Changing of the Guard

“Good to know.” She paused. “I’d like to drop by in the morning, sort of go over things and everything.”

“I’d like that, Marissa,” he said.

She was silent again and he smiled.

“Fine,” she said after a moment. “Well, I’ll see you then.”

He agreed and they hung up.

But like Marissa had told him, there were other ways to approach a problem. Net Force hadn’t killed Cox. There was no way that Thorn could have given those orders, and if any of his people would have carried orders like that, well, they wouldn’t be his people for long. But somebody had blown up the hit man Natadze’s house and his prized guitars, instruments for which he held great passion, even love. What would a man who was a killer do to somebody who did that to him?

Or somebody he thought had done it?

You run with killers, sometimes you paid for it.

Thorn thought his grandfather would be pleased.

Justice had been served.

EPILOGUE

“Boss,” Jay said.

Thorn looked up and saw Gridley in the doorway.

“Not that it makes any difference to Cox, but I cracked the final piece of the Turkish file and got the list of names. There are some real eye-openers here, too, boss; I’m talking some names that you simply won’t believe.”

“Great work, Jay. I’m sure the FBI will appreciate that — he certainly wasn’t the only spy the Soviets had here, and there have to be more we don’t know about.”

“Yeah,” Jay said. “But here’s the funny part: Cox might have been a spy, but his name wasn’t on the list. He was all worried for nothing.”

Thorn stared at him. “You mean if he had just sat tight, none of this would have ever happened?”

Jay nodded. “That’s right. He could have lived happily ever after. How’s that for irony?”

“Not bad,” Thorn said, smiling. “Not bad at all.”