However, we came to a grinding halt when I mentioned that KATO’s director had been there.
“The director of KATO?” Simmonds asked. “In a safe house in Russia?”
I nodded. “He was the assistant director when I was there. I’m sure you saw the observational intelligence reports that indicate he’s been promoted. Which would make sense. After our invasion I can’t imagine that they would let the previous director live, let alone remain in charge.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the reports on the change.” Simmonds went to his computer and sent an image to one of the monitors behind him. “This is who we now have on file as the director. Kim Jin Su. Is this who you saw?”
The man in the picture had cold harsh eyes and a rigid jaw. A chill ran down my spine. The part I hadn’t told anyone—the part I wasn’t planning on telling anyone—was that he was the one in charge of suggesting and authorizing our more painful punishments. Handlers were allowed to withhold Gerex and inflict a certain amount of pain on their own. But anything that might involve a broken bone or take some time to heal had to be authorized to ensure that an upcoming mission wasn’t jeopardized by internal matters. And while Chin Ho was always the one to deliver the authorized punishment, the assistant director sometimes enjoyed watching.
My father came closer to get a good look. My stomach roiled. Having him here made this even more difficult.
I focused on the image, swallowing hard. “That’s him.”
Simmonds’s eyes jumped to my father, who was staring at the screen transfixed. There were too many emotions playing across his face for me to work out, but that alone was enough to tell me that there was a lot more to this than I realized.
“What is it?” I asked, looking between Simmonds and my father. “What do you know about him?”
My dad turned slowly to face me, and it was clear that the last thing he wanted to do was say what he was about to. “He—” His voice broke. He cleared his throat and tried again. “He’s the one who took you.”
Chapter Seven
COMMON ENEMY
I felt numb. My head was spinning and the only thing I could hear was my father’s words echoing in my mind. I was vaguely aware of how tightly my hands were clenching the arms of the chair, which also seemed to be the only thing keeping me from curling into a ball. I stared straight ahead, trying to wrap my mind around everything.
Strangely enough, I hadn’t thought much about the specific person who had taken me, but I remembered the whole event clearly. There were four of them on the assignment but only one went directly for me. He separated me from my mom and dragged me out the door. They all wore masks, so I never saw any of their faces. Everything that came after was so fast and so much worse that I never thought about that one agent who brought me into all of this. But I should have.
A solid grip on my left arm jarred me back to life. I blinked hard and turned abruptly to find Travis sitting on the edge of his seat with a firm hold on my forearm. “You back?”
I sucked in air and nodded, forcing my fingers to release the chair I was strangling. “Yeah.” My throat was dry and my voice hoarse, but I didn’t have it in me to care. “Yeah, I’m here.”
Every eye was on me, but it was a long moment before anyone spoke. Or maybe it wasn’t that long. Maybe it just felt that way.
It was Simmonds who finally broke the silence. “They never told you?”
I shook my head hard enough to rattle my brain. “And I never asked. I didn’t think—” I felt a small tremor in my arm and clutched the chair tighter in an attempt to stabilize myself. I took a long slow breath, exhaling evenly, trying to get it together. “I didn’t know anything.”
“How much did you interact with him?” my dad asked.
I tried to ignore the tingling in my hands. He wasn’t asking for details here. It was a question I could handle. “Not often, but more than the director. My handler was my primary contact.”
My father’s jaw clenched. “I think he was around you more than you realize.” There was an edge to his voice. “After you and your mom were taken, I spent most of my time getting to know him. He had a pretty big interest in medical development.” My heart rate picked up. We were getting too specific for my comfort level, but my father didn’t seem to notice. “Seven years ago, our intel said you—and your mom—were his last field mission.”
“That’s still the case,” Simmonds said. “At least as far as we know.”
Ultimately, I wasn’t the one KATO was after that day. My mom was. They wanted her to develop Gerex. And if I was his last mission, then I would have to believe that he was personally invested in the project.
My dad’s eyes locked on me. “I’ve been reading up on the drug your mom developed,” he said. I tensed. “They used it on you, didn’t they?”
I drew a sharp breath through my nose. It wasn’t a secret anymore, and I didn’t want to lie, but I wasn’t ready for him to know yet either. Still, I bit down hard on my lip and forced myself to nod, wishing I hadn’t invited him here.
“So,” Travis said, squeezing the hand that still rested on my arm, “the fact that he was in this safe house means this is as big as we thought it was.” I shot him a grateful look for changing the subject.
My dad watched me for another few seconds, eyes hard, before refocusing on Simmonds.
“Maybe even bigger,” Simmonds said. “Not only has he not been on a mission in ten years, but according to our databases, he’s barely left North Korea in that time. The fact that he’s taken a personal interest in this is greatly concerning.”
I pressed my fingers to my temple, trying to think. “We need to talk to Eliza.”
“I agree,” Simmonds said. “She’s being evaluated further by Dr. March and the medical team tomorrow. After that we’ll have a better idea about how to approach her. Hopefully we’ll get some answers. In the meantime, we’re going to see if we can come up with more of Jin Su’s travel history.”
“You mean you haven’t been tracking him?” my dad asked, eyebrows arched.
Simmonds’s eyes locked on him. “We may be an elite agency, but he is a first-class operative. You know as well as I do that he has always been excellent at moving around the world undetected.”
“But you think now that we have a confirmed sighting, we should get some intel on his activity,” I said, seeing where he was going.
Simmonds nodded at me gratefully. “Precisely.”
My dad looked mildly annoyed that I’d backed Simmonds, but he moved on. “What about that other agent who was there? The one you fought. You said you knew her.”
“Yeah.” I kept my voice as casual as possible. “She was there for me.” I could feel all of them looking at me, but I kept my focus on Simmonds. I didn’t want to discuss this with my father. “But that’s not unexpected,” I said, pushing us along. “What’s more important is that if Eliza matters to them, they’ll be coming for her too. She may even get priority over me.”
Simmonds nodded. “You make a good point,” he said. “We need to work out why she’s so valuable.”
The conversation didn’t last too much longer. We finished going over what we had and were in agreement that our progress hinged on three things; what Eliza had to say, Jin Su’s travel history, and working out the importance of the KATO files we already had access to. But for the time being, we had done all we could.
When I left the office I headed in the direction of student housing. Travis fell into step next to me, but stayed silent.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye once we’d made it outside and saw him giving me a very pointed look.
“What is it?” I asked, even though I was sure I didn’t want to know.
“What’s the story with the KATO agent you fought?”
I picked up the pace. “There’s no story.”
He rolled his eyes. “Please don�
��t insult me. You changed the subject way too quickly back there. I know you. It means you’re holding back.”
“I really don’t want to get into it,” I said.
“Hey.” He pulled me to a stop. “I thought we were past the point where you kept things from me.” I ducked my head, trying to avoid his scrutiny. It may have gotten easier to talk to him about KATO, but that didn’t mean it still wasn’t hard. “Especially when it relates to a mission.”
I pursed my lips. He had me there. And since there was a possibility she could pop up again, he really did deserve to know.
I sat down on the bench outside of the student dorms. Travis took the space next to me and waited patiently for me to start talking.
I needed a minute to get my tongue working. “She—Centipede—was the second best agent at KATO when I was there.” I stayed focused on the tree in front of me, even though I could feel his gaze.
“So that must make her their new number one,” he said, following.
I nodded. “It would appear so.” I bit my lip, thinking back. “She got to KATO about a year after me. She was my age, and native to North Korea. I tried to befriend her.” I tensed at the memory. “It was the first time I tried to do something like that. The agents that had been there before me never reached out and I was too afraid of them to initiate anything. KATO didn’t want us working together and they punished us for being too friendly. Still, I thought it would be better with a friend.” It sounded foolish. It felt foolish—even then. “I thought I’d have a shot with someone new.”
“I take it that didn’t work out well,” he said.
“No.” I bit back a laugh. “Not at all.” I finally looked at him. His jaw was locked in anticipation of what was coming. I pushed on. “I didn’t know that much about North Korean culture at that time. KATO had us trained and conditioned to compete with each other and to tell on each other if someone wasn’t complying with their policies. I thought that was just how KATO worked. I didn’t realize it extended to the entire country.”
“So she knew you weren’t supposed to be friendly and ratted you out.” His voice was harsh.
“Yeah.” I gripped the edge of the bench, thinking about what my handler had done to me as a result. Then I shook my head, refusing to let myself go there. “She was rewarded for turning me in. And over the years she became my biggest internal enemy. She wanted to be their top agent in the worst way, but I would never let that happen. My status was the only thing I had going for me in that place. I wasn’t about to let anyone get ahead of me.”
Travis’s fist was clenched so tight his knuckles were white. “I hate them.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, sighing. “I was already on edge enough knowing that they’re gunning for me. This really doesn’t help.”
His forehead creased. “You’re not going back there,” he said. “We’ve been over this.”
I stared straight ahead and nodded, because I still didn’t know how to tell him that this was so far outside of his control.
• • •
The door banged open, startling me out of a dead sleep. Men in masks poured into the room, guns out. My mom was next to me in seconds, pulling me close and dragging me to the closet. We barely made it a step from the bed. One of the men got to her, knocking her on the back of her head. She didn’t pass out, but it was enough for her to lose her hold on me.
An agent grabbed me while the others went for my mom. His cold harsh eyes twinkled. Terror coursed through me like nothing I had ever known before. I moved instinctively back to my mom but he held me tight. I struggled against him, crying and screaming and battling to get to my mother, who was now facedown on the ground. He yanked me out the door and down the hall. I never stopped fighting.
I woke up sweating and panting, but for a change I wasn’t shaking. It took me a moment to realize it was still the middle of the night. I found my control fairly quickly, but that didn’t do much to chase away the nightmare. I rubbed my forehead, watching the images play in my mind. There were only four men there, but it seemed like so many more at the time. It felt—overpowering. Now it seemed so obvious that the person who had taken me had been Jin Su. I’d seen his eyes through the mask that night, and many times over the last ten years. But in the grand scheme of everything that had happened at KATO, the kidnapping itself seemed minor. My brain could only hold on to so many details. When I woke up in KATO a few hours after, I found my new handler, Chin Ho, watching me. I didn’t remember if I’d been knocked out, or drugged, or if I’d just passed out. Training started immediately, and once it did, nothing else seemed to matter.
I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head on the wall behind me. I may have managed to contain my craving, but there was no way I’d be able to fall back asleep after a dream like that.
• • •
It was six o’clock before I decided that I couldn’t stand being in bed anymore. I headed over to the medical wing to check on Nikki and Eliza. Nikki had woken up. She had a concussion and a broken arm that would keep her out of the field for a while, but she was in good spirits and was expected to make a full recovery. She was being kept in the medical wing so the doctors could monitor her head injury. When I finished with Nikki, I tried to find Dr. March to ask about Eliza, but one of her staff members said she was busy with a patient.
My nightmare had made me restless, so I was particularly relieved when Simmonds paged me to his office shortly after breakfast. Both he and my father were waiting for me when I arrived.
“Do we have something on Jin Su?” I asked. If both of them were there, it had to be related to the director.
“No,” Simmonds said. “This is about Eliza.”
I straightened, glancing at my father for half a second before focusing on Simmonds. “How is she?”
“Her nutrition is lacking, but Dr. March is working on that,” Simmonds said. “Our bigger concern right now is that she won’t talk.”
I shrugged, not at all surprised. “KATO has their agents well trained to keep their mouths shut.” I rubbed the burn scar on the back of my neck. I saw my father watching me and dropped my hand, making sure my ponytail hid the mark.
Simmonds shook his head. “It’s more than that,” he said. “Our behavior experts are able to tell the difference between agents who won’t talk and agents who are afraid to talk.”
I nodded, seeing where he was going with this. “I’m sure she is afraid. Fear is the tactic they use most.” My dad shifted against the wall and I looked at him just long enough to see a muscle in his cheek twitch. I gripped the back of the chair. I knew he’d be around for a certain amount of KATO-related discussions, but I had hoped they would be more current and less personally related to my past. I forced my attention back to Simmonds. “Let me talk to her.”
A small smile stretched across Simmonds’s lips. “I was hoping you would say that.”
My heart beat a little bit faster, but I did my best to ignore it. I had been on her side of things. I would know better than anyone what questions to ask. “Is there anything I need to know?”
Simmonds leaned forward to read her file. “She’s still on the Gerex for now. Dr. March is afraid to take her off of it until we know more about her situation.”
I nodded, remembering my own detox. Coming off of it was almost as traumatic as being on it in the first place. She wasn’t talking as it was. Taking her off the drug against her will wouldn’t convince her to trust us.
“She also doesn’t know her father is dead,” he said. “One of the behavior specialists broached the subject with her, and the second his name came up she covered her ears and yelled until she was left alone.”
“Okay.” I exhaled evenly. I wouldn’t be the person to break the news to her if I could help it. “When are we doing this?”
“We can go now,” he said, standing. “I’ll page Dr. March and let her know.�
� Both he and my father moved toward the door and alarms went off in my head.
I grabbed my dad’s arm, pulling him to a stop, then looked back to Simmonds. “Can we meet you there?”
He glanced uncertainly between the two of us, but nodded. “Very well.”
I turned to my father as the door closed, but I found I couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Hey, kid?” Now I looked at him, his face full of questions. “What’s this about?”
I exhaled evenly, finding my strength. “I need you not to come to this.”
He leaned away from me, confused. “What? Why?”
Because I was sure that once he’d learned some of the specifics of what I’d done, he’d push me for more, and I really didn’t want to go there. I carried more guilt about my past than anyone should ever have to know, but that much I could manage. The part I couldn’t handle was that, when it really came down to it, I didn’t have any regrets. I did what I had to, and I would do it again. It was what convinced me that my heart was not as good as Travis seemed to think it was. The little girl who used to run around the living room—the girl my father was proud of—would have had regrets. I didn’t want him to think of her doing the things I did. And I was fairly certain that if he knew all of this he would look at me in a way I wouldn’t be able to handle.
But I kept my answer much more simple than that. “I need to say things to her. And I won’t be able to say what I have to if you’re there.”
His brows drew together, and I could see him struggling. “All right,” he said, though his voice sounded flat. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.” I worked to stay detached.
He nodded once and I did my best to ignore the hollowness in his eyes. “You should go,” he said, turning away from me. “You don’t want to keep Simmonds waiting.”
I swallowed hard and backed out of the room.
• • •
Enemy Exposure Page 7
