“Flynn, it isn’t about the old man, and it isn’t about hiring a new cook. It’s a business idea I want to run by you.”
“Yeah? What?”
“I want to turn part of the Roaring Fork into a dude ranch.”
“Seriously?” I couldn’t contain my smile.
“What do you think?”
“It’s an amazing idea.”
“We don’t have a lot goin’ for us right now. We’d need to renovate some of the old cabins and get the North Fork barn fixed up. About the only thing we do have that’s working is the food.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean what do I mean?”
“What about the food?”
He cocked his head. “It’s really fucking good, Flynn.”
I felt my cheeks flush, and my eyes opened wide. “Do you think so?”
“Hell, Flynn, everyone thinks so. Word with the cowboys is that the Roaring Fork Ranch has the best food in the valley.”
“You’re playing with me.”
“Hey, Port, get in here.”
Our older brother walked around the corner. “What?”
“Which was your favorite dinner this week?”
Porter rubbed his chin. “That’s tough. They were all good.”
“Yeah, but what’s your favorite?”
Porter sat down in one of the living room chairs. “The enchiladas were pretty damn good, but then again, the bison chili was about the best I’ve ever had.”
“The best you ever had?” I said under my breath.
“Shit, Flynn, everything you make is the best I’ve ever had.” Porter studied me. “Why do you look so shocked?”
“You’ve never said anything.”
“That isn’t true,” both he and Cord said at the same time.
“You’re always too busy telling us how if you added this or that ingredient, it would’ve been better, instead of listening when we tell you how good whatever you made was.”
“I don’t do that.”
Holt came out of his bedroom and leaned his guitar against the wall. “Yeah, you do. You can’t take a compliment for shit.”
I looked between my three brothers. “I thought you were just being nice.”
“Nice? When have you ever known a Wheaton to be nice?” said Porter, messing up my hair. “You’re a damn fine cook, Flynn, and Cord is right. That’s about all this dude ranch idea has goin’ for it.”
I really couldn’t believe everything my brothers were saying. As much as I tried not to smile, I couldn’t help myself.
Cord flipped Porter off, and Holt picked up his guitar and started strumming, while I sat back in my chair, too stunned to get up and go to bed.
“You wanna hear more of my ideas?” asked Cord, sitting down next to me.
“Um, sure.”
I tried to listen, but I really wasn’t. All I could hear echoing in my head was my brother saying that everything I made was the best he’d ever had.
Cord had been rambling on for about ten minutes when Porter returned and sat down. “Here’s the other thing we’re thinkin’ about.” He handed me a piece of paper.
“Roughstock contracting?”
“Yeah, you know, raisin’ bulls and broncs for rodeos? Other stuff too.”
“Wow.”
“You think it’s a good idea?”
“I don’t know, Port. It sounds like it could be.”
“See?” he said to Cord. “It’ll work, I’m tellin’ you.”
Was he telling him because I said it sounded like a good idea? Since when did anyone care what I thought about anything?
“She’s tired. You should let her go to bed,” said Holt, setting his guitar down. He looked over at Cord. “And if you think this dude ranch idea is a good one, maybe you should get your ass up tomorrow and get in that kitchen and help her.”
“I can do that.”
When I came out of my bedroom the next morning, Cord was sitting at the dining room table, waiting for me. “Want some coffee?” he asked.
I poured a cup and added cream and sugar to it.
“I’ve been thinking about buying a smoker. We could do ribs and brisket, maybe even make our own sausage. It could be like our signature thing.”
“That sounds really good, Cord.”
He beamed at me.
Two hours later, I was on my way to school, feeling more lighthearted than I had maybe in my whole life. So when Janine Nick tried to trip me between first and second period, I hauled off and punched her in the gut.
Mrs. Mancuso saw the whole thing too, yet when Janine asked if she was going to write me up and send me to the office, our science teacher told her the only thing she saw was Janine trying to trip me.
They might call me a heifer, but Janine and everyone else would soon learn that I had the strength of a goddamn bull.
9
Irish
Washington, DC, to New York, New York
Two Years Ago
When I almost lost my life a third time, in an inexplicable ambush—the second of its kind that took place in Beijing—both Cope and I decided we needed to step up our efforts.
“There’s a mole,” I said. “Someone is feeding information to the Chinese government, and it’s getting agents killed.”
“By someone, do you mean inside the agency?”
“Yes.”
“I agree.”
“It’s someone high up, Cope.”
“I believe it is.”
“Within the agency, or do you think it’s broader than that?” After Agent Kilbourne’s mission ended with a dead CIA director and a number of high-ranking government officials either in prison or on their way there, I wouldn’t rule anything out.
“Broader, definitely. I’m going to ask you something outright, and I’ll warn you, you aren’t going to like it.”
“What?”
“Are you absolutely certain you want to continue this mission?”
I was incredulous. How could he even ask?
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do? So why’d you bother?”
Cope stood, grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and handed it to me. “Because it’s you risking your life, Irish. I sit behind a desk.”
“If someone finds out about our investigation, do you think I’d be the only one they kill?”
“No, but—”
“There’s your answer. It’s your neck too, Cope. You want to back out, go right ahead. I’ll continue with or without you.”
Two days later, Cope asked that we meet at one of our off-site locations. When I sat down at the bistro table across from him, he handed me an envelope.
“Dr. Emerson Charles. Research analyst and political strategist with MIT’s International Policy Program.” I looked up at him. “What about her?”
“One of the world’s foremost experts on China.”
I kept reading. The stated objective was to recruit the doctor as a CIA asset. The reason the agency was fast-tracking the mission was because MI6 had expressed an interest in doing the same.
“Do you know who they’re sending in?” I asked.
“Saint.”
I rolled my eyes. It was sometimes hard to believe Niven St. Thomas, code name Saint, was still employed by any intelligence agency, let alone SIS. Word was, he was the least effective operative with MI6, unless the qualifier was bedding women. In that case, rumor was he was a pro.
As I finished reading the brief on Dr. Charles’ background, I couldn’t help but grow more curious about MI6’s choice of Saint. What I read indicated the woman’s intelligence quotient was well above genius level. The photos of her in the file weren’t unattractive. She was no beauty queen-type, but something told me she would see right through seduction.
“I have approval to send you in with a stated objective of asset acquisition. Your cover is research assistant to Dr. Charles. You will have access to every point of information she has amassed on China in every conc
eivable category, whether political, economic, or militaristic.”
“When do I start?”
“Two weeks.”
I’d been at MIT, working with Dr. Charles, for over eight months when Cope scheduled an urgent meeting. Since it was a holiday weekend, I offered to come to DC. Instead, we settled on New York City and agreed to meet at Frankie and Johnnie’s Steakhouse on Thirty-seventh.
Over two T-bones, Cope read me in on a man named Adam Benjamin.
“Officially, he’s a British diplomat. He’s also an MI6 asset. If you think Dr. Charles has strong opinions in regard to China, this guy has her beat by a mile. Especially when it comes to Hong Kong.”
I thumbed through Benjamin’s file. As a world-renowned expert on China, he’d been the first to suggest MI6 recruit Emme as an asset, believing that in her, he’d found a comrade in arms. With him as a policy influencer for the UK and her a policy writer for the US, they’d make a formidable team. They were equally impassioned about the threat China posed not just to our two countries, but to the world.
I knew, from the many conversations she and I had had, what loomed great in her mind was the idea that China had become a “systemic rival” to the world’s superpowers, one whose economic power and political influence had grown with unprecedented scale and speed.
What I hadn’t been able to share with her but weighed just as heavily deep in my soul, was their apparent systematic annihilation of some of the best agents and operatives in the intelligence world.
“Benjamin has requested a meeting with Dr. Charles later this week. Be sure to sit in on it.”
“That ought to be mind-numbingly exciting.”
He chuckled. “Try not to nod off.”
It felt good to laugh, even if it was fleeting. This mission had taken most of the joy out of both of our lives. Even when I was on another mission, I was thinking about this one. I occasionally went out to bars, but the conversations I got into with women either depressed or frustrated me. While there was a possibility they led lives more interesting than their stories indicated, I hadn’t met one yet that produced a spark.
In bars, that was. I felt sparks on a daily basis, but with the one woman I knew I shouldn’t think about that way—Dr. Charles. Being around Emme, as she insisted I call her, was like spending every day basking in the heat of the sun.
The woman was brilliant, of course, but with quirks I found beguiling. I smiled more when I was in her presence than I had since before I was recruited by the agency. Even Cope had noticed the change in my demeanor.
“Don’t get attached,” he warned me when we walked out of the restaurant’s elevator and out onto the bustling streets of New York.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dr. Charles.”
While I scowled at him, I heeded his warning. As much as Emme intrigued me, I knew he was right.
10
Irish
Cambridge, Massachusetts
August of the Preceding Year
I left the meeting with Emme and Dr. Benjamin feeling unsettled. There was something about the man that didn’t add up for me. Every instinct told me to proceed with caution in a way that was illogical, particularly given the man’s appearance.
A single word could be used to describe him—disheveled. His hair, his clothes, even his shoes looked as though they were long beyond their useful life. The glasses he wore were held together by yellowed tape, his dress shirt was wrinkled, and there appeared to be a stain on the sweater he likely wore seven days a week.
His attire wouldn’t be the focus of the brief I’d give Cope once our meeting concluded, though. Instead, it would be about what could only be described as his obsession with the conflict between Hong Kong and China.
I’d read his dossier; the man had never lived in Hong Kong, didn’t have family members who did, and according to MI6, spent only occasional time there. Yet his passions equated those of someone whose family had lived there for several generations. He spoke of the huge protest marches and street battles, where Chinese police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, and live fire, with what felt to me like an inappropriate level of emotional intensity.
I sensed Emme’s similar discomfort as she attempted several times to bring the conversation back around to what she believed to be the main reason for the meeting—China as it related to the rest of the world, not just Hong Kong. When that seemed impossible, she asked me how much time we had left before our next meeting that afternoon. While we didn’t have any others scheduled, I told her we’d need to wrap things up within fifteen minutes or we’d be late.
After walking Dr. Benjamin out of the building, I went to the parking garage and called Cope.
“The guy is borderline certifiable,” I told him.
“In what way?”
I explained the extremity of the man’s views and that I was certain Emme had picked up on it as well.
“You should get Saint’s take on it,” he suggested.
As much as I didn’t want to engage the MI6 agent, I knew Cope was right.
The meeting between Saint and me lasted all of ten minutes. It took longer to order our beer at the bar we’d agreed to meet at than to get his response to my questions about Dr. Benjamin.
“He’s harmless,” said Saint, taking a sip of his pint. “One would think a CIA agent would have the proper intuition to make that determination.”
I finished my beer and walked out before I gave in to the temptation to throat punch him.
I hadn’t been at my apartment long when Cope called me.
“We have a problem with Dr. Benjamin.”
Given my reaction to the man, Cope’s news came as no surprise. “What?”
“He made contact with McTiernan to alert him of a potential mole at MIT—in international policy. Someone he believes, as we do, is feeding information to the Chinese.”
That surprised me. Someone I hadn’t found suspicious myself? How was this a problem? “At MIT?”
“No guesses?”
I took a deep breath. There were times Cope reminded me of a child.
“Nobody?”
“Get to the fucking point, Copeland.”
“You.”
“You’re kidding.”
His tone changed from playful to serious. “No. I’m not.”
“Interesting.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“We use this to our advantage.”
“How so?” he asked.
“Keeping the heat on me might give the real mole a false sense of being in the clear.”
“How do you want to proceed?”
“Stay the course, Cope.”
It had been a week since the meeting between Dr. Benjamin, Emme, and me, along with the call from Cope about the man’s suspicions that I was a mole. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew him from somewhere. He looked so damned familiar, and yet I couldn’t place him. I’d spent hours scouring for every image of him I could find, and still, nothing registered.
Close to dawn, I bolted up in bed, drenched in sweat, realizing, perhaps in a dream, where I recognized him from. He’d been one of the men on the street corner in Hong Kong that night when Dingo, 337, and Julius were gunned down.
“There’s something I need to tell you about Dr. Benjamin,” I said to Cope when I called him at a little after six in the morning.
“I already know.” He sounded as though he’d been up for hours.
“You do? How?”
“I got a call from Money McTiernan.”
It dawned on me that even though Cope and I were talking about the same man, it was about different subjects.
“What did McTiernan tell you?” I asked.
“Benjamin’s and Saint’s last known whereabouts were in Hong Kong. They’ve both been missing for five days. Zero contact.”
“No shit?” I muttered, not intending to say it out loud.
“What were you going to tell me?”
/>
“I realized where I recognized him from. That night, also in Hong Kong, I’d swear he was one of the men I saw standing on the street corner. Remember? I told you about them.”
“No shit?” Cope repeated. “Are you certain?”
“Not one hundred percent but damn near. The man has a very distinctive look.” It wasn’t as though I could see details from a distance that night. It was more the way he carried himself.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.
“When am I not?”
“Best way to remove attention from yourself is to point it in someone else’s direction.”
“You said Saint is missing as well.”
“He accompanied the doctor to Hong Kong.”
“Were you aware he intended to?” I asked.
“I was not.”
“Good morning, Emme,” I said a few days later, before turning to Lynx, the man I’d been alerted was being sent in by MI6 to lead the search for Saint and Dr. Benjamin. “This must be Mr. Edgemon. I’m Paxon Warrick.” I held out my hand, and he shook it.
“Emerson,” I heard him say, wondering why he mumbled a name she rarely used.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Do you need a few moments before our meeting?”
“Um…sure,” she answered. “How did you know my…never mind. I’m sure it was in Dr. Benjamin’s notes.” My guess was she was about to ask how he knew her first name was actually Emerson, but decided against it.
“I’ll show our guest to the conference room,” I offered.
“Wait. Were you aware we were meeting with Mr. Edgemon instead of Dr. Benjamin?” she asked me.
“I was.”
Emme looked puzzled, and I wondered if she’d asked why I hadn’t shared that information with her.
“I received an email. I assumed you did too,” I said, hoping that would be enough of an explanation.
“Hmm,” she murmured, picking up her bags and walking in the direction of her office.
Irished (The Invincibles Book 7) Page 3