Chapter 41
DECLAN
My body is resisting me today. I won’t hit my mile goal, so I’ll need to turn round at the fifteen-minute mark regardless of my distance. Lack of sleep is the cause. But I can’t be mad about it.
Getting out of the safehouse has helped me clear my mind and think.
Charlie is a beautiful distraction. She has been since she showed up at FIRE.
With what happened last night, I’m hoping she will be less of a distraction.
That if we continue down this path, we’ll be able to focus at work on work, and focus outside of work on . . . other things.
This past week has changed everything. I used to think I wanted to be alone.
Easier to tackle missions. Easier to train.
Easier to have no connections. You can’t lose what you don’t have.
But since that kiss in Copenhagen, it’s like everything I was pushing down, every thought and feeling I’d ignored, has forced itself to the surface.
And it feels good to want someone, to have them – to have more than just a job or a calling. To have someone to share it with.
But first we need to stop the Order from carrying out the attack at the World Games – or elsewhere.
I run through the facts in my mind as I approach the end of Bayshore Boulevard and have to turn back toward Ybor. The sky is a brilliant cloudless blue, the kind they capture in postcards of Florida. This sun will only add to my biker’s tan.
As I hit the turn, my phone begins to buzz and beep.
The alarm at the safehouse was triggered.
I stop the bike and grab my phone from the mount. Did Charlie hit the button because she needed to or was it a mistake?
I read the notification. It’s the tunnel alarm. Someone went into the tunnel and locked the door, sealing the safehouse. That could not be a mistake.
I try to think like the Order.
If someone broke into the safehouse to hurt Charlie, they would want to get her out of there if they weren’t familiar with the security system. Chances are that Charlie won’t be at the safehouse much longer. Unless she’s in the tunnels, in which case she’s on the move.
I dial her number. The line rings and rings before cutting off. Maybe there’s no reception in the tunnels. Or the phone is still in the safehouse.
Charlie doesn’t have a tracking device on her. If she has her phone with her, I could have been able to locate her if we had shared locations. Damn.
There are too many variables to make any educated guesses.
I mount the phone again and get pedaling.
I fly down the mixed-use sidewalk, swerving to avoid early-morning runners.
Then I think of a way into her phone to track her: hack it.
I skid to a stop and find Ian in my contacts.
I’ll ask him if he can help crack into Charlie’s phone to find where it is.
It’s illegal, and hacking her phone would usually fall under the behavior of someone with trust issues, but it might save her.
Ian’s contact card is easy to find and I am about to hit send when something tickles in my mind. Ian has shared his location with me, but I hardly ever need to use it myself. I enabled it so he could track me while on missions. My brain is telling me to look this time.
I click over to his location and see that he is at the safehouse.
There is no way he arrived there to help Charlie already. He must have been there before the alarm went off. Charlie would have let him in and then . . .
I play back the past months in my mind.
Ian – who called me to make sure I was in place for the Mexico City rendezvous.
Ian – not able to get us a clear license plate on the motorcyclist who shot at me and Charlie.
Ian – who lost the footage from the Castillo mission.
Ian – who rescued me and Charlie from the storage unit.
Ian – who provided me with images when I needed to identify the buyer from Copenhagen instead of giving me access to the database.
Ian – defensive when Charlie hypothesized a hole in our firewall.
I try to tell myself this can’t be true. He has had plenty of opportunity to eliminate me or Charlie or Oliver. Why make a move to capture Charlie now? We’ve trusted Ian with so much of our operations; he is in the perfect position to do the most damage.
My gut is telling me that Ian has been our mole this whole time. My head is telling me that he can’t have been so easily swayed by the Order. But so many already have.
I can only hope that Charlie is in the tunnels and isn’t trapped in there with Ian.
I need to think. I need a plan.
I need to save Charlie.