Calculated Risk

choice. You did. You could have told them to send someone else. What are you doing here?”

“I told you why I was here.”

“Because you don’t trust me,” she reiterated. “That’s right. You already knew about the contact with Kahsan. So you thought you were coming to save the day. Only now you realize that I’m the one running this show. Is that it? Don’t tell me you’re jealous? Jealous that I got to him first?”

Quinlan ran a hand through his short-cropped hair, his agitation, something he rarely displayed, was evident.

“I was in Pakistan when I got his call,” he began. “Krueger telling me to get back ASAP because they wanted to give an ex-agent a crack at breaking an unbreakable code. Then I hear about some woman making contact with… I thought, shit, it’s finally happened. Sabrina’s finally been turned to the dark side. Hell, we knew it was just a matter of time.”

The verbal assault was supposed to hurt her, but she let it go. Mostly because she didn’t believe it. Smugly, she challenged him.

“That’s not true. If you were really worried about me turning traitor, you would have called in the cops and had me taken out. Picked up to be interrogated by some FBI or CIA goons at the very least. No, you waited because you wanted to make contact with me first to find out what I was up to. Don’t think you can mess with my head, Q. Once upon a time, you used to be able to do that. Not anymore. You knew damn well what I was doing. Tell me the truth. You wanted in.”

“In?” His tone was pure astonishment. “In on this great plot you have to use yourself as a human lure? It’s laughable. Kahsan is like the fucking tide. He can’t be controlled or contained. But you think you’re going to manipulate him? With what? A carrot?” He laughed out loud, a short, harsh sound, then pinned her with his gaze.

“This plan was poorly thought out. And now, because of you, because of your recklessness, which by the way wasn’t entirely unexpected, this man is loose inside this country and after you. Which means I don’t get to fail, Bri. I don’t have the luxury of missing him this time to try again. Three times I’ve come close with nothing to show for it but some dead assets and dead agents. Good people. People with families. I’ve got to get this done now, and the only person who can help me is you. You, who I still don’t know if I can trust.”

“Wow,” she breathed softly. “That is, like, the most words I’ve ever heard you say at once.” His face turned a splotchy red and she feared he might literally explode. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make a joke… But Q, you’ve got to understand something. I want this guy, too.”

“No, you want back in,” he corrected her. “Isn’t that what you said? And for some reason you’ve decided you need to be a hero to make that happen.”

“You don’t think I can do it? You don’t think I can be a hero?” She wanted to know, even as she choked around the word hero.

“It’s not a matter of what you can do. It’s why you’re doing it. You want back in?” he questioned again, his tone incredulous. “Hell, you’ve spent most of your life trying to get out. Away from your father, away from me and away from the CIA. Don’t try to deny it. There is only one person in this world that I know better than I know Kahsan and that’s you.”

This time she shook her head fiercely. “No. That’s not fair. You knew a girl named Sabrina Masters. A girl genius with a chip on her shoulder and a bad attitude. You took that girl and you made her believe in something. Then you took it all away.

“Ten years, Q. Ten years of trying to forget and get back on my feet. Ten years of trying to figure out who I am and what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. You think you’ve got a monopoly on wanting to take out the bad guys? Well, you’re wrong. You told me I could have been the best. I know that. And I know that I have to live with the ten years I’ve lost. Maybe it was reckless contacting him, but you have to believe that I can do this. I can make this happen, I can take Kahsan out and-”

“And what?” he asked when she stopped abruptly.

And make it all right again. That’s what she’d been about to say. Sabrina dropped down on a heavy log and put her face in her hands. She’d returned Arnold’s first e-mail, called Krueger, accepted his deal to play this role and made contact with Kahsan, all of it, because she’d wanted to make up for those ten years.

Why?

Because it would make her feel better? Because it would erase the guilt?

None of the answers were noble. More, they were selfish. She hadn’t stopped to think of the consequences, but in her defense it was only because she hadn’t considered that she might fail. She had always believed that she was that good.

Failure was exactly what Quinlan was considering.

Kahsan was “in-country.” A horrible and frightening reality. The devil had come knocking and someone had left the door unlocked.

Maybe he would have come anyway. Or Krueger could have moved on to Plan B. Or maybe not. Maybe if she’d said no, she could have stopped it. But it was too late. He was coming. Because of her. It was only now that she understood how serious the risk she’d been taking and how dangerous the game she’d been playing were.

But the payoff… Would it be worth it? Only a clairvoyant would know.

“You didn’t like my plan because you know if I miss him the cost could be catastrophic,” Sabrina stated for the record.

Quinlan walked over and sat next to her on the log, his thigh pushed up against hers. “I’ve missed him three times. Three fucking times. And I’m pretty good.”

His humility was a joke, but she couldn’t laugh, not when the pressure of what she’d done was weighing on her chest like a fallen set of dumbbells. “For someone so smart I can be pretty slow sometimes. I always think I have all the answers.”

Quinlan chortled briefly. “It was always hard training you because you believed so much in your abilities. And your abilities were remarkable. Are remarkable. I was constantly caught between trying to push you to go further while at the same time trying to show you that you couldn’t do it all.”

For a moment they let silence reign. The echo of a memory they both knew well, lingering, but being left unspoken. Only the sound of the wind rustling against dead leaves interrupted.

Then Sabrina stood in a rush of forward motion and brushed off the dirt and debris from his coat where it covered her bottom. “Here’s the thing. It’s too late to stop any of this now. Even if we wanted to.”

“I know.”

Apparently his tirade, while somewhat uncharacteristic, had been necessary for him to get what he needed to say off his chest. There was a lot of stuff between them, stuff that could get in the way. She guessed that the more they put out in the open to be dealt with, the better it would be for both of them.

“We need to move.”

Quinlan stood, too, and began walking in silent agreement that forward was their only possible direction.

“I want you to know something,” she began. “I’m not lying about wanting back in. It may seem contradictory to the actions in my past, but it’s the truth. I’m not going to waste a whole lot of breath trying to convince you. I know that you still have to figure it out for yourself. But there’s going to come a time when you’re going to have to trust me, and I need you to know when that time comes, I won’t let you down.”

He said nothing, but he did nod to acknowledge her words.

They walked alongside each other for a time, neither saying anything. The crunch of leaf corpses falling victim under their feet serenaded them. Then because she couldn’t stand the silence anymore Sabrina, as always, broke first.

“Come on, though, you have to admit…that was one hell of a shot back there. Off the tree, into the face, nothing but net.”

“Sabrina.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”