didn’t you answer my requests for more information once I had Sean back at the safe house?”
Macy frowned. “I didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet. I didn’t want to exchange too much information with you and tip my hand that I wasn’t really Dante. It was a tactical decision and one I regret. I had men watching you. Backup. But you gave them the slip, not to mention a slew of serious injuries.”
Brynn offered no apology, and Sean was glad. Macy had run her operation like most T-45 agents would—with maximum secrecy and minimum common sense.
In other words, by the seat of her damned pants.
“So while I was healing, you were trying to work out the rest of the code and figure out who took me.”
“I knew who took you the minute I figured out that Jayda was at the heart of the operation,” Macy replied. “The only people interested in her are the North Koreans.”
“They let her go a long time ago,” he argued.
“Not by choice,” Macy replied. “According to what I’ve learned from Abe’s notes, Jayda had acquired a valuable piece of information during one of her missions. She used it as a fail-safe that forced the North Koreans to let her defect. They had a simple deal: they let her live and she made sure her intel never got out, not to T-45 or, when she left the consortium, to her new bosses at the CIA.”
Sean’s ears rang as if someone had just knocked him in the head with a billy club. Jayda had never said anything to him about a fail-safe. And as far as he knew, he was the only person she would have trusted with information that could keep her alive.
But then, everything he knew about her had been a lie, hadn’t it? Or at the very least, half-truths.
“Who did she tell the secret to?” he asked. “Someone must have known in case the North Koreans eliminated her.”
“Abe,” Macy answered flatly.
“The head of an Agency kept that information to himself?”
Macy shrugged. “Abe wasn’t a typical bureaucrat. But in his position, no one could touch him. The information was safe. Once he died, though, all bets were off.”
“But now Jayda’s really dead,” Brynn insisted.
Macy slipped back into the file again, this time extracting a newspaper clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle. Sean scanned the article, stopping when he caught sight of the DMV photo of a woman who’d died in a freak accident.
A truck had plowed into a playground.
The name below the photo did not say Jayda Hai, but it didn’t have to. He’d know those eyes anywhere.
“So the secret died with her and Abe,” Sean concluded. “Why kidnap me?”
“Clearly, the North Koreans have reason to believe that the information has been passed to a third party.”
“What if Jayda faked her death again?” Brynn suggested, grabbing the newspaper. “This story could have been planted.”
“My contacts in California verified that she died at the scene. I’ve seen the autopsy photos. I didn’t know Jayda personally, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s her.”
“There are doubts in mine,” Sean insisted.
He didn’t want to see autopsy photos, but before he moved one step further in figuring out how he’d gotten from a street corner in the United States to a cave in the south of France, he had to be sure that the woman he’d loved, lost, then lost again was truly gone for good.
Macy took out the photos. She laid them face down on the table then scooped the baby out of the crib and crooned to her as she strolled to the other side of the room. On the video feed, Sean saw that Jarek had arrived at the scene of the ambush and was lifting one of the injured men into the Landrover.
Brynn slid in behind him and braced her hands on his shoulders. His instinct was to shrug her off, but he fought it, instead allowing the warmth of her hands to suffuse into his neck and shoulders. He’d never ask her to stand at his side like this, but he was grateful she was there.
He flipped the first
Macy frowned. “I didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet. I didn’t want to exchange too much information with you and tip my hand that I wasn’t really Dante. It was a tactical decision and one I regret. I had men watching you. Backup. But you gave them the slip, not to mention a slew of serious injuries.”
Brynn offered no apology, and Sean was glad. Macy had run her operation like most T-45 agents would—with maximum secrecy and minimum common sense.
In other words, by the seat of her damned pants.
“So while I was healing, you were trying to work out the rest of the code and figure out who took me.”
“I knew who took you the minute I figured out that Jayda was at the heart of the operation,” Macy replied. “The only people interested in her are the North Koreans.”
“They let her go a long time ago,” he argued.
“Not by choice,” Macy replied. “According to what I’ve learned from Abe’s notes, Jayda had acquired a valuable piece of information during one of her missions. She used it as a fail-safe that forced the North Koreans to let her defect. They had a simple deal: they let her live and she made sure her intel never got out, not to T-45 or, when she left the consortium, to her new bosses at the CIA.”
Sean’s ears rang as if someone had just knocked him in the head with a billy club. Jayda had never said anything to him about a fail-safe. And as far as he knew, he was the only person she would have trusted with information that could keep her alive.
But then, everything he knew about her had been a lie, hadn’t it? Or at the very least, half-truths.
“Who did she tell the secret to?” he asked. “Someone must have known in case the North Koreans eliminated her.”
“Abe,” Macy answered flatly.
“The head of an Agency kept that information to himself?”
Macy shrugged. “Abe wasn’t a typical bureaucrat. But in his position, no one could touch him. The information was safe. Once he died, though, all bets were off.”
“But now Jayda’s really dead,” Brynn insisted.
Macy slipped back into the file again, this time extracting a newspaper clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle. Sean scanned the article, stopping when he caught sight of the DMV photo of a woman who’d died in a freak accident.
A truck had plowed into a playground.
The name below the photo did not say Jayda Hai, but it didn’t have to. He’d know those eyes anywhere.
“So the secret died with her and Abe,” Sean concluded. “Why kidnap me?”
“Clearly, the North Koreans have reason to believe that the information has been passed to a third party.”
“What if Jayda faked her death again?” Brynn suggested, grabbing the newspaper. “This story could have been planted.”
“My contacts in California verified that she died at the scene. I’ve seen the autopsy photos. I didn’t know Jayda personally, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s her.”
“There are doubts in mine,” Sean insisted.
He didn’t want to see autopsy photos, but before he moved one step further in figuring out how he’d gotten from a street corner in the United States to a cave in the south of France, he had to be sure that the woman he’d loved, lost, then lost again was truly gone for good.
Macy took out the photos. She laid them face down on the table then scooped the baby out of the crib and crooned to her as she strolled to the other side of the room. On the video feed, Sean saw that Jarek had arrived at the scene of the ambush and was lifting one of the injured men into the Landrover.
Brynn slid in behind him and braced her hands on his shoulders. His instinct was to shrug her off, but he fought it, instead allowing the warmth of her hands to suffuse into his neck and shoulders. He’d never ask her to stand at his side like this, but he was grateful she was there.
He flipped the first
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