Chapter 47

Koenig sighed. ‘What are you doing, Jen?'

‘My job,' Draper replied. ‘Your orders were to track her down. I have different orders.'

‘Which are?'

‘To evaluate the threat, then eliminate that threat.'

‘And what's your code name – Double-O Dork? Licence to overreact.'

‘Back off, Koenig,' Draper said. ‘I'm in charge now.'

‘Put the gun down, Jen.'

Draper ignored him. ‘What's the Acacia Avenue Protocol?' she said.

‘It's classified,' Jane Doe said.

‘I have clearance.'

‘Not for this. No one does.'

Draper thumbed back the hammer. Cocked it. Unnecessary on any modern semiautomatic. More a statement of escalation. ‘What's the Acacia Avenue Protocol?' she said again.

Jane Doe ignored her. ‘You're being remarkably calm, Mr Koenig,' she said.

‘That's because I know she's not going to shoot.'

‘You don't know shit, Koenig!' Draper snapped. ‘Some of the stuff I've done in the past, this'll barely register.'

‘Take it from someone who doesn't like you,' Koenig said. ‘You're not that person any more.'

‘It's all right for you,' she said, her voice suddenly flat and cold. ‘You and your white-knight syndrome, floating through life having your little adventures. You're a toddler with a machine gun, Koenig. You don't answer to anyone. But I answer to someone. I answer to my country, and I answer to my employees.'

‘You were never a goose-stepping jackboot, Jen. It's why the CIA booted you out.' He took a moment, then added, ‘So please, put down the gun.'

Draper didn't.

‘You're not going to shoot her, Jen,' Koenig said.

‘If she doesn't tell me what I need to know, then you bet your ass I'm going to shoot her.'

Still Jane Doe said nothing. And still Draper didn't fire.

Margaret cleared her throat. ‘Yoo-hoo,' she said. ‘This appears to be an equation without a solution. Miss Draper has her instructions, but so does my friend. Neither seem able to budge.'

‘But you do have a solution?' Koenig said.

Margaret turned to Jane Doe. ‘Do you trust this man?'

After a beat, Jane Doe nodded. ‘I do.'

‘Then tell him,' Margaret said. ‘Not everything, but enough so Mrs Angry doesn't shoot you. The protocol's become a festering wound; we need to get some sunlight on it. And quite frankly, we could do with the help.'

‘Take the win, Jen,' Koenig said. ‘Lower the SIG.'

Draper did. She looked relieved.

‘Talk,' Koenig said to Jane Doe.

She nodded. Decision made. ‘My name is Elizabeth Carlyle,' she said. ‘And I took an oath to protect my country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.'

‘So did we,' Koenig said.

‘But what do you do when the enemy is within? What do you do when you become the very thing you've spent your entire life fighting?'