by MC Lee
“Wake up, Jack. We’re home.”
Jack was surprised to find he had dozed off and missed most of the journey back. He rubbed sleepily at his eyes, hissing when his knuckles dragged across raw skin, and then he allowed Sean to lead him back to his quarters. It was surprising not to find himself on lockdown, more shocking still when he walked in to find that everything had been put back and the room returned to normal.
His eyes traveled the full bookshelves, the DVDs stacked on the coffee table and the magazines strewn on the couch. All of the maps and charts were back on the wall, and even his regular clothes were scattered on the backs of chairs and draped over the arm of the sofa—exactly as they had been before his guardian had ordered the reset.
“Try to rest tonight,” Sean instructed. “Tomorrow we’ll start the debrief.”
Jack nodded, knowing he’d never be able to sleep. Two hours after climbing between the sheets, he gave up the pretense and rolled out of bed. His computer hummed when he turned it on, and he spent an hour listlessly jumping from page to page, though nothing captured his attention for more than a minute of two. Finally he gave up the pointless exercise and powered down.
The silence was eerily deep. Almost on automatic pilot, Jack walked to the door and keyed in his passcode, unsurprised when the door remained firmly locked against him. He jumped when the monitor on the wall flickered into life and Sean’s voice sounded.
“Can’t sleep?”
Jack turned and flung himself onto the sofa, facing the screen and Sean’s concerned expression.
“Too keyed up I guess.”
“Do you want something to help you relax?”
“No!” He remembered himself just in time. “Thank you, sir.”
“What’s on your mind, Jack?” Sean asked.
It was pointless to pretend his brain wasn’t seething with questions, most of which he doubted Sean would answer. He chose the safest subject. “What will happen to Ryan Anderson and Freya Moore?”
Sean’s reply was unexpectedly prompt. “Anderson will be sent up the line. There are agents who know how to pick his brain about Donovan’s operation.”
Jack shivered at the euphemism, knowing what a Center interrogation really entailed. “And Freya?”
“We’re going to take Miss Moore under our wing,” Sean said. “She shows promise. Once she’s given us all she can on Donovan, she’ll be turned over to Agent Baxter. What happens after that is up to her.”
Jack managed to repress a shudder of revulsion. He had worked two previous cases with Agent Anna Baxter and had found her manipulative and devious. He didn’t envy Freya’s position at all, and he said so, even though he expected a reprimand for disrespect.
Sean let it pass. “If you have this much energy, perhaps we should start the assignment debrief,” he suggested.
Jack faked a yawn. “Guess I’m tired after all.”
Sean snorted his disbelief. “You know how to find me if you change your mind.”
“Don’t you ever sleep?” Jack asked.
Sean shrugged. “Not when you don’t.”
The screen went blank, leaving Jack to wonder if Sean had been joking, or if he really was so tuned in that he even knew when Jack was having trouble sleeping.
He wandered back into his bedroom and lay on the bed, hoping sleep would come. They had a lot to cover, and the sooner they dealt with what had happened, the sooner he’d see Leo.
UNEXPECTEDLY, SEAN excused him from his early morning workout. They were alone in the breakfast room when the door opened and Evan walked in.
Jack jumped to his feet and crossed the room, then pulled his trainer into a hard hug.
“I should beat the crap out of you for what you did,” Evan said, holding him at arm’s length and looking him over carefully. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“Everybody seemed to know what I’d do,” Jack complained. “I don’t know why you sound so surprised.”
“We’ve gotten a little mouthy I see,” Evan said, though the twinkle in his eyes took the sting out of the words. “Just for that, I’m adding an extra hour to tonight’s workout.” The stern effect was ruined when he ruffled Jack’s hair and grinned.
When the door opened at exactly seven o’clock and his guardian walked in, Jack stood to attention until he was waved back into his seat.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but breakfast was exactly the same as every other day for the past thirteen years. His guardian and his handlers talked over the top of his head while he ate quietly, occasionally answering their questions, which were as bland as every other day. It was as though the last few weeks had never happened.
Jack was trying to process the uneasy sensation when the door opened and one of the serving staff walked in with a fresh pot of coffee. Jack glanced briefly in her direction, his heart stuttering when he recognized the woman who had slipped the surveillance photograph of his parents into his room. She nodded at him nonchalantly.
“You’ve met Louise,” his guardian said. “She was a friend of your mother’s.”
Louise inclined her head before depositing the coffeepot on the table and walking out without a word.
Jack’s puzzled gaze traveled between Sean and his guardian, but their unreadable expressions gave nothing away. It felt somehow momentous that she was here now, but Jack couldn’t yet untangle all the threads of what had happened.
His handlers turned away and continued their casual conversation. It was only when breakfast was almost finished that Sean said, “Room 47, Jack. Ten minutes.”
Jack’s stomach plummeted and he morosely pushed away his half-eaten meal, his appetite suddenly and completely gone.
INSTRUCTOR COLSON was already seated when Jack followed Sean into room 47. She smiled, genuinely happy to see him.
“I was worried about you,” she said.
“I’m fine, thank you, ma’am,” he replied, but it felt good to hear her express concern.
He took his customary place, trying to hide his surprise when the door opened and his guardian walked in. He started to rise but was waved back down, though he only resumed his seat when his guardian was settled at the head of the table.
“Begin,” his guardian instructed, and Instructor Colson cleared her throat.
“Take us through the mission, Jack. From your point of view.”
Jack was glad he’d had all night to prepare for this moment. He stripped all emotion from his voice as he recited what he was sure they wanted to hear. “The original assignment was Mark Donovan’s setup. He designed a mission to lure me out of the Center. When Leo and Martin took the assignment instead, he had his operatives pretend to shadow Leo so the Center would send me in as backup and they would achieve their aim.”
“And what was their aim, as you understand it?” Instructor Colson asked.
Jack shifted in his seat, his eyes flickering toward his guardian’s face. “As I understand it, Mark Donovan wanted to use me to get to… Mr. Palmer.”
Instructor Colson’s eyebrow arched. “And why would he want to get to your guardian,” she said, putting a distinct emphasis on the words.
“You’d need to ask him that,” Jack murmured, ducking his head to avoid her disapproving frown.
“Lose the attitude, Jack,” Sean warned.
His guardian surprised him by cutting in. “Jack has a point.”
Jack raised his head and met his guardian’s gaze steadily.
“Mark Donovan wanted to remove me from my position as head of the Center. Permanently I presume.”
Jack hadn’t expected to hear his guardian admitting it so bluntly. And with so little emotion.
“I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now,” his guardian continued. “The Center redresses the balance of power when organizations like Donovan’s try to destabilize the status quo. We operate covertly, of course. We report through a single governmental department that would deny our existence the minute anything goes south.”
“Which government department?” Jack asked.
“Need to know,” his guardian replied crisply, as Jack knew he would. “It has something to do with national security,” he added dryly.
“How have my assignments had anything to do with national security?”
His guardian frowned, and Jack expected him to change the subject, but the surprises kept coming.
“Adam and Sam North’s father is a nuclear scientist. I think it’s fairly obvious why we wanted to return him to the fold after he’d strayed,” his guardian said. “Gregor Slovik was running drugs, but his supply line was also used to import technical materials which are of interest to Agent Baxter’s counter-terrorism unit. That’s why she left him in place when your mission was complete. Her operation wasn’t designed to shut him down. She wanted to use him to work her way up the chain to find the end users.”
Sean leaned forward, and Jack turned his head. “Alex Sutherland’s father used his position to do favors for some very unsavory characters, but he was turned when his main clients were arrested for fraud and he was threatened with jail. In return for protection, we’ve received invaluable information about everything from potential attacks on our banking system to groups planning a domestic coup.”
Jack’s guardian looked around the room and shrugged. “So, there it is. We operate in secrecy, we never question the orders we’re given, and we always get results. Questions?”
It was so startling to be asked that Jack was momentarily struck dumb.
“This is one of the few chances you’ll get to ask questions at this stage of your training. I suggest you use it wisely,” his guardian said.
“Does the government know about me?” Jack blurted.
“They know we start to train operatives in their early teens. Our enemies have been doing it for years. We were losing ground rapidly. The government recognized that when they sanctioned the program—”
“But do they know about me?” Jack repeated doggedly.
His guardian met his gaze without flinching. “Yours is a unique case.”
“Because you authorized entry into the program when I was a child,” Jack said.
“I am your legal guardian,” Palmer said stiffly. “It was within my right—”
“To steal my childhood?”
“To train you to look after yourself,” Palmer retorted. “To ensure that what happened to your parents wouldn’t happen to you.”
“What did happen to my parents?” Jack demanded.
His guardian looked around the room and nodded, and Instructor Colson and Sean stood and walked out without another word.
Palmer waited until Sean had closed the door behind him. “I presume you know that most of what Donovan told you was a lie?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know what was a lie and what was the truth.”
“Your parents were operatives here. Very good operatives. You know the reason they left the Center.”
Jack realized his guardian couldn’t bring himself to say the words, to acknowledge that his wife and his brother had fallen in love and conceived a child, and felt themselves so threatened they had left everything behind and gone on the run.
“They sought help in the wrong place.” Palmer stopped, as though the memory was difficult to process. “Donovan left them alone for a few months, and then he called in his marker. At first it was a few easy assignments, nothing too onerous, certainly nothing to make either John or Ellie suspicious.” He stopped again, looking baffled by behavior he clearly didn’t understand.
“But then the assignments became more compromising,” Jack put in quietly. It wasn’t difficult to guess at the rest, but he was grateful when his guardian picked up the story again.
“John realized Donovan was working the wrong side of the fence when he tried to turn my brother against me. He’d never been interested in helping them. He simply saw them as the best way to get to me and undermine the Center.”
“They contacted you,” Jack whispered. “You agreed to help.”
Palmer frowned. “Of course. Rogue or not, they were my operatives. Ellie arranged a meeting and handed you over. She went back to conclude preparations for her and John. That’s the last I saw of either of them.”
He sat back, his face in shadow, though Jack doubted he would have been able to read anything from the man’s closed expression. He recalled what he’d believed was his first meeting with Michael Palmer, how he had thought the man emerging from the gloom was his father, how his childish hopes had been dashed when he’d realized the man was a total stranger.
“The surveillance photos. You didn’t take them?” The memory of the photograph was tainted now, tied to the image of Michael Palmer tearing it in two and throwing it into the garbage. The only tangible evidence of his parents, destroyed by the man sitting in front of him.
“No. Those photographs must have been taken by Donovan’s team. They’d probably been tracking John and Ellie’s movements for weeks. My brother was clearly not thinking straight. Otherwise he’d have spotted the setup for what it was. It’s lucky Ellie managed to give them the slip when she did. Otherwise you would have been with them when the plane went down.”
Jack didn’t know whether Palmer was as detached as his tone implied, or whether he genuinely didn’t know how painful it was for Jack to hear his parents’ death discussed so clinically. He battled the lump rising in his throat, not wanting Palmer to see any of the emotion he appeared to despise.
“The rest you know,” his guardian said, briskness returning to his voice. “You were brought up here. I thought it best not to recognize the relationship between us in the vain hope that you’d be safer if nobody knew who you were.”
There was no guilt, no regret, no apology for stripping Jack of his childhood and raising him like a soldier. Jack had been brought up without love, without warmth, without basic human contact. He’d cobbled together his own family from scraps of affection and kindness, yearning for something he didn’t even know was missing.
He thought he felt as hollow as it was possible to feel, until Michael Palmer spoke again.
“I don’t say this to hurt you, Jack. I meant it when I said you’ve grown into a fine young man, and you’re a first-class operative. But what you’ve learned about your parents, about me, it changes nothing.” He looked away momentarily, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded… torn. “I loved them. She was my wife. He was my brother. Nothing they did changed that.” He turned his head again, and his eyes locked with Jack’s. “But when I look at you, I see them. Their betrayal, their infidelity, their disloyalty. You’re the part of them that wounded me the most. And nothing is going to change that either.”
The empty feeling spread, a deep, dark hole clawing at Jack’s insides. He didn’t think he could stand to hear another word, but his guardian kept talking.
“I’m your legal guardian until you turn eighteen. You’ll continue to live and work at the Center until then. You’ll report through Sean, but you answer to me. Our relationship has no relevance here. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.” The words were as automatic as they had been for over thirteen years. He’d once told this man that he would never claim him as blood, would never acknowledge their relationship. He was surprised to find that the rejection cut deeply just the same.
His guardian stood, and Jack climbed to his feet, his training so strongly embedded that this show of respect had become instinctive.
“I think the sooner we return to our normal routine, the better,” his guardian said. “Check your computer. Your schedule is being updated to include more modules in tactics. Your methodology was sloppy. I won’t tolerate that degree of failure. I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”
He turned and walked out of the room, leaving Jack stunned—and utterly alone.
Chapter Thirty-Two
JACK DIDN’T know how long he’d been standing at the window in room 47, staring out at a landscape he didn’t even register, but it had bee
n long enough to dry the unexpected tears that had tracked down his cheeks.
He turned at the sound of the door opening, scrubbing his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, even though his raw skin flared with pain. If Sean noticed anything amiss, he covered it with long-practiced ease.
“I’ve brought your access card. I don’t see any reason to keep you from your routine. Take the rest of the afternoon to get your head straight. Evan expects you in the gym at six.”
Jack mechanically picked up his access card and shoved it into his pocket.
Sean’s eyes searched his face, as if looking for clues to what was going through his mind. “Did you get the answers you needed?” he asked softly.
Jack answered the question with one of his own. “How long has my guardian been using me as bait to take down Mark Donovan?”
Sean hid his surprise well, but not quickly enough to fool Jack. “It’s been a long time coming,” he said carefully.
“So all my recent assignments….” He couldn’t bring himself to ask the obvious, but Sean understood anyway.
“They were all real,” he said emphatically.
“But?”
Sean shrugged. “But we were always ready in case Donovan revealed himself. We knew it was only a matter of time. But you were never in any danger from him, Jack. We had you covered. It’s one of the reasons we’ve always been so strict with you in the field.”
“So you’ve always known I was being dangled out there just so he could get his revenge—”
“It wasn’t about revenge,” Sean said sharply. “Mark Donovan is a dangerous man doing very dangerous things. His history with your family is coincidental.”
Jack turned his head away, unable to look Sean in the eye.
“I’m going to tell you something about what happened. You might not want to hear it, but this is the truth. When your mother came to him for help, Michael Palmer put all his animosity aside and did everything he could to help your parents. Your mother was still his wife. Your father was his younger brother. He never turned his back on them, even when he had good reason to.”
