Page 107 of One Minute Out

“I can’t tell you,” I say, and then I turn back to her. “Trust me.”

She nods and looks out the window. Soon she starts to sniff back tears, no doubt thinking about Roxana, somewhere out to sea.

•••

An hour later we’re in the Italian town of Villa Opicina as the sun rises onto a clear morning. Talyssa is sitting on a stone bench in front of a church, and I’m walking around the grounds with my earpiece in. No one is in sight this early save for a couple of nuns who passed me by a minute ago, and they didn’t exactly trigger my threat radar, so I feel secure enough for now.

I place a call that I’ve been considering, but dreading, for days and days now.

It’s two a.m. in D.C., which means I’ll be waking up someone on the eastern seaboard, but I honestly don’t give a shit.

After five rings the call is answered with a sleepy female voice. “Brewer?”

“Hey. It’s me.”

Suzanne Brewer is my handler at CIA. To say our relationship is difficult would be underselling it significantly. She is not my biggest fan, which is also an understatement. In fact, it is entirely possible, perhaps even probable, that she tried to kill me a couple months ago.

I don’t trust her, but right now, I’m out of options.

“Me, who?” She’s just being difficult. It’s par for the course from her.

“It’s Violator.”

She takes a few more seconds to wake up; I can hear her climbing out of her bed and walking, probably over to a computer in her house.

She says, “Iden code?”

I groan to myself and want to tell her, For fuck’s sake, you know who this is! But I don’t. Not because I’m above that sort of talk, but because I need something from her now.

I answer with a clipped, “Iden to follow: Whiskey, Hotel, Quebec, fiver, two, three, India.”

The pause is brief. The voice is annoyed. “Iden confirmed.”

I lay on the charm now, as thick as I can. “How’s it goin’?”

“It would be ‘goin’’ better if you were working instead of on another one of your vacations.”

I think about the past week and realize how much I wish I could take a vacation from this vacation. But I say, “I’ll be back soon. Sooner, actually, if you give me a little help. It’s really important.”

“You wouldn’t be calling if you didn’t need help. You wouldn’t be calling at this hour if it weren’t important. What do you want?”

This is going well, so far. I decide to add to my charm offensive to reel her in.

“You feeling better?”

Suzanne Brewer had been shot a couple of months earlier; she fell into my arms, in fact, and I guess I probably saved her life. That’s how I remember it, anyway, although my recollection of the incident is a bit fuzzy.

I hope that’s how she remembers it, as well, to earn me a little more respect in her eyes so she’ll give me what I need.

But she barks back at me. “I asked you what you wanted.”

Nope, the ice queen is as frosty as ever, despite the fact that I stopped her from bleeding out back in the UK.

I reply with, “I need whatever the Agency knows about a sex trafficking ring referred to as the Consortium.”

“Perhaps you are confused.”

“Confused about what?”

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