You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(58)

“So what exactly have you found out?” Phoebe asked and he finally looked at her. She was clean, neat as a pin. Her hair had been pulled back in a severe bun. She looked nothing like the woman who had screamed in his arms the night before. Contrary to his fears, she didn’t look vulnerable at all. She looked hard, focused. This was the CIA operative.

“Chelsea found that someone used several of the Agency assigned cells to call a number in Turkey. It’s never a long conversation. Not really a conversation at all. It’s more like ten to twenty seconds and then the call is disconnected, but Chelsea assures me there was a connection,” Ten explained.

“Why not use a burner?” Jesse couldn’t understand why this person would risk getting caught when he could easily use a burner phone.

“When we’re on assignment, they’re not allowed to have anything non-Agency assigned with them. No ID, no equipment, and definitely no personal cell phones. Their packs are checked before they get on the plane. These calls occurred while they were on one particular mission.”

“Whose phone was used? That’s simple.” Phoebe set down her coffee mug.

Ten shook his head. “No, it’s not. It’s four different phones. They belonged to Malone, Boomer, Deke, and Ace. None of them have relations in Turkey. The operation in question wasn’t in Turkey and had no ties to Turkey. We were in Southeast Asia.”

Turkey was considered to be the gateway to the Middle East and the jumping off point for radicalized Muslims joining the jihad from the west.

“The calls all happened in a two-day period. Nothing suspicious before or after,” Ten explained.

“Someone’s desperate,” Tag said under his breath.

“Then we’re looking for an inciting incident. This person has been careful up until now. Something spooked him,” Phoebe pointed out.

“Or his employer.” Ten sat back in his chair, his eyes serious.

Li’s words played around in Jesse’s head. He’d said he thought that this was about him.

You’re the answer. You’re the one who leads us to the sleeper. This is about you. We have to figure out why they want you dead.

He had to find the answer. He needed to stop thinking about his nonexistent love life and concentrate on getting them out of this situation. He had to think about what the real question was, and he had two men in front of him who might give him the answer.

“Why me? Like what are logical reasons someone would want to take me out?” Jesse mused out loud.

“It could be personal,” Tag replied. “But it doesn’t feel that way to me. Instinct tells me it’s bigger than that. Besides, why would someone on Ten’s team have something personal against you?”

He could only think of one incident. “I clocked Boomer after he and Malone shoved Si and me in that shed.”

Ten shook his head. “Everyone’s clocked Boomer at one point in time. That boy’s had more concussions than a quarterback. He’s not the type to get pissed about something like that. Now you take his Cheetos and he turns into the Hulk. That boy is all about his gut.”

“I don’t think this is personal,” Phoebe said, sounding deeply professional. “If this guy really is a sleeper, then he wouldn’t risk his position on a personal grudge. This was expertly set up. I was the one who screwed everything up. If I hadn’t been made, no one would have been the wiser.”

“So if this is a professional hit, it’s got to be about stopping you from doing something.” Tag tapped his pen against the desk. “The only op you’re scheduled for right now is the one in Dubai, but you’re one of four agents. So why you?”

“It could have been a message to you, Tag,” Ten offered. “We just never got the message because he didn’t actually die.”

They started arguing, but Jesse tuned them out. This wasn’t about Tag. It wasn’t about the team. It was about him.

“What are you thinking?” Phoebe asked, leaning toward him.

“That this is about me. I just can’t figure out why.”

“Taggart’s right. If this is about you then it’s about stopping you from doing something.” She frowned as Ten and Tag continued to argue. “Or it’s about something you know that you shouldn’t.”

A bitter laugh came from his mouth. “Yeah, well, we all know I don’t know much.”

“Jesse…” She turned again, facing him, and her face had flushed. “You didn’t do anything wrong last night. That was all about me.”

God, he’d heard this speech before and he didn’t want to hear it from her. He nodded when he thought he should, but he didn’t really hear her as she started to explain how she wasn’t ready and it wasn’t a good time. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

It all came back to I don’t want you, Jesse.

He knew that. He knew what it felt like to be rejected. If this was about what he knew, rejection was high on the list. Other things he knew—how to be tortured and nearly turned into a mindless slave. He knew the sound of pure evil. Yeah, that was a good one. He knew what the devil looked like.

In the end, there was really only one thing vitally important that he knew and no one else did. Him. The man in his nightmares.

“I know him.” The truth hit him square in the chest. “I know him.”