“When there’s nothing to hide, it’s a short conversation,” Alexis shot back. “Sorry,” she said, speaking to him. “She’s this weird cross between a bodyguard, personal trainer, and mother hen.”
“No worries,” he said, taking the last of the papers from the feed. “I figure if there’s something I should know you’ll tell me. In the meantime, I just want to figure this shit out.” He held up the papers. “I don’t mean to be a downer, but there’s a real possibility that someone who I consider a brother is dead because of something in these files.”
Alexis’s expression softened even as her lips pressed together. “I know, and I hope that’s not the case. I’d like to help, if you’ll let me. I know Eric has access and could make more copies without you ever even knowing, but I’d rather not go behind your back.”
He shot her a grateful look. “I’d appreciate your help. It’s been a while since I was in the game, and though some training never fades, there are always new players coming in and I’m nowhere near as knowledgeable as I once was about the underbelly of the intelligence world.”
“If you’ll allow, I’d like to help, too,” Yael offered. Both he and Alexis turned at the comment to find the couple standing side-by-side. “Like Alexis, I hope we can find your friend and that he is well. But as a former member of the intelligence community, I find the fact that this spy might have been, or is being, betrayed by one of his own, unconscionable.”
One by one, Isiah looked at the three people waiting for his verdict. His gaze lingered on Yael who, with her connections to a foreign intelligence agency, was the biggest risk.
“You have no reason to believe me, but if we find this man, the one you call The Gentleman, I will keep it to myself. My former countrymen will never know. At least not from me.”
“Tell him, Yael.” Eric took his wife’s hand in his as he spoke. She looked at her husband and the two communicated silently before Eric nodded.
“Huck, he is like a brother to you, no?” she asked.
Isiah nodded. “Serving in the special branches is, well, special. It’s different than the lone wolf work intelligence officers—spies—do and it’s an even tighter bond than those in the regular ranks. We knew everything about each other. We knew each other so well, we almost became extensions of one another. So yes, he’s like a brother to me, and yes, I want to do everything I can to find him—alive or dead—because we don’t leave anyone behind.”
Yael considered this, then nodded. “Mossad killed my brother when his identity was compromised. We were both with the agency at the time and someone on the inside leaked his name. It was a petty reason, not even motivated by money but by the fact my brother would not marry the man’s daughter. And because of this slight, Jacob died.”
Yael spoke calmly, but her grip on her husband’s hand was tight.
“And it was your brother who paid the price—not the man who sold him out—because he was the one with the most secrets,” Isiah said.
Yael gave a sharp nod. “I had been considering leaving the agency when that happened. I’d already met Eric and knew my future was with him. But the day my brother was killed was the day I walked away from that life completely. I’ll not do anything to actively harm them, but I’ll not do anything to help them either.”
“I’m sorry about your brother,” he said.
Yael’s jaw tightened and she blinked a few times before looking away. “Thank you. I still miss him. It’s been fifteen years, and I still miss him every day.”
Eric tugged her close and, releasing her hand, he wrapped an arm around her waist as she leaned into him.
“If you’re willing, I’d like your help, too,” Isiah said.
Yael nodded, her head resting on Eric’s shoulder. “Then let’s make some copies and see if we can bring your brother home.”
Chapter Four
“We need to focus primarily on two things,” Alexis said as she looked around the table at her three cohorts. “First and foremost, we need to find out where the spy Huck referred to as The Gentleman is—or where he was three days ago. We know he was in Honduras when Huck recorded the message, but nothing more specific than that. It would be great if we could figure out his real identity, too, but I’m guessing Huck would have mentioned that if he’d discovered it, so I’m not counting on it being anywhere in his files. The second thing I want us to look for is if there is anything in these documents that relates to the Summit being held at Hemmeleigh next year. There’s no indication that Huck knew any more about it other than what he overheard, but if it wasn’t part of his primary investigation, he might have gathered intel about the event that he didn’t know he had.”
“Huck mentioned the Summit, but it seems like his comment means something more to you than just an offhand remark?” Isiah asked.
Alexis glanced at him and realized that despite the fact that, as a member of the FBI team responsible for ensuring the safety of the event, she’d been living and breathing the upcoming Summit of World Leaders being held at Hemmeleigh Resort on Tildas Island the following May, Isiah had no idea what she and her teammates had been tasked with. It took two minutes for her to update him and when she’d finished, his expression was grim.
“So that’s why—or at least part of the reason why—you wanted to go through this information?” he asked, indicating the printed files on the table.
Alexis considered taking offense at the implication of his statement—that she’d had ulterior motives to helping him. But after a beat, she decided it wasn’t worth it. “As you said, it’s a reason I want to know more about what Huck found. It’s my job to ensure the security of the Summit, and that’s something I take very seriously. But the Summit is eleven months away and I suspect that whatever Rosen wants with the asset is much more imminent. First priority is The Gentleman and stopping Rosen, then we will deal with how the Summit comes into play.”
She didn’t shy away from Isiah’s probing attention. She didn’t blame him for questioning her motives, but she’d have to let him come to his own decision about her integrity.
Finally, he nodded. Alexis ignored the exhales of Eric and Yael who had, apparently, been holding their breaths during the exchange, but she did shoot them a wry look.
“Isiah, none of us here knows Huck.” Alexis eyed the four copies of the files that were stacked on the table. “Based on what you know, do you think we’d be better off dividing the documents and each taking a fourth or do you think he’d arrange his files in such a way that we’ll each need to review all the documents to get a clearer picture?”
Sitting across from her, Isiah considered his answer. “I hate to say it, but I think we all need to go through all of the docs. I don’t think it will be too convoluted, but between being a SEAL and then working for the CIA, I seriously doubt that he’d store information in a way that was completely linear or organized, in a traditional sense of the word.”
“Good, then we all have our marching orders,” Yael said, picking up the first page of her stack.
“And let’s hop to,” Eric added, raising his beer in a mock salute.
There was a round of “here, here’s” then for the next four hours, silence reigned with only a background soundtrack of the sound of pens moving across notepads, the rustling of paper, and the clink of glasses against the wooden table.
When Alexis’s mind started to wander off task, she rose and murmured to the group that she’d make a pot of coffee. As it brewed, she stepped outside and onto the balcony that wrapped around three sides of the apartment. Several hours earlier, she would have had views toward the west and the magnificent Caribbean sunset. But as it was, she could only see the twinkling of lights from a few houses and the general glow of Havensted, the main city on Tildas Island, emanating from the other side of a small range of hills.
She breathed in deeply, and the air, heavy with scents of the trees and flowers, filled her lungs. At close to midnight, it was still eighty degrees and she was more than comfor
table in her shorts and tank top. Over the winter, she’d had a few days where she’d longed to be able to throw on a coat or a cute pair of boots, but all in all, the warmth of the tropics suited her.
Glancing back inside, it was a little disconcerting to see Isiah sitting with two of the people who knew her best in the world. He had his head down and a red pen in his hand, a yellow note pad beside his stack of printouts. He’d had a lot dumped on him in the past several hours, but judging by the looks of it, he seemed to be taking everything in stride.
Everything including what she’d shared about her life. She had to give him credit for not prying. Not much anyway—yes, he’d asked a few questions, but he hadn’t pursued those she hadn’t answered. And she appreciated his forbearance.
Didn’t she?
What if it wasn’t forbearance on his part, though, and was just a general lack of interest? Alexis frowned at that thought. The chemistry between them hadn’t dulled in the months since they’d seen each other, but that didn’t necessarily mean he had any interest in acting on it. He certainly hadn’t in December.
But she wasn’t the only one who’d changed in the past few months. The night before, he’d been remarkably in tune with her—in tune with her in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t felt connected to her to some extent. Was it possible that they both might be open to seeing what was between them now?
Her eyes lingered on the man who occupied her thoughts as she considered the question. As she watched him sitting with Yael and Eric, an eager awareness prickled over her skin. Like climbing the uphill of a roller coaster. Half the fun was in the anticipation of reaching the top and the other half was the thrill that came with the freefall and the remainder of the ride. Intentionally or not, last night, they’d both buckled in for the ride. She might not know when they’d tip over the top, but it was inevitable they would.
With that thought, an edgy kind of energy gripped her. She wanted to hit that tipping point now and embrace everything that came after. She wanted to feel his skin under her fingertips and his lips against hers. She wanted his smile and to hear his laugh. She wanted it all.
But that wasn’t how the real world worked and while she may want all of that, that didn’t mean she—or Isiah—was ready for it yet. It also wasn’t something she could decide on her own nor was the time right to raise the possibility. After all, they did have a spy to find.
Alexis looked away from the window and back into the darkness. Telling herself to let things unfold as they should, she pushed all thoughts of Isiah aside and turned her mind to what she’d found so far in her review of Huck’s files.
It was clear that, as of a few days ago, the person Huck had been tasked to find had been in the area of Trujillo, Honduras—a small town on the Caribbean coast—and was operating under the name of Sebastian Petrillo, one of the four aliases she’d found for the spy. But what he was doing there she hadn’t a clue. Nor did she know if he’d still be there three days later, or what, if anything, he had to do with the Summit.
She was pondering the potential connections to the Summit when the sliding door from the kitchen opened and Isiah stood outlined against the lights pouring from the room.
“The coffee is ready if you want some.” His face was in shadows and she couldn’t see his expression. He’d been doing a remarkable job hiding the anxiety he felt about his friend. But she’d seen it. It had been in the jerkiness of how he poured a drink, the intentionally casual way he’d spoken with his customers, and the steely calm he projected when talking with Yael and Eric.
“We’ll find him,” she said quietly, knowing she shouldn’t be making that promise, but making it anyway.
“We’ll do our best,” he corrected. He was right, of course. Huck might already be dead and they’d never find him. But her heart sank a little at his comment, and she ached to reach out and comfort him. And even though what she should be most concerned with protecting the spy and figuring out what, if anything, this business had to do with the Summit, finding Huck felt almost more important. It was something she needed—wanted—to do because it was important to Isiah.
“We’ll do our best,” she repeated as she moved past him and back into the kitchen. “But I think I’m going to need a little of this,” she said, raising the pot of coffee, “If we’re going to do that.”
Alexis looked up as Isiah sat back in his chair and frowned. “Find something?” she asked.
“When did you say the Summit is?”
“May ninth through the fourteenth, with an arrival reception on the eighth,” she answered.
“You found it, too?” Eric said, sliding a sheet of paper into the center of the table. Isiah picked it up, studied it, then nodded.
Two more hours in and they’d nearly finished their individual reviews. They each sat with a pad of paper, filled with notes, beside them.
“Care to tell me what it is?” Alexis reached for the paper.
“It’s just a date, May tenth, and a name, Nathalie Rose,” Isiah answered, reaching over the sheet to point it out to her. “But some of Huck’s research goes back a few years, so I don’t know if that date is supposed to be during the Summit, or if it was something from the past,” he added.
“I wonder who Nathalie Rose is and if that’s her real name,” Yael said.
“Or her full name,” Alexis said—“Rose” could easily be either a last or a middle name. “I didn’t find anything that could potentially relate to the Summit, but it looks like you two got a little farther ahead than I did?” Alexis looked between Eric and Isiah.
“Not much,” Eric answered, “But we’re all pretty close to the bottom of our stacks so is it time to share, kids?”
“Yes, it’s time to share,” Yael said, taking the lead. “Your ‘Gentleman’ has definitely led an interesting life. Based on what I got from Huck’s files, this Gentleman seems to work primarily in South America and Africa.”
“Africa and South America seem like a big territory,” Isiah said. “Then again, I know very little about how the CIA operates. We had our fair share of them coming into the camps or stationed in the towns nearby when I was deployed, but it wasn’t like we ever sat down and talked career paths.”
Yael smiled at that before continuing. “From a language perspective alone, it would be unusual for an agent to cover more than one major region. That assumes, of course, that he’s fluent in not just the dominant languages but some of the dialects as well.”
“How long do you think he’s been in the business?” Alexis asked Yael.
She frowned and wagged her head. “I’d say roughly anywhere from fifteen to twenty years. Why?”
“It’s just a thought, but the identity of a top spy might be a closely guarded secret now,” Alexis said. “But fifteen or twenty years ago when he was a fresh recruit, attending training? His records might be buried, but there would have been some evidence of him somewhere.”
“It’s a good idea,” Isiah said. “I don’t know how we’d track that information down, but I have to believe that figuring out who he was might be easier than finding out who he is.”
“I can work on that,” Eric offered. “I still have those connections at my former company.”
Yael nodded in agreement. “And I can ask some of my former colleagues. I still have a few I consider, if not friends, at least trustworthy—those who were nearly as upset as I was at my brother’s death.”
“Thank you,” Isiah said. “I appreciate all you’re doing to help me, but I want to be clear on one thing—nothing we do can put this spy at risk. I might not know who he is or who he was, but I have no interest in outing an intelligence asset, even inadvertently,” he added.
Alexis sat back in her chair and Puddles took that as an invitation to jump onto her lap. But athleticism was not her forte and she landed with her front paws halfway around Alexis’s thighs and her back paws dangling off the floor. Quickly moving to adjust the dog and bring Puddles fully onto her lap, Alexis k
nocked the small stack of papers that contained the last few pages she hadn’t looked at. Two went sailing across the table, leaving the final one in her line of sight.
Her attention landed on a line of text and four rows of numbers. Shifting Puddles, she picked up the paper.
“Oh shit,” she said.
“What,” everyone at the table responded at the same time.
“Do these look like tide times?” she asked, handing the paper to Isiah.
He frowned and nodded. “They do look like a tidal table, but we’d have to look it up on the internet to find which day.”
Alexis took the paper back. “I’m guessing it’s the tides for the date you found, May tenth. But what’s even more concerning is that.” She pointed the name written below the timetable. “Nik Balraj is an explosives expert who likes to hire himself out to the highest bidder. He very nearly killed Damian and Charlotte, twice.”
Chapter Five
“I know this isn’t the point, but if he tried to kill your friends twice and didn’t succeed, then maybe, if he’s being hired to do something on the tenth of May during the Summit, he won’t be very good at it?” Eric suggested.
Isiah looked at Eric and wasn’t sure whether to shake his head or laugh. On one hand, Eric had a point—how good was an assassin who’d failed twice? On the other hand, he didn’t know the whole story behind the bombs and maybe Balraj’s objective hadn’t been to kill.
“Regardless of how good he may or may not be,” Isiah said. “Between the comment Huck overhead and the intel he collected, even if Balraj is terrible at his job, I think it’s safe to say that someone wants something bad to go down in May.”
Yael nodded. “And we don’t know if The Gentleman is trying to stop it or trying to instigate it. Or, for that matter, if he’s involved at all. Clearly, they are connected somehow or Huck wouldn’t have filed everything together.” She gestured to the papers as she spoke. “But we don’t know to what extent.”
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