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ease, Coco thought. She herself was coiled like a spring, tense and
suspicious and, to her shame, she felt frumpy in her tourist costume.
    She followed him up another flight of wide marble stairs,
pausing at a lurid painting of Salome holding up John the Baptist’s head in
triumph. Alexi was hopping up the steps two at a time while she rallied behind
him. Not at full strength yet, she had to admit. This might not bode well for
when she finally had him in the safe house. That’s where firearms came in—a
shot to the kneecap would put the advantage back in her hands.
    She spotted his boot heel whisking around a corner and
emerged into a small, deserted gallery, panting. Alexi was already seated on a
leather bench, staring intently at a painting. It was of no great size and
depicted a darkish lake surrounded by fearsome mountains.
    “‘Landscape, thought to be Sardinian, circa 1792,’” she read
from the tag on the wall next to it. “Great.”
    “Sit with me, krahsniy .” He sounded tired. “Do you
love your country?”
    Her eyes widened. “I work for the government, you already
know that.”
    “Answer question. Do you love it?”
    “Of course.” America, eagles, apple pie, freedom—how could
she not love it? She would never have agreed to try out for the FBI after she
graduated college if she didn’t want to serve her country. It was a young woman
in her boxing class who approached her, a petite Asian girl who was the only
opponent who had ever given Coco trouble in the ring.
    Leilani was in officer school in the Marines. She took Coco
aside after a sparring session and confessed that, while she herself was too
short to apply for an FBI position, she’d like to see another woman as strong
and smart as she was take up a post in that venerable institution. But after
Coco’s FBI interview she was pulled aside again, and a business card slipped
into her hand. “We need someone young, smart and strong, but not here,” the
interviewer had said. “The Bureau has plenty of viable candidates. OSO takes
only the cream of the crop. I see something in you, Miss Fiori. If you’re
interested in going deeper into national security and special operations, I
believe they will make a place for you. Good luck.”
    She had fingered the card until the type was smeared and
sweat-stained. Finally she made the call. Joining OSO had been the smartest
decision of her life. The dumbest one had been to think that sleeping with that
preening ass Rod Templeton was a good idea.
    Alexi’s rumbling voice jolted her back to the present. “‘Of
course’. Is good enough answer for an immigrant.”
    “I’m not an immigrant!”
    “Your people are what—Irish?”
    “Half-Scottish, some French and Italian,” she answered. “But
we’ve been here for at least a hundred—” Her voice died away as he turned to
her, his face serious. She realized they weren’t talking about the same thing,
but how could he know that for seventeen years, America was as much of a dream
to her as to any immigrant? His eyes were lighter than his hair, strangely
otherworldly with that glittering splash of gold, and slightly almond shaped.
    “I love my country,” he said. “Everything I do is to
preserve it. The beauty, the culture, the people. Do you know what it is to see
that slipping away, to fight so it stays?”
    Coco stared back at him, stunned. America had always been at
the top of the world heap. There was never any question that the country would
lose its power and its value. Everything she did, she did to keep her nation at
the top, not to fight for its survival.
    “No. We have never had to do that. My job is to keep things
the same, protect the status quo,” she answered.
    “Look. Here is circle of civilization.” He touched his
middle fingers and thumbs together to demonstrate. “Persia, India, China,
Greece, Rome, Europe. Inventing mathematics, astronomy, plumbing, typography,
democracy. In the wheel of history, many nations were