It accompanied her home, first to her bedsit in South Kensington, and then later relocating with her when she moved to a flat in Camden.

It was tenacious, and the comfort found neither in a bottle of scotch nor in the arms of an eager lover could break its grip.

It became part of her life; more-it became part of her.

Wallace and she had laughed at the joke, but the fact was, there are no good assignments when you are a Minder; there are only ones marginally less likely to get you killed. As Wallace had told her when she'd first joined the Section as an eager Minder Three, "It's not the bullet with your name on it you have to worry about, Tara. It's all those damn other ones, marked 'to whom it may concern.'?"

There were no good jobs, and assassination was the worst of them all. Even putting all moral and ethical questions out of mind-and when the order came, it was Chace's job to do precisely that-assassinations were fiendishly difficult to execute on every conceivable level. Politically, they were nightmarishly sensitive; logistically, they were almost impossible to adequately plan; and finally, once operational, even if the politics and the logistics had fallen in line, it would all go out the window anyway.

Everyone involved, from the staff in the Ops Room to the officers of the Special Section-known in-house as the Minders-to the Director of Operations himself, Paul Crocker, understood that. Chace, as Minder Two, had distinguished herself, and Wallace had been right. One day she would have his job. One day she would be Minder One, the Head of Section.

But distinguishing herself wasn't enough. The "good" assignments didn't interest her. She wanted the bad ones, the ones no one believed in, the ones that required a Minder and, more, required her. She wanted to prove herself, not just that she was capable, but that she was better.