Page 52 of Ravens
Russel Wainwright is very dead. A lot of agents are dead, and if I thought I was a fugitive before, it was nothing like it’s about to be. There will be multiple agencies looking for me now, looking for all of us. I thought I’d be able to sneak away after allof this ended, but it seems less and less likely that I’ll ever get out of this country. Not with this amount of heat on me.
York appears at the top of the stairs with a mug in his hand. “Can’t sleep?”
I shake my head.
He hands me the mug, and I take it, the smell of vegetable soup wafting as I wrap it in my hands. He sits on the edge of the bed. “I apologize for having to use you to lure them all into one place. Will . . .”
“William isn’t your fault, and we both know you’ve been using me this entire time.” I set the mug down. “You brought me into the woods to see if I’d slip up or reveal anything, and you’re fucking me to pass the time—I can’t say I’m not doing the same—but now the job’s done, and I imagine you have an extraction point to get to.”
“Hm.” He inspects his hands. “You’ve got it all figured out then.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You aren’t wrong about the woods, and you slipped up plenty out there, but this job isn’t done, and I’m not going anywhere.”
I didn’t slip up. “What do you meannotdone?”
“There is intel that needs to be destroyed before I can put a bow on this operation.”
“You’ll never . . . You’d have to access the Agency’s servers to do that, probably through a direct connection to their system from the inside. That’s impossible.”
“Not your problem.” He picks up the mug and hands it back to me.
I watch him closely as I sip the soup.
“What I want to know, Theresa, is why you sent a message from Carter’s phone in the woods and who it went to.” He strokes his jawline with the back of his fingers. “Why did I find a burner under the seat in the car?”
I exhale and let my head fall back. “I told you there were things I was keeping from you that have nothing to do with you or your mission . . . The messages are personal.”
“No, they aren’t.” He stands up and leans into the railing at the foot of the bed with his back to me. “1007 . . . is not a personal message. It’s a code, and it looks an awful lot like you are, in fact, attempting to sell information despite your protests.”
Putting the mug down, I get out of the bed and stop behind him, pushing my forehead into his back. “I’m not selling secrets. I don’t know how else to convince you.”
“You can stop sending cryptic messages.”
“Trust me when I say that if I stop the messages, things will get a whole lot worse for everyone.”
I pull my head back as he spins around and looks down at me. “What does that mean?”
“It means you don’t have the whole picture, and at this point, it’s in my best interest to keep it that way, especially with William around.” I cradle my damaged arm. “You can’t protectme, not from everyone that’s coming now, and certainly not from your own team. Let me protect myself.”
“I’m sorry, but August is already working on tracing the destination of your messages.”
“Tell him I said good luck.” I turn back to the bed and sit. “The messages go to a server and are relayed through an automated Voice Over Internet Protocol, which is untraceable. I know my way around a computer too, York.” I pull the covers back up.
“Just like you know your way around a rifle and pretend you can’t throw a punch?”
Our gaze meets again. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Who are you?” His eyes narrow.
What am I?is the better question.
“Exactly who you think I am, exactly what the file says . . . exactly the person you’ve spent the last week or whatever with.”
“I want to believe you.”
“Then do it, because I’ve started believing you.”
