Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes)

by Bristol, Sidney

  “What’s our priority? If we can’t do both, what should we aim for?”

  “Sarah.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Positive. She’s not like us.”

  “She’s exactly like us, man. That’s the point.” Andy peered across the car at him. “She knew what she was signing up for. If our priority has to be the case, she’ll understand.”

  “I won’t.”

  Because that was the crux of it all. Somewhere between Seoul and D.C., Sarah had become the most important thing on his mental list. Maybe she’d always been there. Maybe he was just now realizing it. Now the only thing that mattered was getting Sarah back, with or without the briefcase. She just had to hold out a little while longer.

  …

  “What did you do?” Sarah’s strained voice reverberated off the metal. The last image of her brother pacing the living room was seared into her brain. “You killed them?” She stared at Wang Ping’s slack face.

  Whatever happened on the other end of that camera wasn’t supposed to. He turned his back on her and pressed the phone to his ear.

  “You killed them. I’m not telling you a goddamn thing.” She yanked against the zip ties holding her to the chair. “Do you hear me? You can burn in hell before I tell you a single fucking thing.”

  Matt. Emily. The kids. Mom. Dad. They were dead because of her. Because she’d thought she was doing this great, big thing. And all she was doing was playing in the deep end of a pool she couldn’t swim in. And for what? A paycheck and a pat on the head?

  A sob shook her.

  Ping’s muttered voice carried through the room. She sucked down a breath and held it to keep from uttering another noise. “Pick up the phone. Where are you?” Ping said.

  She twisted to try to see him. Was it Wei? She could only hope that he’d died, too. At least then the world would be a little safer.

  God, Jonah was going to be one soon. Or would have been. Now he’d never grow up. Matt wouldn’t get to be the football dad he’d always wanted to be. Jillian would never draw on the walls again, but even that was endearing. She was such a happy, boisterous child, always wanting to make others smile. Just like Emily. They brought life and love everywhere they went.

  And now, they were gone. Sarah slumped forward, the grief still too new to sink in.

  A pair of black leather boots were there that hadn’t been before. She lifted her gaze, staring up at Wei watching her. She hadn’t even heard him come in.

  “Your family is fine. You do your part.” He slid the pen and paper toward her.

  Anger slowly began to bubble up inside of her. These people didn’t bat an eyelash at killing something so pure, so good as a child. All they wanted was…what? A few names? Some secrets?

  “I can’t really do anything.” She lifted her hands as far as they would go and wiggled her fingers.

  “The code?” Wei lifted the pen.

  “You know it’s biometric, right? I can give you the codes, but without my cooperation, you can’t access the case.” Of course, they could drug her, knock her out, and then they wouldn’t need her to play nice.

  “You can’t fake your thumbprint, but you can key in the wrong code.”

  God, she hoped Andy killed the son of a bitch someday. Maybe not now, or tomorrow, but someday she hoped Andy made good on his claim to put Wei down.

  “Fine. Ready?” She ran her tongue over her lip. They had no way of knowing if she was telling them the truth. It was a catch-22. They needed her to tell them the real codes, but they had no bargaining power now. Nothing to ensure she was telling them the truth.

  Wei picked up the pen.

  “T.I.K.C.U.S. Before noon, it’s reversed, so you’ll have to flip it.”

  Wei’s brows drew down.

  How good was his English?

  His head snapped up, and his lip curled.

  Yeah, that’s right. Suck it. “I will never tell you the codes.” She glared right back.

  Before this moment, she hadn’t had faith that she could withstand their worst, but now she could. The burst of light that’d erupted on one side of the camera before the signal cut out was enough to tell her that the worst had happened. Someone had screwed up. Her family was dead because of her and Ping had no leverage on her. She’d die before she gave them what they wanted.

  Wei stalked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Her hands shook and the anger left her cold, empty inside. This was all her fault. Because of her, her family had paid the ultimate price. Now, if it was the last thing she did, she wanted to see Ping and Wei pay. She wanted them to go down, no matter what.

  She twisted her hands and dragged the zip tie binding her wrists to the front of her chair back and forth. It might take time, but she would break through the thing and then, well, they shouldn’t have left her in the room with the briefcase alone.

  She still had Irene’s camera.

  The best-case scenario she could see was getting free, snapping the pictures, then destroying the contents.

  After that, Rand wouldn’t need to come after her. Everyone that mattered would be safe. They’d have the protocols, the country, and the world could go on in bliss, and she…would likely die. But at this rate, that was what she deserved.

  Now she understood Rand’s drive, the push that kept him going because the innocents depended on him. His family and hers survived because he kept his distance.

  Had his North Korean assets ever made it out of the country? Were they safe? What about their children?

  She hadn’t thought to ask, and now she’d never know.

  Footsteps thumped, coming closer.

  “Shit,” she muttered. Sarah relaxed her arms and sat back, blowing her hair out of her face.

  The door opened and both men returned, this time with a third. They must have had reinforcements somewhere as backup because these were not the bureaucrats she was familiar with. This man, like the others who’d handled her transport, were professionals. It was evident in the way they moved, how they followed orders, even the cool way they stared at her.

  “Put her in the cell for now.” Ping’s gaze was cool, detached.

  Wei pulled out a knife and stepped toward her. His gaze traveled from head to toe. He seemed to be considering where to put the knife first.

  Sarah forced herself to stare back. To show as little fear as she could.

  That man would enjoy killing her. There was no doubt in her soul that he took joy in that sort of thing. It was in the depths of his eyes, the way he clenched his fists. When he came for her, it would hurt. A lot. But she’d rather die than tell them the codes now.

  He leaned forward and sliced through the tie binding her wrists to the chair. The thicker, plastic restraints were still around her wrists, but she was free of the chair.

  Wei grabbed her by the back of her jacket and hauled her to her feet. Her legs were still a touch rubbery. She fell forward, bracing her hands on the table.

  The briefcase was so close. She could—

  Wei shoved her at the third man. He didn’t speak; he merely grasped her by the shoulders and marched her out of the room. The vibrations of her shoes hitting the metal felt weird against her feet. Her jeans were too abrasive. The sounds echoing in the ship were too loud.

  Her family was dead.

  It was all too sudden. It hardly felt real. But she’d seen the blast. The flash of light. It wasn’t like the cameras would catch the blaze, the carnage. The signal would go out when the blast happened more than likely.

  Someone might have survived.

  But the living room, it was right over the place where the camera had been focused on the gas line.

  Everyone had been in the living room.

  They wouldn’t stand a chance with a blast from below.

  The man shoved her through a door. Her foot caught on the lip sticking up from the ground and she pitched forward into the semi-darkness, landing hard on her hands and knees. She brief
ly considered getting up, but what was the point?

  Sarah sat down on her bottom, pulling her knees up to her chest, and looped her arms around them, burying her face.

  In the beginning, it’d been so simple. Do a good thing for minimal effort. No danger. No risk. She’d never questioned the self defense classes or the need to learn to shoot. Yeah, she’d gone through minimal training because she was technically a CIA employee, but it didn’t seem to mean much.

  They’d said her role wouldn’t pose a danger to her family. That she’d be helping keep them safe.

  Now, because of her, they were dead.

  Her chest ached, it was hard to draw breath. She choked down air, the sob wracking her body.

  All she wanted to do was curl up on her side and cry herself to death. If she died…they couldn’t open the case. The biometric sensor would require her exact heat reading.

  By the time they figured out she ran cooler than most people, they’d have likely cooked her entirely.

  Sarah laughed at this crazy, weird place she’d wound up. She wasn’t fighting for her life, she was thinking about dying. As if it were a foregone conclusion. The her of twelve hours ago would still be fighting. But that version of herself had basked in her brother’s presence and gotten to laugh with her best friend while the man she loved looked on, part of her life. Now, she didn’t have any of that.

  Rand couldn’t come for her. They both couldn’t die.

  “Hello?” a rasping, broken voice called out.

  Sarah slapped a hand over her mouth, muting her hysterical sobs. She wasn’t alone.

  “Is—is someone there?” That voice…it was almost familiar.

  “Who are you?” Sarah pushed to her feet. It was well and good to get a kick out of her own fate, but the world didn’t revolve around her. There were still bigger fish to fry, other ways of getting that the Chinese wanted.

  She edged deeper into the room.

  There were three windows giving some light to the room. It was still mostly shadow and darkness.

  She went forward slowly, her danger sense ringing.

  Something wasn’t right. Part of her brain knew that voice. It didn’t sound like Rand.

  Andy? The other guy, Noah? Hector?Mitch?

  She peered around a room divider and gasped.

  Sitting hunched in a pool of light was the broken, battered body of a man. Even in the dim light, she could make out darker splotches of color, bruises, wounds. He stared up at her from one eye, the other swollen shut. Parts of his face were recognizable, the others swollen and disfigured.

  “Sarah?” He blinked at her.

  “Charlie? Oh my God, Charlie!” Sarah went to her knees but stopped short of touching the man. Looking at him hurt. She couldn’t imagine what kind of pain he must be in. “They said you were dead.”

  “I wish I was.” He wheezed, though maybe it was supposed to be a laugh.

  “What happened? Everyone thinks you died.”

  “They jumped me on the way to our meet.” He dropped his head back against the partition, as if his head was too heavy.

  “Oh, Charlie, I’m so sorry.”

  “Have you told them?”

  “Told them what?”

  “About the case?”

  “They have it.”

  “Fuck.” He closed his eyes. “Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

  Sarah recounted her steps from picking up the briefcase to her missed drop in Seoul. She ran through the highlight of the days since then, though they were all blurring together in her head.

  “Your handler thinks we have a mole?”

  “Yes. I promise you, Charlie, I had no idea.”

  “I know you didn’t. You did your job.” He reached out with his hand and patted hers.

  “They don’t have you tied up?”

  “I’m not in any real shape to go anywhere.” He barked a laugh. It sounded painful, as though things were knocking around inside of him that weren’t supposed to touch.

  “What are we going to do?” She chewed her lip. Should she tell him? “Irene said they wouldn’t send a team in after us, that we’re on our own.”

  “You think your friend will try?”

  “Maybe.” She glanced toward the door. “Is there any chance we could, I don’t know, try to escape?”

  “We won’t get far.”

  “We don’t have to get away.”

  “What are you thinking of doing?” Charlie peered up at her.

  “Irene gave me a mini camera. If I could get out of here and back to the briefcase, I could snap pictures of everything, then destroy the protocols.”

  “They’d kill us.”

  “Aren’t we already dead?”

  And shouldn’t their deaths mean something?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Irene would never have guessed a knife wound could hurt this bad, but it did. She ached from her head to her toes. Likely because of the surgery. Damn knife had nicked something when Wei stabbed her.

  When all of this was over, she was taking a vacation. A real one. With her sister.

  Anna would be okay. The doctors in Switzerland thought the surgery and subsequent procedure to shrink the tumors would be successful. It was a miracle. The good news Irene needed to keep going.

  “Turn here.” She guided Carol into the parking garage attached to a fancy condo building.

  Mitch always did have extravagant tastes. Who knew the guy was practically an heir to fortune and glory?

  Why the hell was a guy like him working for the CIA? The rumors about him turning his back on a budding political career made so much more sense now that Irene knew who—and what—he really was.

  Everyone had their secrets, just not ones quite this big.

  Carol parked her car in a guest spot on the first floor. Irene used Carol’s phone to dial Mitch’s cell. Chances were he was fast asleep, or up pacing.

  “Hello?” The gravel voice sounded a lot like she felt.

  “Mitch. It’s Irene. We need to talk.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “I need to see your email. Now.”

  “Why? Aren’t you in the hospital? Shouldn’t you be resting?”

  “I checked myself out. Cooperate with me, and I’ll tell you why.”

  “Dammit, what’s going on?”

  “I need to see your email.”

  “Fine. I’ll bring it by in the morning.”

  Irene nodded at Carol and she cut the engine. Irene climbed up out of the car, feeling more and more weary with each step.

  “You sound like you’ve been drinking,” she said.

  “Like you wouldn’t if they’d let you. It’s all going to hell, Irene. This is going to destroy us.”

  “What us?”

  “Us. You. Me. The company. What’s going on is criminal. This should never have happened. We don’t know who we can trust anymore. Can I even trust you?”

  Irene and Carol entered the building through the garage entrance. Mitch kept talking, his paranoia about everything going wrong spinning more and more of the bigger story.

  He wasn’t the mole they’d pegged him for, but Irene was pretty sure someone was using Mitch, pinning the blame on him.

  They took the elevator up a few floors and got out.

  “Mitch? Mitch, stop talking for a minute and open your door.” Irene scanned the door numbers.

  “What?” He breathed into the phone.

  “Open your door.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’ve got to get to the bottom of this before anyone else dies.”

  A door three down swung open on silent hinges and Mitch stepped out. He stared at her with bloodshot eyes and a bottle of what looked like spiced rum in his hand. His shirt was partially un-tucked with a few buttons gaping open.

  Irene plodded forward, feeling weary in every fiber of her body.

  “In.” She took the bottle from Mitch’s hand. “You’ve already met Carol.”

&nbs
p; “Yes.” Mitch backed up, his gaze bouncing from Irene to Carol then the booze, over and over again.

  “Your email, Mitch.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I want to prove you’re as innocent as I think you are.” Irene placed her hand on her service weapon. She’d always thought Mitch was up to something, and she dearly wanted him to prove her wrong. That she could trust him. They all needed a friend in this.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  Irene nodded at Carol.

  “I’ve been analyzing the data, what goes wrong with who, why.” Carol stood a little straighter. It took a lot of nerve to accuse a career federal officer of being a party to a crime. “A large percent of the information linked to the instances I’ve identified passed through your hands.”

  Mitch stared at them, his mouth open. His gaze flip-flopped between them, the booze forgotten. He dragged a hand through his hair, then scrubbed the side of his face.

  Was he looking for a weapon? A way out? This could still go badly for them.

  “Fuck,” he said at last and sank into an armchair. “I thought, I thought it was all in my head. That I was, I don’t know, cursed or something.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone?” Irene asked.

  “I didn’t know who to tell. Charlie and I… We realized something was going wrong, that no one should be that much ahead of us. But who do you trust? Who do you tell?” He spread his hands.

  “Mr. McConnel, can I see your email, please?” Carol asked.

  “What’s that going to tell you?”

  “I…um…” Carol shifted her weight from foot to foot.

  “Carol used to be a hacker. I asked her to dig around, look for something wrong.” Irene crossed to the sofa and sat down.

  It wasn’t Mitch. He might have secrets, but they weren’t this.

  “Dig around on me?” He glanced from Carol to Irene.

  “Yes, on you.” Irene eased back into the cushions.

  Mitch got up and retrieved his phone from the small kitchen.

  “Mr. McConnel—”

  “Mitch, please.”

  “I want you to change your password. Normally, you have to go through a security reset, but I’m going in remotely to trigger the system to prompt you.” Carol perched on the other end of the sofa, laptop on her knees.