Nena was slowly shaking her head. “It would not mean any of that,” she said sincerely. “Paul is just too good, so good he’s managed to evade capture, reinvent himself under the Tribe’s nose, and then come out to join them. Only he has the audacity to do so. There is nothing you could have done, Elin.” Why hadn’t Nena believed those very words about herself all these years?
Nena reached out for Elin’s hand, grasped it in hers, and held tight. “There is nothing either one of us could have done.” Her voice betrayed her, cracking and showing how devastated she was at delivering this news.
Elin took a deep breath. “I love him, Nena.” Her eyes were glassy with tears and her voice soft and mournful.
“I know.” How she hated herself for what she was doing to her sister. How she hated Paul even more for making her do it.
“And we . . .” Elin gulped, forcing herself to continue. “We eloped three days ago.” Her phone began chirping.
Nena’s stomach plummeted. Her hand retracted as she sat back in her chair. “Elin,” she breathed, not wanting to believe it. Because if she was right about Oliver . . .
“When we were in Vegas. We just . . .” She trailed off. “It was sudden. A whim.”
“His idea?” Nena asked, trying to keep the accusation out of her voice.
Elin looked at her sharply. “It was both our ideas,” she said through clenched teeth. The phone kept ringing. Elin glanced at the number. “Network,” she informed Nena, clearing her throat. “Yes?”
Nena watched as her expression changed from business to horror.
“You’re sure?” She waited, her eyes connecting with Nena’s. “We are on our way.”
Nena was already out of her chair and dropping a hundred on the table.
“Where?” Nena asked, back to business. A second look at Elin’s stricken face gave her pause. “Who is it? Dad? Mum?”
Elin swallowed. “There’s been activity at the Baxters’。”
It was all Nena could do to not buckle in the restaurant. The Baxters. Georgia and Cort. Nena never showed fear, never had a chink in her armor, but it was there now, the chink widening each second she didn’t know what had happened to the Baxters.
She allowed herself that moment of emotion. But then her face returned to its impenetrable mask, because there was work to do.
Work only she could do.
66
BEFORE
Not long after I receive my field name and become Echo, on a particularly cold and miserable evening, I am on recon. Goon and Max are with me. Goon has become the closest thing to a friend I have in Dispatch. Tonight’s mission is to wait for a man—some radical threatening to disrupt the delicate power in a small country government under Tribe protection.
Simply put, he is planning a coup.
Allowing him to unseat the current government and obtain control for himself would drive up trade costs and undo all order the Tribe has created. And Dad’s motto is If there is no order, chaos ensues. Thus, Goon and Max are here to restore that order. I tag along to observe and learn, although I’m ready to get my feet wet beyond watching and driving.
Max is irritable. Goon prefers face-to-face confrontation. He is the proverbial bull in a china shop. Like Rambo, he wants to go in and fuck shit up—his words, not mine. But a dispatch can start either like a bull or like a lamb. Tonight is the latter. The lengthy surveilling we do in our very ordinary Subaru grates at both men.
“I’m hungry. What the fuck’s taking so long?” Goon whines. From the back seat, I look at him through the rearview mirror. The car isn’t big. He must be very uncomfortable, further amplifying his irritability. He knows we are supposed to remain undercover and in position, always watching for our mark and the first chance to take him out.
“Fuck it,” he says, opening the driver’s-side door. “I’ll be back. I gotta stretch my legs and make a food run to the cart across the way.”
“You shouldn’t,” I say, the sudden change making my stomach flip. There are too many unknowns when the plan changes. That I learned in training.
But Max waves me off. “Grab me something while you’re at it. The bugger’s probably getting in an extra screw with his whore anyway. Gonna be a while.” He pulls out his gun and lays it on the armrest between their seats. “Gonna take me a piss before the show starts.” He doesn’t wait for me to comment before he leaves.
I am left alone on a mission for the first time. I watch as Max walks around the corner of the apartment building, where the mark is indeed enjoying time with a young woman. At the same time, his wife sits in prison a world away because of crimes he committed, according to the intel reports I study before every mission.