Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(36)

“Without me. I’m the case agent on this.”

“Since Irene is still out, this falls under my purview.” Hector peered into his cup, as though he were surprised it was empty.

“What did you do, Hector?” Sweat dampened Mitch’s collar and down his spine.

“My job, but you wouldn’t know anything about how to do that, now, would you?” Hector’s smile grated on every last one of Mitch’s nerves.

“I will go over your head on this, Hector.”

“Fine.” He shrugged.

“That’s how it’s going to be, huh?”

“The way I see it, the only people on this I can trust are those two.” Hector’s eyes searched Mitch’s face, seeing too much. “Why are you panicking, Mitch?”

“We could lose every fucking agent, asset, and informant on the Asian continent and you’re not even breaking a sweat?” Mitch shook his head. His personal agenda aside, this was a shit situation for the company and those stationed in dangerous countries.

“I can only worry about my people.” Once more, Hector shrugged.

“That’s why you got booted, you know? You’re narrow-sighted and blind to the bigger picture. Your people aren’t the only ones that matter. Your objective isn’t the only one we’re trying to accomplish. You aren’t a team player.”

“Hey, I made the call I did with my guy. You don’t like it? Go to the director.”

“I will. Don’t make lunch plans, because you’re going to get me up to speed.” Mitch wheeled around, heading back to his temporary office.

First, Mitch would attempt to swap out Charlie’s records for the real ones. Then he’d hang nice guy Hector out to dry.

After that, well, he just might figure out world peace or something if he could pull all this off. It’d be a miracle.

…

“We have to get out of here.” Sarah whirled around, watching Rand slide the locks to their honeymoon suite home.

There was no urgency, no sense of alarm to his movements.

“Rand? Did you hear me?” She grabbed the duffel bag of stuff from the company’s camp location and shoved her old clothes into it.

“Sarah?” Rand’s voice was too calm. It was patronizingly calm.

“They know who I am. I’m a sitting duck here.” If they got her for an hour—even a minute—they could get into the case. And then everything would be fucked.

“Sarah? Calm down.” He reached for her.

“Do not tell me to calm down.” She swatted his hands away.

“Okay, then listen to me for half a minute before you pack up and leave.”

“What?”

Rand perched on the end of the bed, hands clasped together, one knee bent. “Where’s Wishing Well’s office?” he asked.

“Here. D.C.”

“Okay, how public is your schedule?”

“Well, I was supposed to be in China to facilitate a meeting and act as a secondary translator. There’s talk of opening a new water treatment plant in one of the poorer areas to give them clean water, get rid of the pollution.”

“Okay, so logically, it could make sense that you would still be here and cutting your arrival for those meetings late, right? You being in D.C. is not an abnormal thing?”

“No,” she said slowly.

“All right. Good. Look at it this way, if this guy—what’s his name?”

“Mr. Qiang?”

“No, the one from the province.”

“Oh. Wang Ping, Henan province.”

“If Mr. Ping knows you, if you’re working in the same area he is, wouldn’t it make sense for you to take advantage of possibly getting in a meeting or talking to him about…water stuff? If this were a normal situation, what would you do?”

She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, massaging her skull. “I’d…try to talk him into looking at the water report again.” She sighed. “He couldn’t have really read it, or else the subpar conditions in the farther reaches would have stuck out. China is such a modern country in some aspects, especially in the cities, but out in the country…” She shrugged. The things she’d seen.

“See my point?”

“But what about you know who?” She couldn’t even bring herself to say his name.

“We haven’t seen him yet. Plus, look at it this way. He didn’t go for you in the beginning when he could have. He went for the case. I’m willing to bet they don’t know how to open it—or they’ve opened it, and everything is useless now.”

Rand stood and closed the distance between him. He slid his hands up and down her arms, his presence comforting. Warm. “Look at me.”

She lifted her gaze from his chest to his face. His hazel eyes had gone an odd blue-green, a shade so unique, so him. She’d forgotten the wide range of colors his eyes could be, how they shifted with his moods and what he was wearing, sometimes even the weather. So many small, insignificant details about him that’d slipped her memory.

“Hey.” He slid his palm over her shoulder, up her neck, and cupped her cheek. “We got this. Besides, where am I going to find someone who speaks these guys’ exact dialect of Mandarin if you leave on me? I know I haven’t given you a lot of reason to trust me, but give me a chance. We can do this. I know it.”