I bite my lip. “The partner that my sister sent, Ryker, he believes it’s the hacker who works at Saber Security. But I trust Tatiana. It can’t be her.”
“So, who then?”
“Premy.”
“Premy Sagadore?”
“I’ve had my doubts for a while about her.”
Thalia nods. “Her background checks are pristine. No red flags. At all.”
I smirk. “Were there any red flags in my file?”
“About a thousand,” Thalia tries to laugh. “Not really anything of note, except that thing in Afghanistan.”
I frown. “Thing in Afghanistan?”
“Yeah, the convoy you helped while on reconnaissance?”
“In Kandahar? I don’t understand.”
“You probably wouldn’t,” Thalia sighs. “Army investigators raised the alarm when your team redirected to help another that was under fire. You were a little too close to the action, and there was a thought that someone tipped off the insurgents. They looked hard at your team.”
“What?”
She nods. “The Criminal Investigation Division did a deep dive of your actions, your incident report, that of your team, the guys you saved, and ruled that you weren’t involved. That’s why you don’t know anything about it.”
“But you do.”
She shrugs. “It’s in your file. I have access to records that are sealed like that. We check everyone out before we let them loose to escort criminals around the world.”
Much of my time in Afghanistan was a blur, primarily by design. I saw some terrible things, and the only way to deal with those things was to put them in a box and bury them deep in my subconscious. But, now and then, a memory pokes through like a weed through a crack in the sidewalk.
Something Thalia says feels like a déjà vu forming in my memories, but I don’t get to think about it too long. The doctor enters and asks me to leave while he examines Thalia. I excuse myself to see the ER docs about my shoulder.
They’re able to restitch my bullet wound and not ask too many questions in the process when I show them my Marshals badge. When I return to Thalia’s room, she’s asleep, and I decide to head back to my condo for a change of clothes and a shower.
I case my neighborhood, looking for anything or anyone out of place, but it seems clear. That feeling goes to Hell the second I enter my house and come face-to-face with the barrel of a gun.
Chapter 37
“Extra protection couldn’t hurt.”
-Ryker
It’s killing me not to go after Cat, but I’m on Dakota duty. And I don’t know what to do with the knowledge that a hacker has helped Rose and Helfinger escape prison. I’d usually ask Tatiana to track that information down, but I don’t want to think about that if she's on their side. The woman is a gifted programmer. She can fuck your shit up just by thinking about it.
In the end, I take Dakota to Garrison’s vet clinic. The man owes me so many favors from Kandahar, and it seems I’m cashing them all in because of Kitten. The irony doesn’t escape me.
Garrison lives on a 59-acre farm, complete with several prison cells. The veterinary clinic is his day job. He takes on freelance black ops work when certain companies need shit done with no questions.
And that’s where I was right now.
No questions asked.
Dakota didn’t say much on the ride over. But as I close the cell door, he looks as if he wants to spill more beans.
“You’re leaving me here?”
