A car idled at the curb across the street. Someone stood at an office window overhead, talking on a phone. The car horn honked, and the passenger window rolled down.
Hector.
Rand glanced left, then right, and ducked across the street. He got in as the window rose, closing them into a tinted box of silence.
Hector didn’t offer a greeting. He stared straight ahead and started talking. “No one can accurately place Irene anywhere in the city for the last week. Since she last met with Sarah, she’s been MIA. Nothing on the books.”
“That’s unusual?”
“Yeah. Irene hasn’t taken that much time off in… It’s been long enough that this makes me second-guess what she’s up to.”
“Why?”
“Because something’s happening. Something’s up. And Irene is always around the office, sticking her nose into other people’s business, offering her opinion when no one wants it. I just don’t want your girl to get caught up in something.”
“Irene would have had the ability to put a tracker on Sarah.”
“She would have known where Sarah stashed the case.”
“She’d know the access codes to track them both.”
This was not looking good. Rand had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t relish the idea of telling Sarah the one person she’d thought she could trust to watch her back had sold her out.
“Come on, Noah’s waiting for us.” Hector shifted into drive. “Maybe he can tell us more about Irene.”
“He works for her?”
“Used to. Until he started operating Stateside and they moved him to me.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how crazy is Noah now?”
“Shit, he’s a fifteen.” Hector laughed.
Great. And this was the guy they wanted to trust with their lives?
“How’d Andy look when you saw him?” Hector asked.
“Rough. I’d say whatever job he just got off of ran him down.”
Hector grunted by way of a reply.
Rand didn’t exactly find comfort in how connected they all were. He’d known of Noah because of Hector and a job they did together. Rand had met Andy while he was still a SEAL. Each one knew pieces about him, slices of his real life. He’d rather more separation between them all.
“And now we— Fuck.”
A guy with a shaved head, wearing slacks, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and aviator sunglasses tugged at the passenger door.
Noah White.
Hector rolled the window down a quarter of an inch. “Get in the back.” He unlocked the car.
Noah slid into the backseat, leaning forward to drape his arms over the back of the front seats. He pulled a toothpick from between his teeth and grinned at Rand.
“Duncan, what are you doing here?” Noah nudged Rand’s shoulder.
“Change of plans.” Hector eased the car back out into the flow of traffic.
“Oh, yeah?”
“What can you tell us about working for Irene?”
Noah pushed his aviators up on top of his head, his pale green eyes searching Rand’s face.
“Irene’s…a character. What can I say?” Noah’s tone changed. He was leaving shit out.
“In your time working with her, did you ever get the feeling she wasn’t the only one in the know about your assignments?” Hector glanced in the rearview mirror.
“What are you trying to say? Spit it out.” Noah jabbed the air with his toothpick.
“Someone sold out another contractor.” Rand wouldn’t name names, but that much should be enough. In the scheme of things, the company cared about their own first, then their intelligence assets. Contractors like Noah and Rand rated farther down the totem pole. One could easily be subbed in for another in most cases.
“Shit. You think it’s the princess.” Noah shook his head. “Can’t say it would surprise me.”
“Why’s that?” Rand twisted to face Noah.
“Look, I always assumed it was just because she’s a woman, but it always seemed…I don’t know. Different. We never really gelled. She was pretty vicious. Cutthroat. People like that have priorities. Anyone else you think might be good for it? Gotta consider the whole playing field.”
“Ever worked with a guy named McConnel?” Rand asked.
“Can’t say that I have.”
“McConnel has been poking around. Seems that some of his old cases are under investigation.” Hector rounded the block and then turned, heading off in a new direction.
“What’s this McConnel’s deal?” Noah asked.
“His guy died because of the burned contractor,” Rand said before Hector could give too much away.
“Fuck. Okay, so the company’s got a mole.”
“Has to be. The Chinese found us way too fast last night.”
“The Chinese? Shit, man, you get the exciting jobs.” Noah’s upper lip curled. This white-collar gig had to chafe. Rand hoped it lasted the next ten years.
“Only Irene and I knew where you were and how to contact you,” Hector said.
“Sounds like the princess is on the take. So what are we going to do about it?” Noah grinned.
“Can you look into her?” Rand would put the same request to Andy, see what both men came back with. This was the other reason he didn’t want Sarah here. She still trusted Irene in a way that didn’t make sense. If he was going to sic Noah and Andy on her, Sarah had to be in the dark about it.
“Sure.” Noah shrugged. “That it?”
“No. What do you know about an auction happening at the Chinese embassy?”
“Intelligence auction. The uppers are in a tizzy over it because the Chinese are being tight-lipped about what they want to offload. Some people say it’s a con, others think it must be super legit if they’re so mum about it.”
Rand glanced at Hector. It made sense if the Chinese couldn’t access the intel, they’d off-load it to someone else to wash their hands of the blame. Turn a quick profit.
“I need you to get me into that auction,” Rand said.
“Shoot, that’s easy. One catch?”
Rand didn’t like the way Noah was grinning.
“I’m coming with you.”
Oh, fuck that.
…
Sarah’s head jerked up at the sound of the bell clattering against the door. The sun shining in through the front windows put the coffee shop patron in silhouette.
She sank down lower in her seat. She’d scored the tiny table at the very back of the shop in a corner but still felt too exposed.
The figure stepped farther in, bypassing the counter and heading straight for Sarah.
“Oh, thank God.” She sighed and slumped, knots of tension easing finally.
“You look like you could use that tea.” Irene sat in the seat closest to the wall, tilting her body. Probably so she could get a line of sight on the door, same reason Sarah had sat where she did.
“Want some?”
“No, thanks. How you been?” Irene’s gaze roved over Sarah’s face. “You sounded frazzled.”
“Because I am. What’s going on?” Sarah had so many questions, about Rand, what was happening, what had happened, why. She didn’t know where to start in the least.
“Take a deep breath. Maybe drink some water?”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” Sarah glared. She’d heard that enough from Rand.
“I’m not. It makes sense for you to be stressed. In your shoes, I’d probably be a lot worse.” Irene glanced toward the door, her gaze skipping over the patrons.
“Can we just destroy the case? Why isn’t that an option? Why can’t, I don’t know, the FBI take it back?”
“The contact protocols in that case are not written down or saved anywhere else. If we lose those, there are assets we will never get back. Some of these people? We don’t even know their real identities, how to contact them, where they are. If we lose the protocols, they’re gone. Permanently. We have to get that
case back, not only to protect the lives of our employees, but the people they’re working with.”
“Okay, so, can’t you send someone better equipped in to get it? Why us?”
Irene pressed her lips together and stared off toward the front of the shop.
Rand didn’t trust Irene, but she was the one person Sarah believed in. She couldn’t fathom Irene putting her in danger.
“If it didn’t have to be you, I’d have pulled you out by now. Hector…he has a bad track record and I don’t want you to end up as a statistic for his yearly review.”
“What are you saying? Can someone please just say what they mean?”
“Hector gets his people killed.”
That one sentence knocked the wind out of Sarah’s sails. Rand. He was one of Hector’s so-called people.
Was he at risk?
“Where were you? Why was there a tracking device in my arm? How did all of this happen?”
Irene studied Sarah’s face. It was always hard to figure out what Irene was thinking. Sarah had always liked her, though, for the straight talk, no second-guessing. Just business as usual.
“I believe we have more than just a mole. I think there are people within the company working against us, leaking information here and there. Seemingly insignificant pieces of intel that lead to catastrophic results. I think you’re the piece this time.”
“Oh, God.” Sarah cradled her face in her hands.
“That tracker? We have no record of it.”
“Then when? How?” If it wasn’t someone at the company, if it wasn’t Irene, who? She’d felt violated before, now…she was very close to being ill.
“I don’t know, but I’m working on it. There are those of us who are in your corner, but we have to be careful with who we can trust. I think—and this is just my suspicion—whoever is behind this wants the case destroyed. They don’t want us to have those contacts.”
“I’m no one, Irene. I’m nothing. I can’t do this. I’m not anyone special. I’m a delivery girl.”
“You’re brave, Sarah.” Irene sat forward, hands braced on the table. “You can do this.”
“How do I know who I can trust? How do I know if I can trust you? Where have you been?” The knot of fear in Sarah’s throat made it hard to breathe, hard to speak. She wanted to crawl under the table and cry herself to sleep. Maybe never wake up.
Irene opened and closed her mouth. The brightness behind her eyes dimmed a little and she stared at the table top.
Had Sarah just caught her in a lie? Could Irene explain where the hell she’d been? Why no one had been able to contact her?
“Give me a reason to trust you,” Sarah pleaded.
Irene glanced around, her brow lined, unfamiliar emotions crossing her face. She was always so…serene. So business-like. But under all of that was a real person, wasn’t there? Or was she like Rand said?
“It’s a funny thing, doing what we do. Being women in a men’s club.” Irene exhaled and slid her fingers over the table, tracing scratches some other patron had left. “My sister is all that I have left in this world. She’s very sick. There’s a new experimental treatment in Switzerland that might help her. After I met with you, I went home, put us both on a plane, and that’s where I’ve been. With Anna. Hoping for a miracle.”
“Oh, Irene…” Sarah’s heart ached. That was so sad, and so perfect. How did Sarah know Irene was telling her the truth?
“This is Anna.” Irene laid her phone on the table. “In the background, you can see the date.”
The whiteboard in the background and the digital clock placed Irene a continent away from the terror that had been Sarah’s Seoul experience. It could be fake, but it was an elaborate story.
“My biggest regret when my son died was not taking more time to grieve. To be with him at the end. When Anna’s sickness progressed, I told myself I would take all the time I could. I have lied about it. It’s personal, and in my job, as a woman, I can’t tend to my personal life the same way my male coworkers can.”
“How is she? Anna?” Sarah nodded. That she got. It was one reason why she loved working for Wishing Well.
“She had her first surgery and is in recovery. Time will tell.”
“I’m so sorry.” Sarah knew what it was like to sit vigil by someone’s bedside, praying they’d survive. She couldn’t imagine holding it together half as well as Irene was. “I hope she gets better.”
“Me, too.” Irene turned her phone facedown. “How about you? What are your plans now?”
“We met with some guy this morning who’s looking for information about an auction. Rand seems to think they’ll auction the case. He went to go meet with some other guy. White.”
Irene nodded.
“What should we do?” Sarah asked. “What can we do?”
“If your boy is talking to White…” Irene shook her head. “He’s a hotheaded adrenaline junkie, but he’s good in the field. I’d guess your friend is going to try to recover the case through the auction or during transit. It will be dangerous.”
“But no one but me can open the case, right?”
“That was our intention. If you were the only one who could open the case, you were the only one who could hand it off. Transporting sensitive packages is safer. But in the time we’ve been doing this, what kind of technology has been developed that might let them bypass the security measures?” Irene spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “It is my hope that yes, you are the only person who can safely open that case. As long as that’s true, our assets are alive and safe.”
Sarah chewed her lip. Irene had made much the same, helpless gesture when she’d approached Sarah about working for the CIA on the side. A year before, Irene had lost a number of assets due to a theft in transit. The documents and data stolen endangered lives and set back not just Irene’s work, but other agents as well. They’d proposed the courier job to Sarah, explaining that if they could make a transport device that only one person could access, it would eliminate some risk. So long as Sarah never came under scrutiny or garnered the wrong kind of attention, she could safely and discreetly transport packages all across Asia at low risk to their agents and assets.
It was why Irene had always gone to great lengths to keep Sarah away from any and all CIA employees. Charlie was, on the surface, a civilian, which was why they could work together without arousing suspicion. But not anymore.
Sarah’s cover was either blown, or soon would be. Her life was in danger, tied to that briefcase. She’d never thought it could come to this.
“Then why not hide me? Send a team to go in after it? Or why can’t the government tell them to give it back?” She was grasping at straws, hoping a solution would fall into their lap.
“I wish we could spirit you away, Sarah. I really wish we could. The truth is, we don’t know who we can trust, and that list seems to be getting shorter.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“Nothing certain yet. Just, we need you. You know the players, the language, and if we can get our hands on the case, we need you here to open it. We can’t admit that the case is a CIA courier device because that would mean admitting its existence, that we have people inside of China. That they stole it in South Korea could sway the voting there if people twisted the information how they wished. China could interpret our actions within their borders as an act of war on our part. The U.S. cannot have a war with China. We don’t know who we can trust.” She dug into her purse and pulled out what appeared to be a circular container of lip balm. “Which is why I brought you this. This is a camera. Twist it to the left, you expose the lens. If you get a chance, photograph the protocols, then destroy them. If our leaker thinks the intel is gone, then you’re safe. All of this goes away.”
“But the whole reason for them being in the case is so that there’s only one instance of them. No duplicates.”
“It’s not the best solution, but it is a way for us to get the protocols and put anyone who wants them off the
scent. The mole won’t know about this because the only ones who know are you and I.”
“Who do you think it is?”
“I don’t want to pin the blame on anyone yet.”
“But you have someone in mind. Is it Hector?”
“I can’t say.”
“Rand’s meeting with Hector now. What if…what if something happens?”
“You can’t think like that, Sarah. This mole, these people, they’re very careful about what they leak. I believe the only reason I’ve gotten this close is because I’ve been around long enough to see the trends. Most people move in and out of this department as a stepping stone to something else. I’ve stayed here. I know your feelings on this are complicated, but my best advice is to stay this course. Watch your back.”
“Is Rand involved?”
“I highly doubt that. So far he’s displayed a single-minded focus in keeping you safe. That”—Irene wagged her finger at Sarah—“is something no one could count on.”
“God, this is all so complicated.” She rubbed her hands over her face. A few days ago, her life was so easy. Without complications.
“I can imagine. You haven’t seen him in years, have you?”
“No.” Sarah propped her chin in her palms and let her gaze wander. The sun had risen a bit more so it wasn’t quite in her eyes.
“Be careful who you trust. Your friend—”
“We have to go.” Sarah focused on the car across the street and the binoculars pointed their way.
Irene rose smoothly, settling her coat on her shoulders. “Out the back door to the right,” she said.
Sarah nearly knocked her chair over in an effort to get to her feet. She recovered and slid into her coat.
“Man in a white car, binoculars.” Her knees practically shook.
Irene slid her hand through the crook of Sarah’s arm. “Never run unless you have to. It draws attention. Calmly, quietly, walk with me toward the bathroom.” Irene’s composure was a balm to Sarah’s frazzled nerves.
Together, they strolled down the short hall when Sarah wanted to bolt.
“Did you get a look at him at all?” Irene pushed the rear door to the coffee shop open, letting them out into an alley.
“No, nothing.”
Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes) Page 19