“Black Arrow. Who’s their D.C. handler?”
He crushed the phone in his fist and melted into the alley.
The broker’s muffled voice came through Sam’s fingers. “G-grimsdottir. Anna Grimsdottir. Third Echelon. She’s gone rogue—Reed forced her to fake Sarah’s death file.”
“Where is she?”
Sam checked his SC—no pistol. No sticky shockers. Just his bare hands, a pair of flex-cuffs, and the fuse of cold rage he kept banked behind his ribs.
He cuffed Galliard to the chair, took the man’s phone, and slipped out the same way he came—through the dark, silent as a spent round.
Now the lie had a name: Black Arrow . A private military corp running off-the-books assassinations. And the man who could lead Sam to Reed was inside this penthouse. Lucius Galliard. Former CIA, now an information broker who thought he was untouchable.
He grabbed a heavy glass ashtray from a side table. Tossed it to the far end of the room. It shattered. The guards turned, raised weapons. Sam moved in the opposite direction— toward Galliard —as the men fanned out toward the noise.
Three targets. One objective. No witnesses who can talk.
Sam leaned close. “Good. Traps are just ambushes that haven’t flipped yet.”
The safe house smelled of stale coffee and regret. Sam Fisher knelt by the window, the fractured moonlight catching the silver in his stubble. Three years ago, he’d walked away from Third Echelon. They told him his daughter, Sarah, was dead. Killed by a drunk driver. He’d buried her empty casket. Buried himself in grief.