You know anything more specific?”
Now that this conversation was finally taking place, Kate was relieved. It had been a long time coming. She was surprised it was so roundabout, so full of interrogations and executions and assassinations that obviously had nothing to do with her.
“Nope.”
Evan glanced down at his pad. “He was killed in Veracruz. Two to thechest, one to the head. No abduction, no butchery, no spectacle.” Just like she’d been trained.
This was the moment in the conversation—the debriefing, the interrogation—when she finally understood the point of this endless litany of violence: they were reminding Kate that even though she’d been out of the field for five years, she’d still not cleansed herself of the stench of dirty ops. She never would.
“So it didn’t look like it was done by anyone in the narcotics business. What it looked like was something done by someone in our business.”
And they would always know it.
“Santibanez, he once ran with Lorenzo Romero, didn’t he?”
Romero had been a CIA informant who’d fed his handler misleading intelligence, in exchange for huge sums of cash from the narcotraficantes . Unfortunately, the misinformation got his handler shot in the head and dumped in Tampico harbor. The whole Mexico division agreed to dole out retribution, and Kate, the sole female in the group, would have the easiest time getting the notorious womanizer into an unguarded, private predicament.
“Like I said, I don’t know anything specific about Santibanez.”
“Okay.” Evan nodded, eyes down on his pad. “How about Eduardo Torres?”
Kate took a breath, neither too deep nor too shallow. At last, here it was.
DEXTER WAS IN London when the move-out-move-in happened: the rental company showed up at eight in the morning, with a little crane, and retrieved all their furnishings—the couches and beds, linens and dishware, toilet brushes and vacuum cleaner. Chairs, bureaus, a desk, a dining table. All out the window, by ten in the morning. Papers signed, truck closed and driven away, gone.
It was another dark and rainy autumn day. The window had been open all morning. The apartment was cold and empty. Kate was alone, again.
Alone and waiting for the shipping container to arrive after three weeks pending customs clearance. The same orange container that had departed her curbside in D.C. two months ago, where she’d stood alone in that other empty house, papers signed attesting that everything was packed and loaded and attached to a black cab gaudily decorated with neon outlines of impossibly busty women, bound for the port of Baltimore to be loaded onto the freighter Osaka to cross the Atlantic in elevendays to Antwerp, then to be attached to a cab owned by a Dutch freight company, an undecorated white cab that was pulling around the corner right now, here, in front of this empty apartment, and she was alone again while her husband was working at the same job on a different continent, and her children were in school learning the same things, and the stuff in the container was the same, and the big differences being where she was, and who she was. In the middle of Europe, the new Kate.
“DEXTER SEEMS LIKE a great husband. Is he?”
Conversations with Julia often become much more personal than Kate wanted. Julia wore her need for intimacy on her sleeve, practically begging Kate to open up to her. Despite Julia’s bluff of outgoing confidence, she was tremendously insecure. She’d been unlucky in love, unconfident in relationships, and uncomfortable in intimacy. She’d been lonely her whole life, much like Kate, until she’d chanced into Bill. But she was still operating on lonely-person principles, still worried that her happiness could be wrenched away at any moment, for reasons out of her control.
Kate didn’t know how to answer Julia’s question—even a private answer, to herself. Her relationship with Dexter had improved right after they’d
Now that this conversation was finally taking place, Kate was relieved. It had been a long time coming. She was surprised it was so roundabout, so full of interrogations and executions and assassinations that obviously had nothing to do with her.
“Nope.”
Evan glanced down at his pad. “He was killed in Veracruz. Two to thechest, one to the head. No abduction, no butchery, no spectacle.” Just like she’d been trained.
This was the moment in the conversation—the debriefing, the interrogation—when she finally understood the point of this endless litany of violence: they were reminding Kate that even though she’d been out of the field for five years, she’d still not cleansed herself of the stench of dirty ops. She never would.
“So it didn’t look like it was done by anyone in the narcotics business. What it looked like was something done by someone in our business.”
And they would always know it.
“Santibanez, he once ran with Lorenzo Romero, didn’t he?”
Romero had been a CIA informant who’d fed his handler misleading intelligence, in exchange for huge sums of cash from the narcotraficantes . Unfortunately, the misinformation got his handler shot in the head and dumped in Tampico harbor. The whole Mexico division agreed to dole out retribution, and Kate, the sole female in the group, would have the easiest time getting the notorious womanizer into an unguarded, private predicament.
“Like I said, I don’t know anything specific about Santibanez.”
“Okay.” Evan nodded, eyes down on his pad. “How about Eduardo Torres?”
Kate took a breath, neither too deep nor too shallow. At last, here it was.
DEXTER WAS IN London when the move-out-move-in happened: the rental company showed up at eight in the morning, with a little crane, and retrieved all their furnishings—the couches and beds, linens and dishware, toilet brushes and vacuum cleaner. Chairs, bureaus, a desk, a dining table. All out the window, by ten in the morning. Papers signed, truck closed and driven away, gone.
It was another dark and rainy autumn day. The window had been open all morning. The apartment was cold and empty. Kate was alone, again.
Alone and waiting for the shipping container to arrive after three weeks pending customs clearance. The same orange container that had departed her curbside in D.C. two months ago, where she’d stood alone in that other empty house, papers signed attesting that everything was packed and loaded and attached to a black cab gaudily decorated with neon outlines of impossibly busty women, bound for the port of Baltimore to be loaded onto the freighter Osaka to cross the Atlantic in elevendays to Antwerp, then to be attached to a cab owned by a Dutch freight company, an undecorated white cab that was pulling around the corner right now, here, in front of this empty apartment, and she was alone again while her husband was working at the same job on a different continent, and her children were in school learning the same things, and the stuff in the container was the same, and the big differences being where she was, and who she was. In the middle of Europe, the new Kate.
“DEXTER SEEMS LIKE a great husband. Is he?”
Conversations with Julia often become much more personal than Kate wanted. Julia wore her need for intimacy on her sleeve, practically begging Kate to open up to her. Despite Julia’s bluff of outgoing confidence, she was tremendously insecure. She’d been unlucky in love, unconfident in relationships, and uncomfortable in intimacy. She’d been lonely her whole life, much like Kate, until she’d chanced into Bill. But she was still operating on lonely-person principles, still worried that her happiness could be wrenched away at any moment, for reasons out of her control.
Kate didn’t know how to answer Julia’s question—even a private answer, to herself. Her relationship with Dexter had improved right after they’d
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