to disband it altogether? Was Northam sent in for that reason? Maybe he was the sacrificial lamb, sent to slaughter a program that was no longer politically advantageous for someone higher up the foodchain than he was.”
His lips quirked again. “We think alike.”
“Is the agency in jeopardy then? Is your job on the line?” She was so caught up in his story, she’d momentarily lost sight of the fact that they hadn’t even begun to discuss where CJ fell into this tangled web, much less why Tate had been brought back into it, or who was trying to stop Derek. More disturbing was the dawning realization that, somehow, all of it was tied together. Which made her heart begin to pound.
Because if it wasn’t simply a mission gone bad, with the possibility of a rogue agent, thought to be dead, still alive and perhaps working against their interests…if this went higher than that—way higher, from the way Derek was talking—rotting from the inside out, then whatever it was he’d gotten her tangled up in was far, far more dangerous than even she’d dared to imagine. And, with her past experiences, she didn’t have to work too hard to imagine the worst.
“I don’t know where I stand with my job,” he said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. By the time I set out to do reconnaissance on you, I had figured out that something wasn’t quite kosher with our agency’s chain of command, and given our dwindling number of cases, and slowly disintegrating track record, I thought it was only a matter of time before I was replaced, but no one had actually broached the subject. Northam wasn’t threatening me with it, anyway. Which was also a red flag. They should have been all over me for underperformance and the dip in our success ratio.”
“So, what do you know now that you didn’t know then?”
“When I left, I was running this mission, regarding CJ, completely covertly.” He held her gaze. “Even from my own team. It’s why I’m here, and no one else.”
Her eyes widened, truly shocked now. “Are you saying you’re here unsanctioned? You’re rogue?”
“I wasn’t certain what I had, what in the hell it involved. All I initially had was a coded message from someone claiming to be CJ.”
“You didn’t tell anyone? Why? Because the agency was looking bad, and telling them, ‘ooops, we really didn’t lose an agent three years ago and now maybe she’s working for the other side,’ would make you look bad? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Because it isn’t me. And no, that had nothing to do with it. My gut was—is—telling me something’s off inside our agency, and I’ve done my own digging, trust me, but I can’t figure it out. I trust my immediate team, but I don’t trust command. Certainly not Northam. I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever the hell it is, it’s not on the up-and-up. We’re floundering, then out of the blue I get intel, intel that came to me outside of channels, containing information only a very, very limited number of people would know about. In fact, that number would be two. One, if you still counted the fact that CJ was no longer alive.”
“Me,” she said quietly, a chill creeping down her spine. “You thought I sent you false intel on CJ? That’s crazy.”
“A lot of things are crazy. And I didn’t know what to think. Your story about seeing CJ die was pretty damn convincing and, after all this time, I saw no reason to believe otherwise. Except, there was this coded message.”
“Purporting to be from her? Or, you thought possibly from me?”
“I believe now it was from her, but I had to know, find out, verify, whatever I could. Too many things aren’t adding up to go into this bizarre, sudden revelation without my eyes fully open to every possible contingency.”
Tate slumped back, rubbed her temples. “But you’d heard direct from me that I saw her dead with my own eyes.”
“Exactly. And…add in the things that aren’t adding up, I had no idea what to think. I didn’t know if it was some kind of trap, designed to catch me in something that would discredit me. Because Northam is doing a fine job of that, all on his own, with his singular ability to destroy everything we’ve ever accomplished.”
“So you came out here to check me out, see what was what, before telling anybody.” She folded her arms. “You did plan on telling somebody, at some point.”
“That, or determine it was some kind of hoax and set it aside completely. But I needed to know more before I decided who to trust with it, if anyone. I needed to validate the transmission.”
Tate hugged herself and let the latest volley of information sink in. She hated what he’d done to her life, but, from his perspective, she began to see where he’d had little or no choice in the matter.
“If I came out here, and couldn’t determine any active connection between you and your former partner, I’d have gone away and you’d never have known. Nor would my agency. I took a risk in coming in on this myself, for going solo, outside of channels without sanction.”
“Are you saying it was an altruistic gesture? To protect me?”
“It served both purposes, but believe it or not, my intent was to protect your privacy at all costs, unless you gave me a reason to do otherwise.” He held her gaze. “I gave you my word. And that still means something to me.”
She nodded, taking it all in, but still having a hard time processing all the levels of it. Then her head shot up as she recalled something he’d said when she’d first dragged him inside her cabin. “Wait a minute. You said you communicated with CJ. You made it sound like you’d talked to her, or had some kind of direct give-and-take. Not just some coded, third-party message. Was that the drugs making you hallucinate?”
He shook his head. “No. I have communicated with her, in a manner of speaking.”
“So, then…you believe it’s her. She’s truly alive.”
“Yes, Tate. I do believe it now. Now that I’ve been here, I don’t think it’s all some elaborate hoax.” Derek lifted his good hand toward her. “She’s alive.”
Tate merely looked at his outstretched offer of solace, then back at his face. “What did she say?”
“I only had five seconds with her direct, live time.”
“In person?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t be here if I’d actually had her in front of me. It was a satellite voice transmission, via my laptop.”
“How long ago?”
“The day before I left to come out here to watch you. I believed it, believed her, but only to a point. I had to know for sure. Too many things still don’t add up.”
Tate’s heart was drumming so fast now, she had to fight to keep from pressing her hand against her chest to keep it from pounding straight out. “What did she say?”
“She gave me the code word that I developed for you two on your last mission together. That was never debriefed, because it was—”
“A code you developed for us, outside channels, if we ever needed to reach you outside protocol.”
“Right. Only you, me, and CJ knew that code.”
She
