that high. People have died and more will if we can’t stop Sikari’s people in Kashmir.”

Charley sniffled. “I just want to go home.”

“It’s not safe, Charley.”

“Will it ever be again?”

“Probably not.”

Charley settled back in her seat, taking a deep breath. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”

Tesla laid a reassuring hand atop Charley’s upon the armrest. “In the end, it’s all we have.”

“It is the only way.”