Page 142 of Secret Service

“I don’t know!” he shrieks, so loud his vocal cords sound like they’re shredding. “I don’t know! I swear to fucking God!”

Suddenly he’s lashing out, kicking at the pipes beneath the sink, trying to pull his wrists from the cuffs, fighting to break free any way he can. His head slams against the porcelain, bounces off the tile. He’s a caged animal, nothing but raw desperation.

Anatoly slugs him, his fat fist slamming across Sheridan’s nose and his left cheek with a crunch. Sheridan slumps to the ground, woozy but not unconscious, as blood seeps from his nose and his split-open lip. He blinks up at me. Tears cling to his long lashes.

“What else have you been planning?” I ask, after the quiet stretches long enough for his sanity to splinter.

I throw the memory card I pulled from his mattress onto the floor in front of him. It bounces, tiny plastic plinks like gunshots in this terrible bathroom.

He sags, every muscle releasing as he exhales. It sounds like a death rattle. “That’s not mine—”

“Of course it’s not.”

“I stole it.” His lips smear in the pool of blood spreading beneath his broken nose. “From the White House photographer.”

I freeze. “What?”

“I overheard him talking about how he kept seeing you with the president and how he started taking more and more photos because he was suspicious. So I sneaked into his office and stole the memory card out of his camera.”

“Why?”

“Because I know. I know you guys are in love. I’ve known ever since we all ran together. The Vietnam Memorial. New York. You split up for a while, but then…”

Anatoly’s eyebrows skyrocket.

“So you’ve been waiting for the right moment to blackmail me?”

“No…” He sniffs. His voice fractures. “Reese, I do love you. I’ve only ever been trying to protect you. And him.”

Fuck, why? Why, Sheridan, why did you do this? I relied on him, trusted him, even loved him back in my own way. He became so much to me in such a short time—

No. He completely fooled me. I can’t trust what he’s saying.

I should have paid more attention when I saw the edges of his darkness. When his facade slipped and his true self came out.

“Is everything about you a lie?” My words shatter like glass.

I can’t do this anymore. This bathroom, these questions, his tears. I’m one second from coming apart, from shaking him and demanding Why why why.

I barely make it into the hall before my knees hit the floor. I fall forward, a silent scream lodged in my throat.

I won’t survive this day. All this loss. All this betrayal.

Anatoly leaves me there. He must be loving this. No one can shred Americans like other Americans. We’re professionals at ripping out our own hearts. He’s watching us stab ourselves deeper than he or his FSB could ever dream of: a traitor at the center of our government, inside the president’s circle.

I need to move. I need to line everything up, connect the dots. I need to bring this to Director Britton, Director Liu. Hell, even McClintock. I need to let everyone know the truth.

It doesn’t register at first when my BlackBerry starts to ring. The sound is something far off, a distant warble, and the call almost rolls to voicemail, but I drag it to my ear a second before it’s too late. “Theriot.”

“I don’t have much time,” Ahn whispers. She sounds like she’s hiding. Her voice has that scratchy sound from someone breathing too close to the mic. “The facial recognition program. It’s finished.”

My fingernails dig into the floorboards. Splinters slice into my skin.

“It’s not Agent Ellis, and it’s not the president. I don’t know who it is. I’m going to send you a picture of the reconstruction. I’ve got to delete it. The vice president, he’s—” There’s a curse, and then a crash. The line cuts out.

Three seconds later, a text message arrives. It’s a single photo of a laptop screen. The laptop is balanced on Ahn’s knees, and it looks as if she’s hiding in a bathroom stall.

She doesn’t recognize the face on her screen, but I do. I know exactly who it is.

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