Page 20 of Skotos
“Our boys spent all night comparing manufacturers, present and past, and came up with nothing.”
I glanced at Will. “Looks like someone left acalling card.”
Red gave a humorless chuckle. “Then consider yourselves officially invited to this party.”
“We’ll start in Athens,” I said, my jaw tightening. “Before we lose the chance to follow the trail.”
Red’s face took on the ashen color of a man who’d seen far too much death. “You’d better move fast, because when Greece burns, everyone else will be too busy watching the flames to save your asses.”
He paused, then leaned against the desk with an even more guarded look. “One more thing. Watch your backs—not just from the enemy but from our friends, too. We’ve got French Sûreté, Swiss internal services, the Brits, and even a few West German observers sniffing around. Everyone wants a piece of this, but none of them want to share the credit. Hell, outside the Brits and the French, most won’t even share information. You’ll get smiles to your faces and knives in your backs.”
“We know a thing or two about getting stabbed by an ally.” Will’s gaze brought me back to Budapest and memories of a betrayal I’d rather forget. “So no hand-holding with someone who has a pretty accent?”
Red smirked, his expression returning to the nonchalance he’d worn throughout most of the meeting. “Not unless it’s got fingerprints and blood on it. They’ll cooperate—until they don’t. Keep your intel compartmentalized and your instincts sharp.”
He handed me the final sheet. “That’s the updated schedule for your briefing points across Paris, Athens, and Bern. Expect delays, obstructions, and bureaucratic bullshit. But also—expect moments when you’ll need to decide if trust is a liability or an asset.”
Red flipped open a slim black ledger and turned it around. “Now, listen closely. We’ve secured two safe houses for you—one in Athens, the other in Bern.” He tapped the first address. “Athens safe house is in Pangrati, near the National Gardens. Looks like an old artist’s flat. The key’s under the flowerpot on the rear terrace. Inside you’ll find basic arms, a radio coded to our shortwave frequency, two clean sets of ID should your legend get burned, and a map of consular escape routes. Your nearest fallback point is the US Embassy.”
He tapped the second. “Bern’s safe house is more discreet—above a shuttered watchmaker’s shop on Junkerngasse. The shop’s front is still registered under a dummy Swiss national. Use the rear alley entrance. Similar kit inside, but the extraction there runs through Zurich, not Vienna.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “What about emergencies?”
Red’s face grew serious. “Extraction protocols are simple. If compromised, use dead drop Alpha-Romeo-9 to signal. If there’s no response in twelve hours, proceed to the emergency fallbackpoint—coded ‘Blue Chapel’ in your folders. Full burn kits are hidden in the chimneys of both safe houses.”
“Travel into Athens?” Will asked.
Red tapped one of the folders. “TWA tickets are here. You leave tomorrow morning. I tried to get you out sooner, but flights are limited because of all the idiocy down there. Not even the palace could arrange it sooner, and they tried. We thought about sending you down there in a military aircraft, but Washington said that might look a little too cagey to anyone watching closely. You’re traveling as guests of the royal family, as FBI agents collaborating with official channels, so there’s no need for secrecy, at least not on this first leg.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
Red’s chair wailed as he rocked back and forth. He looked from me to Will, his expression darkening, his tone flatter than usual—almost resigned.
“Yeah, one last thing—and I never said any of this.Notoneword.” He wagged an index finger, a nun chiding her pupils. “Washington will deny everything. If you get picked up in Soviet territory—hell, even in neutral zones—they’ll deny knowing you. Your cover IDs might slow things down, buy you a phone call if you’re lucky, but that’s it. The second you step outside friendly borders, you’re ghosts. There’ll be no rescue mission, no diplomatic cables, no cavalry charging in, and whatever goodwillWashington says we have with our allies? Don’t bet your lives on it.”
He paused, then leaned forward, his chair giving one last exasperated cry. “Your only safety is in these folders, in your legends and your contacts. Everyone else is a coin flip. Smile when you have to, lie when you must, and run if you’re smart, because whoever’s behind these killings isn’t afraid of borders. Shit, I doubt they’re afraid of anything, not if they’ll kill a president at a state dinner. If you cross the wrong one, the only thing waiting for you might be one of those fancy spear bullets.”
“You’re all sunshine and peaches,” Will said sardonically.
Red’s smile thinned. “Let me be more plain. Don’t fuck this up because no one’s coming to clean up your shit.”
12
Will
The door clicked shut behind us as we entered the flat, and the silence that followed felt heavier than the marble corridors of the embassy. Thomas was already moving, his energy sharp and focused as he kicked off his shoes, rolled up his sleeves, and started pulling our travel bags out of our armoire.
I dropped the folders on the coffee table and collapsed onto the couch, the cushions exhaling beneath me.
Manila covers stared up like mute witnesses.
I stared back, unsure whether I wanted them to speak or stay silent forever.
The room smelled faintly of Thomas’s aftershave and the burned edge of the espresso from earlier that morning. It was familiar and comforting but strangely distant with the knowledge we had to leave in hours. I’d never wanted to live in Paris, but from the moment we moved into our flat, it hadbecome home. Romance wrapped around us like a comfy blanket, and the safety we felt stood in stark contrast to the constant danger while on missions.
After a year living in the cultural capital of the world, the thought of leaving tugged at my heart in so many unexpected ways.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Thomas said, not looking up from the neat row of shirts he was folding and stacking across the bed. “That’s never a good sign.”
