“I haven’t…”
Andy turned his head.
Carol swallowed.
She wasn’t a field agent. She didn’t have the kind of training necessary to simply keep going without losing it. She wasn’t built for this.
“How can I trust you? How do I know you aren’t lying to me? That you are who you say you are? What if you aren’t Andy? What if you’re someone else, and you’re trying to get me to…I don’t know.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall. Andy’s gaze picked her apart.
He turned toward the locked door and produced a key from his pocket. She didn’t watch him open the door, but even that made no sound.
“Come here.” He held out his hand.
She glanced at his palm, then his face.
“I’m not going to show you my murder room, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said.
“You have a murder room?” Her extremities went cold.
“No, I just figured you thought I did.” One side of his mouth hitched up. “I’ll show you what I can.”
“Fine.” She kept her arms tightly wrapped around herself.
Andy dropped his hand and pushed the door open. He flipped on a light, illuminating what she’d wondered at.
Two folding tables were set up parallel to each other.
“I was wondering where my laptops were.” She eyed the half table of her stuff. Hell, he’d even brought her four-bay cloud storage device.
Andy crossed to a small desk set up against the far wall. The window was blocked by two crates stacked on top of each other. She circled the desk and placed her hand against the cool, plastic crate.
“Is this what you brought me here in?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m shocked I didn’t die.”
“One is lined. You had an oxygen tank.”
It was a wonder she hadn’t peed herself considering how long she’d been out.
Andy bent over a laptop and pecked at the keys.
What could he possibly show her that would prove he was Andy?
“Here,” he said.
She walked around the table to stare at…
“Facebook?”
“This is my youngest brother. Sam.”
“Holy…” She stared at Andy’s face…only younger.
“Before you say this could be a setup…” Andy clicked the trackpad.
Image upon image of Sam and two other men filled the screen. Some with a logo on them. But none with Andy.
“They live in a small rural town. If someone found out my name, they wouldn’t be hard to find. I’m dead to them. Besides, they wouldn’t give two shits about me.”
Why would he show her this? If she knew, if she wanted to do something with the knowledge, these people were leverage. Even if they didn’t care about Andy, he cared about them. He was keeping tabs on them.
“Sam could be you.” She leaned forward and toggled to an image of three men.
Two other men had their arms slung around Sam’s shoulders. He had deep eyes, kinder than Andy’s. The man on the left had the same hair, but his eyes were lighter. He was paler. The third man was fair-haired but shared the dark eyes. There was some blood relation between them. Was he trying to show her he was still the man he’d made himself out to be? That it wasn’t all a lie? Parts of it were true? Her naive heart fluttered despite her better sense telling it to stay down. This man would crush her.
“The other two?” she asked.
“My brothers. Jacob on the left. Erick on the right.”
“Why?” She glanced at Andy. “Why show me this?”
“I took something from you that made you feel safe. Now I’m giving you something I don’t want to. Their existence makes me weak, but…they’re my family. I’m stuck with them. They might not be good people, per se, but they’re mine.”
He wasn’t the man she’d hoped he was. That part of her wanted to hang on to. He was a spy. An assassin. Her kidnapper. He wasn’t anything to her.
“You can’t buy my trust.” She drew herself up, steeling her spine for the truth of it all.
“I’m not trying to buy your trust, I’m trying to barter your skills. The sooner you believe my story, the sooner we can get to work.”
…
Tuesday, Joint Taskforce Building, DC
Kristina once again considered that flush bank account waiting for her in the Cayman Islands.
She’d screwed up. Man, had she ever made a mess of things.
If she could go back and tell herself to let others handle the Carol situation, she’d do it in a heartbeat. But Kristina had wanted to prove herself. Ever since she’d signed on to make money and put herself first, she’d had her eyes on rising to the top. She’d wanted to take action, not instructions.
The elevator dinged, dumping her out on the basement level. The building was a satellite office for a joint CIA-NSA task force. The sensitive nature of the ongoing mission meant much of the rest of the building was unoccupied.
Kristina swallowed.
For all she knew, she was about to be a cleanup job herself.
Well, she had an ace up her sleeve. A small one, perhaps a negligible one, but she had it nonetheless.
She took a step out into the hall. Her instructions had come through with the address and the word basement. Now that she was here, she didn’t know what was expected of her.
The hall was dimly lit, shadows crowding in around the edges and at the end on either side of the corridor. Every door was shut. A low, electrical hum felt as though it were boring into her skull.
Did she call out?
Should she have brought more than the handgun with her?
Was this a mistake?
She peered down one side at the darkness. The hum would cover footsteps and any other small sounds.
She took a step back against the elevator.
This was a bad idea.
She never should have come here.
The people she worked for depended on silence, on secrecy, and she’d blown it.
“Ms. Butler,” a man called out.
Kristina whipped her head around.
A man in a hat and long coat stood at the opposite end, swathed in shadows.
“Who are you?” She didn’t move from the elevator door. It might only be six inches of cover, but it was something. And an exit.
“What’s the rule?” He tilted his head, the hat casting deeper darkness over his face.
“No names, no identities, nothing.” She knew the rule. For someone like her at the end of the line, it meant she had nothing to hand over should she decide to leave. If this man knew her name, he had a lot more information about her and her involvement with SICA.
“Good. We have ten minutes.” He lifted his wrist and touched what had to be a watch. She couldn’t tell from this distance, and he didn’t seem to want to get any closer.
“What do you want to know?”
“The Carol situation. Status report.”
Kristina’s heart leaped into her throat.
Status report.
As in, an update. Not a reprimand.
“I tasked the asset with the instructions on Friday night. The asset made contact late Saturday that they needed more time.”
“What asset?” the man in the shadows asked.
“Gratney.”
“Gratney?” the man barked back at her. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I set him up with evidence, I thought—”
“We will never again use Gratney.” The man muttered something that was likely a curse. “When was the last time he made contact?”
“Saturday.”
“Let me guess, he needed more evidence. More proof.”
“But I gave it to him.”
“Whatever you gave him won’t be enough. What else aren’t you telling me?”
“I coded the message as having come from Irene.”
“They’re working together.”
&n
bsp; “What? No, she’s not his—”
“You do not take independent action, do you understand? You are a peon. You know nothing. You’ve put us all at risk. Gratney is working with them. You’ve played us right into their hands.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“I know where they are,” Kristina blurted. “I know where Carol is, at least. I put a passive tracking device into a USB drive she keeps on her keys.”
Silence.
Her knees shook. Her hands were sweating. She could practically feel the whoosh of a bullet past her.
“Where?”
“Switzerland. Somewhere remote. Very remote. The tracker emits a signal once every six to eight hours, depending on when it was last plugged in. It’s been pinging her location every eight hours. It hasn’t moved for the last sixteen hours. We could… We could send a team. Tie up all the loose ends at once.” Kristina bit her lip and prayed her spitballing a solution worked.
Please don’t kill me. Don’t clean my life.
There weren’t many people who’d even notice if she was simply gone. That was the sad part.
“I’ll have two of our people get in touch soon. Do nothing. You’ve already fucked this up enough.”
Kristina nearly slid to the floor in relief.
The man’s watch beeped.
She slapped at the elevator button. The doors slid open at her back and she whirled to face the empty elevator. She ducked in, hit the button for the first floor, and jabbed at the close door button over and over again.
The man in the shadows was granting her this respite. It didn’t mean her life wasn’t still in danger.
…
Wednesday, Switzerland
Andy screwed the cap back on the empty bottle of water. He might as well be alone in the house for all that Carol was speaking to him. He’d hoped showing her some part of the truth would make her understand that they’d made the best choice they could at the time to keep her in the dark. He’d made the wrong call about the meet, misjudged the timeline, and that was on him. But it couldn’t be helped. What was done was done.
Andy set the bottle on the counter and braced his hands on the edge.
He didn’t know how to get her to trust him. He wasn’t good at these things. Noah would have been better. Torture it out of someone? Andy could do that. But this? It wasn’t in his wheelhouse.
It rankled Andy to admit as much, but Noah would have charmed Carol into playing along by now. Andy wasn’t a people person. Oh, he could act the part, but it wasn’t him. And with Carol, Andy needed to be real.
He couldn’t exactly drive down to the corner store and buy her a bunch of apology flowers.
Pink and white carnations with something colorful thrown in. He’d taken notes on flowers once he’d realized it was a hobby of hers. Their meanings. The colors. Symbolism. He’d known that put together in certain ways they said something, and that at some point even spies had used bouquets to pass along information. It was an antiquated system, but it’d worked at a time.
The water gurgled in the pipes.
He glanced at the hall, but no one was there.
Carol must be awake.
Even stubborn women needed to eat. She could have the hot water if it’d make her more agreeable today. At least it’d stopped snowing. He might be able to get a satellite signal later if he deemed it wise. Carol would have to bring down some of those walls and they would need to make progress on the algorithm program. Without those two things, the risk wasn’t worth it. Any time they popped their heads up, even to connect to a satellite, it put them at risk of being found.
Andy went through the motions of cooking breakfast. He wasn’t much of a cook, but he’d learned enough out of necessity to get by. Bacon. Eggs. Biscuits. All simple enough things he could make. From his observations he’d noticed Carol preferred fruit and yogurt in the mornings, but given the climate and their remote location, all he could offer were heartier things.
A door thunked shut in the hall, a touch too hard.
He glanced up in time to catch sight of Carol marching around the corner and straight for him. Her mouth was set in a hard, stubborn line he rather liked. It meant she had spunk. Fight to do something about what was going on. Her ponytail swung from side to side with each too-long stride.
The lady had something to say that she wanted to get out and over with already.
She stopped at the end of the counter and sucked in a deep breath, straightening her spine. How long had she rehearsed this? Worked herself up to come in here?
A few days ago she had set timers so she wouldn’t text him too soon.
Now she couldn’t wait to get conversing with him over.
It was a change he didn’t like. Then again, what he did and did not like were not important.
“What you did—all of you—is unacceptable. I should have been informed. Consulted even. Making unilateral decisions about my life is not okay. No matter what you say, these people behind the leaks, they can’t change policy. They can’t protect me. This, bringing me here with everything, it’s going to burn me. My career with the CIA will be over. I’m not finished.” She placed her hands on her hips, a little wrinkle marring the skin between her brows.
Andy closed his mouth and bit the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling.
“I don’t entirely believe you are telling me the truth. I can’t. But I also can’t deny what I know is true, and that is allowing me to complete the algorithm program serves the other side no purpose at all. So I’ll finish it, but I will want something in return.”
“What?” He was about ready to agree to whatever she wanted. Within reason. He couldn’t kill another king. That had gotten far too messy.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“I can’t agree to terms I don’t know.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well I didn’t agree to being here, now did I?”
What was she getting at? What did she want?
He should say no. He never bargained with prisoners, except…she wasn’t a prisoner. He was holding her against her will to keep her alive. It wasn’t the same thing. He had to negotiate. Saying yes would set a bad precedent.
“Then we can talk about terms later.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I do this, you do something for me.” Carol crossed her arms over her chest.
“No.” He turned back to the stove. The bacon was done, biscuits almost ready.
“You can’t say no.”
“I just did. Though if you aren’t willing to help me save your life there’s really no reason to continue.” Was that too far? He wouldn’t leave her high and dry, he couldn’t. This was Carol. She was one of the good guys.
“What?” Her voice went up a notch. Had she really expected him to go along blindly with whatever she wanted?
“Carol, you’re a brilliant woman. You won’t agree to working with me without some assurance I’m not one of the bad guys. Why would I agree to your terms when, right now, I hold all the cards?” He grabbed the pot holder and scooped the biscuits out of the oven. He set them on the counter and turned to face her.
Was he being an ass? Yes. Was she trying to pull the wool over his eyes? Yes. Neither of them were right.
She stared at him, her cheeks slightly pink. She needed someone to be angry at and he was the one here.
“What is it you want?” He couldn’t imagine that she didn’t already have something in mind. A woman with an education and history such as her would have already crafted contingency plans for her contingency plans.
Carol stared at him, her eyes searching his face, weighing and judging him. Would she have second-guessed Mark like this? Andy didn’t think so, but then again—he wasn’t Mark.
“After this I will not be able to go home. No matter what you and Irene have set up, how you’ve arranged this, I’m burned. I’m done. Everything I’ve spent my life building, you’ve destroyed.”
“You’re going to go back to your life.”
Andy understood the ache in her voice. He got where she was coming from. Right now she’d had her anchor cut and was adrift. She felt they’d robbed her. He had to hold tight to the belief that he was saving her. She’d see it eventually.
“No.” She stared at him. “You’ve made me the next Snowden. Unwillingly, I might add. But I’ll survive. I know people. I’ll get by.”
“Where would you go?” Andy wanted to believe they had this in the bag, but Carol was far more practical. He admired that about her.
“My mother housed dozens of exchange students over the years. Typically children of dignitaries, politicians. I think they were more family to me than her growing up, which…I guess serves us well now. I have friends in high and low places.” She didn’t seem comfortable with that statement. If she was going down that route, she’d have to learn how to conduct herself with more authority. She’d need leverage even.
“There are people you could work for. Good people.” Andy held his breath.
“I’m not ready to think that far ahead. I don’t know that I could do this anymore.”
“You have to be prepared to do what you need to do to survive. You have skills. Knowledge.” Hell, Andy had wanted to set up a partnership with someone to run the operational side of his job for a while. The problem was finding someone he could trust explicitly. Carol? He’d trust her with his life, his secrets, everything. She was that kind of person. She’d get a better offer from one of the private intelligence agencies, and likely more protection, but with that came sacrifices.
It all boiled down to what Carol really wanted.
“Do we have a deal?” she asked.
“We do.”
Andy offered his hand. She eyed it for a moment, then edged forward to put her palm in his. Her wrapped his fingers around her and squeezed.
He’d do everything in his power to make sure she got to go back to her quiet life, but she was right. He couldn’t promise that it would all go back to normal. They were kicking the hornets’ nest with no idea how big it truly was. All they could do was hope that they got the proof they needed before it was too late. Maybe someday they’d be free of it all, but not today.
Chapter Five
Carol stared at the screen, trying to sort out which slash was giving her the problem. Computer programming wasn’t her forte. She hadn’t set out to study it. In the beginning, she’d been looking for elective courses to flesh out her schedule. It’d started with a single class. She’d been cursing the most recent assignment, vowing to drop the programming course from next semester, when her dad’s old partner dropped by Mom’s. He’d made a comment about how valuable computer skills were, and that’d been it. She’d crammed every class in she could.
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