Page 12 of Her Wicked Hero

“Off the books, we helped the Saudis employ the Thorne Group to put security in place. My job was to keep the Saudis and Thorne informed of imminent and credible threats. We helped them foil at least forty different Al-Qaeda attacks.”

It didn’t matter. Failure was never an option. He looked at Brockman and saw he lived by that motto as well.

“So that happened six months ago, right?” Gray said.

Brockman nodded.

“How many Thorne casualties?”

“Seventeen,” Brockman answered immediately. Yep, just as Zed suspected, Brockman took this personally.

“Did the people at Thorne know you were involved?” Zed asked.

“Just ownership. But if someone good really wanted to dig, I’m sure they could have found out,” Brockman sighed.

“And the last op?” Gray asked.

“This can’t be what it’s about. It just came about four weeks ago.” Brockman’s voice trailed off.

“What?” Zed demanded.

“Three weeks ago, Kyle and his men were selected to guard the yacht.”

“What’s the op?”

“Fissionable material was stolen from France.”

“Where’s it going? North Korea? Pakistan?” Gray asked.

Brockman gave both men a grim look. “Our source says Turkey.”

“Holy fuck,” Zed breathed out. “Are you sure?”

“No. But this source has been one hundred percent right for ten years. That’s why we’re following the material, instead of just reacquiring it. If someone in Turkey has gone rogue, we need to know about it.”

Zed thought about it. After Russia took over the Crimean peninsula and Turkey’s proximity to Iraq, he could see where factions within the country would think having a nuclear arsenal would be critical.

“You’re getting it,” Brockman nodded to him.

“Yeah,” Zed agreed. “I’m getting it, but I’m not liking it.”

“Why you? Why not have the C.I.A. work on this?” Gray asked.

“Plausible deniability. They need some distance on all of these ops in case they go south. But I’m using some of their people when needed.”

“So, these people who wanted you could have known about your involvement with current operations and wanted information on them, right?” Gray said.

“Yes.”

“Or they could have just been after you because you were the former NSA Director and wanted you, thinking you had knowledge of your previous job.”

Brockman nodded. “This is a fucking mess.”

“We need to find out who Kyle really was and who he was working for,” Gray said.

“Let’s hope they wanted you for your current stuff,” Zed said.

Brockman raised an eyebrow in question.