Chapter Thirteen
A long, high-pitched creak woke Sarah from the sleep of the dead.
She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Rand stood with his back to the wall, gun in hand, edging closer to the door. Sunlight streamed through the leaves of the tree outside the window.
Shit.
It was later than Sarah had thought she’d sleep. She got up and shoved her feet in her shoes.
“Rand—wait,” she whispered. “It’s going to be Julie.”
“Hello?” a woman’s voice called out.
“Is that—”
“Julie, hi. It’s Sarah.” She rushed out the door ahead of Rand.
An older woman with honey-blonde hair stood in the doorway. She breathed a sigh of relief, and her shoulders slumped.
“Good God, Sarah. Where have you been? You’ve had everyone worried sick about you. Come here.” Julie wrapped her arms around her. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry.” Her voice was muffled by Julie’s jacket.
“What happened?” Julie held her at arm’s length, deep lines of worry etched into the woman’s face. “The last I heard, you were headed out and then—nothing. No one’s heard from you in days.”
“Oh, uh, I missed my flight and things sort of got crazy.” Sarah shifted her weight. Last night she’d briefly thought up a story, but in the light of day it wasn’t really making sense.
“Ah, hello there.” Julie stared over Sarah’s shoulder, brows arched.
Sarah glanced behind her at Rand. His hair stuck up every which way, he’d removed his jacket, and the threadbare shirt clung to his chest. The way his belt hung half buckled suggested he hadn’t been dressed long.
No. No. No.
Sarah wanted to shove Rand back into the bedroom. This was not the right time to play the “whirlwind lovers” card.
“Julie, this is my friend Rand. We grew up together.”
He pushed off the wall and crossed the living room, offering his hand and an easygoing smile.
“Oh really?” Julie’s smile slowly widened.
Fuck. She’d walked into that one.
Julie was a romantic, always shoving some new book about angsty lovers into everyone’s hands. Sarah had been sucked into them to the point where she just picked up whatever bag of books was up for grabs on her way through the office. She knew what Julie was thinking, because she’d put those books into Sarah’s hands plenty of times.
Only, people didn’t die in Julie’s books.
“It’s my fault she missed her flight,” Rand said with a cheeky smile.
“It was an accident, and then there was a misunderstanding,” Sarah said in a rush.
“I see.” Julie glanced from Rand to Sarah. “Well, make sure to call your family and let them know you’re okay. They’ve just about crawled up Amanda’s butt.”
“Crap.” Sarah scrubbed a hand over her face. Of course. When they couldn’t locate her, they’d start asking around. Trying to find her. Wishing Well was a very connected organization that worked more like an extended family than a company. It’d be all hands on deck trying to find her.
“Okay, well, I’m headed into the office so I can put everyone on notice you’re fine. How long are you staying for?”
“Just until I can arrange a flight back. Maybe a night or two?”
“Don’t rush it. If you can get a better flight in a few days or a week, we can manage.” Julie’s gaze flicked back to Rand.
“Thanks, Julie.”
“All right, I’ve got to go. You know the code for the house still?”
“Yes.”
“There’s food there, help yourselves. You’re family.” Julie pulled Sarah in for a squeeze and whispered, “Seriously, take a little vacation.”
God, everyone was going to know about Rand in the next ten minutes.
This was a disaster.
Rand walked Julie to the door and waved her out, which was likely to make her day. Julie loved the idea of romance, but at her heart she was a workaholic married to her cause. It wouldn’t stop her from perpetuating the idea that Sarah and Rand were a couple. All she’d needed to see was Rand. The shirt and loosened belt were just icing on that piece of brain cake.
“Did you really have to do that?” Sarah groaned.
“Just selling the story a little.” He fastened his belt and peered out the window, no doubt checking the perimeter or whatever he’d called it.
“We have to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because the first thing Julie is going to do when she gets in her car is to call Amanda and tell her she just found me here with a guy. Amanda will tell whoever is in the office, and then they’ll talk about it. Rand, this just became a disaster.” She buried her face in her hands.
“Does Wishing Well give a status update on their employee’s locations?”
“No. So if someone called and asked where I was by name, they’d refer them to Julie, who would refer them to the director, who would stonewall them until there was some sort of legal request for the information. We just have so many people in highly dangerous areas it’s not the kind of thing they give out unless they have to.”
Still, Sarah had nightmares of someone hanging around the office, listening to the gossip.
“Look, we need a base of operations for the moment. Somewhere the company doesn’t know about. If we can keep our stuff here for a day, maybe two, I think I can get us some reliable support.”
“Reliable support? What’s that supposed to mean?” She rubbed her face, exhaustion still weighing on her.
“How’d they find the surveillance suite? How did they know to come looking for us?”
“Because we were obvious. I told you it was a bad idea to let them see me.”
“If that was the case, why wait so long? Why let us hear what we did?” He shook his head. “I don’t think they knew. I think someone told them to look at us.”
“The mole. You think we’re still being sold out.”
“I do.”
“God, Rand, this is too much.”
“Hey. Look at me.” He cupped her shoulders, running his hands up and down her arms. “Just focus on right now. What we’re doing next. Let me worry about everything else. I’m going to reach out again to my guys. See if we can’t find someone who knows something.”
What would she do without him? He was her life preserver. Her safety net.
…
Irene’s stomach churned as she read the news blip.
Chinese national found dead at hotel.
The Carlyle Hotel.
Why was she just now finding out about this?
Irene pushed to her feet and stalked down the hall toward Hector’s office. They’d agreed to be in on this together. It was both their asses on the line.
Hector’s office was empty, the lights off. There wasn’t even a cold cup of coffee on the desk.
She turned on her heel, pulling out her phone. The last thing she wanted to do was distract Sarah in the field. Hector would have to answer for them. She grabbed her purse and keys and hit dial on her cell, opting to take the stairs instead of the elevator.
“Yeah?” Hector said.
“What’s going on?”
“Too much. I’ll have to brief you—”
“Now, Hector.”
“I can’t.” His voice was low, a warning.
“Are you at the hotel now?”
“I am.”
“I’m on my way to you.” She hung up and picked up the pace.
What the hell could have happened in the last twenty-four hours that’d led to this?
She wasn’t nearly awake enough yet. After spending several hours last night on a video call with Anna’s doctors and her sister once she woke up, Irene had hoped for a slower day. She wasn’t going to get her wish.
The drive to the hotel didn’t take as long as Irene feared. She entered through the back of the hotel, making use of her credentials to avoid the main areas and media that would no doubt be drawn to a murder.
Just what they needed.
The sixth floor was buzzing with activity. It wasn’t hard to find Hector observing the scene from the hall. Irene peered into the closet, noting the blood on the floor and the evidence markers.
“Well?” she asked.
“Not good,” Hector muttered. “Come on, we’ve got to squash this.” He led her to the stairwell, where they seemed to have some privacy.
“Well?” she eyed Hector.
“I don’t know what the hell happened.” Hector peered out through the window. “Last I heard, they were set up to do surveillance, listen and wait only. Next thing, I get a text from Rand that shit’s hitting the fan, and there’s going to be trouble.”
“What do you think happened?” Irene watched the corners of Hector’s eyes, how his nostrils flared.
“I think either they got into trouble and Rand had to kill the guy to protect them, or this is a set-up. There’s too much evidence linking Rand and Sarah to this. We need a gag order or jurisdiction or something, or our guys are about to become D.C.’s Most Wanted.”
“Wait. If we do that, we might as well tell the Chinese we’re in on this. That’s only going to give them more ammunition to go after Rand and Sarah.”
“And you want the cops to slap them with this?” Hector thumbed over his shoulder.
“Let me think of something.”
“Well you better think fast. We’ve got as long as it takes us to get to the first floor.”
…
Rand handed the bagel over to Sarah. It was still early enough that they blended into the foot traffic. He scanned the crowds, looking for anyone out of place, but most were too intent on their destination or cellular device to care about them.
“Okay, what are we doing here?” Sarah’s nervousness was a palpable undercurrent disrupting his calm.
He couldn’t tell her to take it easy or stop being so jumpy. He’d have to work with it. “Andy. He’s an intel guy. Someone like me.” And a crazy son of a bitch, at that.
“You think he’ll help us?”
“He’s got a funny code of ethics. If he thinks something is the right thing to do, he’ll do it. Put him in hot water a time or two with the company. You have to know how to talk to Andy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Meaning, if you tell him you need someone to disappear, they better be a bad guy. Don’t give him the gray-area jobs, because then he takes it into his head to do the right thing, sometimes for the wrong side.”
“You think he’ll help us?”
“He will.”
“Are we really the good guys in this?”
“We don’t kill our own. Besides, Andy owes me.”
“How are we supposed to meet him?”
“We won’t. He’ll find us.”
“I’m so confused.”
“You’re doing great.” Rand kept his eyes open, scanning the crowd.
He was rather surprised Andy was Stateside. Last Rand had heard, he was in deep somewhere in the Middle East. His mixed heritage allowed him to blend in easier than someone like Rand, who was as white as Casper’s ass. At least in Seoul, there was enough business with America he could pass himself off without much trouble. Still, Rand was grateful. Andy’s ethical code would make him predisposed to helping them. They couldn’t have had a better turn of luck.
A dozen feet away, a guy wearing a ball cap and reflective sunglasses paused. It was the way he glanced in their direction that was…different.
“There.” Rand planted his hand on Sarah’s back, the bulge of the gun under his palm, and propelled her forward. “Move.”
They hoofed it across the courtyard, bisecting the metro traffic and down a side street. Rand didn’t see the cap ahead of them, but he knew the man had gone this way.
The strains to Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” reached his ears. Rand searched the buildings for the source. A beat-up door stood open a dozen or so feet ahead of them. He glanced behind them, but didn’t see anyone out of place.
“Through the door. Go on.” Rand nudged her through the opening and shut it behind them.
Andy was something of a rock and roll nut.
“What is this place?”
They were at the foot of a staircase with no other doors around them.
“Let’s find out.” He wouldn’t be surprised if Andy were squatting in a vacant space.
Rand led the way up the stairs. At the first landing, a door to their left was open, the music louder. “Hello?” he called out.
Andy might be a friend, but Rand wasn’t alive because he threw caution to the wind.
“Was wonderin’ if you’d get it or not.” A man stepped around a half wall partition, a lopsided grin on his face. His skin was tanner since the last time Rand had seen him. His brown-gold eyes were full of curiosity. The one surprise was his hair—longer, streaked with sun-bleached blond and brown. Come to think of it, Rand had never seen Andy with hair.
“That was kind of obvious.” Rand searched Andy’s face, but didn’t see any screws loose, nothing unusual.
“Hi, ma’am.” Andy held out his hand toward Sarah.
“Hi. I’m—”
“Don’t need to know,” he said quickly.
“Oh. Right.”
“It’s okay. You’ll get the hang of it. Or not. Hopefully you don’t have to. Shut the door and come in.”
Rand flipped the lock on the door and followed in Andy’s wake. The space was an open loft, probably a small office, by the looks of it.
“I started digging last night after I got your S.O.S.” Andy sat on a crate pulled up to a desk and tapped at a laptop. Despite the pauper’s furniture finds, the equipment he’d set up wasn’t run of the mill. Three monitors and a stack of units that did…something.
“What’d you find out?” Rand leaned on the adjacent desk, peering over Andy’s shoulder.
“Dark web chatter about an intel auction.” Andy twisted to peer up at Rand. “Now, I don’t know where the auction is going to happen—yet—but judging by the source, it’s Chinese in origin. I don’t need to tell you that this could be real, or a trap to lure you in.”
“It’s a risk we have to take. Can you find out more about it?”
“Maybe. It’ll take time. You know who might have more information?”
“Don’t say it.” Rand groaned.
Noah White.
Pain in Rand’s ass. The nosy motherfucker would have a finger in every pie. That was why he was valuable to the company. Whereas Andy had ethics, Noah was after the rush. An adrenaline junkie funded by the U.S. government.
“You can either wait to find out what I can learn, or you go chat with your old friend.”
Rand flipped Andy the bird.
“I’m sorry. Who?” Sarah glanced between them.
“Your boyfriend’s best friend.” Andy grinned.
“He’s not—”
“We’re not together,” Rand said.
Andy’s brows rose. He shrugged and turned back to the monitors. “Intel on the auction went out this morning. I imagine if we can front a little money, we can find out more. It’s going to be expensive if it’s not a trap entirely.” His fingers flew across the keys.
Used to be they could simply beat answers out of the bad guys. Rand didn’t like the fifty-fifty chances that this was, indeed, a trap. Then again, large-scale political functions were almost always used to cover up the underhanded dealings on the intelligence market.
These days, they couldn’t get anywhere without decent computer skills.
“Lives depend on it. Kids. Families. I’ll do whatever it takes, okay? Just make it happen.”
Andy’s finger’s stilled. Rand was playing him, and likely Andy recognized the ploy. “Consider it done,” Andy said without another pause.
“Thanks, man. You know how to get ahold of us?”
“Yup. Use the Istanbul code.”
“What do you know about a guy named Zhang Wei?”
Andy didn’t just stop typing, he went completely still. And not deer-in-the-crosshairs still. No, this was predator-still.
“Is he here?” Andy’s voice was rough, raw.
“He is,” Sarah answered.
“That’s why we need the help,” Rand said.
Andy turned, his complexion gone ashen. One side of his upper lip curled up. “Tell me. From the beginning.”
Rand had been fairly circumspect in his call for help, and the others wouldn’t ask too many questions. That was how it had to be. But from the look on Andy’s face, he wasn’t going to let them go without an answer.
Rand filled Andy in, keeping to the barest of details, with only a few added details from Sarah.
“I’ll help you, but I get Wei. Me, okay?”
“What are you going to do with him?” Sarah stared at Andy.
No, no, no, don’t answer that.
“I’m going to kill him.”
…
Mitch peered down at the parking lot.
Irene and Hector were gone. He had no idea where they were, what was happening, and his superiors wanted answers.
What a fucking nightmare.
If they didn’t recover those protocols soon, their jobs were over. Their assets in Asia would abandon them if they weren’t killed. Something had to happen. It was happening without him. And he had no way of figuring this out.
Fuck.
Why was Charlie dead? How had this happened? It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
The body was here. They were going to compare the dental records and they just weren’t going to match up. He’d done it to protect Charlie, but how did he explain what he couldn’t prove to the higher ups?
Mitch was fucked.
“Mr. McConnel?”
“Hmm?” He turned to face the young woman at his door.
She was vaguely familiar. One of the analysts, if memory served. Not fresh out of the academy, but close enough that she looked more like a kid to him. God, he felt old.
“Carol Sark, hi.” She extended her hand. In the other she held a folder.
A fucking folder.
His stomach tightened at the sight of it.
Did they know? When Charlie came to him, scared for his life, Mitch had switched out the medical records in an attempt to protect Charlie and throw off the suspected mole.
“Hi, Ms. Sark. What can I do for you?”
“I had some questions about an operation you were part of. It’s come up in my review. Do you have a minute?”
The last thing he needed was to answer questions right now. He couldn’t keep things straight, what he was supposed to admit to, what he wasn’t, the things no one could ever know. But he had to press on. Business as usual. No fucking this up. His life depended on it.
…
Sarah stared straight ahead, weaving through people with Rand at her back.
“Calm down, Sarah,” he said just loud enough for her to hear.
Calm down? Was he serious?
They’d just bartered a man’s life for help. And she was supposed to—what? Be on board with this? She knew Wei was bad, but was killing him the answer? Irene had talked about what they did ending the killing, not causing it. But would green lighting Wei’s death protect more people? It was a gray area she’d ignored until now.
Holy shit. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. She clenched her hands into fists. Her arm ached.
Fuck.
This was real.
“Hey. Hey, this way.” Rand grasped her shoulder and tugged her out of the flow of foot traffic, down a lesser-traveled street.
They didn’t speak. Every time she opened her mouth, there were more people around. They walked for a good fifteen minutes before they found a small courtyard between buildings with a fountain and benches. Rand led her to the fountain and perched on the edge. She watched him appearing to admire the scenery for a few moments. The only go-ahead signal she got was a slight dip of his chin.
“What the hell, Rand?” She kept her voice low and gripped the edge of the fountain, staring at the way the cobblestones under their feet fit together.
She’d always seen her path as one brick in front of the next, building a road forward. Progress. Peace. A better future. Now she didn’t know what to think.
“Andy’s—”
“Is that his name?” She glanced up at Rand.
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t have the right to be judge, jury, and executioner.”
“Not by normal thinking, but who could Wei face for justice?”
“Murdering a man can’t be called justice. Can it?” Sarah was beginning to question her view of right and wrong. What Wei did, it was wrong. But was killing him right? Or was that adding another wrong to the pile?
“Think about it.” Rand leaned forward, peering up at her. “Who do you think killed the man at the hotel, hmm? If we go forward with this plan, if we do what they want us to, chances are we will run up against Wei. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have Andy at our back than not. The way I see it, this ensures we have one of the best guys with us. If it comes down to getting you out or holding off Wei, Andy takes care of Wei. I take care of you. No part of me is going to try to capture that man, anyway. We’re just…not standing in Andy’s way.”
“Why does Andy want him dead?” Sarah had never hated anyone that much.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t want to know all the details.” Rand grimaced. “There were kids involved. Andy gets…protective when children and innocent bystanders are hurt.”
“Oh.” Sarah swallowed and stared at Rand. She wasn’t surprised at the extent of Wei’s evil. She’d heard the rumors of the silent killer since she started working for the company, but was she ready to be one of those who cast the lot, choosing that man’s death? “And you’re okay with this?”
Rand opened and closed his mouth.
She studied his face, the lines appearing, disappearing, the internal war he was waging playing out on his features.
“They’ve asked you to kill for them, haven’t they?” Her hands went so ice-cold, the stone under her palms didn’t even register.
“Why do you think they wanted to recruit me in the first place?” He stared out at nothing.
Matt and Rand had been two peas in a pod. Where one went, so did the other. Rand had disappeared so soon after Matt’s first surgery, when they took the dead part of his arm, that… Had things been different, would it be Matt and Rand out in the field doing this stuff?
She licked her lips, staring at the frown lines bracketing his mouth. “Matt…?”
“It was time to re-up or get out. We hadn’t had the time yet to do the paperwork before the accident. I couldn’t go back and face what was left of the others so, I got out. Next thing I know, there’s a knock on my door.”
“Why us?”
“Dunno.”
“They told me my job allowed me the kind of freedom to travel, come and go, that would be suspicious of someone else. But…why me? Why you? I never really thought they wanted Emily after my panic died down. Would they have wanted Matt, too?” The scary thing was, even in the first few years of her brother’s marriage, she wasn’t sure if he’d have said no if the company came calling. It was a motivational job offer, to say the least.
“My best guess is we fit a profile. Everyone fits a damn profile.”
“How am I supposed to sign off on the death of a man? How are you okay with it?”
“I’ve met guys like Wei. They will kill anyone, do anything. People like you make the world a little brighter. People like Wei make it a little darker.”
“And Andy?”
“He’s a crazy bastard. Shit.” Rand shook his head. “I imagine Wei has something to do with a job that went sideways for Andy a while ago. We all have that one job we wish had gone…I don’t know. Better. Different. I get the idea that a lot of people died and maybe Wei was involved or responsible.”
“Why Andy? Why did you go to him? He’s crazy.”
“Because he’s batshit crazy, but in his moral code, we’re the good guys. Helping us means saving kids, women, innocents.”
The greater good.
That was what Charlie had talked about to her when she hadn’t been able to wrap her head around something he said. Sometimes one person had to die so many others could live. The cost of a few lives versus the many. In this scenario, that meant sacrificing Wei, a terrible person, to save everyone was acceptable. Sarah had always known these decisions were happening outside of her knowledge, but now she was directly involved. The ethical struggle was one she’d been able to avoid until now. She knew that was what Charlie or Irene would tell her, but Sarah didn’t know if she could do it. If she could agree. She’d signed up to protect people, not just Americans, but others, too. Agreeing to this meant that there were some lives that shouldn’t be saved.
How many innocents had Wei killed? How many children?
“Look, I know this stuff bothers you, and…I’m glad. I don’t want you to get like me.” Rand peered up at her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not all good, Sarah.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation.”
Rand wasn’t the bad guy here. End of story. She couldn’t look at it more closely without losing her nerve.
“I need to stash you somewhere—not at the Wishing Well house—while I go see a guy.”
“White? The one Andy mentioned.”
“Yeah.” Rand sighed.
“What’s so dangerous about him?”
“Christ.” Rand rubbed his face, muffling a groan. “Last I heard, he was embedded in a white supremacist group. Not church burners or the lynching kind of biker guys. I’m talking about lobbyists and white-collar types. Believe it or not, those are the ones that scare the shit out of me. He’s an adrenaline, thrill-seeking, fucked-up kind of junkie. I don’t want you anywhere near him if I can help it.”
“Why him?”
“Because while Andy can probably find out more about the auction, Noah’s going to be the guy that could get us in. It does us no good to know what’s happening if we can’t get in there and get the case.” Rand leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and glanced up at her.
“Can’t we just destroy what’s in the case?”
“That’s not our job.” He shook his head. “Hector wants us to recover it.”
Sarah wrung her hands together, wishing she could hold onto Rand. “But…”
“Look, sometimes the job doesn’t make sense. We’re only seeing a small piece of the puzzle.”
“How could protocols be worth all this?”
“I’m sorry.” He reached over and took her hand in his. “This is all very confusing for you, and I wish I could be more patient, but we no longer have an inside view to what they might be doing.”
“We passed a coffee shop. I could hang out there. It was close to the metro.”
“Think you could hang out for a couple hours?”
“I could probably use some tea and time to clear my head.” And to come to terms with this new facet of Rand she hadn’t considered before. The man she’d grown up loving was probably a killer. The thought chilled her blood.
“Come on, I want to get you a burner phone just in case.” Rand took her hand and pulled her to her feet.
The problem was her idealistic, Captain America, cookie-cutter, good-guy view of what they did. The reality was many more shades of gray. They were only the good guys because this was the side of the fight they were on. Good and bad were perspectives that depended on a person’s world view. She saw what they were doing as good and right because it benefitted the people she loved and cared for.
If they were Chinese, she was the bad guy.
Rand could be the man people whispered about in the darkness, afraid they would take his life.
The world wasn’t black and white. There weren’t good guys and bad ones. What it boiled down to was believing in the cause and having the strength to see it through. Rand had. Could she?
…
Wei steered the car out of the lot.
One of the traps would pull their prey in. But he wasn’t going to sit and wait. They didn’t have that much luxury operating within the States.
The reinforcements would arrive shortly and things would be put into motion. Once they had the contents of the case, it would become a scramble to sell what intel they could while maximizing what they knew. Which was why every moment spent waiting for Sarah Collins to come to them was another opportunity lost.
Wei glanced at his phone, confirming the address Ping had messaged him.
With any luck, Wei could snag the girl and the agent all in one go. If he had to pick, he’d take the girl.