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“We have our mole,” Penn said.
“I knew it,” Kessler added.
They sounded pleased. I knew that was the wrong takeaway from this discussion.
“We know who the mole is, but we don’t have any evidence to tie him to Kovac’s criminal acts,” Bond said, echoing my thoughts. “And if we don’t catch him by Monday, HEAT will go down in flames.”
17
TJ
The State Department handlers arrived within fifteen minutes of Izak Kovac calling his embassy. The somber black sedan carried two even more somber, black-suited men who showed us their credentials, bundled us into the car, and remained silent for the half-hour drive to the meeting point. I didn’t bother asking where we were going. I knew the protocol, knew X would have been alerted immediately and would have directed where they would take me to rendezvous with my team.
But I wasn’t alone, and Ashlee looked terrified. I held her hand during the entire silent drive. I’d explain everything to her as soon as I could. Our escorts pulled into a deserted parking lot and parked beside another dark sedan with Penn leaning against it. I helped Ashlee out of the car and took her arm with the intention of leading her a few feet away for a brief, comforting conversation. But as the State Department car pulled away, Penn called out to me.
“TJ, I have X and the board on speaker in the car.” Penn glanced at Ashlee. “I’ll wait out here with you, Ms. Armand, until your ride arrives.”
“My ride?” Ashlee gripped my hand tighter. “Can’t I stay with you?”
“Sorry,” Penn answered, and I wanted to punch my good friend and teammate in the face. “Our bosses want to talk, starting now.” He gave me a pointed stare, indicating they wouldn’t take kindly to waiting much longer for me.
Another car, this one gray with tinted windows, pulled up behind us. When Sparks rolled down the driver’s side window, I saw Kessler with her in the passenger’s seat.
“Hi, Ashlee,” Kessler said. “Are you okay? Hop in the back, and we’ll talk on the drive.”
Ashlee’s shoulders dropped an inch at seeing the familiar faces, but she still shot me a worried look. My own pounding heart and spiking adrenaline mirrored her concern.
“Drive to where?” I asked Penn since he was the ranking team member besides me. My fuckup had been huge, but so had our haul of information to use against Kovac, and I knew the plan was that X and her FBI counterpart would meet with the federal prosecutor late on Saturday to have a warrant issued for the Kovac’s arrest. We could keep Ashlee safe until then.
But my bigger concern was the information we hadn’t gotten. We had no way to put away Calder, and if the analysts—our team’s Alder among them—determined that he posed a threat to Ashlee, WITSEC might be back on the table. It had been that fear creeping up my spine and wrapping bony fingers around my throat for the past hour that was the reason I’d wanted a private word with her, so I could be the one to break the bad news. I owed her that much and so much more.
“HQ for now,” Penn said as he pulled open the rear door of the gray sedan and motioned for Ashlee to climb in.
“I’ll see you shortly,” I said as I reluctantly untwined my fingers from hers.
She nodded and managed a small smile, her way of saying she trusted me. She dropped her voice to a whisper only I could hear. “There’s something important—”
“Ashlee,” Kessler called, “please, we’re on a ticking clock.”
“Sorry,” she said, but I didn’t know whether it was to me or to Kessler.
And then she was bundled into the car and sent away. I climbed into the passenger seat of the dark sedan as Penn took the wheel, announced my presence to X and whoever else was on the line with her, and I braced myself for the tongue-lashing of a lifetime.
* * *
Ashlee
I sat at the conference table inside the SCIF at HEAT headquarters. I was familiar with the concept of a sensitive compartmented information facility as a place where classified documents could be created and read, and classified conversations could occur, but I’d never been inside one. Right now, it just looked like a conference room where we weren’t allowed to bring our personal electronic devices. But the mood inside the SCIF was like a wake for a dearly departed loved one.
In a way, that’s what it was. They all loved their team, their agency, and each other, and all of that might be coming to an end. They needed a miracle. It just so happened that I was in possession of one. Now I had to work up the courage to admit it and tell them how I had betrayed them to obtain it.
TJ, sitting at the head of the table and to my right, pinched the bridge of his nose. The rest of the Alpha Team seated around the table was engaged in various versions of avoiding eye contact with me and each other. Only X was on her feet, dressed in her signature black, today in a sleeveless dress and heeled sandals.
I had just joined the team’s 9:00 a.m. meeting a minute earlier, having been brought here by Kessler at X’s request. It was the first time I’d seen TJ since we’d been driven away from the parking lot. If he’d been able to visit me during the night, I would have already unburdened myself. The waiting had only made it so much harder.
“Tell me we’re at least sure the FBI and Interpol will act on our information from Kovac’s office,” Li said. “That might not completely destroy the Carbonados, but it will do serious damage.”
“They’ll rebuild unless we can take down their protectors, like Calder,” X said without interrupting her pacing.
