to have in a big Manhattan apartment building, so we didn’t change it.
“Let me guess,” I said as I opened the door.
Guess again, Dylan …
The man standing in front of me seemed as startled as I was. “I’m sorry—”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Are you Dylan Reinhart?” he asked.
The average adult brain has anywhere from 100 to 500 trillion synapses. All of mine, no matter what the count, were firing at once. Something wasn’t right.
A well-dressed Arab with a British accent had just shown up out of the blue on my doorstep. I didn’t know him from Adam, but I was fairly certain his question was a formality. He knew damn well that I was Dylan Reinhart.
No point in my being coy. “That’s me,” I said. “I’m Dylan. And this here is Annabelle.”
“She’s beautiful,” he said. His somewhat stoic demeanor softened. “Hello, Annabelle.”
Annabelle buried her face in my shoulder. “As you can see she’s not terribly good with strangers,” I said. I didn’t actually punch the word strangers, nor did I have to. The word itself did the trick.
“Oh, yes, of course. My apologies,” he said, reaching inside his suit jacket, which was clearly custom-tailored. He handed me his card. “I’m Benjamin Al-Kazaz.”
Different cultures have different etiquette when it comes to giving someone a business card. The Chinese always use two hands. In India, you use the right hand and only the right hand to extend a card.
But what we all do once we get the card is universal. It’s human nature. We all look at the card.
BENJAMIN AL-KAZAZ, ATTORNEY AT LAW. No address, just a phone number.
I looked back up at him, catching his stare. He was around my age, maybe a few years older. Clean-cut, no beard.
What I noticed most, though, was the furrowed brow above his very dark eyes. It spoke volumes. He was not the bearer of good news.
“I’m afraid to ask,” I said.
“I’m here regarding an old friend of yours. Ahmed Al-Hamdah?”
He could’ve stopped right there. I knew what was coming. The only question in my mind was When did it happen? But I couldn’t ask that because that would be revealing too much. About me. About my past.
So instead I said what I was supposed to say. I said what Ahmed would say if a stranger had asked him about me.
“I’m sorry, who?” I asked.
Al-Kazaz nodded with a hint of a smile. “He told me that’s what you’d say.” The smile then disappeared. “I’m afraid your friend, Mr. Al-Hamdah, is dead.”
CHAPTER 13
“COME IN,” I said, stepping back from the doorway.
“Thank you,” said Al-Kazaz.
I led him into the living room, offering him a seat in one of the armchairs opposite the sofa. Annabelle was still playing shy, so I put her down beside her pink pop-up tent, which she absolutely adores, and then grabbed her Baby Stella doll. She smiled wide as I handed it to her. All was good in her world.
My world was less so. A lot less.
I’d first met Ahmed Al-Hamdah as a field operative in London. My cover was a research fellowship at Cambridge. His was as a ThM candidate at Oxford—a master of theology. He’d been recruited by MI6 to be their eyes and ears in the Baitul Futuh Mosque in South London, the largest mosque in Great Britain. Our paths crossed during a joint CIA and MI6 operation to foil a bombing at Westminster Abbey. We foiled it, all right, but it nearly got me killed. One chilly night in November, when my cover was blown, Ahmed saved my life.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked Al-Kazaz. “Coffee?”
“No, thank you,” he said.
I sat down on the sofa, grabbed a knee with each hand, and stared for a moment at the stranger I’d just invited into my home. The only things I knew about him were what he’d told me. In other words, I knew nothing about him.
He, however, knew my name and where I lived. He also knew that Ahmed was at the very least a friend of mine. I couldn’t help but wonder: did this stranger know my past?
“It’s been years since I’ve seen or talked to Ahmed,” I said. “Was there an accident? Had he been sick?”
Fat chance. Ahmed had still been an operative, although now with the CIA. The Agency doesn’t exactly promote this fact in their recruiting pamphlets, but the probability of an operative dying in the line of duty is 28 percent. If you happen to be