Gramercy shifted in his chair. “Our options are our options. Nolan, we expect Whitmer to guide you every step of the way. Atlas and I and our strongest team will be behind you.” He tapped the tabletop once with his first finger, his focus entirely on KC. “This is an opportunity. Quite honestly, it’s an opportunity you should have had long ago. Be grateful you’ll be mentored in the field bysomeone of Whitmer’s caliber. If your personal relationship gets in the way of your ability to feel that gratitude, set it aside.”
“I understand, sir.”
Yardley couldn’t take her eyes off KC. Gorgeous, dazzling, brilliant KC, who was more than Yardley had ever imagined, and shame on her.
“It looks like for the first time in a long time, we’re starting on the same page,” she said. “Shall we?”
KC got up without a word, and they left the room together.
Just like she had in those weeks after they met, Yardley was diving headfirst into the unknown. She could be betrayed. She could fail. And, no matter what, in the end, she would say good-bye to Katherine Corrine Nolan.
She couldn’t help but think they were taking the first steps toward a day they would be strangers to each other.
If they weren’t already.
CHAPTER SIX
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
KC waited in the hallway as Yardley snapped on a light to reveal a closet-like room adjacent to a tech lab. They were in a mysterious and apparently abandoned wing of the headquarters building.
“Ignore the wear pattern in the carpet.” Yardley gestured at a bare spot about the length of a person pacing back and forth. “I promise no one has ever been kept prisoner in here.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you would say just before you locked the door?” Reluctantly, KC made her way inside and sat down on a creaky rolling chair opposite another broken-looking rolling chair. There was a small metal table between them. The room was otherwise empty.
“No locking, I promise.” Yardley pulled the door halfway shut behind her. “This was the best I could do on short notice before I organized a few things. I’ll be back.”
She exited without further comment, leaving KC to her own devices.
On the way from the Situation Room at the White House to this dilapidated and abandoned office, Yardley had said nothing. Secret Service had escorted them to the helipad, they’d flown and landed, KC had trudged behind her new mentor to a familiar techlab where Yardley got a comm earpiece and took KC’s cell phone, and now she was here, with no debrief after the briefing.
She jiggled her leg, staring at the door. She’d already heard Yardley walk down the hall and bang through the double doors at the end. Likely to be gone a while yet.
“Keep it moving, Nolan.” Her voice fell flat against the acoustic tiles and hard-wear carpet. She looked for and found the security camera, mounted in a discreet corner. It was a TaborView wired continuous feed cam that looked more than a few years old. No way to tell if it was recording without a specialized scanner.
She gave the dark lens a wave. Even if they were watching, she wasn’t going to sit here like an obedient child. She left the room and stepped into the dim hallway.
The door on the dark tech lab was locked. She keyed in a door code she’d established for herself in her first week at the agency, one she used when she didn’t want her movements—physical or digital—to be tracked.
The lock clicked open. Banks of overhead fluorescents blinked slowly to life. KC stepped out of the doorway, her back against the wall, and waited a moment, listening.
No footsteps. Nothing.
She slid a laptop off of a metal cart and returned to the room she was supposed to be in. It took her a few minutes to wipe the computer and cloak its signal.
Very little had happened to her in her life that she hated more than sitting in a meeting with the president of the United States and her ex-girlfriend-slash-peerless-spy and telling them 90 percent of the truth.
Especially considering the remaining 10 percent that was a lie was abigone.
In fact, I made the weapon, Madam President. I pinky swear it was for a legitimate reason that will be explained at a later time.
As the president herself was now fully aware, KC had gotten into some messes, but she’d never been in this deep. She didn’t know what Ada Williams knew about Dr. Brown’s black op, much less McLaughlin, Gramercy, Atlas, or Yardley. No question, the presidentshouldknow everything. The CIA’s entire purpose was to gather intelligence and present it without bias to the president, so nothing should be happening at the agency that the executive branch was unaware of.
But just because things were supposed to work a certain way didn’t mean they did.
She would have liked to inform the people in the Situation Room that Dr. Brown was hurt and off the grid, and he would explain when he was able to reemerge. She hadn’t been able to do that, however, because he’d been injured in the course of the very same black op she couldn’t talk about, which meant even his injuries were a secret to anyone outside of the op.
Which was everyone, so far as KC had been told.
