Chapter Nineteen
Irene would never have guessed a knife wound could hurt this bad, but it did. She ached from her head to her toes. Likely because of the surgery. Damn knife had nicked something when Wei stabbed her.
When all of this was over, she was taking a vacation. A real one. With her sister.
Anna would be okay. The doctors in Switzerland thought the surgery and subsequent procedure to shrink the tumors would be successful. It was a miracle. The good news Irene needed to keep going.
“Turn here.” She guided Carol into the parking garage attached to a fancy condo building.
Mitch always did have extravagant tastes. Who knew the guy was practically an heir to fortune and glory?
Why the hell was a guy like him working for the CIA? The rumors about him turning his back on a budding political career made so much more sense now that Irene knew who—and what—he really was.
Everyone had their secrets, just not ones quite this big.
Carol parked her car in a guest spot on the first floor. Irene used Carol’s phone to dial Mitch’s cell. Chances were he was fast asleep, or up pacing.
“Hello?” The gravel voice sounded a lot like she felt.
“Mitch. It’s Irene. We need to talk.”
“Has something happened?”
“I need to see your email. Now.”
“Why? Aren’t you in the hospital? Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“I checked myself out. Cooperate with me, and I’ll tell you why.”
“Dammit, what’s going on?”
“I need to see your email.”
“Fine. I’ll bring it by in the morning.”
Irene nodded at Carol and she cut the engine. Irene climbed up out of the car, feeling more and more weary with each step.
“You sound like you’ve been drinking,” she said.
“Like you wouldn’t if they’d let you. It’s all going to hell, Irene. This is going to destroy us.”
“What us?”
“Us. You. Me. The company. What’s going on is criminal. This should never have happened. We don’t know who we can trust anymore. Can I even trust you?”
Irene and Carol entered the building through the garage entrance. Mitch kept talking, his paranoia about everything going wrong spinning more and more of the bigger story.
He wasn’t the mole they’d pegged him for, but Irene was pretty sure someone was using Mitch, pinning the blame on him.
They took the elevator up a few floors and got out.
“Mitch? Mitch, stop talking for a minute and open your door.” Irene scanned the door numbers.
“What?” He breathed into the phone.
“Open your door.”
“Why?”
“Because we’ve got to get to the bottom of this before anyone else dies.”
A door three down swung open on silent hinges and Mitch stepped out. He stared at her with bloodshot eyes and a bottle of what looked like spiced rum in his hand. His shirt was partially un-tucked with a few buttons gaping open.
Irene plodded forward, feeling weary in every fiber of her body.
“In.” She took the bottle from Mitch’s hand. “You’ve already met Carol.”
“Yes.” Mitch backed up, his gaze bouncing from Irene to Carol then the booze, over and over again.
“Your email, Mitch.”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I want to prove you’re as innocent as I think you are.” Irene placed her hand on her service weapon. She’d always thought Mitch was up to something, and she dearly wanted him to prove her wrong. That she could trust him. They all needed a friend in this.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
Irene nodded at Carol.
“I’ve been analyzing the data, what goes wrong with who, why.” Carol stood a little straighter. It took a lot of nerve to accuse a career federal officer of being a party to a crime. “A large percent of the information linked to the instances I’ve identified passed through your hands.”
Mitch stared at them, his mouth open. His gaze flip-flopped between them, the booze forgotten. He dragged a hand through his hair, then scrubbed the side of his face.
Was he looking for a weapon? A way out? This could still go badly for them.
“Fuck,” he said at last and sank into an armchair. “I thought, I thought it was all in my head. That I was, I don’t know, cursed or something.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Irene asked.
“I didn’t know who to tell. Charlie and I… We realized something was going wrong, that no one should be that much ahead of us. But who do you trust? Who do you tell?” He spread his hands.
“Mr. McConnel, can I see your email, please?” Carol asked.
“What’s that going to tell you?”
“I…um…” Carol shifted her weight from foot to foot.
“Carol used to be a hacker. I asked her to dig around, look for something wrong.” Irene crossed to the sofa and sat down.
It wasn’t Mitch. He might have secrets, but they weren’t this.
“Dig around on me?” He glanced from Carol to Irene.
“Yes, on you.” Irene eased back into the cushions.
Mitch got up and retrieved his phone from the small kitchen.
“Mr. McConnel—”
“Mitch, please.”
“I want you to change your password. Normally, you have to go through a security reset, but I’m going in remotely to trigger the system to prompt you.” Carol perched on the other end of the sofa, laptop on her knees.
“What’s this going to tell us?” Mitch sat in the chair, phone in hand.
“Carol discovered that every time the server sends your email a message, it’s immediately pinged again. Now, you might think that’s the work computer and your cell phone, but Carol thinks—”
“Charlie.” Mitch sat up a little straighter. “We used to share a top secret, joint inbox until too many things went wrong. Messages were routed from my email to this secondary inbox.”
“What went wrong with Charlie?”
“A lot. Little things mostly. It got us wondering, who could we trust? Was someone sabotaging us? Charlie was worried someone would access his personnel files and pass on the information. So we…changed them. A little.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I knew when they sent the body that it wouldn’t match. Not anymore. That was the point. Make him not the person we know. And then… Oh God, this is all screwed up.”
“Mitch, password, please?” Carol leaned forward, her face lit by the laptop screen.
“Right.” He tapped at his phone. “There.”
“Irene, will you send him an email?”
Irene tapped out a test message and hit send. They all waited in silence. The message left her outbox.
“Got it,” Mitch announced.
“There’s the secondary ping, which is…now being rejected.” Carol glanced up. “I think it’s safe to say that Mitch isn’t our mole.”
“Ping? What ping?” Mitch frowned.
“I mean…” Carol glanced at Irene.
“Explain.” Irene gestured at Mitch.
“The server is receiving two requests for new messages right now. One of them is your phone, and the other, I don’t know. Your work computer is powered off. Can you think of anything else?” Carol shrugged.
“No. I only get email on my desktop and phone. That’s it.”
“Except for this secret, joint account,” Irene said.
“Who—who could have done this?” Mitch glanced between them, eyes wide.
“If Charlie isn’t dead, why hasn’t he made contact yet?” Irene asked. She hated to point fingers, but so far the one person they couldn’t account for was their only solution.
“No. No, Charlie wouldn’t.” Mitch stared at the coffee table without seeing it.
Irene didn’t say anything, and neither did Carol. They didn’t have to. The war of reality was being played out on Mitch’s face.
Charlie was their mole.
Or at least a mole.
And now, most likely, a free agent. One with infinite knowledge of how they worked, who their people were and what their weaknesses were. He was their worst nightmare.
…
Rand jumped from the boat to the dock.
It’d taken them a while to maneuver the little speedboat into the marina and find a place to dock between the huge cargo ships.
Sarah was here somewhere; the key was finding her before it was too late. As soon as the Chinese figured out their man was captured, they’d have to act. Remove the threat, get her out of the country, something. Which meant Rand and his little team couldn’t hesitate.
“We split up.” Rand turned in a circle. “Matt, come with me. Noah, Andy, you guys take the south side of the marina, we’ll go north. Check in every fifteen minutes.”
“Hold up. You aren’t going in there with a pop gun and a Rambo knife.” Noah turned to the speedboat’s bench seat and pulled it up. “These white supremacist guys like to keep everything fully stocked. This gig has a few perks.” He tossed a black vest at Matt, then two more at Andy and Rand.
“Kevlar is standard issue for them? Really?” Matt asked.
“These guys think everyone is out to get them.” Noah dug down deeper and hauled out two long, black cases. He grinned. “Suit up, boys. I might have planned ahead for this.”
If Rand didn’t need Noah as back up, he might have decked the stupid smile right off his face. This wasn’t an adventure, they weren’t out for thrills. This was a woman’s life. Someone who mattered to Rand and Matt, but Noah didn’t know what it was to actually care for a human being.
“Lighten up. We’re going to get your girl back.” Noah handed the sleek assault rifle up to Rand.
Shit.
If this was what Noah could ferret away without raising suspicions, Rand didn’t want to know what else these people were holding onto. It wasn’t his problem right now, though. Getting Sarah back safe was.
Once they were outfitted with what Noah had to offer, Rand and Matt headed for the north side of the marina. They couldn’t just blend in. They had to go unseen, which meant slow going.
“You’ve made some interesting friends,” Matt said after a while.
“They aren’t my friends.”
“Right, because you don’t need friends. My bad.”
“That’s—” Rand sighed. “I work with Andy and Noah when I have to. It doesn’t mean I like them. They…aren’t like us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Andy’s…broken. Noah might as well be an adrenaline addict. I just want to do the right thing.”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black if I ever heard it. You’re such a goddamn martyr, Rand, you know that?”
He didn’t bother replying to that question. He wasn’t a martyr. Sure, he’d done some things wrong, he could have done better, but he’d made the choices he had based on what he thought was best for everyone. His mistakes had long ripples.
“We all make mistakes, Rand. It was war. Shit happens. Get over yourself.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He turned, and Matt nearly walked into him.
“I’m not sure you do.”
“The difference is, when I make mistakes, people die. Sarah will die if we screw up. Get it? You could have died. Emily could have died. Your kids. Your parents. Because I screwed up.”
“It’s not always about you.”
“It’s about Sarah, okay?”
“Not even that. Look—I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but I find it really hard to believe you’re totally at fault for this. For before. For anything. Don’t tell me, but ask yourself who else is responsible?”
Rand couldn’t tell Matt about the mole. About any of it. But he was right. Someone had burned Sarah, sold out their country, and now whoever that person was, they were working against them. It could be Irene. Hector. Mitch. Hell, for all Rand knew it could be Noah, Andy, or even Matt.
They’d been stuck reacting to what was going on. Even now, they were responding to Sarah’s abduction and the knowledge that the house was being watched. What Rand wouldn’t give to strike back. To do something.
“I’m not going to pretend that I like the idea of my best friend with my sister. Just—let’s bring her home first?”
My best friend.
Even on his good days, he’d never thought to hear Matt say those words again.
“Come on.” Rand turned and strode through the shadows.
They could figure everything out when they found Sarah again. If they found her at all. So far, all he’d seen was a sleepy security guard.
This felt wrong.
There was no movement, no one around, nothing going on.
Rand’s gut said they were at a dead end. Still, they went on, creeping through one warehouse then another, peering at empty ships. A few lights were on here and there, but not enough movement to indicate more than a single person was around.
His pocket vibrated. He ducked into an alcove between shipping containers. Matt moved into the opening, watching the coast.
Rand pressed the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
“I’m guessing we found them. Ship on the south end, maybe two hundred yards from where we split. Couple vehicles idling, and a large presence on the boat.”
“On our way.” Rand ended the call.
“They found her?” Matt asked.
“Maybe. This way.” Rand wove through the shipping containers, keeping the water to their left.
It took them longer than Rand would have liked, but he understood almost immediately why his instincts were on target about the north end of the marina. The farther south they went, the more activity they ran into.
At least two vehicles came and went. The guys loitering at the dock entrance weren’t just bored men off-shift. They were plainclothes guards.
Suffice to say, they’d found where Sarah was being held.
“Rand.”
He peered into the thick darkness up against the nearest warehouse between the next set of crates and the road.
Andy and Noah.
Rand slipped into position next to them with Matt close on his heels.
“About a dozen men watching the dock and the ship.” Andy tilted his head toward Rand without taking his eyes off the boat. “Two people just left.”
“Could you ID them?”
“Two guys in suits. I haven’t seen Wei or Sarah.”
“Too bad we can’t just call in the cops,” Noah said. He was right. Technically, the Coast Guard was who they’d need to rope in, and even then they’d have to wade through the red tape to get permission to board. In that time, Sarah could disappear.
“We’re going to have an exposed approach no matter how we do this,” Andy said.
“I vote we hide in one of these crates and one of us sacrifices himself to drive us down there in a forklift.” Noah’s white teeth were easy to spot in the darkness. If he were closer, Rand might have tried punching one out. “No, but seriously, I’ve got one silencer. I could snipe the deck watchers if you guys can handle those two dock guards. Thoughts?”
“That’s messy, and you stand as much of a chance hitting us as them.” Andy spoke more like a robot than a human. Almost all the life was just gone from behind those eyes. The man was broken.
“Give me some credit. I’m a damn good shot.”
“Let me do it,” Matt said softly.
“No,” Rand said on instinct.
“Come on, Rand. You know I can.”
“I don’t want you to do it.”
“Noah would be more useful in hand-to-hand.” Andy peered past Rand. “No offense.”
“I’ve only got one hand to offer for that kind of thing, but I only need one to shoot.” Matt crouched, facing them.
“Have you fired a gun since…?” Rand didn’t want any more blood on Matt’s hands. If he had his way, Matt wouldn’t be there.
“Every week.”
“Fuck,” Rand muttered. “Give it to him.”
He didn’t have to like the plan. Hell, it might not last half a minute in execution, but they had to do something, and Matt always had been one hell of a shot even in the worst of conditions. It didn’t get much worse than this. All they needed was for a monsoon to hit.
The sky lit up in a brilliant display of lightning while thunder reverberated through the clouds.
Well, hell.
…
Sarah knotted the bits of remnant rope together.
“Good,” Charlie said.
Bad didn’t begin to describe the alarming way he breathed, the swollen eye, or anything about the way he moved. Still, he was a brilliant, resourceful mind, and his knowledge might be their ticket out of here.
“I got the window loosened.” He gestured to the window he’d been lying under. “If you push open the glass, you should be able to use the rope to open the bars.”
“Why would they put us in a room you could get out of so easily?”
“It’s a cargo hold, not a cell.” He gestured at the window. “Go on.”
“Charlie, what’re they going to do to you?”
“Doesn’t matter. Only thing that does is you destroying the protocols. Go, before they come back.”
She hated that because of her fuck-ups, because someone had burned her, Charlie would likely end up dead. It wasn’t fair. Not one bit.
Sarah crossed to the window. She had to stand on tiptoe to pull the thick, murky glass open. Even then the hinges protested. He must have had to pry the catch loose back in the beginning, before they hurt him this badly.
What she wouldn’t do to have Andy in her pocket right now. She was starting to lose her adversity to vigilante justice.
“Got it?” Charlie asked.
“I’m kind of short. Give me a minute.” She fed the rope out of the window, through the bars.
The handle for the protective bars was above the window on the outside. She grasped the knotted loop between her fingers and focused on the lever above her. She’d have to lasso it just right and then use her weight to pull. It would be an inelegant escape, but she’d make it out. If she didn’t get caught first.
She tossed the rope up, but it fell short. She reeled the rope back in and tried once more, this time with more doled out. The rope sailed up over the window. She winced and tugged it back, but it’d caught on something.
Sarah twisted, peering up.
“I…think I got it.” She couldn’t tell exactly, but it seemed as though the loop had fallen around the lever on its descent.
“Okay, you’ll want to stand to the right and pull. It’s probably stuck, so I’ll have to help you.” Charlie pushed up into a sitting position.
“Stop. Just…stay right there. If they ask if you helped me, this way you can say no.” She knew they’d still likely kill him, but she could hope for a swift, painless death at least.
Charlie eased back down, his head pillowed on a canvas bag, watching her.
Sarah wrapped the rope around her hand and pivoted. She grasped it up closer to the bars and took a deep breath. This was for Charlie. For her family. And for the innocents who would die. She hauled back, pulling with her full weight.
But nothing happened.
She tugged, practically holding herself up by virtue of the rope. “Come on,” she grunted.
Was it her imagination or—
The rope went slack and she fell, landing hard on her ass.
“Did you get it?” Charlie asked.
She picked up her wounded pride and climbed back to her feet. The rope likely broke, and they were out of options.
Just to appease Charlie, she pushed at the bars. The window protector moved. The hinges protested, but it swung outward.
“Holy shit,” she muttered.
It wasn’t a big window, but she could fit through that. Charlie could, too, if he were better off.
“You got it. Go, Sarah. Go now.”
She dragged an empty, plastic box over to the window. “I’ll come back for you, and we’ll go together.”
“Don’t do that. Go. Get to the case. That’s more important.”
Maybe it was, but if they were going out, they might as well do it on their own terms. If she died, she wanted to know it stood for something. Charlie would, too.
She peered out into the darkness, listening past the sound of the water and wind, for the movement of people. They hadn’t yet seen a patrol or anyone coming by at random.
Sarah waited for a count of ten.
Still, nothing.
She stepped up onto the box and again listened. No one was jumping out to get her.
Sarah leaned her upper body out through the window. The deck was much lower than the room she and Charlie were being held in. She couldn’t get a leg out without some serious acrobatics.
“Here, I can give you a boost.” Charlie touched her hip.
She started and glanced back. The water must be playing tricks on her because she hadn’t heard his wheeze or the sound of his step.
“Thanks.”
Charlie grasped her by the knee and after a count to three, boosted her up until she sat on the window ledge. She was able to pull one leg, then the other out and jump lightly to the deck. She crouched in the darkness, waiting, listening.
Shouldn’t someone be watching them? Or did the Chinese know she was as ill-prepared for this as she did?
Either way, they’d made a mistake putting her in the same room with Charlie.
Sarah picked her way by feel down the side of the ship. Clouds had rolled in, blocking out much of the early morning light.
Before much longer, there would be other people around. Potential victims. She needed to be long gone before those people arrived.
Sarah found an unlocked door and stepped into the light. She held her breath and again listened. Voices echoed as if from a great distance, and still, no footsteps.
What was going on?
Something had to be happening, right?
Or was this how these types of things went down?
She followed the hall, peering into darkened rooms. They’d kept her hooded until they were inside, and even then, she wasn’t sure she knew the way except from the cargo hold where Charlie was. That’d been…to her left.
At the first fork, she turned. The hall was darker, but somewhere up ahead Charlie had to be waiting for her. She’d get him free and then figure out where the briefcase was on her own. Charlie could still get free, find help.
She took another left when the hall intersected another. This was slightly familiar. She opened the door at the end, right up against the window, and peered inside.
A man stood in the middle of the room. The thicker clouds blocked out more of the light.
“Charlie?”
“I told you to go on without me.” Charlie limped toward her.
“I didn’t know where I was going. I figured I needed to come back here to retrace my steps anyway. There’s a door that way. You should go.”
“And let you have all the fun? Never.” He nudged her back, down the hall. “Where’s the last place you saw the case?”
“Wait. Charlie.” She tugged him back against the wall. “We have to be careful.”
“I know, but we likely don’t have much time.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll go first.”
She didn’t like that, but he knew what he was doing more than she did.
They wound their way through rooms and down hallways, poking their heads into one after the other. She’d thought she knew where they were going, but after a couple turns she was all twisted around. Still, they kept going. Sometimes the muttered voices came closer, sometimes they faded.
Most of the rooms were clearly bunks or social areas for the ship’s crew. A few looked to be small cargo spaces. The whole place was a warren of halls and turns. So much of it looked exactly the same as the rest. It was hellaciously confusing.
“I think we’re lost.” Sarah pressed her back to the wall.
“Yeah, I think we are. It’s okay. We’ll keep looking.” He seemed to be getting on better. Maybe the opportunity to do something, or just moving, was helping him push through the pain.
Charlie struck out in another direction. This time the muttered voices grew louder, more distinguished. She could make out some of the words. Basketball. Score. Team names. Sports talk.
The cavernous room they crept into was so dark she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Charlie had a tight hold on her so they wouldn’t get separated. He edged forward without wavering, as though he knew where the door must be.
Like the darkened rooms before it, she had the impression of a sizeable space, but they didn’t explore its depths. Each time Charlie edged them straight for another door. The ship wasn’t that big, was it? They couldn’t be going in circles, could they? Was he simply confused?
Charlie placed her hand against the wall, then let go. He opened the door, going slowly so as to prevent the hinges groaning too loudly. For a moment they both held their breath, the bit of light allowing her to see Charlie’s wide eyes.
“Is it safe?” she asked.
He peered out of the other door, taking his time to look one way, then the other. He leaned closer to her, almost until his lips were on her ear. “I think we need to cross the hall. That room is the one they questioned me in.”
Oh, dear. She nodded, despite every fiber of her body telling her to run and hide. Charlie was the professional here. She trusted him.
He turned, and they both listened to the distant movements. Feet shuffling. Muted voices. She could tell one sound was closer, getting closer, closer still, and then it seemed to fade.
This would be the worst of it. Charlie was going to think she’d betrayed them, but she had to continue being careful. He grasped her hand and led her as quickly as he could across the wide hall and into the room. She remembered this space.
There, sitting on a table, was the briefcase.
Part of her hadn’t believed they would make it this far, but here they were.
“Open it.” Charlie waved her toward it while he took up a post next to the door, peering out into the hall.
Now all she had to do was snap pictures and they’d be done with it.
“Hurry,” Charlie whispered.
She pulled the lip balm tube from her pocket and twisted it like Irene had showed her. The bottom came off, exposing the camera. She felt along the sides until—there—the button under the label.
“Anyone coming?” she asked over her shoulder.
Charlie shook his head.
If she opened the case, they ran the risk of someone surprising them. If she outright destroyed the contents, informants would go dark. What was the right choice? What should she do?
She didn’t like any of her options.
Something pinged off the metal, vibrating the whole ship.
“Hurry, Sarah.”
She picked the case up off the desk and retreated to the farthest corner of the room. It was her job to deliver the protocols. That was what she had to do.
Sarah flipped the panel covering the keypad and pressed the first code, initiating the unlocking sequence, then set her hand on the handle. She could do this. It was one thing in her power that only she could do.
The case chirped, indicating it had recognized her.
Now, one final code, and she’d have to work double-time.
Charlie glanced back at her, his posture tense.
“What’s that sound?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Was it hail? Had the storm begun in earnest? Maybe that could work in their favor. She plugged in the last string of numbers and digits. The keypad flashed a single, green light, and the lock disengaged.
She opened it and lifted the lip balm tube, clicking the button to initiate the camera.
Charlie turned from the door. “You got it?” he asked.
She flipped the first couple of pages over and clicked again.
“Sarah?”
She didn’t bother answering.
Charlie straightened and tiptoed toward her.
There were pages of the protocols in here. Pages upon pages, some of them taped together. “It’s going to take some time,” she said.
“Sarah—stop now.”
“Charlie—” Sarah glanced up, but her gaze snagged on the barrel of a gun pointed straight at her.
“What are you doing?” Her body went cold, then hot.
No. Not Charlie…
“Step away from the briefcase, Sarah.” He grasped the lid and crouched across from her.
In the full light, his eye didn’t look quite so swollen. He definitely wasn’t wheezing.
She had a vague memory of lying in bed after too much wine, just in from the U.S. after her surgery. Charlie had insisted on her staying in Hong Kong for a few days. It’d been during their short-lived romance.
Her arm had been worse for a bit after that. She’d thought the stitches looked funny, but ignored it because she was the last person to follow the take it easy doctor orders.
Was it really him all along?
“Why?” she asked.
“Stand up for me, please.” It was Charlie.
It’d always been Charlie, and not in a good way.
“Sarah, don’t make me ask you again, sweetheart.” His smile was…smooth. Even now, it put her a little more at ease.
He was ready for her to do something.
She put her hands on her thighs and pushed to her feet.
“Good girl.” Charlie glanced down, the gun drifting off target. “Don’t get all caught up in good guys and bad guys. It’s not about the right side, it’s about the right price, Sarah. It always has been.”
The right price for killing people?
Sarah kicked the case. Charlie howled as his fingers were caught in the sharp edges, and sat back. The gun went off, the sound too loud in the metal box-like room. The bullet pinged off the walls.
She fell on the case, shoving it closed. She groped for the buttons, any combination would work, but Charlie snatched it from her.
He roared and kicked her in the shoulder, then rolled onto his back with the briefcase clutched to his chest.
Two men rushed through the door, descending on her with unkind hands, hauling her to her feet.
“Peterson,” Wei barked. “Did you get it?”
“No, she closed the damn thing.” Charlie flung the briefcase across the room and shoved to his feet.
“You can’t handle one job?”
“I at least got her to open it. Fuck.”
“We have to go. Now.” Wei glanced up as more thunder shook the boat.
“Who is it?”
“Who do you think?”
“Oh, fuck. That one.”
“And he brought friends. We’re leaving. Now.”
That one?
Rand?
He’d come for her. Or the case. Right now, she’d take either.