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“Good.” I glanced at Penn. “How’s the logistics plan coming?”
“Extraction plan is ready,” he said.
That was our normal approach, to begin at the part of the plan that dealt with getting our agents out safely and working backward from there.
Penn glanced at X. “We’ll have backup staff requests plus 90 percent of the rest of the logistics plan submitted to you by end of day tomorrow.”
X nodded. “You’ll have whatever extra staff you need. Anything else we should discuss tonight?” Jensen and Penn shook their heads. “Bond, any concerns about Ms. Armand’s potential to have another panic attack?”
I bristled at the accusatory tone she used, but Bond spoke before I could.
“Very low probability,” Bond said. “There were extenuating circumstances when we brought her in last week.” She shot a sideways glance at me. “This time, we’ll have days to prepare her. I’m comfortable with her ability to maintain her composure.”
“Good,” X said. “Now, you should all join the team party because this will be the last of the downtime you’ll have until this mission is over.”
Jensen and Penn said goodnight to X and left.
X turned to Samantha. “You, too, Doctor. I need to have a word with TJ.”
“Of course. Goodnight.” Bond patted my shoulder sympathetically as she passed.
I stood up straight and braced myself for a verbal dressing down, which X could deliver better than any general I’d ever met.
“I’m not going to lecture you,” she said. “You’re smart enough to have run most of the potential scenarios, and your team will fill you in on any you might have missed. But I am going to give you a hard truth.”
Hard truths were part and parcel of our business. I waited.
She sighed. “I’m spending every day this week in subcommittee hearings, trying to keep them from yanking our funding out from under us. Now I’ll be spending my nights getting the appropriate warrants in place for your little escapade.”
“Escapade?” That pissed me off. “This is our best shot—hell, the only real one we’ve had or might ever have—to bring down Kovac. And since he’s the most likely link to the mole in the Senate—”
“Suspected mole,” she corrected. “We have no proof.”
“We’re not idiots. We can read the signals, but between our hands being tied by the ethics of investigating Senate staffers and the sheer number of them we’d have to track, it would take a year, maybe longer. This could be it, X. The information we find Friday night could blow this wide open. It could be the beginning of the end of the Carbonados.”
She pressed her fists into the top of the conference table and leaned forward. She looked exhausted and more. Defeated, I realized. “It could also be the beginning of the end of HEAT.” She looked up at me. “TJ, there’s something you have to understand about this mission. If Kovac or anyone at the embassy finds out a spy set foot inside a protected diplomat’s home, let alone what you’re planning to do, it will be an international incident.”
I nodded, understanding dawning on me. “You’ll have to disavow me, cut off the limb to save the body, to protect HEAT.”
“Probably.” Her shoulders slumped. “But also, if you get caught in Kovac’s house, I’ll have to give the subcommittee your name. This won’t blow over. It won’t go away. It will mean the end of your career.”
I huffed out a breath like I’d been punched in the gut. That was a disaster scenario I hadn’t run through my head. But it was familiar territory. Ashlee had lit the match to burn down her own career, and now I was about to do the same. What shocked me was how easy it felt to do it.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m gone,” I said, “as long as it means the end of the Carbonados.”
* * *
Ashlee
I woke up at 5:00 a.m. on Friday morning with my mind racing. When I stretched, TJ, who was spooned behind me, shifted and pulled me closer.
He sleepily kissed my neck, then whispered in my ear. “Everything okay?”
“Just nervous.”
“Totally normal,” he said. “But you’re prepared, and I’ll be with you the entire time, and the team will be in your ear.”
“Except when we go dark and you sneak off to Luka’s data room.” It was those fifteen minutes that were critical to HEAT’s operation, but also to mine.
