Page 57 of End of Days

She knows why I did it. She knows what this is about.

She had recognized the significance of the rope, and it was a sign. Maybe she could end his agony. Maybe she was the one. Maybe she could break through the spell that had held him in pain since Syria.

He felt a stirring in his groin, a tingle that he hadn’t felt since the torture in Syria. And became convinced. It was a sign.

She would have to die afterward, as originally planned, but that was already a given. He had no idea how she knew to track his fake identification. He had been sure all of his information was untraceable—but he hadn’t considered the IP address when ordering. That would put him in Rome. Something that was too close to let go. If she followed that thread, she might close in on him in a day—before he was to leave.

And how did they know he’d kissed the other one’s cheek? It didn’t really matter how they’d known, but they had his DNA now. They were much closer than he thought. All it would take was them showing up at the Knights of Malta with a swab kit and he was done.

No, she had to go. Tonight.

Through the cameras he’d installed, he knew her name was Vairo, and that she lived in Trastevere. That was enough to find her location. He would pay her a visit, but it wouldn’t be just to kill her. He wanted to know how she’d figured out the rope. Maybe she deserved more than just a death. Maybe she deserved redemption. She was special, of that he was sure.

He saw a car enter the parking lot, circling around as if in confusion. It parked, and a man and woman exited. The man was tall, without an ounce of fat on him, with short brown hair like he cut it himself and a rough visage. He had ice blue eyes and a white slash of a scar that tracked down his cheek into the stubble of his beard. Garrett had met many men such as him in his career, and honestly considered himself to be in that fraternity. It was obvious by the way he carried himself, he was not someone to trifle with. But why was he here?’

The woman was lithe, like a dancer, with a page-boy cut of black hair, but she moved like a leopard, searching the parking lot for threats. He recognized the danger in her immediately, like a dog sensing a threat at the door.

Who were they? And did they have anything to do with him?

He watched for them to enter his surveillance trap, but instead his video feed showed the inspector leaving the room. She appeared at the outside landing, but he now couldn’t hear what was being said. He pulled out a small monocular, staring at the group.

Waiting.

Chapter 38

I wound around the neighborhood known as the EUR, Shoshana giving me directions from her GPS for the last known contact from the Zello app in Bahrain. We found it, seeing it was a damn park. A large greenspace with kids running around and adults throwing balls for dogs. Which was bullshit. Why would the Croatian call a guy who was sitting in a park in Rome?

I said, “Okay, this is a bust. Let’s get out of here and back to the hotel. Maybe Knuckles and Brett will come up with something from the Knights of Malta headquarters.”

Shoshana said, “Not yet. Keep going. Circle around.”

I said, “What, are you looking for someone else to kill?”

She snapped her head to me, giving me her death penetration stare, and said, “That man was going to harm me. Don’t question my motives.”

On the flight over to Rome, we’d had a little come to Jesus meeting, where I’d laid into her for killing the Croatian when he was clearly no threat. I was incensed by the death. The sole purpose of the mission was to capture his ass, and we’d been superseded by the potential for a catastrophic attack, and so I’d focused on the mission against the target instead of the Croatian. But by the time she’d killed him, we were in control.

The bottom line was she’d short-circuited any ability to find out what was going on solely for vengeance of theRamsad’s death. And that wasn’t something I could stomach.

I understood her loss at a visceral level, having lost my own family in a vicious murder years ago, along with friends killed and wounded in combat. If I could keep the mission in focus, so should she. But she wasn’t like other people. She was extremely linear. You hurt me, and I’ll exponentially hurt you, no matter the damage to the greater good. That’s just the way she lived.

I put on the brakes and said, “You aren’t even going to talk about this?”

She said, “Your Oversight Council gave us permission to explore here. Maybe you should listen to them.”

I said, “Shoshana, they gave us permission because they’re shitting their pants about going to war in the Middle East. Something we could have stopped if you hadn’t snapped that guy’s neck.”

She said nothing, staring out the window.

I said, “Do you understand where I’m coming from here? This isn’t like Lesotho. This isn’t Poland. You can’t run around killing people all the time. Sometimes we need the answers they have.”

She turned to me and said, “Why did you invite me to the wedding?”

What the hell?

Incredulous, I said, “What does that have to do with anything? I’m just asking you not to kill everyone you meet.”

She turned away and said, “You didn’t want me at the wedding. You invited me because you felt it a debt you owed. Because I saved your life. Nothing more.”

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