And operatives like Kane would put their lives on the line even if they didn’t know the ultimate reason, because they trusted the person asking them to do so.

  But this man, she wouldn’t work an extra minute for him, though she would for those out in the field. Despite this man being a complete and utter asshole, she wouldn’t put Kane, Sherrie, or Thorn at risk, or any of the other assets involved, because of her personal feelings.

  So, she delivered her update.

  “We believe we’ve identified one of the people involved in the attack.”

  Wiltshire’s response wasn’t what she would have expected. His cheeks paled slightly, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as he closed his red eyes. “Who? Who is it?”

  She checked her tablet. “He’s former Spetsnaz. A retired colonel named Pavel Alexandrovich Borodin. We have footage of him boarding a Finnair flight to St. Petersburg less than half an hour ago. We’re running every face that got on that flight. We’re hoping to identify more.”

  “How can you be sure he’s involved?”

  “A man like that isn’t there by coincidence.”

  Wiltshire rapidly tapped a pencil on his desk back and forth between his fingers as he stared blankly. The pencil stopped. “I need you to halt what you’re doing.”

  Her jaw dropped as her eyes shot wide. “Sir?”

  “You heard me.”

  Her mind raced with the implications of the ridiculous order. Her stomach flipped with her words. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for that order in writing, sir.”

  Wiltshire glared at her. “What?”

  “Sir, you’re asking me to stop investigating who was behind the murder of ten of our agents, the attempted murder of several others, including the Chief, and the attempted murder of two of our agents just minutes ago after they landed at a classified airstrip. Sir, I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but if you want me to stop chasing down who killed all these American citizens serving their country, then you’re going to have to give me that order in writing, because no one’s ever going to believe me when they ask me why I stopped, because I guarantee somebody is going to ask before this is over, and it’s not going to be my head that rolls.”

  The pencil snapped. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  “I’m not asking for an explanation, I’m merely asking for the order you just gave to be provided in writing, as is my right.”

  His phone beeped on his desk.

  “You’re going to be late to that meeting, sir.”

  He jabbed at the phone. “Then I’ll be late!” He released the intercom button, glaring at her. “You’ll have your order. Now get out of my office.”

  She said nothing, instead turning on her heel and storming out. She grabbed the door, tempted to slam it shut behind her to make a statement, but controlled the urge. Something was going on here. None of this made sense. It was as if the Deputy Chief was intentionally hampering their investigation. First, he had forced Leroux to resign, the man most suited to successfully investigate what had happened. And now, he was cutting her off at the knees. If he didn’t allow them to identify who was involved, then what the hell was the point of doing anything?

  It had to be because of who they had identified. If the man were at all familiar with Borodin’s file, then he would know he’d been the Russian President’s fixer for the better part of a decade. And it could mean only one thing—that the Russian President had ordered the death of nearly a dozen American citizens, which could be interpreted as an act of war. She wasn’t privy to the same intel the Deputy Chief was. Someone may have briefed him earlier with instructions to compartmentalize even further, should they find proof the Russians were indeed behind the massacre.

  But none of that explained how the Russians knew about the meeting in Helsinki, and it certainly didn’t explain how they knew where to find Kane to attempt to kill him and Sherrie on their way back from the airport. Those events all screamed leaks. The Russians either had access to their communications, or there was a mole in the organization.

  She froze in the middle of the hallway, her hand darting to her chest with a horrifying thought.

  Deputy Chief Wiltshire, now the acting National Clandestine Services Chief for the CIA, the most powerful intelligence agency in the world, was a Russian mole.

  36 |

  Wiltshire Neighborhood Fairfax, Virginia

  Fang sat in Leroux’s vehicle, a tablet in her lap, out of sight from any passersby. She checked all the feeds of the cameras she had placed around the property, then confirmed the one device she believed would be the most important was working—a scanner that would identify any transmissions, whether Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, or others. It showed several dozen signals that Tommy would have to identify. She activated her comm. “Control, this is Arrow. Devices are in place. Confirm good signals, over.”

  “Arrow, this is Control. All devices reading five-by-five. Return to base, over.”

  “Roger that. Arrow, out.” She put the car in gear and did a shoulder check before pulling away from the curb. She switched the radio on, pairing the Bluetooth with the tablet so she could listen to the audio feeds.

  “When are you going to be home, Grandpa?” It was a child’s voice, and he was clearly upset, the sniffling and crying distorting the feed. She couldn’t hear a response, though whatever was said, had the child sobbing harder. “But I’m scared.”

  “Give me that,” interrupted a gruff voice. The child sobbed harder. “Put him back in his bedroom.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The conversation fell silent as the occupants vacated the room she had directed one of her laser sensors at, the sensitive device capable of reading the vibrations off the windowpane.

  She activated her comm. “Control, this is Arrow. Tell me you just heard that.”

  Leroux responded immediately. “Yes, we did, Arrow.”

  “This kind of puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it?”

  37 |

  Operations Center 3, CIA Headquarters Langley, Virginia

  Tong returned to her station in the Operations Center and checked her email. She slammed her fist on the console, causing all the equipment to rattle, startling the other two. The order halting their investigation was in her Inbox as promised.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Child.

  “Deputy Chief Wiltshire has ordered us to stop trying to identify who the hostiles are.”

  “Are you kidding me?” exclaimed Therrien. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “I agree.”

  “Why the hell would he do that?”

  She chewed her cheeks as she pursed her lips. “There’s a possibility that he’s been ordered to not prove the Russians actually killed so many Americans.”

  Therrien’s head bobbed slowly. “Yeah, I suppose that could make sense, but I’ve been thinking—”

  “Always dangerous,” commented Child.

  Therrien gave him the stink-eye. “How did they know about the meeting? How did they know where and when to hit Kane and White? I think we might—”

  Tong swiftly brought a finger to her lips, shaking her head.

  Therrien stopped, fear on his face as her actions seconded his musings. It was obvious he hadn’t taken his idea seriously until she had stopped him from vocalizing them, and his face paled as he slumped in his chair.

  Child didn’t pick up on what was going on, staring at both of them with increasing frustration. “Well, is somebody going to let me in on it?”

  “No,” snapped Tong.

  “Then what are we supposed to be doing if we can’t track down the hostiles?”

  Tong reread the email, a slight smile appearing. “Nothing in this order says we can’t continue to try to find where they took Thorn, who and where Red Eagle is, and what happened to the money. Until I hear otherwise, we keep doing our job, no matter what limitations are put on us.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Therrien.

  Child leaned forward and pointed at the display, four faces along with their CIA records shown. “What about them?”

  It took a moment before she realized Child had already identified four of the hostiles. She checked the email with the order yet again, and confirmed it indicated the team was to stop any attempts to identify, but it said nothing about not acting upon what they had already discovered. She turned toward her small team, smirking. “We find out where they went.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” echoed the two men as she returned to her station. She checked her watch and yawned. Technically, her shift was over, but in the middle of an op, she would never dream of leaving unless she was so tired she became a liability. She was exhausted, they all were, but it wasn’t from the number of hours they had put in, for that number was low. It was what had happened in the few hours since the operation had begun. It had been emotionally draining. So many people were dead, the Chief was fighting for his life, Thorn had been kidnapped, Leroux had been forced to resign, and Kane and Sherrie had returned for some obviously contrived reason, and had been attacked shortly after they disembarked from their plane.

  Something was going on, and it was more than bad management or a personal vendetta against the legacy the Chief had built. Wiltshire was doing everything he could to sabotage the operation, but it wasn’t just that. The question initially posed was how had the Russians known about the meeting, and the details of where and when it would take place? There had to be a leak, either technology-based or human. The Russians could have tapped their communications somehow, or there could be a mole. Both were possibilities, but from which end of things? CIA or Thorn?

  Yet Thorn couldn’t be blamed for what had just happened to Kane and Sherrie. Almost nobody knew who was on that flight, and even fewer knew it had turned around. None of that could have come from Thorn’s end, which meant if there were a leak, which she was convinced there was, it had to be coming from inside this building.

  And all indications suggested it was Wiltshire.

  No one else was attempting to hamper their investigation, and he would be privy to everything leaked. If it wasn’t a technological leak in which the Russians had somehow breached their internal communications, it had to be a human leak, and it had to be Wiltshire.

  She stared at the email with his inexplicable order. She considered herself intelligent, certainly above average, and if she had figured this out, then so had Leroux if he were thinking clearly. Kane’s plane had turned around, with the pilot indicating a computer failure that didn’t require an emergency landing, though he felt it wasn’t safe to continue across the Atlantic because of it. It was a perfectly reasonable explanation. However, there was one problem with it. Kane would have insisted they land at the closest airport so he could arrange alternative transport to get to Finland as quickly as possible. Every minute counted, and waiting for that flight to return, land, then cover the same airspace again on a replacement aircraft, didn’t make sense.

  He had to know. And if he knew, that meant Leroux knew. Who came up with the theory first was irrelevant. The fact was three of the people she trusted the most likely knew about the threat Wiltshire presented, and would be doing everything they could to stop him. The question now was how could she help them? Kane had his secret operations center that only a handful of people were aware of, and inside this building, she was the only one who knew of it. If she recalled correctly, the Chief was aware of the setup that Kane had, but had no clue as to its location. She was one of the few who knew, but she couldn’t leave her post to go and help them.

  And besides, they might need somebody on the inside.

  Kane and the others used an encryption app on their phones to communicate securely over public networks, but she didn’t have it installed. She couldn’t. Their phones were subject to regular examination, and they had decided her career shouldn’t be put at risk. Leroux was the primary point of contact. If Kane should need someone on the inside, such as her, Leroux could enlist her should it become necessary. But with him out, that was no longer possible.

  She needed to figure out a way to establish contact with them, yet couldn’t think of any way to do it where it wouldn’t be monitored. As the team lead, she would be expected to have regular communication with Kane and Sherrie as they were part of her op, but all those communications would be recorded, and possibly monitored. In fact, she had to count on them being monitored if Wiltshire were indeed a Russian mole.

  Yet she somehow had to let them know she was willing to do whatever needed to be done, including violating orders and protocols, for when it came to bringing down a mole, they were of no concern to her. She would do whatever it took to protect not only her country, but the people for whom she was responsible, and those for whom she cared.

  38 |

  Fairfax, Virginia

  “So, you guys have this?”

  Special Agent Brooklyn Tanner, leader of the CIA’s Echo Team, officially seconded to Homeland Security so they could operate on American soil, nodded at Kane. “We’ll take care of everything. You go do whatever it is you have to do.” She lowered her voice. “You heard what happened to Leroux?”

  Kane regarded her for a moment, unsure of what he should say, so instead answered the question with one of his own. “What did you hear?”

  “It’s spread like wildfire. Everyone’s talking about it at Langley. Apparently, Wiltshire gave him some sort of ultimatum or something in order to keep his job, so Leroux resigned. Is it true?”

  “It’s probably best I stay out of this.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.” She lowered her voice. “Listen, I’ve worked with Leroux in my ear. Something fishy is going on. That attack in Finland wasn’t a terrorist attack. I had friends assigned to that security detail, and now Wiltshire is acting Chief. That means Morrison was one of the victims.”

  “That’s quite the leap,” commented Kane, playing dumb.

  “It just makes sense. I’ve been in this business too long to believe in coincidence. And then this happens? How the hell did they know where you were going to be and when?” She lowered her voice even more. “I just want you to know that if you need anything, you can contact me.” She pressed a piece of paper into his hand.

  Kane regarded her for a moment. She had never given him any reason not to trust her, yet what he was now about to ask required a level of trust and familiarity that went far beyond a job well done. He took a chance. “When will you be back at Langley?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the scene. “We’re pretty much done here. Why?”

  He quickly jotted down an email address and an eight-digit code. “Do you know who Sonya Tong is?”

  “I’ve been in a couple of briefings with her, and she’s been in my ear before.”

  “She’s Leroux’s replacement.”

  She pointed at her earpiece. “I’m pretty sure she’s the Control Actual I’ve been listening to.”

  “She is. I want you to hand this to her personally.” He gave her the paper the same way she had.

  “Any instructions?” she asked as she surreptitiously tucked the paper inside one of the many pockets on her gear.

  Kane shook his head. “No. She’ll figure it out.”

  “Consider it done.” She leaned closer. “And like I said, if you need anything, you have my number.”

  He patted the pocket he had put it in. “Understood.”

  He joined Sherrie in the replacement vehicle that had arrived only minutes before, theirs already taken away on a flatbed covered by a tarp. The area had been contained, the Echo Team deployed by chopper arriving far faster than the local PD could in significant numbers. With their Homeland Security credentials, they had cleared the area. The vehicles involved were gone, as were the bodies, and any evidence of the firefight removed. Camera footage would be found and wiped over the next 24 hours, erasing the event from the record. They’d put out a cover story for the press, and then nothing more would be said about the event. With no evidence to the contrary, and no local families grieving lost loved ones, the story would be quickly forgotten.

  He sighed heavily as he sat back in the driver’s seat.

  “Are we good to go?” asked Sherrie.

  “Just give me a minute to decompress. I just took a chance that I hope doesn’t backfire on us.”

  Sherrie eyed him. “What do you mean?”

  He nodded toward Tanner. “She offered to help. She suspects something’s wrong.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing. I let her talk. Apparently, the whole Agency is talking about what happened to Chris, and the water coolers are abuzz with the fact that Wiltshire is now the acting chief while Morrison is still battling for his life. I get the sense that people aren’t too pleased with what’s going on, and some have their suspicions, including her.”

  “What’s this chance you took?”

  “I gave her a message for Sonya. We need to be able to communicate with her securely. When things go down, we might need inside help.”

  “Well, I have a feeling things are about to go down.”

  Kane’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  She handed him his earpiece. “A lot’s happened in the past five minutes.”

  His heart beat a little faster as he shoved his comm in place. “It’s me. What’s up, buddy?”

  “Fang just set up surveillance on Wiltshire’s residence, and we picked up some audio. Listen to this.”

  A recording of one side of a conversation with an upset child had his heart aching at the fear and despair in the little one’s voice. But it was the man who spoke next that turned it into a rage, and provided an explanation as to what might be going on here.

  Wiltshire was indeed the mole.

  Not for greed or betrayal, but because someone was blackmailing him.

  39 |

 

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