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  Helios nodded, although he clearly wasn’t entirely convinced.

  “Couldn’t the emergency locator . . . what was it, transmitters? Couldn’t they have malfunctioned?” the High Council’s deputy head asked.

  “There are two of them installed on the jet, sir, as a safety measure, given its designation, and it is unlikely both would have malfunctioned at the same time,” Bern answered.

  “Could something have happened on board it, incapacitating everyone? In which case, wouldn’t the aircraft still have continued to fly on autopilot?” The speaker, Council Member Sloan, had been a combat fighter pilot in her past. She would know her stuff, Bern knew.

  “Theoretically, yes, ma’am,” he said, “and the jet certainly had enough fuel. However, if that were the case, we would have been able to access the autopilot and take control of the jet. We can’t. We have ascertained that the autopilot has been turned off. And no, the one thing we already know is that the jet did not continue on its predesignated route.” He cleared his throat. “Also, once the monitoring station realized it is unable to contact the jet, it calculated possible routes for it beginning with its last known position. So far, satellites have found nothing along any of these routes.” He hesitated. “I think at this point we can safely assume that the jet is no longer in the air.”

  Silence fell as the implications of what he was saying sank in.

  “Are you telling us that it was somehow taken?” the head of IDSD Southern Territories asked.

  “That seems to be the most likely possibility. The question is by whom and how. The jet went through the mandatory pre-flight scan. Other than the ambassador and his personal assistant only the regular aircrew and the protective detail were on board, and I can tell you we can vouch for every one of them.”

  “Where the hell is it then?” Council Member Richmond, an old friend of Ambassador Sendor, was understandably upset.

  Before Bern could answer, his phone rang. He glanced at it, then excused himself and took the call. Everyone in the room remained silent, waiting expectantly.

  Bern muted the call and looked at them. “The monitoring station has located the jet. It seems to have landed on the artificial extension of Cres, the Croatian island. From above it looks intact. Our air-sea base at Split has dispatched helicopters to the area.”

  The room was hushed as they waited. No one dared think of the possibilities. Everyone hoped.

  Bern, too, waited, listening on his headset. He was patched through, heard it all. After endless minutes, he finally ended the call, stared at his phone. “I’m sorry. The jet’s aircrew, the protective detail, the ambassador’s assistant, they’re dead. They’re all dead.”

  He raised his eyes to the stricken leaders before him. “Ambassador Sendor is gone.”

  Chapter Two

  While Ambassador George Sendor was still sipping his orange-flavored Earl Grey tea forty-one thousand feet above Europe, contemplating the fate of nations and mercifully oblivious to his own, Lara Holsworth was just waking up in Washington, DC. She had left the blinds open so that the sun would shine into the bedroom, and it did, another clear autumn day. Winter would be here soon enough, but she was glad it hadn’t arrived just yet. She got up and put on a light, lace-trim robe she had laid at the edge of the bed, then went to the window and looked out at the house’s back yard, planted to emphasize the best of each season. Delaying, she realized. It was simple, really. She was delaying starting the day.

  Donovan wasn’t here.

  This is crazy, she thought. How can I miss him? How can I miss him already? Shaking her head, surprised at herself but not entirely displeased with this new feeling, she descended the stairs to the quiet of the first floor, the late morning sun greeting her here, too, in a renewed attempt to distract her. The main security console was silently active, and for the first time in days she had no reason to give it even a cursory glance. The coffeemaker purred in the kitchen, and she contemplated it, then reconsidered and turned to go back upstairs to shower and dress when her phone beeped upstairs, then automatically sent the arriving message to the media screen closest to her. The text message made her smile.

  “Have breakfast, the kind I would make you.”

  So he wasn’t asleep. And he wasn’t at his place, otherwise he would already be here, with her. He had brought her back home earlier that morning just as the sun peeked over the horizon, after first insisting on another visit to the IDSD medical center. The agents guarding her and her home were, to her relief, gone by then, all except the two who had stayed behind to formally pass the house security back to Donovan. After making sure she would go straight to bed, he had gone back to his own house next door, to get some sleep. Apparently that hadn’t worked out so well. But then, being a United States Federal Investigative Division senior investigator was no less demanding than her own job.

  The smile wouldn’t go away. “Where are you?” she dictated back.

  “On a case,” was his answer. “I’ll come by as soon as I get back. How’re you doing?”

  She sent him a smile.

  This is crazy, she thought again as she made herself breakfast. But the smile was still on her face.

  She was on her way to open the patio doors, intending to sit down on her favorite couch, log on to her secure laptop and get some work done, perhaps dig into the operations and unrests updates her aide, Aiden, would have sent her already, when the house security system let her know she had a visitor. A look at the closest security console showed her that Donna Howard was at the door. Lara let her best friend in, and a moment later the colorfully dressed woman rushed into the living room, visibly agitated.

  “Hey, I couldn’t come in! Why couldn’t I come in?” Donna was used to simply walking into Lara’s home, whether here, in this house Lara had moved into only weeks earlier, the house Donna herself had renovated for her, or in her previous apartment, right next to the one Donna still lived in with her common-law partner, Patty, and their young child, Greg.

  “It’s okay, Don, the security system has been upgraded. Come on, I’ll enter you in the new one, it will recognize you next time.”

  “Upgraded? Why? It was installed just before you moved in!” As Donna approached Lara she gasped, her hand going to her mouth. “Oh my God, what happened to you?” she said, rushing to her.

  Lara was at a loss for a moment, then remembered. Her face still showed signs of the recent attack on her. The sleep she got, exhausted, together with the painkiller Donovan had asked that she take, made her feel better, and the aches were now only background static, a reminder that no longer needed to be helped away. She was glad her friend couldn’t see the already fading cuts and bruises on the rest of her body. The accelerated-recovery treatment she had received twice, both on the night of the attack and on the following night, at Donovan’s prodding, ensured that she was healing quickly, and soon there would be no signs of what she had been through. Unfortunately, not soon enough to hide them from her worried friend.

  She contemplated how to explain this. Delaying, she turned and walked to the kitchen, and busied herself with making some tea, a fruity blend she herself didn’t like but that Donna craved, hot or cold. She put the cup on the dark cherry red countertop and finally faced her friend, who continued to stand where she was, unrelenting, her hands planted firmly on her hips. Waiting. And Donna would never back down, not if she thought anything might be wrong with Lara. The fact itself that she was there—

  “Wait a minute. Donna, what are you doing here? How did you know I’d be at home?” The thing about Lara’s job was, there wasn’t a nine-to-five routine about it, not even close. Yes, there were those quiet, even ordinary days, ordinary for her, that is, in which she ran post-mission analysis or received updates about alliance operations in progress, global hot spots or deployments she needed to know about. But more often than not her work involved her working missions that could last days, preparations that would last weeks. Unpredictable days that started or ended at odd
hours, times when Oracle took over and that not even she could know how long they would be. Donna knew this and wouldn’t just drop by and expect her to be at home. Yet there she was.

  “Donovan called me,” Donna stated.

  “Donovan . . . ?”

  “Yes. He said you’re at home and that I should come over because you might need me.”

  “He did what?” Lara fumed. “I can’t believe he did that! He can’t babysit me himself so he sends you? The nerve of this guy!”

  Donna’s jaw dropped. “Look at you. Lara, you never lose your temper. Certainly not because of a man! And Donovan? What’s going on here? First he calls out of the blue, he doesn’t tell me anything but he has me promise I’ll come over, and then I find you looking like, well, like you’ve been in a brawl! What on earth is going on? Come on, spit it out!”

  Lara was too busy fuming to answer. “That man is impossible! It’s not like I’m in any danger anymore, and I certainly don’t need to be taken care of, I’ve done very well alone, without him!”

  “Lara!”

  “Okay, okay.” One thing she definitely couldn’t do was avoid Donna’s need to know. “This thing our agencies, IDSD and USFID, were cooperating on? Well, Donovan and I ended up working on it together, and it got complicated. Long story. Anyway, it’s just that . . . he sort of ended up saving my life.”

  As Lara spoke, Donna’s hands dropped to her sides, and she simply stood there, gaping. Finally, she approached the counter with a measured step. “Donovan . . . what?”

  Lara shrugged. “He saved my life.”

  “Saved . . . ? How? What’s there to save, you work at IDSD, you’re in an office, how would he . . . you said danger? Why would you be in any danger? Wait, you two get along now? The last time I saw you together you were at each other’s throats. In fact, I clearly remember that Donovan actually threatened to shoot you!”

  “Things kind of changed after that.” Which was, admittedly, an understatement.

  “Really?” Donna sat down at the counter. “I don’t know where to begin. With the fact that for whatever reason you needed saving, or with this very interesting turnaround in your attitude toward Donovan. Donovan, of all people. Or maybe I should say, you, of all people.”

  Normally Lara would have gladly used the opportunity to steer the conversation away from her work and the circumstances that led to the attack on her, but turning the conversation away from Donovan and her—she still had to wrap her own mind around that one—seemed to be the more attractive option right then. And so she gave her friend a generalized, and quite skimpy, account of what happened. Not enough to increase Donna’s worry or divulge too many details of what was a highly confidential incident, but enough to let her know that it happened, was over, and was unlikely to ever happen again. While Donna knew about Oracle, in fact she had been there when it first came into existence, she had no idea what it had become since, how far it had come. And while she knew it had Lara working hard, too hard, she often said, she had never thought, and must never again think, that it could actually put her best friend at risk.

  “Wow.” Donna’s tea sat forgotten before her, shock evident on her face. And that was only the abridged version she got of the story, Lara thought with some amusement as she got up to replace the tea.

  Still, apparently it still wasn’t enough to distract Donna from what interested her most. “So, wait. About Donovan. You two are okay now?”

  Lara walked back slowly, handed her the hot cup, then sat down in a way that Donna knew there was something else there.

  “Lara?”

  No sense delaying. Donna would find out eventually, and who would Lara tell if not her best friend? She braced herself. “He kissed me.”

  Donna almost dropped the cup.

  “Last night, he kissed me,” Lara repeated, wonder in her voice, her eyes distant. “I think he . . .” She found it difficult to complete the thought. Say the words.

  But Donna understood. “Do you?” Her voice was gentle. She knew more than anyone that this was delicate ground she was treading on.

  Lara turned her eyes back to the one friend she could talk to about anything, the one friend who knew everything. She opened her mouth to speak but then stopped, ended up retreating into herself as the struggle inside her took over. “Donna, what am I going to do?”

  “I think you’re already doing it.”

  Lara shook her head. “I’m not doing, I’m just . . .”

  “Feeling. Finally. But the past is still there, you’re still pulling back.”

  Lara looked away, focused on the view outside the backsplash window that lined this part of the house, and her eyes fell on the red, yellow and orange leaves of the shrubs that separated her back yard from that of the man who had elicited this conversation she never thought she would have.

  Donna leaned forward and put a hand on hers. “It will be okay, nothing is going to go wrong. Let it happen, sweetie. Just let it happen.”

  “I am,” Lara admitted to Donna, to herself.

  “So where is Donovan anyway?”

  “A case, he texted me.”

  “Texted you?” Donna asked and marveled at the smile that appeared on her friend’s face.

  “Yes, he does that.” The emotion was evident in Lara’s smile, and Donna felt her eyes tear up. After all this time, all the pain, it was finally happening. Lara had finally fallen in love.

  At IDSD’s headquarters in Brussels, Council Head Stevenssen took a deep breath to collect herself. Someone had to, it was that simple. The devastating news about Ambassador Sendor had sent a ripple of shock through everyone present, and the meeting she had reconvened had broken up again as mayhem took over. The questions were numerous, and none could be answered. All they had were the jet and the bodies of everyone who had been on it. Everyone but the ambassador. Which lent itself, Stevenssen thought, to some hope. Surely if he was not killed with everyone else who had been on the jet, he might still be alive somewhere. The questions remained, however, where, and to what end.

  She stood up, placed her palms flat on the conference table, and waited, a tall, slender woman with somber eyes that had seen a world of worry, her long years in leadership etched on her face. One by one her peers noticed, quieted down, prodded those closest to them to do the same. Soon they had all sat back down, and the room fell silent.

  Stevenssen remained quiet for a moment longer, looking around the table, including all of them in her gaze. When she spoke, her tone was resolute. “This incident must not be made public.” She raised her hand at the protests. “At least until we know more. I am aware that it will come out eventually. However, if we make it known now, with the scant information we have and without any explanation as to what might have happened and why, this could lead to the peace talks that are so important to our friend crumbling, and we all know what the implications for the region are certain to be. Of course, if we do not make it public and whoever is behind it releases the information before we do, we will be seen as having failed to disclose news we had no right to hide.” She let out a heavy sigh. “This is a fine line we have no choice but to walk.”

  All heads in the room nodded in agreement. The risk had to be taken, for the sake of everyone involved.

  Lara finally convinced Donna to go home and spend what was left of the day with Patty and Greg, then settled down on her comfortable, soft cream-colored couch not far from the now open patio doors and dove into work. When she looked up from her laptop again, Donovan was leaning casually against the doorway, illuminated against the falling darkness outside. Handsome in a dark gray suit and a white shirt, its top button open. Looking at her. He seemed to do that a lot, watch her. It amazed her, how his gaze had changed since they first met. From anger and rage, to scrutiny, to this look he now had in his eyes that made her heart flutter, easily penetrating through the defenses she thought she had put up so well around her.

  In the past she would push any man interested in her away, not let anyone in
. But not anymore, not him. He had awakened in her something that she had thought long gone, and maybe, she had begun to think in the still dim morning hours, a moment before she fell asleep, maybe there was no need to push him away. Maybe she could risk letting him in.

  His lips curved up a little, the smile deep in the blue of his eyes. He’s reading me again, she thought, standing up and walking over to meet him, and might have done something about it except her heart was too busy picking up speed as he straightened, came toward her and, just as he had that first time, the first time he had kissed her, put his hand on her waist, his other hand on her cheek, caressing, then leaned in and touched his lips to hers, his kiss as soft now as it was then.

  She didn’t move away, but wondered. “Another kiss.”

  “Just fulfilling a promise I made to you. And I will never break my promises to you.” He pulled her closer to him, touched his lips to hers again. Found himself surprised at how good it felt, kissing her, being this close to her, as his body, his entire being, reacted, not letting him let her go. He had meant to do this slowly, still not knowing what it was in her that had resisted him until so recently, what it was she was hiding that had been an impenetrable wall between them. But now that he was here all he could think, feel, was her. He kissed her again, a long, deep kiss, holding her close to him, unable to stop.

  Her arms came up around him. “You already fulfilled that promise, you know. You kissed me,” she said softly. Their first kiss, the one he had promised her amid the chaos they had found themselves in until mere hours before.

  “This is a new one,” he murmured against her lips. “A new promise I made when I couldn’t stop thinking about you today. That I will never stop kissing you.”

  No fear, she wondered as she answered his kiss. Where did the fear of loving him go? Did the attack on her take it away? Or was it all him, her confidence in him, in what she felt from him, in what could be?