Jake wasn’t having it, though. “No, Khan, your mission”—he pointed a finger accusingly at both of them—“was to get the data that Hanna left. Your mission wasn’t to exfiltrate the asset.”
“In fact,” Trent weighed in, piling on, “your mission was explicitly not to extract Hanna. I think Jake told you at least twice not to do it.”
“Wait. Jake, you and Ryan let us assume we were working for the Agency. Were you actually coordinating with … whoever she works for?” Omar waved between Jake and Poppy.
Jake snorted. “I didn’t know Poppy Jones was going to be on the Fakhar. And if I had, I’d have know her as the genius behind ‘Find My Soul,’ not as an intelligence agent.”
“Wait, you listen to my music?” Poppy turned up the wattage on her star-powered smile and batted her long eyelashes.
Olivia blew out a long, centering breath. “Can we all please focus? We obviously didn’t know about your mission, and Omar’s right: it appears our missions were at cross purposes. Because no matter what Jake said about leaving Hanna behind, we’re not in the business of burning people.” She paused and eyed their boss. “Right, Jake?”
Omar sucked in a breath. Of course, this would be a sore subject for her. When Olivia was working for the CIA under nonofficial cover, the agency did burn her. They had her on a flight headed to a CIA black site, until Trent knocked out the pilot.
No wonder Liv had been so willing to help them despite Jake’s orders.
“Listen,” Poppy said, conciliatory now. “I get why you helped Hanna. Idris Mahmoud is a dick. Aside from whatever other criminal activities he’s involved in, he treated that poor woman like dirt. So I understand why you did what you did, but I needed information about her father, which I cannot get from Brad’s rum-soaked brain.”
Omar put his palms up in a gesture of surrender. “As Marielle would say, tant pis.”
He flashed her a look to confirm he used the phrase correctly, and she gave him a proud smile.
Jake chimed in, “Those are the breaks. I’m sure you’ve had an operation go sideways on you before.”
She laughed. “Every operation goes sideways in some way, doesn’t it?”
Everyone in the back of the limo nodded their agreement.
Her smile faded. “But I don’t always have a very clear cause to point to. And since, in this case, I do, you’re going to help me get access to Hanna’s father.”
“Mmm, no we’re not,” Jake told her.
“Mmm, yes you are.” She turned away from the boss and toward Marielle and Omar. “At least put me in touch with her. I know you stashed her somewhere in the country because you haven’t left France.”
“We’re not going to talk about the details of our mission,” Marielle said coolly.
Jake added, “Look, you might be at the top of the pop and country charts and on the cover of Vogue and nominated for four well-deserved Grammy Awards. But you can’t make my people do anything.”
Before Poppy could respond, Marielle blurted, “I’m sorry, is anyone else as freaked out as I am to find out that Jake is a closet Poppy Jones fan?”
The tension broke.
Once the laughter ended, Poppy said, “Marielle, I know you know where Hanna is. I know she has some level of trust with you. And you speak fluent French.”
All true, Omar thought.
She went on, “So while I can’t make you do anything, I’m asking you to stay and help me. I have part of the story, and you all obviously do, too. And it’s clear your government is shutting you out. It would be mutually beneficial if we worked on this together because I know each of us is only getting a part of the picture.”
Omar clicked his tongue. She was probably right. Judging by the story Hanna had told Interpol, they were in the middle of a morass of international proportions involving not one, but two, planned coups. Plus whatever Poppy was working on.
He looked at Trent. Trent looked at Jake. Jake looked at him.
“She’s right,” Jake said flatly.
“Do they always do this?” Poppy said in an aside to Marielle and Liv. “The deep, meaningful staring into one another’s eyes.”
“Actually, yeah.”
“Weird.”
