It was the prettiest view of a disaster that Lilith had ever seen.
Whiffs of seawater blew up the slope of Castle Hill and Lilith could feel the briny crust on the metal railing she gripped, white-knuckled, as she stared down at the lingering wreck of the Kosatka. The crunch of the wreck had carried all the way up the hill, a sound that would linger in her mind as that of ripping cardboard, and a crowd of tourists had rushed to the viewing platform and surrounded her, Niles, and Jonathan, who had stowed the EWD back in its case immediately after its tricky business was complete. The tourists focused their awe on the multimillion-dollar wreckage in the marina below and spent no attention on Lilith and company.
Good.
The purpose of any clandestine service or operation was exactly that: to remain hidden. And they should have slipped away right then, obscured by the crowd their actions had attracted. Except she couldn't just leave, not with Frank and Cal in the water—or worse—trapped aboard the sinking vessel. She glanced at the white logo of a killer whale stenciled on the black case of the EWD.
Blackfish.
Kosatka.
Her and Frank's separate missions had once again intertwined and become one. Thirty years of marriage and thirty years together in the intelligence service, sometimes it had been like that, and this was far from the first time she waited for word from Frank that he was okay, that he was returning to the green zone or the safe house, or wherever it was they called their home away from home.
Al-Tanf had been the worst.
Vilnius the most charming.
She prayed to God that Nice would not be the last.
The superyacht carrying Frank and Cal was now listing dramatically to its side with its ass in the air. Debris floated everywhere, too far away to discern between junk and bodies.
A memory flashed through her mind. A younger Frank smiling behind his fake mustache (and her pretending she didn't know), about to head off base to some clandestine rendezvous she'd arranged for him. You'll be the death of me, he'd said. It'd been meant as an ironic cliché—something regular couples said to each other in jest when there was no real danger. But the danger had always been real for them. Close calls and lucky breaks: thirty years of them had finally been enough and she'd made a clean split with the divorce.
Not that it mattered. If Frank were dead, he'd find a way to haunt her, just as he'd found a way to pull her into late-evening phone calls when she was too lonely to ignore her phone. She was no longer in love with Frank, but she still loved him and always would. And Cal was like Frank's brother—like her brother—and she'd never met a more decent man. And she might have killed him, too.
Shit. What a stupid plan.
But what other option had Frank given her, rushing onboard the Kosatka like that? Chasing Cal who was chasing a woman? She remembered again why she'd left Frank. It wasn't that he did anything so terrible to make her leave. No, she was tired of him playing cowboy and her cleaning up his messes. She didn't need space so much as she needed peace of mind, and with Frank, one equaled the other.
When she looked at the long timeline of her career and her marriage, the Kosatka wreckage wasn't new. It was just louder. And what was that old pirate phrase Frank loved to say? Dead men tell no tales. Well, she'd always replied that the same could be said for spooks and then Frank would zip his lips like he was already dead.
But please not today.
Her phone rang and she snapped it to her ear.
"Talk to me, Frank!"
But it wasn't Frank who answered. That was impossible unless he was clinging to wreckage with a working cellphone in his hand. No, it wasn't Frank on the line, but it was still a familiar voice.
"Auntie Lil'?" said Cal's daughter, MJ, her voice tinny on the international connection all the way back to Maryland where MJ lived and worked. MJ had already connected the dots and knew her dad was caught up in something with Frank, so of course she'd call Lilith to dig for more.
"Have you heard from my dad? I just got this weird message—"
Shit!
"MJ!" Lilith said with false levity. "Your dad? I'm sure he's . . . what did he say?"
Lilith held her breath like she was the one in the water. MJ described a text message Cal had sent about him watching someone else's back and that Frank was watching his. And I was supposed to be watching Frank's, Lilith mentally added.
"Auntie Lil', what does it mean? Uncle Frank isn't answering his phone either."
Lilith didn't have an answer. What was she supposed to say to Cal's little girl? She covered the receiver and leaned over the back of Niles's chair.
"Anything?! Who's in the water?"
The view on the tablet circled around the Kosatka, on its side and sinking forward slowly as it fell away from the concrete breakwater. Wood or fiberglass debris floated everywhere along with the most mundane of objects like couch cushions and ice buckets.
"I've got swimmers in the water!" Niles announced.
Lilith leaned over his shoulder and watched the drone camera focus on a wet sop of a man clinging to a couch cushion: Frank, still looking funny without his mustache. But Lilith would tease him about that later. Where was Cal?
"Hold on, MJ, I'm in the middle of something—" Lilith said before moving the phone away again and commanding Niles to zoom out and circle back around. But really, she needed everyone alive, including the Russians if she was going to get the answers she needed for Blackfish. Maybe she could salvage the situation from this disaster in the marina. The paperwork was already going to be a nightmare. Unless . . . unless she could just disappear. Fall back and make the others swear to secrecy. They were good at that, right? Niles and Jonathan? Frank certainly was and—
—Cal!
Christ, what was wrong with her? First, she'd used a terrorist weapon to wreak havoc in a public marina, and now she was calculating how to cover her tracks before her friendlies were even back to shore. And they weren't just operatives on a mission; this was Frank and Cal! This is the job, she told herself, but a glance at the Blackfish stenciled on the EWD made her skin crawl. A dozen soldiers had been killed with the same technology she'd just deployed and now, possibly, the father of the girl waiting for an answer at the other end of the line.
Lilith's voice caught in her throat.
She just needed a sign, any sign, that Cal was alive and that she wasn't a terrible person. The tourists still crowded the edge of the viewing platform, pointing and filming on their phones, but Lilith, Niles, and Jonathan were glued to the tablet.
"Lilith!" MJ's voice demanded from the phone. "I can tell you know something, so just tell me. Where's my dad?"
Not much could get past MJ anymore—she'd been trained too well, and by Lilith personally on occasion, and she wasn't a baby spook anymore. MJ could read between the lines of any situation just as well as she could read a mission debrief and extract from it every detail. And Lilith couldn't hide the concern from her voice—her own training be damned.
She needed an answer, and Niles called out and gave her one.
"I have Cal! He just surfaced!"
Thank God!
Lilith yanked the tablet from Niles's hand and then held her phone to her ear like the two devices could meet. Cal treaded water on the screen, his hair plastered to his head, and gulping deep breaths, but it was Lilith who felt like she could breathe again. A laugh escaped instead.
"I'm sorry," she said into the phone, still laughing. "MJ, your dad's fine. I see him right now."
"You do? Are you in Nice?"
Lilith laughed again and MJ demanded to know what was so funny and what was going on.
"Nothing, hun," Lilith said as she watched Cal and Frank on the screen swim towards the breakwater. "It just occurred to me that there are too many damned spooks in this family. Especially now, but I'll let your dad tell you what he's been up to. I'll make sure you have the clearance."
"Ma'am?" MJ asked. Lilith wasn't Auntie Lil' anymore and that was fine. It was even pleasant how quickly those gears could switch.
"And you can blame Frank," Lilith added and suddenly it was impossible to keep from smiling. "I always do."