by Jack Mars
“All right now,” Maria said softly. “Let’s go.” She supported him under one arm and together they moved as quickly as they could away from the tower, off of the walls. They were nearly at the gate when they spotted a bouncing flashlight beam and ducked into the shadows as a Croatian patrolman passed them by, chattering into his radio. Once he was past they moved again, out of the unlocked gate and to a white coupe that Maria had waiting nearby.
She helped him into the passenger’s seat first and then drove rapidly away from the coast, toward the city center.
“Where are we going?” he asked, his voice weak and wavering.
“Someplace safe,” Maria said simply.
Reid shook his head. “They’re still out there somewhere. I need to… need to find them.”
“I know,” Maria said quietly. “But you’re in terrible shape. You need to at least get patched up. You can’t keep going like this. Get some rest, even if just for a short while.”
“They might not have a short while.” Reid stared out the window.
After a few silent minutes, Maria asked, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“He baited me,” Reid admitted. “He knew I would come.” Though the pain in his body was still present and reaching, his head was clearing, no longer swimming in the fog of near-unconsciousness. “Did you know about her?”
Maria shook her head. “Who?”
“Kate.”
She sighed ruefully. “Oh, Kent. You remember?”
“I do now. But not thanks to you. Did you know?”
Her expression was empathetically woeful. “Yes,” she admitted in a whisper. “I’m sorry. It just didn’t… it didn’t feel like something you needed to deal with right now. You said it yourself before: sometimes ignorance really can be bliss.”
“Bliss.” He scoffed loudly. “That wasn’t your call to make. I deserved to know. More importantly, I deserved to hear it from someone I trust. Not… him.”
“You’re right. And I’m so sorry for keeping it from you. It’s not much of a defense, but it’s the only one I have… her murder was what spurred your rampage before. You became obsessed. You didn’t listen to anyone, not even me. You became violent and cold. When I saw you again, back at that fountain in Rome, and you mentioned an embolism, I decided not to tell you the truth out of fear that you would go back to that version of Kent.” She paused for a long moment. “Maybe ignorance isn’t bliss. Sometimes it’s just… impartial.”
He stared out the window again. He didn’t want to look at her—not because of his anger, but because if he saw her face he would have to admit that she might have been right.
“Do you know who did it?” he asked candidly.
Maria frowned. “Well… yes. Kent, it was Rais. He poisoned Kate—”
“He didn’t. He told me so himself, right before we fell off the tower. He was sent to kill her, but someone else got to her first.”
“You don’t honestly believe that, do you?”
Reid nodded. “I do. He wanted to be the one to do it. He would have wanted to take the credit for hurting me like that. But in the end, despite how completely backwards his sense of belief and morals might be, he couldn’t accept responsibility for it. He had nothing to gain from admitting it.”
“I hate to say it, but that makes strange sense.” Maria turned the car toward the orange and white villas of Old Town Dubrovnik, maintaining the speed limit and keeping a watchful eye on the rearview mirror. “So… did he know who it was?”
“He claimed he did.” CIA. Those had been Rais’s last words. Reid believed that the assassin had not actually been his wife’s killer—but he couldn’t be sure if pinning it on the agency was genuine, or one final taunt. I’ll sure as hell find out, though.
“Are you going to tell me…?” Maria prodded.
Reid turned to her. “My girls never landed in Dubrovnik; Rais handed them off to traffickers in Slovakia. By now they could be anywhere. I can’t find them alone. I need help, and I’m not sure it can be the agency. I really want to trust you. I think maybe I need to trust you, or else I might go insane. So I need to know if you’ll make that choice.”
“The choice between you or the agency?”
“Between me,” Reid said, “and everyone else. Anyone else.”
“It’s you,” she said without hesitating. “It always will be.”
“Thank you,” he murmured. Regardless of what had happened with Kate and who might have known about it, he needed Maria’s help if he was going to have any chance of finding the girls. She had been there for him before, and she was there for him now.
Maria pulled the white coupe off the road and into the lot of a gas station. She eased to a stop alongside the building, just outside the door to the men’s restroom, and put the car in park.
“What’s this?” Reid asked. “What are we doing here?”
“You’re not going anywhere until you get yourself cleaned up,” Maria explained. “Give me one sec.” She got out of the car, pushed open the restroom door, and checked it to make sure it was clear before coming around to Reid’s side.
“Wait,” he protested as she opened the car door. “Did you not hear what I just said about the girls? We need to go. We have to follow the lead…”
Maria shook her head. “Kent, you’re covered in blood. You’re stabbed. You fell off a damn tower! I know you well enough to know that a hospital is out of the question, but there’s a field kit in the trunk. At least let me clean you up as best I can. Then, I promise we’ll go. Together.”
He had to admit that she was right. He was in no condition to go running off again. Besides, they would have to secure better transport than a white coupe to get to Slovakia. Still, now that the Rais ordeal was over and his focus was back on the girls, his heart broke anew at the thought of them out there alone in the hands of traffickers.
“Hey. Come on,” Maria coaxed gently. She helped him out of the car and retrieved a black bag from the trunk. Then, while she supported him under one shoulder, they entered the restroom and Maria locked the door behind them. The bathroom was small, two stalls and a urinal, tiled in white and surprisingly clean. “Sit,” she ordered as she lowered the lid on the first toilet.
He did as he was told, easing himself down with a groan. Maria knelt before him on the tile, opened the bag, and pulled out various first-aid implements. “You should have waited for me,” she noted. “I was en route.”
“Couldn’t. Rais lied, told me he had the girls. God, he…” Reid scoffed. “He even sent another girl that looked like Sara, probably a trafficking victim, to throw me off. Maybe I wasn’t using my head. But I couldn’t risk it. How did you find me?”
“There was a transponder in your bag.” She took up a pair of medical shears and carefully cut off his bloodied T-shirt. “Mitch gave me the frequency to trace it. The signal went dead, but I had the last-known coordinates. And you were still there. Lean back a little. This is going to sting.”
Reid winced through his teeth as she cleaned the blood from around the minor stab wound in his abdomen. He gripped the steel handicap bar bolted to the wall of the stall and held his breath as she pinched the edges of his wound and applied a liquid adhesive to the skin to hold it shut. Then she pressed a bandage over the wound site, and he let out a relieved breath.
“There’s something else you should know.” She tore open an alcohol swab and dabbed at the dried blood on his face. “Strickland is here, in Croatia.”
Reid had nearly forgotten about Agent Strickland, the CIA’s alleged answer to his kidnapped girls. “Good. Maybe he can help, if we can get him intel. Work on two fronts—”
“No, Kent. He’s here for you. His orders are to find and apprehend you… by whatever means necessary.”
Reid stared back in bewilderment. “To find me? But… what about my girls?”
Maria looked away. “Since the Dubrovnik lead, the agency has passed the case on to Interpol.”
“No.” Reid
shook his head. “No, they have no personal investment, no skin in the game. They’re probably dealing with a thousand missing persons cases a day…”
“Kent, you shot at cops. They know about the shooting at the textile mill too. They’re assuming the bomb at the resort was you—”
“It wasn’t a bomb,” he argued, “it was a bomb threat—”
“And now they’re going to find a dead security guard and Rais’s brains spilled all over the walls,” she continued unabated. “You are considered an armed and highly dangerous vigilante. Not only are you disavowed, but you are highest priority at the moment. Techs are scanning airwaves, police frequencies, messaging apps, and social media for any possible sign of you.”
“What about Cartwright?” he asked. He knew it was a long shot, but there had to be someone else on his side, someone else out there looking for his girls. “If I could talk to him on a secure line, explain what happened, he could do something…”
“And how far do you think he’s going to stick his neck out for you if it might mean his career on the line?”
He sighed. She was right. Cartwright would be of little help; even if he wanted to, he would have to convince the higher-ups that Kent Steele wasn’t a threat.
And some of those higher-ups might already want me dead for what I know.
“What about you?” he asked. “Rais was your op. You could tell them you came here, heard a disturbance at the walls. You found Rais dead—”
“Kent…”
“Then your op is over, you can take on the search for my girls—”
“Kent!” Maria practically shouted. He fell silent as she put a hand on his knee. “I’m sorry. That won’t work.”
He stared down at her, his eyes meeting her vibrant gray ones. Then he chuckled bitterly, because he realized what she meant. The CIA had changed her op as well. “Because you’ve been sent here to apprehend me too.”
She nodded. “Obviously I’m not doing that. But… yes. You’re my op now.” She rummaged around in the black duffel again and pulled out a fresh T-shirt for him. “I came prepared. Figured you might need a change of clothes. There’s a jacket in here too.”
Reid took the shirt, but did not put it on. Instead he leaned back on the toilet seat and buried his face in both hands. It was all he could do not to scoff scornfully at the situation. He couldn’t contact the CIA. He couldn’t reach out to any friends at Interpol for fear of them reporting him. He had two field agents assigned to go after him—one of whom was treating his wounds.
He had come all this way, and even killed Rais, and the only reward he got was that he could barely move on his own.
He felt Maria’s hands on his arms, sliding up around him, hugging him to her. He felt her warm fingers on the back of his neck, on his shoulder, and he breathed in her scent.
“I’ve come so far,” he whispered. “If anything, I’m further now than I was before. I have no idea how to get to them, Maria. The only lead I had was Tkanina, and I can’t go back there if the agency knows about it.”
“Kent,” she said softly in his ear. “We’ll find a way.”
“And every moment that we spend finding a way is another moment they could be…” He trailed off, not wanting to say it. “You know what those traffickers do. They drug girls. They rape. They sell them to people who will do even worse than that.” He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. “They’re children. They’re my children. And I… I can’t get to them.”
He glanced up at her, but she stared away pensively. After a long moment he asked, “What? What is it?”
Maria closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m going to make a call. I think… I think I might know someone who can help.”
Reid frowned. Whoever Maria would be calling did not seem like someone she was interested in speaking with. She rose from the floor and took a cell phone from her black bag.
“Dobryy vechir,” she said into the phone. “Tse ye Calendula. Meni potribna informatsiya.” Good evening. It’s Calendula. I need information.
Reid blinked in shock and confusion. He understood every word she said… because he also spoke fluent Russian. And “Calendula” sounded an awful lot like a codename, like her CIA handle of Marigold.
A horrible feeling sunk in as he stared at her. Whoever was on the other end of the line was not CIA, nor Interpol. In no unclear terms, she mentioned the Slavic traffickers. She told the stranger on the line about Tkanina, about the cargo depot in Nova Scotia, and about Slovakia.
Reid drank in every word. No, he realized, not Russian. It’s Ukrainian. The words are similar, but the grammar is different. Simpler. Maria was speaking Ukrainian. Why Ukrainian?
“For the asset,” she said quietly as she avoided his gaze. She listened to the speaker on the other end for a moment. She glanced at him, and in that instant he knew. Her split-second rueful gaze told him everything.
Reid rose slowly from the toilet lid, shaky on his legs as Maria ended the call.
“Who was that?” he demanded immediately.
“It’s not what you think…”
“Who was it, Maria?” he asked again louder.
“That was an asset.”
“No. Assets don’t collect unreported intel on human traffickers…”
“I have a lead,” she told him.
“I don’t believe it.” He felt his face growing hot as he pointed at her. “Maria… are you a double agent?”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“No,” Maria insisted. “That was a friend in the Foreign Intelligence Service—”
“So now it wasn’t an asset?” Reid scoffed. “You told them it was ‘for the asset.’ I got every word. That wasn’t an asset; I’m the asset. For what?”
Maria sighed shortly. “Kent, there’s a lot more going on here than you understand.”
Reid tried to look her in the eye, but she didn’t meet his gaze. He was frustrated and desperate, not to mention physically exhausted and aching all over.
Your girls are the priority, he reminded himself. You need to get going—even if it means going alone.
“I’m taking the car,” he told her. “Give me the lead.” He pulled on the T-shirt and brown jacket that she had brought for him, and then held his hand out for the keys.
“I’m coming with you—”
“You’re not,” he said abruptly. “If you want me to believe I can trust you, you won’t follow me. If you do, I’ll know where you stand.”
“It’s by you,” she insisted. “No matter what.”
“Please give me the keys.”
Maria stared for a moment, as if she could will him to change his mind, but he shook his head. She passed him the key ring wordlessly. Then she reached again into her black bag, this time retrieving a small notepad and pen. She scribbled down a name and a number, tore off the sheet, and handed it to him.
“What is this?” he asked, scanning it.
“It’s the name of a hotel in Bratislava,” she told him. “It’s a known spot for their… clientele.”
Reid scoffed lightly, feeling the heat rise in his face anew. “You have a ‘contact’ with this sort of intel on traffickers and they did nothing with it?”
“Slovakia is part of the EU. My… contact can’t move against them. It’s outside of their jurisdiction—”
“No, but they can spy on them,” Reid countered.
“Isn’t that exactly what you and I do?”
“That’s different. We act.”
“We try,” said Maria. “But you can’t save everyone.”
“I don’t have time to stand here and split hairs with you. I’m going.” He took two pained steps toward the restroom door before she called out to him again.
“Wait. At least take the field bag.” She scooped up the small bag and handed it to him. “It’s got medicine. Painkillers…”
“Epinephrine?” he asked.
Maria blinked at him. “You can’t be serious.” At his stare, she nodded. “Yeah. Three doses.�
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He took the bag. “Transponder? Any way to track me?”
“Of course not,” she said. “It was my kit. I wouldn’t allow that.”
He unlocked the door.
“There’s a phone in there too,” she called after him. “A burner. Mitch’s number is in there. It would take you ten hours to drive to Bratislava. Call him. He could arrange something faster.”
He hesitated for a moment; strange as it was, he realized suddenly that his anger with her was more due to her lying to him than possibly being a double agent.
But isn’t lying part of the job?
“Thank you,” he murmured. Then he left her there, standing in the open doorway of a Croatian bathroom as he climbed gingerly into the driver’s seat of the white coupe and started the engine.
He let it idle for a moment, thinking. He hadn’t paused long enough to process everything that had happened in just the last hour or so—the resort, the fight with Rais, and now whatever this was with Maria.
And you don’t have time for that now.
He shifted the coupe into drive and screeched out of the gas station’s lot. As soon as he was on the roads of Old Town again, he unzipped the field bag and dug around for the burner. A quick scroll through the contacts showed only two numbers in it: one under “M,” and another under “C.”
Cartwright? he thought. Can’t be. Maria was on an op. She wouldn’t need to contact him this way. Even if it was the deputy director, he wasn’t about to risk calling and having his signal traced. Instead he called the number under “M.”
“Did you find him?” the voice said immediately.
Reid frowned. It didn’t sound anything like the gruff mechanic he’d met in Virginia. “Mitch?”
“Zero.” He was silent for a moment. “It’s me.”
I was right. The mechanic had been disguising not only his appearance but also his voice, intentionally keeping Reid from remembering him. “I need a ride. I’m in Old Town Dubrovnik and need to get to Bratislava.”
