Really? Holley asked. What have we got?

Captain Sara Gideon, a brilliant linguist. Speaks fluent Pashtu, Arabic, and Iranian. Just what we ve been needing.

Is that all? Holley joked.

Ah, I was forgetting Hebrew.

Dillon said, You haven t gone and recruited an Israeli, have you?

That would be illegal, Dillon. No, she s a Londoner. There have been Gideons around since the seventeenth century. I m sure you ve heard of the Gideon Bank. She inherited it. While she pursues her military agenda, her grandfather sits in for her as chairman of the board.

You mean she s one of those Gideons? Dillon said. So why isn t she married to some obliging millionaire, and what the hell is she doing in the army?

Because at nineteen, she was at college in Jerusalem brushing up on her Hebrew before going up to Oxford when her parents visited her and were killed in a Hamas bus bombing.

Ah-ha, Holley said. So she chose Sandhurst instead of Oxford.

Correct.

And in the last nine years has served with the Intelligence Corps in Belfast, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and two tours in Afghanistan.

Jesus, what in the hell is she after? Dillon said. Is she seeking revenge, is she a war junkie, what?

Roper s just posted her full history, so you can read it for yourself.

I wouldn t miss it for anything, Dillon said.

Yes, I m sure you ll find it instructive, particularly the account of the nasty ambush near Abusan, where she took a bullet in the right thigh which left her with a permanent limp.

All right, General, I surrender, Dillon said.

I ll keep my big gob shut. I can t wait to meet her in person.

What do we do with her until you get to the Pierre? Holley asked.

Keep her happy. She was booking in at the Plaza after a flight from Arizona. There s some secret base out there that the RAF are involved in, something to do with pilotless aircraft. She ll be returning to London with us. She s been on the staff of Colonel Hector Grant, our military attach at the UN, and this will be her final appearance for him, so she ll be in uniform.