felt responsible for what happened. The earthquake, although terrible, was a way for us to finish the op and recover Angar Said.”
“Brilliant. Just brilliant.” He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, not sure why he was feeling hurt that she hadn’t confided in him. They didn’t have a relationship. He made sure of that. But in Paraguay she had been an instant advantage on the playing field, an instant leveler when the odds were against them, and she had covered their backs as easily as if she were one of their team. “But we lost him, and that put Fast Lane in the brass’s crosshairs.”
“I’m sorry, Dodger, but I couldn’t tell anyone. You know what it’s like being undercover and handling classified missions.”
“Yeah, I’m aware.” He pushed off the wall and her eyes tracked him. He couldn’t hide the anger. Damn, he hated to even think about people shooting at her, not to mention the amount of danger any CIA operative was subject to in the field. Max was going to have a freaking hard-core nuclear meltdown. “What now?” he asked, knowing that there was no help for it.
She had to be safe before he was leaving her side. The pressure of walking off an op as major as the one his team had been assigned to carry out gnawed at him. Duty was getting split here. Duty to his team and duty to Max. Anna was his sister and Dodger felt an obligation to help her, not to mention Anna was not only a US citizen, but a valuable operative. Plenty was at stake, but she would be the only one at risk of losing her life if he bailed now. Regardless of the ramifications he was facing, living with Anna’s death because he abandoned her was inconceivable.
She was in imminent danger.
“I’ll have to go in. I’m scheduled to meet my handler and turn over the thumb drive, but I can’t be sure if it’s safe. I can’t risk having this intel fall into the wrong hands.”
“Where would you go?”
“CIA station house here in Prague.”
“Is this location secure?”
“Yes. I took care of it myself. I always have backups all over the op city just in case. Personal hidey-holes.”
“All right. Are you ready to go now? I should get back to HQ before I’m in any deeper trouble.”
“Oh, God. I didn’t mean to get you into any trouble. You should have minded your own business.”
He looked over at her and winked. “Where would be the fun in that, luv?”
Thirty minutes later Anna and Dodger were outside the CIA station house located at an old mansion just on the outskirts of Prague. They were watching the house, surveying the area, the grounds. There was no one around, no sound coming from the estate that had once been home to a wealthy citizen.
But something had gone wrong, and now Dodger was caught up in it. She regretted putting him at risk. Chances were she’d get in, turn over the thumb drive, debrief, and be on her way home in a few hours.
“Follow me,” she whispered. She knew the layout of the place. She made it her business to know everything about her mission area. Instincts told her to stick to the side of caution. She avoided the front door, slipping instead to the porch, avoiding the cameras and sensors.
She crept to the window and inched it open to hear. The room was filled with computer desks, maps, and a strand of phones. She didn’t recognize any of the officers, but they were scanning satellite images on a computer screen.
Her heart skipped when she realized it was the alley where she’d fought off the Czech thugs. A man walked in. She knew him. Malcolm Peppercorn. She’d gone through The Farm with him and he wasn’t her biggest fan. She outshot, outmaneuvered, outlasted, and outplayed him.
“I’ve spoken to the cops and retrieved Macy’s body,” he said to one of the analysts. The man nodded and picked up the phone and spoke briefly.
She froze. Macy’s body? Her handler was dead? Everything inside her chilled into ice. She’d called her handler, Jonathan Macy while at her safe apartment, but at the time she hadn’t known he was dead. He was the CIA operative who was her lifeline in the field if she was in trouble. She started to shake, and Dodger whispered, “What’s wrong?”
She waved him off, needing to hear what they said.