The Spy Who Came for Christmas

Part Three

He stared out the window, looking for movement in the falling snow.

“ Cole, did you ever read the nativity story in the Bible?”

The boy was silent.

“ Or maybe you heard someone reading that part of Matthew’s gospel out loud in church,” Kagan suggested.

“ I’m afraid it’s been a long time since we went to church.” In the kitchen, Meredith kept her voice low as she made coffee.

“ Well, it can’t be any longer than when I went to church last,” Kagan replied.

That wasn’t the truth-he said it only to keep bonding with them. That afternoon, he’d spent an hour in Santa Fe’s cathedral, studying a manger display, his mind in a turmoil, trying to decide what to do.

“ The reference to the so-called three kings is very small. Just a couple of dozen sentences. That’s amazing when you consider how much has been written about them ever since. To understand what the kings really were, you need to realize that Matthew’s gospel was written in either Hebrew or Greek. Over the years, it was translated into a lot of other languages. Changes crept in. In English, the word ‘kings’ didn’t show up until centuries later. When language experts try to get a sense of the original words, the most likely translation is ‘astrologers’ or ‘magi.’”

His mouth dry from stress and dehydration, Kagan listened to Meredith pouring water into a coffee-maker in the kitchen.

“ To call them astrologers makes sense because they claimed to be following a star. But I prefer to call them Magi. Does that word sound familiar to you, Cole?”

“ Not exactly.”

“ The words ‘magic’ and ‘magician’ are related to it.”

As Kagan heard Cole breathe with the beginning of interest, he leaned forward, concentrating on something that seemed to shift in the haze beyond the fence, but he decided it was only his imagination. Or hoped it was.

“ The gospel says they came from the east. If you look at a map and consider what was happening at that time, the country they likely came from was Persia. These days, it’s called Iran. Have you heard of Iran, Cole?”

“ Sometimes. When Mom and Dad watch the news on television.”

“ It’s a country that’s had a lot of influence on history. Today, there’s plenty of tension and violence associated with it. Two thousand years ago, the situation wasn’t much different.

“ Basically, Persia wanted to control the area around it, and that included Israel, the country where Jesus would soon be born. The reason the Persians didn’t invade Israel was that the Roman Empire claimed Israel as one of its territories. To attack Israel was the same as attacking Rome, and that was a bad idea. The Persians sometimes crossed the border and raided villages, trying to make Roman soldiers chase them- to lure them into an ambush. But the Persians didn’t have the resources for an all-out assault, so they tried another tactic, the oldest and most reliable, much more effective than a battle: they sent in spies.”

“ Spies?” Cole asked.

Again, Kagan frowned toward what seemed to be a shadow moving within the snowfall, but the moment he focused on that area beyond the fence, the shadow dissolved like a mirage.

“ The Magi were priests with tremendous political influence. The modern Iranian word for Magi would probably be ‘ayatollahs.’ That’s a name you hear a lot in the news, although in ancient times the Magi were supposed to have secret, powerful knowledge that amounted to magic.

“ Matthew’s gospel doesn’t mention a specific number of Magi who crossed into Israel. Traditionally, there are three because in the gospel they bring three gifts to the baby Jesus. Under the circumstances, it would have been foolish for more than three to go on this journey. The smaller the number, the better. They didn’t dare attract attention.”

Kagan smelled the coffee brewing in the kitchen. The aroma brought moisture to his mouth.

“ Apart from the manger scene, Cole, what image comes to you when you think of the Magi?”

“ Well, on TV or in drawings I’ve seen, they’re on camels, and they’re heading toward a big, bright star in the distance.”

“ Right. Some people theorize that it was actually a comet, or perhaps planets in a cluster, which happens sometimes, causing a brighter light than normal. Or perhaps it was an actual star, one that was exploding. Whatever it might have been, do you see any problem with trying to follow it?”

Cole considered the question. “The stars move.”

“ You’re very observant.”

“ I never noticed when we lived in LA. There were so many streetlights that I couldn’t see the sky. But here the sky’s so clear, I can see all kinds of stars. My favorite constellation’s Orion, the one with stars lined up like a sword. But at different times, he’s in different places.”

“ Correct. Except for a few so-called fixed stars, one of which is the North Star, heavenly bodies shift across the horizon. In fact, the Magi probably used the North Star to guide their way across the desert. But they couldn’t depend on a comet or a cluster of planets or an exploding star to show them the way because the bright light wouldn’t have stayed in the same place all through the night. It would have drifted. At various times, it might have been overhead or even in the opposite direction from where they wanted to go. They’d have wandered in the desert until they died. Only a miracle could have kept the light in the same place and showed them the way. I’m not saying there couldn’t have been a miracle, but that’s not what this story’s about. So the question is, Cole: the Magi must have had a different reason for crossing the desert at night. What do you think it was?”

“ To avoid the heat of the day.”

“ Good answer.”

“ But in school, we’ve been studying weather patterns, ice ages and stuff like that, to learn if climate change is real or not. Our teacher says that back then, some deserts might not have been as hot as they are now.”

“ I read the same thing.” Kagan concentrated on the snow falling beyond the window. “So let’s suppose traveling across the desert in daylight wouldn’t have been as dangerous as it is now. What’s another reason the Magi would have wanted to travel at night? On camels. For at least a month. It would have been difficult to keep the camels from stumbling in the dark and breaking their legs. That definitely would have been dangerous. So what’s the advantage of the night?”

Cole didn’t have an answer.

“ Suppose this is a war story,” Kagan suggested.

“ Maybe they were trying to keep the Roman soldiers from seeing them?”

“ Cole, you should think twice about not wanting to be a spy. You’re right. The Magi traveled in the dark because they were on a secret mission and they didn’t want the soldiers to see them.”

“ The microphone has a pin on the back,” Andrei said. “I attached it under your coat collar. It’s set so you’re broadcasting all the time. I’ll hear everything you say and most of what’s said around you. On occasion, I’ll give you instructions through this earbud.”

Andrei placed the device in Brody’s left ear.

“ But won’t the gunman see it?” Brody’s voice was unsteady, from more than just the cold.

“ Keep your hat on and your earflaps down as long as possible. Eventually, you’ll need to take the hat off, but the earbud’s small and flesh-colored: hard to see, even in the daytime. He’s got the lights off. I guarantee he won’t turn t hem on.”

“ Even the Christmas tree lights and the television are off now,” Mikhail said, watching the house from the cover of the fir tree.

“ The microphone and the earbud have tiny batteries,” Andrei told Brody. “They’re boosted by this transmitter/receiver you’d normally wear on your belt. But if the suspect searches you-which I assume he will-he’s bound to find it, even in the dark, so we need to hide it on you. The best place is in one of your gloves. Take them off as you approach the house. Set them someplace as soon as you’re inside.

“ I dialed your equipment to its own channel. That way, you won’t be distracted when I talk to headquarters. Now, let’s find out if everything works. Detective Grant, walk down the lane and say something into your microphone.”

As Yakov left them, Andrei heard a voice through his own earbud, but it didn’t belong to Yakov.

The Pakhan’s voice was sharp. “Our clients believe I took their money without any intention of delivering the package! They insist I’m lying! They claim I’m planning to sell the baby to someone else!”

In the background, something crashed. A man with an Arab accent shouted, “Would you like me to cut off your thumbs? Your ears?”

“ Your balls!” another accented voice threatened. “We’ll make you eat them! That’s what we do to people who cheat us!”

Andrei looked at Brody but gave no sign of what he was hearing. “I have a call coming through. Excuse me.”

Because Brody knew about the microphones, it wasn’t necessary to go through the charade of pretending to talk to a cell phone, as Andrei had done earlier among the crowd on Canyon Road. But now he had a different reason for pretending to use his cell phone.

He took it from a pocket and opened it. At once, he intentionally fumbled with it and let it fall into the snow.

“ Damn.”

Continuing the pretense, he pawed in the snow. His thin leather glove barely protected his fingers from the cold. When he found the phone, it was covered with flakes. He wiped them off, made a show of pressing a button, and frowned at the screen.

“ Something’s wrong.”

“ Your phone doesn’t work?” Brody asked.

“ Snow must have got into it. Here, lend me yours.”

When Brody handed it over, Andrei pressed numbers and walked a short distance away, pretending to talk on the phone while he actually spoke to the microphone on his ski jacket.

“ Did you just try to call me?”

“ What was that about?” the Pakhan demanded through Andrei’s earbud. He sounded furious.

“ Something I needed to do. I’ll explain later.”

“ Did you hear what I said? Our clients claim I cheated them! But I won’t take the blame because you screwed up! I’ll make sure they know who to punish!”

Andrei barely held his anger in check. “Tell them they’ll get the package before midnight.”

“ You guarantee that?”

“ When we deliver, demand a bonus.”

“ Answer me! Do you guarantee delivery?”

In the cold, Andrei’s cheeks felt hot. Somehow he managed to keep his voice low and maintain control. Almost.

“ Damn it, yes. Now let me do my work.”

With that, he pretended to shut off the phone.

“ What’s the matter?” Brody asked.

“ You’ve got family problems. So do I.”

Down the lane, Andrei heard Yakov murmur, “Testing. One, two, three, four.”

In response, Brody pressed a finger to the object in his left ear. “I hear him.”

When Yakov returned, Andrei asked, “Detective Grant, is Mr. Brody’s microphone working? Did his voice come through your earbud?”

“ Clearly.”

“ Excellent.” Amid the distraction, Andrei slipped Brody’s cell phone into his pocket.

Brody didn’t notice.

“ Okay,” Andrei said. “Now, let’s practice what you’re going to do.”

Snow clung to their coats as they left the stairwell, passed the elevator, and walked along a hotel corridor to the security door.

There were five of them-Andrei, Kagan, Yakov, Mikhail, and Viktor, a lanky man Kagan had met only a half-dozen times, newly arrived from Russia. Andrei slid a credit-card-shaped hotel key into a slot. Making a slight metallic sound, the lock electronically opened.

Andrei wore his leather shooter’s gloves so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints when he turned the doorknob. Coordinating their movements via their earbuds and hidden microphones, he and the others had gone into the hotel through separate entrances to avoid attracting attention. They’d lowered their heads when passing security cameras. They did the same now as they stepped under the last camera they needed to be concerned about.

Closing the door, they entered a continuation of the corridor. Numbered rooms stretched along the wall to the left. In this exclusive part of the hotel, an attractive, well-dressed female receptionist smiled at them from a desk and pointed toward the melting flakes on their coats. “I see it hasn’t stopped snowing.”

“ A picturesque night for a walk,” Andrei replied.

“ Have you been to Canyon Road?” the red-haired woman asked.

“ Very impressive.”

“ It’s the big attraction on Christmas Eve. All year-round, in fact. I’m glad you didn’t miss it. Is there anything I can get you?”

“ Thank you, no.”

“ You must have checked into the hotel when I wasn’t on duty. I don’t recall seeing you before.”

“ I don’t recall seeing you, either. We only came back to our rooms to pick up some presents we’re taking to a party.”

“ Have a good time.”

“ We intend to.”

As expected on Christmas Eve, no sounds came from any of the rooms, the guests having gone out to dinner, to enjoy the sights, or perhaps to attend mass in the nearby cathedral. But even though there was virtually no risk of being interrupted, speed was essential.

While Andrei spoke to the receptionist, Mikhail stepped behind her and stuck a hypodermic into her neck, pushing its plunger.

“ Hey! What do you-”

The fast-acting poison made the woman shudder. Five seconds later, she slumped across her desk.

The other men took off their outdoor gloves, revealing latex ones. In a carefully rehearsed sequence, Mikhail grabbed the receptionist’s pass key off the desk, returned to the start of the corridor, and used the key to open a door to a custodial area. Kagan and Yakov picked up the dead woman and carried her through the open door, setting the corpse inside. When they returned to the corridor, they pulled the door shut, automatically locking it.

Meanwhile, Andre and Viktor went up a curved staircase and faced the three doors that led to the target’s suite.

The others joined them.

Andrei looked at his watch and nodded. Everything was proceeding as planned. Six minutes earlier, at 8:00 P.M., they’d stood amid the snowfall on the tourist-crowded Plaza, watching Hassan, his wife, and four protective escorts get into a limousine bound for a reception at the New Mexico governor’s mansion. At 9:00, Hassan was scheduled to step before television cameras and deliver the first of many rousing speeches about his newborn child of peace and his hopes for the Middle East.

But just before the speech, Hassan’s wife would receive a call on her cell phone. She would answer because the number displayed on the phone belonged to her baby’s nursemaid.

The voice would belong to a man, however. It would explain in vivid detail what had happened to the baby. It would emphasize that if Hassan loved his child, he would cancel the speech.

And never make another one.

Kagan stared through the window, straining to distinguish shadows from illusions in the falling snow.

One of them will try to distract me in the front, he thought. Probably Andrei. I set up enough ambushes with him. That’s how he thinks. Meanwhile, Mikhail and Yakov will attack from the sides.

But wouldn’t they have made their move by now? Kagan wondered. Maybe I did fool them. It’s been a while. Maybe nothing’s going to happen. Maybe they’re back on Canyon Road.

The baby whimpered.

“ Meredith,” Kagan said.

“ He’s just restless. Probably having another dream.”

“ Doesn’t sound like a happy one.”

“ I put my little finger to his lips. He’s sucking on it. He’s quiet now.”

“ You can’t let him cry.”

“ He’s a good baby. He won’t cry.”

Kagan never looked in Meredith’s direction. With the gun on his lap, he focused intently on the window.

He continued with the story, working to keep Cole and Meredith calm, hoping it would overcome his fatigue and keep him alert.

“ In those days, the capital of Israel was Jerusalem. The man in charge was a Roman puppet named Herod, who called himself the king of the Jews. He was seriously paranoid. Forty years earlier, a rebellion had chased him from Israel. The Romans had hit back viciously, using thousands of battle-hardened soldiers to return Herod to power. Thereafter, he squashed the slightest sign of a rebellion, even to the point of killing one of his wives, her mother, and several of his sons.

“ Now, suddenly at dawn, the guards on the eastern wall of Jerusalem reported three strangers coming out of the distance, approaching on camels. Their confident bearing identified them as men of importance. When they reached the gate, they announced that they were priests on a sacred mission and asked to pay their respects to Herod. What do you suppose his reaction was, Cole?”

“ He wouldn’t have liked them surprising him like that.”

You bet, especially when the Magi came from Israel’s biggest, closest enemy. He was furious and demanded an explanation from his security team. How had the Magi traveled all the way to Jerusalem without being detected? Why had the Roman soldiers failed to intercept them? What sort of protection did he have if foreigners could pass through the desert as though they were invisible?

“ I told you that the Magi had a reputation for being a secret group with magical powers. Now, when they were brought before Herod, they described an amazing star that had led them to Jerusalem. Herod was astonished. ‘A star?’ he asked. ‘What kind of star?’

“ The Magi answered, ‘A star that announces the birth of the new king of the Jews.’”

Kagan heard footsteps-Meredith bringing the coffee. He started to tell her to keep low, but he didn’t need to. She made him proud by crouching beside him, staying beneath the level of the window.

“ Thanks.” Keeping his right hand on the gun in his lap, he ignored the pain of using his stiff left arm to raise the cup to his lips. He blew on the steaming liquid, then sipped, inhaling its fragrance, tasting the sugar.

“ The water you put on the stove is boiling,” Meredith said.

“ Good. Keep it boiling. Add more water if it gets low.” Kagan never removed his gaze from the window. He listened to Meredith as she crawled across the floor and sat next to the baby.

“ Where was I, Cole?” Kagan didn’t need reminding, but he wanted to keep the boy answering questions.

“ Herod and the star.”

“ Right.” Again, the spymaster’s words came back to him from years earlier. “All through the Jewish and Roman world at that time, there was a growing belief that ancient prophecies were about to be fulfilled, that someone special would soon be born and the course of history would change. In the Old Testament Book of Daniel, which is set hundreds of years earlier, Daniel had a vision about a sign in the heavens bringing a mysterious leader who would establish a new, everlasting dominion.

“ There were many similar predictions. Even contemporary Roman historians like Suetonius and Tacitus mentioned prophecies about a man from Israel who would rule the world. One of the great Roman poets, Virgil, predicted that a child would descend from the heavens, possibly from the constellation Virgo, or Virgin, and establish a golden age.”

“ Sounds like he was talking about the Virgin Mary,” Cole said, puzzled.

“ Or maybe there’s another explanation. Maybe Virgil was trying to impress someone of influence, a politician perhaps, whose wife was about to give birth and whom Virgil was praising for her virtue. Presumably the child would be the divine creator of peace that Virgil predicted in his poem. He might even have been referring to the Roman emperor.

“ There can be all sorts of explanations for those prophecies. But that’s not the point. What matters is that two thousand years ago, people believed them-really believed them.

“ Herod certainly did. When he heard about the magical star, he went berserk and summoned his priests, demanding to know what they thought of the Magi’s claims. ‘A star indeed exists in many of the prophecies,’ the priests agreed. Herod shouted, ‘But do the prophecies say where the new king will be born?’ The priests answered, ‘Yes.’ They quoted an ancient text that said, ‘And you, Bethlehem, are by no means insignificant since from you shall come a leader of Israel.’

“‘ Bethlehem,’ Herod murmured. Now remember, Cole, this was a power-hungry sociopath who killed his own sons because he suspected they were plotting against him. What would he do if he believed a new rival threatened his throne? He was in his seventies, and terrified of losing control. Even though he’d probably be dead by the time the child was old enough to threaten him, the child’s followers were another matter. If a revolution was being planned, Herod needed to stop it with every means possible. Cole, what do you suppose was actually going on?”

“ I don’t understand.”

“ The Magi were spies. What do you think their mission was? They arrived as if by magic and told a story about an amazing star and a newborn rival. What was the point of telling him?”

“ It sure made him angry.”

“ And? Draw a conclusion.”

“ Maybe that was the point-to make him angry.”

“ You definitely have the instincts of a spy. Using prophecies, along with their reputation for secret knowledge that supposedly enabled them to predict the future, the Magi set forces in motion to destabilize Herod and his government.”

“ Destabilize?”

“ Make it fall apart. From an espionage point of view, the tactic was brilliant. If Herod ordered all his men to root out every sign of an imagined rebellion, if the mysterious child was reported everywhere throughout the kingdom, Hero wouldn’t be able to focus on ruling the country. Persia could intensify its attacks on Israel’s border while Herod’s defenses became so chaotic that the country collapsed from within. The Roman Empire wouldn’t know how to retaliate because the fall of Israel would have been caused by Herod himself.”

“ It’s like you said.” Cole sounded impressed. “What they did was more powerful than fighting a battle.”

“ If the plan had worked. But Herod showed how clever he was and why he’d been able to stay in power for so many years. His instincts warned him about the potential for a trap. Not that he suspected the Magi. Even his own priests admitted that the newcomers had the authority of the prophets.

“ No, it was Bethlehem that bothered him. Only eight miles south of Jerusalem, the town lay in a rich agricultural area, where the inhabitants had ample money to organize a revolution. It was nestled among hills that would be easy to defend and difficult to attack. Its proximity to Jerusalem made it all the more suspect, since raids on the capital would be easy to stage from there.

“ In his rage, Herod almost ordered his army to ransack Bethlehem until they found the child and killed him. But he feared he might cause the rebellion he wanted to suppress. So he decided to try a different approach, and the idea he came up with was so unexpected that even the Magi were caught unprepared.

“ He tried to recruit them as his own unwitting spies. ‘The child you came looking for has a magnificent destiny,’ he told them. ‘Continue your journey. Go to Bethlehem. Find the savior that the star predicted. Worship him. Then come back here and tell me where the child is so that I, too, might go and worship him.’

“ How classic. The Magi were so convincing that Herod didn’t realize who his true enemies were. They became what intelligence experts call double agents: spies pretending to work for one side when they’re actually working for the other.

“ They must have been terribly pleased as they traveled south to Bethlehem. Now that they had Herod’s trust, they could tell him anything they wanted to, and he’d believe them. More than they’d originally hoped, their made-up reports would cause Herod to order his soldiers back and forth across the kingdom, fatally weakening his defenses as he chased a phantom. But something remarkable happened in Bethlehem, something that changed everything.”

“ What was that?” Cole asked.

“ They began to believe that the disinformation they’d given Herod was in fact the truth.”

“ You understand what you’re supposed to do?” Andrei asked Brody. “Learn as much as you can. Talk about it as naturally as possible so the suspect doesn’t realize we’re listening. We’re particularly interested in any defenses he set up.”

“ Yes,” Brody said, “but…”

“ Are you having second thoughts? You don’t want to help your wife and son? You don’t want to make up for beating her?”

“ Honest to God, I’ve never regretted anything more in my life.”

“ Then prove it to them. Maybe you can convince the suspect that we’re not out here, that he’s safe and he can let your family go.”

“ But…”

Andrei cut him off. “Okay, if you don’t want to help your wife and son, fine. I can understand why you don’t want to risk your own neck. It’s human nature to look out for number one. When the SWAT team gets their snipers set up, I’ll figure another way to handle this.”

“ Snipers? For heaven’s sake, no.”

“ Mr. Brody, I don’t have a lot of alternatives.”

“ All right, all right. I’ll go in there.”

“ You’re sure? No second thoughts?”

“ I said I’ll do it!”

“ Keep your voice down. The suspect might hear you.”

“ Sorry. This is all too-”

Andrei put a steadying hand on Brody’s shoulder. “Your family’ll be proud of you. That’s what matters. Now there are just a couple of other details. Give me your keys.”

“ My keys? Why?”

“ Is there a vehicle in your garage?”

“ A Range Rover.”

“ The suspect might try to escape in it. Canyon Road should be open to traffic by now. He might be tempted to take the chance.”

Brody gave Andrei the keys. “But if Canyon Road’s open to traffic now, why hasn’t the SWAT team gotten here? It’s been a long time.”

“ Good question. I’ll call headquarters and find out.” Andrei pulled out Brody’s cell phone, opened it, started to press numbers, and again deliberately lost his grip. As he intended, it fell in the snow.

“ Damn,” Andrei said. “I wish I’d worn thick gloves. My hands are so cold I can barely hold anything.”

He reached into the snow, groped, and pulled out the phone. He brushed snow from it and pretended to try to use it.

“ Shit. Now this phone’s not working, either.” He didn’t want Brody going into the house with a phone. Pyotyr would no doubt find it and use it to get help. “I’m awfully sorry about this. You’d better lend me your wife’s phone.”

“ Lend you…?” Brody tensed. “What’s going on here?”

“ Don’t worry. The police department will get you a new one,” Andrei promised.

“ What did you say your name was?”

“ I didn’t. It’s Detective Parker.”

“ You told me your microphones and earbuds allow you to communicate with headquarters, so why do you need my wife’s phone? This is… Something’s wrong. Let me see your badge.”

“ Badge?”

“ All of you. Let me see your ID.”

“ I told you to keep your voice down,” Andrei warned. “My identification’s under my coat.” He brushed snow from the front. “Do you really want me to freeze, just so you can-”

Brody backed away.

“ What are you doing, Mr. Brody?”

As Brody turned to run down the shadowy lane, Andrei shoved him hard, knocking him into the snow. He bent down, braced a heavy knee on Brody’s back, and rammed his face down into a drift. Andrei’s powerful hand kept Brody’s features submerged in the snow.

Brody struggled, gagging, but Andrei ignored his efforts and pressed his face down harder into the drift.

“ Listen to me,” Andrei whispered close to Brody’s left ear. “You’re going to do what I want, or I’ll smother you. Do you feel the snow clogging your nostrils? Some of it’s melting. You’re inhaling the water. Soon you’ll be choking.”

Pinned in the drift, Brody started coughing. The sound was muffled by the snow. His back arched-or tried to. His chest heaved.

“ Are you listening?” Andrei asked quietly, applying more weight to his back. “Do you want to die in a snowbank on Christmas Eve, or would you like to spend the holiday with your wife and son?”

Brody choked as he tried to speak under the snow.

At once, Andrei reached under Brody’s hat, grabbed his hair, and jerked his head up. Brody’s cheeks were covered with snow. He strained to clear his nose and mouth, but Andrei pressed a glove over his face to diminish the sound.

“ What are the names of your wife and son?” Andrei murmured. He took his hand from Brody’s mouth while he pressed his Glock to Brody’s right temple.

Snot clung to Brody’s mustache.

“ Meredith. My wife’s name is Meredith. My son… my son is Cole.”

“ Nice names. I bet they’re wonderful people. Are they?”

“ Yes.”

“ Do you love them, Ted?” The tip of the sound suppressor on Andrei’s Glock made an indentation in Brody’s skin. Andrei imagined how hard and cold the metal felt.

“ Love them?” Brody managed to answer. “Of course.”

“ Prove it, Ted. Prove that you love Meredith and Cole. Prove how much you wish you hadn’t punched your wife. This is your chance to be a hero. Save them. Save your family, Ted.”

“ Yes.” Brody trembled. “I’ll do anything for them.”

“ Then nothing’s different. You’ll go in that house. You’ll notice whatever defenses have been set up. You’ll ask about them. We’ll hear you talking. We’ll know what to expect.”

“ Meredith and Cole…”

“ We take care of people who cooperate, Ted. I just thought of something.” Andrei felt a sudden terrible doubt. “Is there a computer in your house? Could the man in there have e-mailed for help?”

“ I use a password lock.”

Andrei breathed out, releasing some of his tension.

“ Good,” he said. “Before we go into the house, I’ll tell you we’re coming. You’ll have plenty of warning. All you need to do is get your family down to the floor. As soon as we teach a lesson to our friend in there, and retrieve something he stole from us, we’ll leave. You and your wife and son can have a nice life.”

“ God, don’t I wish.”

“ What he stole from us is crucial. I want you to make sure we get it back alive.”

“ Alive?”

“ It’s a baby.”

“ A… What’s a baby doing in there?”

“ That’s not your concern, Ted. Just talk about the baby when you see it. Tell me where it is. When we go inside, I want to make sure it isn’t injured.”

“ But what about my family?”

“ I told you, just get them onto the floor. I promise, you and your wife and your son will be safe. An hour from now, this’ll be over. We’ll be gone. Your family will owe their lives to you. You’ll be a hero to them. Your wife won’t have any choice except to forgive you for hitting her. Do you understand, Ted? Is everything clear?”

Kagan stood with Andrei, Mikhail, Yakov, and the new man, Viktor, in the corridor outside the three doors. Beyond the middle door, he heard the muffled sound of a television, the only noise in the corridor. All the other guests were probably away from their rooms, enjoying the holiday festivities.

As adrenaline surged through him, Kagan heard just enough of the television program to be able to determine that a little girl was asking someone if he was really Santa Claus. The voice of an elderly man said that he was.

That middle room was where the three bodyguards were based.

Concentrating to control his breathing, Kagan watched Andrei take his cell phone from his pocket. It was set to the vibrate mode, and what Andrei waited for was a call from the nursemaid in the suite. Not that Andrei would answer the call. All he needed was to feel the vibration through his glove.

He also needed to verify the caller’s number. It would signal that the nursemaid had rigged the door to the left, pressing a strip of plastic against the spring-controlled latch, preventing it from sliding into the door frame and locking the door. She had done the same with the door on the right.

By now, she would have taken the baby into the bathroom, where the two of them would be lying in the bathtub.

The bathtub wasn’t sturdy enough to keep bullets from penetrating it, but shots weren’t likely to go in that direction. As a precaution, however, Hassan’s rivals had bribed the nursemaid to lie sideways, with her back to the closed bathroom door, holding the baby on the other side so that if a chance bullet did come into the bathroom, the baby would have a human shield.

Andrei’s phone made a faint buzzing sound. He looked at the screen to view the caller’s number. He nodded to the team, put the phone away, and drew the Glock from his coat pocket.

Kagan and the others pulled out their weapons. A sound suppressor projected from each barrel.

Each man eased back the slide on his pistol just enough to assure that a round was in the firing chamber. They’d performed this precaution several times prior to starting the mission, but no matter how often they’d already done so, they felt compelled to do it yet again, an obsessive habit of gunfighters.

Kagan’s hands were sweaty in his latex gloves.

Andrei nodded a final time. The team separated, Kagan and Mikhail going to the door on the right, beyond which, they’d been told, the nursemaid rested when Hassan’s wife took care of the baby. Yakov and Viktor proceeded to the door on the far left, while Andrei-who liked frontal distractions-went to the middle door.

Andrei knocked loudly on the middle door, no doubt startling the bodyguards beyond it. Kagan pressed a hand against the door on the right at the exact moment Yakov did the same to the door on the far left.

For an urgent second, Kagan met resistance and wondered if the nursemaid’s strip of plastic had in fact kept the latch from engaging, but then Andrei knocked louder on the middle door, and when Kagan pushed, his door came open. Mikhail immediately aimed past him, making sure the room was unoccupied.

Andrei pounded on the middle door a third time, saying, “Housekeeping!” in a loud voice while Kagan and Mikhail hurried into the room on the right. As the nursemaid had promised, the connecting door was open. Kagan pretended that the bed was in his way, allowing Mikhail to charge ahead and crouch, firing upward toward chest and head level in the middle room.

Mikhail’s sound suppressor made the shots barely audible. Amid the smell of burned gunpowder, Kagan hurried next to him and fired upward, his bullets striking bodyguards who were in effect already dead. In the opposite open doorway, Yakov and Viktor crouched and also fired upward, the angle of their aim preventing them from being caught in a crossfire.

Blood spurted from the three bodyguards. Groaning, they fell in a cluster, one of them landing on the other two.

Mikhail stepped into the room and shot each man in the head.

Kagan ran back through the bedroom toward the door he’d shoved open. He leaned into the corridor and motioned for Andrei to enter. The moment Andrei hurried past him, Kagan tore off the plastic strip attached to the side of the door, allowing the latch to function again. He shut the door and turned the dead bolt, then followed Andrei into the middle room, where the coppery smell of blood was now strong.

They stepped over the bodies and joined the rest of the team in the third bedroom, the outer door to which Yakov had closed and locked.

Andrei knocked three times on the bathroom door, twice, then once, completing the all-clear signal.

After a pause, the door was unlocked. As it came open, Kagan saw a Palestinian woman. Her veil made it difficult to tell how old she was or what she looked like, but she had dark, expressive eyes that communicated her nervousness. She wore a black head scarf and a modest, loose black dress.

She held an Arab baby in her arms. The child wore a blue sleeper and was wrapped in a blanket.

Frightened, the woman looked past Andrei and his men toward the middle room.

“ It’s finished,” Andrei said.

She knew enough English to understand.

Andrei held out a thick envelope. “Here’s the remainder of what you’re owed. Give us the baby.”

The woman frowned at the envelope, as if wishing that she’d never agreed to be part of this.

“ Take the money,” Andrei said. “You earned it. Go far away.”

The woman hesitated.

“ Viktor,” Andrei said, “get the baby from her.”

Viktor did what he was told. The infant sensed the less comforting grip and squirmed.

The woman looked troubled.

“ Don’t worry. He’ll be fine,” Andrei assured her.

As she took the envelope, Yakov shot her twice in the chest and once in the head. She toppled back, landing on the white tiles of the bathroom floor. Yakov stepped over her blood and yanked the envelope from her hand.

“ The next part of the story isn’t in Matthew’s gospel,” Kagan said. “It’s in Luke’s, where we’re told that the Roman emperor issued a census decree.”

He swallowed coffee. Needing the energy it provided, he felt his dry mouth absorb the hot liquid. His right hand remained on the pistol in his lap.

“ The census was important for a lot of reasons. It established a population base on which Rome could demand taxes from Israel. But it also forced the Jews to travel, sometimes far, and thus reminded them that they were at the emperor’s beck and call.”

“ Why were they forced to travel?” Cole asked.

“ Because each family had to register according to the tribe-what they called the house-that the husband belonged to. To do that, they needed to go to whatever town was originally associated with that tribe. This is where Mary and Joseph get involved. They lived to the north in Nazareth, but Joseph belonged to the house of David, and the town associated with David was Bethlehem, seventy-five miles to the south. It was a difficult journey over several deep canyons. To complicate matters, Mary was far along in her pregnancy, which meant that they needed to be careful, taking even longer than usual to get there. As a consequence, when they finally reached Bethlehem, a lot of people had arrived sooner, and there weren’t any places for them to stay. No room at the inn, as Luke’s gospel says.”

In the darkness, Kagan finished the coffee and leaned down, ignoring the pain in his wounded arm as he set the cup on the floor. But he never took his eyes from the window. Now the snow fell so thickly that the fence was a blur.

“ Mary and Joseph were reduced to sleeping in a stable. Mary gave birth there, and the only spot to put the baby was a manger. That’s a trough from which animals eat. If you ever go to Bethlehem, Cole, you’ll find a cave that’s advertised as the place where Jesus was born. Maybe it’s true. Bethlehem has a lot of limestone slopes, and in those days, people carved stables into the limestone. I like the idea of a cave. It’s more defensible than a mere stable.

The creche next to your Christmas tree has the Magi in the stable, greeting Mary, Joseph, and the newborn Jesus. But that wasn’t the case. Matthew says the Magi entered a house, where they found Jesus and his mother. Similar details suggest that the Magi arrived some time after Jesus was born.

“ The moment they got to Bethlehem, they did what Herod expected, asking about newborn children and whether there were any unusual circumstances about the birth. If you want my opinion, the last thing they anticipated was to find evidence supporting their story. Their purpose was to give disinformation to Herod and back it up by any means possible. So when they heard about a birth in a stable, they probably decided it was the kind of detail they could use-a great king born in humble conditions. The contrast with Herod’s greed would drive him crazy.

“ But as the Magi checked further, trying to manufacture an elaborate hoax to continue fooling Herod, they heard about something else that was unusual about the birth, and that changed everything for them.”

“ What was it?” Cole asked.

“ Something that involved the other group in the creche next to your Christmas tree. You already mentioned them.”

“ The shepherds?”

“ Yes. Word had spread through Bethlehem about something weird that had happened to the shepherds. The night the baby was born, they were out in a dark field, tending their sheep, when a mysterious figure suddenly appeared, surrounded by a blazing light. The figure told them to rejoice, to go into Bethlehem and look for a newborn baby in a stable, for this baby was special, a savior. Abruptly, other brilliant figures appeared to the shepherds, announcing, ‘Glory to God in the highest. Peace on Earth.’ Then they all vanished, leaving the shepherds alone in the dark.

“ Frankly, Cole, if that had happened to me, I think I might have had a heart attack. But the shepherds were made of stronger stuff. They adjusted to their shock and were so curious that they decided to go into Bethlehem to see if what the mysterious figure had told them was true. Just as predicted, they found the baby in the stable.

“ That’s what the Magi heard the villagers talking about. Immediately, they asked where they could find the shepherds and were given directions to the field where the vision had supposedly happened. There they got the story firsthand. It was exactly the sort of event that would have held their attention. Remember, the Magi believed in magic. Intrigued, they asked where the stable was, where they could find the baby, but as Matthew’s gospel indicates, by then Mary and Jesus were in a house.

“ It’s interesting that the gospel doesn’t mention Joseph at this point. I have a theory about him, but I’ll save it until later. For now, the important thing is that the Magi were experts in elicitation.”

“ I don’t know what that is,” Cole said.

“ It’s the art of making people trust you so much that they volunteer information they normally wouldn’t feel comfortable revealing. By subtly imitating speech patterns and body movements, even the way people breathe, you can make strangers feel as if they’ve known you for a very long time. The Magi were so skilled at it that they persuaded Mary to tell them some very personal details. Among other things, she described how visions had come to her, similar to the apparitions the shepherds had seen in the field. She explained that when she and Joseph were engaged to be married… Meredith, how frankly can I talk about the pregnancy?”

Cole answered for her. “If you mean sex and virginity and stuff like that, I guess I know enough that you don’t need to be embarrassed.”

“ Me?” Kagan asked. “Embarrassed?”

“ It’s okay,” Meredith said. “I have a feeling he’ll know what you’re talking about.”

She almost sounded amused.

Good, Kagan thought. They’re distracted.

He stared out the window and managed to find the words to continue.

“ Joseph was engaged to Mary, but before they became husband and wife, Mary told him she was pregnant. Because Joseph knew he wasn’t the father, he naturally assumed she’d been with another man, but Mary swore that she’d been faithful. She said that an angel had come to her and announced that even though she was a virgin, she’d conceived through the Holy Spirit.

“ So what was Joseph to do? He could accuse Mary of infidelity and cast her aside, or else he could take her word that an angel had spoken to her about a miraculous conception.

“ It was a difficult, painful choice. Joseph felt betrayed. But at the same time, he loved Mary with all his heart. Distraught, he considered one option and then the other, weighing them, unable to decide. Anger versus love.

“ Emotionally exhausted, he fell asleep, and all of a sudden, he had a dream in which a brilliant figure-an angel-appeared before him. The angel told him the exact same thing that Mary had insisted an angel had told her: that the Holy Spirit was the father.

“ The dream is significant because the house of David to which Joseph belonged had a tradition of believing in the truth of dreams, and of being able to interpret them. But surely Joseph must have wondered if his tortured thoughts had caused the dream, or if an angel really had come to him. It all amounted to this-was he willing to reject the woman he loved because she was pregnant with a child that wasn’t his? In the end, he chose to believe in his dream. He swallowed his pride and proved his love by marrying her.”

The baby whimpered.

“ Meredith?”

“ His diaper’s still dry. Maybe he’s thirsty again. I’ll bring more of that mixture.”

As the baby’s voice rose, Kagan heard Meredith hurry into the kitchen. He heard the scrape of the saucepan as she poured what was left of the mixture into the shot glass. She rushed back and sat on the floor, lifting the baby into her arms.

A moment later, the baby was quiet.

“ He’s drinking, but he’s awfully restless,” Meredith said.

Are you sending me a message? Kagan wondered. Is this the same thing that happened when you kicked me, and I thought you were guiding me here?

He shook his head. Get real, he thought. I’m still off balance from being wounded.

“ So Joseph married her,” Kagan said. His temples felt the pressure of his urgent heartbeat. “There was a problem, though. Mary’s pregnancy would soon start to show. Too soon. Like nosy people everywhere, the good folks in Nazareth would start asking questions, and you can bet they wouldn’t believe what Mary said about the angel. The scandal would make her an outcast.

“ That’s when Mary learned that one of her relatives, Elizabeth, also was pregnant. Elizabeth lived a distance away in a town called Judah, and Mary decided to go there-‘in haste,’ Luke’s gospel says. She stayed three months, helping with the household until Elizabeth’s baby was born, but then it was time for Mary to return to Nazareth, where the townspeople would certainly have noticed that she was more pregnant than she should be. When Mary and Joseph heard about the Roman census decree, they realized they had a perfect excuse to leave town. Required by law to go to Bethlehem and register, they wouldn’t have taken long to pack.

“ Over a period of time, the Magi elicited this account from Mary. It was an amazing match to what the shepherds had told them about being visited by angels. The parallels were astonishing, and these priests who believed in dreams and magic wouldn’t have dismissed them. On the contrary, the Magi would have investigated in greater detail, questioning the people in Bethlehem, looking for inconsistencies and contradictions, anything to cast doubt on what was being said. But after all their efforts, the Magi concluded that the stories were genuine, that the disinformation they’d fed Herod in an effort to destabilize his government was, in ways too mysterious to understand, the truth.

“ I was with a group of spies when I first heard this interpretation of the Christmas story,” Kagan said. For a moment, he felt nostalgic. He’d been eighteen the first time he’d heard it. Fourteen years ago, Kagan thought.

And now I’m an old man.

“ One of those spies said he could make a case that the Magi themselves were victims of disinformation.”

“ What do you mean?” Cole asked.

“ Their sudden appearance in Jerusalem would have been widely reported. Herod’s furious reaction to what they said about the star and the newborn king would have been widely reported as well. Herod was an unpopular ruler. His fears about a rebellion were justified. Perhaps a rebel spy in Herod’s court learned that the king was sending the Magi to Bethlehem to search for the child. The rebels could have arranged for the shepherds and Mary to tell the Magi a story that elaborated on what the Magi had told Herod. Perhaps the Magi were deceived, just as they had deceived Herod.”

“ Deceived?” Meredith asked.

“ The rebels couldn’t have known that the Magi were foreign spies. They couldn’t have known that the Magi wanted to destabilize Herod’s government. So they told the Magi stories that they hoped the Magi would take back to Herod, further unbalancing the king. Perhaps the shepherds and Mary were rebels. Perhaps they wanted the same thing the Magi did, but neither side realized they were working toward a common goal.”

“ Makes my head spin,” Meredith said.

“ That’s what the spy world is like. A U.S. spymaster-who might actually have worked for the Soviets-once called espionage a wilderness of mirrors.”

“ But I don’t want to believe that Mary and the shepherds were pretending.”

“ Neither do I,” Kagan replied. “And as far as I’m concerned, the rest of the story proves they weren’t.”

The baby made a sound.

Kagan tensed.

“ He’s more restless,” Meredith said.

Kagan’s apprehension strengthened. “I’d better finish.”

“ You’re sure the same house key fits all the doors?” Andrei asked.

“ Yes,” Brody answered.

“ Good. Then this doesn’t need to be difficult. Go into the house. Act surprised when you see the intruder. Ask the natural questions about whatever traps you notice he’s arranged. Find out where the baby is.”

“ But the guy’ll see that I’m nervous,” Brody said. “He might suspect that I’m working for you.”

“ Of course he’ll see that you’re nervous. That’s the beauty of the situation. You beat up your wife. You’re terrified that she’ll leave you. You come to beg her to forgive you. Then you discover there’s a stranger in the house. Who wouldn’t be nervous? He’ll never guess what’s really going on. Just do what we rehearsed. Tomorrow morning, you and your family can open your Christmas presents. Tonight will be just a bad memory.”

“ I hope to God you’re right.”

Andrei gave Brody’s arm an encouraging squeeze.

“ You’ll do this perfectly. I have faith in you.”

He watched Brody walk uneasily through the falling snow toward the gate.

The moment Brody was too far away to hear what he said, Andrei turned to his companions.

“ Yakov, as soon as Brody’s inside, go to the left side of the house. Mikhail, go to the right. Use one of the metal chairs Brody told us about, and position it under a window in the master bedroom. Because you gave Brody your earbud and microphone, you and I will stay in contact via our cell phones while Yakov monitors the radio conversation. After we learn where the baby is and where the booby traps are, I’ll say, ‘ Merry Christmas’ to Brody. That’s my signal to both of you. A second later, I’ll shoot out the front window and attack through there.

“ At the same time, Mikhail, you’ll stand on the metal chair and go through a window in the back bedroom. The noise will keep Pyotyr from hearing Yakov turn the key in the side door and charge in. We’ll be shooting from three different directions. There’ll be so much disruption, Pyotyr won’t know where to turn first. Plus, all those people will be in the way, screaming, panicking, interfering with his aim.

“ When I picked up the cell phone Pyotyr lost, I also found his spare magazines. They must have been in the same coat pocket. Without enough ammunition to fight all of us, what chance does he have?”

“ You don’t want Brody and his family injured?” Mikhail asked.

“ On the contrary. They can’t be allowed to tell the police anything. I want them all dead. Except the baby. We can’t attack until we know where the baby is.”

The coppery odor of the nursemaid’s blood filled Kagan’s nostrils. He watched Yakov draw his thumb across the cash in the thick envelope he’d taken from the woman’s corpse.

Andrei held out his hand.

“ What?” Yakov asked.

“ Our clients might want the bribe money returned to them,” Andrei said. “Give it to me.”

“ And if they don’t remember to ask for the money?”

“ Then the Pakhan will want his cut.”

Surprising Kagan, it was Viktor who spoke next, not Yakov. “Always the Pakhan,” the gangly newcomer said, holding the baby.

Andrei ignored him. “Yakov, I want the envelope.”

With a sigh, Yakov gave it to him.

“ After the Pakhan takes his cut, I’ll divide the money evenly,” Andrei promised.

“ We’ll make sure you do.” Viktor tightened his grip on the squirming baby.

Andrei turned toward him. “You’re new, Viktor. You’re still learning how things work here, so I’ll make an exception just this once. But never challenge me again.”

Viktor’s eyes became fierce. “Yakov challenged you also. Give him shit, the same as you do me.”

“ Yakov challenged me? I don’t think so.”

Viktor glowered. “Whatever you say.”

“ Now you’re getting the idea. Whatever I say.”

The baby whimpered in Viktor’s arms. The sound-and the helplessness it conveyed-stirred something in Kagan.

“ Give the package to Mikhail,” Andrei said.

“ But I can handle it,” Viktor objected.

“ It doesn’t like you. Do as we rehearsed and give the baby to Mikhail before you make it cry.”

Kagan watched Andrei step close to the baby and concentrate on its small, unhappy face. An odd emotion seemed to cross Andrei’s own face, a feeling he apparently found so unusual that it baffled him. As Viktor gave the struggling baby to Mikhail, Andrei shook his head, giving the impression that he forcibly subdued the unfamiliar emotion. He stuffed the envelope into an inside pocket of his ski jacket, then pressed the microphone that was hidden under the ski-lift tickets on the jacket.

“ This is Melchior. We have the package. We’re leaving the store. Two minutes.”

Viktor and Yakov opened the bedroom door and checked to make certain the hallway was deserted before stepping out of the room. They put their weapons in their coats and motioned for Mikhail to follow with the baby. Kagan and Andrei went last, concealing their pistols, making sure the door was locked behind them.

As they’d rehearsed, Kagan hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob. The television continued to murmur in the suite, the elderly man’s voice still maintaining that he was Santa Claus.

They went down the curved staircase and walked along the carpeted hallway, passing the desk where the receptionist had greeted them before Mikhail had killed her.

Viktor opened the security door that isolated this exclusive group of rooms from the rest of the hotel. Keeping Mikhail and the baby in the middle, the group passed the elevator, opened a fire door, and went down a harshly lit concrete stairwell. As they descended, they took off their latex gloves and put on their outdoor ones.

The baby’s whimper echoed amid their scraping footsteps.

“ This is Melchior. One minute till arrival,” Andrei said to his microphone.

Three floors down, they reached the street level. Here a security camera was aimed at the corridor. They kept their heads down and tightened their two-one-two formation, partially shielding Mikhail in the middle so the camera couldn’t see the baby in his arms.

Through a glass door-the side exit from the hotel-Kagan saw snow falling past murky streetlights. Warmly dressed people walked past the window. Beyond vehicles parked along the curb, a dark van suddenly stopped.

I can’t do this, Kagan thought.

That afternoon, for a long time, he’d knelt in the nearby cathedral and stared at a manger scene, trying to tell himself that his controllers were absolutely right, that the innocent lives he’d saved were all that mattered. “Bring me home,” he’d begged them in dead-drop messages during the past three months. Sometimes he’d managed to slip away from Andrei and risk phone calls. But there had always been some reason his controllers couldn’t bring him in. He was too well placed, they’d insisted. No one could ever hope to penetrate the Russian mob so deeply. If he disappeared, the Russians would realize he was a spy, making it more dangerous to try to infiltrate another operative into the heart of their organization.

“ Then fake my death,” Kagan had urged them. “The Russians won’t suspect I was a mole if they think I’m dead.” But his controllers had talked of new rumors, about plastic explosives, hand-held missiles, and biological weapons being smuggled in via ports controlled by the Odessa Mafia. They’d reminded him of all the innocent lives he had an obligation to save.

Meanwhile, he’d obeyed the Pakhan’s orders to burn homes, break arms and legs, yank out teeth, and beat up women. More of his soul had disintegrated.

Viktor and Yakov stepped from the hotel and looked both ways, staring at pedestrians in the shadowy snowfall. With a nod, they signaled to Mikhail to carry the baby outside. Andrei and Kagan followed.

Kagan’s cheeks felt cold. His stomach felt colder.

Too much, he thought. No more.

The group passed between snow-covered cars parked along the curb. Headlights glowed in the street. Reaching the van, Viktor pulled its side door open. Yakov scrambled in. Mikhail approached with the baby. Andrei and Kagan followed.

The baby squirmed in Mikhail’s arms.

I wanted to make the world better, Kagan thought.

The baby cried. Mikhail held it with one arm while using his free hand to grip an armrest in the van and climb in.

“ Don’t drop it,” Andrei warned.

I wanted to fight the kind of men who made my parents afraid for so many years, Kagan thought.

The baby struggled as Mikhail sat next to Yakov opposite the side door.

And now I’m no different from the people I set out to fight.

Kagan let Andrei climb in next. With the middle seat occupied, Andrei was forced to squeeze toward the seat in the back.

I’ve beaten. I’ve tortured. I’ve killed, Kagan thought. But by God, this is one thing I won’t do.

He leaned into the van, as if to reach for an armrest and climb all the way in. His heart pounding, he pointed in feigned alarm.

“ What happened to the baby? It’s bleeding!”

“ What?” Mikhail asked. “Where?” He opened his arms to examine the child.

Kagan grabbed it, surged back from the open door, felt Viktor behind him, and swung. Something tugged violently at his coat, but only for a moment. With both arms gripping the baby, Kagan focused on his right elbow. He pivoted with such force that when the tip of the elbow struck Viktor’s nose, he felt the bones crack. They shattered and propelled inward with such power that Kagan knew they’d pierced Viktor’s brain.

Hearing shouts of alarm coming from the open van, he charged up the street, veered between cars at the curb, reached the sidewalk, and shouted for pedestrians to get out of his way. All at once, his left arm jerked, then became numb.

He’d been hit by a bullet. The sound suppressor on the gun that had fired it prevented bystanders from knowing why glass had shattered in front of him.

That’s the last shot they’ll fire, he desperately hoped. Andrei won’t take the chance of a stray bullet hitting the baby.

As he hurried through the crowd, Kagan used his now-awkward left arm to pull down the zipper on his parka. The numbness changed to searing pain. Imagining Andrei, Yakov, and Mikhail scrambling from the van, he shoved the baby under his coat and pulled up the zipper to provide warmth.

Andrei would immediately chase him, Kagan knew. Yakov and perhaps Mikhail would drag Viktor’s body into the van before the pedestrians could realize what had happened and start a panic. Then the two killers would join the hunt.

Andrei’s voice shouted through his earbud.

“ Pyotyr, what the hell are you doing?”

Kagan increased his speed, shouldering past people on the sidewalk.

“ Pyotyr, bring back the package!”

Instead of answering, Kagan took deep breaths and rushed toward the cathedral that towered at the end of the narrow street. The baby nestled against him, warm and surprisingly calm against his stomach.

I’ll protect you, he silently promised. I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.

He looked for a police car, tempted to ask for help, but immediately he realized that during the time it would take to explain, Andrei and the others would catch up. They would shoot Kagan and the policeman in the head and take the baby.

Phone for backup, he told himself. Desperate to contact his controllers, he used his stiffening arm to reach for the cell phone in the left pocket of his coat. He felt dizzy when he discovered that the pocket was torn open, that his cell phone was missing, along with his spare ammunition. He remembered something tugging at the side of his coat. Someone must have lunged to try to stop him and snagged that pocket.

Have a plan, a backup plan, and then a backup plan after that. Kagan’s instructors had hammered that into him. Visualize what you’re going to do. Rehearse it in your mind, even if you can’t rehearse it physically. Never do anything without knowing your options.

But Kagan’s decision to take the baby had been made on the spot. Even though he’d agonized about it that afternoon in front of the cathedral’s manger, he hadn’t made up his mind until the moment he’d leaned into the van and told Mikhail, “The baby’s bleeding!”

Where am I going? Kagan thought in desperation.

Ahead, he saw a crowd on the street to the right of the cathedral. Hundreds of people walked with purpose. Under his parka, the baby kicked him, as if urging him to follow.

“ Pyotyr!” Andrei’s angry voice pierced through Kagan’s earbud. “I found your cell phone! You’re on your own! You can’t get help! Bring back the package!”

Breathing hard, wincing from the pain that now swelled his left arm, Kagan kept rushing, trying not to lose his balance on the slippery sidewalk. He heard someone in the crowd talk about Christmas lights on Canyon Road.

The baby kicked him again.

“ Pyotyr, you won’t like what I do to you,” Andrei swore.

The baby whimpered.

“ Don’t cry,” Kagan murmured.

“ I’m doing my best to calm him,” Meredith insisted.

“ I know,” Kagan answered gently.

Muscles tightening, he continued to stare out the window toward the falling snow. He couldn’t suppress the suspicion that somehow the baby was warning him, as crazy as that seemed.

Did I lose more blood than I realized? Am I so light-headed that I’m imagining things?

The baby became quiet again. But Kagan’s muscles didn’t relax.

“ The rest of the story might not be suitable for Christmas Eve,” Kagan said. Hoping to keep the boy intrigued, he added, “Parts of it are what Cole would call gross.”

“ Then I want to hear it,” the boy insisted.

Kagan licked his dry lips. “Okay, but don’t say you weren’t warned.

“ The Magi felt overwhelmed by what the shepherds and Mary had told them. The startling similarities to the story they themselves had told Herod brought them to an extraordinary decision. They violated a primary rule of spy craft and exposed their mission, confessing to Mary that they were foreign operatives pretending to work for Herod.

“‘ We wanted to drive him insane searching for an imaginary newborn king of the Jews,’ they explained. ‘But now we find that the story we invented is true. You can’t stay here. Soon Herod will wonder why we haven’t reported to him. If he learns about your baby from another source, his soldiers will come here and kill you all.’

“ What happened next proves that Mary and the shepherds weren’t part of a rebel scheme. If they’d been rebels, they’d have realized that the Magi were on their side. They’d have admitted they were rebels and tried to join forces with the Magi to weaken Herod.

“ But they didn’t. Instead the two groups separated and fled. The Magi chose a new route eastward toward home and acted as decoys. Meanwhile, Joseph hurried with Mary and Jesus southwest toward Egypt. He claimed that he’d had another dream, this one urging him to take his family and run. A spy would argue that the dream was a cover story to protect the Magi, in case Joseph was caught and questioned. It was believable because, as I mentioned, the house of David-to which Joseph belonged-had a tradition of respecting dreams and acting on them. For the same reason, the Magi claimed that they too had experienced a dream that urged them to return home. If questioned, they could maintain that they weren’t being disloyal to Herod but were simply responding to the same dictates of their faith that had told them to follow the star.

“ Whether Herod would have believed either of these stories is debatable. But at least they had a backup plan.

“ Matthew’s gospel notes that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled by night, something the Magi would have urged them to do, teaching them how to cross the desert in the darkness. The Magi themselves disappear at this point, as good spies should. But the man who told me this version of the Christmas story believed that the Magi eventually rejoined Jesus,

Mary, and Joseph in Egypt, teaching them the tricks of tradecraft, such as how to spot signs that they were under surveillance, how to recruit operatives-or what the gospels call disciples-and how to detect double agents.

“ The last part makes me certain that Jesus knew Judas would betray him. Indeed, perhaps Jesus ordered Judas to betray him in order to fulfill a prophecy. The spy world is a complicated place. But this is a Christmas story, not an Easter one.”

Cole interrupted him. “You said you had a theory about why Joseph wasn’t with Mary when the Magi talked to her.”

“ Yes. Given his immense responsibility, Joseph became more a protective agent than a husband and father. While the Magi spoke with Mary, Joseph watched the street outside, on guard against Herod’s soldiers. In the future, he would spend increasingly less time with Mary and Jesus because he was always arranging for their security. Like the Magi, he soon disappears from the gospels completely, as a good security officer should. Nowhere in the gospels is he quoted directly. He hovers invisibly in the background.”

“ But you said there were gross parts,” Cole objected.

“ Several. They all involve Herod. Contrary to what the Magi hoped, he didn’t chase the phantom accounts that popped up here and there all over the country. His erratic behavior didn’t destabilize Israel. Instead he did something so disturbing that no one could have predicted it, even taking into account his past actions.

“ When Herod realized he’d been tricked, his fury prompted him to send his men to Bethlehem and the other villages in that area. The soldiers obeyed his orders and slaughtered every male child who was two years old or less. Herod couldn’t be certain when exactly the new king had been born. By choosing the wide margin of two years, he felt certain he’d eliminated the threat.”

“ Every boy who was two years old or less?” Cole sounded shocked, yet fascinated. “I heard about that, but I never realized… How many boys did he kill?”

“ Perhaps as many as a hundred. Tradition says it was a far greater number, but the population of the area that included Bethlehem wasn’t large enough for there to be thousands of children. Even so, the mass murder of a hundred children would have felt like thousands. The effect on the region was catastrophic.

“ If a revolution was indeed being planned, this slaughter of children was so startling that now no one dared move against Herod. How can you fight someone so psychotic that, in his will, he had made arrangements for several hundred men to have their throats slit at his funeral? He gave that order because he wanted tears to be shed at his death. It didn’t matter if the tears were for him or for the slaughtered men. All he cared about was that his subjects would be grief-stricken.

“ So, from one point of view, the Magi’s plan went terribly wrong. They hoped to destabilize Herod’s government, and instead they caused a slaughter. But from another point of view, that mass murder had an unintentional positive effect. By killing every other male child around Bethlehem, Herod insured that the baby Jesus was the only surviving child born when and where the king of peace was prophesied to appear. The census turned out to be crucial. It not only brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem to fulfill the prophecy, but it also provided written proof that Jesus was born there.

“ As for Herod… After the children were slaughtered, a mysterious illness overcame him. An eyewitness reported that the king felt consumed with fire. He convulsed. His legs swelled with water. His bowels developed ulcers. His penis rotted and developed worms.”

“ Worms on his… ewww, gross,” Cole said.

“ I warned you. The historical records say that the king breathed with violent quickness, exuding a terrible odor. His agony lasted for a long time, which I confess gives me satisfaction. After he finally died, the officials in charge of his funeral refused to obey his edict, so no men were murdered when he was buried.”

“ But what killed him?” the boy asked.

“ One theory is that he had chronic kidney disease. Another says he had a raging type of skin cancer. My own belief is that he suffered from what’s called the flesh-eating disease. Basically, he was devoured by his own bacteria. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. His evil consumed him.

“ But what interests me is, how did it happen to him? Was it bad luck? Was it God’s will? Or do you suppose a spy had something to do with it, touching Herod with a contaminated cloth that caused the disease? We’ll never know. When an espionage mission is successful, we never realize what was actually involved. But I like to think Herod was assassinated with what we now refer to as a biological weapon.”

Kagan paused.

“ And that’s the spy’s version of Christmas.”

Suddenly the baby cried out.

One moment, it was silent. The next, it wailed as if struck by all the pain and fear in the world, and this time, Kagan was absolutely sure.

“ It’s beginning,” he said.

Morrell, David

The Spy Who Came for Christmas

Part Four

The Child of Peace

Morrell, David

The Spy Who Came for Christmas

“ COLE, GET BEHIND the television cabinet! Meredith, take the baby into the laundry room!”

As the baby’s wail persisted, Kagan sank from the leather chair and gripped his pistol with two hands, ignoring the pain in his left arm. Although he realized the notion was crazy, every instinct told him that the baby was telling him something, crying out to warn him. He hadn’t survived these many years without relying on his instincts, and right now, they were clanging like alarm bells.

Andrei’ll come from the front, he reminded himself, pulse racing. He’ll try to distract me while the others attack from the sides. His usual method. The same as at the hotel. He knows I’ll expect it, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the best tactic for this location.

Nonetheless, while Kagan stared through the window toward the falling snow and the barely visible coyote fence, he didn’t see anyone stalking forward.

Maybe I’m imagining things, he hoped. Maybe they really went away.

But he knew that if they were watching the house, for sure they could hear the baby now. His ears hurt from the wail.

How can I listen for somebody breaking in?

The wail ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Kagan heard a scraping sound. It came from Meredith desperately pulling the wicker basket into the shadows of the laundry room, where she would try to conceal the baby behind the washer and dryer

The house became unnaturally still

Maybe I let my nerves get the better of me, Kagan thought, although he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. It could be that the baby’s crying only because he needs his diaper changed

At once, Kagan saw a hint of the gate being opened and closed, a figure emerging from the snowfall

Kagan raised his gun, compensating for the weight of the sound suppressor as he aimed. Does Andrei think the snow hide him? I can shoot him now. Then I only need to worry about..

But the light above the front door reflected off the snow, revealing that the figure’s coat was pale gray and not the black of Andrei’s ski jacket. Instead of Andrei’s watchman’s cap, the man wore a billed cap with earflaps. The figure was Andrei’s height, but thin-without Andrei’s broad shoulders. When the man came closer, Kagan saw that he had a mustache.

“ Meredith?”

“ What?”

“ Hurry into the living room. Somebody’s coming. Does your husband have a mustache? Is this him?"

Kagan heard her footsteps on the brick floor as she scurried through the darkness. Again, he didn’t need to remind her to stay low.

“ I…” She stared out the window. A breath caught in her throat. “Yes. That’s Ted.”

The front door was to the right of the window. Kagan shifted to the left. Remaining in the shadows, pressing himself close to the window, he stared along the front of the house. He didn’t see anyone hiding there. Not that he could see the entire length of the house. But he saw enough to take a chance.

The angle the man followed would lead him to the side door, and Kagan didn’t want him entering from that direction. There wasn’t a window. Kagan didn’t have a way to check for anyone hiding beyond that other door. It would be easy for someone to rush in behind Ted.

“ Meredith, open the front door. Tell him to come in that way.”

She studied Kagan. Even in the shadows, he saw the contour of the swelling bruises on her cheek and the side of her mouth.

“ He won’t hit you again. I promise.”

Meredith nodded, ending her hesitation. She twisted the dead bolt and opened the door. The outside light exposed her. As cold air streamed into the living room, she called out, “Ted, come in. Over here.”

“ Meredith?” The voice was unsteady, perhaps from alcohol. “Are these footprints out here? The snow almost filled them, but they seem to go toward the house. Did someone show up while I was gone?”

“ Get inside,” Meredith told him firmly.

“ Did I hear a baby cry a few seconds ago?”

“ Ted, for heaven’s sake, it’s cold. Get in here.”

Ted approached the door.

“ Meredith, I’m begging you to forgive me,” he said. “The worst thing I ever did in my life was hit you. I’d give anything to take it back. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Snow flurried in.

Ted took off his gloves and stepped through the door. He cast a shadow from the outside light. “Those footprints-who made them?”

Meredith quickly shut and locked the door.

In a rush, Kagan knocked Ted’s legs from under him, dropped him chest first on the floor, pressed the Glock against the back of his head, and told him, “Put your hands behind your neck.”

“ What’s going on? Is that a gun?”

“ Put your hands behind your neck, and link your fingers.”

“ Who the-”

Kagan gripped Ted’s hair and rapped his forehead on the bricks.

“ Ouch!”

“ Do what you’re told. Meredith, keep looking out the window.”

She took Kagan’s place in the chair.

Trembling, Ted obeyed Kagan’s orders and put his hands behind his neck, linking his fingers. His breath smelled faintly of whiskey, but his speech wasn’t slurred, making Kagan think that he hadn’t drunk any alcohol in a couple of hours.

“ What the hell is going on?”

“ Pay attention,” Kagan ordered. “Is anybody out there?”

“ What do you mean? Who’d be-”

Kagan rapped Ted’s forehead on the bricks, harder this time.

“ Hey, you’re hurting me!”

“ That’s the whole idea, Ted. Who’s out there?”

“ It’s Christmas Eve, for heaven’s sake. Plenty of people are out there.”

“ In the lane?”

“ No, on Canyon Road.”

“ I asked about the lane.”

“ It’s deserted. This far from Canyon Road, there aren’t many decorations. Why would anybody be in the lane? Who the hell are you?”

“ Hold still.”

Keeping his pistol against the back of Ted’s neck, Kagan used his injured arm and painfully searched him. He started at Ted’s right ankle, moving up his leg, probing his hips and groin.

“ Hey!” Ted objected.

Kagan ignored him, checking his left leg and then the rest of his body. He didn’t find any weapons. He did feel a wallet, but not what he was searching for.

“ The cell phones,” Kagan said. If he could get his hands on one of them, he could call for help. “You left here with two cell phones, yours and Meredith’s.”

“ How did you know that? Why do you care about-”

“ Where are they?”

“ Stolen.”

“ What?”

“ On Canyon Road,” Ted answered. “Somebody knocked against me and kept going through the crowd. Then I realized that my coat felt lighter. I reached in my pockets. The cell phones were gone.”

“ Somebody took the cell phones but not your wallet?”

“ In my coat pocket, they were easy to get, but my wallet’s under my coat. Meredith, who is this guy? How did he get in the house?”

“ Shut up while I decide if I believe you,” Kagan told him.

“ Why wouldn’t you believe me? I don’t know who you are, buddy, but this is between my wife and me, okay?”

Kagan’s instincts told him to let Ted keep talking, on the chance that he might inadvertently say something useful.

Ted looked imploringly at his wife.

“ Meredith, I swear I’ve never been sorrier for anything in my life. Whatever this guy wants, you and I can deal with him. But we can’t solve anything if you don’t forgive me. After what I did to you, I walked and walked. I felt so bad, I’d have stepped in front of a truck if Canyon Road hadn’t been closed to traffic.”

“ You can come to your hands and knees,” Kagan said.

“ Everybody was enjoying the carolers and the Christmas lights, but all I wanted was to kill myself.” Ted’s voice was strained as he glanced around the murky living room. “I don’t know what made me notice it, but I saw an old adobe building with a sign that said, ‘The Friends.’ It struck me as some kind of…”

“ Come to your knees,” Kagan ordered. “Put your hands in your coat pockets.”

Ted obeyed, shifting his knees to avoid the folds of his coat, awkwardly stuffing his hands into the pockets. He kept talking the entire time.

“ Think about it, Meredith. The one night of the year I surely needed a friend, somebody to straighten me out, and here’s this sign.”

Kagan remained at the side of the living room, away from the window. “You can stand now.”

In the shadows, Ted rose unsteadily, almost losing his balance because his hands were in his coat pockets. He seemed too nervous to stop talking.

“ I went in, and there were people sitting on benches along the walls of a big room. Nobody said a word. They had their heads down. I didn’t understand until I saw a plaque on the wall: ‘The Religious Society of Friends.’”

Ted paused. Again, he looked around the living room.

“ They were Quakers, Meredith. I remembered reading in the newspaper that the Quakers have a meeting hall on Canyon Road. The people with their heads down-they were praying. I sat on one of the benches and realized that it had been years since I’d prayed. I’d almost forgotten how to do it, and God knows I had lots to pray for. You. Cole. The strength to quit drinking.”

Ted kept looking around the living room. Although Kagan couldn’t say why, there was something about Ted’s behavior that made him uneasy.

“ After a while, they raised their heads and began talking with each other. Their voices were so peaceful. Their faces almost glowed. They looked at me as if I was the most welcome person in the world. One of them brought me a cup of coffee. They didn’t pry, but I knew they understood the pain I was in.

“ That’s where I’ve been all this time, Meredith, waiting to get sober enough to come home. I couldn’t help asking myself where my life was going and what I was doing to you and Cole and… Cole? Where are you, son? Are you okay?”

“ I’m here.” Cole’s muffled voice came from a corner of the living room.

“ Behind the television cabinet? What are you doing back there?”

“ Hiding.”

“ From what? Did this guy hurt you? If he-”

“ No,” Meredith insisted, cutting him off. “He didn’t hurt us.”

“ Then somebody tell me what’s going on.”

“ Three men followed me,” Kagan said.

“ Followed you? What are you talking about?”

“ Just shut up and listen. They’re tall. Heavy. Tough-looking. In their mid-forties. One of them has a face like it’s been chiseled from a block of wood. Thick eyebrows. A scar on his left cheek. A strong jaw. You’re sure you didn’t see someone who looks like that out there?”

“ I told you, the lane’s empty. I didn’t see anybody after I left the crowd on Canyon Road. Hey, put the gun down. It’s making me nervous.”

“ It’s supposed to. Keep your hands in your pockets.”

“ It’s too dark in here. I can’t see your face. Meredith, turn on some lights.”

“ No,” Kagan said.

“ Three guys followed you? What do they want?” Ted paused, seeming to focus his thoughts. “I’m sure I heard a baby crying. Where is it?”

Ted stepped to the back of the living room, glancing left and right. His eyes adjusted to the shadows. “Why are all these drawers lying in the hallway outside the bedrooms?”

Kagan followed as Ted moved toward the kitchen. He grabbed Ted’s hand when he reached to turn on a light switch.

Ted spoke again, his voice louder. “Why are you boiling-”

“ Get back in here.” Kagan yanked him into the living room.

Something bothered Kagan about what he’d found or rather hadn’t found when he’d searched Ted. No weapons. Not surprising. A wallet, but no cell phones. The explanation for the missing cell phones made a degree of sense. Christmas Eve was a perfect time to be a pickpocket. Crowds, confusion. Items in an outside pocket were easy to steal, compared to a wallet underneath the coat.

But there was something else that troubled Kagan. It nagged at the corner of his mind.

Something missing.

Something every man carried in his pants pocket.

“ Ted, where are your keys?”

“ What?”

“ When I searched you, I didn’t find any keys. How did you expect to get back in the house?”

“ My keys? I didn’t…” A gain Ted paused, as if focusing his thoughts. “I guess I was so drunk, I forgot them.”

“ No,” Meredith said. “You had them in your pocket. You wanted to take the Range Rover, but I insisted that you were too drunk to drive. That’s when you hit me. I told you Canyon Road was closed to traffic, and you hit me again. But I guess you finally got the message-because you walked off instead of driving.”

“ I told you I’m sorry, Meredith. I’ll keep saying it as often as I need to. I was wrong. You had every reason to try to keep me from driving. I’ll never take another drink, and I swear to God I’ll never hit you again.”

“ Stop changing the subject!” Kagan said. “Where are your keys?”

For a third time, Ted paused. “The pickpocket. He must have taken them. I must have been too drunk to realize it.”

“ The thief managed to lift two cell phones and your car keys but not your wallet?”

“ The keys were in my coat pocket with the cell phones. I remember now. They wouldn’t have been hard to get.” For a fourth time, Ted paused. Then he spoke again, loudly. “I know I heard a baby crying.”

“ Why are you speaking like that?”

Ted cocked his head.

“ The cry seemed to come from… the kitchen? No… the laundry room.”

“ Why do you keep pausing?”

“ I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“ You’re giving me a bad feeling, Ted.”

“ The laundry room.”

“ A very bad feeling. Those men outside-did you lie about them?”

“ Why would I-”

“ Did they promise they’d let you and Meredith and Cole go free, that they wouldn’t hurt you if you helped them?”

“ I told you, nobody’s out there,” Ted protested. The sudden, deeper unsteadiness in his voice made Kagan more apprehensive.

“ They’re killers, Ted. Whatever they told you isn’t true. They have a strict rule about not leaving witnesses.”

Meredith turned from crouching near the window. “Ted, dear God, did you lie to us?”

“ Of course not.”

“ Are they out there? Are you helping them?”

“ I’m not helping anybody,” Ted answered, much too fast.

“ On your knees again,” Kagan ordered.

“ My knees?”

“ You keep pausing while you talk. Are you listening to someone? Why is your hat still on?”

Kagan kicked the back of Ted’s legs and dropped him to his knees. He yanked off Ted’s hat. With the earflaps gone, he probed Ted’s right ear but found nothing.

“ Hey!” Ted objected, trying to twist away.

Kagan probed Ted’s left ear, his stomach turning when he found something that blocked it. Sick, he pulled out the earbud. “Where’s the microphone?”

“ Microphone?”

Kagan whacked his gun barrel against the side of Ted’s forehead. “You stupid fool, give me the damned microphone!”

Ted groaned, raising a hand to his head.

“ The microphone!” Kagan hit him again with the gun barrel. “Where is it?”

“ Under my coat collar.”

Kagan found it and pulled it free. “Where’s the transmitter?”

“ In one of my gloves. When you knocked me down, I shoved it under that chair.”

Grabbing for it, Kagan shouted, “Meredith, you know where to go. Hurry. Cole, he told them you’re hiding behind the television cabinet. You’ll need to find another spot.”

“ But they promised they wouldn’t hurt us!” Ted insisted, his voice rising. “I’d never put my son in danger!”

“ That’s exactly what you did.”

“ No! All I care about is protecting my family. Meredith, I was only trying to help you and Cole. Surely you understand that.”

“ Pay attention,” Kagan demanded. “Who are you going to believe? Your wife and son, who trust me, or those men outside, who’ll do anything to get their hands on the baby? I promise you, they won’t think twice about killing us all. They never leave witnesses.”

“ All I wanted was-”

“ For God’s sake, shut up and help your family!”

Crouching in the living room, Kagan listened as Meredith hurried toward the laundry room, where she’d hidden the baby.

He had no idea what new hiding place Cole had chosen, and he didn’t dare ask, aware that Andrei would hear through the microphone he’d taken from Brody. He was about to shut off the transmitter or relieve his anger by hurling the microphone onto the brick floor and smashing it, but suddenly he realized he had a use for it.

He shoved the earbud into his left ear and spoke into the microphone. “Andrei?”

“ Regrets, my friend?” The voice sounded bitter. “I warned you how this would end.”

Instinctively, Kagan directed his words toward the front window.

“ There are computers in the house. I e-mailed for help. The police are on their way.”

“ No, Pyotyr. When I rehearsed things with my not-so-good spy, he told me his computers have password locks.”

“ Password locks,” Kagan repeated, staring at Ted.

Ted seemed paralyzed by confusion. Abruptly, he murmured, “I’ll fix that.” He crawled across the living room, squirmed over the drawers at the end of the hallway, and entered his office.

“ Give me the package, and my offer still holds,” Andrei’s acid voice said through the earbud. “You can walk away.”

“ Why don’t I believe you?” Kagan said into the microphone.

“ Then consider this. Your foolishness has involved other people. You’re responsible for everything that happens to the family in there. Their deaths will be your fault.”

Kagan couldn’t help glancing behind him: first toward the shadows of the laundry room, where Meredith hid with the baby, and then toward a glow in Ted’s office, presumably caused by a computer screen. He heard Ted’s fingers clicking at a keyboard.

Where’s Cole? he wondered.

“ But if you give me the package,” Andrei’s voice said, “I’ll let the family live.”

“ Even though they’re witnesses?”

“ Only the man saw us. But I’ll make an exception and allow him to live, along with his wife and son. We’ll be out of Santa Fe before the police get organized. I don’t risk much by letting the family survive. It’s my gesture to you, Pyotyr, because I valued your friendship, even though you didn’t value mine. Give me the package. Accept your punishment. Since you apparently have a conscience, at least you’ll know that others won’t suffer because of you.”

“ It’s a baby, Andrei. Not a package. If I do as you ask, what happens to him?”

“ Our clients will keep it, to use it to pressure Hassan into rejecting his cause and going back to being a doctor. That’s a better way than assassinating him and turning him into a martyr. In his speeches, Hassan promises his followers that he’ll be tireless in his pursuit of a lasting peace. When he swears, ‘I’ll never let you down,’ thousands flock to him. If he quits, his followers will be so disillusioned that his cause will wither.”

“ And a year from now? Two years from now? What happens to the child then?” Kagan demanded.

“ Hassan and his wife will be allowed occasional secret visits. There’s a birthmark on its left heel.”

“ Yes. Shaped like a rose.”

“ Proof that it’s still alive, that there hasn’t been a substitution. To keep anything from happening to it, Hassan and his wife won’t dare to take up the cause again.”

“ You keep calling the baby ‘it.’ Not ‘it,’ Andrei. He. A person.”

“ Pyotyr, you know there are only objects. If you’d remembered that, you wouldn’t be having this problem. What’s your real name?”

Kagan ignored the question. He had an urgent one of his own.

“ Hassan’s enemies, will they raise his child?”

“ Yes. Until he’s old enough to be trained as a suicide bomber.”

The statement felt like a blow to Kagan’s stomach. Something in him went numb. Only after a moment did he realize that Andrei had referred to the child as “he,” not “it.”

“ What’s your real name?” Andrei repeated.

Train him to be a suicide bomber? Kagan felt sickened, unable to speak.

Ted crawled from his office and reached Kagan, who tapped the microphone against his leg to prevent Andrei from hearing what Ted whispered.

“ I have phone capability on my computers, but when I tried the Santa Fe police, all I got was a busy signal. The snow must have caused a lot of accidents. I sent an e-mail to people I know in Santa Fe, telling them to contact the police and get a SWAT team here.”

Kagan nodded, doing his best to look optimistic. Still, he couldn’t help thinking, It’s Christmas Eve. Is this the one night of the year when people won’t check their e-mail? Or will their phone calls only jam the 911 phone circuits more? How many hours might it take before the police arrive?

The glow from Ted’s office made him feel exposed. He whispered to Ted. “The light from your monitors. Shut them off.”

Immediately, he stopped tapping the microphone and said to it, “My real name? It’s what I told you. It’s Pyotyr. I didn’t lie about everything. Our friendship’s real.”

“ Of course. And your last name?” Andrei’s voice asked.

“ You know I won’t tell you that. I need to protect my family.”

“ Your family?” Andrei sounded indignant. “You mean you have a wife, and you didn’t tell me?”

“ No! How could I work undercover this long and be married? Don’t you think I want a wife and children like you do? Don’t you think I envy you? My mother and father. They’re my family.”

Kagan said it with a subdued wave of grief. His parents were, in fact, dead-the victims of a drunk driver who’d hit their car head-on two years earlier. But he needed to try to make Andrei relate to him as a person, and parents who were still alive gave him a sympathetic reason not to reveal his last name.

“ And you work for American intelligence?”

“ Yes.”

“ You admit it. Finally, some truth.”

“ Andrei, remember the day we drove down to the gun dealer in Maryland to pick up that load of weapons the Pakhan wanted? We made the dealer add our Glocks as a bonus. We spent the afternoon on the firing range, testing who’s a better shot.”

“ And my Glock will be the gun that kills you.”

“ Listen to me. In the last few years, I can’t recall a better afternoon,” Kagan said. He concentrated on the kitchen door, ready to shoot if someone charged in. “I am your friend, Andrei. I was honored to be invited to your home. I felt privileged to be with your wife and daughters. They’re the family I never had. Remember when I saved your life in Colombia?”

“ Don’t make too much of that, Pyotyr.”

Kagan shifted his attention to the shadows in the hallway, listening for someone breaking in.

“ That drug lord was seriously pissed off when he realized the Soviet-era submarine you’d sold him would sink the first time he tried to use it to smuggle cocaine into the United States. I’m the one who spotted the ambush in that parking garage. You were ahead of me and the other men. I could have left you and run like the others did. But I got you out of there when no one else tried.”

“ And as thanks, I’ll make your death instantaneous.”

“ Some things can’t be faked, Andrei. Our friendship is one of them. You’d have sensed immediately if I was playing a game. I never told my controllers about anything that you were personally involved in. I never did anything that put you at risk.”

“ Except when you stole the baby.”

Kagan noticed that Andrei said “the baby” and not “the package.” That gave him a reason to hope.

“ No one is more ruthless than our clients,” Andrei insisted. “If I don’t deliver what they paid us to get, they’ll never stop hunting me. The Pakhan, too, will never stop hunting me.”

“ There’s an alternative!” Kagan kept pacing, checking the kitchen door and the hallway.

“ I can’t imagine what it could be.”

“ Come over to my side.”

“ Your side?”

“ Work for us.”

“ Defect?” Andrei made the concept sound outrageous.

“ Just pretend it’s the Cold War.”

“ Join American intelligence? And you make this proposal on a radio frequency to which my comrades are listening. Is this the quality of tradecraft your controllers taught you?”

“ It’s the only way I have of talking with you! Listen to me, Andrei. Working for my side is better than stealing babies. Don’t you have a personal low, a point beyond which you’d despise yourself? Isn’t there ever a time when you feel ashamed? Worse than that? Disgusted?”

Andrei fell silent.

“ That’s what I’ve been feeling for a very long time,” Kagan continued. “Self-disgust.”

“ I do what’s necessary for business,” Andrei’s voice replied.

“ But there are other ways to earn a living. Your wife doesn’t have any idea how many people you’ve killed to pay for that nice house near the beach. Your daughters don’t know how much blood it took to earn their tuition at that wonderful private school they attend. How do you suppose they’d react if they found out what you really are? One day, government agents will pound on your door. Or else one night, rival gangsters will go to your home and-”

“ Shut up!”

“ Andrei, you once said we didn’t have a choice about our lives. Well, now I’m giving you a chance to take control. Join me. Wouldn’t it be great to tell your wife and daughters the truth about what you do, and to know it’s honorable? My people will relocate them,” Kagan said into the microphone. “You’ll all receive new identities. Your wife and daughters will be protected. You won’t need to be afraid for them.”

Kagan hoped it was true. He couldn’t help recalling the fear with which his parents and he had lived, despite the best promises of the State Department.

“ You’ll earn an honest salary, doing good for a change,” Kagan said. “Wouldn’t it feel wonderful to give the child of peace a chance to fulfill his destiny?”

“ Destiny?” Andrei mocked. “You sound like a politician.”

“ When I was running from you tonight, I felt as if the baby was trying to communicate with me, to tell me where to go and warn me when you were close.”

“ Your wound made you hallucinate.”

“ But I believe the baby does have a destiny, Andrei. His father’s amazing: a powerful, inspiring leader who preaches hope instead of hate. Imagine how much more amazing his son can be. Maybe our destiny is to guarantee that he fulfills his. Why don’t we make sure the baby gets back to his parents?”

“ Then the clients and the Pakhan would hunt down both of us. Neither our deaths nor those of my family would be quick.”

“ That won’t happen if we hunt them first, Andrei. We can make them sorry they ever thought of raising the baby to be a suicide bomber. Who was the monster who had that idea? How’s that for somebody’s personal low? Let’s show them we’re better than that. Let’s show them we’re human beings.”

Kagan paused, turning his head toward the outside entrance to the kitchen. Did I hear something? A key being slid into a lock?

Again, he tapped the microphone against his leg so that Andrei couldn’t hear what he whispered to Ted.

“ There’s a pot of boiling water on the stove. Put it on top of the microwave. When I shout, ‘Now,’ push the microwave’s start button. The timer’s already set.”

Kagan was close enough that, even in the shadows, he saw Ted’s forehead tighten in confusion.

“ I don’t have time to explain, Ted. For Meredith and Cole, just do it. They’re depending on you.”

Ted hesitated, then surprised him by nodding.

“ Whatever you want. I’ve got a hell of a lot to make up for.” Staying low, Ted hurried into the kitchen.

Kagan stopped tapping the microphone against his leg. He clipped it to his shirt. “Andrei, are you still there? The snow must be interfering with the radio transmission. All I heard was interference.”

“ I’m afraid it’s a little late for me to pretend to be a human being, Pyotyr,” Andrei’s voice responded. “Is the baby somewhere safe?”

Again, Kagan noted that Andrei said “the baby” and not “the package.” He kept hoping he’d gotten through to him.

“ Yes. He’s somewhere safe.”

“ I think Ted was right when he said the laundry room. Merry Christmas.”

There was something about the firmness with which Andrei said the last two words.

Abruptly, the baby cried out in the laundry room.

Bullets punched holes in the front window, spraying shards of glass into the living room.

The shots were silent. By contrast, the crash of the glass and the impact of the bullets against the back wall were shockingly loud, but not so loud that Kagan didn’t hear a window shatter in the master bedroom.

Someone was breaking in.

They’ll come from three directions.

“ Now, Ted! Now!” he yelled. “Turn it on!”

In spite of the baby’s wail, he heard the hum of the microwave. As Ted stayed low and rushed back into the living room, a crackling sound came from the kitchen. Kagan saw periodic flashes through the archway, the crumpled tinfoil in the microwave arcing like miniature lightning.

The door to the kitchen banged open. A hunched silhouette charged in, shooting at everything before him, his bullets walloping walls and cupboards, the sound-suppressed shots themselves inaudible in the commotion.

Suddenly, a loud crack was accompanied by a blinding glare. In the microwave, the heated glue burst from its plastic tube, the arcs from the tinfoil igniting its highly volatile vapor.

As the microwave exploded in a fireball, Kagan saw the oven door rocket toward the gunman at the same time that the pot of scalding water catapulted off the oven, spraying over him.

Smoke from the explosion filled the kitchen. Hearing screams, Kagan ran through the archway, saw a figure writhing in agony on the floor, and shot him twice in the head. The gunman was Yakov. In the confines of the kitchen, Kagan’s sound-suppressed shots made noises like muted snaps from a nail gun.

He rushed to the kitchen door, slammed it shut, and twisted the lock.

The smoke thickened. He saw flames licking the cupboard above where the fireball had erupted from the microwave.

“ Are you all right?” Ted yelled from the living room. His voice sounded farther away because Kagan’s ears rang from the explosion.

“ The kitchen’s on fire!” Kagan shouted back.

Their voices overlapped as Ted yelled, “Someone’s in the master bedroom! I heard something falling!”

Eyes watering from the smoke, Kagan crouched next to the archway that opened into the living room. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes and aimed along the corridor that led to the other end of the house.

Behind him, the flames grew. Now the smoke reflected it, the illumination making him feel exposed.

Air brushed past his head.

Again.

Again.

Bullets. Someone was shooting from the end of the corridor, the noise barely audible. The gunman’s sound suppressor hid the muzzle flashes, too, making it difficult for Kagan to judge exactly where to aim.

He squeezed off two quick shots toward the master bedroom. He hated to use the ammunition on a target he couldn’t see, but he needed to make the gunman stay in the bedroom.

“ Ted, you’ll soon hear another explosion! When it happens, don’t hesitate! Run into the kitchen and try to put out the fire!”

Ted didn’t answer.

“ Ted!” Kagan shouted.

“ He heard what you told me to do! He’ll wait for me to run! He’ll shoot when he sees me in the light from the fire!”

“ Just trust me! Do what I say!”

Again, Ted didn’t answer.

The only sound was the crackle of the flames growing on the cupboard door.

Kagan tried desperately not to cough. He felt another streak of air sweep past him and shot toward the end of the corridor.

Simultaneously, three bullets shattered more glass in the living room window. Someone-probably Andrei-was shooting from the front.

The baby wailed.

“ Ted!” Kagan yelled. “The only way Meredith and the baby can leave the laundry room is through the kitchen! You’ve got to put out the fire before they’re trapped!”

“ I promised I’ll do whatever you want! Just tell me when!”

“ Get ready!”

Kagan squeezed the trigger again and again. His bullets were directed toward the floor at the end of the hallway, toward the pressurized cans of hair spray and shaving soap he’d placed there. They were thirty yards away, difficult targets even in daylight. As the fire grew behind him, all he could do was keep shooting.

He assumed that the gunman, having been warned, would duck back from the master bedroom’s doorway and take cover. That-along with the bursting cans-should provide Ted the protection he needed to get into the kitchen, Kagan hoped.

Taking one more shot, he flinched as a sharp bang assaulted his ears. A can exploded, spraying the end of the hallway with chunks of metal and pressurized liquid.

“ Now, Ted! Now!”

But Ted was already in motion, racing past him into the kitchen. He stumbled over Yakov’s corpse, grabbed the kitchen table to catch his balance, and veered toward the sink. The force of his movement parted the smoke and brightened the flames that wavered up the cupboard next to the kitchen door.

Almost out of ammunition, Kagan thought.

He heard water running in the sink, the clatter of a saucepan, water splashing into it. Steam hissed as Ted hurled the water against the burning cupboard.

The light from the flames diminished.

Again, water splashed into the saucepan. Again, Ted hurled it against the cupboard.

“ It’s out!” he yelled.

The thickening shadows told Kagan the same thing.

Yakov’s gun, he thought. If I can reach it…

He risked switching his gaze from the hallway and focused on the corpse next to him. But the bright flames had hurt his night vision, and he couldn’t adapt to the dark again to see the gun.

More bullets snapped past him, but this time they were directed behind him, toward the floor. Kagan realized that the flames must have illuminated the pressurized cans he’d placed next to the kitchen door. The gunman was imitating his tactic.

“ Ted, get over by the sink!”

The sharp bang with which one of the cans exploded felt like hands slapping Kagan’s ears.

In agony, Kagan tried to recover from the shock. Aiming along the hallway, he saw a figure lunge from the master bedroom.

He knows I’m down to my last few rounds!

The gunman had Mikhail’s bulky silhouette. He must have put in a fresh magazine, Kagan realized, because he kept shooting as if he had an endless supply of ammunition.

Having been warned about the drawers that lay on the floor, Mikhail veered this way and that. The zigzag movement confused Kagan’s aim as Mikhail kept shooting.

Kagan fired once, twice, but then his gun was useless, its slide locking back, its magazine empty. Certain that he was about to die, he rolled frantically toward Yakov’s body next to him, searching for the gun. But his wounded arm was so stiff that it restricted his movement.

Doubly certain that he would die, he felt a bullet strike the brick floor, spraying fragments over him.

He kept pawing for Yakov’s gun but couldn’t find it.

Without warning, Mikhail stumbled, sprawling face-down onto a drawer. Something about the way he fell struck Kagan as strange, but there wasn’t time to think about it as he unclipped the knife from his pocket and surged up.

The hook on the back of the knife levered against his pocket and pulled the blade open.

Charging, he saw Mikhail’s shadowy figure peer up from the floor and raise his pistol. Kagan slashed the back of Mikhail’s wrist, causing him to drop the gun. But as Kagan slashed again, Mikhail used his uninjured hand to grab his ankle and yank him off balance.

Kagan fell heavily.

When he hit the floor, he crunched across broken glass, managing to come to his feet at the same moment that Mikhail rose and dove forward. Despite their injured arms, they grappled viciously, sliding on the shards of glass. Kagan fought to stab his opponent, while Mikhail struggled to get the knife away from him.

Kagan’s heart sped so wildly that the precise movements necessary for martial-arts combat became impossible. He and Mikhail were like two large animals, colliding with each other.

Mikhail was heavier, able to make his weight a weapon. He used his uninjured hand to squeeze Kagan’s knife wrist, spinning him. Then he curled his blood-slick arm around Kagan’s neck, strangling him from behind. Kagan felt increasing pressure against his larynx.

Something crashed.

Andrei’s breaking through the front window! Kagan thought.

But the crash was accompanied by a blow from behind that sent Mikhail lurching forward.

Ted hit him with something!

In a frenzy, Kagan squirmed free of Mikhail’s grip. He tried to slice with the blade, but again Mikhail grabbed that wrist. The force of their struggle knocked Kagan against the back wall of the corridor. His head smashed the glass of a picture hanging there.

Jolted from the impact, he tried to knee Mikhail in the groin but succeeded only in striking a thigh. As the Russian pinned him against the wall, straining to get the knife away from him, Kagan stomped down hard on a foot and heard a groan. To the right, he sensed the open door to Ted’s office and used all his strength to pivot with Mikhail, thrusting him through the doorway.

The trip cord caught behind Mikhail’s ankles. Kagan added to the Russian’s backward momentum by shoving. When they hit the floor, Kagan was on top, his impact knocking the air from Mikhail’s lungs. The Russian’s grip loosened enough for Kagan to yank his knife hand free.

Screaming with fury, he plunged the blade into Mikhail’s throat, all the way to the handle, and felt the Russian thrash. He worked the knife back and forth, widening the hole, grating against bone, feeling the hot blood gush over his fingers. Mikhail’s mouth gaped in a desperate effort to breathe.

His arms fought to push Kagan away. He gasped, the blood causing a rattle in his throat. His arms lost strength. Kagan kept twisting the knife. At last, Mikhail’s hands fell away, trembled, and lay still.

Only then did Kagan let go of the knife. Andrei! he thought frantically.

Dizzy from his frenzied breathing, he scrambled toward where Mikhail had dropped his pistol. He grabbed the gun, hurried into the living room, crouched, and aimed toward the bullet holes in the front window. Huge chunks of glass had fallen into the room. The snow was drifting in.

Where was Andrei?

Kagan’s ears rang painfully. From the laundry room, the baby kept crying, its wail seeming to come through cotton batting.

But Kagan noticed something odd-inexplicably, the window was broken only at the top half. Every bullet had been directed upward, where the least possible harm would result.

What the…?

“ Look out!” Ted shouted behind him.

Spinning, Kagan saw a dark figure lurch from the office. Mikhail’s throat gaped, wheezing, spewing blood. The knife was no longer embedded there. It was in his hand, and as he thrust the blade toward Kagan, Ted surged from the kitchen, crashing into him. The impact sent Ted and Mikhail toppling onto the floor. Raging, Mikhail swung the knife at Ted, who kicked and fought to squirm away.

The knife grazed Ted’s cheek, making him groan. But he was far enough away that Kagan could shoot without fear of hitting him. He put two bullets behind Mikhail’s right ear, and when the Russian collapsed, this time Kagan had no doubt that he was dead.

Andrei. Where’s Andrei?

Kagan whirled again toward the front window.

He was drenched in sweat. His breathing was frantic. He knew that barely two minutes had elapsed, but the intensity of the fight had made the passage of time seem much longer.

The baby kept wailing. Then suddenly, it stopped.

At once, Kagan heard Andrei’s voice, but this time, it didn’t come from the radio’s earbud. Instead it came faintly from the area outside the house. Although Kagan had the sense that Andrei was shouting, the explosions had traumatized his ears enough that he had to strain to hear what was being said.

“ Pyotyr!” the voice called. “Don’t say a word! Shut off your radio transmitter!”

Wary, Kagan didn’t respond.

“ Do you hear me?” Andrei shouted. “Shut off the transmitter!”

What’s he up to? Kagan wondered. Tense, he did as he was asked.

“ Okay, it’s off!” Kagan’s words seemed to come from inside a tunnel.

“ I figured you were the one who survived. Otherwise, Yakov or Mikhail would have opened the door.”

“ It’s nice to know you have confidence in me.”

“ More than you can imagine,” Andrei said. “By the way, I shut off my radio transmitter also. The clients and the Pakhan can’t hear us.”

“ What are you doing?” Kagan aimed toward the half-broken window. More snow flurried through it. “All your shots were aimed high. If you’d continued the attack from the front, I’d have been killed.”

“ You mentioned destiny. I figured I’d let Mikhail and Yakov decide it for me. If they won, then the child was meant to be delivered to our clients.”

“ I thought you didn’t believe in destiny.” Kagan kept aiming through the window.

“ Of course I do. I’m Russian.”

“ Tell me why you held back.”

“ Things happened tonight, Pyotyr.”

“ Yeah, it was a busy Christmas Eve.”

“ The Pakhan called me certain names,” Andrei said.

“ Names?”

“ Hooyesos. Govnosos. Kachok. Koshkayob.”

“ That’s a lot of disrespect.”

“ He sided with the clients against me. He threatened me.

Worse, he threatened my family.”

“ And nobody threatens your family.”

“ Believe it. Pyotyr, suppose I do defect. Where do you think I should ask for my wife and daughters to be relocated? You know Anna. What would she like?”

“ Considering tonight’s weather, I think someplace warm.”

Kagan was reminded of why his parents had chosen Miami.

“ Or perhaps she’s tired of living near water and would enjoy a change of scenery.”

“ That’s something you’ll need to discuss with her.”

“ As soon as we finish here,” Andrei said from the front of the house. “You and I have hunting to do. If I’m going to switch sides, I can’t leave my enemies alive to come after me and my family.”

Kagan heard a voice behind him. It belonged to Ted, who was saying something urgently. Then Kagan realized that Ted wasn’t speaking to anyone in the house, and that he’d done something remarkable.

“ Andrei,” he said through the shattered window, “Ted turned out to have more nerve than we imagined. He risked his life to save his wife and son. Now he searched one of the bodies to get a cell phone. He’s talking to the police. How he got through I’ll never know. But he did. I mention that in case you have a surprise planned.”

“ You think I’m not telling the truth?”

“ I think that if this is a trick to grab the baby, you’ve got less than five minutes to make your move.”

“ What kind of friends don’t trust each other?” Andrei chided. “Actually, you’re the one who has less than five minutes. If we’re going to make this work, we need to get out of here right away. When I gave Yakov the key to the house, I kept the car keys. I used them a few minutes ago to back the Range Rover out of the garage.”

“ I don’t hear it.”

“ I wouldn’t expect you to, given what those explosions must have done to your ears. What caused them?”

“ The big one was a microwave I blew up.”

“ Always resourceful. I’m sure Yakov and Mikhail were startled enough to lose their momentum.”

“ For certain, Yakov did.”

“ The bastard shouldn’t have run away when that drug lord tried to kill me in Colombia. Pyotyr, make up your mind. If you want me to defect, you need to get out here and help me do what’s necessary.”

The snowfall was now so thick that Kagan could hardly see anything beyond the window. Is he trying to fool me into showing myself? he wondered.

“ Andrei, do you know what Santa Fe means?”

“ Someone in the crowd mentioned it tonight. Holy Faith.”

“ I guess it’s time to have some faith of my own.”

Anything for the baby, Kagan thought. I need to keep Andrei occupied. I need to keep him away from the house.

“ All right, I’m coming out.”

He turned toward Ted, who lowered the cell phone and told him, “A SWAT team and an ambulance are on the way.”

“ Thank God,” Meredith said. She stepped from the laundry room, appearing through the smoke that lingered in the kitchen. The lights outside provided enough illumination to show Kagan that she held the baby.

“ Are you all right?” he asked.

“ Scared. Sick.” She glanced nervously toward Yakov’s body, then quickly away.

“ And the baby?”

“ He isn’t hurt.”

Kagan felt a momentary relief that was suddenly broken.

“ Wait a minute. Where’s Cole?”

“ Cole?” Ted’s voice was stark. “Where are you, son?”

“ Cole?” Meredith looked around desperately.

Kagan almost panicked, fearing that the boy had been shot, but then he heard a faint voice.

“ I’m here,” Cole said. He limped from the shadowy hallway. Dragging his baseball bat, he made his way unsteadily among the drawers on the floor. Even in the shadows, Mikhail’s body was obvious.

It made Cole stop.

“ Cole, can you see me?” Ted asked. “Keep your eyes on me. Don’t look down, son. I’m coming to get you.”

Broken glass scraped under Ted’s shoes as he walked over. He picked up his son and lifted him over the corpse.

When Ted set him down, Kagan put a reassuring hand on Cole’s shoulder. He’d been puzzled by something that had happened during the gunfight, but now he understood.

“ Cole, when I told you to find a new hiding place, where did you go?” Kagan asked. “You came from the hallway. Were you in the bathroom?”

“ Yes.” Cole sounded as if he was in shock. “I was lying in the bathtub.”

“ The second man charged from the master bedroom,” Kagan continued. “But I was out of ammunition. The only thing that gave me time to grab my knife was that he tripped.”

“ Of course,” Meredith said. “He tripped on one of the drawers you set down.”

“ No, he knew about the drawers,” Kagan told her. “And he was moving confidently. I don’t think it was a drawer that tripped him.”

“ Then what happened?” Ted asked. “Why did he fall?”

“ You’d better ask Cole.”

“ I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“ Tell them, Cole,” Kagan said. “Your mother and father should know how brave you are.”

“ Brave?” Ted sounded baffled.

The boy hesitated. “I had to help. With all the noise, the man didn’t hear me crawl out of the bathtub. When he ran past, I stuck out my bat.”

“ You tripped him?” Meredith asked in amazement.

Cole fidgeted with the baseball bat. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Meredith spoke softly. “My dear brave boy.”

“ He’s more than a boy,” Kagan said.

“ I hear sirens,” Cole said, looking up.

With little time remaining, Kagan stepped toward Meredith and the baby she held. He put a finger on the tiny forehead.

“ The child of peace? Lord, I hope so. Grow strong and healthy, little guy. Make me believe that it’s possible to have peace on earth and goodwill to all.”

Andrei yelled from outside. There was nervousness in his voice now. “The sirens, Pyotyr.”

Kagan looked at Ted.

“ Your left cheek’s bleeding.”

“ What?” Ted jerked a hand to his face and touched the blood.

“ Might have been flying glass or-”

“ No. The knife did it.”

“ It’s deep. I’m afraid you’ll have a scar.”

“ That’s good.”

“ I don’t understand.”

“ It’ll remind me of what I almost lost.” Ted turned toward Meredith and Cole.

Kagan did the same. “Meredith, did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are?”

She glanced down in embarrassment. If the lights had been on, Kagan was sure he’d have seen her blushing.

“ Ted, don’t you think she’s beautiful?”

“ Very much.”

“ Tell her every day.”

Kagan went into the kitchen and pulled on his parka, concealing Mikhail’s blood that covered his shirt. He shoved Mikhail’s gun and his own Glock into the right pocket of the coat. He picked up Yakov’s gun and reloaded it with a remaining magazine he found on the corpse.

“ Meredith, tell the police everything that happened. Don’t hold anything back. You don’t know anything that can harm me. Just say the truth. And Cole, don’t forget the story about the Magi.”

“ The spy’s version of Christmas.” The boy sounded dazed.

“ What story is that?” Ted asked.

“ Your son will tell you.”

“ Pyotyr!” Andrei’s voice warned from outside. “The police! We don’t have much time!”

“ Ted, walk with me.” They moved to the front door.

“ When I fought with the second man, I felt something crash against him. Did you hit him from behind?” Kagan asked.

“ With a lamp.” Blood dripped from Ted’s cheek.

“ There might be hope for you yet. Have you ever fired a gun?”

“ No.”

“ You point the barrel and pull the trigger. There are refinements, but basically that’s it.”

“ Is there a reason you want me to know this?”

“ Take this gun. The man you spoke to, the one with the creased face and the thick eyebrows, if he tries to come inside the house, don’t let him.”

“ You think he might break his word? You think you might be walking into a trap?”

“ It’s been known to happen.” Kagan looked behind him. “Cole, what’s a major rule of being a spy?”

Cole spoke numbly. “Don’t take anything for granted.”

“ What’s another rule?”

“ Always have a backup plan.”

“ I’m proud of you.” Kagan studied the boy’s father. “Ted, can I rely on you to stop that man if he tries to get inside?”

“ Anything to protect my family.”

“ Keep remembering that. To protect your family.”

“ You have my word.”

“ If you ever forget, if you ever hurt your wife and son, one day I’ll come back and remind you of this conversation.”

“ You won’t need to.”

Ted held out his hand.

Kagan shook it, noting that, despite everything that had happened, Ted’s grip was firm.

“ I believe you.”

At the front door, he looked back at the baby snuggling contentedly in Meredith’s arms.

Are you sending me another sign? he wondered. That everything’s going to be okay?

“ Enjoy your roses, Meredith.”

“ Thank you for saving our lives.”

“ No need to thank me. I’m the one who put you in danger. We wouldn’t be alive if all of you hadn’t been strong.” Kagan pointed toward Cole. “I’ve known some professionals who aren’t as dependable.”

“ Well, thank you anyway,” she said, “for keeping your promise.” She looked at Ted and then back at Kagan. “You gave me a Christmas present.”

As Kagan gathered his resolve and reached for the doorknob, she added, “You never told me your name. The man outside called you ‘Pyotyr.’ Does that mean ‘Peter’? Is that your name?”

“ That’s what he calls me.”

Meredith thought about it and nodded. “I understand. Whoever you are,” she replied, “Merry Christmas.”

Kagan opened the door and exposed himself to the overhead lights. If Andrei meant to shoot him, this was his chance.

But nothing happened.

Everything’s an act of faith, he thought. Shivering, he stepped from the house and walked through the falling snow toward the gate. He heard the faint rumble of an engine. As he reached the lane, he saw the dark shape of a Range Rover.

When I open the door, that’s when it’ll happen, Kagan thought, snow pelting him.

The passenger window descended.

“ Pyotyr, you promised you’d help! I can’t defect if the clients and the Pakhan are hunting me and my family. The last time they’ll be together is tonight! This is my only chance.”

It might be a trick, Kagan thought. But at least I saved the child.

“ From now on, there won’t be any lies,” he said, hanging back. “My real name isn’t Pyotyr.”

“ Imagine that. What a surprise.”

“ It’s Paul.” Kagan stepped toward the door. He hoped that his tone made Andrei realize he was telling the truth.

“ I’ll never get used to calling you that.”

“ Then keep calling me ‘Pyotyr.’”

“ Are you thinking about shooting me through the window?” Andrei asked.

“ Actually, I was thinking about you and me doing some good,” Kagan replied.

His hearing had improved sufficiently for him to realize that the sirens were nearer than he liked.

“ Doing some good?” Andrei thought about it and shrugged. “Why not? It’s better than stealing babies.

When Kagan opened the passenger door, he saw that both of Andrei’s hands were placed firmly on the steering wheel.

“ Now’s the time, if you want to shoot me,” Andrei said. “I’m helpless.”

Kagan got in from the cold.

“ I can’t imagine you ever being helpless.” Kagan shut the door.

Andrei put the Range Rover in gear and drove along the lane. The deep snow crunched under the high vehicle’s tires. A short time later, he turned right onto Canyon Road, where a few cars were now in motion.

“ Do you hear that?” Andrei asked.

Kagan strained to listen.

“ The sirens?”

“ The cathedral bells,” Andrei said. “It’s midnight.”

“ Christmas.”

The word made Kagan think of his dead parents and the Christmases he would never spend with them.

“ Look behind us,” Andrei said.

Kagan turned. The Range Rover’s window had a heating element that melted the snow landing on it. In the distance, he saw the hazy red and blue flashing lights of police cars doing their best to move up Canyon Road. The flashes reminded him of lights on a Christmas tree. Then the snowfall strengthened, obscuring them.

When Andrei steered left onto another road, the Range Rover’s tire tracks blended with others. He drove over a small bridge, reached a stop sign, waited for the lights of a car to go past, and followed it to the left. A few seconds later, the lights of another car came along the street behind them.

Andrei peered into the rearview mirror. “They’ll be looking for a blue Range Rover. Downtown’s only a couple of blocks away. We’ll find a parking lot and abandon the car. It shouldn’t be hard to find something else to steal. No one’ll notice it’s gone until the morning.”

“ Sounds like a plan.”

Andrei pointed at twinkling lights on houses they passed. “Where I grew up, there wasn’t any such thing as Christmas. After the Soviet Union collapsed and I snuck into the United States, I was amazed by all the decorations.”

“ Only the decorations? What about the Christmas spirit?”

“ Since you appear to have developed a conscience, maybe you can teach me.”

“ You already have a conscience,” Kagan said.

“ Don’t make me regret it.”

Andrei reached for something under his ski jacket. For a moment, Kagan feared that Andrei had fooled him and was drawing a gun. He almost lunged to defend himself. But then he realized that Andrei was turning on the radio transmitter that was hooked to his belt.

“ This is Melchior,” Andrei said to the microphone on his coat. “I have the package.” He paused, listening to his earbud as he drove through the slow-moving traffic. “It’s safe and ready for delivery. The mudak is no longer in business.”

Andrei listened some more.

“ Yes, it was a pathetic attempt to persuade me to join his corporation. In the end, I made sure he realized what a fool he was. The only person I’m loyal to is you.” Again, Andrei listened. “The main thing is, I corrected my mistake. Tell the clients I meant what I said. When I deliver the package, I want an apology, along with a bonus. We’ll be there in half an hour. Oh, and tell room service to deliver vodka for us.”

Andrei pressed a button on the transmitter, turning it off.

“ A half hour. That gives us time to prepare.”

“ Mudak. That’s a tough thing to call me,” Kagan said.

“ It’s better than what the Pakhan called me. Is your name truly Paul?”

“ I’m trusting you with it.”

“ Paul.” Andrei tested the name. “No, it won’t do. Pyotyr, after you help me defect, perhaps you can spend next Christmas with me and my family.”

“ It’ll be a pleasure to see them again.”

The baby’s safe, Kagan kept thinking. Nothing else matters. I saved the baby. I can bear sitting here, trying to make jokes with Andrei, while we drive to a gunfight. I can tolerate helping him whatever way he wants. As long as the baby’s safe.

“ Perhaps here in Santa Fe. Perhaps this is where Anna and the girls would enjoy living,” Andrei said.

“ A little too close to business, don’t you think?”

“ I know how to blend.”

“ You do indeed,” Kagan admitted.

“ The mountains. The light. The quiet. There are many things here they’d enjoy.”

“ Quiet’s a good thing,” Kagan agreed.

Thank God the baby’s safe, he kept thinking. His ears recovered sufficiently that he could now hear the cathedral bells.

“ Do you have enough ammunition?” Andrei asked.

“ My Glock’s empty. I have a partially full magazine in Mikhail’s pistol.”

“ Here’s a spare magazine for the Glock.”

Kagan watched warily as Andrei reached into his ski jacket. But when his hand came out, it held only the magazine he’d promised.

“ Pyotyr, maybe you can explain something to me.”

“ Whatever you want to know. I told you that from now on, I’ll be completely honest.”

“ Have you seen the movie It’s a Wonderful Life?”

Kagan overcame his confusion and answered, “Many times. My parents watched it every year.”

“ I’m surprised you could watch it even once. It mystifies me. Why do people like it so much? Don’t you think that fat angel looks stupid? And what’s with James Stewart? He’s too skinny. He should have stuffed himself with more Christmas dinners.”

“ If he stuffed himself, he’d look just like the angel,” Kagan said.

“ I didn’t say he should stuff himself that much. But the character he played was so trusting, it’s a wonder he wasn’t cheated out of everything he owned.”

“ Someone needs to make sure that doesn’t happen to people,” Kagan said.

The bells rang louder.

“ Merry Christmas, Andrei.”

“ Whatever that means.” Andrei thought about it. “The same to you, Pyotyr. Merry Christmas.”