Compromised (15 page)

“Just for this week while we—” She choked a little, deliberately. “Until after his funeral.” She felt horrible lying to him, but if he suspected that the office had been officially shut down for who knew how long, he would never accept her package. “I managed to grab our last dip pouch before we locked up shop. But I spent the night at the hospital, so I thought it was best to try and find you here.”

“Of course, of course.” He took the pouch from her, checked that it was locked, and put it in his bag. “You'll let me know when I can come pick up from the office again?” he asked, hefting the bag to his shoulder.

“I'll telex Rome first thing,” she said with a weak smile.

He smiled with sympathy. “Chin up. As Churchill said, ‘If you're going through hell, keep going.'” He took her hand to shake it and squeezed it just a little as he let go.

He was so nice. People were so nice—it was such a shame she had to lie to all of them. She took a second in the busy terminal to watch all the passengers moving like ants in a farm, letting her mind wander. She had to come to terms with the fact that her whole life was going to be a lie. She would have to tell lies to every person that she met, that she kissed. Her mind fluttered to Simon for the fiftieth time that morning. He had lied to her when he first met her, and only when she accepted his proposal did he come clean about his clandestine job.

He was supposed to wait until they were actually married, but he didn't. She wondered why. And he couldn't have chosen better when it came to secrecy. She'd been born into secrets and lies, with her father embedded deep in the CIA before he became its director.

She should call her dad, let him know what was going on here; maybe he could send help. She'd definitely call him.

Okay, getting the thumb drive to Stephanie was the first thing on her list. Check. Second thing was to try to get into the office security system without her ID card so that she could watch the footage of whatever happened in the warehouse. Thank God Shaw didn't know anything about the warehouse; otherwise, he would have shut that down too. And third, she'd call her father.

The fourth thing on her list might be vodka. She'd wait to see how she felt.

As she sat on the Metro back to the city, she figured she should just break into the office rather than try to hack in remotely. It was a far more time-efficient way of handling her problem. Besides which, she could grab the go-bag items she'd hidden from Simon.

In any event, the front door to the offices was open. One of the other tenants must have left it ajar for some reason. Which only left her with the two doors actually into their office on the top floor. Shaw, or one of his people, had helpfully put up tape that said “contamination” in Greek. Could be fleas, could be radiation, but she guessed it was enough to keep all but the hard-core criminals at bay.

She picked the lock with no problems and retrieved what remained of her go bag and her illegal weapon from her locker. Thankfully no one seemed to have checked anyone's personal lockers. Probably thought they were all as benign as they probably should have been.

She went back into the actual office and stopped for a moment to look at all the loose wiring where the computers used to be. In the kitchen, she saw that the fuckers had also stolen Sebastian's own coffee machine. She dug her nails into her palms as she gazed at the space where his beloved contraption had been. Utter. Bastards.

They'd taken a bunch of other things that were clearly nothing to do with national security too. Maybe that was one of the perks of their jobs. One day, if she came across them again, she would do them wrong. She gritted her teeth in determination and to try to stop herself from crying.

A phone rang in the outer office, and for a second she didn't even recognize the sound. Then when she did, she poked her head out of the kitchen; still no one was there. It was the line to Devries Construction. She walked to her desk; her hand hesitated over the receiver, and she wondered if she was supposed to continue any of her work. It stopped ringing.

Reminded of her list, she hooked up her work computer to the cables on her desk. She clicked through to the remote server and found the location file for the cameras that she'd set up in the warehouse. She put in the time and date that she'd handed over the keys and watched.

First Platon and Stratigos with his three men went inside and did nothing but look around, nod, and shake hands. They passed out of view of one camera and into another. The wide bay doors at the back of the warehouse started to slide open as a huge ride-on dolly approached. It halted until the doors were open all the way and secured. Whoever was driving knew the protocol of delivering to warehouses. A local worker.

He brought in the delivery and they secured it, leaving it on the transport. She zoomed in, looking for some identifying feature. If she couldn't, she'd have to go back down there herself to see. There was none. No brand name on the plastic covering, no hint what it could be.

The phone clanged again, making her jump. It sounded totally different in the empty, sad office. She picked it up, playing receptionist; it was Platon.

She “picked up” the transferred call. “Inventory Management, how can I help you?”

“
Koukla mou
, how are you?”

“Fine, thank you,” she replied with a smile so wide that he was sure to hear it and believe she was happy to hear from him. “Why don't you call me on my cell phone anymore? We never get to speak in private nowadays.” She put a pout in her voice.

His voice tightened. “Stratigos took my cell phone with your number in it. He makes me use this phone because he likes to tape-record our calls. In case one of us gets, um, ‘unruly,' he calls it.”

“Is he listening in now?” She twirled the cord around her finger, wondering where he was going with all this.

“No,
koukla mou
, but I can't speak for long. Can you meet me later? Say, at about four?”

“Of course,” she said. “Usual place?”

“Yes. I will see you then. I've missed you.” His voice nearly cracked on the last word, before he hung up.

What in the world was going on? She wondered if she could trick him into exposing Stratigos's plan. He didn't sound as if he was working from an entirely stable emotional base, and she could probably leverage that in some way.

While she had the phone in her hand, she called her father. He wasn't usually comforting, but he was family, and she needed to hear a friendly voice. Well, friendly-ish. It was four a.m. in DC, so she called the house. He picked up immediately.

“Walker.”

“Dad, it's me,” she said, hoping he wouldn't ask, “Who?” as he'd done once or twice before.

“Sadie? To what do I owe this pleasure?” He rustled some papers, and she smiled. Typical that he'd already be working in the house at four a.m.

“I need some advice, I guess. No one's been able to find Director Lassiter—he's in Spain somewhere—but Sebastian Seeker had a heart attack at the office and died last night, and everyone else is out of the country. Mr. Shaw from the State Department shut the office down, and I still have an operation going. Oh, and Simon's here.” She sighed. It felt like she should just pack up and go home.

“Sadie,” he said. And then he chuckled. And then he laughed out loud.

“Daddy,” she admonished.

“I'm sorry, darling, but when you put it like that, it sounds like I unleashed a wrecking ball by putting you there.” He cleared his throat and stopped laughing. “What kind of operation?”

She filled him in on her gut feeling about Platon, and meeting Stratigos and how they pulled her into doing favors for them. She didn't really have anything else to say; it sounded a little weak, even to her. Despite everything, she should have at least had an idea about what they were planning.

“Sadie. I put you there for a reason. I knew this wasn't going to be an easy assignment, what with your idiot station chief and the G20 meeting coming up. I'm sorry about Seeker, and I confess I hadn't heard about Shaw, although that doesn't surprise me—State, and Shaw in particular, are always keen to shut us down for one reason or another. And, in the interests of full disclosure, Simon called me a couple of days ago, expressing concern that you were involved in something bad.” He snorted gently. “Of course, I couldn't tell him that was precisely why you were there.”

“You knew Director Lassiter was useless?” Layers of tension seemed to disappear now that she'd confided in him.

“Of course. I wasn't overjoyed at your acceptance into the field, but your test scores and appraisals were excellent. I had faith that you'd bloom wherever I sent you. But if I had sent you to a different city, where the local station chief was stellar, where there was little risk, and where the operation ran like a finely tuned mechanism, you would have stagnated for three years. You might not have realized it, but that kind of first assignment is difficult to climb out of if you want a career out there, away from Langley.”

His words put her four months into perspective in an instant. She wasn't making a rookie mistake with Platon; she
was
on to something. This wasn't the “soft” assignment her fellow trainees at The Farm had claimed. Her back straightened and her shoulders lost their tension like a dam being washed away.

“Thank you, Dad. I guess I better un-break into the office before anyone from the embassy finds me.”

“That's the spirit. I trust you to get this done. How many days until the president lands?”

She looked at the whiteboard that she'd last updated the day before. “Fifteen now.”

“Good, then I expect an update from you, soon. Use every resource you have at your disposal. That's the key to being a good operative.” He was silent for a moment. “You're doing well, Sadie. I suspect I haven't said that too often to you. But I'm proud of you.”

Unshed tears prickled behind her eyes. She was about to thank him, but he'd hung up. Which in itself was typical emotion avoidance from him. She looked at her watch, with a new sense of urgency and direction.

She had plenty of time to get back to the port and check the contents of the delivery Stratigos had put in the warehouse, and get back to shower before meeting Platon.

S
imon was staking out Sadie's apartment, splitting his attention between the photos that Garrett had sent him and the entrance to her building. He'd considered just waiting inside, but he didn't want to start this meeting with another argument, and from the tracker in her bag, he knew she was making her way back home.

Dammit—just when he'd been ready to reconcile, his mission had basically wrapped itself around her. Maybe the universe was telling him to back off. To pull the plug on this relationship and her and to move the fuck on. He couldn't afford to be blindsided by something because she was taking up so much of his concentration. Women fucked up the mission. They always did.

By the time he caught sight of her, it was nearly two in the afternoon. He was jumped up on the coffee he'd been mainlining in the café across from her apartment, and he'd totally convinced himself that getting involved with Sadie again was the worst idea.

Seeing her hustle up the steps did nothing to quell any of his feelings. She looked as if she was in a rush, had something to do. But what could she be in a hurry for with her office closed and nothing to do until her coworker's funeral? He wanted to shake her. What was she involved in?

He strode up to her door and knocked maybe more aggressively than the situation called for. She opened the door without looking.

“Simon! What are you—?”

He went in without being asked to. “Don't answer the door without looking to see who it is,” he demanded, realizing immediately that he'd gone off track before he'd even established a track to take.

She closed the door behind him with a puzzled look on her face. “There is no peephole. There rarely is in Europe. So I either open it without looking, or I never open my door. And if I did the latter, you would not be in here with that accusatory look on your face. Which I'm beginning to wish was the case.”

Suddenly he wished he had actual photos that he could throw on the bed and order her to look at. But those were the old days. Today he had to show her the photos on his phone, hoping the screen wouldn't go dark before he'd get a read on her expression.

“I have something I need you to look at,” he said, sitting awkwardly on the bed and putting in the password to his phone.

She remained standing, a quizzical look on her face. “Seriously? I'm in kind of a hurry. This couldn't wait until tonight? You said you wanted to talk then.”

“This couldn't wait.” He patted the bed with even more awkwardness. Damn—he was supposed to be in charge here and he was patting the bed like he was a teenager trying to persuade a girl to sit next to him. This wasn't going quite how he wanted it to. He needed to treat her like any suspect, not his ex.

“We need to talk now. So sit your ass down and look at these photos.”

She shot him a slightly amused look that tilted her lips in a way that shouldn't have been as distracting as it was. “Look.” He thrust the phone under her chin and swiped through the photos, careful to stop before she saw any of his personal ones. She pulled the phone down, away from her eyes a little, and watched again as he scrolled backward.

“I'm not sure who that is,” she said, pointing at Stamov. “I've never seen him before.”

“He's the Russian finance minister. Anatov Stamov.”

A wave of recognition passed over her face before she buttoned her expression back down into nothing more than interest. But he'd seen it—he was sure. “Tell me what you know.”

“I've heard of him, but I'm not sure I've ever seen him,” she said slowly.

Immediately, he knew what was happening. She was speaking slowly to give herself time to formulate an answer. At that sign, his heart plummeted. The part of him that wanted her so badly, who still loved her, fractured and fled his body.

“Do you know what he was doing with your boyfriend's ‘uncle'?” He used douchey air quotes because he couldn't help himself. He was furious with himself. He'd fallen for her, hook, line, and sinker, and now he wondered if that was always her plan. Always. Playing damsel in distress in Mumbai, trying to seduce him that first night. Maybe her daddy issues went so deep that she'd defected to another side. Maybe even the Russians. Goddamnit. He didn't have time for this.

“So you have no idea why your friend, the terrorist, would be meeting a Russian minister?” he asked with, he hoped, deceptive mildness.

“Well, when you put it like that, it does sound kind of bad. I'm about to go see his nephew, actually, so I can ask him about it if you like.”

He forced his lips into a smile and leaned in to nuzzle her neck. “I'd appreciate that.” He kissed her jawline and was gratified to hear her almost purr. Gratified and aroused.
Keep it together, Tennant
.

She turned and kissed him as naturally as if they had been together for years, and he lost himself in it. Remembered their relationship, their love, the feeling of peace he'd only ever had with her.

And then he handcuffed her to the bed with a wire cable tie.

“What the—?” she said in surprise. “I can't reach you from here.” And then her expression changed. “Oh. This isn't for sex, then?” A flush reached her cheeks as if she was embarrassed, and he felt a twinge of guilt.

“Not for sex. I'll be back here in a few hours to debrief you, before I turn you over to your father. He hoped he sounded more certain than he felt. Judging by her expression, he'd convinced her.

“You bastard! As soon as I get out of these, I'm going to call the police and have you arrested for lying, cheating, and being a foreign operative on their sovereign soil.” She crossed her legs and tipped her chin up. “You better hope I don't get to you before the police do.”

“You don't scare me, sweetheart. Not even a little.”

“And that only serves to show your stupidity. I feel sorry for you, really.”

“Well, thank you for your sympathy, Sadie. I can't wait to see your father explain to Congress what his daughter was doing, cavorting with terrorists.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I've never cavorted in my life. And I pity you even more if you bring my father into this. I'll even visit you in prison.” She clamped her mouth shut.

His temper was getting the best of him. Sadie and he had never argued, not once, and for the love of God it felt great to shout at her. To finally stop avoiding their real feelings. “Your father isn't that powerful, Sadie. I don't know what the Intelligence Committee would do if asked to choose between my boss, a very well-decorated, career military man, or a politician like your father, who has a terrorist for a daughter. Hmm. Let me think about that.” His voice lowered but gained in intensity. “They would fire your father's ass and give my boss another medal. So you are shit out of luck, sweetheart. You can sit there and be thankful I didn't wait until you were naked before securing you. Think about what you've done.” He opened the door and slammed it after him. Just the thought of her naked and handcuffed made his jeans tighten.

She's a traitor, dammit. Get your mind out of your pants
.

Sadie cursed at Simon as he left. She didn't give him the satisfaction of saying the words out loud, or yelling, or fighting, or screaming. She just wanted to kick him in the nuts and watch as he writhed in pain. She gave herself a moment to visualize that, and it calmed her as she knew it would.

But then she shrugged. He knew she was some kind of operative, and aside from the fact that he hurdled all sense and jumped to the conclusion that she was an enemy, he still left her only handcuffed with zip ties, which weren't impossible to get out of. Difficult, but not impossible.

Damn Simon. She looked at her bedside clock and saw she was already late to meet Platon. She lay back on the bed and tried to reach her go bag with her foot. She couldn't, but thankfully the bed frame wasn't attached to the floor. She dragged the bed, inch by painful inch, to where she could hook her foot around the strap of the bag and pull it to her.

Exhausted, she flopped back on the bed for a couple of seconds, her wrists aching from the pressure of pulling the bed with the restraints attached. After a few deep breaths, she jerked the bag up on top of the bed and emptied it with her feet. The last thing out was her key chain. In actuality, it was less of a key chain and more of a multitool. Corkscrew, bottle opener, thumb-pressure lights in green and red that could be used for Morse code messages, detachable chem lights, and a Swiss Army knife. Not one of those touristy ones with the scissors and nail file, but a hard-core sharp one. She moved it toward her hand so she could grab it and open it with her teeth. Then came the hard part.

Angling it downward toward her wrists, she could only make a small sawing motion with it. And every time she pressed down, the tip of the knife slid against her skin, making a graze at first and then a full-blown cut. A rivulet of blood was trickling down her arm.

Her fingers started cramping, and stretching them out lost the knife to the floor. She picked it up with her feet and started over. She looked at the clock again. She'd been working at this for an hour. She'd have to call Platon as soon as possible to let him know she was running late.

Except…
shit
. He'd taken her phone. It was only a burner phone, but still. Just one more thing to kick him in the junk for. Or something.

She went back to her knife. Her thumb and wrist sharply cramped as she sawed over and over. Not wanting to risk losing the knife again, she tried to push through the pain, mind over matter. In her mind she was in the temple to Poseidon that stood on a high cliff just a short bus ride away from Athens. As the waves folded in on the beach, then straightened and pulled back to the sea, she breathed in time with them and pressed with the knife, down for every wave. A small part of her brain registered the sting of the blade on her wrist, but with closed eyes she moved her brain past the pain and out to the sea.

She was deep into her visualization when her wrists suddenly moved. Her eyes flew open and saw that a full half of the tie had been cut. Carefully, she put the knife on the bed, maneuvered her feet so they were against the footboard where her hands were tied, and pulled her hands back and apart, yanking them with all her upper-body strength.

The ties snapped with a satisfying crack, leaving the outsides of her wrists as achy as the insides were cut. A flood of satisfaction rushed through her as she ran to the bathroom to run her hands and wrists under the cold faucet. It felt heavenly after the pressure and pain that had wrought hell on them.

Checking the clock again, she wondered if it was even worth going to find Platon. Except she really wanted to see if he would confide any more information about Stratigos's plans—assuming he even knew them. She slipped Band-Aids onto her cuts, pulled on a long-sleeved blouse, despite the heat, and turned back to the room. If Simon returned, she wanted it to look as if nothing had happened. She disposed of the remaining parts of the wrist ties, pulled the bed back to where it had been, and repacked her go bag into a different, slightly larger purse so there would be no evidence left in the apartment.

She stopped in her tracks for a moment and looked around the room. Was this how her life would always be? Hiding things from the people she cared about? Paranoid that she'd leave the wrong phone on the counter, that she'd have to explain an injury. She rubbed her wrist and paused. This was something she'd have to think about when all this was over. She'd chosen this life, and she'd recited an oath when she passed out of The Farm. So for now, she had a job to do.

The café where she'd agreed to meet Platon was busy, and for a minute she thought he'd already left. But on pushing farther inside, she found him with a half-empty drink in front of him, slumped against the wall with his eyes closed.

“Platon! Are you all right?” She took the seat next to him and pulled on his arm.

He roused and smiled. “You came,
koukla mou
. I thought you'd forgotten me.” He pressed his fist in front of his mouth, and for a second she thought he was going to throw up. But instead he suppressed a loud burp and then laughed. “Excuse me.” Except it came out as “essuzeme.”

Great. Now she wasn't going to get anything useful from him. “Do you want me to get you a taxi to take you home?” she asked, preparing to stand and look for a waiter.

“Noooo. I can't go home.” He put his finger in front of his mouth. “They're watching my apartment. Shhhhh.” He giggled and then drooped against the wall again.

Sadie was conflicted. She should ask the waiter for a coffee and water for him, but was there any other chance she could get more information from him first before he sobered up?

“What did you put in my warehouse, sweetie? Can you tell me?” She stroked his back in what she hoped was a comforting way.

“The C-4? I can't tell you about it. It's a secret. Shhhhhh,” he said again.

Her blood ran cold. If that's what that huge delivery was, it was enough C-4 to level an entire city block. Perhaps more. She pictured it piled high on the motorized dolly. Definitely more. Sweet Jesus, what were they planning on blowing up?

She adopted a scolding tone. “Platon, what in the world did Stratigos get you involved in?”

His head snapped up. And then he started laughing hysterically. People nearby started looking at them, and Sadie didn't need the scrutiny.

“Shh. Platon. You must keep your voice down.”

“Shhhhhhh,” he repeated, and then giggled. “Don't tell the Russians.”

Platon was clearly the worst person in the world to share a secret with.

“What can't we tell the Russians, sweetie?” She had to push this as far as she could.

“Stratigos hates them, but they have lots of money. They give him lots of money. I saw it. I got some!” Seriously, he was like a fourteen-year-old boy when he was drunk.