in their life. Proof he’d been working and not just watching porn all those years.
Proof that she’d been right about him, right to fall in love with him. She hadn’t chosen a loser man-child. She’d chosen a genius coder who could create a multimillion-dollar app in his spare time. Maybe money couldn’t buy happiness, but it made unhappiness easier to avoid. Even when Kira slipped into near anorexia Rebecca felt somehow if they didn’t overreact the phase would pass. It did.
Her career took off, too—and again she had to give Brian some credit. As the FBI investigation into Russian election interference accelerated, he warned her to stay away. Doesn’t matter who wins, it’s gonna be a mess, it’s gonna get political. If you have a choice, stay out. Stick to traditional counterintelligence, nobody can argue about that. She trusted his read. So while other agents asked to join the investigation, she stayed away.
He was right. After the election, the investigation turned toxic. Within a few months, everyone involved faced such severe blowback that the bureau had to sideline them. Meanwhile, the Russians had taken advantage. They’d become even bolder, opening new operations against the DoD, CIA, and big contractors. Rebecca’s unit could hardly keep up.
Sometimes, she felt like she was back in Houston, working nights and weekends. Fortunately the kids were older now. They had their own lives. They knew the importance of what she was doing. She liked to think she was setting an example for Kira, thriving in the FBI.
* * *
Life was good. Good job, healthy kids, a house, a marriage that had survived turbulence and was growing as it entered its third decade. She decided they should celebrate their twentieth anniversary in style, take a summer trip to Europe. Nice hotels, fancy restaurants. When they were old they would look back and remember.
Instead here she was, staring at the ceiling as the morning heat began to rise. Wondering where her daughter had gone. She’d wanted to believe exhuming the past would give her the answer. But she couldn’t imagine the Russians would be crazy enough to go after Kira to get at her. Even during the worst years of the Cold War the two sides had avoided targeting each other’s agents, much less families.
Other possibilities were even more far-fetched. Had Draymond Sullivan decided to spend his golden years taking revenge? Had the Border Bandit followed her to Barcelona? Nothing made sense.
The kidnapping was random. Had to be.
It had to be. Unless it wasn’t.
Her last thought as she fell back to sleep.
III KIRA AND REBECCA
(NOW)
16
Barcelona
Somehow she slept.
When she woke, everything was fine, the smell of strong fresh coffee filled her nose and—
Kira was back. Must be, or else Bri wouldn’t have wasted time making coffee. He would have woken Rebecca as soon as his eyes opened. Nine forty-eight already, her phone said.
She pushed herself from the bed, leapt, really, thumped against the wooden floor, half ran into the living room. Saw Tony slumped on the couch, staring at his phone, and knew.
“Nothing?”
He shook his head.
“You’ve called her?”
“Like twenty times.”
She could almost see the panic rolling toward her, a tsunami, silent and huge and sweeping aside everything in its path. “Brian!” she yelled. She couldn’t help herself.
He walked out of the kitchen, a mug of coffee in each hand. He was freshly showered and shaved, like they were due for another day of sightseeing. She hated him. Then she saw the way his hands were trembling and forgave him, a little.
“How could you let me sleep?”
“You needed it.” He pushed a mug of coffee at her. Like she needed coffee. Like adrenaline wasn’t pouring into her blood.
“What I need is to call our Legat here, set a meet with the Mossos.”
“The Mossos?” Tony said. “Is that the Spanish police?”
Not exactly, she told him and Brian. Barcelona was the capital of Catalonia, the country’s northeastern province, which had a tense relationship with the rest of Spain. People here spoke their own language, Catalan, in addition to Spanish. They wanted full independence. As a compromise, the Spanish government gave Catalonia some autonomy, including its own police force—the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Squad Lads. The Mossos now had almost twenty thousand officers and a multibillion-dollar budget. They operated independently of the national Spanish police agencies, the Guardia Civil and the Policía Nacional. All three had offices in Barcelona, but the Mossos took the lead in policing the city.
“Sounds complicated.”
“A little bit. In a way it’s more like the US than Europe, overlapping