by Paige Tyler
“Since you seem to know a hell of a lot about what Yegor is planning, did you know he’d send people here to attack everyone?”
Brielle leveled her gaze at him. “I knew Adriana was critical to his plan, so I assumed he’d try to get her back at some point. But to answer your question, no, I didn’t know exactly when he’d try it.”
Tessa slammed her hand down on the table, fury on her face. “Why the hell didn’t you warn us? Eight of my friends are dead because of you!”
Brielle glared at her coldly. “Their deaths are on you, not me! I offered to make a deal for everything I knew. You’re the one who decided that keeping me locked up for life and forcing me to find supernaturals for you was the only thing you were interested in. Tell me, what will STAT do with all the supernaturals they collect? Do you think the people in charge will ask nicely if they want to work for you? Or will they force them to be part of the organization like you’re doing to me?” She let out a delicate snort. “Now that I think about it, it’s funny how much you people and Yegor have in common. You’re even holding my brother’s life and freedom over my head just like he did.”
Tessa jumped to her feet, hand going for the gun holstered at her hip. Jes quickly stood, putting a hand on the woman’s arm. “Tessa, she’s right. She may have said it more harshly than she had to, but Brielle is telling the truth. Right now, STAT is more interested in getting their hands on Brielle than they are in finding out what she knows.”
The STAT agent hesitated—like she was torn on whether to shoot Brielle or not—but then she slowly shoved the weapon back in its holster. Giving Jes a nod, she sat down.
Brielle looked around the table at all of them, her expression more earnest than Sawyer had ever seen on her. “This thing Yegor is planning is so much worse than you could ever imagine, and I don’t want it to happen any more than you do. But I’m not letting you imprison my brother and me for the rest of our lives. I can’t.”
Bloody hell, this was getting old.
Sawyer exchanged looks with Jake. Nodding, the other werewolf pulled out his phone and punched a number on his contact list.
“McKay, it’s Jake,” he said, dark eyes locked on the Frenchwoman. “You aren’t going to like this, but we’re making that deal with Brielle. If STAT doesn’t like it, that’s too damn bad. You can fire me after this mission. She and her brother go free in exchange for everything she knows about Yegor.”
Chapter 17
France
When Harley joined STAT, she’d tried to imagine all the different places her new job might take her. Since she didn’t have much experience with the world outside the United States—and none at all with covert operations—she hadn’t come up with a very realistic list of possibilities. But if there was one thing she could say with certainty, it was that she’d never expected to find herself at a microbrewery overlooking endless rolling hills of hops trellises on a tract of farmland right outside Calais, France. Probably because she didn’t know that there were microbreweries in France. Though in her defense, when Harley drank beer, she didn’t think too much about where it came from.
But as she stood on the back loading dock of the brewery, looking out over the tall trellises covered in thick, green vines as the late-day sun slowly set behind it, Harley decided it was one of the most beautiful and tranquil places she’d ever seen. She hoped she and Sawyer could come back here someday so they could look around at their leisure.
It seemed almost sinful that this tranquil locale was positioned smack-dab in the middle of where Yegor was going to strike…and soon, if Brielle was right about everything she’d told them. Not that there was any reason to think she’d lied to them. As soon as Jake had agreed to the deal, the woman started talking so fast it was hard to keep up with it all.
Unfortunately, the more she’d told them, the more terrified Harley and everyone else had become. It was official—Yegor Shevchenko was a psychopath. Basically, the whack job was planning to nuke the entirety of northern France, along with southern Britain and parts of Belgium and Germany. No doubt he considered the last two countries a bonus.
Harley breathed in the wholesome aromas rolling off the hops field, wondering how Tessa had been able to arrange the use of this place so quickly. They’d flown out of Athens late yesterday, and by the time they arrived in Calais, she’d already taken care of the paperwork to rent the brewery that had previously been up for sale. It made Harley wonder if STAT had simply bought the place outright. She was sure Caleb would approve. He liked beer. A lot.
Harley picked up Sawyer’s scent before he stepped out of the building and onto the loading dock. She turned, giving him a smile.
“There you are,” he said with a grin, his deep voice making her feel like she’d been wrapped in a soft, fuzzy blanket. “Everyone’s here. Jake and Forrest are about to start the briefing.”
As they walked inside, he rested his hand lightly against her lower back, his palm warm through the T-shirt she wore. It was difficult to describe how much that little bit of contact affected her. They’d been moving nonstop since Yegor’s crew had attacked the hospital, and opportunities to talk, much less touch each other, had been nonexistent. She leaned into his hand, her body coming to life under his fingers.
If they weren’t on their way to the mission briefing, she would have suggested finding a quiet, out-of-the-way place so they could talk. And yeah, make out, too.
Not that there were many places in the brewery to find that kind of privacy. The place was more warehouse than bed and breakfast, with big, open rooms full of cots in place of separate bedrooms. While the microbrewery was large enough to hold everyone from STAT and MI6 combined, along with their respective support teams, it didn’t make it easy to spend a few moments alone with Sawyer.
She glanced at him as they passed a collection of large stainless steel mixing and brewing kettles. “If there’s time after the briefing, do you want to get out of here for a little while? Maybe take a walk?”
Sawyer reached out and took her hand, giving it a little squeeze, mouth curving into a smile again. “I’d like that.”
As they stepped into a big room that had been used for tastings when the microbrewery was operational, Harley noticed all the new support people STAT had brought in. There had to be at least twenty agents. Maps and briefing charts were pinned to every available surface along the walls, and analysts were busy clicking away on computers set up on one of the larger tables.
Brielle stood off to one side, looking tense and uncomfortable. Thanks to some convincing from Caleb of all people, she’d agreed to come help them in return for Julian’s immediate release and a promise STAT would let her go as soon as they took down Yegor. Was she concerned they wouldn’t be able to stop him? Or worried they’d go back on the agreement now that she’d told them everything she knew?
McKay was standing near the map board with Weatherford, Jake, Jestina, and some other guy Harley didn’t recognize dressed in a suit and tie. About McKay’s age, with a mustache, he gestured wildly at several points on the map. From listening in on their conversation, it sounded like he was worried about how close their current location was to the Channel Tunnel and London. Based on the map they were looking at, the city was less than a hundred miles as the crow flies. Any other time she’d consider that far away, but not in this case.
“Weatherford and McKay arrived together from the airport a few minutes ago,” Sawyer said in a low voice as they grabbed seats in between Rory and Caleb. “MI6 and STAT must be nervous as hell if they’ve sent both of them here.”
All Harley had time to do was nod as Jake spoke. “Now that everyone is here, let’s get started.”
“Wait a moment.” Weatherford looked around the room with a frown. “Where the bloody hell are Erin and Elliott? I haven’t seen them since I walked in.”
Beside her, Sawyer tensed. Harley knew without asking this was the momen
t he’d been dreading. Harley had no idea why Erin and Elliott had yet to return to MI6 headquarters or even call Weatherford and tell him about Sawyer. But for some reason, they hadn’t, and now it was on Sawyer to explain everything.
He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to answer when movement by the door interrupted him.
“Sorry we’re late,” Erin said, walking casually into the room.
Elliott followed, scanning the room until he saw Sawyer. Their eyes locked, and Harley couldn’t help but hold her breath.
“We were dealing with some stuff,” Elliott said as he and Erin slipped into seats that allowed them to keep an eye on Sawyer as well as the briefing maps. “It took a little while to work through all of it, but we’re good now.”
Silence filled the space, and from the corner of her eye, Harley could see the confused expressions on both Weatherford’s and McKay’s faces. But no one said a word as Sawyer and his teammates continued to study each other.
“Are you sure you’re good?” Sawyer asked quietly. “This isn’t something you can do halfway. You’re either in or you’re out.”
“We’re in all the way,” Erin said firmly. “It took a while to figure it out, but in the end, it wasn’t as complicated as we thought when we remembered what was important.”
Weatherford looked even more baffled than he had before, but thankfully, Jake spoke first.
“Everyone, I’d like to introduce Dr. Tristan Jones,” he said, gesturing toward the blond man in the suit and tie. “He’s a nuclear physicist from the Office for Nuclear Regulation in London. He’s here to help us figure out how we’re going to stop Yegor.”
The man nodded awkwardly and moved a little off to the side, like he had no interest in being involved in this any more than necessary.
“And this is Brielle,” Jake added, motioning toward the Frenchwoman.
McKay and Weatherford both regarded her sharply.
“It seems we have you to thank for the information on Yegor,” Weatherford said thoughtfully, then looked at McKay. “Though I understand you had to give up a lot to procure that information.”
McKay nodded, mouth tight. Even though he hadn’t fought Jake on agreeing to a deal with Brielle, he wasn’t happy with letting her get away. Who knew? Maybe if STAT approached Brielle in the future with an offer that didn’t involve giving up her freedom, the woman might reconsider working for them.
“Indeed,” McKay said. “But I think you’ll agree it was worth the price when you hear what Brielle has to tell us.”
“Based on everything Brielle and her brother said, these are Yegor’s most likely targets,” Jake said, moving over to the map. “Gravelines Nuclear Power Station is in Nord, about twelve miles northeast of here. Penly Station is near Dieppe, about ninety miles from here.” As he spoke, he pointed out each of them. “Gravelines is the largest nuclear power plant in western Europe with six reactors. Penly is smaller, with two reactors, but is likely an easier target. Not that the number of reactors really matters. All it takes is one reactor going into meltdown to give Yegor exactly what he needs.”
Weatherford looked at Brielle again. “You claim to have been part of Yegor’s inner circle, and yet you don’t know which target he’s going to hit?”
“Yegor started planning this attack within days of me breaking him out of that Turkish prison. It’s all he ever talked about,” Brielle replied calmly, as if Weatherford hadn’t implied she was lying to them. “He originally started with a dozen possible sites, then constantly rearranged them based on perceived vulnerabilities, proximity to large cities, size of the reactors, when the fuel rods had been changed out last, wind patterns, safety systems, security forces, even local response capabilities. The list changed constantly. These two plants were at the top of his list right before the auction in Greece, which makes me think one of them is the target.”
McKay crossed his arms over his chest. “How was he able to gather so much information? Some of that has to be classified.”
Brielle shrugged. “He’s rich. Offer someone enough money and they’ll give you whatever you want. It probably didn’t hurt that Yegor is also very good at threatening people.”
“I get why he’s going after England,” Caleb said. “MI6 killed his brother. What I don’t understand is why he’s targeting France. What the hell did they ever do to him?”
Brielle met his gaze, hers assessing. “In early 2014, pro-Russia separatists took over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine with direct support from the Russian military. Yegor and his brother lost control of the family’s oil business that was based in that area. He immediately turned to the pro-Ukrainian forces and NATO, begging them for help. France and the UK played politics while Russian forces murdered every member of Yegor’s family except his brother. I’m sure France and the UK had good reasons to stand back and watch, but in the end, Yegor blamed them for everything that happened.”
“That’s kind of crazy,” Misty murmured.
“I won’t argue with that,” Brielle responded. “Losing his family twisted Yegor into something barely even human anymore. Everything he’s done since that war has been about getting revenge. The supernatural auctions were nothing more than a means of raising money so he could hire the right experts, buy the right equipment, and pay people to look the other way. He’s determined to destroy everyone he blames for his family’s death. He’s going to force a nuclear power plant into meltdown, then he’s going to blow everything to pieces, scattering catastrophic levels of radiation from Paris to London and beyond, if he can manage it.”
“Is it possible for radiation to travel that far?” Jes asked.
Dr. Jones nodded. “Radiation from Chernobyl was detected in Sweden, which is almost a thousand miles away. That’s how the rest of the world found out about it when Russia was doing everything it could to hide the incident.”
Weatherford scowled at Brielle. “How do we know you’re not making all this up so you can gain your freedom? Asking us to trust you on something like this is a big leap.”
Brielle gave him a cool look and a shrug. “Don’t believe me then. You’ll find out soon enough, one way or the other. I can live with the knowledge that I did what I could.” She lifted a brow. “Can you live with the knowledge that you did nothing with the information?”
McKay cleared his throat. “Let’s assume Brielle is telling the truth.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “You said Adriana is integral to Yegor’s plan? How?”
“From what he said, it’s actually difficult to get a modern nuclear power plant to go into meltdown,” Brielle said. “Too many automated safety features, I guess. That’s where Adriana will come in. They’re going to pull all the control rods, then make her fry the computer system running the reactor, so none of the safety systems will work. That will cause the meltdown.”
Dr. Jones seemed vexed at that.
“That won’t work,” he said firmly. “I don’t know how you expect this woman to fry the control computer system for the reactor, but even if she did, the loss of power would drop all the control rods. That’s how they work. A loss of power releases the rods without need for any safety action. It would shut down the reactor completely.”
It was Brielle’s turn to frown. “I heard Yegor say something about bringing in electromagnets. I don’t know what he’s going to do with them, but they’re big and expensive, and he has a lot of them.”
The doctor stiffened. “How many does he have? More importantly, how big are they?”
That earned him another shrug from Brielle. “I don’t know for sure—twenty-five, thirty, maybe. The one I saw was the size of a petrol drum.”
Harley definitely didn’t like the expression on Dr. Jones’s face after that. “What are control rods? Would the magnets do what Yegor needs?”
“Control rods do exactly what their name implies,” he said. “They’re ins
erted into the core of a nuclear reactor and move up and down to control the rate of the nuclear chain reaction. If they’re all the way in, there’s no reaction. If they’re all the way out, there’s too much reaction. Modern reactors use electromagnets to pull the rods and hold them in place. If power is lost, the magnets don’t work and the rods drop automatically. But if Yegor has his own magnets, he might be able to use them to pull the rods regardless of what the main electromagnets are doing. Frying the computer at that point will ensure that none of the other safety features, like cooling spray, boron dumps, and water circulation will work.”
“He might be able to use them?” McKay pressed.
It was the doctor’s turn to shrug. “He’d have to know exactly where to put them and when to turn them on.”
“Yegor has a dozen physicists on his payroll,” Brielle said softly. “Including some from the French Nuclear Safety Authority.”
Dr. Jones paled at that, unmistakable terror evident on his face.
“We don’t honestly think Adriana would do what Yegor wants, right?” Jes asked. “She has to know what’s at risk.”
“If Yegor puts a gun to Kristoff’s head, she’ll do it,” Harley said. “She’d do anything for her boyfriend. She’s head over heels for him.”
“Is there any chance Kristoff and Yegor know that and are playing her?” Tessa asked. “I mean, I hate to think that, but it sounds like something Yegor would do. And someone gave up the details of the hospital we were using in Athens.”
Crap. Harley hadn’t even thought about where Yegor had gotten his information on the hospital. She hoped Tessa was wrong. “I’m going to go with my instincts on this and pray that, for Adriana’s sake, Kristoff isn’t involved. Which means when we go into that nuke plant, we’re going to need to rescue him along with her.”
“Speaking of which,” Tessa interjected. “Why don’t we call in the French army and have them put a couple thousand troops around each of these sites? That’s got to be less risky than waiting for them to attack and then hoping we get there in time.”