Turn the Tide

by Ruggle, Katie

  The CIA held itself above the law and morality and steamrolled over division chiefs. Without a doubt, if they got Ianus, the fallout would be dire and become her cross to bear.

  She dug in her backpack to check her go-bag that contained her passport and money. Where was it? Shoving clothes and toiletries aside, she fished deeper. Why couldn’t she find it?

  Every time she came to the safe house, she always checked the bag, and it was always sitting at the top of her pack—but not now. Her go-bag was gone.

  A chill crept over her skin, and her soul went numb.

  No, no. She shook her head as if in a daze, unable to understand how this was possible.

  A car door slammed. The neighborhood was residential, quiet, and the sound echoed. She went to the window and peeked out the curtain to look two floors below. Nothing. The street was empty.

  Despite her heart thumping hard in her chest, she was about to dismiss her paranoia. But from the corner of her eye, she spotted him, standing in the shadows of an alcove between two apartment buildings on the left. The same man she’d seen four times in nine weeks. Reddish-brown hair the color of rust in a corroded drainpipe. Ivory skin. Glasses.

  An internal warning sounded like a death knell.

  Munich was a small city, compared to London and New York. It might be coincidence he was here now. But Munich wasn’t that small, and there were no coincidences in this trade.

  The man looked up at the window. Their eyes met. Dread spilled through her.

  Her gaze dropped to his hand, to a gun with an attached suppressor.

  He took off like a fired bullet for the front of the building. Ashley spun, slapped the laptop shut, and shoved it in the backpack. Snatching her coat, she bolted to the fire escape.

  Chapter 2

  Northern Virginia

  Friday, March 4, 12:30 p.m. EST/ 6:30 p.m. CET

  Today was one of those bad days that had an insidious way of creeping up on Logan Silva. Besides the usual HALT—hunger, anger, loneliness, tiredness—he had other hard triggers. The anniversary of his team being blown to bits while he survived. A call from one of their widows checking on him. Hell, sometimes his reflection in the mirror sparked an urge.

  Seeing pity in Ashley’s eyes had been the worst. Stubborn, sassy Ash, with a heart bigger than the sun. A familiar stab of longing got him right through the ribs. At times, he’d swear he felt her presence in the room. He’d talk to her, yell at her, like she was real.

  Maybe it was the same thing someone experienced when they lost a limb. Phantom pain.

  He’d managed most triggers by moving to the Blue Ridge Mountains, changing his cell phone number, staying busy with consulting work. And no mirrors in his hidey-hole cabin—made shaving a bitch, so he’d stopped. He probably looked like a rabid werewolf.

  But nothing stopped a bad day from ambushing him. Always a total blindside.

  His hands shook, the tremor lodged deep in his chest. The craving prowled inside him, ravenous and ruthless, and part of him longed to feed it.

  Logan took off his flannel shirt, a cliché that fit his new life, and grabbed a shovel.

  He stalked into the cold drizzle under the dirty-dishwater sky. The surrounding wilderness and dreary clouds pressed in. He marched to the spot facing the majestic landscape, but he hadn’t moved to the middle of nowhere for the view. He lived out here so no one heard his screams.

  Screams that wrenched him awake from nightmares about the car bomb that took out Chris and Javier. Screams to release the rage.

  Slamming the shovel into moist soil, he dug. Dirt flew against an ashen backdrop. The deeper he went, the more his mind emptied. Sap from the oaks, the scent of moss and rain, even the smell of decay rising from the earth filled his nose. He sang John Denver.

  Blue Ridge Mountains… Country roads… To the place I belong.

  The pendant of St. Jude—which he never took off since that day, though he didn’t have a religious bone in his body—swung from the chain around his neck. His ragged breath puffed white in the chilly air. His body thanked him for the exertion after another sleepless night.

  Metal struck wood. He scooped up the box and hopped out of the five-foot-deep hole with ease since he was a mean six six. He’d originally meant for this to be his grave, but the suicidal urge had passed by the time he’d finished.

  Instead of swallowing the barrel of a gun, he’d buried the box.

  Fuck me. The craving should’ve dissipated, but the cloying tightness was still in the back of his throat, the thirst tempting him. He opened the fifteen-by-twelve-inch box and stared at the bottle of rotgut whiskey, wanting to drown in it. Let the booze flood his bloodstream and wash away five hundred and sixty-two days of sobriety.

  The desire to take a drink was so bad, there was a whirring in his brain. A thwopp thwopp thwopp hacking through his mind.

  A powerful gust of wind whipped up dirt and leaves, redirecting rain like the hand of God. Logan looked over his shoulder with his one good eye. A black helicopter appeared out of the gray soup above, setting down to land. The sound of the helo’s rotor blades slicing the air filled his ear.

  At least the thwopping wasn’t in his head.

  He slammed the wooden box shut and stomped to his cabin, leaving the door open without a glance back at the passenger stepping out of the helicopter.

  It wasn’t a question of who’d come—only why Bruce Sanborn, head of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, the most secretive special operations force in the United States, had tracked him down.

  Logan dumped the box on the coffee table and got a drink of water, keeping his scarred back to the door. Even deaf in one ear, he made out two men entering. No mystery who the other guy was either. But if Bruce Sanborn had brought his second-in-command, Knox Cody, Logan’s day was about to go from bad straight into the crapper.

  “What do you want?” Logan drained the glass and set it in the sink.

  “Hello to you too.” Sanborn’s voice was low but powerful, ringing with authority.

  Logan turned, folded his arms over his filthy, bare chest, and stared at two of the deadliest men in the world.

  “Holy hell,” Knox said. He was a lean guy, super fit, more rugged than Sanborn. Sharp blue eyes, dark brush-cut hair. “You’ve turned into Sasquatch up here.”

  Sasquatch was a hell of a lot worse than a werewolf. Maybe he should shave. “What do you want?”

  Sanborn stared at the fireplace packed in with books. Stress had feathered sparse gray near his temples, making him look distinguished. “I have a mission only you can get done.”

  Logan shrugged. Didn’t matter if Sanborn wasn’t looking. He had eyes in the back of his head and saw everything. “Tough shit. I’m out. You gave me the heave-ho. Remember?”

  Spared him the humiliation of admitting his inadequacy by quitting.

  “You were a wreck.” Sanborn faced him, his preternatural aplomb projecting a glacial detachment. “Not fit to be in the field, or at a desk. But it was your choice to leave the family.”

  The family. Sounded like the Mafia. Then again, Sanborn was a spy, a ninja, and the Godfather rolled into one. He moved mountains to get risky operations done and could probably part the Red Sea if he tried.

  “Hear what he has to say before you decide,” Knox said, ever the dutiful enforcer.

  “Not interested. Enjoy the flight back to fuck-off Langley.”

  Knox pulled a folder labeled Top Secret from a portfolio and offered it to him.

  “I’m the one who’s blind in one eye and deaf in one ear, but you two are having a hard time comprehending what I’m communicating.” Logan pointed to the door. “Get. Out.”

  Sanborn unbuttoned his suit jacket, sat on the sofa, and crossed his leg. Smooth. Suave. He should’ve been holding a martini, shaken not stirred. “Ashley Agnello is missing.”

/>   The words hit Logan center mass in a tight shot group. “What? How?” Ash supported operations from the protected sanctum at Langley via satellite comms, not in the field.

  “Take a seat.” Knox slapped the folder to Logan’s chest.

  Logan dropped into a sturdy dining chair off the compact living room, terrified to see the contents of the folder…but this was about Ash. His Ash, for Christ’s sake. He flipped it open and read the redacted file as Sanborn explained, leaving a gazillion holes in the Swiss-cheese story.

  “Rewind,” Logan demanded. “Why Ashley? She’s not operations officer material.” Wicked-sharp analyst, sexy as hell, and determined, sure, but she handled a spatula better than a SIG Sauer and wouldn’t kill a poisonous snake if her life depended on it—as he’d discovered during one of their hikes. “How could you send her in alone?”

  “We’re hot in Germany. Extra operatives on the ground for months would’ve alerted the BfV, jeopardized Ashley and the mission.” Sanborn steepled his fingers. “When you left, she changed. Learned operational skills. Begged me for a shot in the field. I gave her one.”

  “If a Girl Scout asked to be a spy, pretty please with sugar on top, you’d give her a gun and a mission with zero backup?”

  “Her biochemistry degree and ability to speak like a native made her perfect.”

  “Except for her utter lack of field experience.” Logan slammed the folder on the table. “Train thy people—one of your holy commandments. You set her up for failure.”

  Knox sighed and sat in a leather club chair. “She’s not the same. She’s a marathon runner now, can handle herself with a gun or knife. And I trained her for this mission.”

  Logan gave a dry laugh.

  Knox was one of the best, molded in Sanborn’s image. It was also impressive that a woman who once wouldn’t walk to Starbucks when she could drive now ran marathons. Still…

  “So you made her 007. Did you also teach her how to kill bad guys with a toothpick? The two of you are un-fucking-believable. She’s not qualified to be in the field, especially not alone. It takes years to develop hand-to-hand combat skills, instincts, contacts.”

  Sanborn’s gaze never left him, his expression one of inexhaustible patience. Logan wanted to ruffle his feathers just once, knock his elegant bow tie askew and see if he could get a rise out of the man.

  “What she stole is worth a lot,” Sanborn said. “The Agency thinks she’s gone rogue.”

  The back of Logan’s neck prickled. Rogue? Not possible. Ash was no traitor. “Maybe she never made it out of the building.”

  “She accessed the flash drive from a secure Agency laptop,” Knox said. “The open drive pinged Langley. She’s seen the files, which means she knows what the data is worth.”

  Logan shook his head. Everyone had weaknesses, but money wasn’t Ash’s. She was an idealist, a true patriot. One of Sanborn’s disciples. “Ash would never go rogue. Not her.”

  “You didn’t think she’d ever be an operations officer either.” Sanborn’s statement was a sucker punch to Logan’s jugular. “The minute she opened the files and didn’t upload them, she tied my hands. We have twenty-four hours, then the D/CIA takes over,” he said, referring to the director of the CIA. “The national security advisor and the president have an eye on this. I need you to find her.”

  Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. The sound boomed in both of Logan’s ears. The distinct stutter of the wired car engine was the last thing he’d heard before the bomb killed his team. Would’ve obliterated him too, if he hadn’t gone back into the safe house to get the St. Jude pendant. The blast took his eye, the hearing in one ear, and turned his back into a science project.

  Logan twitched, his mottled scars itching and stinging as though they were fresh wounds. He fought the nauseating urge to get the hell up and run out into the rain. And keep on running.

  “You can’t afford to have a black mark on your perfect record,” Logan bit out. Sanborn’s accomplishments were the makings of a legend. “Then you’d never be director of the CIA.”

  Sanborn’s face clouded over and his steely gaze drifted to the windows, but he looked as if he was staring into space. Rain beat a steady tattoo against the roof. “I’m done with all this.” His tone was weary, defeated. A first. “I retire in June.”

  And unicorns were real. The only way he’d retire was with a bullet. “Come on, Sanborn, I think your nose just grew a couple of inches. Tell the truth and shame the devil. With your stellar record, you’re a shoo-in to make deputy and replace the D/CIA when she steps down.” The Agency would be better for it, too, under his razor-sharp leadership.

  Sanborn stared at Logan, his intense brown eyes deadly serious. “Stay in this dirty game too long, it devours you. You end up sacrificing everything you hold dear. Even your soul.”

  Holy shit. Penny had done the impossible and gotten him to turn in his paperwork. At barbecues and dinner parties they held for the Special Operations Group, his socialite wife used to threaten divorce, always veiled behind a joke and a smile, if he didn’t agree to early retirement.

  Life in this business was brutal, grueling, and often depressing. It spilled over at home in more ways than one, taking a toll on a spouse as well.

  “Penny finally twisted your arm,” Logan said. “Good for her. Nice to know there’s someone in this world who can bend you to their will.”

  Sanborn’s eyebrows lifted in reluctant agreement, but he didn’t respond.

  “Will you get on a plane and help us?” Knox asked.

  Click-click. Logan’s throat tightened.

  He hadn’t been in the field for two years. Sometimes his PTSD still flared. His instincts were rusty, he was half blind, half deaf, and half the operative he once was.

  But Ashley was out there, alone, in danger.

  “No, I won’t help you.” Maggots of unease slithered in his gut, and he gritted his teeth. “But I will help Ash. You need to understand, I’m not going in to recover your thumb drive. My priority, the only thing I care about, is Ashley. Bringing her home safe is my mission.”

  Sanborn didn’t bat a lash, too calm, too collected. Textbook composure. “Understood.” He shot Knox an unreadable glance that telegraphed something important, but Logan had been out of the game too long to decipher what it was.

  Knox’s blue eyes gave away nothing. “You and I have a plane to Munich waiting.”

  Sanborn was staying behind to safeguard his kingdom. Was he really going to give up the throne, retire at forty-three, when he could have a legacy that’d live forever?

  “If Ash is alive,” Logan said, clenching and unclenching his hands, his skin gooseflesh, “she isn’t in Munich.” She’d go somewhere she felt safe and had friends. Someplace not in her file. Ash’s mom was born in Dusseldorf, but that’s not the city she’d called home. “She’s in Berlin.”

  Sanborn gave a smug smile and exchanged a sly look with Knox.

  Logan stood. “One of you should take off your suit jacket and grab a shovel.”

  “Why is that?” Knox asked.

  “You need to bury that box four feet deeper in the hole outside while I clean up.”

  ***

  Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

  Friday, March 4, 4:15 p.m. EST/ 10:15 p.m. CET

  Knox sat across from Logan on the Gulfstream V, dragging his gaze over him.

  A hint of his old friend was there beneath the scars. A battle-brother he loved and admired for not giving in to the darkness that had threatened to finish what the car bomb had failed to do. Logan was spit-shine clean down to his fingertips, had taken clippers to his wildebeest hair, and trimmed his forest of a beard. A hatchet job at best, but an improvement.

  They’d spoken little on the plane, the silence between them honest. Knox didn’t pretend not to know the details of Logan’s life. Logan didn’t pretend
to care about an update on Knox’s.

  With dark shadows under his eyes, Logan looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He inhaled the in-flight meal like he hadn’t eaten in months. Private plane food was grade-A restaurant quality, but still. While Logan had showered, Knox had deepened the infernal hole four feet, burying a box of booze, and Sanborn had searched the kitchen.

  Logan Silva, once one of the best CIA operations officers on the planet, subsisted off ravioli, beans, Spam, tuna, and protein shakes. Between the disability payments and handsome consulting fees, he eked out plenty to splurge at Whole Foods. Knox and Sanborn both took great pride that he’d gotten sober and put his crackerjack skills to good use freelancing for top firms.

  But from the state they’d found him, something in Logan was broken. Knox suspected the disfigurement on the right side of Logan’s face reflected his internal loss. With one droopy eye, lid soldered half-closed, and burn scars along his back, he was no longer a flagrant playboy.

  A wonder and a shame he never hooked up with Ashley years ago. Their chemistry had been as blatant as Fourth of July fireworks. Those two had been inseparable.

  In Logan’s profile, on the left side, his male glory was unspoiled. He was leaner—solid two-thirty without an ounce of fat—had the towering height of a sequoia, broad shoulders. Quite intimidating. A man capable of reckless unpredictability and lacking a leash of allegiance.

  A loose cannon was dangerous. Tended to backfire. A threat Sanborn had conveyed with a single look that he wanted mitigated.

  “No way Ash went dark without a good reason,” Logan said. “She’s no traitor. There must be heat on her tail. Are we going to have backup on the ground?”

  Backup is always nice. But Knox shook his head. “If you find her, make her see reason.” Trouble was probably chasing Ashley, but that didn’t explain why she had accessed the USB device for twenty-two minutes—plenty of time to complete the upload—but failed to finish the mission. “Then we all go home with the thumb drive. We shouldn’t need backup.”