“Yes. But we need the other drive. We need to take Flynn off the grid. We need Dr. Brown found and this black op shut down.”
“You have people looking for him.” KC should’ve known she would.
“People, drones, hacks, assets both dirty and clean, shopkeepers all over the world who I make a point of tipping handsomely. My dragnet is utter.” When Yardley pressed her lips together, her angry dimple made an appearance.
“Okay,” KC said. Yardley was powerful, and her view of Project Maple Leaf was sharp. KC had to admit it was nice to have a boss willing to take care of things.
“I have to go. Look.” Yardley took a step toward KC. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “I know we haven’t had a chance to take a minute.”
KC looked into Yardley’s eyes, wide and blue and kind, and let her see her more than she usually would. Mostly, she let Yardley see that she was sad. KC knew they probably wouldn’t get that minute, at least not until they made it back to Virginia and Yardley was handing her back the house key.
Not the watch. KC wanted her to keep that. She’d given it to Yardley to be hers forever.
“I’m good,” KC said. “I know there isn’t time for personal stuff.” She had to ignore the shine in Yardley’s eyes. There was a lot ahead of them tonight, and KC could only deal with it if she tackled her problems in order of their destructive potential. She started back down the hall, then thought better of her exit and turned. “Hey, Yardley?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you could get some kind of Norwegian militarybase doctor to take a look at Flynn and the baby? So she feels better?”
Yardley smiled. “Already done.”
KC returned to the tech room and dropped into the seat where she’d been told over an hour ago to wait for Gramercy to give her instructions. Moments later, his monitor shuttered to black. He turned around in his chair, unlooping his earpiece and mic combo. He wore a beautifully tailored suit with polished wingtips. The matte shine of his dark tie was knotted in a perfect Windsor.
No smile, though.
Do something different.That was what KC told herself, contemplating Gramercy. This was a veteran agent sitting across from her, a man who’d been so deep undercover that his cover’s name still made lists of powerful Russian oligarchs. A man whose husband was a three-star general.
He wasn’t Dr. Brown. He wasn’t warm and immediately forthcoming. He couldn’t be counted on to share with her everything he was thinking, or dress her down, or give her a tech task that he dared her was impossible. But he also had been unfailingly respectful, and there was no manual for handlers. Nothing required Gramercy to call for a car to take him to Reston in the wee hours so he could wheedle and cajole KC into doing her job.
If she didn’t count the baby mission at the steakhouse, tonight’s op would be the first time the agency actually tasked her with the kind of work she’d trained so many years to do. Maybe she couldn’t wipe the weapon she’d made off the face of the earth, but she could make sure it was only in the hands of people she more or less trusted to do the right thing.
“I can do this,” she told her handler.
“I know you can.”
She nodded, noticing that even this mild vote of confidence made her feel like she’d won a medal. “Iwantto do this.”
Then Gramercy did somethinghehad never done before.
He smiled.
It was a great smile, not at all like KC might have expected. His bottom teeth were a little crooked, and his thin face creased along all the lines KC had noticed, but the effect wasn’t actually dapper or dashing. His smile made him look real. She’d never really thought of him as real.
KC smiled back. “So.”
Gramercy leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, barely creasing his suit jacket. “I want you to know that I asked to be assigned to you. There was a bit of a bet going, actually. Whether anyone could succeed in the position. Dr. Brown had kept you to himself, some thought with good reason, others took issue, but certainly the exclusivity of the relationship was commented on.”
KC adjusted her shoulders, noticing that what Gramercy told her made her uncomfortable. “Any perceived exclusivity to Dr. Brown wasn’t coming from me.”
“I didn’t think it was. I’m telling you it seemed he was keeping you to himself. And, powerful men being what they are, the only reason why one would sequester one of the agency’s best talents was in order to, by association,becomeone of the agency’s best talents.”
She appreciated the compliment, but there was a KC inside of her who yowled in protest at the idea she’d only meant to Dr. Brown what she could get for him. It was the same KC inside of her who had immediately protested Yardley and Kris’sspeculation that Dr. Brown was either a bad actor or the source of the leak.
She hadn’t lied to Yardley when she said Dr. Brown had never given her a reason to believe he was dishonest. But there were things she hadn’t said. Dr. Brown hadn’t been her father or her friend. He hadn’t even been much of a mentor. But he’d been the one person who was clearly on her team, and everything KC had ever learned or known about this work—hacker, MIT student, agency intelligence tech—had always been, to a greater or lesser extent, about fighting.
Fighting to keep her head above water after the agency blackmailed her into going to work for them. Fighting for the bros to recognize her code was good. Fighting to contribute to the conversation. Fighting to make the world a better place.
Her red hair wasn’t the only reason they called her Tabasco. She got spicy. She’d learned how to do that when she was young, struggling to get what she needed for herself and her grandma. And it had worked. She’d survived. She’d made it this far. But there were consequences, not least that fighting kept her separated even from people she wanted a deeper connection with.
