Chapter 10

10

KING

I ’d been away from Stella for a fucking month, and it was killing me.

But at least we had shit to show for it.

Joseph and I had code words that were just between the two of us in case an operation went to hell. Similar to a word that a parent would give a child so that they would know a person was safe for them to interact with.

Wizard had scoured the dark web for nearly two weeks before finding evidence of the code word in a phishing email sent to a defunct address. The email had been set up on a public server with no evidence leading back to anyone and was quickly disabled. But any messages sent to the address were bounced to a server where they were stored indefinitely.

The code word he’d used told me that he was alive and underground. Most importantly, he wasn’t being held by the enemy.

Once we’d handled the situation within The Company, Wizard would get a message back to him that would let him know he was in the clear. Until then, he would remain invisible.

Weston and Alex Shaw had concocted a plan for me to “rejoin” the CIA. I went through the proper channels so that nothing led back to the director, and we could pretend we’d never met. It was imperative that the traitors thought they could get away with taking me out without getting the attention of the head of the CIA.

He researched and watched from his end so that we could narrow down suspects from the top and bottom, hopefully meeting in the middle at the same person.

The story for my return was that I’d regretted leaving after taking out Trailblazer and felt it was my duty to come back to the fold. As a former operative who had received countless commendations—not that anyone outside The Company knew about them—and a reputation for getting shit done with as few casualties as possible, my request to work in the Directorate of Operations, overseeing undercover agents and covert missions, made sense.

It was unlikely that the buck stopped with any of the mission centers or field offices. Someone had to be high enough in the food chain to access the information collected for a NOC list.

I would subtly look into questionable operations and hint to people that I felt Trailblazer hadn’t been working alone. If everything went to plan, then I would be given a special assignment and asked to reactivate as an operative for one “off the books” mission. The ball should already be rolling to burn me, and the notice would go out while I was in the field, with word being sent to the higher-ups only after it was issued. There would be plenty of evidence that there had been no time to go through channels before I betrayed the operation and got people killed.

After a week in the office, I’d opened an untraceable backdoor to let Wizard into the system. He watched for suspicious money trails that would come down the line to case officers, analysts, or specialists.

The call had finally come twenty-four hours ago. My superior asked me to meet with him, where he laid out all kinds of patriotic bullshit to convince me to take on this onetime operation.

It had been obvious that he was reading from a playbook and was a little bewildered as to why he was issuing this order. This meant he was being used as a tool and, despite being a trained intelligence officer, was clueless to his own involvement in the conspiracy.

I put Wizard on the trail to find where the directive had come from, but so far, he hadn’t been able to unravel the convoluted chain.

He’d been passing the financials off to Ace, who was doing some forensic accounting magic. Through the money trail, he’d confirmed that my boss wasn’t in on the scheme. Somehow, it was trickling down to a case officer and an operative who were completing sales of operative names from the field.

“You know what to do when you reach the safe house?” Weston asked me for the third time. We’d met up for “coffee” so he could give me some information passed along from Alex Shaw before I went dark.

I was leaving for Switzerland in a few hours. The impartial country had popped up in our records as a possible place for the handoffs, and when I found out it was where my op would go down, we knew we were on the right track.

I nodded.

“And you memorized the numbers and codes Justice gave you?”

My eyes narrowed in annoyance, but again, I nodded.

“And you?—”

“Stop fucking treating me like this is my first time in the field, Davis,” I growled. “It’s been a while, but I spent eight fucking years leading operations. I know what I’m doing.”

He blew out a breath and ran his hand through his hair. “I know, but you’re not the one who will have to face your badass woman if you die.”

I smirked. “Yeah, Stella would kick your ass. Probably put you in traction for the rest of your life.”

Weston’s scowl was deadly. “And then my wife would be fucking pissed, King.”

I winced. “Okay, yeah, feeding you to two she-wolves would be a truly fucked-up thing for me to do.”

“Exactly, so watch your ass and come home in one fucking piece.” He passed me a sheet of paper with three names scribbled on it. “These are your contacts. And these two”—he tapped each name—“have received unexplainable lump sums in offshore accounts that Ace and Wizard traced back to them.”

I memorized the names and other pertinent information, then passed the paper back to Weston so he could destroy it.

“Number two has a familial connection to someone in your directorate, but it’s a stretch to connect those dots into stepping stones for the sale of the list. Number three has no connections to anyone in any of the directorates or higher departments. Not family, friends, or even six degrees to Kevin fucking Bacon, which is why he is most likely your man.”

“I’ll be in touch,” I muttered as I stood, then I gave him a chin lift and exited the diner, heading straight to the airport.

I entered a boring building with no distinguishable features almost nine hours later. Inside the safe house, I dropped my bag onto an unmemorable couch and glanced around a living room decorated in an everyday, typical style. Anyone trying to tell someone about it would basically be describing what every other house in the world looked like.

“ W?chter .”

A man with dirty-blond hair and pale-green eyes walked out of the back room, greeting me by my code name in German.

I was familiar with everyone connected to this op, so I knew this was Andres Weiss, code name—Shepherd.

“ Schafhirte. Schon, Sie kennenzulernen ,” I replied. “Am I the first to arrive?”

He shook his head. “But Pilot and Centurion arrived only hours ago. Olsen”—Pilot’s alias for this op—“is meeting up for coffee with the asset.”

Olsen’s part in setting up the op had been to create a trail between himself and a local girl. It looked like they’d been flirting online, and he’d come to meet her in person. Gail was our asset, an operative we’d had in place for three years as a secretary in a security company, which in this case meant arms dealing.

Intel had pegged them as mercenaries, and there was an “official” mission directive although the op was technically off the books. My job was to ferret out the person who was in possession of the list and who the person or persons who would be purchasing it were. From our research, the “security” company was the most likely buyer.

“I assume Larson”—Centurion’s alias—“is setting up surveillance?”

Shepherd—who was going by Daniel for this mission—nodded. “If everything goes to plan, we’ll pick up the target tonight and set things in motion.”

Which meant they’d be snatching a high-value employee to hold for ransom. “Great. And the asset?” It was my job to extract her and get her to safety.

Since Olsen was most likely our traitor, the director specifically picked him to be the one involved with Gail. If the snatch-and-grab was successful, he would stay with her until I took over her safety.

The worst part of operations was the waiting. Sometimes it took weeks of sitting around a safe house before taking action. At least this time, it was only a matter of hours.

I was drinking my third cup of coffee when Olsen walked into the safe house. Frowning, I waited until the soundproof door was shut and locked before I growled, “What the fuck are you doing here? Where’s Sariah?” I asked, referring to “Gail” by her real name.

Olsen shrugged. “Said she needed to go do some shopping or some shit and would meet me later for dinner.”

I was pissed as fuck that he’d broken protocol, but that wasn’t what was setting off warning signs in my head. “Have you heard from Daniel?”

Olsen shook his head.

Daniel had left to grab us some food half an hour ago, and the microscopic tracker I’d put on the back of his neck had clocked him at the market and was now moving back in the direction of the safe house. But there was a tiny possibility that he’d found it and was buying time by making it look like he was still in the area.

“And Larson?”

Olson’s head tilted as he shot me a confused look. “Sitting on surveillance, I’d guess.”

Something didn’t smell right.

“I need a shower, but let me know when Daniel’s back with the food. I’m fucking starving,” I muttered before dumping my coffee mug in the sink and heading to the bathroom.

After turning on the shower, I removed a flesh-colored patch of silicone from the side of my ribs, revealing a small device that worked similar to a cell phone. It only sent and received encrypted messages, and even though it was supposedly undetectable, I wouldn’t have used it if this wasn’t an emergency.

I shot off a text to Alex, asking him if we had any chatter about a relationship between Centurion and Gail. Then I replaced the device and hopped into the shower.

There was a knock on the bathroom door before it opened, and someone stuck their head inside. “ Ich bin zurück mit dem Essen ,” Daniel called out, letting me know he was back with the food.

I grunted an acknowledgment in German, and the door quickly shut with a click. A tiny prick poked at my side, and I hopped out of the shower, drying off before I once again revealed the small device.

Müller not Centurion.

Fuck!

Müller was the mercenary target. How had we missed that shit?

Money tracks. Found source. Get out.

That wasn’t fucking happening.

Not until it’s done.

I put the communicator away and dressed, then strolled out to the front room.

“Olsen, call Gail and tell her the timeline has been pushed an hour and the pickup will happen on the opposite side of the street. Then tell her you’ll meet her at the corner across the street from the original meet.”

Both operatives frowned at me, but neither argued since this was my op. Olsen made the call, and I sent word to Centurion through an untraceable cell to pull surveillance and get his ass back to the safe house.

Staring hard at Olson, I asked, “Do we have any other assets in Zürich?” There were two. I was testing him.

“Ja. One with Kantonspolizei, and the other is a banking clerk.”

It was a good sign that Olson had been honest. It gave credence to my suspicions that he wasn’t our man.

Grabbing paper and pen, I wrote down an address and passed it to Daniel. “Get word to the banking employee to meet me there in an hour.”

“What’s—” Daniel began to ask, but I interrupted him while putting on my jacket to conceal my firearm.

“Just do it. And don’t leave this place until I get back.”

I didn’t wait for them to argue before stalking out the door. It was twilight, and the farmhouse was on a hill, so the city lights sparkled below us, but I didn’t even notice as I yanked open the door to a nondescript sedan and slid into the driver’s seat.

It took twenty minutes to arrive at the bank—a different branch than the one our operative worked at. I slid into a parking spot, shut off the engine, and waited.

Less than five minutes later, the mission target walked out of the bank and hurried down the street. In another ten minutes, Gail came around the corner and glanced around before slipping into the building. It wasn’t long before she reemerged and wandered back around the corner, disappearing from view.

A few minutes before my scheduled meetup with the bank clerk, he walked out of the building and looked around before heading in the same direction I’d seen the target go.

I was about to start the car up again when a man strolling down the street caught my eye. He was wearing a cantonal police uniform, but it wasn’t the operative from my research.

What the fuck? It couldn’t be.

Then he veered over to my window and rapped one knuckle against it. “Sir, steigen Sie aus dem Auto ,” he said, ordering me to exit the vehicle.

I rolled down the window and glared at him. “I’m not going to take orders from an off-duty cop,” I snapped.

He glared at me, then pulled out his weapon and pointed it at my forehead. “ Rücken .”

Staring at the gun as if I was afraid, I swallowed hard and scooted over so he could get into the car.

“Going to fucking kill you, Wayfarer,” I grumbled when we were both inside.

“’Bout fucking time you got here, Guardian,” he snapped. Then he started the car and pulled out of the spot before giving me a concerned glance. “Stella?”

“Safe and sound at my club’s compound,” I assured him.

His shoulders slumped in relief. Then he was all business again. “I take it you’ve figured out this fucking mess?”

I nodded. “I don’t know how Gail kept her relationship with Müller a secret.”

“She wouldn’t have if her contact in DC hadn’t been covering for her.”

“And the clerk? He’s in on it?”

Joseph shook his head. “Idiot doesn’t even know he’s being played.”

“Gail is sleeping with him, too,” I surmised.

“Bitch gets around, that’s for sure.”

I felt another ping in my side and lifted my shirt to get to the communication device.

Burn notice issued. OIG. Identified, not contained.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “The asshole is from the Office of the Inspector General.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” my friend growled. “Explains how they’ve been burning people on the sly.”

“Justice says they know who it is, but they haven’t let him know they’re on to him yet.”

“He’d call off the trade.”

“Here we go,” I muttered.

Joseph and I were officially on our own. Luckily, we were both damn good at our jobs because the next several hours were a clusterfuck that ended up with only one of us shot and the traitors taken care of.

“Stella is going to kick my ass,” I grumbled as I worked on the bullet wound in Joseph’s thigh.

“It’s a fucking flesh wound.” He tossed out the movie quote to lighten the mood, but he couldn’t hold back his grunt of pain as I extracted the bullet from inside his leg.

“Yeah, that won’t stop her from blaming me for letting you get shot.”

Joseph chuckled. “Stella my bella has the big, bad biker shaking in his boots? That’s my girl. Bet she was a handful to protect. I owe you, Connor.”

I stayed silent, figuring it wasn’t the right time to tell him that she was more to me than the daughter of a friend who I’d sworn to protect.

Hopefully, our extraction would be there any minute, avoiding further conversation on the topic of Stella and me. I finished patching up the hole in his leg just as we heard the whomp whomp whomp of helicopter propellers.

We weren’t in danger from the co-conspirators anymore. In fact, Gail and the bank clerk were dead, and Müller was being transported to a CIA black site for interrogation. But it would take time to have the burn notices on Joseph and me retracted. Which meant every intelligence, military, and police force in the world had us on their “no-fly” list…for lack of a better term. So I was relieved as fuck when I spotted the chopper approaching with a familiar face in the pilot’s seat.

Weston landed the bird, and I helped Joseph across the field and up into the back.

“It’s done?” I yelled as I climbed into the co-pilot seat.

Weston nodded and handed me a pair of headphones.

“Justice shut it down, and the motherfuckers are in custody.” He glanced at my empty hands and raised an eyebrow. “Where is it?”

I took off my boot and showed him the bottom, where remnants of an electronic item had clearly been smashed to bits.

“There’s gonna be hell to pay for not bringing it back with you,” Weston said, grinning.

“What are they gonna do? Fire me?”

I’d just saved their asses by making a loud mess so that the CIA could claim that the conspiracy went no further than the assets in Switzerland. Plus, Joseph and I had planted evidence and shit that made it appear as if the NOC list had been a fabrication and the shit show had been all about money.

Weston laughed as he took the chopper up into the air. “Maybe you’ll get another nonexistent commendation.”

Awards given to employees of the CIA were celebrated in a small ceremony, then the certificate or pin or whatever was kept in a vault on-site and there was only an internal record of the award.

“Don’t give a fuck what The Company does as long as the burn notice disappears. I’m going back to my girl and leaving all this shit behind for good.” I wasn’t opposed to using the situation to my advantage, though. “Instead, you can make sure her job offer is rescinded.”

“Consider it done.”

Joseph had put on a pair of headphones as well, and I heard his low chuckle. “King got himself a woman? Never thought I’d see the day when you dropped your guard enough to find someone who’d put up with your grumpy-as-fuck ass.”

Weston shot me an amused glance, and I glared at him, daring him to say anything.

“Never thought I’d see the day when you got your ass chewed out by a little thing like Stella.”

Joseph laughed. “Now that you’ve met her, you understand.”

“I do,” I murmured. “I can’t wait to see what happens when you tell her about your next assignment.”

“Nope,” Joseph sighed. “I’m done.” Then he pointed at me and glared. “And Stella is never to know about me getting shot.”

Thinking about how happy that would make my girl, and the shit he was getting me out of by keeping his wound a secret, I muttered, “Thank fuck for that.”