Finally, they reached a subterranean motor pool directly beneath the Castle. The space was full of Land Rovers, German sedans, and a handful of motorcycles. Gray joined his bike with the others and cut the engine. He quickly dismounted and removed his helmet.
The entrance into Sigma Command was sealed off by vault-like steel doors. He headed to a biometric reader and registered a retinal scan and palm print, but the door remained locked. The electronic surveillance in the garage had recognized another was present who had not yet identified themselves.
Gray turned to the Ducati as its rider swept off the bike. “Seichan, you’ll need to scan in, too. They’ve upped security since the last time you were down here.”
With the snap of a chin strap, Seichan yanked off her helmet. A drape of ebony hair fell to her shoulders. She gave Gray a scathing look and tugged down the zipper of her leather jacket, exposing a maroon blouse.
“Heightened security?” she scoffed. “Better late than never, I suppose.”
She crossed to him, moving with a leonine grace, all sinew, muscles, and long curves. The almond complexion of her skin—marking her Eurasian heritage—shone through a sheen of perspiration. Her emerald eyes smoldered with barely restrained fury.
“Crowe better have answers,” she warned. “If this is just some organizational pissing contest...”
Gray understood the source of her frustration and anger. The two had left their two-year-old son at the safehouse. She did not like being away from Jack’s side—especially now.
Following the attack, the entire agency had gone into lockdown.Painter was taking no chances, especially when a hit-and-run maimed a pair of operatives shortly after the bombing. Another agent was killed by a sniper while out jogging.
Someone was clearly targeting Sigma teams.
Since the lockdown, there had been no more incidents, but no one was fooled into believing that the threat was over. The enemy had only momentarily retreated, likely to regroup and reassess before striking again. Everyone remained guarded, knowing they were in the calm before the storm.
Gray hooked an arm around Seichan’s waist as she joined him. “We’ll get back to Jack as soon as possible.”
She scowled at him, but she still leaned into his side, allowing herself this rare moment of reassurance. Despite her stoic front, cracks showed from the tension. Her lips were bloodless and thin; the curve of her jaw was hard from clenched muscles.
It was theunknownthat wore on her, on all of them, but she was taking it especially hard. And it wasn’t just the lack of knowledge about the bomber that kept her on edge. It was the unsettled fate of the organization.
If Sigma were shut down, Gray had plenty of options open to him. He had joined the armed forces when he was eighteen, become a ranger at twenty-one. Painter had personally recruited him into Sigma. He had been picked less for his military background and more for what Seichan described as hisstrange mind, his ability to perceive patterns where no one else could.
He didn’t know where that talent came from. While growing up, Gray had always been pulled in different directions. Maybe his upbringing had made him look at things differently, to try to balance extremes. Or maybe it was something genetic, ingrained in his DNA, that allowed him to see those patterns.
No matter the source, he knew it was a skill set that other agencies would value.
The same was not true for Seichan.
She had been an assassin for an international criminal organization.Brutalized and molded from a young age, she had developed her own bloody skill set, but it was not something easily included on an application or résumé. While she had eventually turned against her bosses and come to work with Sigma, she remained estranged from the surrounding world. Few knew her true background. Several countries’ intelligence agencies, including the Mossad, still maintained a kill-order on her.
Sigma had become her home—first out of necessity, later out of hope for a different life, and now it offered a new beginning with Gray and Jack. No one, not even Painter, could say what her fate would be if Sigma folded. The agency was her cover, her protection. Without it, she would become unmoored—and as much as she tried to hide her feelings, it clearly terrified her.
“We’ll be okay,” Gray said lamely, drawing her closer. He lifted his left hand to show the gold band encircling a finger. “And we still have a wedding to plan.”
Her attempt at a smile came off as a grimace. “I don’t know which is worse: dealing with a bomber or figuring out the seating chart for the reception.”
Seichan slipped out of his embrace and stepped to the biometric scanners. After her identity was confirmed, the reinforced steel doors parted. Gray felt his ears pop as the positive pressure ventilation wafted over them, maintaining the clean-room nature of the facility.
They headed together into the lowermost level of the command center.
Gray stared up, picturing the director’s office three flights above.
For better or worse, let’s discover our fate.
4:34P.M.
Director Painter Crowe remained seated behind his desk as he waited for the latecomers to settle in. A tension headache had taken root behind his eyes.
But, at least, I still have a head.
He had been in his office when the Castle had been bombed. He had heard the explosions, felt the quake of those blasts. The lights had failedfor several dark seconds before the emergency generators had kicked in. He had ordered an immediate evacuation of the facility, fearing it might collapse—but in the end, the old WWII shelters had proved to be as bomb-proof as their name attested. The deep bunkers had sustained minimal damage.
