Chapter Thirty-Eight Ryder
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ryder
“There aren’t cameras in here,” Body Four said as I stood on the bed, checking the light in the ceiling fan.
Aside from Garrison, I’d assigned every operator a number. I had to separate emotion from the equation just in case they wound up on the other side of my rifle at some point.
“I’m going to sweep the room anyway, and you know it,” I finally answered after confirming the light was clear.
Once I hopped off the bed, Seraphina took a seat on it, the cheap mattress sinking down. “Are you part of her special team? Do you really know what’s going on here?” she asked him as I proceeded to check the only window in the room, testing whether it’d open. I doubted it but had to try.
“You’ll need something heavy duty to crack it.
” Body Four remained in front of the closed door with his booted foot propped up against it, arms folded.
“I just go where I’m told, ma’am. I’m here for protection.
” He acknowledged her question when I moved on to another object in the sparsely decorated room.
“Protection for . . . ?”
“The OIC,” he told her as I took a knee, checking the vent near the baseboards.
“You guys with your acronyms. Officer in charge, right? And that’d be Beth?
” When he didn’t confirm, she continued with her mission for answers.
“Are you okay with using me as bait to bring together two ruthless criminal groups? Are you good with letting one of those bad guys walk away alive even if I don’t? ”
“I’m not paid to have an opinion, either. I just follow orders.” Based on his tone, he wasn’t buying what he was selling, which could work in our favor.
I pushed up off the floor and stood to face him. “You’re going to wind up a casualty yourself if you don’t formulate an opinion real fast.” I cut across the room, and he lowered his boot to the floor and rested his hand at the sidearm strapped to his hip.
“I take it you plan to tell me what opinion to have?” Despite the sarcasm, he didn’t offer up the same kind of attitude Leo would’ve.
“What branch were you in?” I took a U-turn from my original plan to dehumanize him.
He couldn’t be but a few years younger than me, but he looked far more jaded. That’s what working for the Agency will do to you. Goodbye black and white. All gray, all the time. Not morally gray, as my book-loving mom would call it, either. This was CIA gray. Dark money gray.
“That’s none of your concern.” He removed his hand from his Glock and turned, preparing to exfil from a conversation he clearly didn’t want to have.
I was 90 percent sure he wasn’t in the know about Beth’s team or her plans, just an operator pulled in for a quick op. Beth would be fine sacrificing him for the sake of her mission.
So it was possible I could get through to him before he walked out. At least plant a seed of doubt in his mind about this mission and why he was there. “Hold up.”
He shifted around, catching my eye.
“No, don’t look at me.” I pointed to Seraphina.
“Look at her. Think about why you ever put on the uniform in the first place. Was it to answer to DC bureaucrats and a bunch of spies playing war games as if real lives aren’t on the line?
You know better than they do that we don’t have three lives.
Just the one. If we die, it’s game over for good.
We’re just replaced by another body. Easily replaceable to people like Beth. ”
His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, a touch of humanity breaking through when he set his eyes on her. He became a soldier again. Or sailor. Whatever he’d once been while in the military, and not Body Four.
“Beth won’t hesitate to let you fall on the sword for her crusade, and my guess is you don’t have a clue about why she’s really here.”
He folded his arms and zeroed in on me. “Enlighten me, then.”
Could we trust him not to betray us and tell Beth the truth?
“How much do you already know?” If he was candid with me, then two things were more than likely true: There really weren’t cameras in here and he was someone who’d help us.
Hesitation passed over his face as I waited for him to answer, and now I remembered he’d been in the helo, not on the ground, when Beth had pulled us over both times earlier.
“We’re mostly here to point and shoot when and where directed.
Only two operators here know all the details.
And in case you’re wondering, I’m not one of those men.
” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, clearly at war with this decision and what to do.
“All I know is that a criminal enterprise run by the Russians will be meeting with the Morales cartel in approximately twenty hours. My mission is to protect the OIC and my team, and to ensure your people take out the Morales cartel. That’s it. ”
“What about me?” Seraphina stood, coming up next to me.
He mindlessly reached for his ring finger as if searching for a wedding band that was normally there, but he’d more than likely removed it for the mission.
Tell me you have a spouse at home. A family. Someone you love and wouldn’t want in this position.
“I was told you were a Russian asset working for that criminal in Miami, and you betrayed him. You’re planning on selling him out to the cartel.” He looked over at me next. “But I’m familiar with you, Lawson—at least, with your reputation. And if you’re protecting her like this, then ...”
“That means you know you should be helping her, too,” I finished for him. “Do you have a phone?”
“Not on me, no. She made sure we were only carrying weapons and no tech of any kind when entering the house. Only Beth and those two operators from her DC team have access to phones and laptops.”
I figured as much.
“And no, that asshole Leo’s not one of the two operators,” he added, letting me know he was perceptive, picking up on the fact Leo was a dick. “I’m Nate. I was SF before working for the Agency.”
Army Special Forces. Good. “So was Garrison,” I said at the memory of what Reed had shared with us. “You close with him? He’s also not one of the two operators in the know, correct?”
“We’re friends, yes. And no, he’s not one of the two.” He went ahead and gave me the names of the operators, along with their descriptions. Body Three and Six. “So, why am I really here?”
I reached for her hand and squeezed, then went ahead with the reveal, hoping we could truly trust him.
“We believe Director Johnson devised a plan to stop the flow of fentanyl coming into the country from Mexico. And sure, take down the cartels and stop drugs from hitting our streets? Great, that’s needed—and the cartel?
Well, they’re fucking horrible people, I can get behind that.
The problem is, their team didn’t stop the drugs from hitting our streets, and instead, they took over.
And that Russian organization in Miami, that’s actually Beth’s team.
We don’t think Ezra Sokolov knows he works for the CIA, and the Chinese suppliers are unaware they’re selling to Uncle Sam. ”
He blinked his eyes up to my face in shock. “I’m sorry, but what?”
So I spelled it out for him. Word for fucking word. Including what happened with Andrej and our belief that Nina was Beth’s other asset.
Nate looked back and forth between us. “How could Beth get away with this?”
“I don’t think Potus is aware of all the details of their project, and the other agencies sure as hell didn’t know the CIA had ties to the Sokolovs, or they wouldn’t have been investigating them,” I explained.
“I was also an informant for the DEA.” Seraphina kept her voice soft as she shared that fact. “ Not a Russian asset.”
“So, the Russians are really Beth’s team in disguise.” He tore a hand through his hair. “This is wild. And Beth’s team is using you to draw out the Moraleses.” At her nod, he asked, “But she wants to keep Ezra alive, because he unknowingly works for her.”
“That about sums it up,” she said.
I gave him a few seconds to process before speaking.
“So, you see why we’re all here now, and Beth has a lot at stake if things don’t end the way she wants them to.
I don’t think the CIA director even knows the truth about her team, which is fucked up.
But yeah, Beth’s managed to create a monopoly on the drug trade, and she’s using that money to fund a cold war with China. ”
Nate held up his hand, shaking his head again. “Does she think if the Agency doesn’t sell the drugs, that’ll somehow give the cartels back their power? Assuming people will find drugs another way if they want them bad enough?”
“Presumably,” I said. “If fentanyl isn’t hitting the streets because of the monopoly the CIA’s shell company has, then the cartels will start pumping the drug in. But does that make what Beth’s team is doing right? Hell no.”
“They took the if you can’t beat them, join them approach to a whole new gross fucking level.” He closed his eyes, hanging his head while pinching the bridge of his nose.
“So now that we’re on the same page, are we going to be outside this room, too?” I asked him.
He slowly looked up at me, then over to Seraphina. “How can I help?”