Free The Last Run by Greg Rucka

suppose we’ll have to, soon, but not yet. Not until after the holidays.”
    “I shan’t be long,” Chace said. “It’s just a couple of quick questions.”
    “This is about when he was with the Foreign Office, you said on the phone.”
    “That’s right.”
    “May I ask you, miss, was he a spy?”
    Chace looked at her curiously. “I’m sorry?”
    “It’s just that Killian says he thinks his father was a spy, only he never talked about it to him when he was growing up, you see, and now he can’t really talk about anything at all. But Da says things, very odd things, places he’s been that Killian never knew about. We’d started to wonder if there wasn’t some truth to it, that perhaps it weren’t all his mind going. So a spy perhaps, something like that.”
    Chace laughed softly, shaking her head. “No, my understanding is that your father-in-law was a special courier for the FCO, Mrs. Newsom. There was certainly a lot of travel involved, but nothing terribly glamorous or exciting.”
    “And that’s what you need to ask him about?”
    “We have some questions about a job he did, yes. Nothing that need worry you or your husband, I assure you.”
    Dorothy Newsom nodded, clearly not satisfied. “Well, you can go on up, I suppose. I was making myself breakfast. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re finished, if you’d like a cuppa.”
    “Thank you, that’s very kind,” Chace said, and she headed upstairs to meet what was left of Jeremy Newsom, former Tehran Station Number Two, 1977–79.
    It had been just past noon the previous day when the Ops Room had received responses to their separate queries. The first to come in had been from Thomas Bay, in Jakarta. It was a brief signal reporting that Falcon was present in theatre, and asking if there was a reason for the inquiry. The second had come from Barnett.
    “The message was received via dead drop, all signals proper and confirmed,” Lex had relayed to Chace. “The Number Two, Caleb Lewis, cleared it Saturday morning, found the message. The drop is currently assigned to an agent they’re running, code name Mini. But it’s not his code, and as Mini is hands-off right now, they can’t confirm if he’s been blown or not.”
    “Currently?” Chace asked.
    “Direct quote,” Lex answered, checking her copy of the signal.
    Chace chewed on her lower lip, staring at the map on the wall. The callout for Operation: Bagboy was still positioned over Mosul, now with a notation reading, “Pending.” Once Lankford was on the ground in Iraq, the label would change, declaring the op as “Running.”
    “Where’d we stash Ricks after he got back from Iran?” Chace asked, and when Lex shrugged, turned to Ron at the Duty Ops Desk. “Anybody know?”
    “Think he’s on leave.” Ron picked up one of his many telephones. “I’ll check with Personnel.”
    “Please.” Chace made her way across the room, to Mission Planning and its companion Research Desk, taking a seat at one of the three terminals stationed there. Access from the Desk was limited, only to files graded Restricted or lower, but that was adequate for her current task. The system was painfully slow, the computers already several years out-of-date and creeping towards obsolescence despite the Systems Group’s best efforts, and before she could actually begin her search, Ron called out to her.
    “Confirmed. Terry Ricks is on leave, due for return to duty first January. I’ve got a leave address and contact number.”
    “Where’d he go?”
    “Someplace up north, in the Ribble Valley. Clitheroe—”
    “Right, Lancashire, I know the place,” Chace said. Tom Wallace’s mother, Valerie, lived some fifteen kilometers east from Clitheroe, in Barnoldswick. “Could you set me a call with him, please, Ron? Soonest?”
    “As it is either that or resume struggling with my crosswords, I shall do the former.”
    Chace went back to the computer, started working through the message. She ignored the