Rules of Deception

Until now, he’d kept her identities separate. There was Emma Ransom, his wife, and there was Eva Kruger, the operative. He’d convinced himself that Emma was the true side of her-the authentic side-and that Eva was the cover. Watching her drive, he knew he’d been wrong. For the first time, he was seeing the real Emma, the woman she’d never allowed him to see. It came to him then that he didn’t know this woman.

“I didn’t expect you to be so good at this,” she said, when they reached the valley floor and turned west toward Davos and Zurich.

“What did you expect?”

“I was afraid you might chuck it all and disappear into the mountains for a few years. Pull the lone explorer bit.”

“I might have, if I hadn’t gotten the baggage claims. Everything went haywire when I picked up the bags. After I killed the policemen, I had to keep going. It was the only way to clear myself. Simone tried to convince me to leave the country, but when I saw what was inside the bag, I couldn’t run away. I had to know.”

“Of all the days for the train not to deliver the mail,” she said with a dismissive shake of the head. “I guess I was wrong about you going into the mountains.”

“I’ll forgive you,” he said. “This time.”

She laughed at this, but it was a concession and it rang hollow.

“And so,” he said. “Your turn. I’ll make it easy for you. Start with the mountain. What exactly did I see?”

A shadow fell across her features. Her change in mood was like a sharp drop in temperature. “Your patrolman’s jacket, of course. A wig. Ski pants. Stage blood.”

“How did you get down into the crevasse by yourself? It was way too dangerous to go solo.”

“I didn’t.”

“What do you mean you didn’t?” he snapped.

“I walked into it from below. You showed me the route once the summer after we were married.”

Jonathan closed his eyes as it came back to him. They’d come to Davos for a weekend to do some hiking and had spent an afternoon exploring the warren of caves and couloirs that honeycombed the glacier. “But those caves are only accessible during the summer. You can’t get in during winter, let alone during a blizzard.”

Emma tilted her head, which was her way of saying he was mistaken. “I didn’t go to that meeting in Amsterdam last Friday. I came here instead to see if my plan was actionable.”

“‘Actionable’? Is that spyspeak or what?”

Emma ignored the remark. “It turns out that if you can find your way to the right spot at the base of the glacier, you can get into the caves. I programmed a handheld GPS unit, then route-marked the way up and back so I wouldn’t get lost if it snowed.”

“Which is why you insisted that we come to Arosa instead of Zermatt,” he said, feeling somehow complicit.

“I had good reason. It was our a

“‘Our a

“I didn’t really,” she admitted. “I gambled on the fact that Steiner and his team would be coming up the mountain to rescue a woman with a broken leg, not haul her out of a one-hundred-meter crevasse. Rope is heavy. I didn’t see them bringing more than was necessary. I was surprised they even had two lengths.”

“Steiner…you know his name.” He looked out the window. The hits just kept on coming.

“I had to hang around Davos to make sure things went as pla

“And then? Didn’t you know that I would check on the baggage claims?”

“I hoped you wouldn’t get them. I wanted to retrieve the bags in Landquart myself, but it was too much of a risk. Once I was dead, I had to stay dead.”

Jonathan spun in his seat. “You were there? You saw what happened at the train station with the police? You watched what they did to me?”

Emma nodded. “I’m sorry, Jonathan. I wanted to help.”

He sank back, at a loss for words.

She went on. “Afterward, I trailed you back to the hotel, but I was too late. Some of our team had already been through the room. You arrived soon after they’d left. I didn’t have time to get inside. Once, I thought you might have seen me. It was in the woods behind the hotel.”

Jonathan recalled sensing the presence nearby and looking into the tree line, but he’d seen nothing.

Suddenly, he’d had enough. He wasn’t interested in the who, what, and when. It was all just window dressing. He wanted to know why. “What’s this about, Em?” he said quietly. “What are you involved in?”

“The usual,” she replied, never taking her eyes from the road.

“You’re supplying Parvez Ji

“Nothing he wasn’t going to get sooner or later.”

“Don’t act like that.”

“Like what?”

“Cynical. Like you don’t care.”

“It’s because I care that I’m doing what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing? Who do you work for? The CIA? The Brits?”

“The CIA? God no. I’m at Defense. The Pentagon. Something called Division.”

“But Simone said she was with the CIA.”

Emma considered this, brushing her cheek with her fingers. “Really? Actually, I didn’t know about her until today.”

“Why would the CIA want to kill someone who works for the Pentagon? We’re both on the same side, aren’t we?”

“Power. They want it. We have it. The tug of war’s been going on for a couple of years.”

“But I thought you hated the American government.”

A thin smile told him that he was way off base. Another illusion gone.

“So, you’re American?” he asked.

“God, I wanted to wait to get into all of this. It’s so bloody complicated.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Yes, Jonathan, I’m American. If you’re wondering about the accent, it’s real. I grew up outside London. My father was with the U.S. Air Force stationed at Lakenheath.”

“Did he steer you into this?”

“In the begi

“Is that why you picked me?”

“At first, yes.”

“You mean something changed?”

“You know what changed. We fell in love.”

“I fell in love,” said Jonathan. “I’m not sure you did.”

Emma looked at him sharply. “I didn’t have to stay with you. No one forced me to marry you.”

“They didn’t stop you, either. Who better to slide you into position for your assignments than a doctor who actually enjoyed serving in hardship posts? What exactly did you do in all those places? Did you kill people? Are you an assassin like that guy you shot back there?”

“Of course not.” Emma dismissed the suggestion as if she’d never fired a gun, let alone shot and killed two human beings within the last thirty minutes.

“What then?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You and Blitz and Hoffma

“Did Parvez say all that? May he roast in hell forever.”

“That’s a nice way to talk about a man you screwed.”

“Fuck you, Jonathan! That’s not fair.”

“Not fair? You lied to me for eight years. You pretended to be my wife. Don’t tell me what’s fair.”

“I am your wife.”

“How can you say that when I don’t even know your name!”

Emma looked away. If he’d been expecting a tear, he was disappointed. Her expression was set in stone.