Chapter 6 #4
But looking at Britta White’s face—young, terrified, so achingly alive—Alan understood something.
If he killed her, he’d never be able to face Timea, or Fia.
He wasn’t that guy—or didn’t want to be. Taking Britta would just prove Tomas right—that Alan Martin was nothing but a weapon. A tool. A monster too broken to be anything else.
So he let them go. Let them escape across the street, into a neighborhood, into darkness.
“Lower your weapon,” a voice said behind Alan.
Alan’s blood froze.
York Newgate stepped out of the shadows thirty feet to Alan’s left, weapon drawn but not aimed. He moved like he had all the time in the world, like he was strolling through a park instead of interrupting an execution.
“Hello, Alan.”
Alan didn’t lower his weapon. Didn’t turn. Kept his Glock aimed at West, who, even now, was disappearing.
No time.
“York. Didn’t expect you here.”
“Disappointed?”
“Confused.”
“You thought I was on the boat?”
Maybe. He hadn’t actually put that together, so he said nothing.
He heard York move closer. Unhurried.
“You’re getting sloppy, ever since the train derailment. Put down the gun.”
Alan sighed, turned, and held up his hands.
York stopped ten feet away. Close enough to shoot if Alan made the wrong move. Far enough to react if Alan tried something stupid.
“How’s RJ?”
York cocked his head. “I should drop you right here.”
“You could. But then you wouldn’t know what’s going on right under your nose.”
York’s mouth tightened.
“How’d you find me?”
“One of our operatives has a track on Tomas’s phone. We tracked his text messages to you. You’re not that hard to find. You’re either getting sloppy—or tired, James.”
James
No one had called him that since, well, since he’d first joined the CIA. Clearly York had been doing some digging into his past.
“Don’t.” Alan’s voice cracked. “Don’t call me that.”
“What? James? That’s your name.”
“That man’s dead.”
“Is he? Because from where I’m standing, James Cooper is still alive. Still a traitor.”
Alan didn’t move.
His radio crackled. “Martin. Sitrep. Now.”
He didn’t answer.
“They’re watching you,” York said. “Satellite, probably. Maybe drone. They know exactly where you are and what you’re not doing.”
“Then you know I’m trapped.”
York stayed where he was.
“Tomas has my family.” The words came out raw. Broken. Alan hated the sound of his own voice.
York held his ground. “I’m listening.”
Right. “Back when…when we met in Russia, I was working in Hungary. Turning Damien into a killer.”
“That was you.”
“That was the job. But I used his English tutor to get to him…and she eventually became my wife.”
York frowned.
“Timea. And then she got pregnant. Right about the time that…well, that your family was murdered. And I panicked. I tried to get out—took a boat to Crete and…”
York kept his weapon level. But Alan didn’t move, struck by the ongoing urge to tell York the truth. “They bombed my boat. Timea was killed, along with my unborn child. Or at least, I believed so. I was injured, rescued, and…presumed dead too.”
His radio crackled. Tomas. “Martin. Report. Coast Guard is staging at the bight. You have four minutes to clear that beach.”
Alan thumbed the volume down. Four minutes.
“Then talk fast,” York said. “Who’s they?”
“I thought it was the CIA. Then Crowley told me Isaac White ordered it. A lie—but it held long enough to pull me into the plot to assassinate him.”
“You and VP Jackson. How’d you escape from federal custody?”
“Tomas. The Petrov Bratva. And that’s when I found out that Timea was alive, and with her, my daughter, Fia.” He blew out a breath. “Ever since then—”
“No.” York’s voice went hard. “You want me to believe the EMP bomb on Air Force One, the smallpox virus at Disney World, the bombing of the Vikings game in Lauchtenland, the near-kidnapping of the president’s daughter at the UN summit—that all of it was your hand being forced?
You don’t get a pass. No sympathy here.”
Alan nodded. “I don’t need any. I just want…I guess redemption isn’t the right word…”
York gave a hard laugh.
“I want my family safe. Free. I don’t care what happens to me.”
York sighed.
The beach stilled, just the wash of waves, the wind rustling the palm trees behind the dunes. And under it, closer now, the sirens.
And Alan stood there in the sand holding the gun, nothing left.
“Okay,” York said, and Alan’s heart nearly stopped.
“What?”
“You let Britta go just now. Why?”
Alan stilled. Looked away.
“What are they cooking up, Martin? Were the Petrov Bratva behind tonight’s yacht bombing?”
He nodded, mouth tight. “I didn’t plan it. My job was…”
“Britta.”
“Mm-hmm.”
York looked out to sea, back to Alan. “Help me stop the next phase of the operation. Whatever Tomas has planned—tell me everything.”
“I don’t know—”
“You do this and I’ll make sure you see Timea. Meet your daughter.”
“And then?”
“And then we figure out the rest.” York’s voice gentled. “But Alan—you know how this ends if you walk away. Tomas will kill you. Maybe not today. But soon. And Timea and Fia will never know you tried. They’ll spend the rest of their lives thinking you died in that boat sixteen years ago.”
“If I help you, Tomas will know. He’ll send someone after my family.”
“We can protect them.”
“Only if you find them.”
York gave him a look.
Right. “Tomas will kill me.”
“Probably,” York said. “But you’ll die doing something right. Something your daughter can be proud of. Something that makes you James Cooper again instead of Alan Martin. Not redemption, maybe, but something…close to it.”
James Cooper. Not Alan Martin, the name York knew, or Ethan, the name he’d gone by when he married Timea, but James Cooper, the farm boy from Kansas.
James Cooper—and all his other aliases before Alan Martin—had died in that boat explosion.
But maybe—maybe he didn’t have to stay dead.
Alan took his gun by the barrel, grip pointed away, and extended it toward York.
“Tell me what you need.”
York took the weapon. “We start with a conversation. I’ll take you to a safe house.
You’ll give me everything—locations, timelines, operator names, communication protocols.
Everything. And when it’s done, when Britta White is safe and Tomas Smirnov is in custody, I’ll personally drive you to your family, wherever they are, and walk you through the door to see them. ”
Alan glanced toward where the black van had been.
Gone.
Alan’s radio crackled again. Tomas’s voice, ice-cold. “Martin. You have ten seconds to respond or I’m sending cleanup crews to Casa Marina. Room 412. Do you understand me?”
Alan pulled the radio from his pocket. Stared at it.
“That’s where they are?” York said.
Alan nodded.
York picked up his cell. “Logan. Casa Marina. Room 412. You’ll find a woman and her daughter. Secure them.”
“Now what?”
“Now you’re joining the right team. Let’s go.”