Page 48 of Ford

“Hey!”

Aw, shoot. “RJ, don’t—”

“No, really. Why couldn’t I be an assassin?”

David raised an eyebrow.

“She’s not, David. Really.”

“I can handle a gun.”

“RJ! Stop talking!” York rounded on her.

She recoiled. Folded her arms. “Yeah, okay. I didn’t do it. But, I…okay, I probably couldn’t, either, but I was there because I was trying to stop the general from getting assassinated, so that counts.”

“Yes, it does,” David said quietly, and it seemed he was trying not to smile. “Listen. I believe you. And the whole thing came about so quickly—the cell phone picture, the sketch—it felt fabricated. But that’s not the problem.”

He walked over to a table and pulled out a chair. “Sit down, Miss Marshall.”

“Why?” York said. “What—”

“You too, pal. Because I want you to listen to me the whole way through.”

RJ sank into the chair. She suddenly looked very frail, as if her bravado had deflated with his words.

York sat down beside her but refrained from doing something too invasive, like taking her hand.

David took the final chair, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands pressed together. “There’s a kill order out for RJ.”

“No surprise—”

“From the CIA.”

RJ gasped.

York froze. “What—?”

“We’re not sure if it’s legitimate or not—our people are checking into it, but apparently there’s been—”

“A rogue group inside the CIA who is working to move America and Russia back to a cold war,” RJ finished.

York looked at her.

“Analyst. I didn’t just come here on a whim, York. My boss got a tip from one of my sources—”

“Roy, I know.”

“Not just Roy but yes, tips about a group who want more arms, more spies—”

“More jobs, more defense spending,” David said.

“Maybe. But in order to create a cold war, Russia would have to put into power a hard-liner in the highest levels of Russian government—”

“Someone like Arkady Petrov,” David said.

“Exactly. Last month my boss and I traveled twice to Prague to meet with agents who suggested that General Stanislov’s life was in danger, and when I was contacted by one of our black operatives, I knew I couldn’t sit on the sidelines.”

David was nodding. “So, the problem is that we can’t get you out through normal channels. We don’t know who might be part of this rogue faction, and until we do, I can’t let her into the embassy.”