Mine - HelenKay Dimon Page 0,15
mission. I send my people in to make sure she isn’t making contact with . . . undesirables.” Rick almost smiled as he said it. “That she isn’t selling information about holes in CIA security that would allow for a foreign government to infiltrate the organization and plant someone inside. That she isn’t talking with the wrong people. Maybe other people who are disgruntled with the CIA.”
“In other words, one of her old bosses fears she’s turned.” The idea was so ludicrous it made Andy want to shoot someone. “Natalie Udall, a woman who’s dedicated her entire adult life to the CIA and the protection of this country.”
“Basically, the job is to make sure she’s out there holding up her end of the agreement as promised.”
Relief flooded through Andy, but skepticism rushed in behind. “Do you believe that? We both know you could find her and then the next order you get will be for you to send someone in to take her out, all in the name of God and country.”
Under that scenario Andy could have one brother out there trying to protect her and the other trying to kill her. The idea made him hate the division between Gabe and Rick even more.
“Some powerful people have a lot to lose if she talks about what she knows. Operational details.” Rick kept tapping those fingers.
Rick danced around the topic in general terms, but Andy knew they were really talking about the problem with the mole. The job that cost Natalie her job and almost cost his ex, Elijah Sterling, his life. “I read Natalie’s file. She had intel on everything from black bag jobs to abductions and rendition.”
“It’s more than that. From what I’ve been able to learn, she wasn’t the type to just hang out in the room. She pushed operations in the directions she thought they should go, including the mole hunt everyone else but her saw as a waste of time.”
“You mean, the point where she was right and everyone else was wrong.” Andy agreed with Gabe on this point. Natalie’s smarts and instincts had trumped those of most of the men around her. Could be one or two of those disgruntled lifetime desk jockeys didn’t like her skills or her agreement to leave the agency without trouble. “She should have run that damn place.”
“I agree, but there’s a faction that doesn’t. Others are smart enough to know harming her, going after her, means blowing her extraction agreement and setting in motion whatever contingency plan she and her lawyer—”
“Bast.”
“—worked out.”
“The latter group seems too smart to be working for the agency.” All the pieces came together in Andy’s head. The brewing internal war threatened to spill out and blow back on Natalie and, by extension, Gabe.
“The intelligent group has convinced the more vocal minority to hold off on taking any action for now and send in someone to watch her,” Rick said in a flat voice.
Andy did not like where this was headed. “Which is where you come in, I assume.”
“Gabe can’t kill the guy who is about to start watching him because that person the CIA is sending to check on Natalie works for me.”
It sounded so innocent, but the history between Rick and Gabe came with a load of baggage. If Gabe tipped from frustrated to furious while he was out there with Natalie, he could lose his edge. Gabe had never wavered in his dedication to the job before, but the issues with Rick were personal. They went right to the very heart of who Gabe was and what he believed.
“Goddamn it, Rick.” Andy tried to push down the anger simmering inside him, but it spilled out. Rick’s bombshell would fuck up all of their lives, not just Gabe’s. “Are you looking for a new reason to piss Gabe off?”
“I’m trying to resolve our personal issues separate from this, but I can’t even get there if he kills one of my men. He will touch off a landslide of shit from the CIA.”
As if those two needed one more wall erected between them. That meant Andy had to step in, like it or not. “How close is your person to finding Gabe’s location?”
Rick switched from tapping his fingertips together to drumming them on the armrest. “That depends on how long it takes for you to give it up.”
“Wouldn’t even if I could.” That’s how this worked. They had emergency protocols and ways to track each other down if communication cut out, but the