she drew in a deep breath. Was the blame game amongst them about to start?
“Because no one gave up the names,” Halle defended the team. “So, they needed the best of the best to track down these people for reasons unknown to us. Yet.”
“If it’s The Huntsman, he won’t kill the sources right away. He’ll keep them hidden somewhere for whoever hired him,” Kyle said a moment later after some of the tension in the room had eased up.
“They have valuable information. Access to money, technology, and intelligence.” Halle nodded in agreement. “Whoever is after our sources may first extract them for information, then offer them to whoever would be most interested. SVR, China, the Albanians, or Hamas. If they find out their spies turned on them and worked for the FBI, they’ll want them back.”
“For a price,” Griff added, eyes moving around the table again, still suspecting that someone at the table may be a traitor.
This entire situation wasn’t going to end well.
There was too much on the line.
Too much her ex-husband clearly already knew.
And she needed to get Porter on the phone ASAP.
“There’s been a development. The team has a lead on who may have gotten to Katya and possibly the others. It’s all one big mess over here. We need to talk. Please call me as soon as you get this.” Ana’s voicemail to Porter was brief, not wanting to leave too many details over his work phone.
The meeting with her team had lasted another hour before Ana could escape and make the urgent call. The task force had pored over case files, including digging up everything they knew about the Volkovs since Kyle firmly believed it was no coincidence a Volkov source had been targeted amongst the others. He’d even suggested the disappearances of their missing sources in California and Massachusetts were just to confuse the FBI and hide the fact that the true target was Katya, Ana’s source.
“You okay?”
Ana flinched at the sound of Kyle’s voice and slowly whirled around, lowering her phone to her side. “Trying to get a hold of our section chief.”
“Porter hasn’t checked in yet. Is that surprising?” He positioned a palm flat against the wall, effectively trapping her in the hallway. Her only other choice was to scurry into the bathroom.
“Last I heard from him, he was in the field with a special agent, but when he got in last night, Porter warned me the area doesn’t have the best cell service,” she lied, and how could she not? She had her orders.
“You and Porter sound close.”
Was Kyle jealous? Of her boss? She couldn’t deal with this right now. “Porter helped get me this new promotion. He’s really taken me under his wing.” Porter changed my life, but how can I explain?
“We should do dinner. Tonight.”
“Huh?” she blurted, surprised by his question given what was going on. And he wasn’t going to give up on regaining a footing back in her life, was he?
“We can make it a work meal. Discuss the missing sources. We used to be a great team,” he added.
Maybe dinner wouldn’t be so bad. She could peel back more layers about his work in Hungary with the Volkovs. It might help her shed some light on everything since he clearly knew a lot. Plus, she wanted to know exactly how he’d stumbled upon chatter about the hit against Katya.
“Dinner. Seven o’clock. My place, though,” she agreed.
“I’ll bring takeout.” He smiled, lowering his hand from the wall, a look of victory in his eyes and in the crook of his lips. “Unless you learned to cook since we were married?”
“No, I’m still a lousy chef.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she’d almost swear he was going to lean in and lay one on her cheek.
“Can I ask you something?” She couldn’t help herself. “Why didn’t you tell me your move to Budapest was temporary?”
He inched back a step, releasing his hold of her. “Would it have made a difference? Would you have come with me? Or tried long-distance while I was there?”
“I don’t think so,” she admitted. “Our marriage was over before the move.” A bit of honesty could go a long way.
He didn’t say anything, so she shifted the weight of her stance from right to left, left to right.
There’d never been any heat between them. No passion. Not on her side, at least. A cold fish for a fiery redhead, Kyle had said one night. His op had failed, and he’d returned home