back at the farm. A man answered in a voice fogged with sleep.
'Hello? Sayad al Mirsaad.'
'Hey, Sadie. It's Caitlin Monroe. Bret Melton's wife. We met at the wedding. I know he was always threatening to visit you, buddy, but I'm afraid you're shit outta luck. It's just me.' The apartment was small: two bedrooms and a single living area that contained a kitchen, dining nook, and sitting room. Mirsaad, the journalist who had rescued her wounded husband from the epic clusterfuck of Iraq, lived there now with his wife and four children, who were all mercifully asleep. His wife, Laryssa, a German national, was standing in the door, clutching a bright pink dressing gown across her chest when Caitlin stepped out of the third-floor elevator door. She was not giving off happy vibes. Her husband looked exhausted, and peering behind Laryssa into the cramped confines of the flat, Caitlin understood why. All the paraphernalia of a newborn was there to see: changing table, bassinet, baby bottles on the kitchen counter. Caitlin regretted calling them without first checking, but she hadn't wanted to let anyone know where she was headed. When it came to Baumer, she had learned the hard way in France to work on her own.
'I'm sorry, Missus Mirsaad, I really am, but I just flew into Berlin and I needed to get in contact with Sadie.'
'You could not have waited until morning?' Laryssa asked. It sounded more like a demand than a question.
'Look, I'm sorry about that. Really. I understand. I have my own little one at home. About the same age by the look of things.'
She gestured over the woman's shoulder to indicate all the equipment she'd briefly seen.
'We know about little Monique,' Mirsaad said in a more conciliatory tone. 'Bret sent us photos by e-mail. But what are you doing here, Caitlin?You surely cannot be working. Not with the baby so young.'
Mirsaad's wife, whose red hair and pale skin spoke of a long local family lineage, glared at him for that, but the reporter extended a hand and drew Caitlin gently by the elbow into their main room. The baby was asleep in a crib, which had been pushed into one corner near the changing table. Caitlin's experienced eye immediately recognized the cloth diapers piled up underneath.
The small room reeked of lanolin, disinfectant, milk, vomit, and baby shit.
'Bret told me about you,' the woman said, almost accusingly. 'He said you were a soldier, like he was once. But you stayed in longer than him.'
Caitlin nodded noncommittally.
'Something like that. Soldier for a while. More of a police officer after that. That's why I'm here, Sadie. Bret and Monique have been hurt. Someone attacked them.'
Mirsaad lost the last vestiges of sleepiness as his eyes widened in shock.
'Caitlin, I am sorry. Are they all right? I did not know. We hadn't heard. I work for a community radio station here now. I'm afraid it's all very parochial. Was it criminals? I understand there is a lot of crime in England now.'
'It didn't make the news, and they're fine. Bret's a little scratched and dented, but not much more than before. And our baby is safe. It was criminals, but not like you think. They were hired by a man from a place near here. Someone with a grudge. They were after me, but I'm afraid they tried to go through my husband and daughter to get to me.'
Laryssa Mirsaad glanced involuntarily at the door through which Caitlin had entered. A glimmer of maternal concern clouded her features, quickly turning to anger.
'And you came here?'
Her tone was accusing now. No doubt about it. Caitlin couldn't blame her.
'Don't worry,' the American assured her. 'I didn't call you about my coming because I wanted to be sure nobody else knew. I wasn't followed or tracked. Everything's cool. But I could use your help, Sadie. If you're up for it. And if Laryssa agrees, too, of course.'
'What did they do to your family?' Laryssa asked.
'Tried to kidnap them, we think. There was… some shooting,' Caitlin said.
'Oh, my God. What happened? Did the men who did it get away? Were they captured?'
'They're dead,' Caitlin said.
It was Mirsaad's turn to look worried.
'Oh, my. Is Bret okay? Really?'
'A few wounds, but he's fine. He's being looked after. Look, I don't want to intrude on your family here. Sadie, is there somewhere we could talk, where we're not going to wake your kids? If that's okay, Laryssa.'
Caitlin had quickly scoped out where resistance was going to come from in this arrangement. The German woman looked like it was a thousand miles from okay, but Mirsaad, who had completely regained his faculties, simply nodded.
'Laryssa,' he said in a very serious voice. 'These people helped us after the war. I would not have escaped the Middle East were it not for Bret Melton interceding on my behalf.' His eyes narrowed slightly. 'And you, too, I suspect, Caitlin. You are something more than a police officer, are you not? You are someone with influence inside the British government quite obviously. And with Seattle, too. While Bret, like me, is a mere journalist. I doubt his lobbying alone would have secured my transit out of Kuwait after the Holocaust.'
She smiled, tired. 'Sadie. You did my husband a big favor once. That means I owed you one as well.'
'And so now I am in your debt,' Mirsaad said in a tone of voice that signaled he would not be dissuaded. 'Laryssa, mind the children. I will not be long. We shall discuss what help I might be to Caitlin. We shall be down in Ahmet's.'
His wife's threat detectors were all pinging wildly, but before she could object and turn it into a marital issue, the baby stirred and began to cry.
'Oh, just go and don't be more than fifteen minutes,' she said.
'It will take me three minutes to change and five for us to walk there. I shall be back soon,' he said.
But Laryssa had turned away and was lifting the child from the crib. Ahmet's was a small coffeehouse and smoking room on the same block as Mirsaad's apartment. Caitlin left the X5 in the basement garage of Sadie's building, secure in the knowledge that Echelon's unique antitheft technologies were more than a match for any would-be carjackers. Even so, she checked the LED on her key ring before they left Emser Strasse just to be sure she'd be alerted if anyone attempted to interfere with the vehicle. The tiny light was glowing green, powered up and hotlinked.
Ahmet's was a brief walk though an unseasonably chilly night, although the weather was so unpredictable these days that the idea of seasons had little meaning. Caitlin maintained her situational awareness, scoping out the street and the surrounding buildings as they walked. Emser Strasse had been blessed with good tree cover once, but the canopy had apparently not recovered from the pollution storms in '03. The trees, which should have been lush with early summer foliage, were still looking sick and straggly. Not unlike Mirsaad himself.
'I'm sorry to turn up unannounced like this, Sadie. But it's better, believe me.'
The reporter frowned and burrowed further into the old brown coat he had donned for the brisk walk.
'There will be a price to pay for this with my wife, but for Bret I am willing to pay. For you, too, if it is true you helped get us all back here. He intimated as much at your wedding. For which invite I must thank you. It is a lovely farm you have there, and we were made very welcome. Laryssa was worried.'
'Because of you?'
'Because of the government. This Howard fellow is very hard line, no? Much harder than Blair was.'
Caitlin rubbed her hands together against the cold as her breath plumed white in front of her. It was hard to believe the weather was still fucked up so long after the Wave. She had indeed been instrumental in clearing Mirsaad's passage to the EU from Kuwait, back to his wife and two children, as they were then. Even though he was married to a German national, there was no guarantee he'd have been allowed back in during the insane time after the Disappearance. And Bret had been insistent that they help him after the Jordanian had done so much to pluck him to safety from the chaos of the American retreat. But of course, mere philanthropy and favor trading would not have been enough for Caitlin to secure the Jordanian's travel permits. Not in the toxic atmosphere of 2003. She had lobbied on Mirsaad's behalf because she knew there was a chance that one day he might be useful as an asset.
That day was upon them.
None of this did she say aloud, of course.
