Phuket, Thailand
Kayla Summers walked into the gorgeous lobby and tried not to think about how badly her hands were shaking. To her right she could hear the sound of the ocean, most times a deep comfort to her, but today not even that rolling, endless symphony could soothe her.
Of course it wasn’t every day she did spy stuff. She’d trained for this day, long hard hours that would leave her wondering why the hell she’d signed up for this gig when she could be playing beer pong and rushing a sorority.
“Hey, it’s all right,” the man with the slow Southern accent said under his breath. He walked beside her, had been beside her from the moment she’d left DC. “This is nothing at all, Kay. We’re walking into the hotel, picking up your sister, and then you’ll walk one way with Mr. Bishop and I’ll walk the other with Kun. We’ll meet up at the extraction point and you’ll both be back in the States by this time tomorrow.”
“Are you going to arrest her?” She’d been wondering about that, wondering if this whole save-the-twin-I-didn’t-know-I-had plan was truly about sending her long-lost sister to Guantanamo Bay. Though with some of the stories she’d heard about MSS, China’s version of the CIA, being tortured in Cuba might be a fun vacay for her sis.
Sister. She had a sister. Jiang Kun.
Thank god her fathers had insisted she know something of the culture she’d been born into. One of her dad’s taught Mandarin at UC Santa Barbara and she’d grown up speaking it around the house. His Cantonese was excellent as well. Despite the fact that there was not a drop of DNA between them, they always joked that she’d gotten Dad’s ear for languages.
If only her sister had been as fortunate.
Tennessee Smith stopped in the middle of the elegant hotel lobby, his long, lean frame looking down on her. “I told you. Once your sister is in the States, she’ll be debriefed. That debrief will likely last a good long time, but she’s going to be treated as an asset, not an enemy. Jiang Kun was accepted into a program to train MSS operatives when she was sixteen years old. And by accepted, I mean she was selected by the government and there was no way to say no. You know that training you’ve done over the last few months? That was a tiny taste of what your sister has been through the last several years. And I assure you, the CIA is kinder with our agents than MSS.”
After she’d been contacted by the Agency, she’d spent three months in a program meant to give her basic training. What she really thought they’d wanted to do was maintain control over all communications with her sister.
Still, it had been a rough couple of months. Physical training. Firearms training. Learning the ins and outs of procedure, and all for one operation. This one.
The funny thing was, while it had been rough, she’d kind of liked it. She’d liked having purpose. Despite the fact the she was flying through her undergraduate degree at Stanford, she often felt aimless. The last few months had been a revelation. Something had come over her. A sense of true purpose.
What the hell was she going to do when this was over? She’d gotten used to being around Ten and even the super-cold dude. John Bishop. She’d made him smile once. All the other recruits in her class had gotten together and made her a trophy for that because the guy wasn’t known for his humor.
Still, he’d taken an interest in her and she would oddly miss him.
“I’m just worried about her.” And worried that once Kun was in the US, she wouldn’t need Kayla anymore.
Would they even have a relationship? Or would her sister disappear into the Agency while the Agency said “thanks and see ya later” to Kayla?
She thought briefly about the mother who’d given birth to her. How hard had it been? She’d known she was having twins, known given China’s one child policy at the time that one of them would be taken or aborted. Everything she’d done had been in secrecy and she’d managed to have Kayla smuggled out of the country. By some grace, she’d wound up in an orphanage that dealt with foreign adoptions, and by the time she was six months old, she was the darling daughter of Fred Summers and Jim Gayle.
According to her sister, their mother had passed away a few months after Kun had gone into training.
Ten put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be worried about her. She’s made a great decision and she’s going to be rewarded for it. And honestly, if you want to stay in training to be close to her, I’ll approve it.”
“Seriously?” She wasn’t going to say it, but she’d been upset at the thought of not going back to those classes.
His lips quirked up. “Seriously. I actually think you would make an excellent agent, and Bishop agrees. I think he’s got it in his mind that having a set of twin operatives could be interesting. If you choose to stay, you’ll work under Bishop, though I’ll be around. I’ve got a new guy I’m handling. Bishop found him but thought I would be better dealing with him. Now I know why. The guy’s phenomenal. I’ve never seen anyone with his skills. Or his damn mouth. If I don’t kill Ian Taggart, he’ll be a hell of an operative. He’s already tangled with your sister once. It should be interesting to see them work together.”
She could be working with her sister, too. Working for the Agency. Working for the good of her country. Yeah, that might be cool. “I would love to stay on.”
His shoulders straightened. “Then let’s get your sister and get this party started.”
She walked taller, barely glancing over at the ocean she could see through the open lobby.
Up ahead she saw something she couldn’t ignore. John Bishop peeled away from the shadows. While most people felt fairly comfortable with Tennessee Smith, John Bishop was a different proposition. He was cold, calculating. Ten might be as well, but he hid it under that lazy, aw-shucks gorgeous exterior of his. There was a reason they called John Bishop the Ice Man.
Everyone in her class thought she was insane when she told them she could see another man under his chilly exterior. If he ever found the right woman, she knew he would warm up.
Roughly six feet tall, Bishop was blandly handsome, the type of handsome that was hard to describe, and she was certain that worked for him. When she wasn’t studying him, her eyes sort of glanced off him like they would almost any person simply walking along the street.
But when she caught his eyes, she saw something stark and eerie there. Bishop was a man who had seen far too much and might never come back from it. He would stand in the shadows because they were his home until the right woman reached her hand out and pulled him into the sun.
She might have been reading too many romance novels.
“Have you talked to our girl?” Bishop asked. He glanced Kayla’s way and gave her a nod.
Ten’s head shook in the negative. “Not since last night when she checked in. The meetup is through here. This handoff is going down in one of the bungalows. It’s off the main property so we should be away from prying eyes. She said she checked it for bugs and it was clean.”
“Won’t MSS be looking for her?” Kayla asked. This was happening. Her first op.
Bishop turned and frowned her way. “I need you to keep your voice down.”
“I’m sorry. We’re alone.” It wasn’t like she hadn’t looked around.
“Lesson number one, Kay. We’re never alone,” Bishop replied. “Never.”
“Even if they look for her, she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be,” Ten said quietly as they moved to the path. All around her was lush beauty, but she couldn’t seem to enjoy any of it. “She’s meeting an informant here at midnight tonight. She’s alone and not expected to report back to base for a few days. She’ll be halfway to the States by then.”
This was their shot. They wouldn’t get another one. It could be years before her sister had this much freedom again.
Bishop stopped in the middle of the path, putting his hand to his ear. Though she couldn’t see it, she knew Bishop and Ten would both be wearing small devices that would allow them to communicate with base. His jaw went tight, his eyes closing briefly. She felt Ten tense, too.
“Understood,” Bishop said, his eyes opening, showing grim reserve there. “According to my contact here in Southeast Asia, we might have some trouble. She picked up a Korean operative who’s been on Jiang Kun for years. He flew in on a fake passport, which is why it took her so long to figure it out.”
“But the Koreans are our allies.” She wasn’t sure why they would want to break up an American operation.
Bishop was already moving, shrinking back into those shadows he loved so well, but not before she saw a hint of metal in his hand. He disappeared into the trees that lined the path.
Ten held her there. “The Koreans know nothing about what we’re doing. In our business an ally isn’t the same as a friend. They’re simply people we don’t shoot on site. Not many people inside the Agency know about this operation. It’s classified at the highest level. I assure you the Koreans don’t. If they think this is a chance to take down a notorious MSS agent, they’ll jump on it. Stay behind me.”
He started down the path again, but her heart was pounding hard in her chest. She glanced around, expecting at any moment to have someone leap out at her. It was like the entire gorgeous beach setting had turned into one of those haunted houses she’d gone to as a child.
And yet she forced herself to stay behind Ten Smith. She wanted to run, to find a place to hide, but she wasn’t going to do that. Her sister was out there. Her sister needed her to remain calm.
It was odd how steady she became, that veil of awareness slipping over her. It was as though the world around her had become more vibrant and clear while it slowed down, allowing her to assess.
To her left she saw a group of tourists. No threat.
A couple holding hands walked by. No threat.
Single man wearing a bathrobe. Her sense heightened as he reached inside but she saw the top of a pack of cigarettes.
No threat.
“Kay, that’s the bungalow. Are you sure you want to go inside?” Ten asked.
And that was how she knew something had gone very wrong. She didn’t have a small communications device in her ear. She couldn’t hear what the woman on the other end of the line was saying, their handler. She couldn’t hear what Bishop was saying. Yet there was no need for the words because it was there in Smith’s body language. Something had gone wrong.
“I want to continue.”
He took her hand and led her inside.
The coppery smell of blood assaulted her as she walked into complete chaos. Furniture had been turned over, vases smashed against the tile, and glass marking the place where someone had smashed in through the big bay window. What should be serene and perfect had been marred with blood and destruction.
So much blood.
“Phoebe, I’m going to need you to pull all the security footage from around the grounds,” Ten was saying, his hand on his ear.
John Bishop stepped out of the bedroom. There was blood on his hands, but somehow it looked right on him. As though it belonged there. Ten’s brows shot up.
Bishop shook his head. “Not me. I had nothing to do with this. They had a hell of a fight. She managed to gut him, but not before he got his shot in. She’s in the bedroom. Had no idea who he was. Says he attacked her roughly ten minutes ago. She’s got maybe two minutes left if you want to get something out of her.”
Ten stopped, his hand going to his ear again.
“If she’s got a bead on him, you go, Tennessee,” Bishop ordered.
Ten’s eyes went wide, not an expression she normally saw on the man’s face. He was surprised. “You want me to take him down?”
Bishop’s whole body tensed. “I want the option. If he gets away and reports back, I won’t have that option. Take him out. That’s an order.”
Ten cursed under his breath, but took off out of the bungalow, his long legs eating up the distance between him and his prey.
Kayla started toward the bedroom Bishop had walked out of. What had happened to her sister? The panic was tamped down by the training she’d received. Panic solved nothing and would cost her team so much. Her team. When had she started thinking in those terms? When had she let go of the college girl she’d been and become an operative?
Bishop stood in her way. “I don’t know that you should see that.”
“Get out of my way,” she replied, the words colder than anything she’d ever said before.
His expression didn’t change at all, but he stepped aside.
Kayla entered and there was her sister. She was slumped against the bed as though she’d managed to drag herself this far, but couldn’t manage another inch. Her cell phone was close, mere inches out of reach. There was a hole in her chest, the white T-shirt she wore a mangled and bloody mess.
So odd. It was surreal to look into her own face. They were dressed exactly alike, wearing black skirts and white T-shirts Smith had bought for them. Everything was the same from the ponytails they wore to the Kate Spade flip-flops on their feet.
Everything was the same except that hole in her sister’s chest.
Ten minutes. If they’d been ten minutes faster, this wouldn’t have happened.
“Don’t,” her sister said, eyes fluttering open. Her English was damn near perfect, with barely the hint of an accent. “If you’d been here, he would have changed his plans and likely found a way to kill us all.”
“How?” She shook her head. It didn’t matter how she’d known what she was thinking.
“I’m your twin,” she said with the barest hint of a smile. “Older sister. I know everything. Damn, I wish…”
It didn’t take a mind reader to know what her sister wished for. More time. More life. A few moments to get to know the family that had been denied to her.
A world where none of this was necessary and they could have been two college students talking about boys and classes and relying on each other the way sisters did.
“Hey, Kay,” Kun said, the words slurring. Her eyes were clouded as though she was on some really nice drugs. Death. Apparently death looked like that, too. “Tell Smith…something bad’s coming. There’s something deeper moving the pieces around. Heard hints of it, but can’t get close. Businesses and power players are changing the game. It’s bigger than either of our governments. Hate those fuckers.”
Kay reached out to put a hand on her sister’s. “We’ll call an ambulance.”
Bishop stopped her. “I’m sorry. You can’t touch her. You can’t leave anything to chance if the cops get hold of her body.”
There was a barely perceptible shake of her sister’s head. “I’m too far gone for help. And don’t worry about the cops. I suspect the Americans will clean it all up. Kayla, there’s so much I need to tell you. My organization is dangerous. Dangerous to your country.” Her words started to come slower and slower, fading with her life. “Dangerous to you…”
The hand dropped to her side and her sister’s whole body went still.
Ten showed up at the door, a gun at his side and a chill to his eyes.
“Is it done?” Bishop asked.
“Yes. The body is in a dumpster. We need to move out,” Ten said. “Kayla, it’s time to go.”
She found herself stuck on the floor. Was that really her sister’s body? How had things gone so wrong? “Where are we going?”
Ten holstered his weapon, slipping it under the light button-down he hadn’t tucked in. “I’m going to get you to the extraction point and you’ll be home soon. I’ll even let them debrief you on the plane so you can get on with your life. I know we talked about you continuing training, but this should change your mind. It’s too dangerous. Let’s get you home and you can rethink everything.”
Get on with her life? What would that look like? Did they think she could go back to her business classes? That she could study fucking marketing when she knew what the rest of the world didn’t? How was she supposed to sell dog food to bored housewives when her sister was dead? When the fuckers who made her life hell were still out there?
What group had her sister been talking about? Bigger than any government?
“There’s another way,” a silky voice said.
She’d never heard John Bishop speak this low and deep, his voice almost like rich, decadent chocolate. Then again, she’d never heard him play Mephistopheles before, either. Even in her emotional state, she knew that was the role he’d taken on.
“I think I should take her home, John.” Ten’s tone had gone low and insistent.
Bishop ignored him, putting a hand on her elbow and leading her out of the room. “Kayla, we have a unique opportunity to make something out of this mess. The truth is MSS has no idea your sister is dead and Ten has taken care of her assassin. It’s an easy leap of logic that Jiang Kun won the battle and took care of the Korean agent. Nothing has to change in their minds.”
Jiang Kun didn’t have to be dead. “How would I take her place?”
Ten looked back as though he could see through the wall and into the room that held her sister’s body. “You haven’t had enough training. A few months isn’t going to cut it.”
“Kun wasn’t expected back for a few days. I can teach her a lot in that time. Besides, as far as we can tell, the Chinese government has no idea she was a twin,” Bishop pointed out. “Kayla speaks perfect Mandarin. Hell, we can even use this little brushup as an excuse for any issues that come up. She got knocked out during the fight. She’s having some trouble with memory but she was smart enough to follow protocol. We’ll clean up. She’ll claim the kill, make her contact, and go back to base. She’s read the file on her sister.”
“That file isn’t the same as real knowledge,” Smith shot back. “You’re going to get her killed.”
They continued to argue, but Kay knew what she was going to do. Her mother had sacrificed so both her children could live. Kay was the only one left.
She couldn’t sacrifice to save them, but she could avenge them. She could finish her sister’s work.
It was the only gift she had to give.
* * * *
California
Joshua Hunt came awake with a start, his hand immediately going for the knife he kept under his pillow. The hilt was always the first thing he felt as he came out of that warm darkness, the first thing that made the nightmare real. When he slept, he was back in a world he understood, a world where his mom was alive, where his dad hadn’t been a wretched drunk. A world where someone loved him, took care of him.
It was the real world that was Josh’s nightmare.
But he couldn’t find the hilt, realized he wasn’t on a pillow.
“Hey, it’s cool,” a feminine voice said. “You’re in my car. You’re good, kid.”
He sat straight up and blinked, the light of the early morning filtering in through the sunroof of her Range Rover. Tina. Tina McArran. She was some kind of do-gooder who’d found him in a convenience store where he was shoplifting a bottle of water and some protein bars. He’d been about to get caught when she’d told the clerk he was with her and she would pay for everything. The clerk had looked unconvinced, but he’d taken her money and let Josh go anyway.
Then Tina had offered him something he hadn’t expected—a lift out of Ohio. He’d been in Ohio. For years he hadn’t even known how far he’d been from home.
He’d taken it, expecting to give her something in return. It had churned his stomach, and if she’d been a man, he would have turned her down. But he could handle a woman. He could get through that.
She’d merely driven, telling him about how she was moving from New York to LA after her divorce, starting over again. When they’d stopped in Denver, she’d bought him some clothes and gotten him a room for the night, next to hers. She’d sighed as she’d passed him the key.
I hope you don’t run because I think we can help each other out. I need clients and with a face like yours, I think I can build a whole industry. I’ll make a deal with you. You never have to tell me how you got to be a skinny eighteen-year-old without any identification and I’ll make sure everything is legal about the work I can provide for you. I’ll be careful with you. I’ll be your agent. I’ll train you on how to deal with people professionally, teach you how to dress, get you in acting lessons, and you’ll have a place to live for as long as you’re willing to try to work. And, son, I’ll treat you like a son. I don’t know what you’ve been through, but you won’t go through it ever again if I have anything to say about it.
He hadn’t told her anything about what had happened at the time, but he’d been there in the morning, waiting by the Rover. His stomach oddly had more to say than his brain. His stomach had wanted badly to trust someone, to be full and warm and unworried about being full and warm the next day.
He blinked again as she pulled up to a house with a For Sale sign. It also had a metal sign that proclaimed it sold. He could smell something. Something lovely and clean. He breathed it in.
“That’s the ocean,” she said with a smile.
He stopped and frowned.
“Have you never been to the ocean?” She got out and he followed.
“No. I saw it on TV once.” He hadn’t seen much of anything, but there had been a TV in most places he’d lived. Not that he’d ever chosen the show or movie that was on. He would sometimes have to hide in order to watch. Sometimes it was turned on as a treat for behaving.
Precisely why he hadn’t watched much.
“Come on. This will heal your soul like nothing else will.” She started toward the door.
Everything was bright, colorful. It was like someone had flipped a switch and his vision had gone from shades of gray to overwhelming color. Flowers wrapped around the perfectly painted fence and vivid green grass was at his feet. Something pounded, the sound close and rhythmic.
He followed her through the door and into the cleanest house he’d ever been in.
“I bought it furnished, so we might have to make some adjustments,” she said as she walked through to what looked like the living room. “There’s a loft on the third floor. I was going to turn it into a library, but who am I kidding? I don’t have time to read. We’re going to hit the ground running. I’ve got a photographer set up for two days from now. Face up only. We’ve gotta get some muscle on you before we take body shots. And I have a friend coming out to help with the whole identification thing. Josh?”
He heard her but couldn’t make himself respond. The entire back of the house was windows. Pure glass that opened the door to something he’d never seen before.
Tina seemed to understand, and she moved to the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. “Go on. I’ll make us some breakfast while you…I would say get used to the view, but I don’t think you ever get used to something that beautiful.”
The sound was magnified now that there was nothing between him and the ocean except a few feet.
“It’s high tide right now. Later on we’ll go down and walk on the beach,” she continued.
He stepped out on the balcony and wondered why the world had distorted. His vision…he wiped a hand across his eyes, clearing the tears away.
The sun was just over the horizon and the sky was awash with pinks and reds and oranges, giving way to a stunning blue he’d never seen in his life. In the distance, he could see cliffs. Birds flew overhead and the ocean seemed to wash up under the house as though the whole thing was part of the great and grand water.
“Where are we?”
She stepped up but didn’t walk out with him, as though she understood he needed space. “It’s called Malibu. We’re in California and you, my young scamp, you are going to be a star.”
He didn’t know about that, but as he stared out over the ocean he realized he was the one thing he’d never been before.
He was safe.