“What makes her so important?” I heard the eagerness in her voice, which was good. It meant I had her hooked in more ways than one.
“We’re working on it,” I said. “But in the meantime, I have locations for other KATO agents who might be able to help us get some intel.”
“You really think you can pull other agents away from them? Away from the Gerex?”
“I pulled you away, didn’t I?” I asked.
“Not everyone has family secrets you can use,” she said.
I sighed, exasperated. We were getting farther from the point. “Centipede, are you in or not?”
There was a small growl of frustration on her end. “Call when you have something new.” And then she hung up on me for the second time that day.
Chapter Fourteen
PARTIAL DATA
I woke up the next morning to find my tablet lit up next to my bed. I grabbed it and saw a video call from Sam coming through.
“It’s about time, KATO girl,” he said. “I’ve been calling for hours. Even Gwen and Olivia got tired of waiting.”
“I thought you guys were supposed to be on the move?” I asked.
“We were. You should have seen the production Agent Harper made out of that.” He shook his head, mildly annoyed. “We landed a couple hours ago. I’m not supposed to say where, though.”
“I see you’ve already got your computer system up and running.” I was not at all surprised to see that had been a priority.
“That’s the main purpose of my call,” he said with a smirk. “Just because I’m not on the base doesn’t mean I can’t help. My resources may be limited, but, well, we both know how good I am.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “I may not be able to do as much, but I can help.”
“I know you can, Sam.” I smiled, appreciating that I had someone on my side. “Thank you.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Try to stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”
I rolled my eyes. “I could say the same to you.”
“I’m locked away with Agent Lee and Agent Harper. How could I possibly get into trouble?” he asked, with a mischievous glint in his eye.
I laughed as he disconnected. It wouldn’t be nearly as interesting without him around.
The impact of the relocation was obvious as soon as I left my room. With the students gone, I was most certainly the only person living in the student housing building. It felt strangely hollow. In fact, most of the campus seemed eerily quiet. The number of active agents had outweighed the students from the time I had started with the IDA, but since the students lived on campus they seemed to account for a lot of the general hustle and bustle. It was something I hadn’t noticed until they’d been removed. It was also strange to find my afternoons were suddenly free. Though with everything that had been set in motion in the past few days, I doubted I’d have any problem filling the time.
Simmonds confirmed this theory quickly. I was halfway through breakfast when my pager went off. This was almost certainly about the audio we’d recovered.
I was already waiting outside of Simmonds’s office when Travis arrived.
“Did you see any KATO agents lurking outside?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “No, but I tried not to look too hard.” He didn’t want to give us away.
After about ten minutes, the door to Simmonds’s office opened. Older tactical and administrative agents poured out of the room. They were grouped in twos and threes and all seemed to be in the middle of one intense conversation or another.
I looked to Travis. “Is this about the relocation?”
“Probably,” he said. “But I’ve never been a part of one before so I can’t say for sure.”
Simmonds was at his desk, paging through files. He looked up when we entered. “Did you make contact with Centipede last night?”
“I did,” I said, sitting on the edge of a chair. My father hurried in with a folder. “She confirmed that she’s the only one who knows that I’m off the Gerex. She also doesn’t seem to have any intel on KATO’s current plan. At least not right now.”
“Well,” my dad said, dropping the folder on the desk, “at the very least, we can officially corroborate her story. I ran the girl we caught watching us through facial recognition.” He opened the folder and laid out the images from the previous day along with an IDA profile. “We don’t have too much on her, but we can confirm her involvement in KATO assignments.”
I nodded. “This is good.” At least, as good as it could be. It meant I could give Centipede a little bit of a longer leash in the future.
“I’m assuming you also needed us for something else?” Travis asked.
“Yes,” Simmonds said, turning back to his own files. “We did get something from Austria, but it turned out KATO was more prepared for Fiser’s office than we thought. It would seem that only half of the conversation was recorded.”
“Which half?” my dad asked.
“The second part.”
Travis sat up straighter. “Can we hear it?”
“I have it right here.” Simmonds clicked on his screen and the four of us quieted.
It was silent for several seconds, then we heard a voice.
“In theory, it could be harvested and modified similar to how the smallpox vaccine was created.” That had to be Dr. Fiser. He continued. “But this is all theory. I’d have to see the sample if you want a more specific answer. This isn’t a situation science has ever had a reason to explore.”
“Your theory is all I’m asking for.” My heart pounded on instinct. It was definitely Jin Su. I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake off the fear. “This is all I needed to know.”
I heard footsteps next. They were moving away from the microphone. Probably Jin Su heading for the door. Then he stopped. “Not a word to anyone about this. Or I may find good use for your daughters.”
I swallowed hard, breathing through my nose to keep the bile from rising past my throat, and thinking of all of the things he could do to back his threat.
On the recording, the door had finally closed, and Fiser started to pant. Simmonds turned it off once the hyperventilation set in.
The office was dead silent. I stared straight ahead, not daring to look at any of them, but when I spoke, I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking. “He went from this meeting directly to Russia.” To Eliza. Simmonds stared at his computer screen, seeming to be lost in thought. Next to me, Travis was hunched over, his head in his hands. “Is there any evidence of something wrong with her?” I asked.
Simmonds shook his head. “According to Dr. March, Eliza’s as healthy as can be expected in her situation.”
I ground my teeth together. It had to be related to her. But right now, it didn’t seem to add up.
“Can I tell you what part I really didn’t like?” my dad asked. He seemed calm enough, but I noticed tension in his stance. I focused on him, waiting for him to continue. “We may not know what he asked, but that answer we heard was very specific. Which means it had to start with a specific question.”
I was trying to see his point, but Travis got there first. “People only ask specific questions when they’ve already asked the general ones.” He looked briefly at each of us. “Specific comes when they’re close to figuring something out.”
I ran a hand over my hair. We needed to know what happened to Eliza.
“Okay,” Simmonds said, after another long moment. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Jocelyn, you are going to talk to Eliza again.”
I exhaled evenly through my nose remembering how the last time went. “Are you sure about that? Dr. March told me she hasn’t been doing that great since I talked to her.”
Simmonds nodded. “You pulled something out of her. We desperatel
y need to know how she fits into all of this, and if anyone is going to get her to share, it appears that person would be you.”
I held his eyes. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of trying this again, especially if I had triggered her more destructive behavior. But he was right—we needed her to talk. “When do you want to do this?”
“This afternoon,” Simmonds said.
“What do you need from me?” Travis asked.
“Elton, I’m sending you to England. You’re going to find out everything you can about Eliza before she was kidnapped. As far as we know, she doesn’t have any family left, but talk to anyone else who may have known her. Her friends, her teachers, and especially her doctors. We need to know what about her led Jin Su to an immunology specialist.”
Travis nodded. “Absolutely, sir. When do I leave?”
“After we talk with Eliza,” Simmonds said. “That way you’ll have the most up-to-date information.”
“You don’t want me on that too?” I asked.
Simmonds shook his head. “It’s a one-person job, and Elton’s been there before,” he said. “I’ll meet both of you and Dr. March in the medical wing later today.”
I nodded reluctantly and followed Travis out of the office. I was slightly surprised to find my father was right behind me.
Travis glanced at him. “I’ll meet you in the prep room,” he said. “We still have more background to gather on the potential recruits.”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” I watched him into the stairwell before turning to face my dad.
“Listen, kid,” he said. “I’d like to be there this afternoon. If that’s all right.”
I bit down on my lip, remembering everything about my past that had come up the last time I’d talked with Eliza. “Actually, can you not be?”
He looked startled and hurt. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times before finding the right words. “I thought we were doing better.”
“We are.” My voice sounded broken. “But we’re not there yet.”
“You said that before, but it doesn’t seem like anything’s changed,” he said. “Why is that?”
I shook my head.
“Come on, kid. Throw me a bone.”
I took a breath. If I had learned anything since I got out of KATO it was that sometimes I had to trust, even if I wasn’t sure I was ready. I knew I couldn’t give him—or anyone—the specifics they wanted. But, again, he was trying. He stared at me intently, but I gazed past him when I started talking. “Because I did things—” I cut myself off. I couldn’t do this. “Forget it,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I looked at him to gauge his reaction. There was a sadness in his face I couldn’t handle and I shifted away from him, taking a step toward the stairs. “Wait,” he said, reaching for my wrist, “just hold on a minute.” He pulled me back and I didn’t fight him. I was shaking, but if he noticed, he didn’t say anything. I stared straight ahead, waiting for him to talk. “Jocelyn.” I faced him, and saw his expression was open, and completely without judgment. “You did what you had to because I left you in there.”
I started shaking my head. “That’s not—”
“Yes.” He held my eyes, determined to make me believe him. I saw a pain and sadness so raw it hurt to look at. “That’s what happened. So you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
I looked away from him now and whispered, “If I were you I would have thought I was dead too.”
He squeezed my wrist just a little bit tighter and when I looked back at him, his eyes were shut. “That doesn’t matter.” He seemed to be trying to calm himself down. He opened his eyes once he got control. “You can hold on to your story for as long as you want. But if you want to talk about it, you can tell me. I have no place to judge anything.” Suddenly, it was hard to swallow—hard to breathe. I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and I couldn’t explain where they had come from. I needed to get out of there.
“I have to go—sort through some files.” I pulled out of his grasp and was down the stairs before he could stop me again.
• • •
I massaged my neck as I entered the mission prep room, trying to make myself relax. Travis turned enough to study me out of the corner of his eye.
“What was that about?” he asked as I sat down at the computer next to him.
I shook my head. “He wanted to watch my conversation with Eliza later.” I put my attention on powering up the computer.
“And you said no?” His tone made me freeze. It sounded as if he thought I should have said yes. I turned my head slowly in his direction.
“I’m not ready for him to know what happened at KATO,” I said.
“He’s heard enough to have an idea what goes on in there.”
I swiveled my chair, giving Travis my full attention. “It’s hard to talk about KATO to begin with, but with him around it almost feels suffocating.”
“You tell me things,” Travis said.
“When you drag it out of me,” I said, wrapping a curl around my finger.
He tipped his chin, conceding my point. “But still. You tell me.”
“You didn’t know me before,” I said. “He knows who I was, and now he’s getting to know who I am. Sure, maybe he can guess the details of what happened in between, but guessing and knowing are two different things.” I put my attention on my arm, which I was shifting uncomfortably on the table. “I don’t want him to know what I did and I don’t want him to know what was done to me. Because I don’t want him to think about that eight-year-old girl going through it all every time he sees me. I don’t want him to picture how different I could have been.” I bit my lip, stuffing the unexpected emotion back in its place, and giving myself a moment to breathe. “I want him here, and I want him to know me now, but I don’t want him to know how I got this way.”
Travis was quiet for a long time and it forced me to look up at him. His face was laced with pain, but his eyes were understanding. “I know you’re not asking me for advice, but you lost ten years with him. You can’t pretend that time didn’t exist.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s not a good story to share.”
“No, it’s not,” Travis agreed. “But it’s your story.”
I shook my head. “I’m not ready for him to know.”
Travis held my eyes and seemed to be in the middle of some kind of internal debate, but eventually he nodded. “It’s something you should think about.”
“Right,” I said, turning back to my computer as Travis did the same. “Because we don’t have enough on our minds as it is.”
“If it helps,” he said, not looking away from his screen. “I don’t think you’d be that different if KATO hadn’t taken you.”
I arched an eyebrow in disbelief. “Really?”
“Yeah.” He smirked. “I’m pretty sure you’d be stubborn and reckless no matter who raised you.”
Now I glared at him. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
He laughed hard and I fought off a smile.
“Hey,” he said when he’d calmed down. He waited until I faced him again to continue. “I also think you’d be just as much of a fighter and just as fierce.” His expression was serious now—so serious it jarred me. “Those aren’t qualities you got from KATO, they’re the reasons you were able to endure them.” I drew a sharp breath and an energy I’d never experienced swirled in my chest. “I’m not trying to push you. I know better than that. But you should know you have nothing to hide from anyone.”
My mouth seemed incapable of working, but I felt myself nodding. Travis smiled lightly, almost as if he understood, before turning back to the task at hand.
Chapter Fifteen
INNER KATO
Travis and I spent the rest of the morning going through the files of the agents who had made our short lis
t. We worked slowly, taking in one agent at a time, discussing and analyzing every note KATO had put in their files.
By the time we arrived at the medical wing that afternoon, my insides were churning. Between the intel on the audio files, the talk I’d had with my father, and the conversation I was about to have with Eliza, I felt completely on edge.
I took a minute in the hallway, working to center myself. “You good?” Travis said, glancing at me.
“Yeah,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed myself. “I’m just—preparing.”
Dr. March was waiting in the observation room when Travis and I finally crossed the threshold. Eliza was again sedated. Dr. March said it was the only drug Eliza was getting, aside from the Gerex, which the IDA had on hand since I’d arrived four and a half months ago.
I’d left KATO with a four-month supply and had barely used any of it, so we had some time to get her to come around. But the sooner we could get through to her, the better.
Once Simmonds showed up, Dr. March put me in the room with Eliza and started easing her off the sedative. “If she wakes up with you here, you might be able to get her talking before she’s fully awake,” Dr. March said. “Given her willpower, I’m not sure this will work, but we’ve tried everything else.”
So I sat next to Eliza, again with my back to the observation window. It wasn’t long before Eliza’s eyes fluttered open. Her gaze locked on me, and she jumped up—or jumped as much as she could. Her feet were still tethered to the rail. She scrambled to the foot of the bed, clutching the guardrail behind her. It was strange. She seemed like she was afraid of me this time. “Why are you back?” she asked. She was shaking now and I couldn’t figure out why.
I slid my chair closer to her and she flinched like she was back in KATO. I suddenly understood. I knew the panic in her face because I had felt it too. “You dreamed about them, didn’t you?”
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