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“You have to. I’ve already told you too much.”
“And now you have to kill me, right?”
He put his hands in his pockets, his blue eyes alive with amusement. “I wasn’t thinking of anything quite that James Bondish.”
“That’s what this whole thing sounds like, something out of a James Bond movie. You need someone trained in cloak-and-dagger stuff, not me.”
“You’ll have time to brush up on basic handgun skills. That’s all you’d need, though if everything goes right, you won’t even need that. We get in, you place the bug, I get into his files and copy them, and we get out. That’s it.”
“You make it sound as easy as brushing your teeth. If it were that easy, you would already have done it. He—what was his name? Ronsard?—Ronsard must have a pretty good security system.”
“Plus a private army guarding the place,” John admitted.
“So the job would be a lot trickier than you’re trying to make it sound.”
“Not if it goes right.”
“And if it goes wrong?”
He shrugged, smiling. “Fireworks.”
She wavered. He saw it, saw the temptation in her eyes. Then she shook her head. “Get someone else.”
“There is no one else with quite your qualifications. The fact that you haven’t been active in five years is a plus, because no one is likely to know you. The intelligence community is a fairly small one. I can build you an identity that will stand up under any investigation Ronsard does.”
“What about you? You haven’t exactly been inactive.”
“No, but I go to a lot of trouble to make sure no one knows what I look like, or who I am. Trust me. My cover is so deep sometimes I don’t know who I am myself.”
She gave a little laugh, shaking her head, and John knew he had her.
“Okay,” she said. “I know I’m going to regret it, but . . . okay.”
“John,” Frank Vinay said carefully, “do you know what you’re doing?”
“Probably not. But I’m doing it anyway.”
“Ronsard isn’t anyone’s fool.”
John was relaxed in one of the big leather chairs in Frank’s library. He steepled his fingers under his chin while he studied the chessboard. They had resumed the game that had been interrupted two days before, when an agent brought over the preliminary report on the crash of Flight 183. “You’re the one who brought her into it,” he pointed out.
Frank flushed. “I was being an interfering fool,” he grumbled.
“And a sneaky one, or are you going to tell me you didn’t have it in mind that I’d be a lot more willing to step into your shoes if I had an incentive to retire from field ops?” He moved a knight. “Check.”
“Son of a bitch.” Frank glared at the board for a minute, then looked up at John. “You have to retire some time, and I can’t think of a better place for you to use your expertise than in my office.”
“’Some time’ isn’t now. Until I’m compromised, I can do more good in the field.”
“Taking Niema Burdock into the field might make that sooner rather than later. For one thing, she knows who you are. For another”—Frank gave him a shrewd look—“could you leave her behind if necessary?”
John’s eyes went flat and cold. “I can do whatever I have to do.” How could Frank ask him that, after Venetia? “And Niema is probably the best choice I have available. I wouldn’t use her if she wasn’t. I need someone else in there with me, and she’s the one most likely to get an invitation from Ronsard.”
“What if he doesn’t fall for it? What if he doesn’t invite her?”
“Then I’ll have to do what I can, but the risks go up. With her, I have a good chance of getting in and out without being detected.”
“All right. I’ll arrange for her to have an unspecified leave.” Frank nudged a bishop into place.
