In bars, that was. I felt sparks on a daily basis, but with the one woman I knew I shouldn’t think about that way—Dr. Charles. Being around Emme, as she insisted I call her, was like spending every day basking in the heat of the sun.
The woman was brilliant, of course, but with quirks I found beguiling. I smiled more when I was in her presence than I had since before I was recruited by the agency. Even Cope had noticed the change in my demeanor.
“Don’t get attached,” he warned me when we walked out of the restaurant’s elevator and out onto the bustling streets of New York.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dr. Charles.”
While I scowled at him, I heeded his warning. As much as Emme intrigued me, I knew he was right.
10
Irish
Cambridge, Massachusetts
August of the Preceding Year
I left the meeting with Emme and Dr. Benjamin feeling unsettled. There was something about the man that didn’t add up for me. Every instinct told me to proceed with caution in a way that was illogical, particularly given the man’s appearance.
A single word could be used to describe him—disheveled. His hair, his clothes, even his shoes looked as though they were long beyond their useful life. The glasses he wore were held together by yellowed tape, his dress shirt was wrinkled, and there appeared to be a stain on the sweater he likely wore seven days a week.
His attire wouldn’t be the focus of the brief I’d give Cope once our meeting concluded, though. Instead, it would be about what could only be described as his obsession with the conflict between Hong Kong and China.
I’d read his dossier; the man had never lived in Hong Kong, didn’t have family members who did, and according to MI6, spent only occasional time there. Yet his passions equated those of someone whose family had lived there for several generations. He spoke of the huge protest marches and street battles, where Chinese police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, and live fire, with what felt to me like an inappropriate level of emotional intensity.
I sensed Emme’s similar discomfort as she attempted several times to bring the conversation back around to what she believed to be the main reason for the meeting—China as it related to the rest of the world, not just Hong Kong. When that seemed impossible, she asked me how much time we had left before our next meeting that afternoon. While we didn’t have any others scheduled, I told her we’d need to wrap things up within fifteen minutes or we’d be late.
After walking Dr. Benjamin out of the building, I went to the parking garage and called Cope.
“The guy is borderline certifiable,” I told him.
“In what way?”
I explained the extremity of the man’s views and that I was certain Emme had picked up on it as well.
“You should get Saint’s take on it,” he suggested.
As much as I didn’t want to engage the MI6 agent, I knew Cope was right.
The meeting between Saint and me lasted all of ten minutes. It took longer to order our beer at the bar we’d agreed to meet at than to get his response to my questions about Dr. Benjamin.
“He’s harmless,” said Saint, taking a sip of his pint. “One would think a CIA agent would have the proper intuition to make that determination.”
I finished my beer and walked out before I gave in to the temptation to throat punch him.
I hadn’t been at my apartment long when Cope called me.
“We have a problem with Dr. Benjamin.”
Given my reaction to the man, Cope’s news came as no surprise. “What?”
“He made contact with McTiernan to alert him of a potential mole at MIT—in international policy. Someone he believes, as we do, is feeding information to the Chinese.”
That surprised me. Someone I hadn’t found suspicious myself? How was this a problem? “At MIT?”
“No guesses?”
I took a deep breath. There were times Cope reminded me of a child.
“Nobody?”
“Get to the fucking point, Copeland.”
“You.”
“You’re kidding.”
His tone changed from playful to serious. “No. I’m not.”
“Interesting.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“We use this to our advantage.”
“How so?” he asked.
“Keeping the heat on me might give the real mole a false sense of being in the clear.”
“How do you want to proceed?”
“Stay the course, Cope.”
It had been a week since the meeting between Dr. Benjamin, Emme, and me, along with the call from Cope about the man’s suspicions that I was a mole. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew him from somewhere. He looked so damned familiar, and yet I couldn’t place him. I’d spent hours scouring for every image of him I could find, and still, nothing registered.
Close to dawn, I bolted up in bed, drenched in sweat, realizing, perhaps in a dream, where I recognized him from. He’d been one of the men on the street corner in Hong Kong that night when Dingo, 337, and Julius were gunned down.
“There’s something I need to tell you about Dr. Benjamin,” I said to Cope when I called him at a little after six in the morning.
“I already know.” He sounded as though he’d been up for hours.
“You do? How?”
“I got a call from Money McTiernan.”
It dawned on me that even though Cope and I were talking about the same man, it was about different subjects.
“What did McTiernan tell you?” I asked.
“Benjamin’s and Saint’s last known whereabouts were in Hong Kong. They’ve both been missing for five days. Zero contact.”
“No shit?” I muttered, not intending to say it out loud.
“What were you going to tell me?”
“I realized where I recognized him from. That night, also in Hong Kong, I’d swear he was one of the men I saw standing on the street corner. Remember? I told you about them.”
“No shit?” Cope repeated. “Are you certain?”
“Not one hundred percent but damn near. The man has a very distinctive look.” It wasn’t as though I could see details from a distance that night. It was more the way he carried himself.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.
“When am I not?”
“Best way to remove attention from yourself is to point it in someone else’s direction.”
“You said Saint is missing as well.”
“He accompanied the doctor to Hong Kong.”
“Were you aware he intended to?” I asked.
“I was not.”
“Good morning, Emme,” I said a few days later, before turning to Lynx, the man I’d been alerted was being sent in by MI6 to lead the search for Saint and Dr. Benjamin. “This must be Mr. Edgemon. I’m Paxon Warrick.” I held out my hand, and he shook it.
“Emerson,” I heard him say, wondering why he mumbled a name she rarely used.
“Yes?” she asked.