Blamed (20 page)

“You cling to a government corrupted in its purpose. It’s not the same country your ancestors fought to free, Tobias.” Yang sneered. “If you serve no one, you can serve everyone. You are the unfair American advantage in how the world fights its wars today—covertly.”

“Our advantage comes from knowledge,” Tobias said, unintimidated. “In that, we do not lack.”

“Knowledge limited by exposure to only one world power instead of many.” Yang’s unruffled exterior took on a decidedly irritated tinge. “It would be a mistake to think we leapt twelve steps ahead and immediately decided force was the only means of obtaining the outcome we desired. MI6 has been attempting to negotiate a deal with Faraday Industries for the better part of a decade, and we’ve been turned away time after time. You yourself have declined meetings with us.” This in particular seemed to anger the woman most of all. “Faraday Industries somehow sits outside international jurisdiction but serves a single master—how is that possible?”

Tobias shook his head. “We’re not outside jurisdiction. We operate within the confines of law.”

“But just barely.” Yang gestured toward Casey, who vibrated with ill-concealed violence near the door, his attention diverted between the conversation taking place and a solemn-faced Vick. “Casey Faraday, for example, is infamous for leading his team of soldiers and specialists into any situation required. Borders mean nothing to him, or to your company. You constantly, consistently break treaties and agreements by simply pretending those agreements don’t exist, and if repercussions follow, you, Tobias, handle them so silently the world has come to regard Faraday as an untouchable power. A greater power, even, than some governments.” Folding slender arms over her chest, Yang turned her attention to Beth but continued speaking to Tobias. “Your weaponry is without equal, but we cannot permit you to continue on in your current capacity, serving only the United States.”

“And by weaponry, you mean me. So you’ll kill the retired assassin to, what, make a point?”

Yang’s sigh contained mile after mile of impatience. “We don’t want to kill you, Beth. We want to utilize you, to the best of your abilities.”

“Colleen,” Vick murmured warningly, and Beth froze at the menace in his rumbling voice. He wanted to protect her, here, even after his lies, but if she thought about what it meant—what his care and concern really meant—she’d lose her ability to compartmentalize. So much to compute, with information continuing to stream in at breakneck speeds, a series of ones and zeroes she stood no chance at comprehending all at once. Beth felt rather like one of Adam’s programs, coded to fetch data, sort it and pull the most relevant strands for immediate consumption. Vick’s deceit had momentarily been deemed less relevant in the face of Yang’s monologuing, but his interruption had once again reorganized her priorities. Now all Beth could think of was how easily she had been duped, because Vick had known precisely how susceptible she was to him. Had always been to him.

The memory of Cyprus intruded.
Your first time should be with someone you love.
The better advice would have been,
Your first time should be with someone you know.
Her trust had been misplaced, her love stupidly given, and oh, God, she was going to fucking cry. Again. Jesus Christ, she’d produced enough tears in the past few days to float an ark.

Blinking back the stinging onrush, she tuned back in to the too-relevant debate taking place in front of her, Yang’s crisp tone causing the pounding at Beth’s temples to ratchet up painfully. “...forgot, a condition of Agent Vick’s cooperation in this matter was ensuring Beth Faraday retained the power to decline returning to her previous wet work.” Yang shook her head, a mockery of regret. “Unfortunately, her declining is no longer an option. I have operatives in jeopardy, and your sister is the only means I have of rescuing them.”

“Hold on for one fucking second here.” Casey stalked forward, and Beth noted the muscled guards looked a lot more alert than they had moments earlier. Under different circumstances, Beth might have smiled at their sudden wariness—her oldest brother tended to have that effect on people. “Explain that. Explain to us why you need my baby sister, specifically, to pick up a rifle and do your dirty work.”

If Beth hadn’t been watching Yang so acutely, she might have missed the woman shifting her shoulders to block the man at her back. And if she’d missed that, she might also have missed how Nash’s brows lowered, and how he casually moved to place himself once again in the section chief’s periphery.

Nash.
The analytical side of her brain, the side that had made her an excellent soldier under Casey’s command and a dependable partner for Gavin in the field, recognized that Nash was somehow the key to this clusterfuck. Trusting that her brothers had also picked up on this fact, she waited for Yang’s answer.

“Our agents return to Moscow with Beth and exchange her for their free-and-clear departure from
Polnoch’ Pulya.
An extraction team will be waiting and, when time allows, will retrieve her from the Russians.” Yang speared Beth with a sharp glance. “She won’t be in any extreme danger. We’ll send her in armed, and, as we know, she’s a very capable young woman.”

The silence that followed Yang’s pronouncement could only be described as the calm before the storm. Just as Casey appeared on the verge of exploding, Tobias laid a hand on his brother’s arm. “If you don’t see the holes in that tragedy you call a solution, Colleen, I don’t know what to tell you. You want to take my sister, truss her up as a prisoner, and hand her over to one of the world’s deadliest terrorist organizations. Using your supposedly endangered agents is a piss-poor excuse, and you know it.” His words were a blade, swift and bloodying. “What idiotic game are you playing?”

Instead of responding, Yang’s mouth firmed. “I’ll need your answer now, Tobias. Will you sign with MI6 or not?”

“Not.”

“I hate that you’ve forced me to this.” Sighing, Yang lifted a hand, and Beth, Tobias and Casey found themselves each staring into the muzzle of a loaded gun. Nearest to Beth, McCallister gripped her Sig Sauer automatic, her expression bordering on bored as she aimed at Beth’s forehead.

Instead of fear, Beth felt her limbs tense as her body readied itself to fight. Finally, after balancing unevenly between her old life and her new, her unused muscles decided to snap back into shape. Where only days before she’d felt slow and untested, her senses now reacted as though she were back in the field, high on the adrenaline rush from one job or another. Casey’s training flooded back with a bang, and while her palm itched for a gun of her own, Beth knew she could take McCallister, easy-peasy.

So what if the scrappy-looking blonde looked like she fought dirty? Beth fought dirtier. “Bring it, bitch,” she hissed, ready to pounce even as Tobias, ever the peacemaker, laid a stilling hand on her shoulder.

“Seriously?” McCallister huffed out a laugh, dark eyes sparking. “I’m holding a gun on you. You don’t want me to ‘bring it.’”

Tobias’s grip on Beth tightened, as if he sensed how greatly she longed to kick this chick’s perky little ass. “You’re a terrible negotiator, Yang. The ‘or else’ tactic went out of style last century.” He paused, considering the older woman. “Who’s pulling your strings, hmm? Someone’s got you on a leash, and I want to know who.”

“I want that agreement, Faraday,” Yang snapped. “Say yes or I have Agent McCallister put a bullet in Beth’s skull. At least the
Polnoch’ Pulya
will be satisfied.”

“
Colleen.
” Vick strode forward, placing his body between Beth and McCallister, and Beth hated him for shielding her, hated herself for panicking that McCallister might shoot just to get him out of her sightline. “This is not what we agreed to.”

“New intelligence, Raleigh.” Yang’s voice was steel, her posture unyielding. “I will not leave our operatives vulnerable to Russian retribution.”

Finally, Casey couldn’t hold it in any longer. His fists clenched, his ferocious glare locked on Yang. “Whoever told you the Kedrov arms ring wants my sister dead is lying to you.”

“Lying,” Yang repeated, too carefully.

It was all the ammunition Casey needed. He bared his teeth as aggression spiked the air. “Bad intel, Yang, but you already know that, don’t you? Come on, lady. Tell the nice attorney here—” he clapped a heavy hand on Tobias’s shoulder, “—what he wants to know, and this can all go away.”

Fear. It was fear in the other woman’s dark eyes, and this time, Yang made no pretense over whom, exactly, in the room she wanted to escape. Her gaze locked on Nash, who shook his head sadly.

“Ah, Colleen.” He swiveled the gun he’d trained on Casey to point at the center of Yang’s chest. “You shouldn’t have done that, pet.”

Before he could say anything else, the doors to the office suite opened and in strode the ginger-haired female guard who’d stripped them of their weapons.
Thank goodness.
In the blink of an eye—literally, if Beth had blinked, she would have missed the subtle tell of two fingers tapping against a thigh—the young woman swept aside her suit jacket to reveal a dual-sided holster, housing four small handguns in total. One gun flew into Casey’s suddenly outstretched hand, another toward Beth.

As her reflexes snapped into overdrive and she caught the sleek silver-and-gray 9mm, a flurry of movement showed Nash making a hasty retreat, fleeing the office in a rush. For a moment, it looked as though Vick intended to chase him, but he remained in place, staring intently at the door through which Nash had just dashed.

Nothing she could do about it now, Beth accepted as her adrenaline sizzled. Flicking free the safety, she raised the loaded gun to aim at the nearest threat: McCallister.

“What the fuck.” Shock paled the blonde’s elfin face, and oh, man, did Beth freaking
love
that.

Tobias indicated the redhead, who now had two guns trained on the muscle-bound guards lurking behind Yang. “Our cousin, Freya Quinn. She does exceptional work for MI6, does she not?” Beth had never heard Tobias sound quite this icy before. His voice sliced like the sharp edge of a knife. “Always uncovering valuable information, tracking down vague leads like a bloodhound with the scent.” He leaned in, ever so slightly, as though imparting a great secret. “How do you think she comes by that information? Faraday resources, Ms. Yang. You already had access to us. Had Freya left MI6, another Faraday employee would have been quickly embedded, the Faraday tap never running dry. The same is true of every major intelligence organization—Mossad in Israel, DGSE in France, FSB in Russia. It’s
what we do.
” As Tobias went in for the proverbial kill, Beth watched in awe, aware of the utter silence that had befallen the room. “You got greedy and careless and scared, and it’s going to cost you. Freya?” Without a glance in her direction, he caught the firearm she tossed him midair and straightened his arm, aiming at Yang’s forehead with unwavering confidence. “I doubt I need to verbalize my ultimatum here. Are you finally ready to talk?”

Yang matched him icicle for icicle. “You aren’t leaving me with much choice.”

And Tobias obviously didn’t care. “The hit is gone. So much as a scratch appears on Beth, and there will be consequences.”

“Fine.” At Yang’s reluctant signal, McCallister and the two guards lowered their weapons. “The
Polnoch’ Pulya—
”

“I think we all saw Agent Nash run out of here a moment ago. It’s obvious he’s holding something over your head to make you cooperate. What is it?”

A beat of silence before Yang sighed. “An un-redacted file concerning a mission I completed for MI6 in the early nineties. In the wrong hands, it will cost me...everything.”

Beth refused to feel sympathy for the section chief, and so, apparently, did Tobias. “Forward everything you have on Nash and his connection with
Polnoch’ Pulya
to me. Faraday is willing to work with your team to clean up this mess, but we need to pull apart the details and determine the resources necessary for any countermeasures.” Tobias’s expression darkened. “If you believe turning my sister into a chess piece would have satisfied Nash, you’re a fool. He would never have relinquished his power over you.”

“Don’t—”

But he wasn’t done. “You keep Freya on, you keep Faraday resources, but quietly.” When it looked as though Yang would object, Tobias staved her off with an upheld hand. “She doesn’t report to us about what you do. Never has, never will. She is an option of last resort, as you saw here today—the same as the Faraday employees in other organizations.” Dropping his gun arm to his side, Tobias stepped forward until he stood toe-to-toe with Yang. Roughly the same height, their arctic gazes were level, and the sight of them facing off chilled Beth to the bone, especially as Tobias murmured, “We have
always
been available to the world at large, but on our own terms. We will not be blackmailed. We will not be bought. And we most certainly will not be bullied.”

For a long, tense moment, Yang held silent. “You’re nothing but mangy dogs.”

Tobias shrugged. “Yet you’re the one who wanted fleas.” Unbuttoning his suit jacket, he tapped a finger to the metal clasp of his belt, and a hidden panel slid away to reveal a tiny recording device—one Beth recognized as standard Faraday issue, co-designed by Adam and Gillian four years earlier when Adam was on summer break from his university studies. A chip inside the microphone automatically recorded and transmitted audio files off the nearest cell tower to cloud-based storage maintained by a Faraday Industries satellite. Should cell-phone signals and wireless devices be jammed, as those inside the Gherkin undoubtedly were, the device could hold up to twenty-four hours of recorded material in its memory.

Tobias, the brilliant man, had gotten every last word. Judging by the draining of color from Yang’s face, she knew it too.

“Now, then,” he murmured, almost gently. “Let’s talk about your puppet master.”

Lowering her weapon, Beth breathed a quiet sigh of relief, though none of the tension left her body. Tobias had saved the day; she wasn’t going to die. Which meant—