“Pinchot seemed like a likely candidate,” she said.
“Smart.”
“I like to think so.” Sophia rubbed an imaginary badge on her lapel. “I had my team investigate his finances. The CIA pays well, but not buying-multiple-Lamborghinis-in-your-retirement well. That and the yachts and luxury apartments around the world. It was blatant, almost—”
“Arrogant?” Nash interrupted. “That’s Pinchot to a tee.”
Sophia bobbed her head in agreement. “So, we started seeking out the poor hard-done-by ex-CIA golden child, but he’d suddenly disappeared. Thanks to what you just told me, I now know why: Cavendish is trying to kill the man who’d essentially been running Tartarus and doing such a poor job of it. It all makes sense now.”
“But you found him?”
“Back to those boffins again, yes. All the resources they’d assigned me to find you, I surreptitiously redirected to search for Pinchot. We had the server farm and satellites and access to bleeding edge facial recognition and profiling searches, so why not use them? I just didn’t tell my superiors who or what we were searching for. Technically I was still searching for you, so I was still doing as ordered. The same search techniques that nabbed you gave us a flag not long after Pinchot was in transit and heading for the US. He’s holed up three blocks from here.”
“What are you planning to do?” Nash stood up. “Can I get to him?”
Pushing her palms down in a calming motion, Sophia didn’t even try to hide her amusement. “We move tonight. This is off the books, obviously. Not only did I not get approval to trace him, Pinchot’s a US citizen within his own borders and with no red notices against his name. My team have to do this one clinically clean or else we’ll receive career enemas and likely serious jail time.”
“A career enema?” Nash chuckled. “That’s a line Eva would use.”
“You like her.”
It was more a statement than a question.
“She’s damn good at what she does. They both are, far better than I was at their age. They’re in a new relationship, but I’ve never seen it impinge on their professionalism. They’re some of the best spies I’ve ever seen.” He inclined his head in her direction. “And I’ve seen some brilliant spies in my time.”
Nash wasn’t sure why he had to emphasise their relationship, but he felt compelled to.
Sophia shouldered him playfully. “I wasn’t suggesting you were sleeping with her, Mason, but I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you were. It was more that I saw how protective you were of her on the plane, and when we captured you. You two have a bond, that much is obvious. I’m not saying you don’t with Bishop…” She paused. “Don’t you think it odd everyone refers to him by his last name, even his girlfriend?”
“A little.” Feeling they’d strayed too far from the subject at hand, Nash thought it best to refocus. “This operation you have with Pinchot, do you have room for any more?”
The amusement returned to her eyes, but she didn’t reply. Nash pressed on.
“If you schedule my interrogation between then and now, I’m sure we can clear up any questions you have.”
The word “interrogation” caused her to raise an eyebrow. “This is it.”
“It is?” Nash shook his head, confused. “I was expecting some claustrophobic white room with two-way glass, not a quaint bedroom overlooking a park.”
“You never had a problem with us being in a bedroom before.”
Nash pursed his lips. “Not yet.”
“Pardon?” she asked.
“We’re not there yet, the old flirt and response.”
“Sorry.” She wrung her hands. “Old habits and all that.” She ran both hands through her hair. “You’re a prick, you know?”
“Can we go back to the flirting?”
“You’re one of the most wanted men on the planet, I’ve lost count of the emails, briefings and bulletins I’ve seen with your stupid face on them.”
“Thank you?”
“My superiors grilled me for months on what I knew about you. They wanted to know everything, and I mean everything.”
Nash jacked an eyebrow. “Everything?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Of course, I didn’t tell them everything. I left out your inability to hit the high notes when doing the karaoke version of ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ or your appalling taste in breakfast spreads or your appreciation of expensive stilettos and corsets.”
And we’re back to the flirting. Nash was getting whiplash.
She continued, her gaze drifting into the middle distance. “Get some rest. Planning starts at twenty-two hundred. We’ll move out at oh two hundred.”
She stood and proceeded to the door, but suddenly stopped and remained in the centre of the room, seemingly unsure of herself. She took a step towards the door, stopped and turned back, took a step towards Nash, then stopped again. He didn’t want to interrupt whatever inner turmoil was going on.
Exhaling loudly, Sophia walked back to Nash and took her phone from her pocket. She gulped, her face ashen but soft.
“Do you want to see a picture of our daughter?”
Chapter Seven
Nash should have slept, but couldn’t.
His mind was too busy flipping from shocked to pissed to longing to anger to wonder and back to shocked again.
I’m a father. It was a statement he thought he’d never say. The disbelief was too strong for him to fully appreciate what the revelation meant in any practical sense.
