He rubbed at his hair, which had finally grown back. He’d had to scalp himself for a recent mission. He was only in his early forties, six and a half feet tall and in rock-hard shape, but when his hair had come back there’d been a sprinkle of gray at the temples and a dab at his sharp widow’s peak. Even for him the last six months had been, well, difficult.

As if reading his mind, Frank said, “So what happened with you and Katie James?”

“She went back to being a journalist and I went back to doing what I do.”

Frank rolled down the window, lit his cigar, and let the smoke drift out the opening. “That’s that, huh?”

“Why would there be any more than that?”

“You two went through some serious stuff together. Tends to draw people closer.”

“Well, it didn’t.”

“She called me, you know.”

“When?”

“While back. Said you left without saying good-bye. Just walked off into the sunrise.”

“Didn’t realize there was a law against that. And why didn’t she just call me?”

“Said she tried, but you’d changed your number.”

“Okay, so maybe I did.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I felt like it. Any other personal questions?”

“Were you two sleeping together?”

This comment made Shaw noticeably stiffen. Frank, perhaps sensing he’d gone too far, looked down at the folder in his lap and said quickly, “Okay, we’ll be wheels up in thirty minutes. We can go over the next job on the wings.”

“Great,” said Shaw dully. He rolled down his window and breathed in the morning air. He did most of his work in the middle of the night and many of his “jobs” ended in the early morning hours.

I work for something loosely called an agency that doesn’t officially exist doing things around the world that none will ever know I did.