Emmy was thrilled with the idea when I brought it up to her later, after everyone had gone home.

  “If enough people want to make the trip, we could charter a plane,” she said.

  “If that many people want to come, we’ll need to buy bigger houses!” I replied, kissing her hair. “Seriously- we usually get twenty, maybe twenty-five people on Wednesday nights these days, right? I’d be amazed if half of them could make the trip. New York would be the easiest for everyone, and we have that crazy huge kitchen we’ve barely made any use of. Colombia or London would be cool, and I like the idea, but that’s a much bigger ask for people.”

  “That is true,” Emmy admitted. “New York would not require international travel. Our house there was designed for large parties, and as you say, we have not had any yet. If we are going to do this thing, we must plan it far enough in advance that our friends can make their arrangements.”

  “August is a terrible time to be a tourist in New York,” I said, thinking about it. “Really, we want fall weather. Cool enough for sweaters or jackets, but not freezing. That means basically October.”

  “I like that idea very much, but will it conflict with your plans in Istanbul?” Emmy asked.

  “No, maybe it doesn’t,” I said, thinking about it. “In fact, it might be great cover. If we’re seen very publicly in New York before and after making our move in Turkey with no real obvious gap, it gives us deniability.”

  “How would you do that?” Emmy asked.

  “Well, that’s the question,” I admitted.

  Montreal in late July is disgustingly hot and humid, but amazingly green and vibrant with color. The course was city streets blocked off for the long weekend on an island in the river, an area that was heavily used by cyclists, runners and the like the rest of the year. We’d missed Thursday and Friday’s practice sessions, arriving Friday afternoon. The pits were quiet, but that’s because all the activity was happening behind the closed flaps of the temporary tent structures used as garages for the event.

  Reggie led us back to the team’s setup, explaining that Lainey and Madison had already gone back to the hotel. “We really don’t have anything left to do for now,” he said, pulling aside the tent flap for the three of us. “We’re happy with the way the car is running. We’ve got both dry and wet settings dialed in, so we’ll be ready to rock no matter what gets thrown at us tomorrow and Sunday.”

  “Wet settings?” I asked.

  “It rained like a son of a bitch yesterday afternoon,” Reggie replied. “I mean, for an hour or so it just opened up. We immediately brought Mads in and swapped to wets, had her run a few laps at speed, then come back in for data and to make changes. The weather lasted long enough for us to really pin everything down.”

  “Leah said that Madison drives well in the rain,” Emmy said, but it was more of a question than a statement.

  “The kid’s a rock star in the rain,” Reggie replied with a smile. “She keeps it calm and steady, no matter how squirrelly it gets. In fact, she posted the unofficial fastest lap during that session of heavy rain. She’s got a real good touch in bad conditions.”

  “It sounds as if you’re hoping it rains during the race,” I said, running my hand on the spotlessly clean Porsche’s roofline.

  “I wouldn’t complain. Like I said, Mads is a real contender if the track is wet.”

  “Does she not worry about crashing?” Emmy asked, peering into the car’s open driver’s side window.

  “She’s a teenager- they all think they’re immortal,” Reggie laughed. “She’s not worried about getting hurt, I don’t think. I think her biggest concern about wrecking is doing too much damage to the car to be able to race the next day. She’s a real racer, that kid.”

  “Does it bother you that you are working to support a teen-aged girl?” Emmy asked.

  “I’m not,” he replied with a casual shrug. “Working to support a teenager, I mean. I’m working for the team’s success, same as she is. What most people on the outside don’t understand about racing is that the driver is just one of the team players needed to get the car across the finish line. It’s like football, right? A star quarterback can’t win a game without receivers, blockers, all the rest. He can’t do it alone, even though the fans might, um, fixate on him as the face of the team. It’s the same here. Mads might be the one who gets to spray the champagne, but the rest of us got her up on that winner’s stand.”

  “I think I see what you mean,” Emmy said thoughtfully.

  “Honestly, all of life is like that. You might be the star of The Downfall, but Lee and Jackson are just as important to the band,” I told her.

  “That is very true,” Emmy admitted.

  We were at the track in the VIP seating in time for the morning’s warmup and qualifying session. I’d texted with Lainey and told her that we didn’t want to be a distraction in the team garage, but we’d be watching and cheering just the same.

  Madison qualified in the third row, which was better than expected given her placing in the warmup time sheets. She’d shown remarkable strength on the brakes, which were crucial on the sharp turns after the course’s long straights.

  Emmy and I bought some souvenir shirts and hats after a lunch of hot dogs and a shared plate of poutine for lunch. I’d expected Emmy to find the scene boring, but she seemed to enjoy every bit of it. Of course she drew a lot of attention and made sure to tell everyone that she was there to cheer on the Hollywood Porsche car, which was good PR.

  The afternoon’s race was marred by some early crashes up front and a red flag. Thankfully Madison didn’t get caught up in the carnage, and with the retirement of three cars from the first and second row Madison had a clear path at the restart.

  She used that advantage well and got off the line in fantastic position, holding fifth for most of the race. Only losing a spot in the final lap, she came across the line sixth out of twenty-nine finishers, once again the highest-placed rookie.

  “I freaking love this course!” Madison said that night at our team dinner, which was held in the Italian restaurant in the hotel. We weren’t the only Porsche Cup team staying there, and in fact, one of the other racers came over to congratulate Madison on her results while they ate at a nearby table.

  “That’s Mike Tracker,” Madison said after the guy went back to his table. “He’s one of the two racing for the FrontTech team. I think he’s running fourth or fifth in the series as of today’s results.”

  “Fifth,” Reggie confirmed.

  “Gentleman driver?” I asked.

  “No, he’s a ringer. Used to race in Europe. His teammate is the owner of FrontTech- he’s the gentleman,” Reggie explained. “Eddie Front is sitting in the low twenties somewhere in the rankings.”

  “Would you like to do that?” Emmy asked me. “To race?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said. “It’d be fun, but there’s just too much of a commitment in time for me to even think about it right now, what with everything else I already have on my plate.”

  “I think James is considering it,” Madison said.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me if we wind up running two cars next season, you and him,” I agreed.

  “You think you guys are going to keep me on for next year?” Madison asked, pleased.

  “Maddie,” I said. “Your professionalism has impressed everybody. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if some of the other teams start sending out feelers to see if you want to jump ship for next year.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” she said, her tone very serious. “You and James have been so awesome to me- there’s no way I’ll race for anybody else as long as you guys want me.”

  “No, it’s true,” Lainey said. “Me and Mads have talked about it, and we want to stick with you guys as long as you’re willing to sponsor her.”

  “We started this thing with a three year plan,” I said. “We figured that was long enough for us all to figure out if it was worth continuing.”

  “Well, if I get to vote, I say yes,” Madison declared.

  “Reg?” I asked.

  “I’m having fun with it,” he admitted. “I could see doing this for a while longer.”

  After dinner Emmy and I went out for a walk in the old town area, enjoying the fact that it was still light out at nine o’clock, thanks to the northern latitude. Following the crowds, we found ourselves by the waterfront for the nightly fireworks show, which was a lot of fun.

  “I had a very good time today,” Emmy said as we cuddled in bed that night. “I enjoyed the racing, dinner was very pleasant, and walking around and seeing the spectacular- that was special. Thank you for today.”

  “Thank you for today,” I replied. “Having you with me today made everything that much better.”

  “I love you, Leah Farmer,” Emmy said, wiggling her rump against me as she snuggled in closer.

  “I love you, émeraude De Lascaux,” I replied, pulling her tightly against me.

  Emmy and I visited the Parc Olympique the next morning, enjoying strolling through the various sections. Our favorites were the Japanese and Chinese Gardens, so similar and yet so distinct at the same time.

  As heavy as the air was all morning, it didn’t start sprinkling until lunchtime. It looked as if it might clear up for the afternoon’s race, but the clouds came back thick and threatening.

  “You said that Madison drives well in the rain,” Emmy said, looking up at the sky from the stands. “That may be tested today.”

  Emmy turned out to be correct- the rain started during the warm-up lap, sending almost all the drivers into the pits to change tires. This meant that they had to start from pit lane, losing any advantage they might have gotten from high qualifying positions. In fact, of the thirty-five starters, only a half dozen or so actually took their spots on the starting grid- one of which was the baby blue and red Hollywood Porsche car. The start was delayed a few minutes while the chaos in the pits got sorted out and the cars lined up according to their grid position. This worried me a little, since every minute sitting in place meant the tires would cool just that tiny amount.

  “Why did Madison not go in for a tire change?” Emmy asked, looking at the number ninety-four car sitting by itself in the third row.

  “Two possibilities,” I said. “One, the more likely, is that Reggie and the guys figured on it raining and had already mounted rain tires. The second possibility is that Madison feels confident enough on dry tires that getting the better start by staying on track will pay off. Sure, the guys on wets will go faster, but maybe not enough faster, and maybe the rain will stop and the track will dry enough for her to regain an advantage.”

  “So the team is gambling, one way or another,” Emmy said, showing that she understood.

  “Well, every team is. The guys that pulled in to swap for wets are gambling that they’ll make up for the handicap of starting from the pit lane. The ones that stayed out but are on drys, well maybe they’re planning on pitting during the race. Maybe that time lost will be less than it would have been starting from a bad position in pit lane, right? Or maybe they just don’t think the rain will last… It’s all just educated guesses. Get it right and you do well. Get it wrong and you’ve thrown away a race. Notice how most of the empty spots on the grid correspond to the better places? If you’re running in the back of the field, you have less to lose and can go for broke. The guys in the hunt for the series championship are all going to do the same thing the rest of them do.”

  “A really wrong guess can lose a driver a few spots in the rankings,” the middle-aged guy sitting in front of us said. Clearly he’d been listening to our conversation. “If you’re in the top ten, what matters is that you finish this race in the top ten amongst the other racers who are also in the top ten, if that makes sense. You don’t care if the guy in thirtieth place in the series beats you, but you damed well don’t want the guy right below you in the rankings to do it.”

  “That makes sense,” Emmy agreed. “In conditions like this it would not be possible to win the series overall, but a driver could easily lose it.”

  “Exactly,” the guy confirmed. “Every driver in the top ten or so will have two, maybe three other cars he’s concerned about, and he’ll keep his eye on them. Those are the only ones he really has to beat.”

  “Who does Madison have to beat?” Emmy asked.

  “Madison? Madison Bennett?” the guy seated in front of Emmy asked, turning around. “You’re here to watch her race?”

  “You know who she is?” Emmy asked in surprise.

  “I should!” he replied with a smile. “She’s right above my driver in the standings! That girl has a real future in motorsport. It’s a real pleasure to see a young lady with such talent.”

  “Your driver?” Emmy asked.

  “Bobby Lopez, number sixty-two. He’s racing for Porsche of Biscayne,” the man said.

  “Miami?” I asked.

  “Coral Gables, but close enough,” he replied with a shrug. “I own three Porsche dealerships in South Florida. One in Coral Gables, one in West Palm, and one in Naples.”

  “I’ve only got the one Porsche dealership, myself,” I said. “Well, and two BMW dealerships.”

  “Faithless!” He said with a disarming smile. “Hey, I’m Paco Lopez," he said, extending his hand to shake.

  “Leah Farmer, and this is Emmy De Lascaux,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “Not every day I get to meet a famous rock star,” Paco said, shaking Emmy’s hand.

  “Are you related to Bobby?” Emmy asked.

  “My nephew,” Paco confirmed. “He’s a good kid, so I’m happy to sponsor him. He wants to race in Europe, you know, but I told him I don’t have that kind of reach. He’s got to do well enough to catch the eye of a European team on his own.”

  I laughed and admitted that I’d just had a somewhat similar discussion with Madison, and how she might have some interest from other teams.

  “She has a sizable lead in the rookie of the year rankings,” Paco confirmed. “She could probably write her own ticket if she finishes in the top ten overall.”

  “Hey, no poaching my driver now,” I cautioned, but we all knew it was just good-natured banter.

  The chaos in the pit lane had gotten sorted out by this time and the marshal with the green flag was crossing in front of the drivers to let them know it was almost go time.

  “Now we’ll see if Maddie and Reggie made the right call,” I said.

  The start was very different than usual, since so few cars actually started from the grid, with the pit lane starters filing out after the seven cars that had kept their places took off. This meant that for the first handful of turns Madison was leading the pack, and our Hollywood Porsche colors were front and center.

  As much as we cheered Madison on, she slipped from the lead before too long. She continued to race strongly and regained third place sometime around lap ten or eleven. The rain really started dumping down with just a few laps to go, giving her the chance to sneak by and into second before the checkered flag, giving her a second podium of the season.

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  Emmy cheered louder than anybody as the number Ninety-four car came across the line. Jumping up and down, yelling with excitement and hugging Tiny and me in celebration.

  Paco congratulated us and said he’d see us in Watkins Glen in two weeks, and Emmy told him that we should have dinner together, and he agreed.

  The rain stopped in time for the podium ceremony, to everybody’s relief. The Argentine guy who won joked about being careful with the champagne, since Madison right next to him wasn’t old enough for it. She stuck her tongue out at him and made a face, emphasizing how much of a kid she still really was.

  The team dinner that night was at a charming little restaurant in the old port area that specialized in Quebecois cuisine. The interior was all dark wood and stone- apparently the building dated back to the early eighteenth century.

  “Thanks, everybody,” Madison said, standing up to address our entire group. “Thanks for everything. Especially thanks to you, Reggie, for insisting I start on rain tires. I just wish I could have hung on for the win, you know? If I had one more lap…”

  “Now that’s how you can tell a real racer,” Reggie said, leaning over to talk to Emmy. “They always think that a win was in the bag if this or that thing hadn’t happened.” He said it in a sort of stage whisper, and everybody heard it, including Madison.

  “Well, I mean, I was gaining on Martín. He’s just lucky that time ran out before I caught him,” Madison protested.

  “See?” Reggie said.

  “Maddie, I think everyone knows that you’re a contender now,” I said, standing up. “Emmy and I talked with another team owner today and he admitted he’s keeping an eye on you. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that a lot of the others are, too. I’m just glad we have you on a two-year contract.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lainey said from her side of the table. “Mads is staying with you and James.”

  “Unless a Formula One team calls me up,” Madison added, earning herself smiles and chuckles all the way around.

  “Do you think that Madison has the potential for a professional career in racing?” Emmy asked on the flight to New York.

  “I do,” I replied. “Formula One? No. But it isn’t because she couldn’t race at that level- it’s because she’s already too old for the feeder programs that they get their drivers from. But GT3 or the equivalent? Sure. If we folded up our program she could get a paying ride from one of the other teams, no problem. Like that guy we met said, she’s a hot prospect, and being so young is in her favor. Being a girl, that would be too, with some teams, but a negative with some others.”

  “Why would that be?”

  “Blatant sexism, basically. Motorsport is still very much a ‘good old boys’ club. Some guys just aren’t going to like the idea of a young woman racing their cars,” I explained.

  “And yet, she is racing and beating more of the men than she is losing to,” Emmy said.

  “Like I said, some think it’s cool, but a lot sure don’t. There’s really no breaking through to those guys.”

  “She will simply have to… what is the saying? ‘Rub their noses in it’?” Emmy said, smiling.

  “Exactly,” I agreed.

  It was late when we got to the townhouse, but Luisa was still up. She asked us if we wanted anything to eat or drink, and when we told her we were fine and just wanted to settle down for the night, she bid us goodnight and went up to her room.

  Emmy and I soon found ourselves in the roomy tub in the master suite, enjoying a soak after a long day. We didn’t really talk much, or do much of anything at all besides just relax. I did ask Emmy what her plans were for the next few days and she said that she was going to hold me to my promise of introducing her to everyone of importance in the upcoming Istanbul operation, but other than that she just wanted to write some music and spend some time in the studio.

  “Perhaps we can go out a bit,” she added. “Enjoy the nightlife that New York has to offer.”

  “We can do that,” I confirmed. “We can definitely do that.”

  I went out for a run first thing in the morning, feeling slow and unenthusiastic from so much time off. Thinking about it while I was pounding away the miles, I realized that it had been quite a long time since my last run outside (as opposed to time on a treadmill). A couple of months, at least. No wonder I felt so out of it and the ten miles felt like a marathon.

  Emmy was still sound asleep when I took my shower and got dressed for the day, but that was fine. Most of my day was going to be spent in the company office over in Red Hook, anyway. There was really no reason for her to be involved in any of that at all until Wednesday, when I had scheduled a big meeting regarding the Istanbul operation.

  My work day was an unending series of meetings with the newly hired or relocated staff of our New York office. Most of them were old hands from either San Jose or Los Angeles, but a few had been brought in from other places like Seattle and Denver.

  There were a few that were new hires, but only in support positions. It was important that the leadership all understood our way of doing things, after all.

  The property management side of the office was getting off to a slow but respectable start. A handful of our client owners back in California had properties in the New York area, and a few of them were happy to switch management to our new office. Add to that that we’d built up a solid rep in the industry and when we announced we were moving into the NYC market a few potential clients had expressed interest. I was confident that we would eventually have a sizable presence in the NYC area.

  As for the real estate investment trust, it was all about research at this point. Once we had a real solid understanding of the local market, then we could begin purchasing. Until that point we were just doing our due diligence. I had a feeling that the market was nearing peak all across the country- we’d gotten over the hangover from the Great Recession and prices had climbed back to the normalized trajectory. This meant that we had to be much more selective about our purchases than we had been in the early years. There were still profits to be made, but there was less of a guarantee than in times past.

  Pleased with how everything was going at the new office, I asked Wally to stop at a florist on the way home to get some roses for Emmy. I was in a good mood and wanted to surprise her with flowers.

  I found her in the recording studio, which didn’t surprise me at all. Seeing the red light was on, I slipped quietly into the production booth to watch and listen.

  Emmy was playing her blue Stratocaster, laying down an extremely heavy riff, full of distortion and shrieking feedback. The only way to characterize it was as angry as Hell- this was as hard as anything off The Downfall’s second album. Much heavier than what they’d been doing since then, and completely out of line with what I’d been hearing from Emmy for quite a while.

  It seemed as if she was improvising, letting her fingers guide her. She had no sheet music to work off of that I could see, just the feelings deep inside her soul.

  Not wanting to intrude, I slipped back out, letting her get it all out in peace. I went down to the kitchen to find a vase for the flowers, which I left on the side table on the landing by our bedroom. I figured she would notice them there.

  For lack of anything better to do, I went back downstairs and put on a Stan Getz album and found a book to read in the library- the first in a series about a lady detective in Botswana. Musing that it had been quite while since I’d read anything for the sake of simple enjoyment, I was startled when Jeremy came into the library to tell me that dinner was nearly ready. Finding a bookmark and setting the small hardbound book on the little marble table to finish up later, I followed him back to the dining room.

  Emmy joined us a moment later, smiling when she saw me.

  “You bought roses!” she said, leaning down to give me a kiss before taking her seat next to mine.

  “Pretty flowers for a pretty woman,” I answered with a smile.

  “Tomorrow will you introduce me to all of your… heavies, I think you called them?” Emmy asked while I shampooed up her hair in the bath that night.

  “No, not tomorrow,” I said. “I’ve set up a big meeting on Wednesday, since a few of the important parties need to come back to New York for this.”

  “You did not have to bring them solely so that I could meet them!” Emmy protested.

  “Yeah, I did,” I replied. “This is important to you, and at the same time it’s important to our guys, too. They all need to know that you support this as much as I do. You need to get a solid understanding of where things currently stand, too. This will be the last time all the important players are gathered in one place up until the moment we strike.”

  “When do you think that will be?” Emmy asked.

  “I think it’s going to happen in late October, if I had to guess. There are… Well, you’ll find out on Wednesday. But yeah, there are factors that point towards that being the most opportune time.”

  Emmy leaned her head back into the water and I gently massaged her hair to rinse the shampoo from it.

  When she sat up again she said, “It feels surreal to discuss murdering an entire family while enjoying the feel of your fingers in my hair,” Emmy said.

  “It is,” I agreed. "I want it to be very clear, Em, that this isn’t a thing that I’m taking lightly. This is a very, very important thing and needs to be done with the utmost care and with every possible precaution. It’s taking us so long just because we are being very careful and very cautious.”

  “I know you, Leah. I know that you would never do a thing like this on a whim. I know that you are incredible at making plans and seeing them through. I have no doubt that you are doing what must be done,” Emmy said, leaning forward and hugging her knees to her chest.

  “But?”

  “But that does not mean that I am not worried,” Emmy admitted.

  “I’m not worried,” I told her, rubbing her back. “I’m confident that when the time comes, we’ll be much more ready than our enemies will be, and we’ll strike thoroughly and completely. It’ll be a bloodbath, but it’ll be their blood.”

  “Surreal,” Emmy said, resting her cheek on her knees. After a long pause, she said, “I never wanted this.”

  “I know, baby,” I said, leaning forward to wrap my arms around her, knees and all. “We never asked for this, but this is what we have to deal with. We can’t ignore Marfan and hope he goes away. He’ll always be a concern. Maybe not this week, this month or this year, but the risk of a hit squad sent to kill our little daughter… that’s the thought that drives this whole thing. We have to make it clear to the entire world of Night Children that we will not be fucked with. We are a force to be reckoned with and we will destroy any who oppose us. It’s important that the other nations take us very seriously.”

  “I understand and agree,” Emmy said, her voice quiet. “But I still wish it did not have to be so.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” I agreed.

  “What was it like with Katrina?” Emmy asked, her head on my shoulder and her arm draped across my belly in our big, comfy bed. “I do not mean just the sex, but how was spending time with her?”

  There was no way I was ever going to be anything but truthful with Emmy, so I admitted that I’d had a good time.

  “I like her. I’m pretty sure she likes me, too, but the basic reality is that our lives have very little overlap, if you know what I mean. Besides the fact that we live on opposite coasts, she has her college to finish up and her career in smuggling to look forward to-”

  “Smuggling?” Emmy asked, amused.

  “Well, sure, her dad says it’s all legal and above-board, but we all know better. Logistics? Colombia? Yeah, they’re smuggling.”

  “What will her career in smuggling involve?” Emmy asked, running with it.

  “Well, I don’t think she’s got the personality for running drugs or guns or anything like that, so maybe emeralds? I doubt she’ll ever get her hands dirty- she’ll work in the office, helping give the company a veneer of legitimacy.”

  “You are terrible,” Emmy laughed.

  “I’m not casting shade,” I protested. “I’ve got no room to talk, since I myself have a paramilitary death squad on standby.”

  Emmy laughed again, one of those laughs of hers that sound like bells or something like that. “That is true,” she said. “And you have personally murdered ten people now.”

  “That you know of,” I said, making my voice low and menacing.

  “That I know of,” Emmy admitted, still laughing. “Have I ever told you that you are terrifying?”

  “It might have come up,” I said, kissing her hair.

  On Wednesday Wally brought Emmy and Jeremy to the compound after the office hours were over and I was done with that part of my day.

  I’d wanted to keep the proceedings down to just the bare minimum number of people, but a few extra showed up anyway- my fault for not expressly limiting those who’d be there. Michael was one of the extras. I didn’t begrudge him being there, even though he wasn’t directly involved in the action in any meaningful way. Ted Mack and Ron Wright were there, and so were the three ninjas. Again, those guys were just trainers, but I couldn’t begrudge them being there. Their work was important to the operation, after all.

  The Japanese hadn’t met Emmy before, and Hayate Oshida and Hoshi Kanawa were suitably star-struck.

  Once we were all gathered in the old furniture factory’s conference room, I announced that we were here to bring Emmy up to speed on our preparations for our assault on the Marfans. I also explained that this would be good for the rest of us, too, to have a solid overview of where all this work was leading us. I made it clear that everything we would discuss that night was privileged information and wouldn’t leave the room.

  Of course everyone in attendance had been vetted carefully, and I was certain that all of them truly understood that operational security was a matter of life or death, in a very literal sense.

  I laid out the general plan and made it clear that there was no need for anyone to go into the details- that wasn’t what this meeting was about. I related the history of the Marfans and their attacks on us over the years, and how we had no expectation that they would ever stop of their own accord.

  Most of the people in attendance hadn’t known of the attacks in San Francisco or Vancouver, and hearing about them put Atlanta in perspective. I laid out the evidence against Marfan and Ahmet Asker, the man he’d sent to New York. I said that the Marfan family had a long, terrible history of abuse of their own people, casually cruel and exploitative.

  I spoke of what I’d said to Emmy- that until we show our strength, the old nations won’t take us seriously. Projecting our power right into the heart of the largest Night Child nation would demonstrate that we are to be reckoned with and will forestall any further actions against us.

  This isn’t simple revenge, I said. It’s claiming our position in the world at the same time as we eliminate our number one threat. Yes, the Marfan family must pay for what they did to us- and by us, I didn’t mean just Angela, Emmy and me, but our people, deprived of two unborn princesses. Babies who would grow up to lead our nation in the future, and to inherit the legacy we were all working so hard to build.

  This last part visibly struck a chord in a few of the faces at the big table, Michael chief among them. Children were precious, and to intentionally attack and kill two babies was beyond the pale.

  After all that, I introduced everyone at the table to Emmy, even though she’d met most of them in the past and the others just a few minutes before. This time, though, I laid out where they all stood in the organization and the tasks that they had in front of them.

  Emmy seemed fascinated by the presence of the Japanese, and asked Mr Kanawa what he felt about training our men for a conflict that wasn’t his.

  “This is my war, too,” he said in heavily accented English. Switching to Japanese with Hayate Oshida’s translation, he went on to explain that while it may not have been his conflict a year before, now he felt that it was justified and he had committed himself fully to the cause. “Your enemies are my enemies,” he said with conviction.

  “I am very grateful that your clans have become such strong allies,” Emmy replied. “This is more than I could have ever asked for.”

  “Mr Kanawa represents the finest of our kind,” I said. “Strong in his beliefs, and committed to making the world a better place for all of us.”

  The old man nodded, pleased with the recognition.

  “This is Yusuf Ozan,” I said to Emmy, resting my hand on the shoulder of another one of the guys that she hadn’t met before. “He’s leading the intelligence program in Turkey. He and Eddie have been the ones to set up our surveillance of the Marfans. Like Eddie, he’s a native of Istanbul and had been a lieutenant of King Marfan’s oldest son. He, like so many of our new nation, holds a deep, personal hatred of the Marfan family.”

  “What caused that rift?” Emmy asked.

  “It’s personal. Yusuf can tell you later in private,” I said.

  “Ron and Ted here are our urban warfare specialists. They worked with Grant in the Marines and are now with us,” I said, indicating the two men.

  “Proud to be here, ma’am,” Ted said.

  Finishing up with my introductions, I gave Grant Henry the floor.

  “Now, Leah tasked me with explaining what we’re currently doing and what we expect to have done before go day. First off, we’re split up into two basic groups, but there is some overlap,” he said, and went on to describe how we had scouts and assault team members. The scouts, he explained, were training up in Mr Kanawa’s art of invisibility, and when he judged them ready they were sent to Turkey to keep an eye on the Marfan family, but also to assess the overall readiness of the defensive position over there. They were all native speakers and had vendettas against that nation’s rulers for one reason or another.

  The assault team, Grant went on to explain, was just that. They would do the damage when the moment arrived. In a synchronized attack we would wipe out the entire family all in the same night. It was of utmost importance that none survive. Our assault team was training to go in hard and fast.

  “Our goal is to be in and out of the family compound as quickly as possible, while accounting for every hostile. We know who to expect and what to expect in that great big old place of theirs, and when it comes time to kick in the doors we’ll catch ‘em with their pants down.”

  It went on like this, each person at the table telling Emmy what their role was and how it was progressing. Emmy seemed most fascinated by Mr Kanawa and his description of how he was training our scouts.

  “A lot of what Mr Kanawa said were the ways of the shinobi are our old ways as well,” Emmy explained to me later. “My father taught me much of those techniques, but I think that most of them aren’t being taught to the newer generations. Like so much of our culture, it is being lost.”

  “That explains a lot,” I said, thinking about Emmy’s uncanny silence when she wanted and stillness when she didn’t make an attempt to disguise her training. “I’ve wondered about some of that,” I admitted. “What did you think overall?” I asked.

  “I think that there are some very large… what is the term? ‘Operational security,’ I think I have heard you say- holes in your plan,” Emmy said. “I did not want to say so in front of everyone, but…”

  “The risk that some of our people might actually be spies or worse for the Marfans?” I asked. “Yeah, that’s been given a lot of thought.”

  “Yes, that is what I referred to,” Emmy agreed. “How can you know that none of your scouts are misreporting or worse?”

  “Ultimately, that is our biggest risk. If one or more of our scouts are reporting back to Marfan, things could turn really ugly,” I admitted. “But we have quite a few precautions in place. None of our scouts are working alone, and they’re all keeping eyes on each other, for a start. But really, it goes back to the vetting process. They were all selected because of harm done to them or their loved ones by the Marfans, and we didn’t just take their words for it. It had to be corroborated. Remember, both Eddie and Yusuf themselves were top lieutenants in the Marfan inner circle for years, so they saw a lot of it happen with their own eyes. They both have very, very strong desire to see the Marfan house destroyed, and they know where the literal as well as proverbial bodies are buried.”

  “I am relieved that you have given it so much thought.”

  “Yeah, we have. There are some other safeguards in place, too, but that’s all operational stuff that you don’t need to bother with,” I said.

  “Where did you learn to do all this?” Emmy wondered.

  “Tom Clancy novels, mostly,” I replied with a straight face.

  “What?” Emmy exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in surprise. “From novels?”

  “We’ve got all of his books on that shelf right over there,” I said with a dismissive shrug, pointing to one of the shelves behind Emmy and to the right of the couch she was sitting on in our library.

  Appalled, she looked to where I pointed and didn’t see the spy thrillers, because they didn’t exist. When Emmy realized that I was just pulling her leg, she turned back around and faced me with an honest laugh. “You really had me there for a moment!” she said, smiling.

  Sipping my Negroni, I couldn’t help but return her smile. “Seriously, Grant worked for many years in the Special Forces as a security expert, so a lot of his training was in spotting infiltrators and preventing risks in the first place. Rafael Castro was an officer in Colombia’s elite anti-terrorism group in their army, so he had extensive training in those subjects, too, and so did Mr Han from Singapore-”

  “Papá?” Emmy asked, sitting up straight in surprise again.

  “Yeah, Papá,” I confirmed. “He’s been, um, consulting, I guess, on this project. He wants to see the people that had his daughter killed get what’s coming to them as much as anyone does.”

  “I did not know,” Emmy said, wonderingly. “And Mr Han from Singapore… How does he enter the picture?”

  “He spent a couple of weeks training my men, and more importantly, developing the guidelines for all of this with Grant and Rafael after Atlanta.”

  “But…”

  “He’s a top officer in Singapore’s military intelligence service,” I said. “This is the kind of thing these guys know as well as anyone. I’m not really involved much- I just put them together and let them hash everything out. They’re the experts, I’m not.”

  Just then Mia followed Luisa into the library, taking a seat on the last empty chair.

  “Can I get you anything before I head up to my room?” Luisa asked.

  “Another one of these?” I asked, holding up my nearly empty glass.

  “Some more wine, please?” Emmy asked. “Do we have any more of those cookies that Jeremy baked this morning?"

  Mia just held up her coffee cup to show that it was full and she didn’t need anything.

  Once Luisa had gone, Mia said, “I heard you talking about Mr Han?”

  “Have you met him?” Emmy asked.

  “Yeah, I met him. That guy is seriously- I mean, he’s a tricky one. He just looks like an ordinary guy, but…” Mia said. “He’s got skills.”

  “We were discussing how your father, Mr Han and Rafael Castro developed the security scheme for the Istanbul operation,” Emmy said.

  “Yeah, Dad and Mr Han are thick as fricken’ thieves,” Mia agreed. “Hey, he said that you promised to go over there to help him train his guys?” she asked me.

  “Yeah, I need to do that soon,” I agreed. “Maybe September?”

  “I like Singapore, but it’s just so damned expensive!” Mia said.

  “It is,” I agreed. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if I wind up spending a lot of time there.”

  “You gonna buy another house?” Mia asked with a smirk.

  “Maybe,” I replied.