Page 44 of Wired Courage

“We were never going to attack that damned place.” Jake stretched his arms overhead, and rubbed his full belly with a sigh. “We were just going to investigate how to sneak in and get my daughter back.”

He remembered, as suddenly as the words formed, that Momi wasn’t his daughter. Never had been. He’d just decided to pretend she was, and love her like it was a done deal.

Well, nothing was a done deal in this life, least of all love.

“I heard about Sophie Smithson’s kidnapped infant daughter from my contact in the Secret Service, Ellie Smith, even before Sophie reached out to me. Before Sophie became pregnant, we were negotiating with her to become a confidential informant on the Yam Khûmk?n’s activities. She and Sheldon Hamilton were our contacts and we were working on a strategy to surveille the compound and the major players of the Yam Khûmk?n. After she got pregnant, she and Hamilton pulled the plug.” McDonald leaned forward on his meaty arms and met Jake’s eyes. “What’s happened to Sheldon Hamilton? And where are the rest of your men?”

“Now that’s a story that will take some telling. But first—do you know why I was released? Did Sophie, or anyone else—negotiate a deal with the Yam Khûmk?n?”

“Nope. The agency was just keeping an eye on things, waiting for more intel, hoping someone would be set free as a goodwill gesture. Is that what your liberation was—a goodwill gesture?”

“I have no idea.” Jake sat back and rubbed the back of his neck; a headache had begun as a persistent throb at the base of his skull. “I doubt good will had anything to do with it. Hamilton and I are the only ones left alive.”

McDonald turned on a recorder, and Jake laid out the ambush they had experienced as they attempted to surveille the compound. “Pim Wat, Sophie’s mother, killed everyone but me and Hamilton.”

“We have a file on Pim Wat.” McDonald’s eyes gleamed. “She is more than the socialite she appears to be.”

“No shit. And so is Hamilton.” Jake owed Connor nothing. He owed Sophie nothing. They had betrayed him, and now it was payback time. Jake laid out all he had put together regarding Hamilton’s second identity. “Hamilton killed off the Todd Remarkian identity when the FBI was getting too close to blowing his cover.”

McDonald splashed the last of the wine into their glasses. “Whoa. I will need time to verify all of this.”

“Contact Marcella Scott of the FBI. She has been investigating the Ghost. And to make things even weirder, the last time I saw Hamilton, he was dressed as a ninja-trainee and was practicing martial arts with the other recruits of the Yam Khûmk?n. I think he might have made some kind of deal with the man with the purple eyes—unless Sophie did, first.” Jake’s belly cramped at the thought. How was he going to live with her betrayal?How?

“Sophie has been off the grid for days, so I don’t think she was the one to negotiate your release.” McDonald rubbed his bristly chin. “I don’t know about you, but I have phone calls to make. I imagine you’ve got friends and family you want to reach out to, beginning with Sophie, to let them know you’re safe. We can pick up this interview in the morning.”

“Sure,” Jake said hollowly. No way was he ready to talk to Sophie. “Got a scrambler phone I can borrow?”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Day Twenty-Eight

Sophie cuddled her daughter as she moved the hammock swing in an idle arc with her foot. The deck of her aunt’s house, decorated with sturdy rattan outdoor furniture and pots of beautiful flowering shrubs, was a pleasant place in which to revel in sunshine, and Sophie enjoyed feeding Momi and a moment of solitude after a busy twenty-four hours.

She, Malee, and Armita had moved Pim Wat to the storage shed under Sophie’s old house for an uncomfortable night in darkness and solitude as the three of them, with baby in tow and no further need for concealment, trooped back to Malee’s house.

They’d talked in detail about what to do with Sophie’s lethal and recalcitrant mother, who was reduced to an entirely manageable bundle of indignant squawks and evil glares now that she was bound and gagged.

But Sophie was worried. She couldn’t keep her mother tied up forever and, at some point, the Master would miss her and come looking.

Sophie had already left a message for McDonald at the CIA. She needed to get Pim Wat off her hands and into their custody, but her mother was also a powerful bargaining chip for her men’s lives.

Softhearted Malee had already wanted to let Pim Wat out of her dank prison, so now her mother was seated on a deck chair in the garden below as Malee moved among her sunflowers, deadheading and trimming, carrying on a monologue at her sister that Sophie enjoyed listening to. Malee was letting her sister know, in no uncertain terms, that many of the assumptions Pim Wat had made about her were incorrect; that, in fact, Pim Wat wasn’t the only one to have engaged in both espionage and illicit business. Aunt Malee dabbled in opium smuggling to support her habit of buying real estate, such as Sophie’s former home, and she was having a good brag about her various endeavors.

Watching Pim Wat have to listen, wriggling and snorting in her bindings, was disturbingly entertaining.

But the situation as it was could not go on. She had to try to reach McDonald again; it was time to make the call.

Sophie adjusted Momi in her baby sling, reassembled her satellite phone, and pressed the pre-programmed number for CIA Agent Devin McDonald.

McDonald came on immediately. “I was hoping to hear from you—in fact, I was about to call you myself.”

“I take it there has been some movement from Washington regarding rescuing my men?” Sophie’s heart rate picked up at the thought of being reunited with Jake and Connor.

“I was authorized to surveille and assist in any escape attempts, and one of your men was set free yesterday. I’m surprise he hasn’t called you. I thought you two were involved.”

“What? Who?” Sophie sat up abruptly, startling the baby into a yelp and flail of her tiny arms. “Who did you rescue?”

“Jake Dunn. As I said, I’m surprised he hasn’t called you. I turned him loose yesterday with a sat phone to make calls.”

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