HAW CLOSED the door behind him and said angrily, “What the hell are you doing here, Frank? There’s no face-to-face during an op, you know that.”

Frank Wells remained sitting in the chair, his face looking slightly pinched. “You went out to Les Baux-de-Provence today.”

“I know I did,” snapped Shaw. “So?”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because Waller had invited Janie to go with him on his private tour, and I couldn’t let that happen.” He held up a hand when Frank looked ready to say something. “It has nothing to do with her personally. It would’ve just been a logistical headache to have her in the way when we do the extraction.”

“Yeah, well, I got bad news on that. It’s why I’m here. Didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

Shaw dropped his room key on the table and sank onto the bed. “What bad news?”

“They’re pulling the op. Amy Crawford and the strike team are already wheels up and out of the country.”

Shaw rose so fast he almost hit his head on the low ceiling. “What! Why?”

“Things have changed.”

“Changed! How could they have changed? Waller’s looking to sell nukes. Crazy people are trying to buy them from him so they can go and blow up a chunk of the world. How can that possibly change?”

“It does if he’s no longer trying to sell them. And in fact he might very well have killed the people he was trying to do business with.”

“How do you know that?”

“Found two bodies in a lake that match the descriptions of the Islamic guys who were dealing with Waller. They both exhibited signs of extreme torture. Plus we got chatter on the communication lines that indicates the Muslims are no longer working with our Canadian psycho and in fact have cut off all ties to him.”

“How do you know he killed them?”

“We don’t for sure, but we also just learned that a house where we believe Waller was meeting with a midlevel terrorist cell member was blown up. He might’ve lost a couple of guys, at least the entourage he has here is different from the one he normally travels with. We think maybe the Islamists double-crossed him, tried to kill him, and he retaliated. At least that’s one theory, and probably the right one. It’s not like I see the guy taking out the nuke freaks to save the world. He just cares about money.”

“But, Frank, there’s no reason to believe that he won’t try again with a different group of buyers.”

“Don’t think so. This whole thing has drawn way too much attention now in places the guy doesn’t want the spotlight. He’s too smart to try anything now. He’ll crawl back in his sex slavery ring hole for a few years. By then his access to the U-235 will have dried up too. We believed he was getting it from the stockpile the Russians were dismantling and sending to the Americans under a disarmament treaty. In a few years that supply will be all gone. That’s why the higher-ups no longer consider the op worth doing.”

“But it was a snatch-and-tell. He could still lead us to the terrorist cell.”

“Not if he killed them all. The one guy we were really interested in, Abdul-Majeed, has fallen completely off the radar. Our intel concludes that Waller probably got to him too. Bottom line is there’s no one left for him to rat on.”

“But he’s a bad guy. You just said he’ll go back to his sex slavery business now. He has to be stopped.”

Frank rose. “That’s not our concern. We’re officially pulling our tent on this one.” He held out a packet of materials. “I got your new assignment here. Early morning flight out to Madrid, then on to wild Rio for a while. You’ll get briefed on the way, but it has to do with Chinese ties to some violent antidemocratic leaders in that hemisphere. My counterpart in South America will be meeting you and going over more specifics.” When Shaw didn’t take the packet, Frank dropped it on the desk.

Shaw was shaking his head. “Tomorrow morning? That’s not enough time for me to wind things up here.”

Frank, who was heading to the door, stopped and turned back to him. “Wind things up? What the hell is there to wind up?”

“Give me an extra week here, Frank.”

“A week! Forget it. Your orders are in that packet. You go tomorrow. It’s all set.”

“And if I don’t?”

Frank drew closer to him. “Do you really want to go there?”

“I think I’m going to have to.”

“Because of her? I thought you said there was nothing there.”

“I said there was nothing romantic there. But I can’t leave the lady alone with Waller. That’d be like signing her death warrant.”

“Oh come on. We’ve had this discussion. The guy is not going to try anything with her. This is Provence. And the lady’s not some abandoned young girl from a mud-hut town in Guangdong Province that nobody cares about. She’s not in his wheelhouse at all.”

“If the guy wants her, he’ll take her. That I know. And I’m pretty sure he wants her. So just run some interference for me with the guys up top. Just buy me some time.”

But Frank had already turned away. “Be on the flight tomorrow, Shaw. And stop playing guardian angel. The look doesn’t wear well on you.”

Shaw kicked the door shut behind the man.