White Shotgun

Sterling McCord worked for a private security firm called Oryx. His gear was stowed in a corner of the bedroom, laid out for quick departure, the black rucksack hanging from a doorknob. He did not travel with a weapon, preferring to improvise when he arrived. His first stop would be to purchase a Leatherman multi-tool — he must have left dozens in the field. With not much more than a canteen, a poncho, and GPS, it would take less than five minutes to dump his stuff in the rucksack and be gone.

“Is there at least time for a good-bye drink?” I asked, drawing my toes along his leg. Even at rest, his calf muscle felt like a knot of hardwood.

He played with the bracelet on my wrist. “We’ll have time.”

Sterling liked to say the only thing that made sense in the world was horses. He grew up in Kerrville, Texas, and learned the cowboy arts from his dad — how to train a cutting horse and weave tack, like the fine leather bracelet he had made for me, an eternity knot that would never come off. I had no intention of taking it off. Things were different with Sterling. It was the peaceful way we went to sleep together; deep conversations at three in the morning, someone always willing to rub the kink out of someone’s hip. I knew I had fallen in love when I woke up one morning in a white sun-drenched hotel room in Madrid to the scent of baking chocolate. Sterling had ordered his idea of breakfast in bed: two cafes con leche and one fresh, sweet-smelling dish of molten chocolate cake with powdered sugar on top. We laid against the pillows feeding each other spoonfuls of bittersweet chocolate. That was it.

Oryx is a type of antelope, but also a helicopter, and Sterling’s aircraft of choice. He piloted an Oryx during the war in Sierra Leone, after he left Delta Force, where he learned how to blow a door open without waking the cat. But the most essential skill in the top echelon of Special Forces is the ability to work in absolute secrecy, below the radar of the Pentagon and the FBI. The invisible warrior without boundaries is essential to our security — and a pain in the ass if he happens to be your lover.

I didn’t even know to which continent Oryx was sending him, but it was a familiar trek: the rucksack over his shoulder and my hand in his, the touch of our palms unable to deny the sweaty tension of leaving, as we walked the five blocks to Baciare, a neighborhood bistro where you could get a good plate of pasta after midnight; neither one of us expected anything more than a stiff drink to numb the coming separation.

London was on high alert. It had been an explosive spring. Two separate plots to blow up airliners were foiled at Heathrow. A Muslim student at the University of Nottingham was stopped for being in possession of an Al-Qaeda handbook he had downloaded at the library. He died in custody, stabbed by another inmate. University students clashed with gangs of teenage neocons, and dozens of cars were burned during three days of rioting in East London.

The Metropolitan Police were doing a good job of making the rest of the city seem jolly as ever to the tourists crushing the Embankment, but to the interested eye there was a remarkable number of foot patrols, even in the residential boroughs. Edgewater Crescent was a private square lined with redbrick town houses and cherry trees, a tiny oasis off the main drag, which was constantly jammed with posses of young men and women moving quickly, wave on wave of ethnicities and languages, unruly lines in front of the bars and gelato places. Even in this tranquil area, we saw two pairs of female police officers making the rounds beneath the Victorian streetlamps, hair pulled into scraggly ponytails, wearing bulletproof vests and boxy uniforms built for men.

Our trek was interrupted when the cell phone rang. Actually, it was a series of maddening electronic notes like a clown on crack playing an accordion.

After a moment I murmured irritably, “Why do you have such an unbelievably annoying ring?”

“Not my phone,” Sterling said.

It was my U.S. cell phone. It hadn’t rung in weeks, although out of a habitual sense of doom I always kept it charged. I dug it out of the bottom of my bag.

“Ana?” said a familiar voice. “It’s Mike Donnato, calling from Los Angeles.”

“Mike—?”

Sterling let go of my hand.

“—it’s great to hear from you!” I said.

It wasn’t great. It was a disaster. Donnato had been my handler on a domestic terrorism case in Oregon, where Sterling and I had met; and where it was pretty obvious that my FBI partner and I still had feelings for each other. Donnato’s intrusion into our last moments together in London was an unwelcome surprise.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the office,” Donnato said. “It’s daytime in L.A.”

“What’s going on?”

“This is not official business, Ana; it’s personal.”

Oh God, I thought. Now that I’m with Sterling, Donnato is finally going to say he’s getting a divorce.

“You need to check in with the legat in London,” he said, meaning the legal attache for the FBI. Although the Bureau has no jurisdiction abroad, we maintain a presence in foreign countries to serve American citizens.

“Did someone die?”

“No, but I can’t talk about it on an unsecured phone.”

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

“Go to the American embassy. They’re expecting you.”

“Mike, why?”

“I’m only the messenger. Do it tomorrow.”

I closed the phone. During the call, Sterling and I had not broken pace.

“What’s that about?”

“Mike wouldn’t tell me.”

“Your good ole buddy?” Sterling gave it a Texas kick just to bother me.

“Don’t be a dickhead. He’s my best friend.”

“Then why’s he holdin’ out on you?”

“It isn’t him. It’s the Bureau,” I said grimly, feeling a gut clench, like when you pass your old school packed with bad memories. One day I’ll have to return to the States to testify in that domestic terrorism case in Oregon, and possibly implicate a deputy director of the FBI. Meanwhile, I’m an active duty special agent on vacation — until they decide whether to hang me or give me a medal. Hearing the strain in Donnato’s voice, I’m thinking they’ve made up their minds.

It was a relief to get to Baciare, our comfort zone in London, our signature place, where the owner knew to bring two Proseccos and a plate of burrata cheese the moment we sat down.

But not tonight. Our quiet hideaway had been invaded by a raucous birthday party, a long table of shiny- faced Italian men making toasts. Espresso cups and cake plates, bottles of Champagne and platters of biscotti littered the table. The object of the celebration was a sweetheart of a boy — dark-haired and red-cheeked — who had probably just turned twenty-one. His angelic face was filmed with sweat, and he looked completely stewed. Half the men seemed to be older relatives; the others were his age, laughing together uncontrollably from whatever they had smoked in the alley.

The owner of the restaurant, a lanky fellow named Martin, who wore wire-rimmed glasses and had long gray hair trailing from a bald spot, usually greeted us with a fawning smile, murmuring, “Grazie mille!” between each breath. Tonight he turned us away, apologizing that it was a private celebration, but a man from the party, fortyish, fleshy face and dark hair, intervened, putting an arm around Sterling and insisting that we accept two glasses of bubbly. Martin checked his watch and reluctantly waved us to a table in the back. We promised to be quick. Sterling was to be picked up by another operative in fifteen minutes, and Oryx people were precise.

“Sterling,” I said with some urgency as we sat down, “are we all right?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Just want to be sure,” I said.

“You say that every time.”

“It’s no fun being the one who’s left behind.”

“We could try it the other way,” he suggested wryly.

“You’d never move to L.A.”

“Maybe I would, if you’d support my bad habits. You go to work, I lie by the pool. Fair?”