Long Road Home(57)

“Join the club,” Manuel muttered. He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t understand any of it.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to understand the extent your lives were manipulated,” Tony said, a whisper of amazement in his voice.

Manuel stared hard at him. Manipulated? Somehow he knew he was about to embark on a twisted journey, one that was going to shake the foundations of everything he thought was true. And that scared the hell out of him.

“Spill it,” he demanded.

Tony paced back and forth in front of the couch. “First of all, Jules’s name really is Magalie. Magalie Pinson. Her parents were indeed Frederic and Carine Pinson. They were French immigrants who settled in the U.S. right out of college. The CIA recruited them for a top-secret shadow group they labeled the NFR.”

“What?” Manuel demanded. “The NFR is a CIA brainchild? But it’s a terrorist group!”

Tony shook his head. “Think about it, Manuel. A group assembled by the CIA under the guise of a terrorist cell. They do the dirty work for the CIA and the CIA takes none of the blame. Think state-sponsored assassination, only on a larger scale. The NFR could take out targets that would be a political nightmare for the U.S. to get involved with.”

Manuel shook his head in denial. God, it couldn’t be true.

“I hacked into Sanderson’s computer. Took me all damn night, but I was successful. Bastard had extensive logs dating back from the NFR’s inception. Dates, names, targets—you name it, he had them listed. Apparently the NFR was formed in the late sixties, but they didn’t become very active until the early eighties when someone he referred to as FAAID, and later as SAID, took over.”

“But why Jules?” Manuel asked, his head spinning. “If she was the Pinsons’ daughter, how did I find her all those years ago? And my recruitment—I refuse to believe that’s coincidental.”

Tony shook his head in regret. “No, it wasn’t, Manny. You and Jules have been manipulated for years. For whatever reason, the Pinsons wanted out, only FAAID wasn’t having it. The Pinsons disappeared, taking their daughter with them. I’m assuming they must have abandoned Jules or maybe they were killed. I wasn’t able to find any information as to how Jules ended up on your street twenty-three years ago. But Sanderson discovered Jules was the Pinsons’ daughter when she was ten. The Trehans had her fingerprinted as part of an abduction awareness campaign.”

Tony paused and turned to look at Manuel. “Whoever FAAID is, apparently he was livid over the Pinsons’ defection. He directed Sanderson to set into motion the events that later transpired in France when Jules visited after graduating college.”

“And my recruitment? Sanderson recruited me personally.”

Tony nodded, his expression grim. “He recruited you so he would have something to control Jules with.”

“Son of a bitch!”

Manuel stood, clenching his fist. God, he wanted to kill someone. They’d been puppets. For the last fifteen years, they’d been nothing but laboratory mice under a microscope. Jules had never had a chance.

“And Manuel, her recruitment story. It was true. Every bit of it. Sanderson has a rather detailed account of just what they did to make sure she complied with their wishes.”

Disgust dripped from Tony’s voice. Manuel knew well what he must have found. He wanted to puke.

He closed his eyes, seized with the enormity of his error. A mistake had never felt bigger than this one.

“Oh my God, Tony,” he choked out. “I sent her away.”

“At least you didn’t feed her to the sharks,” Tony said. “Your instincts were good. You let her go.”

“I let her go because I love her, and I didn’t have the balls to cuff her and turn her over to the feds. Not because I believed in her.”

He closed his eyes. He hadn’t believed in her. He forced his mind back to the details at hand. “Why does Sanderson want the senator dead? Because he was going to help Jules?”

Tony frowned. “I don’t really know. There are several mentions that SAID wanted to shut down the NFR and cease operations. Maybe the senator scared them. His stance on terrorism has always been tight, and with his appointment to Homeland Security, he could have exposed the NFR’s ties to the CIA, especially if Jules talked.”

Manuel’s mind raced in a sick pattern. He took in all that Tony had said and tried to put all the pieces together. Who was SAID/FAAID? Whoever he was, he’d been in France three years ago when Jules had taken her trip. He’d lain in wait for her along with Sanderson.

France. SAID. Senator Adam Denison. The name floated in front of him like a beacon. Jesus.

He turned to Tony, his face drawn in horror. “Tony, wasn’t the senator once the French ambassador?”

Tony’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Yeah, until two years ago when he won the Senate election.”

“French Ambassador Adam Isaac Denison. Senator Adam Isaac Denison.”

Tony’s eyes registered his understanding. “Holy shit.”

“It all makes perfect sense,” Manuel said. “The senator, who was then the French ambassador, headed the NFR, a shadow group within the CIA. Imagine how good it would make the senator look to bust the NFR wide open in the early days of his Homeland Security appointment. Sanderson must have resisted the idea of disbanding the group. Which would explain why he wanted Jules to assassinate the senator.”