Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest novel, Diving Into the Wreck (Pyr), is based on her Asimov’s Readers’-Award-winning novellas: “Diving Into the Wreck” (December 2005) and “The Room of Lost Souls” (April/May 2008). The novel was recently named a Top Pick by the Romantic Times Book Review. The author’s next book, Recovering Apollo 8 and Other Stories, will be out soon from Golden Gryphon. Kris now turns from the deep space of the “Wreck” series and the near space of “Apollo 8” to examine a mystery that is much closer to us in space if not quite in time.

He had gotten a message.

Sent by old-fashioned tradecraft dating from the days of the Secret Intelligence Service, long before the advent of MI6. A simple flowerpot on a balcony in Kensington, a tiny red flag next to the ugliest flower Thomas had ever seen.

The flower didn’t matter. The flag did.

It meant: Be at the designated spot, midnight. Be prepared...

So Thomas stood on London Bridge, his back to the traffic, his arms resting on the railing. To his left, the lights of Southwark Cathedral. To his right, the Monument designed by Sir Christopher Wren to remind everyone of the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Thomas pretended to contemplate the lights of London reflected on the water. A bit of a wind brushed his cheeks, bringing the slightly bitter scent of the Thames.

Behind him, cars hummed as they glided by. Someone would notice him sooner or later. A man standing on London Bridge at midnight, his arms resting on the edge, looking down at the water, spoke of melancholy at the very least, a potential suicide at the very worst. His hair ruffled as the breeze grew stronger. Then he felt someone at his shoulder and he braced himself so that he couldn’t be tossed over. His heart was pounding.

Paranoia, that’s all it was. He was here to do a job, not to be killed.

Still, he stepped slightly to his left, just enough to take him out of harm’s way.

“Lovely night.” The voice was husky, unfamiliar—and surprisingly—female...

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