The van bounced along the rutted dirt road, jerking Lisa back and forth against the operatives beside her. She did her best to ignore their grunts and sharp elbows; to pass the time, she played absentmindedly with the straps of her rifle sling.

On the bench opposite, another operative sat by the portable satellite uplink. The woman kept switching it on and off and back on again in an effort to adjust the settings, and the incessant series of beeps and clicks was getting on Lisa's nerves.

"Would you cut that out?" snapped Lisa. "You'll just have to recalibrate for the new coordinates when we get there. It's pointless to do it now." Not to mention really fucking annoying, she thought but didn't say.

The operative shot Lisa a nasty look and turned toward Bertold, the team leader, for support.

"You heard her, Valeska," he said, smacking his gum. "Turn it off."

Valeska rolled her eyes but complied. Bitch, she mouthed at Lisa when Bertold looked away.

Lisa was about to flip her off in return, but then she thought better of it. Why bother? After all, Valeska wasn't going to last very long. Lisa had reached that conclusion already, despite the fact that the two women hadn't spent more than forty-five minutes together. By this time in her career, Lisa could pick out mission casualties almost at first sight, and Valeska nearly stank of dead meat. If she didn't get her head blown off this time, then it would be the next, or maybe the one after that if she got really lucky. In any event, there was no point getting to know her. No point feeling sorry for her. No point disliking her, even. Forming an opinion of any kind would just be a waste of energy. All Lisa cared about was that the moron had stopped screwing around with the equipment. Glad at the relative quiet, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall of the van.

"So, Lisa." The voice belonged to Umar, a skinny, intense Level One who'd been with her in Tangiers the week before. "You've been around forever, and you know your stuff. Why aren't you a team leader by now?"

Lisa opened her eyes to find the gaze of entire team focused on her. All except Bertold, who looked away uncomfortably. He knew the answer already.

"My numbers aren't high enough," she said. When Umar made a face in disbelief, she shrugged. "I don't test well."

Umar still looked skeptical, but the statement was true. What she neglected to mention, however, was that she didn't try to test well. Instead, she made every effort to ensure that her scores came out exceedingly average. Her aim was mediocrity and therefore anonymity: she never applied for promotions and took great pains to avoid assignments that would result in anything other than the most perfunctory review. She was, quite intentionally, the very definition of "the middle of the pack" in all things.

At least officially. The team leaders knew better, but they didn't say anything to Adrian. Why would they, when having her on their teams kept their numbers high? Madeline, as chief profiler and the main compiler of test results, no doubt knew as well, but she kept as silent as the team leaders. She and Lisa had an understanding about such things once upon a time when they might have been called friends, and while those days were long past, it appeared Madeline still kept that confidence. Why, Lisa had no idea, but she wasn't about to start questioning good fortune.

So Level Two she remained. That way, she could do her job without any effort -- and, more importantly, with hardly any prep time. That was the key. Time was a precious commodity, something to be scavenged and hoarded whenever possible. She needed every spare moment she could find, in fact -- because she had a personal mission to take care of that mattered a hell of a lot more than professional advancement in Section. And she devoted every hour, every minute, every second she could squeeze from the day to it.

With Mireille's reluctant help, she'd been reviewing information on all the Level 16 children. There weren't many, no more than a dozen, but the sheer volume of data was overwhelming. Training programs. Progress reports. Psychological profiles. Medical records. All of it collected over more than a decade from both the children within Section and their siblings in the control group outside.

Seymour, she discovered, was an anomaly in that respect. He was the only twin; the others were all children of operatives who had left existing families behind upon recruitment. She had even surveilled several of those families when missions took her to the vicinity. A few times, when she felt particularly reckless, she donned disguises and talked to them directly. Would Section notice the occasional saleswoman or postal worker chatting with the subjects? She always half expected it would, but when nothing ever happened, she grew complacent. The all-seeing and all-knowing Section, like so many other things in life, turned out to be a myth.

And now? Now she knew everything. Everything except one odd detail: what were the references to something called Center that filled the children's files? Reports were submitted to it and instructions received in return, but Center -- whatever it was -- seemed to be outside the jurisdiction of the Sections. Maybe beyond Adrian's control altogether. Mireille told her it didn't matter, but she didn't understand: the only thing that got Lisa out of bed every morning was the overwhelming strength of her hate for whoever was responsible for fucking up her son's life. She wanted to know -- no, she needed to know -- who the enemy was. So she could focus. So she could plan. Plan what, she wasn't sure. When the time came, she'd come up with something.

Until then, however, she had to work on finding out what Center was. Mireille was clueless. Jules only knew that that it had something to do with Section's funding. Together, he and Lisa tried -- and failed -- to access any connection to it on the computer network. Lisa suspected that Walter might know more -- he'd been around from the very beginning, after all -- but she no longer trusted him enough to ask.

She didn't let Walter know that, though. To his face, she was still warm and jocular, full of friendly punches on the arm and glib remarks like "Hey, Walter!" and "How's it going, Walter?" and "Oh, Walter, you're so funny!" She never asked him "So, what else have you hidden from me Walter?" She never even asked a simple "How could you, Walter?" -- even though the question burned on her tongue every time she saw him.

Jules, Mireille, the team leaders: she could rely on them, to a point, because she had something to trade. But with Walter, all she'd had to offer was her friendship. Shame on her for thinking that was enough. She should have known there was no such thing as friendship in Section.

Bertold whacked her on the arm and broke off her thoughts.

"Hey. Wake up. We're almost there."

She made a great show of yawning. "Don't worry. I could do this job in my sleep."

***

Adrian closed her eyes and leaned back into the cushioned seat of the jet. She didn't want to sleep, not with a half-dozen unread reports spread out on the table in front of her, but the effort to keep her eyes open was just too great to continue struggling.

For a few moments she succeeded in blocking out everything from her mind except the noise of the plane's engines. Its blissful hum embraced her, vibrating straight through to her bones. But then the thoughts began to creep back.

Another meeting with a potential financial backer. Another rejection. Another avenue of independence closed. It disgusted her how timid they all were, these men of supposed substance and power, virtually cowering at the thought of what the Council might do to upstart rivals. After two years of courting them, her only successes had been with minor players: those too marginal -- or perhaps too stupid -- to care whether they offended the existing establishment. She'd collected pledges of support from several dozen of them. But they wouldn't be enough. Even collectively, they didn't possess the resources to render her self-supporting. If she cut off ties to Center and the Council now, she'd be bankrupt within months.

It was pointless to continue, really. This road led nowhere. She would need to rethink everything and devise a new approach, unwelcome as that prospect might be.

She opened her eyes. Through the window, lights shone like a glimmering blanket thrown across the dark landscape. She heard a thump as the landing gear opened and the plane descended. It touched down smoothly and taxied into the hangar.

She had scarcely reached the bottom of the rollaway steps when a man waved her toward an office.

"Telephone, ma'am."

She crossed the hangar into the office and took the receiver. "Yes?"

"Good evening, ma'am. Charles here."

She smiled to herself. "Yes, Charles. I do believe I recognize your voice by now."

"I wasn't certain whether you were planning on returning to Section tonight or heading directly home. So I thought I'd call and give you a status report."

She glanced at her watch. Midnight. By her usual standards, it wasn't late at all. On the other hand, she couldn't remember when she had ever felt so weary. The promise of home, bed and dreamless oblivion was enormously enticing.

"Go ahead," she said.

"Bertold's team was successful in Berlin. They liquidated the weapons cache with only one casualty on our side."

"Who?"

"A Level One named Valeska."

The name meant nothing to Adrian. The new ones were all beginning to blur in her mind. They came and went so quickly that none of them stood out anymore, for good or ill. What was it about them that made them so unmemorable? Perhaps the younger generation lacked distinct characters. Or perhaps she just didn't care anymore.

"Anything else?" she asked, her energy lagging.

"Only routine matters. They can await your return tomorrow."

Routine matters. What a meaningless thing to say. After all, everything at Section One was routine now. And for that she had no one to blame but herself. While she roamed the globe in a fruitless and rather tawdry scramble after pennies, she'd allowed Section to slip into dull, mechanistic predictability. Charles and Madeline managed most of the day to day operations in her absence, and although they were an efficient and thoroughly capable team, they were at heart caretakers, not leaders. Perfectionists, not innovators. Their Section was an anemic creature, incapable of growth, of adaptation, of the bold changes of course necessary to keep an organization alive and relevant. In short, they lacked inspiration: a quality Adrian possessed in abundance. Or at least used to. Sadly, it seemed to have deserted her of late.

She shook herself out of that train of thought. "Thank you, Charles," she said. "I'll see you in the morning."

She hung up and began the walk across the hangar toward her car. When the driver closed the door behind her and sealed her into the back seat, she had never felt so alone.

***

It was well after dark when Madeline arrived at her apartment building, and a light rain slickened the streets. Closing her umbrella, she ducked into a shop to purchase a newspaper -- she didn't actually want one, but a woman had been on her heels for two blocks, and it was prudent to ensure she wasn't being followed.

The woman disappeared down the sidewalk. A false alarm, but one could never be too cautious. Madeline paid for the newspaper, bid the proprietor good evening, and entered her building.

She dragged her hand along the banister in fatigue as climbed the stairs. It had been more than a full day of work, followed by two more hours paying a "social" call on Eduard, the head of Accommodations. He tended toward tedious, self-important monologues, and tonight was no exception. But she'd forced herself to smile, plied him with 80-year-old armagnac at his favorite café, and showered him with compliments about his refined taste. Once he was flushed with alcohol and flattery, she warned him with oh-so-sympathetic concern that Adrian was about to transfer his boyfriend to Pakistan. When Eduard became suitably alarmed, Madeline reassured him that she would intervene to prevent it -- which in turn made him suitably grateful.

The entire story was, of course, a fabrication. Eduard, with his access to operatives' homes and personal lives, was one of the best sources of blackmail material in all of Section, and Madeline had been working him for months. It had taken patience and persistence, but now she finally had him, and she felt a warming sense of triumph as she mentally checked him off her list.

That list was getting longer by the day. Ever since George gave her the order, she'd been systematically wooing sympathizers. She started from her base in Profiling, Interrogation, DRV and R&D. She'd hand-selected most of the personnel herself and knew she had their loyalty. From there, she expanded her influence to Housekeeping, Maintenance, and, more recently, Accommodations. Adrian considered their activities routine and thus beneath the rarified stratosphere of her intellectual engagement. Madeline, in contrast, believed that the very dull regularity that bored Adrian so much was, in fact, their greatest asset. They were invisible but ubiquitous. Individually, they were insignificant; collectively, they knew every single thing that every operative -- including Adrian -- ever did.

Medlab, although more peripheral, had also become a useful source of intel about people's secrets and weaknesses; she kept her informant there in line by keeping quiet about his addiction to medication. Other departments, however, were more problematic. There was Systems, run by the unreliable Jules. She hadn't made much headway there, and it worried her. Munitions -- and Walter -- was another challenge. Walter wasn't a threat -- he was too much survival-focused to stick his neck out for Adrian if he felt the wind was changing. But he wouldn't make a good conspirator, either. Madeline respected that he was good at his job, had developed a cordial relationship with him, and to her own surprise had even grown somewhat fond of his broad sense of humor, but she kept him very much at arms length. He wouldn't be a hindrance, of that she was certain, and that was enough.

The field ops were trickier. She hadn't done much fieldwork in the past several years, and because of her role in profiling and personnel assessment, she knew they saw her as somewhat of an adversary. She could work on them to a degree, but they were almost as wary of her as they were of Adrian. Nor did Paul exercise much influence. He had some allies, but he had alienated almost as many people as he'd won over.

That was where Charles came in. After Paul's demotion, he became the senior field operative and de facto tactician. He may not have been a charismatic leader, but the rank and file respected him as competent and fair. His dissent could sway enough opinion to doom any rebellion to disaster. Unfortunately, while he was by no means an Adrian loyalist per se, he was so very, very scrupulous about duty, honor, and doing the proper thing. Ordinarily, that was a quality Madeline appreciated. Here, it rendered him a wild card she'd rather do without.

Paul had wanted to kill him. He proposed tampering with a mission profile to turn Charles into an "accidental" casualty. It wasn't unprecedented. Madeline had, in fact, resorted to that very method to eliminate a handful of particularly troublesome Adrian sycophants. But in this case, she resisted. She told herself that she had good reason: that it would be imprudent, a waste of a skilled and experienced operative. She told herself that it would needlessly provoke George, who had urged her to cultivate Charles as an alternate coup leader. She told herself that Paul was being swayed by personal prejudice and failing to be objective. That she, too, might have some bias in the matter was a possibility she entertained briefly, but dismissed. She felt affection for Charles, true enough. But her friendship with him was irrelevant. Were he genuinely an obstacle, she would treat him as such and deal with him resolutely, regardless of her feelings. However, there was a better way. She insisted on following it, and Paul -- no matter how much he argued -- could not convince her otherwise.

To get people on their side, she used a wide range of methods: blackmail, lies, threats, promises, temptations, manipulation. With Charles, it was easy. She simply gave him what she'd always known he wanted.

She opened the door and entered the apartment. It smelled of beef stew and toasted bread.

"Hello, Charles," she said. "I'm sorry I'm late."

His face lit up happily, and he set down the report he was reading. "Hello, darling."

She walked over to the sofa and kissed his forehead in greeting.

"I saved dinner for you," he said. "You must be famished."

"I am," she admitted. "All I've had since lunch has been bread and cheese."

"Sit down, then, and I'll get it ready."

"Let me help."

"No. You look tired. Sit and relax."

She smiled in acquiescence. "All right. Thank you."

She settled onto the sofa, and he disappeared into the kitchen. Soon she heard the clatter of dishes and serving spoons. She opened the newspaper she'd bought downstairs and began thumbing through the pages. There was a transit strike in Lyons. The Nikkei index was up. Rumors were spreading of an impending coup in Nigeria. She smiled at the last article: she'd started that rumor herself.

"It's going to need a little time to reheat," said Charles, emerging from the kitchen.

She looked up from the newspaper. He stared at her with the oddest expression, as if he were about to burst into song.

"What is it?"

His mouth quirked into a not-quite-restrained smile. "I have something to show you."

Puzzled, she followed him across the room. He pulled open the glass doors that led to the balcony and gestured for her to step outside.

That morning, the balcony was empty but for a wrought-iron chair that was more decorative than it was comfortable. Now, the space was transformed: it held a miniature forest of trees sprouting from rows of earthenware pots. The air was fragrant with the scent of juniper, wood chips and damp earth. She stood in the doorway, transfixed.

"I had a fellow from Kyoto install it this afternoon," said Charles, standing behind her. "He'll come back once a week to teach you how to tend it."

She turned to face him. He was beaming, obviously pleased with himself.

"How on earth did you know?"

"You mentioned something once in conversation about liking the way bonsai looked. I thought it might make a nice surprise. It's our six-month anniversary, after all."

"So it is," she murmured, embarrassed at having forgotten. "I didn't get you anything, I'm afraid."

"The look on your face just now was enough."

Incredible. He had taken a stray remark, something said in passing so long ago she didn't even remember it, and somehow managed to give her exactly what she wanted. What's more, it wasn't the first time he had done so. All she need do was express the mildest interest in something and he would go to elaborate lengths to get it for her. He was so attentive, so eager to please her, that at times she felt sick with guilt. Until she reminded herself of just how happy she'd made him.

It wasn't really valentining if it didn't hurt anyone. It didn't matter that she had an ulterior motive. What mattered was that they both gained something from the arrangement. She took great pains to ensure that he did.

He wanted a committed monogamy, so she'd given up the casual relationships with other men. He wanted an emotionally deep connection, so she'd confided in him about her past. He wanted a relationship of equals, so she compromised and stood her ground in reasonably alternating intervals. Whatever he thought he saw in her, she became. She became it so thoroughly, she wasn't altogether sure she hadn't already been that person in the first place.

"You're too good to me," she said, and touched her lips to his.

No, it wasn't really valentining if both parties gained from the relationship. And sometimes, those gains took unexpected forms.

***

Paul took a swallow of coffee and immediately wished he'd opted for the tea. In an effort to be accommodating to their idea of Western tastes, his hosts had offered him some sort of powdered instant dreck that came in paper tubes. With sugar and so-called creamer pre-added, it was sweet to the point of hurting his teeth, and after tasting it he doubted any real coffee was included in the ingredients. But the jetlag from the flight to Beijing had given him a ferocious headache, so he swirled the liquid around a few times in an effort to make it more palatable. It was useless: clumps of undissolved powder clung to the sides of the cup like sodden paste. Stifling a grimace of disgust, he gulped it down.

Across the table, General Lu glanced through the sheaf of documents Paul had given him. The fluorescent light reflected off the lenses of his square, wire-framed glasses. The pages rustled, sheet by sheet, until he set them aside and stroked his chin in thought.

"This information is not credible," he said. "Red Cell has no history of activity in China."

"It's a new development, certainly," Paul answered. "But I wouldn't be here if we didn't take it very seriously."

Lu made a skeptical face. "You might have many reasons to be here. Why should I trust you?"

"Because you can't afford not to. If Red Cell succeeds in assassinating Gorbachev while he's visiting China, and you could have stopped it, well, I hate to think might happen to your career." Paul shook his head. "Forget your career. I hate to think what might happen to you personally. To your family. It won't be pretty."

The line creasing Lu's forehead deepened. Paul could tell he was wavering. He just needed one more little push.

"We're here to help," Paul said. "To share resources for our mutual benefit." He leaned forward in an effort to convey chummy sincerity. "Think about the long term. You can help your country and yourself. What could be better than that?"

Lu didn't answer, but the tension in his posture eased. He reached for a pack of cigarettes, withdrew one and put it between his lips, and held out the pack to Paul. Paul accepted gratefully.

They smoked amiably for a few moments, and Paul took the opportunity to examine the other man more thoroughly. He liked what he saw. The spotless uniform and polished buttons spoke of discipline and self-confidence. The fluent command of English suggested sophistication and a talent for diplomacy. But the general was no mere paper pusher. Paul had done some background digging prior to the meeting: from a peasant family, Lu had worked his way up the military chain of command through sheer guts and tenacity. Even more important, however, he had the reputation of being bureaucratically astute. He knew whom to flatter, whom to bribe, whom to threaten, and whom to ignore. He was, in short, a man who was going places -- and therefore the perfect person to cultivate. Not for Section, although it was Section business that had brought the two men together. No, Paul intended to keep this resource to himself.

For the past two years, Paul had been consolidating a network of just such men: rising leaders, all of them competent, pragmatic, and willing to look objectively at the world. Adrian, unwittingly, had given him the perfect opportunity to do this. He had survived his demotion to Level One -- humiliated but unscathed -- and Adrian, true to her word, had reinstated him after six months. However, he never regained the same level of authority. Instead, Adrian steered him away from most fieldwork and sent him off on glorified errands, cultivating "relationships" with sister intelligence organizations.

Adrian appeared to think it was a punishment. In reality, it was the best education he'd had since he joined Section. Meeting his counterparts the world over forced him to rethink the simplistic equation of good guys versus terrorists, of West versus East. Those categories were meaningless: fairytales for a public raised on cop shows and action movies. In reality, the battle was much more insidious, pitting the forces of chaos against the forces of order. To his surprise, he was learning that the defenders of order could be found in every nation and across the entire political spectrum. He intended to gather and lead them.

For now, his networking was entirely social. In the future, he'd build his empire with these men.

Lu stubbed out his cigarette. "I still don't trust you," he said. "But I will grant Section One limited access to Beijing during Gorbachev's visit. You can pose as journalists. We will share intelligence and cooperate on security. If we decide it is helpful, we may ask you to assist in a joint operation to terminate Red Cell operatives. But that is all. If we catch you engaging in any espionage, your people will be executed on the spot."

"That sounds fair." Paul grinned. Of course, their operatives would engage in espionage anyway, but that was all part of the game, and both men knew it.

Paul reached across the table to shake Lu's hand -- then stopped short when the door burst open. A thin-faced man in a major's uniform hurried inside. Lu looked annoyed at the interruption, but when the major whispered in his ear, his expression turned suddenly grave.

"I'm sorry," Lu said, rising to his feet, "but I must cut this short. I've received some urgent news."

************

In Section that morning, there was simultaneously too much for Adrian to do and yet nothing at all going on of any genuine consequence. She reviewed reports, assigned follow-up, approved profiles, authorized payments -- all of it with the detached indifference of the tepid bureaucrats she had always despised. For a change of scenery more than from any conviction about the urgency of the task, she finally left her office at noon to go speak with one of the team leaders about an upcoming mission in Prague.

Rounding a corner, she spotted Paul at the far end of the corridor, engrossed in a conversation with an operative from DRV. If she recalled correctly, he was just back from China on one of his little junkets. Normally, she wouldn't bother debriefing him in person, but there was a rumor circulating that he might be able to verify.

"Paul," she called out. "A moment of your time, please."

He handed a file folder to the other operative and walked down the hallway to join her.

"I see you've made the arrangements in China," she said.

"Yes." He wrinkled his brow. "But there may be a complication."

"You mean Hu Yaobang? Rumor has it he had a heart attack."

He nodded. "He's not expected to recover."

"They're not canceling Gorbachev's visit?"

"No. Everything's going forward as scheduled."

"How very optimistic of them." Too optimistic. It was worrying. "They must realize what a problem this poses."

"It adds an additional element of instability to the situation. But it won't impede the mission against Red Cell."

"That's not what I meant."

Paul raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

"Do you remember when Zhou Enlai died?" she asked.

He cocked his head in thought. "That was in.... What was the year again?"

"1976."

"Ah," he said, "I was still a Level One. Back-to-back missions without a lot of downtime. Or a lot of sleep, for that matter. If it didn't impact my work directly, I didn't have the time to pay attention."

"Has it been that long?" She remembered it so clearly. He was young and energetic and the most committed recruit she'd ever seen. Somehow along the way he'd become a jaded cynic. Such a waste. "Zhou's funeral became an opportunity for the public to protest the ruling regime," she explained. "There were mass marches, political poster campaigns. It was the beginning of the end for the Gang of Four." She arched an eyebrow. "Surely that rings a bell? Or were you too busy romancing lonely secretaries at the Romanian embassy that year?"

"I do remember," he said. "Although those secretaries left me pretty exhausted, now that you mention it." He broke out into a broad smile, and she couldn't help but respond in kind. Cynic or not, he still possessed a certain wry charm.

"In any event," she said, "something similar could happen again. There's a great deal of dissatisfaction simmering under the surface."

Paul shrugged. "Possibly." He seemed utterly indifferent to the prospect.

His lack of interest fascinated her. In the old days -- the time they were just reminiscing about, in fact -- he would have been thrilled at the prospect of the weakening of a communist regime like this one. He would have come pounding on her office door with some half-cocked scheme to aid the dissidents. Something bold, aggressive, and quite thoroughly mad, like assassinating--

Like assassinating hardliners who stood in the way of reform. She caught her breath in shock at the thought.

The idea both excited and appalled her. Section One wasn't authorized to interfere in the internal governance of nations: the Council had made that quite clear from the very beginning. But then if the Sections were to be the ugly stepsister of Center, what did she care about hewing to authority?

This was an opportunity to free millions from despotism. And wasn't that the reason she'd struggled to create the Sections in the first place? She'd dreamt of changing the world, not wasting her time with internal political jockeying.

She would do it. Let Phillip gnash his teeth at her irresponsibility. Let the Council admonish her like the naughty schoolgirl they obviously thought she was. Let them all do whatever they liked -- by the time they found out what she had done, she would have altered the very course of history. And there would be no going back.

"I'd like you to prepare a new profile," she said to Paul. "A secondary mission while you're in China."

"The objective?"

"To eliminate key conservatives on the Politburo. A few well-time accidents, perhaps. We'll tip the balance towards a Chinese version of glasnost."

He blinked. "Are you sure that's wise?" he asked. "You could be unleashing something you can't control."

His face filled with that same uncomprehending look she always saw in Phillip. How disappointing. Whatever Paul's other failings, she would have expected him to appreciate such a bold gamble. Unfortunately, she needed access to his contacts within the Chinese military. On such short notice, there was no time to get another operative up to speed before the opportunity passed. She would have to rely on him, committed or not.

"I believe I've given you an order," she said. "Since when is it your prerogative to question it?"

He stared at her blankly. She'd never noticed how reptilian his eyes were before. Then his mouth twitched and he gave her a nod. "My apologies. I'll get right on it."

***

Twirling the room key in his hand, Paul stepped inside the hotel's ancient-looking elevator. He pressed the button for the fifth floor. There was a disconcerting jolt and then the whir of the cable as the elevator began its ascent. It traveled excruciatingly slowly. By the time it finally passed the fourth floor, Paul sighed in annoyance. He should have just taken the stairs, dark and narrow as they were, rather than bothering with this museum piece of equipment.

With another sharp bounce, the elevator halted. Paul exited and made his way down the corridor; the floor creaked underneath the frayed carpet as he trod. He found Room 5G at the very end. From the room opposite, he heard a man groaning. He smirked to himself. Someone else paying by the hour, no doubt.

When he entered the room, he was relieved to see it at least looked clean, albeit the size of a linen closet. He draped his jacket over the back of a chair, sat on the edge of the bed, and lit a cigarette to wait.

It was a clever idea of Madeline's; he had to give her credit. Every week or so, they met in one of these dingy, out-of-the-way hotels just outside the red-light district in order to strategize in private. If anyone from Section trailed them, it would appear that they were simply engaged in the most ordinary -- even pedestrian -- of sins: a married woman, cheating on her husband with a coworker.

It was the perfect cover, really -- something he hadn't properly appreciated when Madeline first announced her plan to marry Charles. Now, he more than appreciated it. In fact, he had improved upon it. It was his suggestion, after all, that they actually go through with the adultery, and in his opinion that was the crowning touch. He had challenged Madeline: what if they were interrogated? If they made the scenario real, they could pass even a lie detector test with ease.

To his surprise, Madeline didn't resist. Instead, she readily agreed. A little too readily, in fact. She seemed strangely enthusiastic during their trysts, revealing a side of herself he'd never seen during their prior relationship. Then, their passion had been intense, but also tender. This, though -- this was something darker. Hungrier. Maybe even angrier. As if they'd given themselves free reign because it no longer mattered if they hurt each other. Or even because hurting each other was the point.

He supposed it should have disturbed him. He'd be better off, he knew, with a woman who didn't insist on games, on convoluted excuses, on being with him only when she didn't truly have to belong to him -- on being with him only when she could claim it was in the line of duty and therefore disclaim all responsibility.

Then again, "better off" was boring. And he couldn't stand boring.

However, there wasn't time to dwell on that now. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. Where the hell was she? As if the very strength of his exasperation reached out and plucked her out of the ether, the door opened.

She dropped her sunglasses and scarf on the bureau. She approached him with that coy smile of hers, but then she stopped and cocked her head, frowning.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Adrian," he replied. "She has to go."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course. Why else do you think we're here?"

"No. I mean she has to go now."

Even in the yellowish cast of the single overhead light, he could see her pale. "We're not ready."

"I don't care." He stood and began to pace. "She's finally lost it. If I don't act now, then I don't deserve the leadership."

She crossed her arms. "If we act unilaterally, George may not support us. He wants to control the timetable."

"Too bad for him." He scowled. "I have more support on the outside than he might think."

She looked away. From the subtle tension in her expression he could tell she was reluctant. That was good. Far more than she knew, he valued her caution, her meticulous preparation, her almost compulsive need to think things through. Most of all, however, he valued her ability to recognize when she needed to stop doing all those things and just let him make a decision.

She looked back at him again, and the trace of a smile that lightened her face signaled her acquiescence. "We'll probably fail, you know." The words were serious, but the voice teasing.

He grinned. "Probably." He moved toward her and cupped her face in his hand. "Does it matter?"

"No." She held his gaze without blinking. "It doesn't matter."

***

"This is unacceptable." George's voice sounded even more rasping than usual. Madeline couldn't tell how much of that was due to the scrambler she'd attached to the payphone receiver, and how much was due to the fact that he was most likely furious. She had an uncomfortable feeling that it was mostly the latter.

"Paul's responding to Adrian's reckless behavior." To her surprise and relief, her own voice sounded steady despite the fact that her heart was racing fast enough to make her somewhat lightheaded. "It isn't an unexpected development. There was always the danger that she'd do something like this. Isn't that why you planned her overthrow in the first place?"

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the static-tinged sound of breathing. Cautiously, she glanced over her shoulder and inspected her surroundings. Only a few blocks from the hotel where she'd met Paul, the payphone wasn't located in the most pleasant of neighborhoods. On the one hand, it meant she was unlikely to run into anyone she knew. But it also meant there were distractions she needed to pay attention to. A few meters away, for example, an emaciated man paced anxiously back and forth, shooting her furtive glances. Judging by the marks on his arms, she assumed he was looking to score a fix. He didn't seem to be eavesdropping, but she gave him a hard look anyway just to warn him off.

Finally, George spoke again. "She still has supporters at higher levels. This is going to be a problem."

Of course it was going to be a problem. George hardly needed to tell her that. After all, he wasn't the one facing near-certain cancellation. But Paul had made his choice, and it was now her role to put a positive face on it. They would avoid disaster because they had to. It didn't matter how unlikely success was, because no other outcomes were acceptable.

"Adrian's deliberately inciting unrest in a country that possesses nuclear weapons," she said. It pleased her how glibly the optimistic rationalizations flowed from her tongue. If George noticed her wavering, even a little, he'd demand that they call things off. And that was something she knew Paul would never do. "Surely that's enough to justify her removal."

George laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh. "Don't underestimate how convincing she can be when she launches into a speech about democracy and progress. She can orate like Winston Churchill once she gets going."

"Then we'll have to--"

"Quiet! I'm thinking. Give me a moment."

She blinked at the interruption and fell silent. Down the sidewalk, the addict had found a seller. When he hurried off with his purchase, the dealer strolled toward Madeline. She opened her jacket just enough to flash her pistol, and the man stopped short. "Keuf," he snarled with a hint of menace, but he backed away nevertheless.

"All right," said George, and there was a new-found resignation in his voice that dampened his prior anger. "Here's what you must do. Open up a few bank accounts in her name. Switzerland, the Caymans, it doesn't matter. Set up a few more in Hong Kong in the name of some Taiwanese Nationalist organizations. Backdate everything and create a money trail from the latter to the former over, say, the past six months. Plant traces of the transactions in Section's system. When Paul seizes control, he can "discover" this data and present it as evidence against her. It's one thing if she's making rash decisions out of some ideological commitment, but quite another if she's being bought off. Even her supporters won't approve of that."

Madeline frowned. "She'll point out it's a forgery. Not to mention it's completely out of character. No one's going to believe it of her."

"Then you'd better make it look good," he snapped, and hung up.

She stood there for a moment holding the receiver, her eyes closed. Then she sighed, detached the scrambler, and slipped it into her jacket pocket.

Time to put a positive face on yet another impossible task. It was beginning to become a way of life.

***

With a sharp crack, the white ball struck the red one. George watched through the haze of smoke as the red ball rolled toward the pocket and dropped in.

"Well done," he said to Phillip in a loud voice, although the sentiment was only halfhearted.

Phillip walked around the table and lined up his cue again. "Green," he called.

George took a puff on his cigar and waited while Phillip fussed over the angle. He'd gone through two Dunhills already and his head was starting to throb, but the ritualized inhalations and exhalations helped keep his anxiety contained -- just barely.

After a hastily-arranged flight to England, George had been baffled to find himself ushered into Phillip's game room. They'd been playing snooker for nearly ninety minutes without once broaching the topic of the crisis they faced, and Phillip's determined obliviousness was starting to drive George mad.

Phillip finished his turn and George picked up his cue. He struck the black ball.

"Damn it," he muttered.

"Why so dour?" asked Phillip. He gave George a jovial clap on the back, and George fought off the urge to flinch. "It's just a game. We're not even playing for money."

George set his cue down and returned to the cigar. Inhale. Exhale. "Quite right," he said. "I'm just a bit preoccupied by the bad news I brought you."

"Bad news?" Phillip looked at George as if he'd broken into a sudden fit of glossolalia. "It's anything but bad news. It's a cause to celebrate."

George stared at Phillip in disbelief. How on earth could this turn of events be construed as anything but dire? Was Phillip in his right mind? Had he been drinking? There had been rumors, actually, of an unstable tendency in that regard. Stories of parties, gambling and women of ill repute. A few people even whispered about bastard children scattered around the globe like mementos. George had always dismissed such gossip as nonsense. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so quick to do so, if Phillip's irrational reaction now was any indication.

Should he even try to reason with the man? It might be pointless, but then again it couldn't possibly hurt. "We need more time to gather influence on the Council," he explained. "You said so yourself."

Phillip shrugged. "I've changed my mind. This little uprising will appear completely spontaneous. It's far more effective that way. Adrian will be swept aside and all of our warnings to the Council will look prescient."

With that, Phillip aimed his cue and potted another red ball. His hands were steady. Maybe he hadn't been drinking after all. He was just basking in the knowledge that he -- unlike everyone else involved -- had nothing to lose. The mutineers risked losing their lives; George risked losing the woman he loved if she ever discovered his betrayal; but what risk did Phillip face? None whatsoever. No wonder he was so bloody cheerful. George would be too if he could get other people do all his dirty work for him.

"There's still the matter of her replacement," he said, deciding to change the subject.

Phillip glanced over. "I'm not sure I follow." There was a tinge of mockery in his voice and George didn't quite know what to make of it.

"We need to recommend her successor to the Council. I've given it a great deal of thought and believe I've identified an appropriate candidate."

"But her successor will already be in place."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Paul Wolfe."

George fumbled his cigar; several chunks of ash fell on Phillip's Persian carpet. "You told me you were opposed to allowing the coup leader to remain on as leader. Sets a bad precedent, if I remember your phrasing correctly."

"Did I say that?" Phillip chuckled. "I should really learn to be less hasty in my speech. If Paul has the sense to oppose Adrian in this misadventure of hers, he might have what it takes to run the place. At least for the time being. The long term, of course, is another matter entirely."

"You haven't met the man," George protested. "I have. It will be a constant battle to keep him under control. Why, he's another Adrian, except without the good breeding."

"Without the good breeding? Oh, my." Phillip rolled his eyes. "Heaven forbid the leader of Section One use the wrong fork for dessert."

There was no point engaging in a battle of sarcasm with Phillip -- the man was obviously a master of the art. Still, this couldn't go unchallenged. If Paul succeeded Adrian as chief of Section One, they'd be worse off than before they started. Why couldn't Phillip see that?

"I was going to recommend Madeline," said George. "She's highly capable. And considerably more reliable."

"She's also your protégé, isn't she?" Phillip asked pointedly.

"She worked for me in Section Two, if that's what you mean." When Phillip began to make a tutting sound, George added, "Yes, I know her well. That's how I know she's qualified."

"George, old boy, really. I'm not going to allow you to fill all the top positions with your cronies." Phillip's tone was biting. "Mind you, I don't especially trust -- or even like -- Paul. But you need a bit of rivalry to keep you honest. I think he'll do quite well on that score." There was another crack as Phillip potted the final red ball. "Speaking of scores," he said, his lip curling in triumph, "I believe I'm in the lead."

************

When the bell sounded at the front door, Charles set aside the stack of paperwork in relief. He'd been waiting several hours for a delivery of the latest satellite reconnaissance from the Urals; if it didn't arrive soon, the prospect of staying up all night to finish the tactical guidelines was looming.

"Thank God," he said to himself as he crossed the room to answer the door. But when he pulled it open, the man standing outside was no DRV messenger.

"Good evening," said George.

"Sir." Charles stared dumbly for a moment, then he managed to recover. "Please, come in."

George stepped past Charles and strolled into the apartment. He walked slowly, with an oddly proprietary air, like an appraiser cataloguing the contents of the residence for inventory.

He paused an especially long time to examine a bronze statuette on a table. "Isis?"

"Nephthys," Charles corrected. "Goddess of the dead." He closed the door and joined George by the table. "It was a gift from my wife."

"It's exquisite." George ran a finger along the hieroglyphics inscribed on the base. "It must be worth a fortune."

Charles shook his head. "It's a reproduction. Egypt's been plundered of antiquities enough as it is without my contributing to the problem."

At that, George seemed to lose interest. He proceeded into the living room and sat in one of the chairs.

"Can I offer you something?" asked Charles.

"No."

The clock on the mantel struck the hour. The chimes rang loudly, each note magnifying the silence that hung between the two men. George waited for it to finish, then he crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair.

"Once upon a time," he drawled, "you told me that you'd do whatever was necessary to prevent Paul Wolfe from taking over Section One." He stared at Charles, unblinking. "Do you still feel that way?"

Charles hadn't forgotten that conversation, but it wasn't from lack of trying. Going to George had been a sign of weakness, of a lapse in self-confidence, of anger born from jealousy. The memory of it embarrassed him.

He gave a noncommittal shrug. "Paul fell out of favor long ago."

"A man can be out of favor one day," said George, "and back in again the next."

George's face was completely blank, but he filled his speech with lingering, ambiguous pauses. Charles felt himself grow uneasy.

"What are you suggesting?" he asked.

"That you open your eyes and pay attention to what's going on around you." George's tone sharpened. "That you be prepared to stand up and protect the things you care about."

Charles stiffened. Was this a warning? A challenge? A threat?

"You sound like you have something particular in mind."

"I didn't say that." George smiled. A half-smile, one that merely lifted one side of his mouth, as if it took too much energy to bother with the rest. "It's just friendly advice." He stood. "I don't have time to stay and chat, however. I was on my way to an appointment nearby."

Heading to the door, he stopped again by the statuette of Nephthys.

"For a fake, it's very convincing." He turned to look back at Charles. "By the way, how is your wife?"

Charles blinked at the change of subject. "Quite well, thank you."

There was another half smile. "Be sure to give her my regards."

"I will."

Charles couldn't close the door fast enough.

***

Near the front of the café, a group of women shrieked with laughter. Distracted, Madeline glanced up from her table at the rear and sighed. When the noise subsided to tolerable levels, she took a sip of her Kir and returned to reading the data printouts from Accommodations. She'd finished sixty-seven pages of detailed surveillance on the computer specialists in Systems. So far, all of it useless. She began to massage her temples.

She heard a cigarette lighter flick open. The pungent smell of Gitanes drifted across the table. She looked up at her companion; this was the third cigarette Eduard had lit in forty minutes. She hadn't told him how critical the information she'd asked for was, but he clearly sensed something: his nervousness amplified hers and rebounded back again.

"They're rather well-behaved little drones, aren't they?" he said, attempting jocularity.

"So it seems."

"A bit of drug use here and there, but that's not much to work with."

"No," she agreed.

She had to find something better. She was going to try and persuade someone to plant data in the computer archives to frame Adrian -- a cancelable offense if there ever was one -- and she would need far more than petty crimes as blackmail material. Unfortunately, Jules seemed to have a knack for selecting personnel with a rather limited imagination for misbehavior. Profound laziness and slacking off on the job was about as far as most of them went. How Systems managed to function was the real mystery. Once Adrian was gone, Madeline would have to get rid of all of them.

"There is one other thing I brought along," said Eduard, but he sounded doubtful.

"Yes?"

"She's not in Systems herself, but take a look at this."

He handed Madeline another printout: Mireille Martin, age 45, chief instructor in the Level 16 research facility. A child psychologist by training, recruited after a conviction for forging her employer's signature on handful of checks. A fumbling amateur as a criminal, from what it appeared. Madeline scanned the pages but saw nothing of interest.

"What about her?"

"Do you see on page three? She received a housing upgrade a few years ago that she wasn't entitled to."

Madeline flipped to the page and located the entry. "She bribed someone in your department?"

"She most certainly did not." Eduard sniffed in offense. "That approval code is mine. I think I would remember if someone bribed me."

"Hmm. Interesting."

"Very." Eduard grinned. "There are some other transactions that look suspicious, too. Credit cards, other perks." He reached across the table to point out several entries. "I don't know how she did it, but she seems to have broken into the IT system at multiple access points. Maybe she's the person you're looking for."

"Maybe."

It was puzzling. Martin didn't fit the profile -- by training or personality type -- of someone capable of something so sophisticated. Perhaps it would turn out to be a false lead, and there was an innocent explanation for the anomalies in her record. Still, it was worth following up on.

Madeline drained the rest of her glass and signaled for the waiter. False lead or not, Eduard deserved another drink for his diligence.

Tonight, they could relax. Tomorrow, Madeline would pay a visit to Mireille Martin.

***

When Lisa passed through the exit from Section, a blast of sunlight hit her directly in the face. She blinked in surprise and fumbled for her sunglasses. She'd forgotten it was the middle of the afternoon -- too many time zone changes and too much time in dimly-lit transport planes the past few days. She no longer knew what season it was, much less what time of day.

She should have been used to the constant schedule upheavals by now. But she wasn't. If anything, it got harder to adjust to each passing year. She'd get back from a mission so exhausted she could barely sit up, yet she'd wind up lying in bed for hours with her eyes wide open. Some ops swore by sleeping pills; others resorted to alcohol -- she resisted using either, but the lack of proper rest was taking a slow toll on her health. Fatigue meant slow reflexes; slow reflexes meant mistakes; and mistakes meant something she didn't want to think about.

The smell of freshly-made pommes frites wafted out of a nearby restaurant. She could almost taste them -- they'd be salty and greasy and wonderfully crisp, and oh God, she was ravenous. She stopped to check if she had enough cash in her wallet. She might not be able to sleep, but eating was one thing she could do any hour of the day or night.

Bingo! Amidst the crumpled yen and rupiah notes, she had fifteen francs. Those pommes frites were hers.

"Hey, Lisa," called a voice from behind her.

Crap. She wasn't two blocks away from Section and they were already reeling her back in. Another oh-so-urgent mission that would fling her into yet another time zone before she could even remember which one she'd just come from.

She wiped her face clean of disappointment before she turned around. It was Madeline, dressed in a wool overcoat that probably cost more than Lisa spent on clothes in a decade. This might not be such bad news after all. Madeline didn't usually hand out work assignments to the field ops. Most likely she was just going to remind Lisa to stop in for her semi-annual performance review, or fill out some bullshit report, or engage in one of the other pointless wastes of time that Madeline now presided over in her capacity as Adrian's most skilled dispenser of red tape. Lisa could nod and say, "yeah, yeah," and escape in thirty seconds, back to those pommes frites that were causing the empty core of her stomach to rumble audibly.

"What is it?" she asked when Madeline had caught up with her.

"Are you on your way home?"

"Yeah. I just got back from Jakarta, and I'm wiped out."

"I'll walk with you to the metro, then," Madeline said. "I'm headed that direction."

Lisa gave one last sad look at the restaurant that she wasn't going to get to go into after all. "Sure."

As they walked, Madeline kept up a cheerful patter of small talk. Listening to it, Lisa remembered why she had once liked her so much. When Madeline lavished her attention on someone, she could make him or her feel like the most fascinating person on the planet. When they first knew each other, Lisa had been taken in by it. Later, she dismissed it as a cynical charade. But that wasn't quite right, either. It had taken a long time before Lisa finally figured it out: Madeline was sincerely interested in people. She just didn't care about them. Until she met Madeline, Lisa hadn't realized there could be a distinction.

"Here's my stop," said Lisa, relieved. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

Her mind was already wandering, imagining the prospect of pommes frites at the café down the block from her apartment, when Madeline touched her arm.

"You know, Lisa, I owe you an apology."

Lisa frowned. "Um, for what?"

"All this time, you kept telling me how good you were with computers. I'm afraid I didn't take you seriously. I assumed you were exaggerating because you wanted a transfer out of the field. That was wrong of me."

"Oh, wow." Lisa laughed. This wasn't what she had expected at all. In fact, it was a pretty decent thing of Madeline to do. She felt a minor twinge of guilt for her cynical assessment of the woman a moment before. "Look, that's okay. You had no reason to believe me. I'm not offended."

"Good." Madeline smiled brightly. "I was especially impressed when Mireille told about all the things you'd helped her with."

"When...wait...when what?"

Lisa hadn't heard that right. She couldn't have heard that right. If she'd heard that right, she was dead.

Madeline's smile didn't waver. Lisa gaped, her brain stuttering incoherent thoughts until she realized that yes, she had indeed heard that right.

Mireille had sold her out.

"I'll kill her," Lisa said through gritted teeth.

"Don't blame Mireille. I didn't give her a choice."

No. Of course she hadn't. What chance would Mireille have had against Section One's interrogator-in-chief? Lisa's anger deflated, along with what was left of her energy. Her legs didn't seem to want to support her weight anymore. She reached for the wall of a nearby shop to steady herself and slumped against it.

"So, now what?" she asked. "Are you going to turn me in? Score some more brownie points with Adrian? You're getting pretty good at that these days."

"Not at all." If Madeline felt stung by the insult, she didn't show it. She just looked Lisa up and down, her smile warm and conspiratorial. "I'm here to present you with an opportunity."

"Yeah. Right." An opportunity. Leave it to Madeline to resort to a euphemism instead of just saying, I own you. Lisa sighed in defeat. "What do you want?"

"Actually, it's about what you want. That transfer to Systems? I can arrange for that. In fact, when we're finished, you might just have Jules's job."

"When we're finished with what?"

"Why, destroying Adrian, of course."

***

"The profile is superb," said Adrian. "Very fine work, Paul."

"Thank you."

Paul stood at attention in Adrian's office, hands clasped behind his back, his posture straight and confident. He hadn't displayed such a spit-and-polish military bearing in more time than Adrian could remember. It suited him. He looked proud, focused, like someone who possessed not just a clear purpose but also a well-thought-out plan to achieve it. Adrian smiled to herself: it seemed that by giving him a real assignment instead of the make-work errands she'd sent him on over the past few years, she'd managed to shake him out of his cynical complacency a bit.

Perhaps he wasn't an entirely lost cause after all.

"How quickly can we implement this?" she asked.

"I've set a target date of one week before Gorbachev's arrival. That way it will have the maximum impact."

"Very good. Prepare your team."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dismissed," she said, and she watched as he turned and walked away.

She reached for the telephone and began to dial George's number. She hesitated, finger poised over the final digit. She was on the verge of her greatest achievement, and she wanted nothing more than to share the news with the one person who had been her companion down the long, hard road she'd traveled. George alone would truly understand the enormity of what she was about to do; he alone would appreciate the genius of its scope.

However, there was his well-being to consider. That fool Phillip -- and those small-minded cowards on the Council -- would retaliate, she was quite certain. She had finally seen them for what they were. They had no principles, no vision beyond protecting the status quo and their own comfortable place within it. They didn't understand that the path of history was fraught with risk, that human achievement came at a cost, and that sometimes that cost was the blood of innocents. When China exploded, so would the tottering edifice of the Soviet Union, and the shockwaves would cascade throughout the world in a chain reaction, the pent-up desire for freedom unleashed like a string of atomic blasts. They wouldn't see that as progress. All they would see was chaos. Disruption. Danger. After all, if the world turned upside-down, who knew what their place would be in it?

Once she set the initial events in motion, it would all be unstoppable. But that didn't mean they wouldn't attack her afterwards, lashing out in shortsighted fury. Telling George in advance would make him complicit. And he'd then be destroyed along with her. She couldn't do that. Someone -- someone who understood -- needed to survive to carry on her legacy. He was the only one she trusted enough to do that.

She set down the telephone receiver. She would bear this burden alone. When she thought about the ultimate reward, it didn't seem so heavy after all.

************

Lisa cracked her knuckles and began typing at a rapid-fire pace. She executed commands, tried out others, and as she read the lines on the screen she gradually relaxed and shook off her nervousness. On the desk beside her sat a disk containing the files Madeline wanted her to plant. She tried not to look at it too often; every time she did, it just reminded her how utterly insane a mess she'd allowed herself to be dragged into.

Framing Adrian. Jesus. Lisa thought she'd been living on the edge just nosing around classified research projects, but her risk-taking had nothing on Madeline. Madeline was actually going to take the old bitch down. That took one hell of a nerve just to think about, much less dare try. And now Lisa was in the thick of it. Not exactly by choice, either. While Madeline had framed her request as an opportunity for Lisa -- both for personal advancement and a bit of revenge -- Lisa had the distinct impression that "no" wasn't going to be an acceptable answer. She didn't really want to find out what would happen if she did something Madeline found unacceptable, because Madeline had this chilly look, even when she was smiling, that made Lisa feel like the living, breathing definition of "expendable."

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Lisa, you dummy, she thought. She swallowed hard. Let's get this over with.

The main objective was to crack Adrian's password so as to save these files under her login. But it wasn't just a matter of passwords: there was an entire login sequence for the upper echelons of Section's management designed to thwart security breaches. Madeline had supplied Lisa with the sequence for George's login. God only knew how she managed to get that -- probably best not to ask -- and Lisa had been able to use it as a model to emulate what would probably -- probably! -- work for Adrian. One last line of the sequence to go. She typed some more, hit the enter key, and ta da! She was logged in as Adrian.

I am Queen of the Freaking Universe! She felt like pumping her fist, but settled for a whispered "Yes!" instead.

Okay. All she had to do was pop that disk in, download the files to a selection of appropriate locations, backdate them convincingly, clean up her tracks, and log the hell off before she got caught.

So where should she dump these things? She opened a few directories and eliminated them from consideration. "Garbage, garbage, garbage," she muttered to herself as she opened and closed a series of folders and files. Sighing, she scanned their names and tried to guess their contents. "Projects" -- that might be something. Or wait, maybe "Financial." She opened that one and scrolled through the list of files -- and then stopped abruptly.

One of the subdirectories was called "Centre." Centre, as in the source of all those instructions and directives regarding her son. Centre, as in the mysterious entity she'd spent months trying to track down. Finally at her fingertips.

Madeline and her grandiose coup attempt could wait a few goddam minutes. Lisa wasn't going to get this close to the answer and not take a look.

Her skin hot with anticipation, she selected the subdirectory. She pressed the enter key. In an instant, the screen began flashing "ACCESS DENIED. SECURITY VIOLATION."

"Fuck," she said aloud. She struck keys desperately, trying to exit, trying to shut down, but she'd lost control of the terminal. Panicking, she manually powered the computer off.

She sat there, staring ahead but not really seeing anything, for what could have been thirty seconds -- or what could have been an hour. And then she ran to the restroom and began to vomit.

***

There wasn't a knock or even a discernable noise, but Madeline nevertheless sensed a presence hovering behind her. She swung around in her chair to look. Lisa stood in the doorway to the office. Her face was pinched and pale.

The last time Madeline remembered seeing someone with an expression quite like that was right after an operative cut the wrong wire trying to defuse a bomb during Madeline's first year at Section One. Madeline managed to dive behind a wall for cover; the operative who cut the wire, however, became human shrapnel seconds later. Looking at Lisa, Madeline felt a rising urge to find another wall to crouch behind.

Lisa opened her mouth to speak, so Madeline held up a warning hand. She stood, grasped Lisa by the arm, and walked her briskly out of the office and down the corridor. There was a utility closet full of ventilation equipment around the corner. It was cramped and noisy, but it was also free of surveillance, so it would do.

Inside the closet, they could barely stand without touching. The physical proximity rendered Lisa's anxiety palpable, like a noxious miasma of fear. As if to ward it off, Madeline crossed her arms tightly and leaned back against the door. It vibrated with the hum of the nearby equipment.

"What's wrong?"

"I set off some sort of alarm." Even at a whisper, Lisa's voice nearly cracked. "The system locked me out."

"What kind of alarm?"

"How the hell should I know? It was flashing something about a security breach and everything just froze." Lisa covered her face with her hands. "I am so fucking dead."

What in God's name had Lisa done? From somewhere in the pit of Madeline's stomach, an eruption of fury seared her entire body. She had to clench her teeth to control it.

"I thought," she said, enunciating slowly -- glacially -- because if she allowed her rage to take over, she might just tear Lisa to pieces, "that you knew the system inside and out."

"I do! But I was sticking my nose into places I'd never gone before. I wasn't in the regular network. I was looking around for someplace good to plant the files."

"So you didn't plant them yet?"

"No. I didn't get the chance to." Lisa closed her eyes, and her shoulders slumped. "God, I'm so sorry."

Madeline unclenched her muscles, and the fury abated. If there was no evidence of what Lisa was doing, then there was nothing to implicate Madeline. Assuming Lisa could keep her mouth shut, at least.

"Do you have the disk?" Madeline asked.

"Yeah."

"Give it back to me."

Lisa complied, and Madeline slipped it into her jacket pocket.

"Now," said Madeline, "if Adrian tracks you down as the source of the breach -- and we don't know that she will -- I want you to confess."

"Excuse me?"

"Admit that you broke into the system. Spare yourself the unpleasantness of an interrogation." An interrogation that Madeline was likely to be the one conducting, in fact, but she refrained from pointing that out to Lisa. "But when you confess, just say that you were trying to find information about your son. Don't mention me or the disk. Don't even bring Jules or Mireille into it. Make it sound like you did everything all by yourself."

Lisa gave a snort of disbelieving laughter. "What, you want me to fall on my sword as a glorious martyr for your cause? I'm sorry, but I'm not exactly that committed."

"What if I give you an incentive?"

"Like what?" Lisa scoffed.

"Like freedom for your son." At Lisa's look of dumbstruck shock, Madeline smiled. "If we succeed in overthrowing Adrian, I can make it happen."

In the dimness of the closet, it took a moment before Madeline saw the tears streaming down Lisa's cheeks.

"All right," said Lisa, her voice choking, "you've got yourself a scapegoat." Then, unexpectedly, she seized Madeline in a hug. Her fingers dug painfully into Madeline's back. "Thank you," she whispered. Finally, she pulled away and glanced at her watch. "Oh, shit. I've got a mission heading out in less than an hour. We'll deal with this when I get back. If they don't drag me straight to Containment, that is."

***

After Lisa left, Madeline returned to her office and worked. She worked on large projects, then small, then trivial. With each task completed, she attacked the next with increased vigor. She worked for several hours straight without stopping even once to think about anything else. Work was calming, relaxing, comforting, even quite pleasant, and as long as she kept her focus trained strictly within its bounds, she didn't have to dwell on those things that were spiraling out of her control.

Like whether Adrian would trace the origin of the security breach. Like whether Lisa would keep her word and take the blame. Like whether Adrian would believe a word Lisa said. Or whether the whole plot was unraveling faster than Madeline could hope to stitch it back together.

There was nothing further Madeline could do at the moment to influence the outcomes of any of the above; hence, it was not a productive use of her time to think about those prospects. Instead, she reviewed reports, completed profiles, studied intelligence briefings and processed files from her inbox into her outbox, until she had cleared her desk of every single scrap of paper that could plausibly be construed as needing her attention.

It was then that the worries began drifting back.

She put her hand on her pocket. The disk was still there -- the one task she couldn't complete, didn't even know how to complete. George had been emphatic about the importance of planting the false financial data. But what could she do? Lisa had failed, and even if her error escaped Adrian's detection, Madeline didn't dare trust her to try again. Should she try to do it herself? Turn to Jules in desperation? Or just tell George that it couldn't be done?

None of those were reasonable options.

A dull ache began to tighten along her neck and temples. She took a deep breath and released it slowly, then she rolled her shoulders to loosen the muscles. One crisis at a time. She could manage if she simply approached things in a rational manner. The more pressing concern was whether Lisa's mistake would expose the entire conspiracy. Madeline logged onto her computer and opened up the listing of current personnel deployment. There were no shifts in resources within Systems. No one in Specops assigned to meet Lisa's mission upon return. Nothing unusual at all.

Perhaps Lisa was worried over nothing. Why, there were probably attempted systems breaches by nosy operatives every single week. Knowing Jules, he'd bury this one -- especially if he realized who had caused it.

She needed to clear her head. She shut down her computer, pushed back her chair, and rose to her feet. A walk. That's what she would do. She could take a walk somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere. It didn't matter, so long as she could use the physical activity to trick her brain into thinking she had a purpose.

Without planning to, she found herself at the entrance to the cafeteria. That was as good a place as any. There would be tea, which would require steeping and stirring and adding lemon -- another ritual to perform while she did her best to shut her mind off.

A handful of operatives sat at the tables. Others wandered around clutching their trays; it wasn't mealtime, but there was always something available to alleviate the hunger pangs caused by round-the-clock shifts. Today, it appeared to be some sort of noodle soup. A man slurped loudly from his bowl as she passed by his table toward the urn of hot water.

There were two operatives pouring cream and sugar into their coffee at the counter nearby.

"The explosion came out of nowhere," said one of the operatives to the other. Terence, if Madeline remembered his name correctly. She'd just finished writing up his biannual psych evaluation. A kleptomaniac? No. That was someone else. "The mission was over and all the hostiles dead, and everybody thought it was all wrapped up," Terence continued. "It caught the team on egress. A big boom, and the building just went up like fireworks."

Madeline selected a cup from the rack and pulled the spigot on the urn. Steaming water began to fill the cup.

"So did anyone bite it?" asked the other operative.

"Just Lisa," said Terence.

It wasn't until she felt her fingers scald that Madeline realized the cup was overflowing. She dropped it with a smash.

***

"It's too convenient. It can't just be a coincidence." Madeline's grip on Paul's arm was tight. She leaned in and whispered, and he could feel her breath in his ear. "The mission was sabotaged. Someone must have known what she was doing."

Madeline didn't often give in to worry. But Paul could see it now, cracking open the seams of her customary imperturbability. It seeped out through the distracted expression in her eyes, through the rigid stance of her body, and it was beginning to infect him, too -- a cold prickling of dread crept from her hand, up his arm, to his chest.

My God, he didn't need this. She was supposed to be helping him, not giving him more to deal with.

He pulled away from her grasp and began to pace. "You shouldn't have used her."

It sounded like an accusation, and it was intended as such. She reacted accordingly, a look of defensiveness tightening her face.

"Who else was there? No one in Systems is reliable."

"Then you shouldn't have bothered." He'd moved beyond accusation; this was a rebuke. "We don't need to frame Adrian."

"George seems to think so."

He gave her a long, disgusted stare. "I didn't know you held George's opinion in such high esteem."

No more accusations. No more rebukes. He'd thrown down a gauntlet. She couldn't keep pleasing everyone. There would come a time when she'd have to commit to him irrevocably, when she could no longer hide herself in that cloak of ambiguity she so loved to wear, when everyone would finally see exactly where she stood, once and for all. That time might not be now, but it would come. And she'd damned well better understand that. If she couldn't, then he would cut her off. If she assumed that he wouldn't go that far -- if she took her place at his side for granted, counting on the strength of his romantic sentiment -- then she didn't understand him nearly as well as she thought she did. Nor did she understand the nature of their working relationship. Sure, they were a team. A partnership. But not of equals.

It never ceased to surprise him just how cold those brown eyes could look when she was angry.

"I'm simply being cautious," she said. "There's a lot to lose."

So now she'd resorted to explaining herself. That, he didn't mind. While still a form of disagreement, it also meant that she acknowledged -- at least implicitly -- that she owed him an explanation. That was enough for now.

Satisfied, he cracked a smile. "Sometimes, Madeline, you have to stop calculating the odds and just throw the dice."

She said nothing. But she didn't need to. His point was made.

"I make my move tomorrow," he said. "If you can figure out a way to fix this before then, then fix it. If not…." He shrugged in a deliberate show of indifference. "We're going ahead, whether George likes it or not."