Hard to Trust (2 page)

"That's all they're revealing to me. I don't even have the name of the guy from the CIA who hired me, only the required minimum for contractual services."

Jake shook his head. "Why let us know they might potentially have a traitor in their organization?"

Jennings cleared his throat. "It's that 'potentially.' They want to bring her in and know for sure rather than"—he did air quotes—"'risk a troublesome situation,' as tends to be the case when they jump to the wrong conclusions. They want someone not officially affiliated to assess the situation. You."

Jake slumped into his chair as he considered all the possible angles. "Out of all the operatives you have on staff, why did you choose me?" Right now the answer to that question was burning a hole in his gut so huge a semi could drive through it.

Jennings smiled. "You have talents that will come in handy." He nodded to Jake's unanswered question and started to count off points on his fingers. "You're one of the best trackers we have. You could find a needle in a haystack. You're ruthless and don't stop until you're finished. And let's face it. CIA operatives have a lot of stuff to pull from their wheelhouse of dirty tricks. I'm confident you can handle anything she might send your way. My contact there had a short list of Alliance agents they were interested in, and your name was at the top."

Jake had envisioned a wizened operative who went by the name of Wally who had an unassuming presence when not in the field, like most of them did. He could have handled that with his hands tied behind his back. He could sniff out guy BS a mile away. But BS from the female persuasion, not so much.

"I assume you have a photo." Why was he keeping this charade of an assignment going? He wasn't going to accept it. No way in hell was he up for this kind of challenge. That whole get-back-up-on-the-horse analogy didn't work for him.

Jennings slid the file to him for inspection. "Her name is Tessa Graham." Several professional pictures of the woman were stapled to the cover, with more casual snapshots strewn throughout the file. In the CIA pictures, she had her hair pulled back from her face and had on a suit and very little makeup. From her file, he noted she'd be turning thirty-one in February. In the casual pictures, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with her long, wavy brown hair tumbling across her back, she looked closer to early twenties than early thirties. She resembled a fashion model more than any CIA operative he'd ever seen. If he saw her on the street, he'd take a second, maybe a third look. Maybe strike up a conversation. Invite her out for drinks.

He shook his head to get his focus back on track and read on
weapons specialist, computer hacker, highly skilled in karate,
aikido
, and
Krav Maga
. Speaks multiple languages, including Farsi.

Jake whistled. "Impressive. Are you sure this is a one-man job?" And if so, did The Alliance really want to take a risk on him?
Maybe the CIA hadn't gotten word of his latest failures.

"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure. But this op requires more than our usual discretion, considering the client, so one person is definitely the way to go for now."

"Speaking of which, I still don't understand why they'd hire out. I would think they'd want to keep any potential messiness private."

"Somebody has a soft spot for this particular agent and is reluctant to send the agency after her. She got shot in the shoulder in Afghanistan and passed out from blood loss. One of her best friends from The Farm was taken away and executed. They want to give her the benefit of the doubt, which is why they contracted out for the job." Jennings smiled. "And let's face it, you have a certain
je ne sais quoi
with the ladies."

Even while the false notion he had a way with women stuck in his throat, Jake managed to speak. "When do I start?"

"The minute you walked inside the door. I have a flight booked for early evening to Washington, DC." Jennings stood and shook Jake's hand. "Good luck. Don't disappoint me, Jake."

"I'll do my best." He couldn't help but wonder that, if he failed, this might be his last assignment for The Alliance. He had a lot to prove. And even more to make up for.

Alex
.

Tessa tried to keep the drumming of his name out of her head, but it didn't work. She couldn't help but remember their first days together as agents when they walked the halls of Langley before getting their first assignments. Fast friends. Committed from the start because of their similar backgrounds. Now he was dead.

And she'd done a bad, bad thing.

A little snooping led to a whole lot of trouble. And questions. More questions than she had answers. And she hadn't even officially gone back to work yet.

Being debriefed and shrunk and debriefed again until she thought she might run from the building screaming hadn't put her on a positive trajectory. But she'd been a good little girl and played by their rules. Then she'd done something a whole lot worse when she snuck into the counterintelligence unit and retrieved shredded documents. Old habits died hard. But in the past she'd uncovered some gems while doing this maneuver. The computer could never be totally erased. Deleted documents were still hiding around inside somewhere. Print documents were safer because they could be shredded. If nothing else, she had a whole lot of patience.

Yep, she'd done a bad, bad thing, all right.

She plunked her head against the back of the tub and allowed the warmth to take over. Little by little her body was giving in to the pull of the soothing waters, loosening her ever-throbbing shoulder that still hadn't healed from the bullet wound. Bits of steam wafted around as she closed her eyes. If she could only get her mind to release some of the thoughts clogged inside.

It had taken her the better part of twenty-four hours, but she'd painstakingly gone through the shredded documents piece by piece. As usual, she had to wade through grocery lists, tantalizing love notes, and whatnot to get to the good stuff. What was that old adage about curiosity killing the cat?

Holding up the heavily taped piece of paper to the light, she read the transmission and nearly wept. It wasn't at all what she'd expected. She had to be losing it.

Backgammon—Alex's game. He loved the strategy involved. Coincidence somebody was using that code name? Maybe.

The idea was crazy. Ludicrous. This was all about not wanting to face the reality of losing her best friend. Who was she kidding? Her only friend.

She propped her laptop on the side of the tub. Maybe if she played the video of his murder enough times, her brain would finally capitulate and make peace with what happened. Alex was gone. As in dead gone. She was alive, with enough gaps in her memory that didn't jibe with what she knew to be true. So she was making stuff up to appease her guilt. And there was that memory that wouldn't go away—part real, part fabrication, no doubt.

As many times as she'd watched the grainy video, the jolt of the gunshot hitting Alex, sending his chair tumbling to the ground, jarred her to a point that she nearly forgot to breathe until the hitch in her chest reminded her. She played through it again frame by frame, knowing there'd be nothing in the clip to make her believe Alex was anything but dead. Still she forced herself to watch for that elusive something to give her a spark of hope.

Maybe she should call Nick and tell him what she'd found. He was there when it all went down. Maybe he could make sense of the note she'd uncovered.

Why had she and Nick been spared during the massacre at their camp in Kabul? Why did they take Alex and no one else?

The idea of capturing a CIA operative would lure any red-blooded terrorist, but why stop there when there were two more ripe and ready for the picking? None of it made sense.

Knowing Nick was a night owl helped assuage her guilt for calling at midnight. He picked up the phone on the second ring, but didn't respond. The only evidence he was there was the sound of breathing on the other end of the line.

"Nick?"

His breath whooshed out. "What do you want now, Tessa?"

She ignored his irritation. Unfortunately, she'd become accustomed to that kind of response from almost everyone around her lately. "Do you remember anything?"

"No." The annoyance level notched up a bit in his gruff response. "The same thing I told you yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that."

"I've been watching the tape and—"

"Stop watching the damn thing. It's not healthy." He bit off a series of curses. "Maybe you should go see that shrink like they suggested."

She considered the idea for a millisecond then pushed it away. "Where were you again, during the attack?" The details were sketchy from her point of view and getting some readings on what she could have done might help mitigate some of the guilt lodged in her chest. Was her focus on the note some imaginative wanderings run amok?

While her shoulder had somewhat healed from the attack—even if it still hurt like hell—neither of them could help solving the question of why Alex had been taken and executed. Other than the fact they were Americans caught questioning a rebel informant, the answer as to why he'd been singled out remained elusive. There had to be something more involved beyond the obvious. She didn't know what, even as something tickled at her memory. Now the note she'd pieced together and her foggy recollection of that day wouldn't go away.

"I don't think we're supposed to be talking about this with each other until the investigation is over."

"Come on, Nick. We survived The Farm together. We were a team, the three of us." She couldn't help but consider what had happened in the intervening years. "There's no one else I can talk to besides you." The loss of Alex had hit her hard. Before he'd died, they'd texted or emailed nearly every day regardless of where they were. She needed answers to the elusive thoughts rattling around her brain, or she might very well go insane.

"Just because ten years ago we went through CIA training together doesn't mean diddly. I can't be your sounding board. I've got my own issues to deal with." He sounded tired and full of emotion, and his voice cracked.

"But I was going through some paperwork and found a reference to Backgammon. Don't you think that's weird considering Alex is dead?"

"What kind of paperwork?" For the first time, his voice seemed to brighten.

She hemmed. The fact that she'd illegally gotten the paperwork wasn't something she could bring up. Nobody except Alex knew of her obsession with recreating shredded documents. Secrets were never secrets around her.

"Stuff that was lying around."

She doubted they expected one of their own to snatch the shredder bag before the cleaning crew came in to bring it to the incinerator. As for her excuse, she'd always been a bit of a puzzle freak, so the process appealed to the inherent programming within her brain. On assignments when there was a task involving a paper-shredding expedition, she was the woman most likely to get the job done in the shortest amount of time.

Nobody knew how her skill had morphed into a bit of her own spying expedition except for Alex.

"What in the holy hell are you doing, woman?" Alex's teasing voice made her jump when he walked into her home.

"Practicing."

He sat down next to her and examined what she'd put together so far. "Bull. This is from the director's office."

"I have my ways."

"If it was lying around then it mustn't be that important. Nothing top secret would be visible for anyone to find." Nick's clipped tone brought her back into focus.

She chewed her lip, desperate for him to agree with her. Going it alone wasn't in her plans. She needed him to be on board with her in this endeavor.

"Maybe, but it's still strange. Don't you think?" She needed Nick to take the bait. If Alex were on the other end of the line, he would have joined her in a heartbeat.

Stop thinking about Alex
. But each day it seemed she missed him more than the day before.

"For all you know, they could have been discussing arrangements for his star on the wall at Langley or something. It might not be as intriguing as you imagine. Everyone who knew him called him Backgammon."

"They were talking about him in the present tense, as if he were alive." Maybe she was going crazy if Nick wouldn't even listen to her.

"Who wrote the note?"

"A person named Reddog. Do you know who that is?"

His voice faltered. "No idea." He sucked in a breath. "Alex is dead. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better off you'll be." His voice rose at the end, as if he'd reached the point of exasperation. Nick had never been a patient man, and the whole experience seemed to have made him even less so.

She tucked her tail between her legs at his scolding. "You're right. I need to come to grips with the idea, but I miss him. A lot."

He blew out a breath. "I do too." His voice softened. "Besides, I don't remember what happened that day at camp. I got knocked out. They dragged me into the desert and abandoned me."