His cell phone rang when they were about to eat dinner. Nick grimaced. He just knew what it would be.

"Ignore it!" Zoe said as she put the finishing touches to the table.

"I can't." His reply was terse and rapped out like a bullet, harsh enough to make her raise her head in surprise. There was something different in his tone.

<Yeah?> he answered and listened for a moment before walking to the French windows and stepping out onto the deck, closing the door behind him. Through the glass she observed him talking rapidly, running his good hand through his hair and at one point hitting the wooden rail of the balcony in temper.

Zoe rose from the table and followed him out. "Is everything all right, Nick?"

He spun round. "Go inside!"

She blinked in shock at his curt reprimand but stepped back into the suite while he went on with his conversation. This was something really serious.

<I'm quitting. Find someone else.>

<We have no time on this one to train up someone else. We need someone who can act immediately. We need you.  No one else has your expertise in this field. This is serious, Nick. Don't fuck with us.>

<Not my problem.>

<We can make it yours. How's the little girlfriend?>

<You threatening me?>

<Up to you.>

<Just try and I'll turn my fucking 'expertise' on you and your family. Guess who would win that one, mate?>

<Let's cool it. No need for this. Nick - we'll double your fee. It's two days' work tops. Come on, man. Use your head. It isn't like you haven't done it before. And it's one of our own at risk. This is important. Nick, don't let us down now...>

He hit the rail. <Send me the file. And this is the last fucking one. You got me?>

The door opened and Nick stormed through to his laptop, hitting a few keys and watching as a document opened. He read it impassively, just a tic in his upper cheek showing his emotional reaction. For a moment he paused, pinched at the bridge of his nose, took a few breaths and then logged off. Zoe had watched him in silence.

"We've got to go back to New York. I'm sorry, Zoe, but I have a job. It's very urgent..."

"Tonight? We have to leave tonight? What is it, Nick?" She tried to catch his face in her hands but he deftly avoided her and made as if he was too busy gathering up his belongings.

"Tonight. I'm gonna call for a sea plane. I can't tell you what it is but it is very, very important. People's lives are at stake..."

She gasped. "Is this something dangerous? Please, Nick, tell me what it is!"

He winced but shook his head. "Not dangerous. Just vital. Investigative work in the main. I've got some intel they need, that's all...Zoe...get packed. You've got half an hour..."

In Sydney he put her on a flight to Los Angeles; he was flying the other way to London. That's all she knew. "I'll be a couple of days tops. As soon as I'm finished, I'll call you. Join me in New York. Please..." There was something about his voice that worried her despite his words of reassurance. She knew he wasn't being straight with her. She also knew nothing on earth would make him tell her what he didn't want her to know.

"I'll be there, you know I will....Nick...the past week has been the best week of my life. I just wanted to tell you that..."

He smiled softly and touched her face. "...You have no idea how much I love you..."  His words were cut off as he reached down and kissed her then walked away abruptly, leaving her at the gate stunned by his declaration. He loved her? She felt light-headed. Nick Costello loved her? Tears came to her eyes. 'Please, God, keep him safe, wherever he's going and whatever he's going to be asked to do...' she prayed as he swept away from her.

Nick stood at a vantage point and watched her board the plane. He had had to walk away from her. All his life he had lied without a moment's hesitation to almost everyone he had ever dealt with. His family, friends, teachers, colleagues, senior officers - but most of all to women. He barely knew what the truth was anymore. Usually it had amused him to manipulate people with the ease he had always had - it had never ever bothered his conscience for an instant. Until he had lied to her. He was ashamed that he had looked her in the eye and lied.

But how could he ever tell her the truth?

Twenty four hours later, he strolled out of Heathrow airport and stepped into a waiting unmarked black Rover that whisked him away to a safe house for his briefing. A dapper young intelligence officer full of his own importance and talking non-stop filled him in with largely unnecessary background, facts that he was well aware of and had probably supplied to MI6 himself in the past, while he perused the more detailed biography.

"Shut the fuck up, will ya? I'm reading," Nick snapped tersely. He indicated a picture in the dossier of a beautiful dark haired woman. "She the target? That's all I need to know. Now give me a break. I'll catch up the rest when I get in. Now let me sleep, for Christ's sake..." Nick dropped his head back against the leather headrest and closed his eyes and tried not to think what Zoe would think of him if she knew he was about to carry out a hit on a young woman not much older than she was.

He woke up in an unfamiliar bed, his mouth sour with last night's stale tequila and cigarettes. Untangling himself from the body of the young girl at his side, he staggered to the bathroom and urinated, washed his face and ran his head under the cold tap before rubbing his mouth with toothpaste and gargling. He contemplated using her toothbrush but, despite what they had done to each other's private parts with their mouths the night before, he somehow felt to use her toothbrush was an intimacy to which he had no right. That was the preserve of lovers, not ships that pass in the night.

He wandered around her bedroom for a while, looking at photographs pinned up on the wall, leafing through the vast music collection on shelves all around and then picked up the guitar propped against the bottom of the bed. He had sung to her last night. He remembered that with a smile.

Cally was fast asleep, curled up and looking like a little girl. She was small and skinny with fine red-gold hair that hung over her pale freckly face. She was nothing like the groomed and elegant women he had recently been sleeping with. It was like a breath of fresh air to be with someone who saw nothing in it for herself other than the pleasure of his company for the night. Just to strum a few songs, talk about life and music and hopes and dreams and then offer him the comfort of her young body. He knew he would never see her again and figured that she knew it too. But he felt closer to her than any of the women whose beds he had graced that summer.

She rolled over and the sheet fell from her shoulder, revealing the tiny white breasts tipped with nipples of the palest pink. Everything about her seemed pure and clean, honest and innocent. He decided then that he was going to stop this meaningless fucking about. It might not be time for him to make a real connection but there had to be more to the women he had sex with than they were just hot stuff otherwise it was all so empty and hollow.

One night with Cally had shown him that much.

Sitting cross-legged naked on the bed, he gently strummed a love song. Her eyes flickered open and she listened quietly, watching the intense beauty of his young virile face, almost pretty if not for the etched squareness of his jaw and his too-long nose. Somehow that made him all the more perfect in her eyes. His voice was soft, barely a whisper, and his eyes were closed as he sang. She wanted to remember this image of youthful masculinity all her life.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you...

"That's a beautiful song, Liam," she murmured. He opened his eyes and smiled at her dreamily.

"I wrote it ages ago. But it was about you. How did I know?" he wondered out loud. Then his face changed and he replaced the guitar at the side of the bed. "I'm not staying, Cally. I've got too much to do. This is not where I'm at now...I'm sorry..."

She sat up and smiled at him, running her hands down his face. "I know you're going. I knew it when I brought you home. It was just last night. But, it was a beautiful night. I'm not asking for anything else. Sometimes we meet someone and that's all we need from them. You never pretended otherwise. You're a beautiful soul, Liam. And I won't forget you..." her fingers trailed down his naked chest, fingering the light peppering of chest hair on his golden torso and following it down to his plump cock nestling on the bedcover already stirring at her touch. Her small fingers ran its length and he bit gently on his lips, almost instinctively, at the sensation on his already sensitive flesh. "One more time?" she whispered as she held him in her grasp.

He laid her down and came to lie above her, his heart full of joy coupled with the pain of leaving. He wouldn't forget her either.

Nor would he stay.

A few hours later, he sloped back into the suite, hoping that his parents would be out. They weren't. Breakfast was still set out on the balcony; Mum reading a book and his father a newspaper. He wondered for a moment what they had said about it after he had left. Mum would probably have taken his side. She was always more understanding than his Dad was.

Mumbling an ungracious 'Morning', he made for his room.

"Liam! Come out here!" It was his Mum and she didn't sound particularly ready to take his part this time. He groaned but strutted out.

"What?"

"Sit down and have some breakfast."

"Not hungry."

"I didn't ask you if you were hungry. Sit down!" Annie shouted.

She poured him a cup of tea and held it out to him. 

"Drink it!"

Liam gave her a look annoyance and truculently accepted the cup, swigging back the contents and making even that into an act of defiance; he held the cup by the rim in a coarse fashion that he suspected she would find irritating. "Look, about last night...I was out of line. I apologise. Okay?" he muttered.

He knew he was saying it in such a way that he could claim meant that he had taken the rap but clearly he also would have the satisfaction of making it clear that he did not mean it. All young people have that particular nuance down pat.

"That must rank as one of the least gracious apologies in the history of apologies. And you have made enough of that sort in your time to make this triumph even more spectacular...and if you answer me by saying 'whatever', I shall slap your smug face! You on my wavelength now?" Annie responded tartly.

Liam shrugged but said nothing. She was obviously in one of those moods.

Terry put down his newspaper and regarded his son with a hint of a smile. "Best thing I can do now is leave you to your mother. I've got a meeting downtown. But don't think we've finished, mate. You and me are gonna talk later. You got that?" With that he stood up, kissed Annie and walked out briskly.

Liam immediately picked up an apple, put his legs up on the arm of the chair next to him, lolling about bonelessly and crunching noisily. Annie leaned over and knocked them off. "Grow up! Where were you last night?"

"Out."

"All night?"

"Yeah."

"Where did you sleep, Liam?"

"For Christ's sake, Mum, like I'm gonna tell you that?"

Annie laughed wryly. "You don't have to, sunshine. You stink of booze, cigarettes - and sex. Yes, sex! I actually know what that smells like.  Plus, I'd have to be blind to miss the hickey on your neck. Who was she? Another woman old enough to be your mother or did you have to pay for it this time?"

Liam shot her a horrified look. Mum had never spoken to him like this before. He could always twist her round his little finger when he got into bother. This time she seemed completely disgusted with him - and it hurt.

"She was nice girl. Just a kid. You know how it is..."

"You seeing her again?"

He shook his head. 

"You little wanker..."Annie could not hide her anger at his casual dismissal of a girl in that way. Was he really the kind of young man who seduced a nice girl and then never called the next day? But weren't they all like that when they wanted to be? Had Terry been any different at Liam's age? Or even when she had met him, for that matter. The memory of that long ago one night stand he had had with Mel rose at the edge of her consciousness and she swiftly pushed it down.

"Mum...it wasn't like that! I wasn't being a bastard. It was just the way it was.  Mutual, you know? Neither of us was expecting anything other than just that. I was feeling low and she took me home....Mum...I'm sorry about what I said to him. I know it was wrong. I didn't even mean half of it..."

"...So that makes it better? You can stand here and rip his heart to pieces, shame him before his ex-colleagues and then say you didn't mean it?"

"He wasn't exactly nice to me..."

"...Your father had every right to query a decision of yours that appears to be ill thought out. It was you who turned it into a slanging match. And what you said about the Regiment was something quite different. That wasn't the heat of the moment. You had thought about that. Planned it. Saved it until you knew you could hit him with it for maximum effect...."

"...I lied," he gulped. "Well, not about Credenhill. They were recruiting at Uni. I signed up for the selection process. I wasn't ever gonna tell him. I did it just to prove something to myself. Mum, it isn't easy being his son. I just wanted to know if I had it. Just for myself. I was offered a place but I never sent them a letter like that. I just turned them down saying I'd had another offer that suited me better. I never mentioned his name...I would never do that! You think I would really get any pleasure for shaming him? I respect him too much to put him through that!"

Annie groaned and put her head in her hands. "Then why did you make that stupid story up?"

Liam hunched his shoulders. "To hurt him."

"...Well, you did a bloody good job of it, mate! He was a wreck. Don't you understand how deeply he feels things? How insecure he feels as a father because of all the times he hasn't been there for you...?"

"What times?" Liam appeared confused.

"He was away a lot. When you were kids. Sometimes he made choices that put us second. Remember New York?"

"New York? You mean the kidnap? What had that got to do with Dad?"

It struck Annie full force then that the children knew almost nothing about much of their father's career and that maybe his absences had meant less to them than they had both thought. It had just been life as they knew it. Kids just accept things. They loved their Mum and Dad and knew they were loved back. It was a tight knit family unit.  That's all that had counted.

"He hadn't been there when it happened. That's all I meant," she lied.

"Fathers work away. Nothing strange in that. I never blamed him for it. You were always there. That's all I cared about. He was just Dad, you know? It wasn't until I got older that I began to see him in a different light. Like he had seen so many young men pass through his hands over the years that he'd find me wanting. Not the son he had expected... I can't explain it..."

Annie sighed. We never ever get even close to knowing what is really at issue. "Liam... you have no idea how proud he is of you! Or how much he loves you. Parents don't look at their kids and wish for someone else's. Your kids are the best parts of each other. It's like you get a chance to get it right through them. Until you're a father, you can never understand the bond of love that is there. You are everything he always wanted to be himself. He wanted so much to be the kind of father that he wished he'd had himself. One day you might understand that. Can't you see that is why he worries so much for you? He knows the world out there and that it's not an easy place for a young man. You have to realize that you don't know everything yet. No one ever does. But at least a few years gives you a bit more to go on, sweetie..."

Liam slithered to the floor and put his head in her lap. Annie thought how like Terry he was in so many ways and yet he had an instinctive nature that was so much easier to touch than his father's more internal way of dealing with emotions. It was Zoe who could hold herself distant if she felt threatened. She had that side to her personality that at times hid her true feelings from others. But Liam just caved in. "I'm sorry...so sorry, Mum. I don't blame him at all really. I knew you were going to have some problems dealing with it. That's why I'd been worrying it for so long. I'll talk to him rationally tonight. Man to man. I'm fine about it now. Last night sorted my head out..."

She smiled bitterly as she sniffed back the stubborn tears that ran down her cheeks. "One night is all it took? She must have been some girl, Liam. Or do you perhaps think that shows how shallow your emotion really was? Liam, don't go looking for melodrama and tragedy to bask in melancholy like some tortured poet! It will come to you soon enough in this life. Never make the mistake of alienating those people who love you most. You never know when life takes things from you and then you're left never being able to put things right again."

He thought about her words as she stroked back his hair and he ran his arms around her waist to hold her close. What exactly did she mean? What things had she never put right? Or Dad?

How much do you ever really know about the lives of those who gave you life? 

The moment passed. He didn't ask her to clarify. She offered him no answers. Shortly afterwards, she slapped him on the back. "Okay...go and shower and get a few hours' sleep. You're exhausted. And tonight you go and make peace with your father. And do talk to him like a man. You are one now. So act it in future...!"

Sometimes the popular perceptions are true. Nick leaned back against the wall of the alleyway, aware that he was blended in with the darkness and even a passerby at close quarters would have had difficulty recognizing that he was there. You can have your fancy surveillance equipment and satellite pictures, phones taps and listeners, electronics trackers and location beams but in the final analysis when you go in, you go in.

Preferably alone.

He had followed her for the past day since she had arrived on a Eurostar from Paris. Some boyfriend had met her at the station. They had gone to lunch. Then she had dumped her belongings at home and attended a lecture at the college where she was enrolled. Her friends asked her how her 'flu was. Apparently she'd been in bed sick the past week.

After trailing her round most of the evening, he had left her and the boyfriend in a late night mini-market near to their place, stocking up on basics. She hadn't a clue she had a tail. The boyfriend was not going to be shaken either - he was going home with her or possibly lived there already. There would need to be a slight change of plan. He had finally decided on her apartment as being the best place to carry out his task. Everywhere they had been so far was too public and he stood a chance of being picked up on CCTV camera. Anyway they were running out of viable options as the clock was also ticking. The evening out was almost ended for these two. He had little doubt where they were heading. Not to mention that no one buys groceries and milk and doesn't go straight home. It's a simple observation.

So he had made for her tiny apartment in Earl's Court, checked it out quickly so he was familiar with the interior layout, unlatched the window of the spare room and then left the way he had come in - by the front door to hang about in the shadows like a movie villain.

It hadn't been a long wait. Nick had barely had time to wish he could have a smoke or decide whether or not he should go piss first. Rejecting the first - you never light up, whatever the films show - nor do you conveniently stand under a lamppost so that the victim can catch the evil gleam of your eyes - he wandered further down the alley and used a wall to see to the second. Just in case. All important comfort levels attended to.

The young couple wandered down the road shortly afterwards, oblivious to the need for caution. This woman was either woefully inexperienced or dangerously arrogant. He imagined the first. He could hear their voices drifting across the empty street as they strolled along with their plastic carrier bags full of food they would never eat, on their way back to a flat they would never sleep in. They were talking about a movie they wanted to catch later on in the week. The banality of the moment struck him. This girl was carrying information that could blow the cover of a wide network of men who had infiltrated some of the most secret Islamic terrorist cells in the world - and all she was looking forward to was the latest blockbuster film and a night of passion with a horny young man. That was what the public never understood. Evil doesn't come with horns and a tail. It comes in the guise of pretty young girls with nothing much in their heads...or men who stand on streets late night and wait for innocence to walk by.

Nick waited while they turned the key in the lock and fell in the doorway together, laughing. He counted time while they reached their floor and until he saw the lights go on in their apartment. He estimated how long it would take to put away their shopping and maybe fool around a little with each other.

And then he waited some more.

It was time. Shinning up a drainpipe at the back of the building as smoothly as if he was climbing a ladder, Nick slid open the window he had left open earlier and hopped into the flat soundlessly. It was hard to pick him out from the shadows of the night: black pants, black jumper, black beanie, his face covered by a black scarf pulled up almost to his eyes, his hands encased in black leather gloves. Even his dark brown eyes passed for black in this deep night with just the whites to announce his presence to anyone who cared to observe.

From his belt he drew the gun, attached the silencer and then rested back against a wall and listened. Soft voices, sexy laughter, low and coming from nearby. Moving on silent feet, he eased open the door and the voices became louder. He could see the arc of light that spilled from the half open bedroom door down the short corridor from where he was. They hadn't even bothered to close it, so sure were they of their safety and the fact that they were alone in this place.

Watching through the space provided by the open door, Nick saw the man and woman slowly undressing each other. Some romantic song was playing on the music system. Incense from an aromatic candle wafted across to reach his nostrils. The girl was already in her underwear; she was lithe and dusky, a real doe-eyed Arab beauty, fine featured, high cheek-boned, long nose and creamy lips. Her body was amazing - full, dark nippled heavy breasts, soft rounded belly but impossibly narrow hips and long tawny legs. She moved elegantly even as she slipped down his body, pulling down the jeans from his sinuous thighs and taking him in her mouth. Her eyes closed, his head fell back with a groan, his fingers wrapped tight in the thick coils of her jet black hair...

Nick stepped close and shot her in the head at close range. 

Blood and brains splattered over the young man's naked groin as her head exploded and she fell away from him. For moments that unfurled themselves in a slow motion dreamlike trance, the guy stared, his erection gone, his brain struggling to comprehend the horror before his eyes.

Nick watched the young man fall to his knees, cradle the woman, cry out in an anguish that touched even his soul. This boy had loved her. How do you live after you lose the woman you loved so much? How do you ever close your eyes again after seeing what his eyes had just witnessed?  Nick found himself debating almost dispassionately the fate of this young man as though he was a wounded animal who deserved to be put out of his misery. Almost as an afterthought, the man slowly turned his head in Nick's direction. There was no fear in his eyes of what this killer in the night might have planned for him - only a harrowing sorrow and a dawning understanding.

Nick pulled the trigger again before the man could speak. It almost felt like a blessing to release him.

He watched emotionlessly as his body sank over hers. His brain worked fast and he then set to playing with the forensic evidence. The shot had been near enough for powder burns on her head - the angle was acceptable and if the distance was a foot or two more than he would have liked, there was no reason to suppose the boyfriend had been up close when he shot her. Wrapping the gun around the dead man's fingers he acted out the manoeuvre until he was satisfied where his hands would have fallen and then arranged the gruesome tableau to appear as a murder/suicide. From his pocket he extracted a fine dust and used a brush to apply it to his left hand -he had noted earlier that the guy used this hand. There had to be a trace on the gun hand or he could not have believably fired the weapon, even if Nick thought it highly unlikely that the forensics would take the investigation that far. Lover's tiff? Lovers' death pact? Who wastes time on that?

Then he began the search. She had to have the evidence here. He pretty much doubted she would have had the sense or know how to hide it somewhere am expert couldn't find it as she had obviously thought she was home free. He wondered if the young guy had been her control but he doubted it. His reaction when the girl had been shot bore none of the hallmarks of a man in the game. She must have been expecting to be contacted by someone else - but it could not have been long in coming. Time could be in short supply.

First place? Before rigor mortis, body cavities. Vagina was out - this girl had been about to have sex and if the boyfriend was not in on it - or even if he was- it was unlikely she would have left it in. Rectum? He donned a plastic food bag over his leather gloves and checked - but nothing. Stowing the bag carefully in his pocket he stopped and thought for a few moments.

Her carryon was still lying on the floor; he went through it methodically. A packet of tampons fell out. She hadn't been bleeding. Why carry them then if you're away for a few days and don't need them? The fifth one he opened had the goods.

Pocketing the entire box, he began to cover his tracks. The front door he bolted from the inside. In the bedroom he created what looked like a scene of a tussle. Then he sat by the door on his haunches and imagined how this scene would appear to someone who was seeing it without prior knowledge.

Satisfied, he returned to the spare room, climbed out and lowered the sash. With a small powerful magnetic device, he locked the metal hook to seal the apartment from within.

It had taken him twenty five minutes. But then there hadn't been a rush...

Half an hour later, he emerged from public toilets at Victoria now wearing a pair of distressed Replay jeans, a leather jacket and a red T shirt, swinging a sports bag over his arm. A car pulled up sharply in front of him, a door opened and he tossed the bag inside. If anyone remarked it, they would presume it was a drugs exchange.

Then stopping and lighting up, he pulled out his cell. "Robbie? You in town? Got something for ya....no...not a  girl...this time it's a boy.... But he sure can sing...Where? Okay...be there in about fifteen. Get my Corona chilling, ya bastard...anything going down tonight...?

"That was one of my guys in Washington...I've got to fly up tomorrow..." Terry announced. It was the following week and they were down in Baja for a few days alone while Liam had disappeared off 'to visit friends' - whatever that meant. The two men had talked and an uneasy truce seemed to have been declared, the details of which Annie knew little about. Terry had just shrugged it off saying everything was cool - the kid would probably change his mind by the end of the year so he wasn't getting steamed up any further.

But Annie wasn't fooled. He just didn't want to talk about the problem and for once she felt the same. She wasn't exactly sure why. Liam had upset her too but she was finding it hard to work up the energy required to keep mad at him. So what if he wanted to devote a few years to his dream however crazy it might seem to them? He was so young - there was plenty of time for him to get a good job in the years ahead. At least then he'd know what he wanted and wouldn't waste his life feeling that he'd never at least given the dream a chance.

It just seemed futile to argue with Liam. The same with Zoe. They were not going to listen. Kids never did. So shouldn't they be working round them, finding some ground to compromise on instead? That was Terry's bloody profession, negotiating the middle ground. Why couldn't he use some of his supposedly legendary skills with them?

Annie wondered where this sense of annoyance was coming from. Part of her was angry and she didn't even know why. Another part of her was insecure; she wanted to avoid confrontation and simply have everyone getting on well together even if it meant accepting things that were different from what she and Terry had hoped for them. After all, we had done what we wanted with our lives, she thought, and never given our parents' opinions a second thought. Terry's Mum and Dad had opposed his career choice, hers had been so proud that she had made it in the academic world - and then been disappointed when she had let it slide after her children were born. There had been a row about that with her Dad once. He had said Terry was bullying her into becoming a housewife when it was he who ought to take a few life changes and do his bit so she could continue her career.

She had held that against him for a long time and not long after emigrated to Oz; their subsequent life had later been more akin to gypsies, another factor about which her parents had disapproved. They had grown apart and she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into being Terry's wife and the mother of his children from then on. He was the only person she ever consulted or took notice of. Dad was dead now. She had never really made peace with him. And he had never forgiven Terry.

Why should she imagine her children owed them any more than they had given their parents? The irony of it all was that Annie now believed her Mum and Dad had probably been right. She had thrown away a possibly bright career with very little thought to the future - and Terry had been a major leverage in that. It had never bothered him in the slightest.

So here she was at fifty with a pretty easy life, not very much to do that was challenging and way past the age when she could realistically pick up the pieces again. Sometimes she was bored, even if she never admitted it to anyone. Often she was lonely, living in the heart of the French countryside with a husband who traveled frequently. The future scared her a little. Was her useful life over? Was it all downhill from here?

And she would look at Terry and see a vital man at the height of his powers and feel a cold chill creep over her. 

"Tomorrow?' Annie replied, startled from her day dream. "Fine...I'll sort the packing out...the laundry just came back... Where will we stay?"

Terry pulled a face. "It's no use you coming. This is strictly for the boys - there's a very big ....summit kind of thing and we could be stuck in conferences for hours...I'll be staying at Langley probably..."

It was Annie's turn to pout. "This CIA dirty tricks? What are you up to now?"

"Nothing. NOTHING! For Christ's sake, it's policy meetings and a think tank. Don't you trust me?"

She shrugged. "Not really. You've never been straight with me before...why change a habit of a lifetime now?" He raised an eyebrow at the burst of sarcasm out of nowhere.

"Have you got PMS? Or is this some new menopausal delight I've got waiting for me? I was just going to suggest you went back to New York, spent some time with Mel. You'd like that. So would she. You could hit the shops and waste a shit load of money, do the museums and galleries, go and see a show. That's gotta be more fun than sitting in a hotel room waiting for me..."

His remark lit the touch paper even if it was perfectly reasonable in the circumstances. "Sure...why didn't I think of that? That's what girls do, isn't it? Girly things. Spend money on clothes, get their hair done, buy a few more pairs of shoes, amuse themselves with a bit of culture...Jesus, Terry! I wasn't even like that when I was a young woman! Don't try and palm me off with that pap. If you are not prepared to divulge what you're involved in and you want me off your back for a few days then just bloody say so! And I would be very grateful if you didn't throw the old hormones saw at me every time I say something you don't like. What's your excuse for being such a miserable bastard?"

Terry stood listening quietly, his hands on his hips, frowning thoughtfully. "Are you okay, Annie? Maybe you should go to Boston and spend some time with Zoe...she could keep an eye on you..."

Annie's scream made him blink rapidly in surprise. "Oh, go fuck yourself, Terry...!" 

It was an unfamiliar feeling as he rode the elevator up to his apartment but one he felt genuine eagerness and anticipation for, like a child waking up and realising that Christmas had finally come. He leaned back and breathed slowly, staring at his reflection in the mirror opposite, consciously reshaping his image from professional to lover. He searched his conscience for guilt and found none; what he had done, he had done and he had years of practice to fall back on. Killer, legal executioner, sanctioned assassin, bringer of death to the bringers of death, caped crusader - whatever his primary function in life was, he had no problems justifying it to himself. You stick a gun in the hand of a jumpy kid in uniform and tell him to shoot the boy on the other side who's guilty of nothing more than being born in the wrong country? That still appeared to him to be harder to rationalise than the selective removal of those whom the law could not always touch or whose case for one reason or another would never reach a courtroom.

These people were guilty, even when the moral edges were blurred, and were part of a world where they knew the ultimate price - and that it might even devolve upon their families and loved ones. He never gave the final directive and was enough of a soldier in his psyche not then to regard his own role in the subsequent action as any more than carrying out orders. He was just the conduit - not the one responsible.

If he had an issue with it, it was in how others would see his career and he knew few people would be comfortable with knowing that when he left for work it often meant he was preparing to take life. He winced. People were so hypocritical at heart. They wanted to be safe and for the bad men to go away but then got on moral high horses when faced with what in reality it took to accomplish that. Like they ate meat but wouldn't have the guts to kill and skin their own food. It annoyed him even as he jealously guarded the secret of his life. I'm the only one who faces the truth, he told himself. We're all Neanderthals at heart.

The elevator doors slid open and he walked briskly down the corridor, already shedding the outer shell and letting the swagger of his confident charmer alter ego re-emerge. Or was that the real man and was the other the cloak he covered his true self with?

The door to his apartment swung back and he inhaled the faint aroma of cooking. The virgin dining table, glass and steel, was set for two with an elegant arrangement of some blue flowers. Like he could tell one bloom from another? But he knew it felt good to see the touches of someone who had cared enough to make his return special. Music was playing, candles were shedding a soft glow, some sensual fragrance was burning in a holder - an image of the London apartment flashed back into his mind.

"Nick! You made me jump! You creeping up on me?" Zoe appeared at the entrance to the lounge before launching herself into his arms. He grabbed her as she straddled him and danced through to the kitchen kissing and fondling her. London slipped away.

"Ya mean the kitchen actually works?" he laughed, sitting her down on the granite top and coming in for another passionate kiss. Zoe held his head and responded, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him close.

"I missed you so bad..." she murmured.

He sighed. "You have no idea...." Then he gave the cooking pots a look. "So what you making? Smells fucking good..."

Zoe hopped down; he steadied her tenderly and stroked down the smooth slender curve of her hips as she pointed out what she had been preparing.

"It's Italian. I raided the deli across the road that you recommended...so antipasti crudi with marinated artichokes, tomatoes and olives, followed by linguine alla vongole with a green salad....and then...lemon sorbet made with prosecco, decorated with fresh raspberries...!" She made a gesture by throwing out her arms like a diva.

He smiled and looked impressed. "Where d'ya learn to cook like that? Your Mum?"

Zoe grinned. "Not exactly. She's no cook. She feeds us but is simply not very interested in the fancy stuff. I like creating dishes and serving them artistically. She calls it 'messing about' and says if she wanted decoration she would go and eat at a restaurant. Dad doesn't seem to care. He eats pretty much anything..."

"...you should see what they feed soldiers. That soon cures you of being fussy," Nick laughed. "Always thought your Dad liked fine dining and good wines..."

"At home he eats sausages and mash and loves it..." Zoe giggled. 

Nick returned the grin. "Sounds pretty good to me. Years since I ate like that..."

"Men!" Zoe exclaimed. "Now, go open the wine. I'm almost ready here..."

They lingered over the meal, eating and talking, laughing and touching across the table. Nick was almost surprised that they hadn't just torn each other's clothes off and gone to bed but somehow liked it better that they hadn't. This slow burn was by far more erotic, stoking up the passion but also feeding the affection. He wanted to listen to her talk about her week first, drink in the trivial events that made up a typical day for her,  the stories about her friends, remarks about her studies, university issues, news items, a book she was reading. It just felt so real to be part of the life of another, included in their thoughts, allowed into the minutiae of their lives. She wanted to tell him everything. His opinion was important to her.

He couldn't give her much back in return. He talked vaguely about London and a few days of intensive talks and debriefing then turned to his social activities there, making most of it up based on typical visits. He had been to a few clubs this time and regaled her with a few celebrity sightings and insider gossip. It deflected her sufficiently from the real issue.

"Oh...I've got some news! And, you are behind it somehow...secret agent man....!" Zoe suddenly shouted.

Nick blinked.

"Liam phoned me. He got this call from a very famous singer - as if you didn't know! - who apparently had heard and liked his work...They're meeting in England later this week...Liam is going to get into the studio with him on his private estate and see what comes up. Nick, how did you do that? How do you know him?"

Nick just took a swig of wine and carried on eating. "Met him. At  a party. He's a good bloke..."

"Well...come on...tell me all about him! I think he's so sexy...and wild...I've had dirty fantasies about Robbie since I was a little girl..."

He laughed. "He shits out of the same hole as the rest of us, love. How did I meet him? I was at this party in...where the fuck was it? Berlin, I think...I made a move on his girl...."

"You did what?"

"I hit on her. He didn't much like it."

"What happened?'

"I knocked him out when he took a swing. Then his bodyguards went for me..."

"And...?" Zoe's eyes were round with shock.

"Knocked them out as well. Robbie dragged himself off the floor and said, 'You want a fucking job, mate?'"

Nick laughed helplessly at the memory.

"What? He didn't mind? God, he is so unpredictable! I love him. What about the girl?"

Nick sniffed and reached over for more bread. "We both fucked her later. Well, s'what friends do...she wasn't complaining..."

Zoe screeched. "Nick, you dog! You and he...in the same room? At the same time? My God, you are the dirtiest bastard...! What I wouldn't have given to be that girl...!"

Nick's smile froze on his face. "Don't talk crap. She was off her head on something. Just a tart. You wouldn't want part of that scene, baby...So, Liam's got his big break, hey?"

For a moment she surveyed him, surprised at his closing down of the subject but then shrugged if off. He was just being Nick. "Dunno. Up to him now, though. He's on cloud nine. You can imagine him, can't you! Stupid grin on his face...you know Liam...He said mum and dad freaked when he told them he was going to be a singer. He's still barely talking to dad..."

"Spare me the details. Just wait until big Terry hears about you and me. Then we'll really get the artillery. Christ, I want to be wearing Kevlar that day..." Nick sighed and reached for the bottle of wine. "Do not get all confidential with your mother. I know what women are like. Keep your mouth shut about this." He filled her glass. She swirled the golden liquid around thoughtfully.

"I know. They wouldn't understand. I have no intention of saying anything. I never really tell them the things that count. I mean, I might dish about my new boyfriend and all that girl talk crap but she never knows what I'm really up to. And Dad? How can you tell him anything? I'd die if he thought I had a sex life. He wants me to stay Daddy's little girl forever and if that fiction suits him, then I'll play along..." She sighed. "...That sounds really callous, doesn't it? It's not what I mean. I love him. I adore him. He's my Dad. The best man in my life..." her voice trailed off and she clasped Nick's good hand across the table. "...Until I met you. That's life, hey?"

Nick nodded lowering his eyelids languidly as he raised her hand and kissed it, licking sensuously and smiling when he heard her shiver in delight. "You gonna make me wash up - or can I carry you to my chamber and ravish you now?"

Zoe smiled and he watched as she almost purred at his low sex voice. "Take me now before I simply melt. I want you inside me...all night long..." she whispered. He blew out the candles and pushed back his chair, holding out his hand and raising her to her feet.

With an easy sweep, Nick took her in his arms and carried her upstairs as she nestled against his chest, undoing the buttons of his shirt and slipping her hand inside to stroke the hair. "Nick....you never gave me a chance to tell you when you left me in Sydney....I love you, too...I love you....I love you..."

Liam sat at the long breakfast table in the country mansion that was now his temporary home. The past days had been a blur of activity, more than he had ever hoped for in his wildest dreams. Private helicopter from Heathrow, state of the art recording studio, people fawning over him and primping him at every turn. How could all this happen in a week? On his own it would have taken him years even to get the door ajar. Now he had some of the most experienced music producers in Britain at his disposal and the showman of showmen to advise him on his presentation. An album might be months down the line but the publicity ball was rolling and his name would soon begin to be circulated as one to watch.

The door opened and Robbie himself strolled in, dressed in his under shorts and a baseball cap; he looked half asleep, scratching at his chest and glancing at a newspaper. "You up? Pour us a cuppa, mate. My head thinks me throat's been cut. Did you see that girl I was with last night? She's still out cold. Someone better get her home before I have to say good morning. Why do they always look so good after ten vodkas?"

Liam laughed and handed him a cup of tea. Robbie threw the newspaper down. "Here, big wannabe star. Read what's happening to real people. Take it from me, what you get here is about as unreal as it gets. Trust no one. They tell you you're the dog's bollocks one day and then stick a knife in your back the next. Don't believe anyone. Least of all me." He grinned. "And if you want to go on writing those lyrics, you better not lose touch. Why would anyone give a fuck about what a tragedy it is to be a rich spoilt celebrity with no one to love him..."

The man gave a self-deprecatory laugh. Liam liked him a lot. Trusted him, too. Here was one man who the system hadn't used up in the end. "Thought that's what made you your millions, mate. Whining on about how hard it was to be you..." Liam replied cheekily.

Robbie threw a piece of toast at him. "Smart arse. There's only room for one Robbie. Find your own bleeding heart...! I'm gonna shower. Meet you outside later...let's go kick some ball..." he picked up a piece of fruit and ambled off, leaving Liam to read the newspaper.

Other people's lives. He thought about the way life changes from minute to minute. Ten days ago he had been wandering the streets feeling like he was at rock bottom and now here he was with everything turned on one dime. God, he owed Costello so much for what he had done. It was a really decent thing. He'd look him up as soon as he could and buy him a beer.

The headlines in the paper were pretty lurid. It was a tabloid and, as usual, the main events of the world had given way to a gruesome murder and some celebrity gossip. The main story was tragic. Beautiful Arab student shot in the head by her young lover and then he turned the gun on himself. What made people act like that? How far down must you get to prefer death to life? Liam wondered what had passed in their lives during the past ten days to bring them to this.

Reading on, he found that police suspected it was a suicide pact. The girl, from a prominent Arab family, was dating this British guy of low class Pakistani background. His father had a newsagent's in Bradford. They were working on the theory that her family had refused to allow him to marry her and were probably exerting pressure on her to come home and marry a suitable family acquaintance instead. The lovers had not been able to contemplate a life apart so had decided to die together.

It piqued Liam's curiosity. Images ran through his head. It was a story that was so familiar in Muslim communities but so alien to the world he inhabited. Different love stories, side by side, futures turning on the spin of a coin that decided whether you were born here or there, rich or poor, religious or atheist, educated or illiterate - but all beginning with the same basic human need. To be loved. Romeo and Juliet. Star crossed lovers. Parallels rose in his head and strands of lyrics floated past. There was a song here somewhere.

Liam filed the notions and images away for later and turned to the Sports' page to catch up on the football news...

They lay in the mess of the bedclothes, tangled up and sweaty, soft music playing and both almost sleeping but neither wishing to see the moment disappear. Nick held her, half sitting against the stack of pillows and rocking her gently in his arms, whispering into her ear: stray thoughts, romantic declarations, muttered crude suggestions that made her giggle and elbow him playfully. It was that warm afterglow of lovemaking when you ease down and really come together after the wild passion is spent.

"Why didn't you let me go down on you?" Zoe suddenly turned over and crawled back up his chest.

"What?" Nick muttered, reaching over for a packet of cigarettes and not meeting her eyes.

"When I tried to go down on you, you jerked me up like you were annoyed. Why was that?"

He had been standing in the middle of the room, his pants around his ankles and she had slithered down his body to her knees and kissed his tip. A sudden flashback had gripped him. Dark haired beauty on her knees, her head exploding, blood and brain matter spraying out and an anguished scream in the night. I would have wanted to die, he had thought to himself. If that was me, I'd have begged to die. Even if he would have done no such thing in reality. Anyone who touched what was his would have been dead before the bullet had even come to rest.

But he would want to die if he lost her. He knew it that moment when he remembered that young man and his grief. He couldn't live without this woman. It was as simple as that. The pain of even an image of losing her rent him in two. He had jerked her to her feet then and tried to hide the passing guilt in a wild kiss. Memories. You always get them after, dreams or waking flashes. It's normal. He usually just drank or fucked them away when he got back.

It was harder now to find that oblivion. Everything seemed to revolve around one thing. If she knew she would never touch him again. How was he going to hide away from that?

"I dunno. Don't remember. Must have wanted something else...too excited...didn't want to come..."

"You mean you were a good boy while you were away? No sexy woman to warm your bed at night? " Zoe's comment might have seemed flippant but her tone told him she had worried this one over. It shocked him that the idea had even occurred to her. Could she not see how he felt?

He stubbed out the cigarette and rolled her over, smoothing his fingers over her beautiful face. "You think I would go with someone else? Baby, I love you. I don't want anyone else. Christ, I know I was a sleazy bastard before but why shouldn't I be? I had no ties, no girlfriend, no one to be loyal to. But it's different now. You and me. That's all I want. I'll never touch another woman as long as you're with me. Not sure I'd want anyone else even if you weren't my girl...  you any idea how you've changed my life? What I would do for you? Zoe...this is real...the most real thing that has ever happened to me. I feel...when I'm with you, I feel...it's too..."

He choked on the words, his voice already husky and full of emotion. Zoe observed him and realised he was trying to hold back tears, his eyes moist and dewy. She reached out and caressed his face. "I love you, Nick. Don't get upset. I know what you mean. I feel the same. Shussssh...." She pulled him against her breasts and rocked him as he had done for her earlier, holding him close. His arms snaked round her and he hid his face against her naked breast and she listened to the deep breathes he was taking to fight off the overwhelming surge of feeling that threatened to swamp him.

Zoe had never known a man let down his guard like this. Sure, she had been with men, boys really, who had got carried away in sex and she knew that they often showed their needy side at moments like that. But Nick? He was everything that was tough, aggressively macho and male. He could deal with everything and everybody. Nothing scared him. There were no chinks in his armour.

Or so she had thought. Yet as she comforted him she began to realise that the hardest man is guarding the greatest secret. Inside of him there is still the little boy he once was and the less people aware that this child still existed somewhere, the more powerful was the surrender when such a man chose to open his heart. It felt like the greatest privilege she had ever been given to be the one person that Nick felt safe enough to burden with his vulnerability and need.

It also felt like the weightiest responsibility she had ever known.

And for the first time she asked herself a question. What am I doing with this man?