Page 52 of Bonded in Death

“Alice. In my mind, her voice in my head. So clear, as if she stood with me. ‘Let him live, let him live a long life without his freedom. Let him live with the shame, with blood on his hands. Death’s too quick. Let him pay,moya lyubovna, every hour of every day of every year.’

“She was gentle and fierce, a teacher who became a warrior. So for her, I let him live. They tried him in The Hague, and there were more war crimes uncovered. He had so many deaths on his hands. He died in prison, but after decades.”

“When? When and where did he die?”

“On the third of November, 2056, in the prison they call Five Hells, in Manchester.”

She’d confirm that, but moved on. “I need to know about the other six. You and six more are still alive.”

“Ivanna you know. She was Panther, for her grace, her cunning. We were young together, and had… we were lovers. So very young. The dance took her away, and the war made her another soldier. Clandestine. Ivan, you met.”

“Jesus, the let’s-screw-with-time guy?”

“He was a young scientist then. Not a soldier, or only when needs must. He had no taste for that. A scientist, an inventor. Brilliant. He was Owl.

“Cyril Snowden, Cobra. Like Giovanni, a cyber. He lost most of his family to the war, in the early days of it.

“Boy.” Summerset looked at Roarke. “I trust you’ll know this name. Marjorie Wright.”

“The actress?”

“A long, successful career. Such talent. And she used it, that talent for becoming, for acting, to fight. She was Chameleon, as she changed into whatever was needed. You may know the name Iris Arden.”

“I do,” Roarke agreed, a little astonished. “Arden Teas. It’s more than tea, but that’s what built the fortune. But she’d have been very young.”

“Barely twenty. Young, yes, and beautiful. She used youth and beauty, and the doors they and her wealth opened, to gather intelligence. She was Mole. And Harry, Harry Mitchell, who was Magpie. A thief, a very good one. Not as good as some,” he added with a smile for Roarke. “A small man, agile and quick. He not only scavenged for whatever was needed and couldn’t be provided but slipped and slid into places with good eyes, good ears.”

“And you?” Eve asked.

“Fox. Sly, I suppose, and I like to think clever.”

“You took an oath—eleven of the twelve? After?”

“How do you know?”

“It’s my job to know. Rossi would only tell his wife he had to go to New York, a friend needed him. He’d taken an oath and had to go. And he came here, he came right away. He honored the oath.”

“We swore. First, before the mission, an oath, and Potter with us. And again after we lost Alice and Dubois, with their blood still fresh before we set out to find Potter, that same oath. If any one of us needed help, we’d come. No matter where, no questions. Nothing would stop us. We would never speak of it, as I am now, breaking that oath.”

“You’re not breaking an oath. You’re helping me find out who killed your friend. A war hero. A husband, father, grandfather. And, clearly, a spy. Retired.”

“We would come—that was our bond, to the lost, to ourselves, to each other.”

“So you know where they all are, and they know where you are. How to contact each other.”

“Yes, but we don’t. I saw them all at the funeral for Rabbit. It’s the last we all gathered together, the last we all spoke together of those times.”

“Are any in New York besides you and Ivanna?”

“No. I know she speaks, not of those times, but sometimes speaks to Mole—Iris—and to Marjorie. But the talk is of grandchildren and personal things.”

“I need their contacts. They need to be contacted now.”

“I’ll contact them. They know me,” Summerset insisted. “Yes, they know of you because they would have kept track of me as I have of them. But they don’t know you. If I tell them what happened to Gio, and that who killed him wants their lives, they’ll believe me.”

“First, take a good look at the board, at the face of the driver.”

“I have. I don’t know that face. He’s not one of us. He would’ve been young when we were The Twelve, but I’d know that face if he were part of us.”

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