Page 81 of Redemption's Inferno

London, a month later

* * *

Sitting across from the director of MI6, Chains fought off the discomfort in his gut. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t to blame for what had happened, and today he would not only get answers, he would give some as well. Looking at the middle-aged man on the other side of the desk, he thought of Emilie and the kids, and suddenly he remembered this place didn’t own him anymore. He had a whole new life that was better than anything he’d had as a spy. He’d loved serving his country, but those days were gone.

“Thank you for coming,” the director said, gazing at him intently. “You look good. Haven’t seen you without dreads since the military.”

Chains rubbed a hand over his short hair. “Still getting used to it, but the girlfriend seems to like it.”

“How is Emilie?”

“She’s doing well, thanks.” Chains cocked his head. “Look, let’s not pretend we’re mates, yeah? I’m here to set the record straight because it’s important to me and because I still care about my country, but this agency turned their back on me so I don’t owe you a bloody thing.”

“I got the information you sent me,” the director nodded abruptly, opening a file on his desk. “I’m a bit confused at the connections, but it seems your intel about the events of that day is better than ours. I’m not sure if it concerns me or not.”

Chains shook his head. “I’m still a patriot, so you don’t need to be concerned about anything I know.”

“And your friends in America?”

Chains shrugged. “Good people who don’t care about a mission in Iraq in 2010 beyond the death of American soldiers. Otherwise, it was a bad and unlucky day in the war against terrorism.”

“All right then.”

“Shay Gentry and I met during a set of training exercises with the CIA and some special ops groups. We became friends. When he was deployed in Afghanistan he’d gotten wind of our mission to go after bin Laden and he had concerns. I never had a chance to talk with him about them, but he sent me an encrypted message telling me to watch myself, there was a traitor in my group. Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing it was Warren. What I got out of Warren before he passed was that Shay figured it out and tried to report it to MI6, but Warren intercepted that message.” He shook his head, suddenly mourning Shay’s death more than he ever had before.

“The crazy thing was, and this is where it’s a bit convoluted—Shay’s mother had hired mercs to kill one of the women deployed with Shay. His brother’s wife, Erin, was the target—the personal story is a bit muddy but she was supposed to lead the team going on patrol that day and that’s when the mercs were going to put an IED in their path to take her out. At the 11th hour Shay decided to go with them, instead of remaining behind like he normally did. Someone on the team was the go-between and got a message to the mercs that Shay was in the Hummer, that they needed to abort. Except Warren intercepted that message as well, and decided it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of the only person who’d found out what he was up to. The mercs didn’t know anything had changed and went ahead with the plan. Erin’s mother-in-law’s plan wasn’t successful since Erin survived, but Warren’s was since Shay was killed as intended.”

“That’s a cock-up if I ever heard one,” the director muttered.

“Meanwhile, Warren was taking money to help protect bin Laden. He leaked me the wrong information, they were waiting for us and the mission went south. Gary Matthews was piloting the helo that day and he was one of the men killed. His widow, Franny, wanted answers. She wasn’t willing to accept that it was an unfortunate casualty of war, and of course I was furious about what happened as well. No one—including me—knew that Warren had been the one to leak the wrong information, so everyone blamed me, said my intel was wrong, that I’d made a fatal mistake. When I started digging, determined to clear my name, Warren knew I’d figure it out if he didn’t do something, so he contacted Franny and told her he knew who was responsible for her husband’s death. She reacted as he’d hoped, making a huge fuss, so when she threatened to go to the media, the Americans contacted someone here at MI6. Whatever was said resulted in a permanent black mark in my file and a refusal to let me continue trying to clear my name—they wanted the whole thing to go away.”

“Warren sent a letter,” the director murmured, holding up a piece of paper, “explaining all that. What I don’t understand is what happened to you last month?”

Chains shrugged. “Warren told Franny who I was quite a while ago, thinking she’d get over it once she knew I’d been ruined professionally. His plan had been to stop me from finding out what he’d done; her plan was to get her revenge by getting close to me, but he didn’t know that. Problem was that there was no one special in my life—no romantic interests, no family she knew of, no close friends, so there was no way to truly hurt me. She could kill me but she didn’t want that; she wanted me to suffer. When I fell in love with Emilie, she finally got her chance.”

“Well.” The director looked uncertain for a moment but finally cleared his throat. “Your record’s been cleared and it seems as though this has been tied up neatly.”

Chains shrugged. “I suppose it has. Doesn’t explain why I had to come here in person to tell you this.”

The man handed him an envelope. “This is from Warren.”

Chains raised his eyebrows. “I don’t want his money! I know where it came from and it’s blood money as far as I’m concerned.”

“Actually, no. This is a lump payout of his retirement and pension. He’d named you the beneficiary. It’s a tidy sum—a nice way to start your new life. Heard you have stepchildren, and raising them can be expensive. Don’t be a stubborn fool.”

Chains slowly took the envelope and opened it. His eyes widened when he saw the amount and suddenly he couldn’t wait to tell Emilie. “Right,” was all he could think to say.

“By the way,” the director was shuffling through papers on his desk as he spoke, “I got what you wanted on your mum’s friend.”

Chains held up a hand, not taking the proffered file. “Did you find anything at all in his past?”

“Nothing. One incident of illegally discharging his weapon to protect a child. Was his second year in Scotland Yard and he was cleared of any wrong-doing. Not another thing his entire career, nothing in his personal life. Wife died of cancer, children are living, nothing of any interest.”

“Thank you.” He ended the meeting, shook the man’s hand and took the elevator down to street level. He had no plans to ever set foot in that building again.

* * *

An hour later he was on his way to the airport, anxious to get home. Since he’d been in England he’d seen his mother and Nate, managed to talk to Warren before he passed away, and got closure from MI6 he hadn’t been able to attain since 2010. He’d also cleared his name, which was important because although he had no desire to go back to espionage, he’d hated knowing there had been something like that in his permanent file. Now it was done.

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