“You’re holding up pretty well,” Kurt said.
“I’m kind of numb to it all now.”
“Look on the bright side,” Kurt said. “If we survive, your fear of flying might be cured.”
He smiled, but she just stared blankly. He knew the look of someone falling into despondency. She was going forward now without much hope, emotions drained, doing what she was supposed to do.
Kurt let his smile fade. “Once we get on the ground, who knows what’s going to happen. I need to know if I can trust you.”
“You can,” she insisted.
“Then tell me what you’re hiding,” he said. “You’ve kept some secret locked away since the very start. Time to come clean.”
She stared up at him, her brown eyes quivering. “I think I know who the informant is,” she said. “It’s Thero’s son, George.”
“Thero’s son?”
She nodded.
“What makes you think that?”
“The handwriting looked like his,” she said. “And in the first letter the informant wrote that he was acting out of his better conscience. Most people say they’re acting in good conscience, but George always used that other term instead. There were times he even insisted he was his father’s conscience. Times he persuaded Thero not to take some risk or fly off the handle at some random event.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“So did I,” she said. “But, then again, we all thought Thero was dead too, didn’t we?”
Kurt nodded.
“There wasn’t much left after the explosion,” she said. “There were funerals but with empty caskets, you know?”
“So if Thero survived, it’s possible his children did as well,” Kurt said. “So why keep this to yourself?”
“I wasn’t sure at first,” she said. “By the time I convinced myself that it could be George, we’d already seen the first two couriers intercepted and killed. At that point, it became pretty clear there was a leak inside the ASIO. I figured any information I passed to Bradshaw might have wound up making its way back to Thero as well, so I kept it to myself. Assuming I was right and George did survive the Yagishiri explosion, I didn’t want to get him killed for trying to stop us.”
“I think you probably made a wise choice,” Kurt said. “Do you really think it could be him?”
“He was a good person,” she insisted. “He didn’t want to go to Japan. He didn’t want to continue the experiments. But he figured if he didn’t go, there would be no one to rein his father in.”
“That’s why you’re plowing forward? You think you owe him?”
“Don’t I?”
“I’m not the one to answer that,” Kurt said.
?
?If we can get inside and find him,” she said, “he may be able to help us.”
Kurt nodded. “Maybe,” he said guardedly.
A new series of downdrafts hit the copter, and Hayley grabbed Kurt’s arm. He patted her hand, and then took the opportunity to get up and make his way toward the cockpit. Poking his head in, he found Gregorovich and the pilot staring through helmet-mounted goggles. He sensed the craft slowing.
“Are we there yet?”
“Almost,” Gregorovich said.
Kurt glanced through the windshield. He saw nothing but white clouds and the snow streaking past them. He guessed the view through the goggles was better, probably enhanced by the laser range-finding and infrared pods he’d seen attached to the helicopter’s nose.