“Let’s sit.” He took the chair she hadn’t been using and waited for her to return to the table. “I’m sure you know who I am.”
White eyes, so like Ethan’s, but also nothing like his, narrowed. “Yes.”
“Good. I just have to make this official before we can start chatting.” Jack ran through the usual spiel for the recordings. Then he got to the potentially interesting things. “Please state your name, age, and occupation.”
“Seven, thirty-six at best guess, and assassin.”
“At best guess?”
Seven’s gaze went over his shoulder. “Celebrating birthdays wasn’t a thing where I grew up.”
Ethan had already revealed that nugget to Jack. “No, I suppose not.”
That got her attention focused on him again. “He’s been telling you things he really shouldn’t.”
Presuming “he” to be Ethan, Jack shrugged. “Whether or not he shouldn’t is a matter of perspective, I guess. For the record, I’m glad he told me. It’s only going to help us”—he motioned between himself and her—“have a more cooperative experience. I know your history, sort of, and you know I have a sympathetic understanding of it.”
No reaction from Seven, but he hadn’t really expected one.
“First things first, tell me about the job involving my sister and niece.”
“You and your family have been on our soft list since you showed up in the middle of the Valadian job. I did the initial research on you for it. Until it was decided Valadian would respond more favourably to a male than a female, it was my job.”
Had this woman been sent in instead of Ethan, Director Harraway would still have been exposed as the traitor he was, but Jack doubted he would have been there to see it. Ethan had never said so, but Jack knew he wasn’t supposed to have survived once Ethan had discovered if Jack was the traitor or not. If it had been Seven, Jack wouldn’t have been able to change her mind with mind-blowing sex.
“None of us particularly liked how One-three changed after he met you, but neither did we care. Well, most of us, at least.”
The wound in Jack’s back twinged. Two had believed he was cutting into a kidney in the hopes it would make Jack bleed out quicker. Either Seven’s research had missed the fact he’d lost the kidney years before, or Two hadn’t read that far.
“The Cabal, however,” she continued, “were less than pleased. Their targets are usually world leaders, presidents and warlords. It’s not often they concern themselves with a mere spy. Congratulations, Jack Reardon, you’re now of great interest to the Cabal.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. Jack’s guts tightened at the prospect of the mysterious Cabal taking an unhealthy interest in him. Before he could fully comprehend the weight suddenly on his shoulders, Seven continued.
“Two was their pride and joy. In terms of obedience, effectiveness and ruthlessness, he was the most successful of us. And you took him away from them.”
Was there bitterness in her tone when she spoke of how the Cabal thought of Two? He could understand if there was. Only yesterday Meera had said pretty much the same thing to him about their father favouring Jack over her, and he definitely knew there was bitterness there.
“So sending you after my family was retaliation for Two’s death?”
About to shake her head, Seven stopped and seemingly considered it. “Perhaps. My instructions were to get into position and hold for the go, or if it looked as if there had been a tip off, to go anyway. They could have been relying on One-three getting a message to you somehow.”
“And when I showed up, you went into action.”
Seven nodded.
“But you weren’t serious about it, where you.” Jack decided to go out on a limb. “I’ve a got a pretty good idea on how you guys operate and chasing a pair of kids on a dirt bike isn’t really your MO. It’s not efficient or overly effective.”
“I misjudged,” she said dryly.
Which was as good as an admission as far as Jack was concerned. “Okay. Why do you think you misjudged?”
Seven met his gaze for several heartbeats, then she looked away and murmured, “I’m tired.”
“Pardon?” Jack had to make sure he’d heard her right. “You’re tired? Of what?”
A flicker of some emotion passed over Seven’s face, pinching her pale brows and tightening her lips. Then, as if letting something go, she let out a long breath, her shoulders dropping a little and her hands, previously resting flat on the tabletop, curled together.
“I’m sure you know we weren’t given a choice. We didn’t even know life could be different, until One-three came among us. He was this weird, confusing, blind little thing with strange ideas and a penchant for touching. Not in anger or to hurt, but in curiosity. Because he wanted to see us. It was, I believe, the first kind touch any of us had ever known. We all reacted differently. Two became obsessed with him, Four used him to get sweets, Nine thought he was funny, but then she thought we were all funny. Eleven . . . Eleven was scared of him. Of being him, I think. One, though. She hated him as she’d hated nothing else before. She was used to controlling us, to being the alpha, I suppose. One-three wasn’t a threat to her but she couldn’t see it. One way or another, he changed us. Changed the dynamic. He was a catalyst.”
Jack hadn’t expected much, let alone so many personal revelations. He kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt this surprising source of unfettered information, but also because he felt any words he might have would be insufficient. Seven had gone after his niece, no matter her overall intentions, but he felt a sympathy for her his better judgement couldn’t stop. It had made him follow Ethan through the desert, made Jack listen to him and want to get to know him, and it was happening again.
“Because that’s what we were.” Seven’s words steadied up as she shifted the topic to something slightly less personal. “Ingredients in an experiment. They wanted to know if Sugar Babies really were born as psychopaths, and if not, were we more susceptible to being made psychopaths. They didn’t hide it from us. They told us every day what we were. It wasn’t just the numbers they gave us as names, but that they called us Experimental Girl Seven, or Experimental Boy Two.”
Stomach dropping into his shoes, Jack fought the urge to swear and hit something. Experimental Boy Thirteen. EB13.
“They thought it was funny when we began running jobs in the outside world to give us operational names with the same initials. Eve Garrotte. Ethan Blade. Just another reminder about who we were, how they had created us, and still controlled us.”
God. And Jack had been calling Ethan that for all this time. How had he let Jack do that? Jack believed Ethan had been honest when saying he wanted to be the “Ethan” Jack saw, but it must have been torture at first. How had Ethan really felt hearing Jack groan the name in ecstasy when it had been a cruel joke?
Jack forced the personal crisis into the filing cabinet. “Ethan said he broke from the Cabal at one point. How did they deal with that?”
Seven shook her head minutely. “One-three might have believed he broke away, but he didn’t. Not really. He simply refused to take the jobs they gave him until they agreed to negotiate with him. Letting him pick and chose jobs meant little in the end to them. And when he began taking outside jobs and making money above what the Cabal gave us and he wasn’t punished . . .” Her lips turned up in a smile that reminded Jack of Ethan’s deadly smirk. “Well, then we all started making our own money.”
The hidden house in northern Vietnam had certainly cost more than a few pretty pennies, and he had the feeling this woman wouldn’t be spending her money on fast cars. From what Jack could guess, Ethan had lairs in several countries and they were probably like the one he’d had in Sydney, a converted warehouse where he could house his car of choice. Seven, though, had created a beautiful, secluded haven for herself with one of the most gorgeous—and isolating—views Jack had ever seen. She painted and played the piano and kept the world at a distance. Yet she was here by choice, talkin
g without coercion or force.
He did wonder if perhaps it was all subterfuge. How could he not when Ethan had done it over and over? These assassins had proven to be particularly tricky, even the one he thought he knew better than anyone else.
“You didn’t misjudge,” Jack said softly. “You wanted to be caught. You wanted to be here. Why, Seven? Why all but give yourself to the enemy? I know why Ethan did it, both times, but I don’t know about you.”
The remains of her smirk fell away, leaving an expressionless mask Jack had to wonder about. Something made him think it wasn’t a mask at all. The smile had been a mask, definitely, but he wasn’t so sure this expression was. Unlike Ethan, Seven had no memories of a long-gone mother to judge humanity from. She was a pure result of whatever experiments the Cabal had put these unfortunate children through. Seven might remind him strongly of Ethan but he couldn’t assess her the same way. Couldn’t let himself fall into the same trap he had with Ethan. He had no clues that under the cold-hearted killer shell was a person he could relate to.
He pushed on with his theory. “I don’t think you’re here because the Cabal wants you here. The first time Ethan was here, it was for the Cabal. The second time, it was for him. I think you’re here for you.”
The blank expression didn’t change and that predatory intensity increased. “I misjudged and you caught me.”
“We can certainly put that in the official report, Seven, but if you let us know exactly why you’re here, we’ll be able to help each other much more efficiently.”
The silence stretched out between them. Ethan could out-patience a saint, and Seven undoubtedly could as well, but Jack felt she wanted to tell him. Maybe he was transferring his experiences with Ethan onto her, but the absolute stillness of the woman was too similar to Ethan’s to be coincidental, surely.
“He said you saw him.”
Jack didn’t react to the abrupt words. “What does that mean?”
“One-three said . . . Ethan said you saw him. Not the assassin or the Sugar Baby, but the man. The person. He said . . . you’d see me too, if I gave you the chance.”
Swallowing a sudden lump in his throat, Jack nodded. “When did he tell you that?”
“Six months ago, in Vietnam, while we cleaned up the mess you left.”
Some life had returned to her tone and Jack gave a little shrug acknowledging the sarcasm. “He’s right, up to a point. If Mati had been hurt, I’d say your chances would have been a lot slimmer. Okay, that explains you being here, but I want to know why. Why you chose to be caught. Why you didn’t come in six months ago if you knew I’d treat you fairly. Why come in and why now, Seven?”
“It was what they taught us. To finish the job first, to ensure our own survival second. I’m here to survive, Mr. Reardon. I want your protection.”
He blinked. “You want us to protect you? From the Cabal? Frankly, you’d probably have a better chance on your own out there.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care about the Cabal. If they want me dead, they’ll kill me no matter where I am.”
“Then who’s got you scared for your life?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She smiled sadly. “The moment the Cabal went after you or your family, directly, he decided enough was enough. I always knew it would happen one day, but I never thought it would be because of someone like you.”
Jack’s blood went cold. “What do you mean?”
“I want you to make sure that Ethan Blade doesn’t kill me when he destroys the Cabal.”
Jack’s throat was getting dry and he worked up some saliva to wet it as the review board whispered amongst themselves. They’d been mostly quiet during his detailed report apart from a few clarifying questions here and there. Assistant Minister Greene had been keen to pursue the dollar figure attached to putting Meera and Mati into protective custody for three months. His argument that, bar the original incident with Seven, there had been no further threats towards them was valid, up to a point. A point which DIC Lund defended, thankfully. He’d signed off on the protection, after all. Minister Simmons had ended the potential side-track by assuring Greene that the budget hearing was already underway in another part of the building. They were here to primarily decide if Jack needed disciplinary action.
“I understand that Sigma Subject was very forthcoming with information.” There was more than a touch of scepticism in Simmons’s tone. “After everything we learned about these assassins, excuse me if I find her sudden willingness to spill about the Cabal rather dubious.”
“Yes, sir, and you’re not the only one to question Seven’s motives. We all did. Me especially. She was convinced Ethan was going to go after the Cabal, but the investigation into the helicopter crash turned up evidence of him coming back to Sydney, before disappearing.”
Jack had to curl his hands into fists under the desk and dig his short nails into his palms to keep from letting his emotions show. In the days after discovering the crashed chopper and the first interview with Seven, Fabian had continued to turn up hints of Ethan—a classic Monaro stolen from a property 150 kilometres from the dam; hints of him on the CCTV cameras around the penthouse building; a stolen Nisan GT-R, later spotted on traffic cameras just down the block from Jack’s Leichhardt apartment. Mr. Cesare had also confessed he’d spoken with Ethan during that time. He’d assured Jack he’d tried to convince Ethan to go back to him, but it clearly hadn’t worked.
Ethan had been so close to Jack and yet he’d left—again. At least Jack had had Mr. Cesare’s word that he seemed hale, if emotionally distraught.
“At which point directors Tan, McIntosh and Wells created an interdepartmental team to investigate the validity of Sigma Subject’s intelligence,” Simmons continued. “ITA unit leader Lewis Thomas, joint field leaders, yourself from ITA and Keira O’Reilly from ETA, and special investigator Jesse Feitt from Intelligence. A rather impressive group, all of whom were taken off other cases to initiate an investigation which failed rather spectacularly on all fronts.”
Jack took several deep breaths to calm down. “We didn’t fail, sir.”
Simmons waved a thick file of papers. “I have here summaries of four weeks of data gathering that didn’t find Ethan Blade in time to save lives. That, in my book, is a failure.”
“With all due respect, sir”—of which Jack couldn’t find much to begin with and even less now—“finding Ethan was tangential to our mandated goal. We were tasked with finding as much information on the Cabal as we could, using Seven’s intelligence as a starting point. One month is barely enough time to scratch even the surface of what she knows, and she doesn’t know everything about them. None of the assassins did. They had one contact point with the Cabal, their handler, Zero. He gave them jobs and was their conduit to the Cabal leaders. Everything else Seven knew, she’d worked out on her own. It’s a lot of information, but nowhere near everything. One month isn’t enough time to confirm the sky is blue when the source is suspect,” Jack reiterated. “Someone once said to me that if the Office wasn’t aware of it for at least two years, then it was a big fucking surprise.”
The moment it was out of his mouth, Jack regretted it. Simmons had made him lose his cool already, and they still had a long way to go.
At least no one tried to chastise him like a naughty child for swearing, but Simmons did raise a warning brow in his direction. “And what, briefly, did Sigma Subject have to say about the Cabal leadership?”
Jack took a moment to modulate his attitude again. “She called them the ‘bosses.’ No one but Zero and a very small number of trusted allies know who they are. She worked out there were five of them. Sometimes fewer when one of them died, either naturally or unnaturally, but never more than that. Voluntary retirement isn’t a thing for them, apparently. Once you’re a boss, you’re a boss for the rest of your life. Or at least, that’s what Seven speculated. Nothing we discovered countered her intelligence.”
“Hmm. She worked out all that, but not one hint as
to whom the bosses were.”
Ignoring the cynicism in Simmons’s words, Jack nodded. “She is a very skilled hacker and incredibly intuitive. Given more time and our resources, I’m sure Seven could have pinpointed the bosses within a couple of years.”
“Quite apart from the fact that we would never have allowed that woman near our resources, she didn’t get that time, did she, Mr. Reardon.” Not waiting for Jack to agree, Simmons barrelled on. “Four weeks after disappearing from Australia, Ethan Blade made the first of five high level assassinations over a period of two months. All of which your vaunted team failed to prevent. Or did I read the reports wrong?”
Jack gritted his teeth. “No, sir.”
“Even when you predicted who his next victim was, you still didn’t save their life. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do, Mr. Reardon? Protect lives from threats exactly like Ethan Blade?”
Anger bubbled close to the surface, tightening Jack’s whole body and making blood rush through his head. “That’s my cover job with the ISO.”
“At which I’m assured you’re very good. Except when it comes to hunting down your boyfriend as he left a trail of bloody corpses across half of the world. Why was that?”
It still hurt Jack to think about what Ethan did in those three months after leaving Australia. According to Mr. Cesare, he’d been in a troubled state of mind, in pain, and not long later, he’d started killing again. And not with the usual subtle and flawless plans Ethan was known for, but straight assaults with signs of interrogation, even if the eventual deaths had his trademark swiftness.
“He was operating at a level we . . . I hadn’t seen before. Ethan Blade sat at number seven on the John Smith List for years, a mid to high-level threat. What he showed us over those next two months was more than enough to put him in the number one position. No intelligence agency anywhere has ever knowingly caught or killed the JSL number one.”
Simmons leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin. “And why do you think he suddenly showed that level of skill after years of pretending to be mediocre at his chosen profession?”
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