“And a social worker,” she added.
That one silenced him. “Lady,” he said finally, “you’re an idiot.” And he turned and continued back down the narrow trail.
“At least I’m not a fucking idiot,” she said smartly.
Not yet, he thought.
He half expected her to sound like a herd of cows making her way through the brush, but she was surprisingly quiet, following his lead. She picked up on the routine quickly without him wasting a word – letting branches fall back softly, moving lightly through the thick vegetation. There was no sound from back in the camp – Carlos and Izzy hadn’t built up enough courage to come for her, and by the time they did, he and the woman would be long gone. In fact, they would have discovered he’d gone when they came after her – he hadn’t lost anything by taking her along. She wasn’t even slowing him down. Much.
The ground was slippery beneath their feet. He was wearing the remnants of the boots he’d been captured in, bound together with strips of cloth as the sole had eventually parted from the rest of the boot. He’d been marched from place to place, covered hundreds of countless miles in such lousy conditions that his boots had given up the ghost long ago. He usually made do with the sandals they’d given him, but for a trek like this he needed all the covering he could find.
He halted abruptly, and this time she did slam into him, but at least it was his back absorbing the blow of her soft body. He could pretend to ignore it. “What have you got on your feet?” he growled.
“Shoes.”
He looked down, his eyes accustomed to the inky black. Light-weight sneakers, already soaking wet from the damp undergrowth. “Christ, woman,” he muttered.
“I didn’t exactly get a chance to choose my wardrobe when they kidnapped me,” she said.
Damned if he didn’t like her. He was doing his best to intimidate her into total compliance, and she was undaunted. As she had been in the hands of her captors. Of course she’d had Redbeard looking out for her, and she clearly hadn’t understood Carlos’ and Izzy’s plans for her, or she might have been a little less cheeky. But some part of him would have regretted that.
He moved forward with a grunt. The less he talked to her, interacted with her, the better. First things first. Hans Froelich and the kid would be waiting up ahead by the makeshift bridge if they’d gotten away. Once he caught up with them he could concentrate on how to get this motley assortment of people down through a deathly tangle of undergrowth, rocky outcroppings, and the pursuit of drug-fueled sociopaths. Piece of cake.
He heard her mutter something beneath her breath. You son of a bitch, she said, thinking he couldn’t hear. He could hear everything. She had no idea just how big a son of a bitch he could be.
It would be interesting to see if she was still that cocky after a couple of days of scrambling down the mountain and maybe, just maybe, a couple of nights beneath his lust-starved body. She’d go down fighting. But he’d make absolutely sure she went down.
Vincent Barringer was a handsome man on the edge of retirement, looking over his covert little world from a secret basement room in Langley, Virginia. He prided himself on being a warm, friendly man, a laid-back boss who nonetheless demanded excellence and invariably got it. He had the commendations and awards to prove it, and he’d been contemplating an early retirement on the comfortable investments he’d shepherded over the years, just as he’d shepherded some of the world’s most dangerous operatives through the deepest cover imaginable. Some had died, some had come through, failures had always been followed by triumphs, and he cherished his reputation, almost blemish-free. He was a good man who’d lived a good and honorable life, free from smoking and drinking, free from carrying on and foul language and the weaknesses of modern society. People laughed at him, calling him a prude, but they’d done so affectionately, he was sure of it, and he knew he was viewed with both admiration and gratitude for his spotless work. He could retire happily.
If it hadn’t been for Thomas Killian. There were times when he still couldn’t believe Killian would dare think he could simply walk away from the company. When you sign up for the CIA undercover wet work, you sign up for life. Unlike Barringer, you didn’t get to retire to a nice little estate in Virginia and play golf. You couldn’t walk away, and yet Killian had, with the kind of information that would topple governments, locked away in his razor-sharp brain.
No one had blamed Barringer, exactly. After all, people trained in wet work weren’t the most malleable of souls, and he was lucky only one of them had gone rogue. Only one that his superiors knew of, of course. He’d been able to see the warning signs in any of the o
thers who seemed likely to break rank, and he’d dealt with them, calmly and efficiently.
He hadn’t had that chance with Killian. By the time he knew Killian was planning to leave the reservation he was gone, disappearing as only a high level operative could. If he’d gone alone, Barringer might have been able to find him. But he’d disappeared with the head of the Committee, Isobel Lambert, and it was only belatedly that Barringer discovered the long standing connection between Thomas Killian and the woman who became Isobel Lambert.
His intel had failed him badly that time, and he dealt with that problem as well. Perhaps a little too quickly, but he was seriously annoyed and Killian was out of reach.
He wasn’t a man to regret his abrupt actions. He always made certain the families were well taken care of in these cases, that they knew their husbands or wives were heroes, giving their lives for their country. Barringer believed it, and he would cry at the funerals. It made no difference if his hand had held the gun or he’d simply ordered it. Each death was still in service of the country he loved.
In the four years Killian had been gone Barringer had never given up. Sooner or later there had to be a sign. They’d surface, maybe in a neutral country in Africa, maybe in Australia or the Arctic; heck, maybe in Washington, DC. He wouldn’t put it past someone like Killian.
So he waited. Patience was one of his many virtues, and he knew the value of taking his time. His retirement package was waiting, his comfortable house on the sound was furnished and waiting. All he needed was Killian.
He couldn’t leave his career with a blot like that on his record. He couldn’t leave a loose cannon like Killian out there with all that knowledge. And Killian had been a loose cannon - ignoring orders, following his own head, refusing half the wet work assigned. He’d been brilliant, though, and Barringer had learned to let him go. He’d pulled victory from defeat so many times and those victories had gone on Barringer’s record. Killian had no record, very few in the company even knew of his existence or the few others he’d run.
The others had done what they were told, and done it well. But they weren’t Killian. His betrayal had felt personal, and Barringer had no intention of letting him get away with it.
Patient though he was he was almost ready to give up. The days were long, the commute, even with the car and driver he’d earned, was tiring. He needed to work on his golf game, he needed to join the R.O.M.E.O.s, the other Retired Old Men Eating Out, for their weekly luncheons. But the ghost of Killian kept haunting him.
But now it had happened, finally. He’d known he’d be most likely to track him through Isobel Lambert, and he’d had the shattered remains of the Committee watched very closely for any sign of her. So far there had been nothing, but the sudden reappearance of one of her operatives was likely to change the playing field.
He’d known the Guiding Light was holding one of the members of the Committee up in the mountains at the behest of Harry Thomason, but he’d decided it was none of his business. He’d always liked Thomason, though his language could be offensive, and he had no interest in anyone else’s operatives. But apparently no one else had known where the man was, and his escape from La Luz was causing ripples that would be felt all the way to wherever Isobel Lambert and Killian were living. MacGowan had escaped, and he’d be out for blood.
Lambert had been known for her loyalty to her men; it was one of the reasons Thomason had been kicked upstairs to a powerless position on the governing board. She wouldn’t abandon operatives if she could help it. She also wouldn’t let MacGowan screw up his life by wreaking vengeance on whomever he could blame, he would bet his retirement on it. It would be easy enough to fan the flames of Committee concern, make it clear that MacGowan was out for blood, whether he was or not. And Isobel Lambert and her husband would emerge from hiding, just to make sure that didn’t happen.
How glorious to come back to his superiors, on the eve of his retirement, and tell them Killian was dead, that the one leak had finally been plugged. It was worth any risk.