The sun had gone down. The end-of-day desert heat still radiated back up from the pavement in Central Islamabad, and the ground all around Quinn's hideout still shimmered in the heat. It took a good ten minutes of observation while he carefully cased the alley behind his hidden chamber of horrors, and the car, before he encouraged Carrie to emerge, and enter the vehicle. Under his direction, she covered up in the headscarf again, as Quinn donned his cap and drove her back to the embassy.

For a long while, driving through the seedier parts of the city, they held hands, fingers interlaced across the seats in a tight grasp, bound in a tight weave of feeling. It was bizarre, holding hands with Quinn, even in light of what they had just declared to each other, with their bodies and with his words. She was not the demonstrative type, and couldn't remember holding hands with anyone except Maggie or Frank for most of her life. Most of that had been 25 years ago.

As for Quinn, if there was anyone in the world less inclined to an ostentatious show of public affection, she couldn't think of who it was. Anyone at the Agency was warmer. Even Saul gave the odd hug or warm handshake, at least he had in the days before he went private. In the prior years they had known each other, Quinn was more likely to grab her arm brusquely than do anything remotely affectionate. She could remember the night of the explosion, how Quinn had gotten to her first, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She had still thought of him as cold-as-ice Quinn, back then, and had assumed it was the comfort he'd offer any other operative who'd been in harm's way. But the more she thought back on it, the more anxious and tender she remembered him being, like he'd have liked to lift and carry her bruised form. Like he had wanted to take her away and nurse her himself. She had felt battered, and weak, and had leaned into him gratefully. Knowing his repressed emotions, knowing what she now knew, it hurt. He had been waiting for her to need him.

So they held hands across the seats of Astrid's Volkswagen, keeping it low, gripping each other tightly, more like two warriors girding their loins for battle and drawing strength from each other's touch than two lovers who were about to be parted. Quinn's seed still slid out of her body, warm and slippery, and she shivered. It had been so intense, the lovemaking. It had been dreamlike. She was still in disbelief about some of the things he'd said. Arousing statements, wild memories, full of ire, fear, love and loss. She'd have to make him repeat them in the light of day, after this ordeal was over, if it ever was.

"So now I'm expected to just go back to the Embassy, and pretend I can't find you?" Carrie asked, irritably, her palm pressed to his. The particulars of Quinn's plan to get Haqqani were something he hadn't shared, and they made her uncomfortable in the extreme. But despite any questioning, he had declined to give her more detail.

"Yes. If you can, go to Khan, get him to call his dogs off the parts of town we discussed. Describe a place as far from the point of my operation as you can think of. Concentrate his troops there. Give him some line of shit, make it believable. And when the local chatter really starts to rumble, keep away from that part of town. Do you understand me, Carrie? I don't want you right in the middle of it. I need to feel free to enable my plan and achieve my objective without worrying every second about whether you're standing in the crossfire."

"Crossfire," she said, feeling like she'd discovered something. "So, it's rifles?" She eyeballed him, out of the corner of her eye. She knew what a good shot he was, it seemed plausible that he'd just spilled something.

"I didn't say that. Stop guessing. And now, you need to get down," he ordered. He put his hand on her ear, and shoved her head down into his lap. "I don't want anyone seeing you with me. We're going to circle the Diplomatic enclave until we're clear. Then, I'm going to dump Astrid's car with the Germans, and switch vehicles. So don't look for this VW, babe."

Head in Quinn's lap, her head pillowed on the dense muscle of his thigh, Carrie sighed. "I won't," she said. "I'm in this now, God help me, and I should have my fucking head examined. How are you set for funds?"

"I have eight or nine thousand Euros, about 2500 dollars US. And a suitcase full of Rupees," he said.

"You're going to need it," she said. "Let me know if you need more. What's your extraction plan?"

Quinn was momentarily silent. The hand he had used to push her head into his lap had remained on her shoulder, had been stroking back and forth from shoulder to elbow, then came to rest on her breast, jealously. His index finger stroked back and forth over the her nipple, enjoying the feeling of it coming erect in her brassiere. He didn't answer, just said after a time, "I'll work that out. It's going to depend."

"Quinn," Carrie said, lying tense under his caresses, feeling annoyed and speaking louder. "You know extraction should be the front end of your plan, not an afterthought. It matters to me if you get out alive, you know."

"It does, huh," he said, smiling, bemused, more than a little pleased, smoothing his finger over her nipple. "That's quite a statement, for you."

Carrie's ire was stirred by his seemingly light treatment of his own life and death. She very nearly shouted at him from her reclining position, head on his lap, even tried to sit up. But he pressed her back down, palm on her shoulder, and pinned her. She grumbled. "Yes, Quinn, it fucking matters! And don't make a joke out of it." She finally succeeded in sitting up, and a quick look at her face, swaddled in the purple silk, confirmed that she saw nothing funny about it. Her expression was deeply troubled, and tears hung in the corners of her eyes. "I didn't come so far into this shithole to find you, only to lose you again, and stupidly. Let me help," she finished. He pressed her head back into his lap, more gently, stroking her arm and shoulder this time.

"I will," Quinn said. "I'm getting a new burner phone every day. And I will call you every day. Seven PM, alright? I'm not telling you more, because I don't want you to know something that ISI or any of these other bastards can extract out of you," he said, worriedly.

"That's not going to happen," Carrie said. "I intend to stay well out of harm's way. I just wish I knew more how to help you, Quinn."

Finally, Embassy traffic around the entrance cleared, and not a single recognizable vehicle was seen. "Now, jump out, Carrie. Go straight in; say you lost me in the Blue Zone. Get a new phone, and wait for my call," he instructed. "And, trust me," he said finally.

With trepidation, even loathing for the situation in her eyes, Carrie complied. She tore off the headscarf, and shoved it back through the car window, leaning in across the empty passenger seat. Quinn gazed back at her, quizzical and solemn in his ridiculous hat.

"Stay in touch with me," she begged, "and be careful."

"I will," he promised.

"I can't stand to lose you now, Quinn. I didn't know, before. But I understand now. I need this to be over, I need you to survive. Promise me," she said, earnestly.

"I will be careful. And I will come back to you. Hopefully, the world will be one terrorist asshole the lesser."

He waved her off, indicated she should go inside, before they were seen together. Night had fallen while they had spent their torrid hours in the hidden warehouse. To the receding car taillights, Carrie spoke her final words to Quinn, though he was long since out of earshot. A sick part of her soul wondered if she'd ever see him again.

"Asshole, you better stay alive."

It was the closest she could come to "I love you."