“And then?”
Peter shrugged. “He’s got to have millions salted away in some international account. He’s spent the last twenty years or so selling his services to the highest bidder—he’d be well paid for it. Once we get the information from him he’ll be able to disappear. With our help.” He didn’t look any happier about it than she felt.
“Maybe he could have a little accident once he’s been debriefed,” she said. “Accidents do happen, you know.”
“Yes, they do,” Peter said evenly. “I can see to it, if you’d like.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. Never have someone do what you aren’t willing to do yourself, she thought. “Let’s see if we can even bring him out alive. Do we know what the hell he looks like nowadays?”
“We’ve got some grainy surveillance photos from his time in Bosnia eight years ago, but they don’t show much. Just a tall man with a beard and sunglasses. We’ve got a couple of recent descriptions from people who escaped ahead of the carnage. I’ll put them together and see what we can come up with.”
“You and your damn computers,” Isobel said. Since Peter had come out of the field, he’d spent his time playing with technology—in all, a less emotionally damaging way to help the cause. Not that she would have thought Peter Madsen had emotions. Until she’d met his wife.
“See what you can come up with,” Isobel said.
“How long have we known each other?”
Peter’s question was unexpected, and Isobel almost dropped her guard. “Close to ten years by now. Why?”
“You look tired.”
“Are you telling me I’m looking my age?” she said, her voice light.
“I don’t know what the hell your age is,” he grumbled. “You could be forty and you could be sixty.”
“Or I could be twenty or eighty,” she said. “I take very good care of myself. And I’ve had the very best of plastic surgeons. Why are you asking?”
“Because sooner or later this gets to be too much. You and I both know it. And I’d like some warning if you’re going to burn out.”
“You think I’m getting too old for the game? I’ll let you know when I’m contemplating retirement, if you’re that eager for advancement. At this point I have a lot of good years left.”
“Bastien retired in his thirties.”
“So he did. And I expect if it weren’t for me you’d be gone, as well. You don’t really want my job at all, do you?”
“I’ve seen what it does to p
eople. Turns them into monsters like Thomason, or comes close to breaking them, like…”
“Like me,” she said.
“Like Bastien. Like me. Like you.”
She rose with her usual perfect grace. “Tell you what, Peter,” she said. “Find me a replacement with a conscience. Find yourself one as well. And then I’ll quit.”
“You can’t do this job and have a conscience.”
“It makes it hard,” she said dryly. “But you need it as a fail-safe. Otherwise you become another Thomason, taking out your friends as well as your enemies.” She moved toward her office. “Find me the best intel you’ve got on Serafin.”
“I’ve already uploaded files to your computer,” he said. He paused. “I could go.”
“No,” she said flatly.
“Taka’s cousin whenever he shows up?”
“Taka would kill us. Getting someone as dangerous as Serafin out of North Africa is hardly child’s play. It would be like sending a lamb into a lion’s den. Not that any relative of Taka could be a lamb, if his cousin Reno is anything to go by.”
“Bastien…”