“I’ll check with you tomorrow,” Fearghas said. “Thanks, Martin.”
“Anything for you, Fearghas. You might be the last of the good guys. I still can’t believe you’re no longer with the SAS. We miss you around here. I hope you’ve landed well.”
“I have. Be safe, my friend.”
“And you,” Martin said and ended the call.
Fearghas set the satellite phone close to the stove to dry any lingering moisture and turned to Catya.
She sat facing the monitor, her eyes closed, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose.
Fearghas went to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “You need to rest.” He gently massaged the knotted muscles in her neck and shoulders. “You’ve been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours.” The explosion alone had to have done some damage.
“I can’t rest.” Despite her words, she leaned back into his hands, letting her head tip forward, giving him full access to her shoulders and neck muscles.
She’d always liked it when he’d massaged her like that, practically purring when he had.
Catya moaned. “If you had seen Gia’s face before she died...” She shook her head. “She knew what was on that disk but didn’t have time to tell me before her wounds claimed her.”
She stiffened beneath his fingers. “I need to contact my MI6 handler. I need to know why they sent me in to kill her and if he knew about the disk.”
“I would have thought you’d have contacted him by now.” Fearghas didn’t stop massaging, and she didn’t tell him to stop.
“I tried as soon as I got a new phone,” Catya said. “He isn’t responding to my calls or texts.”
“Who is your handler in MI6?” Fearghas asked.
“Walter Sykes,” she answered.
“If you can’t get him to respond, can you contact anyone else?”
Catya shook her head. “He’s been my handler since the Federal Security Service loaned me to the MI6 on high-profile cases. The jobs involved heinous individuals committing crimes against humanity in areas of mutual interest. They shared information, which is unheard of between the Brits and the Russians. They agreed to bring in the best to handle the situation.”
“You,” Fearghas stated.
Catya nodded. “Once MI6 had my number, they continued to task me, especially after I left the FSB. You know the reason why I left.”
He did.
Catya had confided the reason for her separation from the FSB, one of the successor agencies for the former KGB responsible for antiterrorism and counterintelligence.
Not long ago, she’d been handed the dossier of a target she’d be assigned to eliminate. As was her habit, she’d researched the target on the internet to ascertain the transgressions that deemed him deserving of elimination.
The man was a Russian environmental engineer and scientist. He’d made the mistake of raising global concern about the destruction of an island nation off the coast of Africa. His announcement to the world got him crossways with a Russian Oligarch’s grab for the island’s resources out of pure corporate greed.
Catya’s parents had already retired from the FSB and had started a new life after changing their names and moving out of Russia.
Catya had left her homeland on the pretext of carrying out her mission to assassinate the scientist. Instead, she’d kidnapped the scientist on the boat he’d chartered to get back and forth from the island to the mainland. She’d told him of the plot to have him killed and had given him two choices.
He could die that day on the boat in a fiery explosion and become a martyr to his cause, or he could jump into the water with Catya. The vessel would explode in a few short minutes either way.
The scientist chose to jump. Catya had a fishing boat pick them up and take them back to the mainland, where she’d arranged for a vehicle to take them to a safe house.
Afterward, she’d cut off all contact with the FSB, faking her own death in the boat explosion. Using her contacts, she’d created a new identity for the man and shipped him across the Atlantic to an island in the Caribbean.
After the scientist’s family had grieved his loss for several months, Catya had the scientist’s wife and small child smuggled out of Russia. The family had reunited on that sunny island where they were free to live their lives under new identities.
Fearghas had loved everything about the story. It proved what he’d already known. Yes, she was a killer, but she had a heart. She’d sacrificed her career in the FSB—and her own safety—to do the right thing for a stranger who’d wanted to protect an island nation.