Will stood from his seat and came to stand behind Brie. “What I still don’t understand is how Lark was working with your team but didn’t know the data was incomplete.”
“He wasn’t workingwithus,” I almost snapped. How had he gotten past the layers required to join Pendragon? How many dead ends had we hit in the six months since he’d joined my team? He’d obviously tipped off the hacker we’d been after in Warsaw, since that bastard had slipped through our fingers. “But wearegoing to fix this.”
“You should have destroyed the files at Mnemis instead of leaving them there.” Rav finally looked up from the tablet he’d been staring at since we arrived.
His dark brown eyes met mine for a fraction of a second, sending the butterflies up into my throat. His gaze shifted to Percival, but the heat stayed with me.
Rav’s black hair was shorter than it had been in Afghanistan, when he’d worn it and his beard longer to fit in better with the locals. I’d never seen his jawline, but I’d felt it under my nails. I’d run my fingers through that thick mass of hair he always brushed back, but that kept falling forward onto his forehead.
Focus on the task in front of you.
Except not directly in front of you. Stop focusing on Rav.
Percival put up his hands as if in surrender. “I’m with you, man.”
I’d petitioned our leadership to destroy the files for years. We should have wiped the formula from the face of the Earth instead of risking any of it falling into someone’s hands.
Why’d they think the bait idea was a good one?
Because it didn’t matter.
There were copies of the intact formula somewhere. Maybe the CDC. Maybe the CIA. Maybe in some secret lab hidden away on a remote island. Either way, the government wanted to ensure they had control of it, so using it as bait meant they could eliminate anyone else who knew it existed.
It was all about control.
“Why they kept it is above our pay grade.” Percival punctuated his words with his raised hands. “Fuck, the fact that Brooke had screwed with it was abovemypay grade until three days ago. Lark’s too.”
But Ihadtold Percival about it. He and I went too far back for me to keep the secret from him after he’d cursed about us leaving it in place for the tenth time.
“So what’s your plan when you locate Fenix?” Rav frowned and folded his arms, emphasizing the breadth of his chest and the size of his biceps.
You fit perfectly against that chest. You slept best when your head was right there, listening to his heart.
Percival said, “Our job is to secure it, find out if they shared it with anyone, and then secure that copy, too.”
“What’s your end goal, Evelyn?” Rav turned to his boss. “If they’re not eliminating Fenix, why are we staying put?”
“Rav.” Scarlett kept her focus on me, but shut him down all the same. Why did he fall quiet when she said his name? What was she to him?
And why did his question sit so uncomfortably in my stomach?
“If Evelyn says we’re cooperating, we’re cooperating.” Scarlett pointed at Brie. “Show them what we have so far.”
Will continued to stand behind Brie’s chair, not touching her, but clearly steadying her.
Brie pushed her glasses up. “We built a pattern model based on some communications we pulled off Fenix’s server in Mnemis. We’re almost certain they’re consolidated in Naples, which meets some critical needs: proximity to medical supply chains, access to private labs where they can assemble the Greek Fire, plus a historically interesting city, which seems to matter to them.”
Will leaned forward and tapped Brie’s tablet, causing the wall screen to light up with a heat map. Dozens of large red circles appeared, alongside orange, yellow, and green dots. “We’ve hacked into a few facilities, looking for any chemicals we could identify in their emails. Liquid oxygen, phosphorus derivatives, and certain surfactants that show up in both industrial cleaners and experimental polymers. If anyone buys those in quantity within our radius, we’ll get a ping.”
If their models were to be truly useful, I’d have to share the genuine Greek Fire formula with them.Thatwouldn’t happen, but I could steer them in the right direction. “Add arsenic trichloride, chloroacetone, and vinyl chloride to your list.”
Brie nodded as she typed notes on her tablet using an external keyboard.
“They wouldn’t draw attention with a single order. They’ll stitch together a supply chain across multiple fronts. And make sure you’re tracking veterinarians, if you can.”
“Already considered the vet angle,” Brie said, still typing. “My team is training an AI to help with the search, so we won’t miss anything that could pass for normal.”
Percival glanced across the table, trying to see what was on her screen. “Can you forward whatever models you’ve created?”
