Page 104 of The Shadow Friends

“Where is Hannah Murray?” he asked.

Chapter 41

Ingrid

Fortress Maggie. That’s how she now thought of the farmhouse. Her hiding place, her refuge. But tonight this farmhouse was her Alamo, the place where she would make her last stand.

Assuming the killer took the bait.

Ingrid paced from the kitchen to the living room, pausing long enough to glance at the front door. It was solid oak, impossible to kick open when bolted. But every fortress had its vulnerable points, and a hundred-year-old farmhouse like Maggie’s could not be made impenetrable. If a cold winter wind could seep in through these walls, so could an intruder.

She paced back into the kitchen and braved a quick glance out the window at the night beyond. She did not linger there; she’d make too tempting a shot for a sniper. She stayed by the window only long enough to make it clear to anyone who might be watching that yes, she was still here, and alone, in the house. An opportunity waiting to be plucked. Up on the barn rooftop, Rodrigo and Lloyd were also watching, waiting for Hannah to approach the house.

It could be a long night, for all of them.

She went to the coffee maker, where the carafe was still half full. She could not stomach the thought of another cup; she’d drunk far too much coffee this past week and suffered through too many jittery, overcaffeinated nights. She didn’t really need the caffeine now; her heart was already thrumming, her ears buzzing with the whoosh of her pulse. And she was hot; God, she was hot and sweating in this Kevlar vest, even on this cold October night.

She thought about Lloyd, crouched on the barn roof, his muscles by now probably aching, his joints stiffening. He was not trained for night ops. She might be the bait, but Lloyd was the one outside and exposed. Rodrigo had promised to watch over him, but if something went wrong . . .

She paced into the living room, the dining room, and back to the kitchen. Make your move, Hannah. Come and get me. Or had they misread the situation? Surely Hannah expected them to launch a rescue op to retrieve Maggie, and with their manpower split up, their focus scattered, it would be the logical time for Hannah to strike at Ingrid. Or had they overthought it? Which dimension chess game was Hannah playing?

She sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the photo on Maggie’s laptop. The EXIF data was still displayed on the screen, with the coordinates of where the photo had been taken. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe it really was this simple: Hannah knew that time was running out for her, and she had gotten careless. Even more carelessly, she’d used Maggie’s cell phone when she’d sent that photo, releasing a burst of cellular data. Using that data, the Argus team was working to triangulate the phone’s location at the time the photo had been sent. Carelessness? Or was it part of a larger plan?

She heard Rodrigo’s voice over her headset: “A-okay?” he asked.

“A-okay. Your status?”

“No sign of movement.”

“And Lloyd?”

“Right here,” said her husband.

“How’s your first night on surveillance?”

“I’m not particularly enjoying it.”

She laughed, a gratingly false sound of bravado. “There’s a thirty-year Speyside waiting for you when this is over.”

“I just want it to be over.”

So do I. She stood up and poured a cup of coffee she didn’t want, spooned in sugar she didn’t need, and thought about what would happen if Hannah did not make a move tonight, or tomorrow night, or the night after. What if the woman had scented danger and aborted the mission? By now, she could be on her way to the border or to the coast, where a boat might be waiting for her. Or maybe Moscow had told her their information was incorrect and Ingrid was not the defector they thought she was. While this would spare Ingrid’s life, it would also leave her with an unsettling lack of closure. Hannah would be beyond their reach, living out the rest of her life in some comfortable dacha. She would never face justice for the lives she had ended.

“Ingrid,” said Rodrigo. The voice in her earpiece, earlier so relaxed, was now sharp with tension.

“Here,” she said.

“We have a problem. They’ve triangulated the cell phone’s location at the time the photo was sent.”

“The same cottage on Lake Cameron?”

“No. It was in or near Blackberry Farm.”

“Here? But how could she . . .” Her voice trailed off as she thought about the last time they’d walked into this house, when they’d returned from town after examining Maggie’s abandoned truck. Had she sensed, even then, that there was something different in the air? When they’d briefly disarmed the security system, had someone else slipped into the house at the same time? Someone who’d then sent the photograph to launch Ingrid’s friends out the door on a rescue mission?

She went very still. Every house vibrated at its own frequency, and she strained to hear through the whisper of the refrigerator, the ticking of the kitchen clock, for a note that did not belong. The sound of an invader.

“Get out of the house now,” said Rodrigo. “We’ll be down to meet you.”