by SE Jakes
Tom accepted that, because there was no choice.
Ren appeared to as well. “As soon as you find out where that fucker John has Prophet, we want to know.”
“As soon as you disable those triggers, we want to know,” Cillian told him.
King nodded. “We’ve got the intel we need. Ren’s taking Hook and I’m going with Rylan. Then we’ll meet up. Hook’s got us air or ground support when we’re done.”
“We’ll stay in touch,” Tom promised him.
“Tom, don’t worry about Prophet—he’s strong,” Ren assured him quietly before he cut the feed.
Tom knew how strong Prophet was . . . but he also knew how strong John’s ghost was. “Dammit. We can’t just sit here.”
“We’re working on finding him,” Cillian repeated and put a hand over his heart. “Boy Scout’s pledge.”
“Asshole,” Tom muttered.
Cillian ignored that, reached into his pocket instead, muttering something about a pen, and frowned as he pulled out a yellow folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and it turned out to be legal pad sized. “Mal’s writing.”
Tom glanced at it. “Yeah. While everyone was planning the other day, he was writing a list of all the ways he could kill someone. ‘A good memory exercise,’ he called it. I asked him for a copy.”
“But he gave it to me.”
“Maybe it’s a reminder. Or a love letter,” Tom pointed out.
“Or both,” Cillian said grimly.
“Probably.” That thought made Tom happy. “Mind if I refresh my memory? I’ll give it back to you for your hope chest.”
“Fuck you, Tom.” Cillian handed it to him.
At first, Tom thought there might be some kind of secret code embedded but it appeared to be a very extensive and teachable list of ways to off someone, written in perfect Catholic school penmanship and organized impressively in categories like guns, poisons, strangulation, how to make it look like suicide, bombings, and other. Plus two sections devoted to improvisation and torture.
Finally, he handed it back to Cillian, who folded it and pocketed it again carefully, and look at that, Cillian was a romantic. He was about to tell Cillian that because hell, he could drive that knife in deeper all day long for Mal’s sake, but Cillian was telling him, “Tom—you’ve got an email. From John.”
Tom moved next to Cillian to stare at the screen. He hesitated briefly, then glanced at Cillian and opened the email. There was a single link inside it, and Tom clicked it and waited. After a brief hang, it opened to reveal a room, a black-and-white picture that at first didn’t appear to be a video. But then the figures in the foreground moved . . . and Tom realized they were watching a live video feed.
“Bastard,” Cillian growled. Tom punched a few keys and brought the room into sharper focus. Prophet lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling.
“Is he knocked out?” Tom asked, more to himself than anything. Both men leaned in toward the screen as if that would give them the answers.
And then another figure walked onto the screen. “That’s him. John.” And suddenly, Tom was watching a scene that was eerily reminiscent of the fight club where he and Prophet had worked their first case together. Except there was no one to watch this—not in person, anyway. Prophet was already in the ring, on the ground, his hands bound behind his back, his lip already bleeding and John looking slightly bruised too.
And this was just the beginning.
“You don’t have to watch this, Tom.”
John was torturing Prophet—and inviting Tom to watch. In that way, he could torture Tom too. “Of course I have to. If Prophet’s going to live it . . .”
Then so will you.
“Come on Prophet, get up,” he muttered. He noticed Prophet’s arm twitch, and realized he was fisting his hands so hard they were shaking. “Cillian, where’s this happening? You have to find out.”
Cillian was on the phone. “I’m already on it. Sent it to Blue to try to get a trace.”
As he spoke, Prophet struggled to his feet, and that’s when Tom realized Prophet wasn’t seeing well.
Cillian noticed too. “Are his eyes that bad?”
“Sometimes but . . . I’m betting John did something. Maybe drugged him.”
“He’s still putting up a hell of a fight.”
Not enough, though, and they both knew it.
A cry from Prophet seized Tom’s heart. John had punched him in the gut and then the jaw, causing him to buckle again. “This isn’t right.”
“Looks like they’ve been at it a while. John’s tired too.”
“But not drugged. John tipped the scales. Couldn’t do it without cheating.” Tom slammed his fists on the table, his temper rising to almost unbearable levels.
As if John could hear him, he turned and looked back at the camera. And smiled, blood between his teeth.
“I’ll get you, John. You fucking coward—tell me where to come and I’ll take care of this now,” Tom yelled, then forced himself to calm down.
Focus.
Look around the room.
Private house? Not a hotel—he could see land outside the window. A truck. Truck. He glanced over his shoulder at Cillian, who was distracted on the phone, and then Tom brought the truck into focus . . . and the license plate.
It was a long shot. Just because he had a plate number didn’t mean the plate would be registered to the house John was at. Especially in this country—nothing would be easy to find.
Triangulate the feed. That was the best shot. And he had no doubt Blue was working as fast as he could but . . .
“No,” Tom whispered as John pushed Prophet over and climbed on top of him. He’d made sure Tom would have a ringside seat to this.
“You have to trust that Prophet knows what he’s doing.”
“What the fuck is he doing?”
“Buying time,” Cillian noted.
“Not like this.” Tom shook his head. “He can’t sacrifice himself like this. Dammit, Prophet. I should be there with you.” He put the volume on the computer all the way up and heard Prophet telling John, “You handicapped me.”
John stroked some hair out of Prophet’s eyes. “You want out?”
God, that question had so many variable answers . . . and Tom winced when Prophet whispered, “Sometimes, yeah.” Because he knew it was an honest answer.
“Me too,” John agreed and Tom itched to break his fingers, one by one, the more they touched Prophet. “But getting out now? All that time wasted? No, especially when it was going to happen at this point with or without me. It’s done.”
“This is your big fuck-you to the CIA?”
“You want to give them a hug, a pat on the ass, and send them on their way? After what they did to you? Punished you for knowing what happened?” John shook his head. “You should’ve just not looked for me.”
“Would you have?” Prophet asked.
John swallowed. Never tore his gaze from Prophet’s. “Never.”
Tom went cold, because John was lying. “And I know he’s lying. I know that but I’m fucking believing him.”
“John’s gift,” Cillian agreed.
“Why’d you come here, Prophet? Really?”
“I want to understand why, man.”
“Trying to keep things safe for your team, no doubt.”
“They’re our team, John. Our brothers.”
“You were my brother, above all else.”
John wasn’t wrong to expect loyalty but . . . “I was there for all of you. And brothers keep each other from going off the rails.”
John snorted. “It’s all a big chess board. I’m just keeping the pieces I control in play. It’s what they wanted from me. It’s what I’m good at.”
“Undermining their own missions.”
“Then they had deniability. You know how it works.” Unfortunately, Prophet did—John did too. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I know.”
“But that didn’t stop you.” John sh
ook his head. “The only person I couldn’t ever break was you.”
“And that pisses you off? At least you can still feel something.”
“Still trying to be my conscience?” John asked.
“It’s a lonely job.”
“Then fucking quit. Like I said, you shouldn’t have come here.”
“No choice.”
“Funny, but you always said—”
“You were my choice. I chose to come here. This isn’t about following orders. This is about my cleaning up a mess I should’ve a long time ago,” Prophet murmured.
“If it wasn’t me . . .”
“But it was. And it’s not going to end well for you.”
“Or you. I’ve made my peace. Have you, Proph?”
Only since the move to this new safe house had Tom noticed that the bracelet with the wrapped leather ropes he carried with him everywhere—the one Prophet had given him for protection—was missing from his bag, leaving Tom with only the inked version around his wrist.
There was no way he’d lost it. No, Prophet had taken it purposely. He was going to meet John, wearing the bracelet.
Hoping it would give him some protection.
“Tom’s not a part of this,” Prophet said, instead of answering John’s question about finding peace.
“Of course he is. Willing player or not,” John reasoned. “He can hear you—tell him to come on down. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t discover my hiding place soon.”
“No. He’s not coming here. I want him alive.” Prophet’s words were directed to Tom and John knew it too, because he smiled.
“No one gets out alive, Prophet. But better to die with the one you love, right? Or else he’s going to mourn the rest of his life and ruin his own anyway.”
Tom swallowed hard and put all of the other shit aside. Prophet needed him, needed his concentration and prayers and anything else Tom could think of. “He’ll get out of this,” he murmured.
Next to him, Cillian didn’t say a word.
“Dean? What the hell’s going on here?” Nico’s question demanded an answer, his voice low, but Dean sensed the unmistakable danger the woman had brought along with her. It was palpable, hung in the air over them like a cloud of debris from a bomb . . . the last thing he’d ever seen.
Dean had allowed Nico to pull him aside, with assurance that he still had eyes on Karen. He’d also informed Dean that he’d handcuffed her to the chair until he could figure everything out, and Dean saw no reason to change that. “This woman’s the reason I’m blind.”
“Yeah, I caught that.” Nico’s voice sounded deliberately casual. “Care to elaborate?”
He reached for his phone instead of answering. “Is your GPS on?”
“No.”
“Check mine—make sure it’s still off,” he instructed.
Nico took it from him and then pressed it back into his palm. “Still off. Now what?”
“Now, we have to deal with this.”
“Who is she?”
After what seemed like hours, he finally managed, “She’s the woman who nearly killed me. And who saved my life,” his voice sounding weak and hollow to his own ears and no, this was the time for strength. For him to put his money where his mouth was, just like he always urged Prophet to do. “I used to do the same kind of missions as Prophet did—when I was a SEAL and right after I got out as well. LT had been running those kinds of missions for a while and he had an important one coming up. I was running point on it—actually I was the only operative on it. Supposed to be an easy in and out, and I did the research. Was in the right place at the right time. Didn’t know the asshole planted a bomb. LT told me I should’ve been more careful, that a lot of these specialists are resistant to being relocated . . . but hell, most of them don’t bomb the agent relocating them.”
Nico drew in a sharp breath. “What were you told about her beforehand?”
“The usual. That she was a scientist who was trying to develop a virus that could kill people. That the government wanted her contained. To avoid syringes. I mean, fuck, I was ordinances. I looked out for bombs in my sleep no matter what, but I wasn’t carrying out an assassination. I was her next security detail, bringing her to the next spot on the tour, unless something happened. She wasn’t violent.”
“So she had no reason to know anyone was coming for her.”
“Not unless someone told her ahead of time, which obviously, someone might have,” Dean confirmed.
Nico put a hand on his forearm. “What do you need from me, Dean?”
“I’m okay. I’ve got this. But you can—should—stay.”
“Trust me—I’m not going anywhere,” Nico told him.
“But you want an explanation,” Dean said, this time loud enough for Karen to hear. “I do too, actually.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Karen called over to them, her voice smoother than it had been earlier, probably thanks to the bourbon, but the rough edge revealed the panic pulsing underneath. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“I was told you were dead.” Dean heard Nico’s breath subtly quicken . . . but Karen gave no such sign.
“I still don’t know who I can trust—I’m taking a big risk here.”
“If you thought I was in on it, why come back to me?”
“Because you still owe me one.”
Dean laughed. “I owe you?” He pointed to his face. “You took my sight.”
“And you set me up to be sold.”
“Never,” he said tightly. “Who gave you my information?”
“A man who’s been keeping me safe for years. His name is Prophet, and he gave me your name and basic coordinates. He told me you might move around a bit but that you’d never leave the general area.”
“Why not contact him when you were threatened?”
She sighed. “Because I think he’s been compromised. That’s the only way someone could’ve found me.”
At the words Prophet and compromised, Dean felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, felt the worry coming off Nico as well. “And how do you know that I haven’t been compromised?”
He swore he felt her eyes burning a hole through him when she spoke. “Because Prophet has no idea that I’m the one who took your sight.”
He swallowed, hard. That he believed. Prophet would never keep something this big from him. Prophet thought the doctor who’d done this to Dean was dead, just like LT told them both. Because LT didn’t need either of them chasing any more ghosts . . . “Why did Prophet say he gave you my information?”
“He said you were one of the best men he knew. I couldn’t believe he was talking about you. It didn’t make sense. Why would he tell me to go back to the man who’d tried to sell me?”
“Because it wasn’t me,” he said hollowly.
“I took care of it, Dean. The doctor’s dead,” LT had assured him.
A lie to make him feel better. And Prophet had been hiding the same woman for all these years? None of this made any sense. “I was told they put you down.”
“I ran,” she said defiantly.
“Why? Because you wanted to remain vulnerable?”
“Because someone was trying to sell me. For all I knew, it was you. For all I know, it still is.”
His breathing slowed. “That wasn’t my mission. For all I know, you paid enemies of the United States to take you out of here in exchange for building bombs for them.”
“I don’t build bombs,” she said.
“Did a pretty good facsimile of one.”
She sighed. “It was just enough to get me away—that’s all. That wasn’t my specialty.”
“Tell me this, doctor—if you were that concerned about being sold, why not just kill yourself and save the world?” he challenged.
“My son.” Her voice shook, and that shook Dean, because she was telling the truth. “For him. That’s why I stayed alive—for him. And even though I’ve only had brief contact with him through the years, it’s enough that
he knows his mother did the right thing and hid herself. I was hoping that one day . . .”
“No one would want to use you for your knowledge?”
“I guess today wasn’t that day. Or should I say, last week, when I got word that I needed to get the hell out of dodge.”
“Who told you that?” he demanded. “Prophet?”
“No, it wasn’t Prophet. That’s how I knew I’d been compromised. Whoever contacted me was trying to draw me out. If I contacted Prophet, I’d be putting him—and my son—in danger too. So I left, and ran. I might not be young anymore but I still remember how to evade and escape. I didn’t sit in that assisted-living facility only making lanyards.”
“So who was it?”
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing it was the same person who wanted me years ago. The intel I have, for now, is still helpful. The chatter out there is, frankly, terrifying. Coming here, to you, equally so. But I have to believe Prophet wouldn’t lead me to danger.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” Dean shook his head. “Nico?” He knew the man was still there, but just wanted to judge the tone of his voice.
“I’m here, Dean,” was all Nico said, and Dean knew he wasn’t losing his mind, that Nico believed the doctor’s story . . . and that they were both slowly coming to the same, unnerving conclusion. “Doctor—”
“Karen,” she insisted.
“Karen, can you tell me what the chatter you heard was?” Nico asked.
“If you think it will help you find who’s after me . . .” She hesitated. “I’ve never told anyone about what I do. Prophet knows, of course. My son as well and some select CIA agents, but I guess I’ve already taken a leap of faith, so why not go all the way, right?” She laughed, a tense sound. “The chatter I heard is about Ahmet Mehmed-Handan III.”
“The terrorist?” Nico sounded surprised. “Karen, he was—”
“Assassinated? Blown up? Buried at sea? Yes, I’d heard all that too.” She blew out a hard breath. “What I do—my specialty? Was to create prisons for men like him. Boxes that could keep them away from the world at large, but alive and isolated, just in case we needed them. It’s a dangerous proposition, and I took my job seriously.”
“You built black sites,” Dean said.