Enemy Exposure

by Meghan Rogers

  “Aren’t you supposed to be watching the room?” I asked, doing my best to get rid of her before she said something that would undercut all the work I had done to save myself.

  “They’re dead,” she said with a shrug.

  I gapped at her. “You killed them? All of them?”

  “They were headed this way.” She spoke as if this explained everything. I stared at her in mild disbelief. No matter how long I had been in KATO, I always avoided killing someone unless I absolutely had to. Yet she’d done it so easily.

  “I do not understand,” Venom said. “It sounds like she did good.”

  I took a long slow breath. Everything about this assignment had gone completely off the rails. “We don’t kill people unless we have no other choice.”

  Centipede rolled her eyes. “We’ll see how well that works now that she’s on board.”

  Venom smiled, seeming to be very much under the impression that this was a compliment. Then her face dropped. She craned her neck around in both directions with an unnatural range of motion. “We must leave now.”

  “Your agency already knows the truth about you. I’ll have my director reach out and update them on your status.” I reached in my back pocket and pulled out the last satellite phone. In my hurry to get out of the IDA, I’d grabbed the case with both spare phones instead of only taking one for Misty. Now I was glad I did. “This is for you,” I said, holding it out for her. “I’ll use it to contact you if we need to talk or meet. You can also call me if you need something.”

  She took the phone and studied it for a moment, before looking abruptly back up at me. “If you call I will answer.”

  “Good,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “Now we must go.” Venom bowed to both of us as she backed out of the room. “You will be seeing more of me.”

  Once we were alone, Centipede rounded on me. Her face was hard and angry and maybe even a little afraid. “You brought her in? There’s something wrong with her!”

  The fact that this was coming from Centipede spoke volumes, but it was too late. Venom was on board. My heart was still pounding furiously from how close I had come to going back to KATO. “I didn’t have a choice,” I said. “I was in a jam and I saw an opportunity.”

  She snorted. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Yeah. I did too.

  I lifted the painting off the ground and headed for the door. “I’ll be in touch when I have something more,” I said. This was where Centipede and I were separating.

  She nodded tightly, and I saw a touch of tension in her face. She’d be going back to KATO empty-handed again. It wouldn’t be enough to kick her off my case—KATO knew how good I was and if she couldn’t catch me, no one else would. But there was undoubtedly a more severe punishment waiting for her when she returned.

  Chapter Eighteen

  PROGRESS

  I was relieved when I got back to the plane and found Cody and Rachel waiting to take off. I passed the painting off to Cody as I struggled up the steps. I’d managed to keep the craving under wraps in the warehouse because I had to—my life depended on it. But now, that control was slipping.

  “We got here not long before you did,” Cody said. “It sounded like things got dicey.”

  I collapsed on one of the benches, shaking my head. I didn’t have any words. The mission was catching up to me, and I could fully appreciate just how disastrous it had become. I had been entirely too close to returning to KATO—a fact that had left me shaking. Plus, now I had Venom on my anti-KATO team. I believed—at least for now—that she wouldn’t go back to KATO. She seemed to hate everything about their control, but I had no way of knowing how loyal she would be to us. My stomach churned. This whole thing had gotten out of hand fast.

  I replayed the mission, pausing when I remembered the needle on my neck. I had been so wonderfully close. If I had just let her push down on the syringe—

  I shuddered, hating everything about this feeling—about how I could feel good for resisting, but frustrated for the same reason. My forehead was damp and I knew I was in for a very long flight.

  I forced myself to sit up straight, as if I would feel better by simply pretending I was okay. It didn’t work. I’d barely gotten myself upright before my body started curling in on itself. I stopped fighting and let myself hug my legs to my chest. Over the tops of my knees I saw that Cody and Rachel were both watching me from the other side of the plane with varying expressions of concern.

  Cody glanced at Rachel, shooting her an expectant look. When she didn’t move, he nudged her.

  She sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

  I gripped my arms tighter as I watched her walk to a cabinet in the front of the plane and come back with a hard black case. She sat down in front of me and busied herself with digging through the bag, taking care not to look me in the eye when she talked. “Dr. March showed me what you need,” she said. I noticed then that she was pulling out acupuncture needles. “It’s around the ears, right?”

  I nodded as I forced my legs straight. I didn’t want to accept her help. After seeing how much I had hurt her, it didn’t seem right. But it wouldn’t be the first time, and I was so very desperate.

  I closed my eyes, letting myself believe I was already back at the IDA and that this was Dr. March. The needles slid into my skin and before long, I started to feel some relief. It took longer to set in than it normally did, but each minute seemed easier than the last. I could hear Cody and Rachel talking quietly, but I was too out of it to understand what they were saying. It wasn’t long before I had fallen asleep.

  • • •

  Physically, I felt much better when we landed, but I still couldn’t get my mind off of how messed up everything had become. I started going back over every detail for the tenth time, preparing myself for the conversation I was going to have with Simmonds—and most likely my father—once I was back at the base. Now that I’d had some sleep I could see all the potential ramifications of what had happened in Turkey. It went without saying that a screwup like that could cost me my team. I needed them to believe this wasn’t a mistake. Though it might be a hard sell, considering how close I’d come to being taken.

  I still felt the needle and saw Venom’s twisted smile as she prepared to knock me out. Then I blinked and I was back in KATO, water flowing over my mouth while I choked and struggled to breathe. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the thoughts. I had never been waterboarded at KATO, but I had seen it done to others. I’d been next to Jin Su when it happened. He stood with his arms crossed, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. I shuddered.

  I massaged my temples, willing my mind blank, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to turn it off.

  “Hey.” Cody waved a hand in front of my face, bringing me back to the present. He stepped back to stand with Rachel, who was near the door, ready to disembark. “You coming?”

  I was about to stand when my pocket buzzed. My satellite phone was ringing. Misty’s number flashed on the screen. “You guys go ahead,” I said. “I have to take this.” I waited until I was alone to answer.

  “I’ll help you,” she said when I picked up.

  I smiled into the phone. “What changed your mind?”

  “I kept my head down all this time—I played my part, hoping that someday I’d get an opportunity to escape.” I heard her swallow. “This isn’t as clean as I want it to be, but I don’t know if I’m going to get another chance.”

  “Okay,” I said. “The director of the IDA will contact AISE so they know what’s going on. They’ll give you fake stories to pass back to KATO and make sure you look busy, but you’ll be working with us from now on.”

  She drew a shaky breath. “Are you sure that will work?”

  “It worked for me,” I said. “If they hadn’t called me back to headquarters, I’d still be feeding them lies. And I
had a personal connection to my agency. You don’t, so they shouldn’t expect you to do the same thing.”

  “All right,” she said. Her voice was strong, but I noticed the touch of fear. I didn’t blame her.

  “I’ll contact you when I have more.”

  I let out a sigh of relief when I hung up. At least now I could go to Simmonds with some good news.

  • • •

  An IDA agent was waiting for me at the gate. She took the painting, assuring me it would make it to the proper place, then said Director Simmonds was waiting for me in his office. There was no mistaking the fact that this was an immediate summons, and my excitement in winning over Misty faded quickly.

  I gnawed on my cheek the whole way up to his office, thinking through the mission yet again. There wasn’t anything I could have done differently, not the way the events had unfolded. Obviously, it would have been better if Venom never showed up, or if I’d thought to be aware of her. But she did and I hadn’t. I did the best with the tools I had at hand.

  “What the hell was that?” A voice cut through my thoughts. I startled and realized that not only had I made it to Simmonds’s door, but Travis was there too. He was eyeing at me with so much anger that it was remarkable I hadn’t felt it coming down the hall. “Venom? She was the first person we ruled out! What would possess you to bring her on board?”

  “What, have you just been standing there, waiting for me?” I asked.

  “You better believe I’ve been waiting.” The anger radiated off of him, and my nerves were too shot to deal with it right then. Not while he had this attitude. “She’s a straight assassin! And she likes it!”

  “I know what she is,” I fired back. “Do you even know what happened?”

  “Of course I do. I was briefed.”

  I took a long breath through my nose, trying to keep myself in check. He was briefed. Which meant he didn’t hear anything that happened firsthand. He had no idea that I’d had a syringe full of Gerex pressed against the vein in my neck. He had no clue how close I’d come to being taken. He didn’t understand how essential that move had been. And to think, at the time, he was the person I had wanted there. “You don’t know the whole story.”

  His face started to turn red at that. “I know you invited a crazy, careless assassin onto a team associated with the IDA. The one thing you needed to do was follow the plan! This has to be one of your most reckless—”

  “No!” I spoke loud enough for my voice to carry down the hall. “You don’t get to call me that. Not because of this. I’m not happy with how it turned out either, but I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You need to get rid of her,” Travis said. “Or shut down this whole operation. You can’t move forward like this.”

  “Whoa.” I held my hands up in front of me. “I am not giving up because one small piece isn’t exactly what we planned.”

  “It’s more than a small piece,” he hissed. “Centipede was risky enough—this is suicidal!”

  “I found her hook!” I argued. “She’s just as invested as any of the others, and I’m not throwing all of this work and intel away because of something you decided!”

  He still had a lot more to say, but luckily, the door to Simmonds’s office opened, sparing me any more of this conversation. My dad stood at the threshold.

  “Jocelyn.” He sounded relieved. “I was coming to look for you.”

  I pushed past Travis and went into the office. He followed me.

  I found myself breathing heavy. I closed my eyes, trying to shut everyone out. I just needed thirty seconds to myself.

  “Agent Steely.” I pried my eyelids open and focused on Simmonds. His expression was firm but not unkind. “You should sit.”

  I lowered into the seat behind me. Travis took the chair on my left, and my dad settled against the wall.

  “What happened out there?” my dad asked. “We heard through the comms, but it felt like we were missing something.” There was a note of genuine curiosity in his voice—like he truly wanted to understand. It was enough to take away some of my tension. I told them what happened, laying the whole thing out.

  “She had the needle to your neck?” Simmonds asked. That was what they couldn’t pick up through the comms. Travis was still next to me, and while he seemed to have calmed some, I still felt his anger. My dad’s eyes were reduced to slits.

  I nodded. “If she’d injected me—” I swallowed, thinking about what would have happened. “Gerex was tightly controlled at KATO, and when we were in the field, we were motivated enough to avoid withdrawal to pace ourselves. I’ve only seen an overdose once, but it was enough to know that two back-to-back injections of a full dose would have knocked me out in less than three minutes.” An agent had tried to escape and her handler loaded her up. It looked like too much Gerex was just as bad as not enough—possibly even worse. She screamed for about five minutes before she passed out, and it took her days to recover.

  “So to stay away from KATO,” my dad said, “you offered her a chance to leave too.”

  I nodded. “I saw a sign that she disagreed with them—or at least that she doesn’t like how they control her. It gave me a window in.”

  “The amount of damage she could do,” Travis said, seeming to finally find his voice. I turned to face him. He seemed less angry, but no more supportive.

  “It’s not what I wanted,” I said. “But it’s what we’re working with now. She’s on board enough to keep our secret from KATO. And for now she seems to be listening to me.”

  “Exactly.” Travis pointed at my words. “For now. She went from drugging you to siding with you in under five minutes. Who knows how long that will last—if she’s even telling the truth.” He turned to Simmonds. “Sir, this feels out of control.” I fought the urge to snap at him. He stopped just short of saying Simmonds should dismantle the team.

  I couldn’t let that happen. While it was true that there would always be a chance that these girls would be found or that I would lose their loyalty, he wasn’t with me when Misty called. He didn’t hear how much this meant to her. He wasn’t around when Centipede admitted that she didn’t want to go back to KATO, and he didn't see the look on Venom’s face when I told her she didn’t have to be controlled by them anymore. They may be scared, and KATO may still have a certain amount of power over them, but they were invested. They deserved an opportunity to escape. I wasn’t going to let this team slip away.

  “It’s not out of control.” My tone was confident, yet dismissive. The last mission had gotten derailed significantly, but I was sure I could recover. I turned back to Simmonds, because he needed to understand. I didn’t like the uneasy look on his face, but I refused to let this fall apart because of one unexpected variable—no matter how big it was. “Regardless of the complications, I came home with intel, a source of funding, and three KATO agents willing to work with us. They may have a lot to learn, but so did I. And I’d had years to prepare myself. We just need a little more time.”

  “Tell me more about the intel,” Simmonds said. He seemed willing to listen, but still not overly convinced.

  “Misty had plenty to share,” I said, speaking quickly. “Eliza was close with her. She didn’t know what happened to her, but I think I can use their relationship to get Eliza talking. She said Eliza used to be a defiant fighter. What ever KATO did to her took that away.”

  Simmonds looked disappointed, and I knew he was expecting more, but I believed it was enough. If Eliza was close enough to Misty to be muttering her name, I was sure I had plenty to work with. Despite his hesitance, Simmonds nodded. “I’ll give it a chance,” he said. “Because we don’t have any other leads.”

  I risked a glance at Travis. “We didn’t learn anything in England?”

  “No,” Travis said. He pulled his eyes away from mine and bowed his head in defeat. “There isn’t any paper evidence of her
anywhere. No school records or medical records. I came across some old teachers and friends, but they’re all under the impression that the Fosters moved. Though no one could tell me where. It’s like she disappeared and no one questioned anything.”

  I pressed my lips together. “KATO made her a ghost.”

  “They’re really good at that,” my dad said. There was a distance in his eyes that suggested his mind was somewhere else. He blinked back to reality and looked to me. “Anything more you can get out of her would be helpful.”

  I nodded and stood. “I’ll talk to her first thing in the morning.” I wanted my mind sharp when we spoke, not fried and worn as it was now.

  Travis beat me out the door, and I took off to follow him. I still had a thing or two to discuss with him, especially now that he knew the details of the mission.

  “Agent Steely,” Simmonds said, stopping me just short of the door. “This will be your only opportunity. If your intel doesn’t lead to some kind of insight, we may have to find a more concrete approach.”

  My jaw clenched, and I felt the weight of the entire situation fall to the pit of my stomach. “I understand.” I turned to leave, but my dad caught my eye. I held his gaze for a moment. My next talk with Eliza wouldn’t be about me. It would be about her and Misty. I didn’t have to get into anything that happened in my past, or anything I’d done. “You should come tomorrow,” I said to him. His brows arched in surprise. “If you want.”

  He nodded slowly, as if he didn’t quite believe he had heard me correctly. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  I gave him a small smile, then hurried into the hall after Travis.

  • • •

  I caught up with Travis just outside the operations building. He was stalking across the courtyard, headed for the training facility. Without the students around, areas like this were regularly empty these days.

  “Do you see why I made that call now?” I asked him. I was seconds away from going back to KATO. He had to understand.