“Nothing.”
“Come on, I told you where we’re going.”
Her head spun back around. “What did you say?”
“I told you where you’re going.”
“That isn’t what you said. You said ‘we’re.’”
“Same difference.”
Malin unfastened her safety harness just as Onyx finished his preflight check.
“Who’s unbuckled?” he shouted.
Dutch reached over, refastened her harness, and then gave Onyx a thumbs up.
Malin didn’t look at him for the rest of the quick flight. Soon they’d be touching down at Langley, and then he’d likely get an earful.
—:—
Malin was as angry as she was terrified. She had to figure out a way to get Dutch to be straight with her about how much the CIA knew about her whereabouts.
If they were the ones who had authorized him to escort her back to the States, and had further approved her “disappearance,” then she had to get the hell away from him before he or anyone else figured out what had really been going on in Islamabad.
It wasn’t the agency who had issued the edict about not blowing her op; she had. All it took was intercepting a message from Striker to her handler, Sumner Copeland, and then continuing the conversation as if she were him.
Dutch and the K19 team also believed it was the agency who had given them Ghafor’s location. Again, they hadn’t; she had.
Somehow, she had to find out whether the CIA knew she’d abandoned her original mission almost as soon as she arrived in Germany, or that she was no longer in Pakistan.
As it was, Malin had no idea whom she could trust, starting with her handler, his boss, Kellen McTiernan, all the way through the layers of supervisors and deputies that ultimately answered to James Flatley, the current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“I need to know who you’re working for, Dutch,” she said as they walked from the helicopter into the terminal building.
“I already told you.”
“You said you authorized me going off the grid.”
Before he opened the door for them to go inside, Dutch pulled her closer to him.
“If you haven’t had the means or the inclination to tell them, then the agency has no idea where you are or even that you’re no longer in Pakistan. K19 isn’t talking, and we left no witnesses. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Malin nodded, praying he was telling her the truth.
—:—
The tirade Dutch had braced himself for never materialized. Apart from demanding to know whom he was working for, Malin was complacent.
Had she realized that he’d guessed the level of danger she faced, and had decided to go along with him willingly?
Onyx walked past the waiting area where they sat in silence, and then backed up. “Food’s here.”
Dutch was ready to run in Onyx’s direction, but he waited for Malin to stand up.
“Go,” she said when she realized he was waiting for her.
“Not without you.”