Probably a little of both.
“Zach Jones is dead,” Winston Danville III stated calmly.
“You don’t know that. According to the men who got away, he wasn’t in the second helicopter when it exploded.”
Winston leaned back in his leather chair and stared at her. Jamie had always thought his combination of pale blue eyes and white blond hair made him look like a Hollywood casting director’s idea of the perfect villain—cool, confident, in control. Winston’s reputation did nothing to dispute that image.
“Three weeks, Jamie,” Winston said softly. “Three weeks in one of their prisons, being tortured several times a day. If Zach Jones wasn’t dead, he is now.”
Her stomach rolled at the thought. She desperately needed him to be alive, but the thought of him having to endure that kind of suffering was more than she could bear. The word torture wasn’t just a casual phrase to her. She was intimately familiar with the inhumanity of deliberately inflicting pain on prisoners. Surely death would be a kinder fate.
But Zach wasn’t dead.
She crossed the richly decorated room and sank into one of the leather chairs opposite her boss’s desk. She stared at him, meeting his cold gaze with an equally determined stare of her own. She’d trained at the hands of a master. She knew how to intimidate as well as anyone in the agency.
Surprisingly Winston looked away first.
Before she could pounce on her unexpected advantage, there was a quick knock at the door. Winston’s pretty, young assistant stepped inside and brought them each a mug of coffee.
Jamie accepted the cup with a muttered “Thanks” and took a sip. The assistant glanced at her, then left. Jamie knew she looked out of place. The worn jeans, scuffed athletic shoes, faded tank top and the flannel shirt she wore instead of a jacket didn’t fit the dress code of the office. She had never been the suit-and-high-heels type. She filed away the feeling of discomfort, knowing she would deal with it at another time. All that mattered now was Zach.
“He’s not dead,” Jamie repeated.
Winston raised one eyebrow. “How do you know?”
“I just do.”
“I see. Well, fine. I’ll write up the report and quote your intuition as the source. I’m sure the director will be convinced.”
Jamie set the coffee on the desk and rose. “I’m going in, Winston, with or without your permission.”
“No, you aren’t. You still work for me and you’ll do what I tell you.” He paused and raised his pale eyebrows. “Unless you plan to resign. Isn’t that what you’ve been talking about?”
He was right. She had wanted out. The last mission was supposed to have been her final one. She even had the letter of resignation typed up at home. But she hadn’t turned it in. A voice inside of her, a voice Zach had taught her to listen to, had whispered to wait. Now she understood why.
“That was before I knew about Zach.”
Winston motioned to the chair. Jamie hesitated. Since finding out what had happened to Zach Jones, she’d been on the move. She’d flown directly to Washington on the first flight she could get. Once in the capital, she’d made a few phone calls and come up with a plan. All she needed was Winston’s cooperation.
Sitting down felt too much like giving up, but her boss was stubborn enough not to talk to her if she didn’t at least pretend to go along with him. Grudgingly she perched on the edge of her seat.
He reached for his coffee and took a sip. “I wasn’t aware you and Zach were so close.”
Jamie grimaced. “You know we aren’t. Zach took me through training and my first assignment. He made me the best. I owe him for that.”
There was more, of course, but Winston didn’t need to hear about it. Their boss prided himself on knowing every detail of his operatives’ lives. This was one detail he hadn’t been able to claim. Not that it mattered. Seven years was a long time for anyone to remember. She was reasonably sure Zach had been able to forget, even if she hadn’t.
“According to my records, you’ve never worked with him since. That’s a long time to carry a debt,” Winston said.
She shrugged.
“Interesting.” He leaned back in his chair. “And touching. But the answer has to be no.”
She was on her feet in an instant, her hands braced on his desk. “Listen to me, Winston. Short of arresting me, you can’t keep me from going after Zach. You can make it easy or you can make it hard, but I’m doing this.” She glared at him, ignoring the frosty look in his icy blue eyes.
“You’ll end up just as dead as he is.”
“I’m willing to take the chance.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
“Maybe, but I’m a determined fool. Besides, if you’re right and I do get killed, how are you going to explain my body?”
“Terrorists don’t send bodies home.”
“What if they do this time?”
His thin lips twisted in disapproval. “I’ll handle it the way I’ve handled other problems.”
“I’ll leave a letter with my lawyer explaining everything and exposing the agency.”
“Don’t threaten me, Sanders.”
She knew she was playing with fire, but she didn’t have a choice in the matter. She had to convince him. “I have a better chance of surviving with your help than without it,” she told him. “But it doesn’t matter what you say or do. I’m going in after Zach and I’m going to bring him home.”
“I suppose you’re just going to walk in there and take him from under their noses,” Winston said. He reached for his mug and cradled it in both hands.
Jamie sank into her seat. “Exactly.”
He stared at her for a long minute. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but she refused to let the silence make her squirm. She was an expert at waiting. She had to convince him. Winston was her only hope. She would go in without agency assistance, but without the backup, the odds for success were almost zero.
Finally he nodded briefly. “Explain.”
Relief crashed through her. She had him. He was going to agree. Once he heard her plan, he would be convinced—she knew it!
She pushed aside the momentary flush of victory and concentrated on the task at hand. She grabbed a pen and the blank legal pad poking out of the pile of papers on his desk. Working quickly, she made a sketch of the compound, based on the aerial photographs she’d seen and what she knew about the area.
She drew the low, one-story building where Zach was probably being kept. A quarter mile away was their munitions storage.
When she finished, she slid the paper toward Winston. “Zach is here,” she said, trying to sound as if she really knew where he was being held instead of just guessing. “It’s not a main training facility, which is in our favor. Also, Zach’s men were there less than a month ago. The debriefing information should still be accurate. The plane will drop us off about thirty miles away, and we’ll drive until we get within sight of the perimeter.”
“We?”
She nodded, trying to act casual. “Rick Estes is coming with me.”
Winston was a pro. He might wear expensive suits and silk ties, but there had been a time when he’d been the best field agent in the agency. Not by a flicker of his pale lashes did he give away what he was thinking.
“Why Estes?”
“He owes Zach, too.”
“I