Free Blind Instinct by Fiona Brand Page A

offset by the fact that her link with the cipher had been kept secret.
    Armand and the SOE had protected her, buther time in Vassigny was over. There were a limited number of codebooks, and only a handful of people with access to the Château. It was only a matter of time before Reichmann, or more likely, Stein, the local Gestapo officer, unmasked her. When she transmitted the code information at her next scheduled radio contact, she would make arrangements to leave.
    Reichmann bypassed her office and walked directly into his. Breathing a sigh of relief, Sara walked through to his office and bade him good-night.
    Returning to her desk, she stripped off her spectacles, carefully stored them in her glasses case and slipped the case into her purse. Shrugging into her thick lined coat, she wound a woolen scarf around her neck, tucking it in against the cold. Collecting her purse, she straightened and caught a glimpse of her face in the ornate gilded mirror opposite her desk. Her skin was as pale as the empty marble fireplace, but that wasn’t what held her attention.
    The scarf was bright red. The significance of the color drained the blood from her face.
    She had forgotten about the thread in the codebook .

    * * * 
    Sharp pain shooting up her shins jerked Sara awake. She stared blankly at the dimly lit room and the rectangular shape of a coffee table, for long seconds unable to grasp where she was.
    A shudder swept through her when she identified the cozy familiarity of her sitting room. Dim light flowed from the hallway—her bedroom—which meant that when she’d fallen asleep, she must have left her bedside lamp on.
    Gripping the nearby arm of the couch for support, she sat down, her hands shaking as she rubbed away the pain in her shins.
    The sharp clarity of the dream, the jolt of raw terror, had already faded, sliding into automatic, practiced blankness.
    Pushing to her feet, she flicked on the lights and poured herself a glass of ice water from the fridge. Sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, she slowly sipped the water and waited for her pulse to even out.
    There was an easy explanation for the dream. Something had happened when she had picked up the codebook. She had experienced a flash of déjà vu, which had, in turn, triggered the dream.
    The purity of the logic didn’t help her with thefact that she had the dreams in the first place or that she had started sleepwalking again.
    Or the certainty that her past was inextricably entwined with the now.

Eight
    Grand Cayman Island, the Caribbean
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    E dward Dennison, ex-FBI agent, ex-drug cartel member, and now a dead man walking, wiped down the counter of the bar he owned. The Shack was a seedy joint on the waterfront renowned for cheap beer, mean chili and a distinct lack of any discernible comfort.
    In terms of excitement, tending a bar scored low on Dennison’s barometer but, after escaping Alex Lopez’s last attempt on his life by a matter of seconds, Dennison was all over boring and routine.
    He loved the seedy dim bar and the predictable clientele. In the months he had owned it, his customers generally fell into two categories: tannedtourists wearing gaudy clothing and smelling of sunblock, and the regulars. The tourists, annoyed by the stink of drying fishing nets and sour beer, didn’t stay long. The regulars—fishermen and plantation workers, mostly—hung out at the bar and propped up the pool table, providing a quality that had been sadly lacking in Dennison’s life for more years than he cared to count—continuity.
    Rain or shine, the same faces appeared, the same beer was ordered and the same music on the jukebox was played. Conversations were predictable and laconic. Dennison hung on every word and loved with passion the static world he had landed in.
    Just months ago, in custody in D.C., with the CIA squeezing him for information about Alex Lopez and the wealthy cabal that backed him,