left wrist.
“Know what?”
“That I’m sorry about what happened today.” She lowered her eyes, but it was a gesture of contrition, nothing more. She wasn’t upset in the least. “I only meant to wound him. I didn’t mean for it to turn out the way it did. What Kharmai had to do was . . . Well, that was because of me. I know apologizing doesn’t change it. I know I can’t even begin to make it right for her, but I don’t know what else to say. I should tell her myself, I know, and I will, but I just . . .”
Kealey didn’t fill the silence right away, as her words seemed to leave something out. Then it hit him: she hadn’t expressed the slightest remorse for killing Kamil Ghafour.
Of course, it could be argued that she wasn’t responsible for the man’s death, since Ghafour might have lived with immediate medical attention. But Petain had pulled the trigger, and as far as Kealey could tell, it didn’t seem to be bothering her at all. It wasn’t natural, and he felt a spark of concern; any way he cut it, he had to work with her for the foreseeable future, and he had to have some idea of her mindset.
“She went through something similar last year,” Kealey found himself saying. “Naomi, I mean. She never really got over it. Truthfully, she shouldn’t even be here.”
“Maybe,” Petain said quietly, “but that was then, so I can’t really speak to it. This is now, and I’m responsible.”
Kealey looked up at the new tone in her voice. She avoided his gaze, looking into the trees. It was a long time before she spoke again.
“I didn’t follow my father into the Agency, you know. I’m sure you must be thinking that, but it isn’t true.”
“So what was it? What made you join?”
Petain pinched her full lower lip between her teeth, obviously wishing she could take back the words. But she had already said too much, and she seemed to know it. “It was my sister. I joined because of her.”
“Your sister?” Kealey had looked at most of the photographs on display in the house. He hadn’t seen any depicting a second daughter, and Machado hadn’t mentioned her, either. Or if he had, it had been in an abstract kind of way. This was news to him, and his instincts were already telling him it was relevant. He leaned forward unconsciously, waiting for the rest of it.
“Her name was Caroline,” Petain continued awkwardly. “She was older than me by eighteen months. I was seventeen when she was recruited by the Operations Directorate. That was in the spring of
’98.”
“She was an amazing person,” Petain was saying. Her eyes were misting over, but her voice was steady. “She would do anything for a friend, but she wasn’t naive. She was strong and independent. Smart, too. Incredibly smart, actually, but that was her way. She was just . . . really good at everything she tried.
She choked on the last two words, then paused to wipe her sleeve across her eyes. Kealey was tempted to give her an out, but knew that he couldn’t. He needed to hear the rest, no matter how difficult it was for her. He waited uncomfortably until she’d composed herself, and when she resumed speaking, her voice was low and strangely detached.
“It happened in Colombia, when she was on her first assignment. By the late nineties, the Medellin cartel had begun to fragment, along with its chief rival, the Cali cartel, and a number of organizations were rising up to take their place. The North Valley cartel was one of the bigger threats, and a number of American agencies—including the DEA and the CIA—were concerned by their lack of knowledge in that department. So the decision was made to send someone in on the lower end of things, just to get an idea of what they were up to.”
She fell silent for a minute, lost in her own little world. “I suppose the NVC felt it had something to prove,” she mused. “After all, it was the first real attempt to infiltrate the organization, so they had to make a statement, if only to dissuade another attempt. From their point of view, it probably made perfect business sense.”
Kealey had heard enough to get the picture. “Marissa, you don’t—”
“No,” she said, holding up a hand to stop him. Her voice was calm but firm. “I want you to know. You’ve heard this much, so you might as well hear the rest.”
She took a deep breath, then drank the rest of her wine in one fast swallow. Kealey waited patiently, trying to disguise his rising unease. He suddenly wanted her to stop where she was, to leave it alone, but he knew that she wouldn’t. She wasn’t the type to run from a painful experience; he could see that now. Clearly, he’d misjudged her right from the start.
“They killed her, of course, but that wasn’t the worst part. I was a junior at Marquette at the time. I had just finished out the semester, so I decided to fly home for a couple of weeks. My parents met me at the airport, and when we got home . . .” She paused, bracing herself.
“There were photographs inside the house. Someone had broken in and plastered pictures everywhere. On the walls, the refrigerator . . . They even hid a few so we’d find them later by accident.”
“Pictures of your sister?” Kealey asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Petain sniffed. A few tears were working their way down her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. “And not just after, either. They took pictures the whole time they were torturing her. They made a video, too. They left that playing on the VCR. We could hear her screaming when my father opened the door . . . It was like she was right there, inside the house.”
“Jesus Christ,” Kealey said softly. It was most depraved thing he had ever heard, and it fit right in with what he knew about the Colombian cartels. At the same time, it answered all of his questions. Machado’s intense desire to shield his remaining daughter from harm made perfect sense now, as did Petain’s lack of remorse for the death of Kamil Ghafour. After what she’d been forced to endure, the lives of men like Ghafour must have meant very little to her. Kealey couldn’t help but wonder how she’d made it through the Agency’s intensive screening process. Her background alone should have raised enough red flags to keep her out, though he reminded himself that her father could have pulled some very long strings on her behalf.
“So now you know,” she said, pushing her glass away. She looked at him steadily, and Kealey saw that the tears had already dried on her cheeks. He supposed she’d had plenty of time to grieve over the past decade, and it didn’t take a genius to see that her grief had evolved into something far more dangerous. “Caroline’s death changed everything. My mother handled it as well as anyone could, but my father was devastated. He aged ten years the minute he walked into that house, and he’s never been the same.”
“And what about you?” Kealey asked quietly. “How did you deal with it?”
“Me?” She looked at him evenly, her body completely still. “I joined the Agency.”
She stood and collected her empty glass. “I know what this was about, Ryan,” she said, catching him by surprise. He knew protesting would get him nowhere, so he simply sat back and waited. “This whole conversation. You came out here to learn something about me.”
She paused for a moment, just watching him. “I can’t say I blame you . . . It’s important to know who you’re working with. But now that it’s all out in the open, I guess I should ask if you’ve changed your mind. So, do you still want my help?”
He looked up and studied her face for a long moment. As far as he could tell, she was completely indifferent. He could answer either way, and she would accept it completely.
“You’d better get some sleep,” he finally said. “We’ve got an early start in the morning.”
She smiled and turned to go inside. She’d only taken a few steps when Kealey called out, and she turned to face him.
“Marissa.” He hesitated, but he had to ask it. He had to know.
“The people who killed your sister . . .”
She shook her head, but she was still smiling, and there was a strange light in her dark brown eyes. “They never caught them, but I know who they are.” She seemed incredibly poised, once again in complete control. “The
