Chapter 2 Tag
TAG
My weapon was already drawn when I kicked in the safe-house door, splintering it with my boot before sweeping inside.
Weeks of tracking, of following ghosts through London’s shadows, and I’d finally found her.
Or thought I had. I cleared the rooms one by one, finding each empty.
The bed didn’t appear slept in, but an indent on the sofa suggested she’d been waiting.
For her handler? For extraction? For me?
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. How in the hell had she gotten out of here without my spotting her?
Frustration burned in my chest as I lowered my gun, picked up a teacup that sat on the kitchen counter, and held its warmth against my palm. Even her scent—musk, spice, wood, and oud—lingered in the air.
I glanced at an open window, where the February wind shifted the curtains. It was big enough for her to crawl out of. Was it a clue like the burner phone that lay crushed in the sink beneath it, SIM card gone?
It had been three weeks since Nightingale went underground after discovering evidence that Project Labyrinth was still operational. Days of her in danger while I tore London apart, searching.
And she’d slipped through my fingers again.
“Damn it, Leila,” I muttered as I exited the way I assumed she had. The window was almost too small for me to fit through, but I’d managed tougher escape routes.
I pulled out my phone, already moving down the stairs, headed out to resume my search.
The Unit 23 surveillance network gave me access to every CCTV camera in central London, so I worked from my vehicle, laptop balanced on the seat beside me as I followed her digital footprints through the city.
I knew her patterns because I’d been the one to train her. When cornered, Leila would head to the closest transportation hub. King’s Cross would give her rail connections north; Eurostar if she needed to leave the country entirely.
Sure enough, an Oyster card registered to one of the aliases she’d given me what felt like an eternity ago pinged at zero two hundred, so I knew she’d taken the Tube’s Northern Line toward King’s Cross from Notting Hill.
As I navigated through empty streets, following her digital trail through the surveillance feeds, memories of the first time I met Leila replayed in my mind.
Rain drummed against the black umbrellas held by those of us present to witness Idris Nassar’s burial. The gathering was small—intelligence operatives didn’t get military honors or public ceremonies. There were only a handful of us who actually knew what he did for a living.
Con stood beside me, rain running off his umbrella in steady streams. We’d both worked dozens of operations with Idris over the past two years, mainly joint missions between Syrian and British intelligence. He’d become more than a liaison between agencies. He was our friend.
The young woman standing at the graveside had his hazel eyes that sometimes turned dark as night, like now, giving nothing away even in grief.
Leila Nassar wore her brother’s loss like armor.
Her spine remained straight despite the weight crushing down on her.
Her hair was plastered to her cheeks from the downpour, but she didn’t move to push it away.
Nineteen years old, and she’d already lost everyone.
Her father and mother—a Syrian intelligence officer and a British MI6 analyst—had died in a Damascus terrorist bombing a year ago.
They’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, she’d lost Idris too.
The last time I’d spoken to him, three weeks before he died in the same city, he’d seemed distracted. He asked questions about weapons technology and neural interfaces, both things outside his usual scope. When I pressed, he deflected, saying he was following a lead, but had nothing concrete yet.
“Promise me something,” he’d said as we parted. “If anything happens to me, look after Leila.”
The request had caught me off guard—Idris wasn’t the type to ask for promises.
“You have my word.”
“I mean it, Tag. I’m all she has. If something goes wrong…”
“Nothing’s going to go wrong.”
But it had. And now, I understood—he’d known he was in danger. He’d been trying to tell me without saying it outright. And I’d failed to see it.
I’d read Leila’s file often enough to know it by heart.
She and Idris had private tutors from a very young age, who prepared them for foreign service.
The two spoke several languages fluently, including Arabic, English, Russian, Farsi, and French.
As they got older, they received military and intelligence training in combat and cryptanalysis as well.
“Her mother and I worked together when we were both starting out.” Typhon’s voice was rough when he approached me at the end of the service. “She asked me to look after both her children if anything happened to her or her husband. I failed at that, didn’t I?”
The weight of his words mirrored my own about Leila. I’d made a vow I’d do everything I could to keep, but what if I failed in the same way we’d all failed her brother?
After the few others left, Typhon and I approached her together.
“Ms. Nassar,” I said in a quiet tone. “I’m Niall MacTaggert, and this is Commander Marras. Your brother worked with us.”
She studied us, not attempting to hide that she read us the way her parents and brother had taught her, cataloging everything she saw—the way we stood and the weight of the weapons under our coats.
“I know who you are.” Her accent held traces of both London and Damascus. “Obsidian, Typhon, Infidel, and Savior.”
Code names. So Idris had trusted her with that much.
“He spoke of you often,” Typhon said. “Proudly.”
Her eyes locked on mine as she nodded.
“You’re one of us now,” Typhon added. “If you want to be.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Your brother requested that you be given a position within MI6. Actually, Unit 23, but you’ll have to work your way up.”
She shook her head and raised her chin. “Unit 23 or nothing.”
Typhon’s eyes scrunched, and he studied her for several seconds. “Very well. First, you’ll attend training at our facility in Scotland,” he agreed. “Obsidian will oversee your progress. If you pass the evaluation, you’re in.”
“When I pass,” she corrected. Not with arrogance, with certainty.
Neither Typhon nor I challenged her statement.
Less than a month later, she walked into the private training center. Six months after that, she proved herself in her first field op in Damascus.
Now, three years later, I still called her “kid” because it was the only way I could maintain distance from a woman who saw too much and made me feel too much.
I abandoned my car and ran after spotting her at King’s Cross station, where multiple cameras showed her moving amongst other late-night travelers.
She wore a black jacket with the hood up, but I knew her walk.
She was headed toward Platform 9, where the Highland Sleeper to Scotland was scheduled to depart in twelve minutes.
My hand closed around her upper arm when I caught her at the barriers just as she lifted her ticket to scan it. She didn’t flinch, didn’t struggle. Her muscles coiled under my grip, ready to strike if needed, but she held still.
“Running north?” I asked.
“I expected you hours ago.”
I smirked but didn’t respond, knowing she probably had.
“We need to move. Now,” I said, reading the brief message that had appeared from Typhon. Do not board. Transport arranged. Make contact ASAP. Unlike Leila, I’d allowed him to track me.
I nodded once, knowing he’d pick it up through whichever camera he was currently monitoring.
She studied me while I speed-dialed.
“Obsidian,” Typhon said, answering on the second ring. “I’ve arranged for immediate extraction. Renegade’s family has a place in the Highlands on the North Sea. Dunravin Castle is both isolated and defensible. Transport is on the way.”
“Copy that.”
“Tag.” He paused. “Keep her safe.”
“Always.”
“Where are we going?” she asked when I ended the call and led her out of the station.
“Dunravin.”
My mobile buzzed with a message from Renegade. City Airport. Hangar 7. Weather system moving in fast. Window closing.
“Transport’s waiting,” I said.
She nodded as if in surrender, but I knew better. Leila would never. She’d withdraw. Strategically.
As promised, the helicopter waited at London City Airport’s private terminal with its rotors already warming.
The pilot gave a brief signal as we climbed aboard.
Leila sat across from me in the dim cabin, analyzing everything, including the flight path on the pilot’s screen and the atmospheric chaos apparent on radar.
“We’ll be trapped there if that front hits.” She raised her voice to speak over the rotor noise.
“So be it.”
“We should abort. Find another location.”
“Not an option,” I countered
The advancing storm was unusually massive for February.
We’d have maybe eighteen hours before it hit the area where we were headed, if that’s where it made landfall.
If it did, there’d be no extraction for days.
There’d also be no way for whoever was following her to get to us.
That was the most important part of the equation.
Neither of us left the chopper when we landed in Edinburgh two and a half hours later and the ground crew refueled it.
“Remember Buda?” she said so quietly I could barely hear her. “Where I had to wear that ridiculous dress.”
“Of course I do.” We’d been undercover in Hungary, attending an event at the castle where a member of the former royal family was targeted for assassination.
It felt like a lifetime ago, but no matter how long I lived, I’d never forget how Leila looked in the dress she’d called ridiculous but I thought was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
“Change of plans,” the pilot announced through the comms, interrupting a recollection that should’ve been forbidden. He motioned to a jet that approached from our right.