Page 104 of Talk to Me
It was my turn to cut him off before he could launch into his lists of reasons. I got it, I really did. But it was important that they all understood I wasn’t making this call lightly. His teeth clicked together and he straightened. I held Locke’s gaze until he finally blew out a breath and motioned for me to continue.
“If I were setting this meeting, which I am, I would make sure the meeting took place in a very public area where it’s hard to knife someone but also where signals are scrambled to avoid anyone listening. That means, even if we have comms in, there’s a very strong chance you would have to wing it on questions that I should be able to answer easily. The same is said for them.”
“I don’t like it,” Locke grumbled and I smiled. The worry in his voice and his eyes weren’t manufactured. He really didn’t like the idea of me being out there.
“Not sure I like it either,” I admitted. “I’m going to be out in a public place with a lot of people. After the last several years of being on my own, you guys are almost too much sometimes.”
My nerves jangled with the very idea and my pulse raced.
“I have two choices, I can keep being scared of everything or I can put myself out there again. We need confirmation. I can’t—make any kind of action or work out an infill and exfil without being dead certain of who we are dealing with. You thought it was a mercenary outfit. You found information on where I was being held because you broke in and stole hard drives.”
“All that matters is it worked.” He waved off their choices which led to my rescue. “We were getting it one way or another. That opens up another question, if it is Section Five, would they have hired mercenaries?”
“Yes,” McQuade answered before I could. “It gives them credible deniability. It also means any trail that’s picked up leads to them and not Section Five. Hard to be a secret organization if you’re trackable.”
He wasn’t wrong. I shifted so I could straighten. I was still sore. Most of my bruises had faded. The scars on my arms weren’t going anywhere. I just had to keep them covered. My feet were healing the slowest of all, but they were healing. One problem at a time, that was all I could do.
“Do I want to take the risk of meeting my contact? Not really. A part of me just says, dig in and dig deep. Wait, play the long game.” That part of me gestured to every move I’d made more than five years ago to get out. The plan worked. I’d been safe.
The rest of me, though, wholeheartedly rejected it. How much deeper could I bury myself? I’d have to cut all ties to the world, including these guys. Of all the options, I found that one to be the most abhorrent.
“You don’t want to play the long game anymore.” The one statement was the first time Remington contributed to the conversation since I presented the plan. It wasn’t a question. He dropped his chin as he studied me.
“No,” I said. “I don’t. If they had never come after me, I’d still be in my house in Estes Park. I’d locked myself in that cell and threw away the key. I stayed there, a very comfortable prisoner. My work was all I really had and I didn’t even allow myself to get a cat because what if something happened?”
I shook my head.
“Five years. I spent five years of my life staying off the radar and out of sight. They still sent people after me. They want the files. They want all of it. Whether the they in this equation call themselves Section Five or the department or the division or the damn greenhouse, I’m tired of running. That plan failed.”
“It kept you alive,” Locke reminded me.
“We still don’t know how they found you,” McQuade said. “That’s a door that still needs to be closed.”
“If we can close it, great. If not—that means I’m still hiding with no guarantee they won’t find me again. It also means I never come out of hiding.” Head back, I stared up at the ceiling. “I mean, I suppose we could do that. It might take time to set me up so I can still be your operator. Though to be truthful… If I cut everything again, I should cut my work as your operator too. That connection could have been the thing that compromised me.”
Whether through a contact, a job search, something. I was careful, painfully so, but maybe I’d missed something. Something so innocuous that I wouldn’t identify it now.
“I don’t want a different operator,” Remington said finally. “You don’t deserve to go back into a cell no matter how comfortable.”
“You’re voting with them,” Locke said abruptly and there was no mistaking his disappointment. He scratched at his jaw.
“So are you,” Remington countered and I jerked in surprise. “None of us want a different operator.”
The three men stared at each other. All the crackling tension of that morning when I’d made the discovery seemed to boil up to the surface.
“Then let’s plan,” McQuade said. “Every angle covered.”
“Agreed,” Remington stated and then they both looked at Locke who stared at me.
Did he want me to let him off the hook…?
“Promise me if one of us calls it, for whatever reason, even if we don’t have time to explain, that you will drop everything and walk away. We’ll cover your exit, and get you out.”
That was a huge ask.
“Agreed,” McQuade said. “If you told me to drop everything and go, I would.”
That wasn’t fair.