They came at one-thirty.
He had expected it. He had been positioned from midnight in the configuration he used when he expected contact — himself at the point in the room where he had sight lines to both the door and the window, Priya in the interior bedroom with the door locked and his phone in her hand and Dev's number already open. He had briefed her exactly: If I tell you to call, call immediately. If you hear me shout, call. If you lose contact with me for more than three minutes, call and stay in the locked bedroom.
She had listened with the focused absorption she brought to all instructions that were practical and necessary, and she had said: "Will you be all right?" and he had said "Yes" with the specific quality of certainty that was not performance but the fact of a man who had been in these situations before and knew how he functioned in them.
The sound at the door was very quiet — the sound of someone who was good at this, who knew how to work a lock without the standard signals that someone less skilled would produce. Two of them: he could tell from the slight pressure variations as the door resisted. Professional. Someone had hired professionals.
He let them get the lock. He was positioned away from the door, in shadow, in the space that would be a blind spot for anyone entering from the front. He waited. Patience was the first thing the NSG had taught him, before everything else. The person who moves last usually moves right.
