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Atticus nodded as if that’s what he expected. “Three years ago, team members of Oblivion were contracted to find and terminateProteus.”
Nate let out a low whistle between his teeth and felt his adrenaline surge. He and Atticus had both had run-ins with the terrorist known asProteusin the past. They’d never won against him.
“Oblivion was able to linkProteusto a man named Francois Renard. Renard was a broker, and the oneProteusmost often used. SomehowProteusfound out about the link and had Renard taken and held in an abandoned military base in France.”
“A leak on the inside?”
“Suspected, but never proven. Oblivion knew Renard had been taken and had a team sent out to observe and assess whether an extraction was possible. It turns outProteuswas always a step ahead of the ops team. He’d planned that the team would try to rescue Renard and booby-trapped the whole place with explosives.
“It was run as a standard op. The scouts went in first, taking out guards and clearing the areas. Two agents were assigned to go in specifically for Renard and bring him out. Agents Jonah Salt and Eden Kane.”
“Oh, hell.” Nate felt his blood run cold. Bits and pieces of what had happened on that mission had trickled to different parts of the agency. It was impossible to keep everything quiet. But they’d done a pretty good job of it. Whatever happened in France had been sealed and buried deep in the CIA vaults.
“Making a long story short, the base was blown to hell and so were most of the agents inside. A couple made it out with critical wounds. Salt and Kane had barely reached the perimeter when the blast went off, no doubt a timing miscalculation onProteus’s part or we’d have found their body parts along with the other agents. They made it out and managed to get back to their safe point to wait for extraction.”
“I remember hearing about parts of this before they swept it under the rug.” You couldn’t belong to the agency without knowing who Jonah Salt was.
“Yeah. The two of them missed their meet for extraction, so undercover agents were dispatched to check out the scene and see what had gone wrong. They found Kane’s body. She’d been shot three times in the chest and was hanging on by a thread when the team got there. The room had been ransacked and Salt was nowhere to be found. Kane died twice on the table during surgery.”
“But she’s alive?”
“She’s alive. They never found Salt’s body. His car went over the side of a cliff and there wasn’t anything left to find. They pulled parts of the wreckage up, but there wasn’t enough conclusive evidence to show tampering. There was, however, evidence of another car being involved, an extra pair of skid marks along with Salt’s that went to the edge of the cliff. Someone knew who they were and hired a hit on both of them.”
“Please tell me you didn’t call me in to search forProteus. I’m good, boss, but I think that’s a job for more than one man.”
“I’d trust you to takeProteusout before any of those new recruits they’ve replaced us with. They’re infants. Idiots all of them. They don’t make agents like they used to.”
Nate grinned. It felt like they’d barely been older than that when they started.
“Anyway,” Atticus said. “Proteus is not your assignment. I want you to bring in Eden Kane.”
Nate raised a brow in confusion. “Bring her in for what? Isn’t she the agency’s problem?”
“She resigned her position with the agency while she was still in the hospital recovering. And then as soon as she was able, she disappeared. Oblivion has been looking for her for three years, but not with much enthusiasm. They never got to fully debrief her. They classified her as ineffective, listing cause as severe PTSD and trauma. She was unresponsive for months and they let their guard up. And then she disappeared.”
Nate whistled. “And what do you think about her?”
“I think someone with her skill set is never ineffective, no matter the injury or trauma. Her background is impressive. She was Mossad before she was recruited by the agency.Kidon.”
“You’re kidding,” Nate said. “And they just let her go?”
“She’d been shot three times and left for dead. And that’s after she’d already survived being tortured by the Syrians some years before. The agency is good at tossing things in the trash that don’t fit into their box.”
“You still haven’t told me why you want her.”
“I want her at Dynamis. We need another agent and she’ll get the freedom here that she never had working for the government. Oblivion might not be worried about what she knows, but she knows something. I’ve been following her pattern. She’s hunting. Trying to stay off the grid as much as possible.”
Atticus’s smile was sharklike, and Nate let out a short laugh. Atticus could find anyone, anywhere. It didn’t matter how off the grid they were.
Atticus handed him a thick file and said, “All of the intel we have is in that file. You’ll pick up her trail. Convince her to come back with you.”
“And what about this personal mission she seems to be on?”
Atticus shrugged. “Help her if need be. Or see if she’ll abandon it altogether. We need her, and the sooner the better. I’m taking myself out of the field while Anna recovers, and who knows how long Shaw and Peters will be sidelined. Unfortunately, Dynamis has reached the point where I do more good behind a desk than in front of it, so my time is better spent here.”
Nate had always admired the way Atticus had balanced his work and his family. Jane and Anna had been the center of his universe. A marriage like Atticus and Jane had was rare. He should know because his own marriage had failed spectacularly. His wife couldn’t handle not knowing about the secret missions and worrying about whether he’d come back alive—and he’d been young and arrogant enough to not bother trying to convince her that what they had was worth fighting and working for.
Now his daughter was being raised by another man. Granted, his ex-wife’s husband seemed like a good guy and he was good to Stella, but Nate was jealous that the other man was the one getting to see his daughter grow into a woman.
