Tristan blushed. “Oh. You knew that.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
Tristan wanted to ask one more time if Scorpion thought everything would be all right, but he already knew what that answer would be.
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get back home?” Scorpion asked.
“Seek counseling.”
“No, that might be the second thing. What’s the
He had no idea. “It’s like I haven’t allowed myself to think about that. Maybe for fear of jinxing it.”
“Oh, you’ve got to think about home,” Scorpion said. “That’s where all the good stuff is. That’s where the reason to fight resides. No matter how intense the here and now is, you never want to lose sight of the goal. I can’t tell you the number of times the image of home has inspired me to take a step I didn’t think I was capable of taking.”
“Where is your home?” Tristan asked.
Scorpion waved the question away. “The where isn’t important. That it’s waiting for me is all that matters.”
“Are you married?”
Scorpion stared straight ahead. “For me, the first thing will be a shower. A long, hot shower. Long enough to drain the water heater.”
“Lagavulin,” Scorpion said, donning a pensive expression. “Good point. I might actually bring a wee dram into the shower with me.”
Tristan cocked his head and couldn’t help but smile. This man-this
This guy projected such confidence and so little fear that Tristan found it impossible not to be inspired by him. He wondered if this was what the real face of bravery looked like. It wasn’t about the swagger and tough talk that passed for manliness in the halls of his high school. The real thing was about understatement and the projection of calm in spite of whatever heart palpitations were hammering in your chest.
You don’t get people to follow you by telling them what to do. You do it by being forthright and friendly.
“Yeah,” Tristan said at length, “I think a shower will be first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Trevor Munro lived an immaculate life. Where so many others in his profession had surrendered to the temptations of women and alcohol and overeating, his was a life of discipline. It was a point of pride.
He’d written more than once in his diary that precise men lead precise lives, and precision translated to cleanliness and restraint. People could sense these traits in him. That was how he earned their trust. And once earned, that trust was never broken. Not by him. And if it was broken by others, then he made sure that they paid a heavy price for their betrayal.
This business with Felix Hernandez was particularly troubling for him because Felix was convinced that Munro had betrayed him. That of course meant that Hernandez would be after his blood, but that was far less of a concern than the affront to Munro’s reputation. The record needed to be corrected.
As he entered the mudroom through the garage door, he punched in the code to disarm the alarm, and then armed it again as soon as the door was closed. The light switch on his left illuminated a pathway into the kitchen. His was a world of white on black. The overhead lights sparkled against the polished white Sile-stone of the countertops, which blended perfectly with the white walls and the white cabinetry. Together, they provided stunning contrast against the gleaming black appliances and the black-stained walnut floors that he buffed to a high gloss every Sunday.
He crossed through the kitchen to his den, which doubled as a home office on the occasions when he just couldn’t bring himself to make the drive from Reston to Langley, and laid his briefcase on the floor at the edge of his desk.
The curtains and blinds were closed throughout the house, as they would remain until this terrible business in Mexico was resolved. Munro had received no specific intel that Hernandez had dispatched hit squads to the United States, but the man certainly had the resources to do so, and the temperament to make it happen. For the next few days, his would be the life of an undercover operator, reminding him of his early years with the Clandestine Service. He would stay away from windows, avoid prolonged exposure out in the open, and drive different routes to work, traveling at unpredictable hours.
The point wasn’t to be bulletproof, but rather to make it as difficult as possible for the bad guys to execute whatever plan they might have. Evasion, then, combined with the protection that Sjogren’s people provided, should give him an edge until this mess stabilized.
Should. Far from a guarantee, but perhaps that’s the way things should be. He was in charge of an operation that hadn’t gone well, and now pipers needed to be paid.
As Munro reentered the kitchen, he turned on the broiler on the wall oven and then walked to the refrigerator to retrieve the filet mignon that he had set in there this morning to allow it to defrost. As he lifted it, he knew from touch alone that the six-ounce filet was ready to cook. It was exactly six ounces, too-306 calories-specially cut and packaged by the butcher at the Whole Foods up the street. Throw in a cup of corn at 183 calories, and he had a healthy meal that wouldn’t add an ounce to the reading on the scale. He hadn’t exceeded his budget of 1,750 calories a single time in the past ten years.
Discipline and precision.
He’d just removed the steak from its plastic wrapping when his BlackBerry buzzed on his hip-a phone call, number blocked. He answered it. “Mr. Abrams. Do you have a name for me, or are you just calling to pester?”
“As much friggin’ fun as it is to pull your chain, Trev, I’m looking forward to the moment when I don’t have to chat you up at all anymore.”
“At last,” Munro said. “We have found common ground. Do you have a name or not?”
“Nope, no name,” Sjogren said. “But I do have a plan.”
Munro’s heart skipped a beat. Finally, some progress.
Sjogren continued, “My guy at the AG’s office says that they’re smuggling the snitch out of Mexico in the next day or two.”
“Through where?”
“He doesn’t know specifically, but somewhere in Ciudad Juarez.”
Munro’s bubble of hope burst. “That’s hardly helpful,” he said. He pulled a package of corn from the freezer, then pulled a measuring cup from the cabinet over the stove.
“I think it’s more helpful than you recognize,” Sjogren countered. “The only reason my guy knows what he knows is because the FBI is pulling strings from a really high level to grease the skids for this thing. What he told me was that the snitch isn’t coming alone. Specifically, she’s coming in with three fugitives. Does that ring any bells for you?”
Munro sighed. Everything with this man was such a tug-of-war. Why couldn’t he just-
“Did you say
“There you go, Trev,” Sjogren said with a laugh. “Now you’re catching on. Care to guess what the names of the fugitives are?”
Hope bloomed again. Much larger than before. “Don’t toy with me, Mr. Abrams.”
“I got a Tristan Wagner, a Leon Harris, and a Richard Lerner.”
Munro coughed out a laugh before he could stop it. “I don’t understand how you can know the names of the fugitives and not know the names of the informer,” he said. “We need to know them all if we’re going to stop them.”
“No, we don’t,” Sjogren argued. “All we need to do is find your commando buddies and follow them. They’ll
