Last to Die

driven a mountain road there?”
    “I’ve never been to Italy,” said Jane.
    “And I’ll never be able to go back. Not after what happened.”
    “You said you accomplished your mission.”
    “Yes. In spectacularly bloody fashion. We were in pursuit. Four of us, in two cars, winding up killer curves. We almost had him when the truck came around the bend. Icarus hit the guardrail and skidded. The truck him broadside.” Carole shook her head. “It was a fucking mess. His wife and the older son crushed on impact. The younger son taking his last breaths.”
    “And Icarus?” said Frost.
    “Oh, he was alive. Not just alive but fighting us. Nicholas and Erskine got him restrained and threw him in one of our vehicles. Six hours later he was on a plane, handcuffed and sedated. He woke up behind bars. You know the first thing he said, when he saw me?
You’re dead. All of you
.”
    “You did kill his family,” pointed out Jane.
    “That was unfortunate. Collateral damage. But we accomplished our mission. The truck driver was too shaken up to give the Italian police any useful details about us. Erskine continued in his post at the embassy. Nicholas went back to his cover story as a financial consultant.”
    “And Olivia went back to selling nonexistent bedpans.”
    Carole laughed. “At least Olivia went home with a souvenir. She stayed on in Italy for a few weeks. Met a dorky tourist named Neil Yablonski. By candlelight, in a Rome restaurant, I guess even a dork looks good. A year later, she married him.”
    “And you all went on with your lives.”
    “That’s how it
should
have been.”
    “What went wrong?”
    “Icarus escaped.”
    In the silence that followed, Jane put it all together. The reason why three families were massacred. “Vengeance,” she said.
    Carole nodded. “For what we did to him, and to his family. Those thirteen years he spent in prison made him even more of a monster. It gave him time to nurse his hatred, to feed it, grow it, until it consumed him. The escape was an inside job, that’s the only way it could have happened. I’m sure he offered a king’s ransom to whoever helped him. After he slipped out of sight, we had no idea where he went, or even what he looked like. We never did locate all his secret accounts, so he still controlled a fortune. I’m sure he bought a new face. And new friends in high places.”
    “You said he spent thirteen years in prison,” said Frost.
    “Yes.”
    “So he escaped three years ago.” He looked at Jane. “That must be why Nicholas Clock and his family packed up and left on the sailboat.”
    Carole nodded. “After Icarus escaped, Nicholas got nervous. We all did, but he was the only one worried enough to pull up roots and actually ditch the Company. I didn’t think it would be easy for Icarus to track us down. Until the Italian government got involved.”
    “Why?” said Jane.
    “Blame it on politics, on WikiLeaks, whatever. Word got out to the press that the CIA had committed an act of extraordinary rendition on Italian soil. Suddenly the Italians were pissed. Violation of sovereignty. A CIA operation that killed three innocent civilians. Our names were redacted from all the reports, but money opens doors. Especially if it’s a lot of money.” She went back to the window and looked out, a lean silhouette framed in gray light. “Erskine and his wife were killed first. Shot, in a London alley. Days later Olivia and her husband were dead, too, after their plane went down. I tried to get word to Nicholas, but the message didn’t reach him in time. In the span of one week, all three of my colleagues were dead.”
    “How were you lucky enough to stay alive?” said Jane.
    “Lucky?” Carole’s laugh was bitter. “That’s hardly the word I’d choose to describe my life. More like doomed. To keep looking over my shoulder. To always sleep with one eye open. For two years I’ve been living this way, and even though the Company does what it can to keep me safe, it will never feel like enough. And it won’t be enough to keep those three children alive.”
    “Icarus would go that far? He’d kill children?”
    “Who else would be hunting them? He killed Nicholas and Olivia and Erskine, all dead within a week of each other. Now he’s hunting their children, exterminating the family lines right down to the last survivor. Don’t you see, it’s all about making a point. It’s a message directed to anyone who dares oppose him in the