Harley prayed the locals who’d been part of this deal didn’t know the kind of people they were getting involved with or what Boc intended to do up there on top of that mountain.
“I read on the flight that there are a few monks in residence up there,” she said, glancing once again toward the monitors and all the people scurrying around up there. “Do you think they’re still alive?”
Sawyer considered that. “Probably, if only to maintain the facade for as long as possible. But after the auction is over? That, I don’t feel so good about.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Which meant when they finally got up there, they were going to need to save not only the kidnapped supernaturals, but also a handful of monks. Without any backup.
Beside her, Sawyer went back to staring at the monitors, but from the expression on his face, it was obvious his mind was a million miles away. Considering the call Sawyer had gotten when they’d landed in Athens, she supposed he had good reason to be distracted.
“How did your teammates take the news when you told them what happened?” she asked quietly.
Sawyer leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his broad chest, a frown creasing his brow. “About as well as you’d expect. Erin is ready to say the hell with everything and head straight back to London. Rory agrees with her. And Elliott thinks we don’t have enough information to decide anything one way or the other. It doesn’t help that the local police still have no leads on who killed Sarah and Cedric.”
Weatherford had called while they were standing at the airport rental-car counter and even though Harley hadn’t been trying to listen in on their conversation, it was impossible to miss the man telling Sawyer that his former teammates, Sarah Parker and Cedric Abbot, were dead. Harley immediately recognized the names, even if it had taken a few seconds to remember them from the conversation they’d had back in Paris, when Sawyer had told her about the mission in Odessa and the two agents who’d decided to get out of the covert-ops world for good.
The former MI6 agents had been found dead in their home in Alberta, Canada, with their throats slit late last night. There’d been no signs of forced entry, much less a struggle or even defensive wounds. Weatherford said the attack had been so sudden, the couple didn’t even have time to realize what was happening.
“I knew Sarah and Cedric were a thing the moment I met them,” Sawyer said softly, not looking at her. “Even though they kept their relationship secret, everyone knew they were involved, so no one was surprised when they both decided to leave MI6. Everyone knew they had to quit if they truly wanted to be together. They got four years. I guess that counts for something.”
Harley hurt for the couple even though she’d never met them. To leave the danger behind and be murdered in their own home was beyond terrible.
“Is MI6 going to get involved in the investigation?” she asked. “I know it happened in Canada, but they can still do something, right?”
Sawyer shrugged. “Weatherford says MI6 refuses to jump to conclusions and connect Sarah’s and Cedric’s deaths to Silas’s yet, even though all three died from knife wounds. As far as they know, Silas was killed on a mission, and until someone proves differently, Sarah and Cedric lost their lives in a home invasion.”
It was Harley’s turn to frown. “But you aren’t buying that?”
“No. Neither is anyone else on my team,” Sawyer said. “And with three of his former teammates dead, Weatherford has to realize he could be next. It might have been years since he’s been in the field, but he’s still smart enough to recognize someone is settling old scores. He’s already digging through every mission the team worked before I joined them, looking for likely suspects.”
“What about after you joined them?” she asked.
The thought of whoever murdered his teammates coming after him made it suddenly hard to breathe and she had to force herself to calm down.
He shook his head. “Everyone we took down in Odessa is either dead or locked away in a Turkish prison, which is the next worst thing to being dead. Hell, for all I know, Yegor Shevchenko might be dead.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Do you think the person who killed them might be behind the ambush in Morocco? To get to Erin, Rory, and Elliott?”
Sawyer looked at her in surprise. “That’d be a hell of a coincidence. Besides, that doesn’t explain how Boc’s crew knew our every move.”
No, it didn’t.
Unfortunately.
She’d hoped that theory might help defuse the tension that had been growing between STAT and MI6 since that damn vampire had revealed the mission in Morocco had been compromised before it started. That there would be an obvious bad guy they could point to instead of blaming each other’s support teams for leaking the plans for the raid. Whatever little goodwill there’d been between them was essentially shot to hell by the knowledge of a traitor among them.
For a while there, Harley’d been sure McKay was going to shut down the whole thing and tell her and her teammates to come home. He’d understood why Jake wanted to leave the support team behind and also why he was so intent on keeping a close hold on the information they’d gotten from the vampire, but their boss hadn’t been comfortable with the idea of continuing to work with an MI6 team they might not be able to trust or going on a rescue mission without backup. Jake had barely managed to talk their boss off the ledge, swearing he still felt comfortable working with MI6. Even with that assurance, McKay had been quick to tell them if there was one more screwup that
