Page 7 of The Ghost

“Mr. Oliver,” I stammered, flabbergasted to find myself face to face with him.

Ever since Regg had shot me and kidnapped Clark, I’d been working off the radar. I’d heard rumors that I was being framed for the murder of several MI6 agents and that the British government wanted my head. I hadn’t resurfaced since then, assuming that I was unwelcome until I could clear my name. But Oliver’s presence here, in Dark Sparrow territory, proved otherwise. There was something else going on, and I had a long way to go to catch up.

“Good to see you,” Oliver said.

“Are you working with Dark Sparrow?” I demanded.

“Unofficially,” he replied.

“And my name?” I asked, struggling to comprehend why I found myself on the same side of the table as someone I’d been hiding from all this time.

“Cleared,” he answered. “Unofficially.”

“Of course,” I muttered, resigning myself to being blacklisted in public while being accepted behind closed doors. It was par for the course as far as international espionage was concerned.

“Listen,” Geoge continued, “I want to thank you for exposing Reginald Banks. He’s gone underground, and we are now able to investigate the extent of his reach.”

“And?” I prodded.

“And we owe it all to you,” George concluded, apparently deciding that a pat on the back made up for all the trouble I’d been through.

I had nearly been killed. Clark had nearly been killed. We’d spent a breathless few days wondering if we would ever see each other again, and it looked like the British government had been up to speed the whole time.

I wanted to be angry, but I knew that they were just doing their jobs. I’d signed on for a certain amount of “need to know” scenarios when I started, but this was pushing it. A dozen accusations thundered through my mind. They should have read Clark and me into their suspicions. They should have alerted us to the potential for violence from someone I thought I could trust. Instead, they’d left us hanging, only letting us know that they were looking at Regg for treason after the fact.

Lukas knew me well enough to pick up on the muffled anger that was radiating from my tight smile. He put a hand on my shoulder, letting me know that he wouldn’t treat me that way, no matter what my employer did. I appreciated the gesture and spared him a genuine smile before taking a seat.

“Gentlemen,” George began after everyone was seated.

There was a massive screen at the head of the room, controlled by a laptop. George hit a button, and Clark’s picture appeared, larger than life. I was shocked to find that she would be our first topic of conversation. That didn’t sit well, especially after George’s previous revelation.

“This is Clark Abrams, previously Clark Ashcroft,” George began.

A slideshow circled through a number of other agents, some of whom I recognized. Two of them were the MI6 agents that I had been tasked with rescuing from the clutches of Dark Sparrow. That was way back when we thought that Dark Sparrow was the enemy and had no inkling of the existence of New Dawn.

Those particular agents were the ones that Regg had killed and tried to pin on Clark and me. I saw the CIA agent that Clark had been looking for who’d wound up dead alongside them. I assumed that the other photos were likewise former agents who’d met with foul play while in the field.

George confirmed my suspicions as he gave a brief statement about each image. Name, nationality, and date of death were the only clues he provided, though I knew there was a common thread. It was just a matter of patience; I was sure he would get around to the point.

Finally, Lukas stood up, wincing slightly. “We just discovered that Ashcroft is still alive. All of these operatives were former trainees in his facility. They dispersed throughout the world to work for several different intelligence agencies. That was part of his plan: to embed his own operatives inside highly classified organizations worldwide.”

I held my tongue, finally treated to a global view of the problem. It irritated me that Lukas had been sitting on this information all along. Did he know that Ashcroft’s destructive habits reached so far? He must have. Yet I didn’t remember him connecting the dots quite so completely when Z, Clark, and I were alone with him.

“Each of these agents ended up dead. Those bodies we’ve been able to recover have one important thing in common. They all have a minor surgical wound on the right shoulder.” George resumed his position as leader of the meeting, nodding to Lukas with a perfunctory show of gratitude.

“They also shared handlers,” an American agent pointed out.

“That’s right,” George agreed. “These MI6 agents were all reporting to Reginald Banks, while the American operatives were reporting to Jasmine Perez.”

I flashed back to the first time I’d met Jasmine, on the pier in the Marshall Islands when Clark and I had arrived after days at sea. She’d tried to talk us into getting on a plane, but my grandmother had rescued us by providing important information about the security of the airport in question. My grandmother, a former MI6 agent, had taken us back to her remote island, where we’d spent several glorious days soaking up the sun and recuperating.

That was the first time I’d seen Jasmine, but it wasn’t the last. The last time I saw her was at the Ashcroft estate in upstate New York, where she’d betrayed Clark and tried to kill her. I didn’t have trouble believing that she was just as dirty as Regg. I’d had my suspicions from the beginning.

Rage shot through me at the loss of life displayed on the computer screen. So many people had fallen victim to both Regg and Jasmine, who should have been doing everything they could to protect their agents in the field. Instead, they were working at counter purposes. Jasmine was dead, and if I had my way, Regg would soon join her. The coordinates that Lukas had given me on the train burned a hole in my pocket. The sooner I could follow them to their source and eliminate the threat, the better.

“We know that Clark has something that Ashcroft needs,” Lukas continued, pulling me back to the briefing.

“What?” I demanded.