3. Silas
THREE
SILAS
The coffee shop has too many windows. Three walls of glass face the street and an abundance of spotlights illuminate every corner.
I walk in anyway because Zuza picked this spot.
Her instincts are either brilliant or suicidal.
Even after all these years working with her, I still can’t decide which, but I’ll take a chance.
I pause just inside the entrance, two seconds, maybe three.
Long enough to read the room. A barista behind the counter who’s more interested in her phone than in her customers.
An older man in the corner with a newspaper and an empty espresso cup.
Two women near the back sharing a pastry, laughing about something. None of them notice when I enter. Good.
Still, I don’t like the windows.
Zuza is at the table facing the street, exactly where I’d expect her to be, and already turning my way, because she never misses a beat, let alone my arrival.
She’s wearing a practically backless deep emerald gown that pools slightly at her feet, her blond hair swept up in a complex bun. She brings her drink, probably a caramel macchiato, to her red-painted lips. It’s a mystery how she manages to keep them clean with the skyscraper of foam on her drink.
When I reach her, she pushes a cup of black coffee toward me.
“I don’t like this location,” I say, pulling out the chair and sitting down.
“Nice to see you, Zuza. I missed you. Don’t you look beautiful, Zuza—”
I silence her with a kiss to the cheek. “You are the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen.”
She glances at the street outside and then at her phone, which seems to be streaming security camera footage. Wherever our target is, it’ll be nearby.
Finally she turns to me, a smile at the corner of her mouth I’ve learned means she finds my caution endearing in the way people find rain endearing—fine in theory, irritating in practice. “And you look nice, by the way.”
“Why are we dressed for a black-tie event? You know I hate running in a tuxedo, and I swear, if we have to jump through anything, you’re footing the cleaning bill.”
She gestures to the window with a slight tilt of her head.
The Bristol Hotel is opposite the coffee shop.
“Where we’re going, this is how you fit in.
Besides, there’s a Chopin concert at the Philharmonic tonight, so we don’t even stand out.
” As if to confirm this, the door opens behind me and a couple in formal dress enters—a man in a dark suit, a woman in red silk—and moves directly toward the counter without sparing us a glance.
I pick up the coffee, which is exactly how I drink it. No sugar, no milk. Nothing added to soften it. She always remembers, which is why she’s my other best friend. Not that I’d tell her that. Even because that would make her also the only friend I have apart from Rowan.
“What has Draven given us this time? Brief me,” I say, trying to contain the edge to my voice. Zuza doesn’t know about my phone call with Draven after the Budapest job, and I have a feeling I’ve been kept out of the loop on this job as punishment.
Zuza sets down her macchiato. “We don’t have much.”
“What do you mean, we don’t have much?”
“The client is being super secretive.” She pauses and taps one red fingernail against the table. “They stripped it to essentials. A face. A date. A location. That’s it.”
“No background on the target?”
“Minimal. Male, mid-forties, American, here through the weekend for a conference.”
“That’s nothing. Where’s the background? The employment history, the family history, connections, skeletons in the closet, threat assessment. Fuck. A reason.”
“I know.”
“They didn’t give us a reason?”
“They gave us a generous fee instead.”
I take another sip of my coffee. “We’re not in the business of killing random businessmen, Zuza. And this smells like exactly what it is.”
“We’re not,” she says simply. “Draven has been our handler long enough. He doesn’t take contracts that come without justification. He told me this target is not someone we should feel conflicted about, and I believe him.”
Zuza is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. She speaks at least seven languages, and she’s saved my life more than a few times. So, when her Polish accent becomes more pronounced, I know I’m getting to her.
“I’m sorry, Zee. I just can’t shake the feeling something’s off.”
She glances at her phone again and then back at me. “What is off is you being frozen out of the details. Do you know why?”
I nod. I guess it’s time to rip off the Band-Aid. “I told Draven I want to resign.”
Her jaw practically hits the ground, then she says a bunch of words in Polish before she takes a deep breath. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Because I mean it. I want to change my life. Hell, I want to have a life.”
“But you’re so good at this.”
“That’s the point, Zee. No one should be good at killing people.”
“We need to be so we’re not the ones with a bullet through our beautiful faces.”
I laugh. “I know, but I need more. This isn’t something I just thought about. I’ve been wanting to do it for the last two years.” Since I went back to Colorado to see Rowan and his dad, Vaughn. But I don’t tell her that.
“Wow. Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because this is the kind of information that can derail a job, and you know the only time we talk is when we’re on a job. Those are the rules.”
Her expression tells me she knows I’m right but she still doesn’t like it. She shakes her shoulders and inhales. “New plan. How about we check this guy out and then decide what to do? It wouldn’t be the first time we followed our instinct first and the rules second.”
“Draven will be so happy with that.”
“Fuck Draven. You’re his second-best asset, and he’s frozen you out because, what, he’s butthurt that you want to quit?”
“Second best?” I cough a laugh. “Okay, what have you got?”
“A face. Just an ordinary face.” She smiles. “Well, not entirely ordinary. But a face.”
I wait.
“A man who, according to the client, is developing biological weapons he’s intending on selling to low-income countries.” She picks up her macchiato again and takes a slow sip.
“Do you have a photo of this target?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I got it for less than a minute to memorize the face before the message disappeared.”
My jaw tightens. I was joking with Zuza. She is definitely the best operative I’ve worked with, and if she twists my arm, I’ll tell her she’s better than me. But I have something she doesn’t. A photographic memory.
So, for Draven to choose Zuza out of the two of us to receive this information means he’s either really pissed off or he’s ready to let me go. My gut feeling tells me everything is off. Draven’s behavior is off. This fucking job is off.
“I don’t like working half-informed.”
“You’ve worked with less.”
“I didn’t like it then either. So. The target.” I straighten in the chair, roll my shoulders back. Business. “Where are they staying?”
She barely turns her head toward the window. Toward the Bristol Hotel across the road.
I stare at her. “There?”
“Yes.”
“That hotel. The one across the street. That we can see from where we’re sitting.”
“The very same.”
“Which is directly adjacent to the presidential palace. Which means there are armed security personnel at two checkpoints within visual range of the entrance, a rotation of plainclothes details on the surrounding block, and depending on whether there are any scheduled functions this week, potentially—”
“Silas.” She says my name the way she does when I’m listing problems she’s already solved. “I know.”
“Then tell me how.”
She pushes back her chair and stands. The emerald dress settles around her like she was built inside it.
She’s not tall—five-four at most—but the way she carries herself makes rooms reorganize themselves around her, and for a moment I just watch her smooth the fabric at her waist with one hand, unhurried, completely unbothered by the logistics nightmare she’s just casually dropped on the table between us.
“He came back from the conference at six thirty. Right about now he’s getting ready to have dinner on his own, like he has over the past two nights.
” She picks up her clutch from the table, wearing that particular expression—not quite a smile, not quite a challenge, somewhere between them.
“Let’s see which one of us gets a free meal out of this job. ”
I sit there for a moment, cataloging everything that could go wrong with walking into a secured hotel adjacent to a presidential complex with incomplete intelligence and a target I know nothing about.
Then I stand up.
Zuza turns toward the door, and I follow her, telling myself the feeling settling into my chest is just the familiar cold focus of a job beginning. That it isn’t dread.
One last job. That’s all this is. And this time I know it’s not a lie I’m telling myself.