Maxwell wasn’t taking any chances of another Tall and Silent incident and put two watchdogs on Jack when he left the sublevels. Thus sandwiched, Jack headed back up to the tenth and wheedled Miller into organising someone to fetch a clean set of clothes from his apartment. By specifying the particular garment bag he wanted brought in, Jack took the first step on Ethan’s crazy plan, but an hour later, he was half convinced he’d made the wrong move.
There’d been no noise from either Tan or McIntosh. It was an ordinary day at the Office for everyone but Jack. He sat at his desk and tried to look busy, but was constantly distracted by every memo that flashed up on his screen. Only one had any sort of impact, sending him down to the first floor to pick up the requested garment bag.
In the toilets he undressed and did his best to wash down with damp towels. It reminded him of that day in the stable, still weak, trying not to reveal how his hands shook while he wiped days of sick-sweat from his body under Ethan’s watchful eye. Of the lesson in subtle communications, the story of the tiger. Of the night that followed, the startling revelations and Ethan’s confusing response to them. Jack still didn’t fully understand it and suspected now neither did Ethan. Not a sociopath, but not given a chance to be anything else. The assassin’s view of the world was fundamentally different to Jack’s, to most other people’s. No one had a chance of ever understanding him.
Leaning on the sink, Jack looked at himself in the mirror. The strain showed in his bloodshot eyes, in the tension in his temples and the straight line of his shoulders, the bunching of the muscles in his arms as he gripped the porcelain so hard it might have creaked under the pressure.
All this because Ethan said there was a traitor within the Office, someone who’d been protecting Valadian. One of the highest ranks, no less. It was a serious charge, and the consequences were even more serious. Someone at that level, with access to pretty much all of the most sensitive secrets in not just Australia, but within the Meta-State, could do just about anything: sell state secrets, cover up terrorist activity, derail Office investigations, pass on faulty information to the military so some hapless squad of soldiers was sent into a deadly situation dangerously underprepared.
If it was McIntosh, then it made her moves to get the Valadian op up and running without anyone else knowing understandable. With one of her own assets in play, she controlled the flow of information. She could deal with anything Jack might have uncovered before he possibly exposed her. Likewise, if Tan was the traitor, his ire at discovering the operation after it had been set up made sense. He would have been paranoid that McIntosh suspected him, or that she soon would.
Right then, Jack was doubly glad he’d lied through his teeth upon his return. If he hadn’t been trying to hide Ethan, he could very well have said something to the wrong person and gotten himself in a tougher bind than he presently found himself in.
Of course, if Jack went ahead with Ethan’s mad plan, he was effectively signing a death warrant for the guilty director. Ethan wasn’t here to point a finger. He wouldn’t trust any sort of bureaucratic system to do the right thing. He was here to do what he did best. Kill.
Jack was loyal. To his family, to his country, to the Office, even to the military hierarchy that had chewed him up and spat him out. He’d dedicated his life to making sure the madness in the wider world didn’t impact Australia. A traitor inside the Office was just the latest enemy, and maybe this time, being loyal meant bypassing the red tape.
Slowly, Jack dressed, making sure each item was precisely the one he’d asked for. With every button he did up, he was confirming his commitment to Ethan’s plan. When he pulled on the jacket and settled it on his shoulders, he let out a long breath.
This was it. Do or . . . die? Well, he hoped not.
He was leaving the toilets when he bumped into Maria Dioli. She bounced off him with a distracted curse and hurried past. Then she pulled up short and spun around. She was in the same clothes as the previous day, her normally ordered curls now a frazzled mess, and she had the overcaffeinated twitches common to active-case workers.
“Jack! I’ve been looking for you. Come on, in here.”
She dived into a room across the corridor, waving for him to follow. When he didn’t, she poked her head back out and frowned at him. “Hurry up.”
Indicating Shadow One and Shadow Two, Jack said, “I’m not alone. And”—he pointed to the room she was in—“that’s the ladies’.”
Maria frowned at the watchdogs. “Why are they here?”
“To make sure I don’t run away.”
“Good, they can guard the door while I talk to you.” She disappeared back into the toilets.
“Well?” Jack asked the Wonder Twins.
Shadow One sighed and ushered him into the ladies’. Shadow Two stayed outside, guarding the door. Inside, Maria was at a sink, hands cupped under running water, which she splashed over her face. Shadow One did a perfunctory check of the stalls, then settled into rest mode by the door.
“Can’t this wait until you’re done in here?” Jack asked, mildly amused as Maria did a horrified double take in the mirror.
“No, it won’t take long. Shit, I look like the bride of Frankenstein.”
“Frankenstein’s monster, actually,” Shadow One corrected.
Maria glared at him, then tried to tame her curls. “Whatever. Listen, Jack, I read through the new statements about your time with Blade.”
She still didn’t look pissed with him, thank God. “And?”
“And it doesn’t really shed any light on what’s been going on with Valadian’s group since.”
Jack snorted. “I know. If any of it had, I would have admitted it straight up.”
“Right, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting in its own way.” Giving up on her hair, Maria faced him, leaning against the sink. “I started looking into Ethan Blade’s movements after he left you in the desert.”
“Jesus, Maria. Have you been at it all night?”
She nodded. “Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Not when I realised that I’ve pretty much been tracking his movements already.”
That caught Jack’s attention solidly. “What?”
“I’ve been tracking the remains of Valadian’s organisation for the past year, and everywhere I’ve found a trace, Blade’s already been there, or visits there not long later. He’s after Valadian as well. Or what’s left of his business, at least. You said he was there to kill Valadian and that you didn’t know if he succeeded or not. I don’t think he did, because Blade’s still after him. He’s got to finish the job. Some sort of assassin’s credo or something, I guess.”
“Or just a personal one,” Jack muttered.
She had it wrong. Ethan hadn’t been hunting Valadian. He’d been looking for clues about who had been protecting Valadian.
“He’s fascinating, Jack.” The glazed enthrallment in her eyes hit Jack like a gut punch. “I mean, I’m compiling data from over a hundred different sources to track Valadian’s group. I have two techs working full-time on this and we’re getting barely anywhere, and somehow, this guy has kept a step ahead of us. I no sooner got a hint of Valadian somewhere and Blade’s already there, or so close it meant he had the information before I did. How is he doing this? Where’s he getting his information? I need to talk to him.”
Jack was shaking his head from about halfway through her speech. He didn’t need this, not now. Not wearing what he was wearing, not after committing to a course of action he might be starting to doubt. How could he let Maria make the same mistakes he had? She was a good handler, a better unit leader. Tough, smart, dedicated. He couldn’t let Ethan drag her into this, even if he didn’t mean to. Jack had to steer her off this path before she went too far.
“Maria, don’t do this.”
She frowned. “Do what? My job?”
“No. Yes. Look, don’t dig any further into Ethan Blade. Trust me, it’s a one-way ticket to madness.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s not entirely rational. There are . . . circumstances that give him a skewed view of the world. You’ve seen his eyes?”
Maria nodded. “They’re freaky, yeah, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
“Are you familiar with the term ‘Sugar Baby’?”
Sugar—an illegal synthetic dopamine-stimulator— had appeared on the market about forty years ago and quickly proved to be a cheap alternative to other, similar drugs. About five years after that, a flow-on problem had arisen. Namely, the babies born to female Sugar addicts.
“Sure, from about thirty years ago? Didn’t they debunk a lot of the . . .” She trailed off as she made the connection. Eyes widening, she stared at Jack. “He’s . . . Really?”
Jack hedged. “Not exactly, but he’s not what we would call normal. He’s been an assassin for half his life, Maria. That means he was sixteen when he started. At least that was when his kills began being attributed to the name ‘Ethan Blade.’ He doesn’t look at the world and see it full of people. He only sees targets of varying degrees of difficulty.”
“Even you?”
“Even me. Especially me.”
Maria fiddled with her hair. “I watched the video of McIntosh’s interview with him, and yours. He certainly appears to trust you. That would indicate he sees you as something like an equal.”
“Believe me, he’s a brilliant actor.”
It sparked a sense of betrayal in him to say it. Ethan did trust him, with an innocent willingness that tore at Jack each time he doubted it. It didn’t help that Ethan’s first declaration of trust had been a lie, and that the second had been all but coerced out of him.
“You’re saying because he’s unstable, I shouldn’t put any worth in his intelligence related to the remains of Valadian’s group?”
Shit. “God, Maria, just forget about Blade. He can’t help you. He doesn’t help anyone. He just makes things worse. Look at me. Confined to the building, under suspicion.” He motioned to Shadow One, looming by the door. “Watched even while I take a piss and change clothes. You’re too good to be tarred by Blade’s brush.”
Maria regarded him with a blank expression that failed to hide the furious workings of her brain. Everything he said would be analysed and dissected, worse than Dr. Granger and her psych evaluations, and applied to Maria’s agenda as she looked for links and insights.
She nodded slowly. “All right. Thanks for the advice, Jack. If you and your date could leave, I’d like to pee now.”
Jack hesitated, then said, “I mean it, Maria. Stay out of it. I’m warning you.”
He left then, hoping she considered his warning for what it was: an honest plea she back down for her own good. If he could keep everyone else out of Ethan’s path, he would consider it a best possible scenario.
Back at his desk, he found the next part of the plan waiting for him. Two logs of mint-choc swirl fudge, dutifully fetched by Lydia Cowper this time.
This was it. The moment Jack delivered them to Ethan, the plan would be in irrevocable motion. Without it, Ethan wouldn’t make a move and Jack could keep hold of whatever remained of his job. Maria wouldn’t be caught up as collateral damage. Ethan would be a prisoner of the Office for as long as he served a purpose, after which it was doubtful they’d let him go even then. Ethan had come in knowing that, trusting Jack to not let that happen.
Wish you were here?
Swearing under his breath, Jack pushed back from the desk, not sure what he was going to do but knowing he had to do something.
Ping.
A message appeared on his computer screen. From Director Harraway.
Meeting room 10B. Five minutes.
Well. It would complete the set.
Watchdog front and back, Jack headed back up the stairs. Was that why Maxwell kept coming back on Jack-duty? His people were complaining about running up and down stairs all day? It amused Jack to think so, at least. The door to the meeting room was open when Jack and the Wonder Twins reached it.
Harraway, seated at the table, waved him straight in. “Leave the bodyguards outside, son.”
Shrugging at his shadows, Jack closed the door in their faces, then turned to the Intel director. “More questions for me, sir?”
“Indeed. Sit, get comfortable. Not sure what Donna thinks she’s going to achieve, having you trailed like that. Confined to the building should be sufficient punishment, I think, for preserving your life.”
“Sir?”
“Ethan Blade. If I had him after me, you wouldn’t see me for dust, I reckon.”
“I get it, sir, but he’s not really after me.”
“Still, can’t be comforting, being known to one of the longest-serving names on the John Smith List.”
“It’s a little startling. Is this all you wanted to talk about, sir?”
“No. I’ll leave the Blade obsession in Alex’s hands. I’m more interested in Samuel Valadian.”
This was a new angle. “What about him?”
Glen Harraway smiled encouragingly. “Well, let’s look at him. A somewhat ambitious organised-crime man with his hand in all sorts of illegal activities—nothing unusual, nothing to concern us. Then suddenly, he has this compound in the middle of the desert, a three-thousand-strong army, and a weapons stockpile large enough to threaten a city.”
Jack shifted a bit uncomfortably. “It wasn’t suddenly, sir. He’d been using the compound as a cover for years. We just weren’t aware of his direct connection to it until ITA traced some of his weapons smuggling to it. And it wasn’t until I got in there and was trusted enough that I saw everything he had going on.”
Harraway waved aside Jack’s correction. “You should know by now, son, if we haven’t been tracking it for at least a year, preferably two, then it most definitely is suddenly.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said dryly. Of course, suddenly discovering the full extent of Valadian’s operations in the desert was thanks to someone here, in this building, covering it up.
True to his word, Harraway wasn’t interested in Ethan. Instead he spent an hour digging deeper into Valadian’s movements and motives. The Intel director didn’t have a screen up or a tablet to refer to; everything he needed was already in his head. Another interesting point was that when Harraway had to mention Ethan, he used “Blade” or “the assassin,” not Omega Subject. Either he found the tag a bit on the nose or felt Ethan wasn’t that important to the overall situation.
After dissecting Valadian’s ruthless solution to his Link Rindone problem—concluding Valadian had only done what was best for his organisation, even if it’d earned the ire of several Golden Triangle drug cartels—Harraway sat back in his chair with a little sigh. “I believe that leaves us just one more question, Jack.”
Weary of the constant rehashing of events he’d worked so hard to leave behind, Jack asked, “Which is?”
“Why Blade?”
Jack blinked, surprised at the sudden turnaround in topics. “Why Blade what, sir?”
Harraway waved a hand as if to encompass their prior discussion. “Valadian wasn’t a reckless operator. He did precisely what was needed, when it was needed. So why bring in such an expensive and notorious assassin to merely interrogate a spy? No offense to your skills, son, but it feels like overkill, and Valadian was too cautious to err on such a small thing. So . . . why Blade? You spent ten days or so with the assassin. Surely he said something about Valadian’s plans for him.”
“No, sir, he didn’t. Nothing beyond finding out what information I may have passed on.” Then, because in under three hours he’d have little left to lose, he asked, “Do you have a theory about it, sir?”
The older man contemplated him for a long moment. “Not a theory as such. More of a . . . curiosity. Something I was hoping you could help me shine a light on, Jack.”
It was as far from a ‘curiosity’ as it could get. Harraway had a firm idea about why Valadian had secured Ethan’s services. And, considering just what Valadian had done to do so, Jack had to admit Harraway was right. Valadian wouldn’t have done that just so Ethan would interrogate a possible spy. As director of Intelligence, Harraway had access to every morsel of information moving through the Office. He undoubtedly knew far more than Jack, but what put the shiver down Jack’s spine was that Harraway was probably leaps and bounds ahead of McIntosh and Tan, as well.
Over Harraway’s shoulder, through the window, Jack fixed his gaze on the next building. Blue, yellow, and red streamers twisted together and apart, around and around. Once more, he felt like one of those ribbons, pulled against his will into a tangle of plots he had no control over.
Harraway knew something none of the rest of them did. Even if he suspected there was a traitor within the Office, even if he could help Jack puzzle out McIntosh’s and Tan’s motives without resorting to freeing Ethan from his cell . . . Harraway was still a director. He was still a suspect.
He focused on Harraway’s hopeful expression. “Sorry, sir. I can’t help you.”
After a moment, the director shrugged casually. “Oh well. It was worth a try. Of course, if you think of anything, come to me with it. Thank you for your time, Jack.”