Page 6 of The Shadow Friends

“So you’re the lucky man who landed this woman,” said Rodrigo, smiling as he held out his hand. “Rodrigo Estrada. Ingrid and I once worked together.”

Lloyd quickly set down his martini and shook Rodrigo’s hand. “And this was twenty-eight years ago?”

“It feels like a century.” Rodrigo looked at Ingrid. “But she’s just as I remember her.”

“Was this in France?” said Maggie.

Rodrigo gave Maggie a searching look, as if weighing how much to reveal, the sort of mental calculation they’d all learned to make whenever striking up a conversation with a stranger. Some details were not meant to be shared.

“These are good friends,” Ingrid assured him. “Maggie Bird. Declan Rose. And Ben Diamond. We met back at the Farm.”

“Ah. No secrets then. The brotherhood,” said Rodrigo.

“And sisterhood,” Maggie added with a note of irritation.

Rodrigo tipped his head to her. “Of course. Apologies.”

Lloyd was frowning over his spectacles at Rodrigo, as if studying some rare bird that he’d never encountered before. “You worked with Ingrid in France?”

“She never told you?” Rodrigo looked at Ingrid. “Was I that forgettable?”

“I don’t share operational secrets,” said Ingrid, firmly shutting down the conversation. She glanced at her watch. “I should get moving.”

“Yes, things seem to be wrapping up here,” said Lloyd, looking around at the ballroom, which was emptying out as guests drifted off to dinner. “Shall we head home?”

“I can’t,” said Ingrid. “I have to see to a few more details.”

“But what about dinner?”

“I’ll grab something. Why don’t you go home?”

Lloyd eyed Rodrigo and said: “Maybe I should hang on a bit?”

Now I’ve got another fire to put out, she thought. Just as the conference was about to shift into high gear, she was forced to juggle two male egos. Rodrigo had not lost his talent for complicating her life.

There was only one sensible move. “I’ll see you at home,” she said to Lloyd and walked away from the group. She did not glance back as she continued straight out of the ballroom, out of the situation. The old Ingrid had always been good at extricating herself from a tight spot.

The new Ingrid would have to be just as good.

Chapter 3

Maggie

When Maggie and Declan walked out of the Cod Cove Resort, the waters of Penobscot Bay were bathed in the moon’s silvery glow. They paused to admire the view from the hotel veranda, where a row of white rocking chairs stood empty and spectral in the moonlight. After Dr. Stamoran’s somber keynote speech, with its images of pox-riddled skin and corpses stacked on pyres, it was a relief to breathe clean, fresh air, to enjoy this moment of tranquility. Tonight’s lecture had merely reinforced what Maggie already knew: that the world was perpetually poised on the edge of calamity. She and her friends had spent their careers in the CIA trying to anticipate and prevent just such calamities. The weight of that responsibility, and the personal toll it had extracted from Maggie, was why she had walked away from the job almost two decades ago. Now a new generation had taken on the battle, and they were welcome to it. These young people might have dazzling new cyber tools and tech skills at their disposal, but the old threats remained.

Dr. Stamoran’s speech was a chilling reminder that it still took only a single madman to launch a global catastrophe.

“I’d say we’ve had enough doom and gloom for the night,” said Declan. He pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “God, I’m glad we’re retired. Now it’s just a nice walk into the sunset together, martinis in hand.”

In the semidarkness of the hotel veranda, she could not see his face beneath the sweep of black-and-silver hair, but she didn’t need to. She knew every crease, every laugh line of Declan’s face. They’d been friends for decades, ever since they met as new recruits to the Agency, but only recently had their friendship bloomed into love. It still felt new and deliciously strange to hold his hand, to feel his breath in her hair. To climb into bed with him. One was never too old for desire.

“Your place or mine tonight?” he murmured.

“Your place. Callie’s taking care of my chickens this week, so I don’t need to go home at all.”

“Or get up at the crack of dawn? Thank God.”

“No, we can sleep in late tomorrow.”