I continued to listen as Decker made arrangements for a team to immediately mobilize to Beijing. He would not be part of that team as originally planned since he was needed here to facilitate my arrest.
Lynx, Rile, Grinder, and Edge were set to be dispatched to China along with Buster Stevens. The ambassador would be accompanying them under the auspice of further negotiation, rather than the planned extraction. Buster’s job would be to insist he and the UK ambassador meet with the prisoners to confirm their health and well-being before making the deal to meet the Chinese demands. By the end of that meeting, the Invincibles team would have the prisoners’ extraction set up and ready to execute.
I’d seen missions like this happen dozens of times. I just prayed that whoever the real mole was, wasn’t privy to the details of the op and that the agents involved all made it out alive.
I was making myself dinner when I received another text from Decker, alerting me of a meeting he was about to have with Emme and her father.
“Decker, do you want to fill Emme in on what you’ve uncovered?” I heard Matrix say.
“As you know, US intelligence—the CIA specifically—has suffered major setbacks in China. The agency has been convinced there was a mole feeding information to Chinese intelligence officers,” Deck told her.
“And you suspect Paxon?”
“More than suspect, Emme,” said her father.
“While it wasn’t his original mission, Saint was also investigating Irish, based on information he was given by Dr. Benjamin.”
“Dr. Benjamin? You think he left proof. That’s why Paxon has been at MIT even though I haven’t. It’s also why he didn’t want me to return last week.”
Having to listen to the sadness in her voice was the hardest part of this plan. I wanted to take the earpiece out, but I knew I couldn’t. If she and her dad didn’t find the evidence on their own tonight, I’d be forced to lead her to it at MIT tomorrow.
“There’s more,” said her father.
“What?”
“There’s evidence suggesting that Irish may have had a hand in Saint’s and Benjamin’s disappearances.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Two things,” said Decker. “First, find the evidence Dr. Benjamin left, and then lead Paxon to the remaining evidence we planted.”
“Wait. You don’t have Benjamin’s evidence already?”
“No. I have enough on Irish without it, but finding it would give us the names of the people he’s been working with.”
“You don’t think Irish knows where it is?” she asked.
“Even if he did, it’s unlikely he’d know what he was looking at,” said Deck.
“It’s in code,” she gasped, picking up the second to last bread crumb we’d left for her.
“Do you want to go to MIT tonight?” her father asked.
“That won’t be necessary,” I heard her answer. “I have what we’re looking for at my apartment.”
That was it. Everything Decker set up went off like clockwork. Three hours later, I heard Emme’s father announce that he’d found the coded evidence we’d planted.
By noon tomorrow, I would be in the custody of federal agents and charged with several counts of conspiracy to spy for China.
“You okay?” Cope asked when he answered my call.
“Scared shitless, if you wanna know the truth.” There wasn’t anyone I’d admit that to other than Cope. Not even Decker.
“You can trust me.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
12
Flynn
Crested Butte, Colorado
September of Previous Year
“Goddamn commie bastard.” When my father slammed his fist on the coffee table, I rushed out of the kitchen.
“What?” I asked, drying my hands on a dishtowel.
He pointed at the screen. “Look.”
“CIA Officer Arrested for Conspiracy to Spy for China,” the news headline read as a man was led away in handcuffs. “Look!” I shouted the same word he had and rushed over to the screen. “That’s Buck!”
I watched as my brother moved through the crowd of reporters, escorting the man to the waiting vehicle. Right before getting in, the man who’d been arrested turned and, for a split second, looked straight into the camera. I put my hand on my heart as though I could feel his pain as my eyes looked into his.
My brother’s image flashed across the screen a few moments later, and even though he hadn’t looked at the camera, something in his expression, too, seemed off.
13
Irish
Richmond, Virginia
January
“What happened with the extraction?” I asked Cope when the guard, really Ink undercover, brought me to the visitation room of the Federal Detention Center in Richmond, Virginia. Before answering, he slowly walked the perimeter of the room.
“What are you doing?”
He put a finger to his lips.
“They got ’em out,” he said before sitting down.
“But?”
“Edge took a bullet in his arm. Last I heard, he was in surgery.”
“Is Lynx with him?”
Cope nodded. I couldn’t explain why that made me feel better, apart from the fact I knew their parents had been killed in a car accident when they were both still kids. From what I’d read, all they had were each other.
“How’s Emme?”
Cope sat back in his chair and drummed the table with his fingers. “Upset. By the way, we can talk freely.”
“Is that what the walk was about?”
Cope patted his shoulder, which didn’t mean jack shit to me. “You know Decker.”
“Back to Emme. Is she upset about Edge or me?”
“Worried about Edge. Mad at you. Incredulous that she didn’t realize what was going on under her nose.”
“That’s because it wasn’t going on.”
“I know that, but I can hardly admit it to her.”
Surely, if I had really been a double agent, Dr. Emerson Charles would’ve been the first to realize it.
“What else?”
“My dad has been asking a lot of questions.”
Cope’s father was the senior Senator from the State of Louisiana and the sitting chair of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“He’s suggesting the agency try harder to make a deal.”
“Has he come to you for help making that happen?”
“He brought it up, but I shut him down.”
“McTiernan?”
“He asked me to brief him but otherwise hasn’t said much.”
“My guess is he’s trying to determine your involvement.”
“I agree.”
Cope looked more tired than I remembered ever seeing him.
“If you’re worried about me, Ink and Rage won’t let anybody touch me.”