Chapter Nine
Irene kept her head up, despite wanting to drop dead in her pumps.
It’d already been a long day, and it was only going to get longer. The key was pushing forward as if nothing were wrong. As if she hadn’t left her sister across an ocean in the hands of people who couldn’t even understand her if something went wrong.
She stepped into the elevator and swiped her badge. The doors shut, giving her a few blessed moments of peace. She pushed her shoulders back and sucked down a deep breath of air.
The problem with being a black woman in a predominantly white male department was that no one cut her any slack. Ever. And she was fine with it. She’d gone through the same training as the boys and held her own. She could carry on, doing the same thing as always now.
Irene was stronger than this.
She’d weathered the death of her mother, her marriage, her father, her aunt—hell, even the death of her child. Just because Anna was all the family Irene had left didn’t make this any more of a stressful situation. Everything else that went along with it did.
The elevator doors opened, dumping her out on her floor. She strode out, making straight for her office. Technically, she was late, but doing what they did meant keeping strange hours. No one would—or could—throw shade her way. She had been doing company work, after all.
Irene unlocked her office and pulled the trash bin in after her. Some called her paranoid for not wanting even the cleaning staff in her office without her being present. That was fine. Those people hadn’t been there for some of the storms she’d weathered. If they had, maybe they’d be as cautious as she was.
She booted up her computer and got her things situated. After a week out of the office, there was plenty to catch up on. The receiving tray on her door was full, as was her inbox.
It was going to be one very long day. She blew out a breath, cracked her knuckles, and picked up her pen. Before she could begin slaying the red dragon of emails and tasks, she had to have a plan.
“Irene, there you are.”
She glanced up at the pretty boy closing her office door. “Something I can help you with?” She put a little of that Southern drawl into her voice while tapping her pen on the legal pad. The nerve of some of these guys. Mitch was one of the better ones, but that wasn’t saying much when Irene only knew him in passing.
“Have you spoken with your asset, Sarah Collins?” Mitch McConnel turned and perched on the arm of the guest chair currently holding Irene’s tote.
The tote with all her files on the suspicious cases in it. The files she wasn’t supposed to remove from the building.
Shit.
She really was losing her mind if she hadn’t done something about those already. Like put them the fuck away.
“Irene?”
“No, not since our handoff a week ago.” Irene folded her hands on top of the desk to keep the tremors at bay. “What’s up?”
“Someone burned her.” Mitch stared at her, those three words stabbing deep.
“Excuse me?” Irene blinked. “Back up. Start at the beginning. What?”
Mitch began at Sarah’s intended drop in Seoul, which she’d performed flawlessly a dozen or more times, and ended with some sort of finger-pointing story, laying blame on Hector Martinez, the nice guy down the hall.
“Hold up.” Irene pressed her fingertips to her temples. Was Mitch saying what she thought he was saying?
“We need to force Hector into sharing operational control with us. My man died because of this, and he could get your girl killed, too. We can’t trust him.”
Irene swallowed.
Well, this was one way to skin the cat. Talk about her prey coming to her.
…
Rand studied the piece of paper as he would the lay of the land. Weighing tricky situations, the danger of being caught with his back up against the wall, or simply hoodwinked. Sarah played it safe, so he couldn’t.
He slashed two lines, creating an X on the grid, and passed the tablet to Sarah.
“Hmm.” She tapped her pen on the paper once, twice, then scribbled an O.
At least now he had someone to play tic-tac-toe with. Trying to beat himself was getting pretty boring.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Not really, they’re talking about interoffice politics. It’s…boring. I mean, some of these people I know, so it’s interesting in sort of a rubbernecking kind of way to hear them talk, but it’s not informative, you know?”
Rand sighed.
It would be too much to ask for the Chinese delegation to lay out their entire dastardly plan while they were being monitored.
Surveillance was about as exciting as watching paint dry. Worse for him, since all he was doing was waiting for Sarah to say something worth writing down. She at least got to listen to the social drama of it.
“Did your guy ever say if your people got out okay?” Sarah asked.
“They should be in the UK by now. Things like that take time. There could’ve been a delay. I’d hope someone would tell me something next time we talk.” Rand couldn’t help but be proud of Sarah. Sure, she might just be a delivery girl, but she was smart. Circumspect. Careful. Even in this somewhat secure location she wouldn’t use places, names, identifiers. As much as he hated to admit it, the company had chosen well when they’d picked her.
“Can you switch the feeds to four?”
“Sure thing.” He tapped a button, tabbing through to the valet in the suite’s conference-style room. “Anything?”
“Now they’re talking about each other.” She sighed and leaned her head back against the headboard. “Is it always this exciting?”
“Once I listened to a guy snore for three days straight. He’d wake up for about ten minutes every eight hours to piss, drink some water, and then get back to it. I thought my eyes were going to start bleeding from boredom.”
“Yikes. Okay. It could always be worse. Check.”
“You remember when Matt broke his nose on that lineman’s shoulder in high school?”
“Oh my God.” Sarah turned toward him, mouth gaped open, eyes wide. “I thought I was going to kill him. That sound.”
“I was pretty sure I could hear him across the street. I don’t know how you survived. I spent the night that one time… God, that was bad.”
“Emily says he snores a little now, and I just keep thinking about the broken nose snoring. I don’t know how she hasn’t smothered him in his sleep already. It’s probably Jillian. Their youngest is up at all hours. I swear, I get emails from Emily at the weirdest times. It’s almost to the point if she emails me during a normal human hour I’m like, what’s wrong?”
Rand chuckled. His memory of Emily was a little fuzzy. She and Sarah had become friends in high school, the year before he’d graduated. He hadn’t had much time to get to know the new addition to Sarah’s life, in part because he’d been trying to stay away from her.
“Still talking about each other.” Sarah sighed.
“You ever wanted that?” Rand leaned his head against the wall, the headboard hitting at just the right angle to make him tip his chin up.
“What?”
“A family. Kids.”
“Maybe.” Her shoulder nudged his. A shrug? “I graduated and went to work with one real goal in mind, then this happened and I haven’t really been thinking beyond the next twelve months. Planning any farther in advance just seems…pointless.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a family man.” All the things he’d done wrong. The orders he’d had to carry through. How could he lie in bed next to someone with that kind of shit on his conscience? What if he passed on that…ability, the cold-hearted killer instinct the company had honed into a tool, to a child?
“What? Seriously?”
Sarah’s gaze made the hair on his arms stand up. She had a picture of him from a different time and place. Yeah, the SEALs had equipped him to do his job well, but they hadn’t stripped him down to the bone, they hadn’t demanded his humanity. There was a difference between going toe-to-toe with your enemy and waiting in a dark alley to put a knife in their back.
“I just remember how you were with those twins from down the street. Pulling them around in that wagon. Matt hated those kids. I mean, he’d see them in their yard and he’d pull all the blinds, lock the doors, and practically hide. But you’d go out there and…I don’t know, you were just so good with them.”
“Yeah, I distinctly remember someone calling me for help with them.” Rand glared at Sarah, but he didn’t really mean it.
“Yeah, well, uh, what was I supposed to do?” She glanced down, her cheeks a tad bit pink. “You’d said you couldn’t babysit. I figured, how hard could it be?”
“Did you ever clean that crap off the ceiling?”
“Yes. I did that while you wrestled the little gremlins back into bed. God, your girlfriend was so pissed at me.”
“Who was it?” He’d dated plenty, cycling through most of the girls he could stand long before graduating.
“You’re terrible.”
“What? Was it that…blonde?”
“It was Maggie Price. Red hair. Big tits.”
“Uh…”
“You spilled that milkshake on her at the pep rally?”
“Oh, yeah. That one. Didn’t miss much.”
“What?” Sarah laughed and shook her head. “She was so in love with you, and you barely remember her?”
“She was not.”
“Uh, yeah she was. I’ll never forget her doodling little ‘Maggie Duncan,’ swirly name things on stuff.”
“No…”
“Yeah.” Sarah laughed.
“Huh.”
“God, you’re so blind.”
“She wasn’t the girl who really mattered.” He shrugged.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
He had no business thinking about a future, settling down, and yet…after all this time, it was still her. Maybe this was his chance to get this off his chest, exorcise the demon that’d haunted him all this time.
“She wasn’t you.”
Sarah’s gaze might as well have weighed a ton.
He stared at the ceiling, playing back his personal highlight reel of favorite Sarah moments. Volleyball shorts, water gun fights, sitting on the swings late at night, holding her in his arms while she slept.
The silence stretched on.
“Rand—” She choked out his name. “There’s been a delivery.”
Wait—what? He shook his head. That wasn’t—she had the ear bud mashed deep in her ear, face creased. He snatched up the pen and flipped back to their notes.
“There’s been some sort of emergency…quiet…very important package delivered to the embassy. They’re all talking at once. It’s hard to really follow who is saying what. I—I think it’s the briefcase, Rand.”
“What makes you say that?”
She bit her lip, brow furrowed. He wanted answers now, but that wasn’t how this worked. Her eyes jumped back and forth, as if she were following two people talking. Or more.
“They’re talking—oh God.” She covered her mouth, her voice muffled. “They said—someone killed Charlie.”
…
Irene strolled into the break room. Mitch’s gaze was so cold it burned her. That fool of a man would have to wait.
She snagged a disposable coffee cup and plopped in a nice dark roast coffee pod.
How had the world gone to hell in such a short amount of time? She pulled out her personal phone, checking the latest status update on Anna. One thing was going well. Money talked when it came to getting the right kind of care for her sister.
Now, what to do about Mitch and Hector?
She mulled the problem over in her mind while the machine chugged and trickled out her eight ounces of liquid life.
A week ago, she’d delivered the briefcase to Sarah before she departed D.C. for her round-the-globe trek. In the beginning, Irene had been on hand either in person or by phone for check-ins at every layover and dead drop. Sarah was an old pro at this stuff now, so Irene hadn’t considered the idea that she would be needed. But this time, she had.
Because they had a mole.
Irene had suspected it for some time. It was hard for most to see, but she’d been in the department longer than others, who viewed it as a temporary gig. She had a much greater swatch of experience to draw from. To evaluate the patterns. To see what was going on.
This wasn’t the first time one of their contracted operatives had been sold out. It was merely the first time Irene was involved and knew what was going on from somewhere in the beginning of things instead of the aftermath. It was so much easier to see the subterfuge of others in hindsight than in the moment.
“Afternoon.”
She turned, studying Hector. The report he’d made was…brief. It didn’t begin to cover the scope of what was going on.
“We need to talk. Walk with me.” She wasn’t making a request, and Hector wasn’t stupid enough to pretend it was.
“Sure thing. It’s nice out—”
“Walk.”
Hector dropped the disarming smile, his nice guy act, and pivoted, leading the way to the stairs. She kept pace, careful to not slosh her coffee over her hand. Jet lag was a bitch at the best of times.
They didn’t speak until they were outside, the harsh afternoon sun slicing through the clouds, chasing away the rain.
“The Seoul job. What happened?”
“I can get you a copy—”
“I read your report. Now I want to know what really went down.” She sipped from her cup, peering up at Hector.
He’d almost been fired. For what, she didn’t know, but it’d landed him in her division. Technically, they were a department of information analysts. In truth, they coordinated their assets, who did the true information gathering, and then pored over what it meant. They were spy wranglers, their jobs the most dangerous of all. They had a hold of the wolves by the ears, unable to let them go and unable to hold on. It took a strong person to do what they did.
“Someone made your girl, followed her, nearly got my guy killed and almost ruined the work we’ve been doing for the last two goddamn years. Then this spook swoops in, goes straight for the case, and spirits it away. We barely got the assets out alive.”
His words rang true…but he wasn’t telling her everything. Neither had Mitch. What weren’t they clueing her in on?
Was she being played?
“They’re here now, correct?” She let her gaze rove over the people strolling the street, the others wolfing down a quick lunch before heading back to work.
“Yes, we debriefed them and put them in a position to finish the job.”
“You have a way to contact them?”
“We’re in firm do-not-contact protocol here, Irene.”
She stopped and turned, forcing Hector to swing around and face her. “Your seniority does not supersede me. Now, you and Mitch might be having a pissing contest over this, but I don’t give two shits about who has the bigger dick. You will give me the contact protocols.”
In short, she didn’t trust Hector to keep a hamster alive, much less Sarah. She could be in as much, if not more, danger on home soil than she’d been out in the field. It was time to pack up her family drama and remember that she had a job to do and lives that depended on her.
“Fine. Okay. Yeah. I’ll make sure you get them.”
“Now, what else aren’t you telling me?” She strode forward, mind at work.
One way or another, she’d bring her girl home alive and safe.
…
Sarah couldn’t believe how cavalier these men were.
Split like a fish.
Rag doll.
Served him right.
She wanted to bust in there. This was Charlie they were talking about. He was a good man. Someone who deserved better than…this.
Oh, God.
Charlie was dead. And it was all her fault. If she’d been more careful… If she’d gone against orders and kept the case on her… If—what?
She’d met Charlie on her first delivery. She’d been so nervous, certain every person she passed would make her for a U.S. agent. Her knees had practically knocked together and she’d nearly peed herself. That first face-to-face had taken place at a tea shop.
Sarah had ordered tea and taken up a corner booth, as instructed. She hadn’t really known what to expect. Irene hadn’t given her pictures or any sort of identifying information. Just a phrase.
When Charlie had sat down across from her, Sarah had thought she was going to die. That she’d been made.
At the time, she’d been so nervous she hadn’t taken into account Charlie’s mixed Chinese American heritage. All she’d seen was an assassin coming to take everything she had.
Charlie had put her at ease. Taught her how to be careful, what to look out for, he’d been a friend and mentor. Under different circumstances, maybe they would have been compatible romantically, but work came first for both of them, and Charlie wasn’t enough like Rand for their relationship to work for her. Still…he was a good guy. He didn’t deserve death. Not like this.
His death was on her hands.
She hadn’t been a good enough agent. The weak link had to be her. Charlie was too good at this, he’d been doing it for so long. It was all her fault. She might as well have been the one to kill him. She’d never again sit across from his smiling face, sharing a pot of jasmine tea, talking about their plans for the annual cherry blossom festival.
The last couple of years, they’d found a reason to cross paths during the festival. That was when their date had happened. The moment when everything between them changed. And now, she’d never see him again.
Charlie was dead.
And it was her fault.
“Sarah? Sarah, look at me.” Rand grasped her by the shoulders, his gaze gone stormy blue, almost a gray.
“Charlie’s dead.”
“Focus, Sarah. You have a job to do, whether or not Charlie is dead. We don’t know that yet.”
“But they said—”
“Sarah, listen to me, this is the part of what we do that’s the most difficult. You have to put your emotions aside and work. I can’t do this without you. You’re the only one who speaks Mandarin.”
She hiccupped, her eyes blurring with tears. She was in over her head. But Rand was right, this could be her chance to make this right.
“What else are they saying? Focus on that.”
She nodded and swiped at her cheeks. One deep breath, and then another. “Someone just came in.” Her voice wavered, but she could do this.
Rand furiously tapped at the laptop, accessing the security feeds.
Sarah swallowed. It was him.
Zhang Wei.
Her insides quaked. The only thing separating them from one of the most dangerous men on the planet was a bit of drywall.
“He…” She tilted her head to the side, parsing out the words, translating them. “He delivered the case after they talked. I guess he was here earlier. Maybe before we got set up? They’ve had the package rescanned, and it’s as they…as he said it was. I guess they X-rayed it or something and saw the security.”
“Okay.” Rand scribbled away.
…
Zhang Wei stood amid the swirl of activity, waiting for silence. It wasn’t his place to speak first. He was the tool the arm of China wielded.
“Wei, what did they find?” Wang Ping braced a hand against the back of a chair.
“The security on the case cannot be bypassed.”
It was as Wei had told them earlier. Still, a second opinion and X-ray were needed to verify his assessment. It was a waste of time, but once more, Wei was only the arrow, pointed at the target and released to do his part in things. It wasn’t like he had experience.
“We paid for nothing.” Ping pounded the back of the chair with his fist.
“The security indicates that it is keyed to a person, or persons. You said when you bought the intel there was more?”
“Yes, the man.”
“Charlie Liu?” Wei frowned. He’d killed Charlie Liu.
“That one.”
“There has to be someone else.” Wei frowned.
“We know there are twelve operatives in the greater Asian continent, and ten times that many people working for the Americans. It could be any of them.” Ping threw up his hands, the lines around his mouth deepening.
“Are you at liberty to share your source?” Part of Wei’s job was making people talk.
“I can’t.” Ping pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. “I’ll work on it.”
“I await your orders.”
Silencing traitors was all the reward Wei wanted.
…
“I just sent the contact protocol over.”
Mitch glanced up at Irene, one shoulder braced against the door. She was the best thing he’d seen all day.
“Hector gave them to you?” Mitch was only a tiny bit bitter about that. What the hell? They were in this together. It was time they started acting like it.
“Had to. We now share operational control. I should be in contact with my girl before the day is over.”
“That’s such a relief to hear.” Mitch pushed a hand through his hair. Damn, but that was the last thing he wanted her to say.
“What about your man? Did they…?”
“Nothing yet.” He ducked his head, the better to mask his worry as grief.
“I’m so sorry, Mitch. It’s hard to lose ’em that way.” Irene shook her head, as if she were some sort of guardian angel.
The leak had to be her.
The freelance handlers were mercenary. She was the type to wring her asset dry, then shoot them. After all, how many times did they get tasked with putting their assets down? Some of those guys were too dangerous to let loose without the right kind of mission. With the war in the Middle East at least attempting to wind down, they were culling the flock, so to speak.
Mitch didn’t buy the personal time-off bullshit for a minute. She’d been gone at the right times, her access was complete, it just made sense. Charlie was dead because of Irene, and Mitch would prove it.
“Well, let me know if you hear anything.” He smiled, but it was all for show. Being polite.
“You wouldn’t know anything about the medical report the camp staff filed on my girl, would you?” Irene’s voice made chills go up Mitch’s spine.
“Uh, yeah, they did field surgery to remove her tracking device.”
“Hmm.”
Mitch watched her face. Had she known about that? If she was the mole, she’d have to. But all she did was frown, as if she didn’t like that particular bit of information.
It was Irene.
It had to be.