“Baby steps, my brother,” she said. “This is my way of getting to that.”
They stared at each other, some silent contest of wills, which Kara didn’t quite understand and which Chris put an end to by pushing back from the table.
“Well,” he said. “I guess that’s settled. Keeping you buttheads alive seems to be my new job, so I guess that means I’m going, too.” He tugged a small plastic case from the inside of his jeans, removed a microSD card, loaded that into a phone, and fiddled with the device until he had what he was looking for. “While we’re still doing show-and-tell, here’s my contribution from Berlin.”
He turned the screen so they could see it.
It showed a short, pudgy, balding man.
To Kara, he said, “You know him?”
She leaned in for a better look.
“He introduced himself as Luka Marinov,” Jack said.
She didn’t recognize name or face, but if this was the guy who connected Berlin to Prague, that put him in the orbit of global players, and odds were high the war room had something. She shook her head.
Chris extracted the card and offered it to her. “Keep it,” he said. “You’ve got as much vested in figuring out who he is as we do.”
She tucked the card into her sock, closest thing she had to a wallet since she hadn’t had anything personal on her when they’d grabbed her.
She had the card with her now, padded in tissue, snug between insert and sole, like a pebble near her heel.
They left the next morning, all four of them in one vehicle.
Louisville was where Jack stopped so they could make the calls.
First was her conversation with Hayes, and once that was settled, Jack used Hayes’s SIM to call the Russian who’d abducted and blackmailed him.
The man answered as if he recognized the number.
That surprised her more than anything else in this insane week, and that last conversation on the train came roaring back with raging focus.
“Moscow has been playing you,” Jen had said. “Your branch, division, whatever it is you guys are. Keeping you focused on my brother so you don’t look at me.”
That took her back to the intel in Jack’s dossier.
Chatter and intercepted diplomatic cables and information from several assets in Moscow that had all pointed in his direction, but the most accurate detail had come as leaks from an ideological defector within the Kremlin.
She understood then what Jack had meant when he’d said Hayes would do what was in his own best interest.
The Speaker of the House had been assassinated.
Hayes, intentionally or not, had let it happen, and his line to the Moscow leaker also connected directly to the guy who’d arranged the hits.
It looked a lot like treason.
Jack knew, and Hayes knew Jack knew.
To the phone, Jack said, “Not Steven Hayes. Jonathan Smith.”
And then, “I want Dmitry. That was our arrangement.”
And then, “Have it your way. I’ll find you in Moscow.”
He hit END and tossed the phone to Jen, and she caught it and smiled.
There was a kind of crazy in that smile, like danger had just been let off leash and turned loose. Kara imagined that had something to do with why Jen had been the Russian’s primary assassin and not Jack.
Jen and Chris stepped out of the car, hauled two suitcases from the trunk, and headed off. It felt strange seeing them go just like that.
Her job had been to kill them—maybe still was to kill them.
They’d abducted her and held her captive. And yet off they went with a smile and a wave, like old friends parting after a vacation.
Better was watching the miles go by on the long way home, and that’s where she was now, home. Jack stopped where the tarmac stopped. From here the roof peeked out between the trees, but the house was still a quarter mile up the dirt road.
He said, “This is as far as I go.”
She sat for a beat, unsure if she should thank him for the ride or, now that she was finally free, tell him to go to hell. She opted for silence and stepped out, shut the door, and started walking. But that wasn’t right.
Even for people as reticent as they, this required some form of exchange.
But there wasn’t exactly an etiquette guide on what to say to a target-slash-abductor, no matter how badly you’d failed to kill him, or how well he’d treated you, or how great you got along.
She made it about ten feet and stopped. She looked back.
He was watching her, window rolled down, elbow on the sill.
She said, “You know this isn’t over, right? Just because headquarters doesn’t want you dead right now doesn’t mean they’ll stop hunting.”
The corners of his eyes turned up ever so slightly.
“Good,” he said. “It means I’ll see you again.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
If you’re new to my books, thank you for being willing to take a chance on the unfamiliar. If you’re a fan, or a former reader back for another round, thank you for being a part of this ongoing journey. I so hope you’ve enjoyed it! If you would like more during the long wait for the next book, you can get:
• Semi-regular updates with the latest news, upcoming events, and details on where things are with each writing project, plus bimonthly essays that include an insider’s look at publishing, thoughts on overcoming adversity, personal insights, and everything I’ve learned on this writing journey via email drip from www.taylorstevensbooks.com/connect.php
• Real-life writing issues solved and in-depth story and line editing show-and-tell by weekly podcast at www.taylorstevensshow.com where, together with friend and co-host Stephen Campbell, we kick writing in the butt one word at a time
• Special insider updates, video, Q&A, and Hack the Craft writing tutorials at www.patreon.com/taylorstevens
• Personal interaction in The Taylor Stevens Fan Club Group on Facebook or at facebook.com/taylorstevens
• And occasionally on Twitter @taylor_stevens
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This story would never have come to be without so many who’ve helped carry it through to the end. To my editor, Michaela Hamilton, thank you for your patience. To my agent, Anne Hawkins, thank you for always being in my corner, and also Annie, I’m so glad you are part of the team. To the many unsung heroes within Kensington Publishing, you guys are rock stars.
To the many authors, friends, and fans who’ve gone out of their way to support both me and my work, you know who you are, and I appreciate you more than you know, and I can’t name you here because I will one-hundred-percent forget someone and I’m just not that brave.
To my children, this book literally wouldn’t have been finished without your willingness to take weight off a load that had gotten too heavy for me to carry alone. To the Muse, thank you for the space to breathe. And thanks also go to childhood friend Lauren Hough, author of the viral piece “I Was a Cable Guy. I Saw the Worst of America,” for a description of Berlin that I would have included in its entirety (with permission and attribution, of course) had it not been so much better than anything I’ve ever written that the only way I could use it was by chopping it up and dumbing it down.
Special thanks to Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of the Lucy Kinkaid and Max Revere books, who threw so much time, effort, and energy into promoting Jack and Jill’s first outing that it could have been mistaken for one of her own books. There’s just no way I can repay that. Allison, thank you.
To fans and readers, thank you for continuing to let me work at a job that doesn’t require getting out of pajamas. And to my Pa-treon supporters, I am continually in awe of you and your generosity, thank you for believing in me that much.
Photo by Alyssa Skyes
About the Author
Taylor Stevens is a critically acclaimed, multiple awards–winning, New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers, including the first Jack
and Jill thriller, Liars’ Paradox. Stevens is best known for high-octane stories populated with fascinating characters in vivid boots-on-the-ground settings, and her books have been optioned for film and published in over twenty languages. In addition to writing novels, Stevens shares extensively about the mechanics of storytelling, writing, overcoming adversity, and the details of her journey into publishing at www.taylorstevensbooks.com. She welcomes you to join her.
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