the sliding doors rolled open and Sabrina revealed herself.
“Ryan?” she said. “Is everything all right?”
The group exchanged guilty looks. “Fine, darling,” Ryan said, trying to keep it light. “In fact…I think we’re about to break it up for tonight.”
The others looked at each other and nodded, stunned and mute. Sabrina smiled at all of them. “Is there anything I can get for you before you go?” she said.
Samantha cleared her throat. “Yes, please,” she said politely. “I could do with a glass of water, if it’s not too much trouble.”
Sabrina offered her a very thin smile. “Not at all,” she said, and retreated to the kitchen.
Andrew took advantage of the moment. He opened his briefcase and passed out the secure phones he had created, one to each of them. “Talk only to each other with these,” he said. “And don’t even mention the plan in any other way—not now. Clear?”
They all agreed.
“Things are happening very fast,” Simon said. “I’ll talk to you all tomorrow, but please, if I call and say, ‘it’s time,’ be ready!”
There was a strange, sweet electricity in the air between them: anticipation, dread, boldness, fear. Sabrina returned with a glass filled with water. Samantha took it with murmured thanks and drank a fraction.
“Ah,” she said. “Much better.”
“We’re off then,” Simon announced, slightly uncomfortable under the withering gaze of Ryan’s fiancée.
Samantha offered her hand to Sabrina. “You’ve been a gracious host, thank you.”
The grip was very polite and very brief. “Of course,” Sabrina said.
Those women just don’t like each other, Simon observed as he gathered everything and put on his coat.
Simon watched them file down the hall and make brief goodbyes to their hosts. As they left, he thought briefly of the list he had made. It was complete now, one way or another. He had talked with everyone he wanted to. Though how he would proceed without Max on board, he still wasn’t sure.
I’ll work it out somehow, he told himself. I’ll have no choice.
OXFORD, ENGLAND
Ryan's Estate
Simon and the others stood in the oval driveway for a while. He was unsurprised to see a shiny, sleek black hybrid roadster—a car worth more than his annual salary at Oxford—parked behind Andrew’s boxy Range Rover. “Yours?” he asked Jonathan.
Jonathan shrugged and gave him a smile that was almost embarrassed. “Rented. To a guy you’ve never heard of, far as I know.”
Simon let it pass; he shook Ryan’s hand and bid him good night as he packed Andrew, Samantha, and Hayden into the Range Rover. “Just drop everyone off, please,” he told Andrew. “I’m going to stay and talk with Jonathan a bit; I’m sure he’ll get me home.”
The others had little to say; it had been far too eventful an evening.
“Tomorrow,” Simon told them. “We’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
After the Range Rover’s taillights flared one last time and disappeared beyond the gate, Simon and Jonathan sat side-by-side in his car and talked. Every twenty minutes or so for the first hour, Ryan or Sabrina would peek through the front window, checking to see if they were still there. After about ninety minutes, they stopped checking and simply went to bed.
“Have you contacted Max?” Jonathan asked.
Simon shrugged. It was an obvious question. He told Jonathan about the conversation he’d had with his old friend, and how disappointing it had been.
“You might want to try again,” Jonathan suggested. “Who knows, he might have changed his mind.”
Simon thought about it for a moment and then agreed. “No harm in trying,” he said. He picked up the secure phone that Andrew had given him and dialed Max’s number from memory.
Much to his surprise, he heard a pre-recorded voicemail message meant especially for him, rather than Max himself, live and in person. It was his friend’s voice—that much was clear—but the words made no sense at all.
“Hey buddy,” Max’s voice told him. “I know that you’re thinking about that vacation you were talking about, but I talked to the other guys and none of them can make it. I’ll catch up with you later. Give Jake my love.” The disconnection was a loud pop in his ear.
Simon stared at Jonathan with frank and obvious confusion. “What the hell is wrong with that guy?” he said. “What vacation? Besides, Max never mentions Jake in his phone calls. And he would never say ‘give my love to Jake,’ even if that’s what he wanted to say.” Something was very wrong here. He just had no idea what it was.