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dinner.”
    “I—”
    “Yeah, yeah. Your work comes first.” He seemed to be studying Will. “Don’t worry. I know, you’d have hated it.” He grinned. “You can talk your way out of any situation, but you’re terrified of a family dinner and idle chat. You really do need to lighten up a bit.” His expression and tone of voice changed. “Patrick told me you just got back from Russia, that you were nearly killed.”
    “Did he send you here to check up on me?” The moment he said the words, Will regretted them.
    Anger flashed across Roger’s face. “You should know me better than that. I came here to have a drink with the man who saved my life.”
    “Stupid question. I’m sorry.”
    The anger on Roger’s face receded, but his expression remained stern. “Don’t try to push me away, Cochrane. I’m not like the others.”
    Will nodded slowly. He wondered why Roger stuck by him. It was true that he’d saved the CIA officer’s life, but he’d saved many people’s lives and none of them had wanted to be in his presence for a second longer than they had to.
    “Have you heard from your sister?”
    Will shook his head. “She won’t return my calls or reply to my letters.”
    “Give it time.”
    Will had given it time. He’d seen Sarah only once by chance during the last nine years. His existence reminded her of the day that criminals had come to kill her and their mother when Will and his sister had been teenagers. Will had killed the men but had been too late to stop his mother from dying. “I bought some gifts for your children.” He handed Roger a duty-free carrier bag.
    Roger looked inside. “Teddy bears? My twin sons are twelve and spend every free hour killing each other in Xbox games, and my daughter’s just turned fourteen and is starting to think about cuddling other things.” He smiled. “But thanks for the thought.”
    Will felt foolish. “How’s Laith?”
    Laith was a CIA SOG officer and ex–Delta Force operative who had worked with both men in their last mission. Like Roger, Will had last seen Laith in Saranac, though Laith’s stomach had been slashed open with a knife.
    “He was in the hospital for a while, but he’s operational again.” Roger’s cell phone bleeped. He checked the screen, his expression one of irritation.
    Will smiled. “Work comes first.”
    “It thinks it does.” He stood, a wry smile now on his face. “Find a nice woman and marry her. It’ll be the solution to all your problems.”
    A n hour later Will was in his hotel room. His bag was packed; he’d be checking out shortly. Turning on the television, he flicked through the channels until he found one devoted to classical music. An orchestra was playing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6. He sat down, closed his eyes, and placed the tips of his fingers together.
    As the third movement commenced, one of his rare good memories came to him. He was sixteen years old, and he was on his first proper date with a girl named Mary. He had known her for a couple of years—they played viola together in their school orchestra—but had only recently plucked up the courage to ask her out. They went to a National Symphony Orchestra performance in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The musicians were delivering an excellent performance of Symphony No. 6. Will was nervous and his date looked nervous, but halfway during the third movement, he looked at Mary, smiled, and took her hand.
    The television concert paused before commencing the fourth movement. The memory vanished and was replaced by another. He was twenty years old, and he was sitting in a café on the banks of the Barada River in Syria’s capital, Damascus. He was dressed in jeans and an open-neck shirt and was sipping a glass of arak. The early-evening sun felt good on his tanned skin, and he smiled as he listened to Tchaikovsky’s fourth movement coming through the old speakers of the café. Several tables away from him sat a