Chapter 4 - Asset Seventeen
“Put it down,” I said.
Voss glanced at the detonator.
Then at Rourke.
“You still give orders like anyone has to obey them.”
Barrett moved half a step left.
Voss noticed immediately.
“Chief Barrett, don’t.”
Barrett stopped.
“You know me?” he asked.
“I selected you.”
Barrett’s jaw tightened.
“So you’re the reason I’m on Sentinel.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Voss looked at me.
“For her.”
The cabin felt smaller.
Rourke trembled inside the explosive vest.
“Malcolm,” I said, “whatever this is, Daniel doesn’t need to die.”
“No.”
Voss lowered the detonator slightly.
“He doesn’t.”
Then he placed it on the table.
Barrett moved first.
He grabbed it.
I went to Rourke.
“Can you disarm it?”
Barrett examined the wiring.
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“You want comforting lies or competent uncertainty?”
“Competent uncertainty.”
“Then probably.”
Rourke almost laughed despite himself.
Barrett began working.
I faced Voss.
“Talk.”
He sat calmly.
“Lantern was never about Hadi Nasser.”
“I gathered that.”
“Nasser was cover.”
“For Asset 17.”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
Voss looked at me.
“You.”
The word seemed too simple.
I stared.
“Explain.”
“Seventeen years ago, you entered intelligence service after an operation in Eastern Europe.”
“My first assignment.”
“No. Your first assignment was six months later.”
I remembered the recruitment.
A bombing in Prague.
I had been a young Army intelligence lieutenant attached to a diplomatic security unit.
Voss approached me afterward.
Or so I had always believed.
“What happened in Prague?” I asked.
“You found something.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
I remembered.
A black notebook recovered from a dead courier.
Names.
Numbers.
Accounts.
“I gave it to you.”
“No,” Voss said. “You gave me a copy.”
I frowned.
“You kept the original.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I would remember.”
“You couldn’t.”
Barrett stopped working for a second.
I looked at Voss.
“What does that mean?”
“You were injured during the explosion.”
“I had a concussion.”
“You had more than that.”
He leaned forward.
“Your memory from seventy-two hours surrounding the attack was compromised.”
That part I knew.
Pieces had always been missing.
“What did the ledger contain?”
“The architecture of a clandestine network embedded inside American intelligence and allied agencies.”
My stomach dropped.
“How big?”
“Very.”
“Names?”
“Some.”
“Who?”
“That’s what everyone has been trying to learn for seventeen years.”
Asset 17.
Not a person.
A recovery designation.
Me.
Because I had supposedly hidden the original evidence.
“Lantern was designed to find it?” I asked.
Voss nodded.
“Intelligence suggested Nasser had information about where you hid the ledger.”
“And Vale?”
“He was assigned separately.”
“To recover it.”
“Yes.”
“With lethal authorization.”
Voss looked ashamed.
“I didn’t issue that clause.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Barrett finished cutting one wire.
The vest light changed from red to amber.
Rourke exhaled shakily.
“You knew,” I said to him.
Rourke nodded.
“How long?”
“Since Lantern.”
“You let me believe our people died because of the mission.”
“I was scared.”
“Of Vale?”
“Of everyone.”
His eyes moved to Voss.
“Because after Lantern, I realized Vale wasn’t working alone.”
Voss said, “He still isn’t.”
“Then why are you holding a detonator?” I asked.
“I found Daniel tonight exactly like this.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Voss’s voice softened.
“I expect you to verify it.”
Barrett removed the final trigger lead.
The vest went dark.
“Safe.”
Rourke collapsed forward.
I helped remove the vest.
Barrett placed it carefully on the floor.
“There’s no transmitter,” he said.
Voss looked at him.
“What?”
“No remote receiver.”
He lifted the control board.
“This wasn’t remotely triggered.”
Rourke stared.
“But Vale said—”
“He lied.”
Barrett held up the detonator Voss had carried.
“This thing isn’t connected to anything.”
I looked at Voss.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why pretend?”
“Because Vale was watching.”
Voss pointed toward the bookshelf.
Tiny camera.
Barrett crossed the room and ripped it out.
“Not anymore.”
Voss stood.
“He wanted to see whether I would kill Daniel.”
“Why?”
“To determine whether I’m still useful to him.”
“Are you?”
Voss didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
My weapon rose.
Barrett noticed.
“So you’ve been working with Vale.”
“For three years.”
Rourke cursed.
I kept the pistol centered on Voss.
“Why?”
“To get close enough to identify the network.”
“Without telling me.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know whether you were part of it.”
That hurt.
Voss saw it.
“You were Asset 17, Evelyn. Someone erased pieces of your memory. Someone manipulated your career. Someone ensured you survived missions that killed everyone around you.”
“You thought I might be the mole.”
“I thought you might not know you were.”
Silence.
Barrett leaned against the table.
“This is getting cheerful.”
I ignored him.
“Do you believe it now?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Kerr.”
Barrett stiffened.
“What about Kerr?”
“He contacted me two weeks ago.”
“You knew Samuel?” Barrett asked.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That he found the person leaking missions.”
Barrett stepped closer.
“Who?”
Voss reached into his jacket.
I aimed higher.
“Slowly.”
He removed a flash drive.
“Kerr sent me this six hours before he died.”
Barrett took it.
We used Rourke’s laptop offline.
One video file.
Samuel Kerr appeared on-screen.
Exhausted.
Bruised.
But alive.
“If you’re watching this,” Kerr said, “I didn’t make it.”
Barrett stared.
Kerr continued.
“The Sentinel breach isn’t coming from an operative. It’s coming from command authorization.”
Voss looked at me.
Kerr held up a printed list.
“Every compromised mission passed through the same administrative gateway.”
A name appeared.
General Malcolm Voss.
Barrett looked sharply at Voss.
Voss didn’t move.
Kerr continued.
“But Voss isn’t the source.”
Another line appeared.
Credentials duplicated through an assistant account.
An account belonging to—
The video corrupted.
Static filled the screen.
“No,” Barrett whispered.
Then another image loaded.
A photograph.
General Voss standing with a younger man.
I recognized the younger man instantly.
Thomas Vale.
Behind them stood a woman.
Her face had been partially cut from the photograph.
Only her left eye remained visible.
But I knew that eye.
I had seen it every morning of my childhood.
My mother.
The woman who had supposedly died when I was twelve.
I turned to Voss.
“What is this?”
He closed his eyes.
“Evelyn.”
“My mother knew Vale?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Voss looked toward the broken camera.
Then toward me.
“She created the network.”
The room became silent.
I took one step closer.
“My mother died thirty-three years ago.”
Voss shook his head.
“No.”
A sound came from outside.
Vehicle tires on gravel.
Headlights swept through the windows.
Barrett moved to the curtain.
“How many?”
“Three vehicles.”
Rourke went pale.
Voss reached for his weapon.
“They found us.”
I looked at him.
“Who?”
Voss chambered a round.
“The people your mother built this entire operation to control.”
Then someone knocked three times on the front door.
A woman’s voice came from the porch.
“Evelyn.”
My blood went cold.
I knew that voice too.
May you like
It had spoken to me in dreams for thirty-three years.
“Open the door, sweetheart.”
