Code Name: Disavowed (Jameson Force Security 8)

Ladd smiles fondly. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had. Best career move I ever made.”

Something about that seems like a veiled statement. Had Ladd stayed with me, had I not pushed him away because I could not give him the things he wanted, to this day he might be in a career that ultimately did not fulfill him. Another way to look at it is that by my actions, I pushed him into a happier life. His marriage may not have worked out, but he has a son and an extended family now. His life sounds very complete, and I hate I’m not the one currently responsible for it. I lost my chance.

“Get packed up,” Ladd says, and while it is still an order, his tone is less commanding. But I don’t have any reason to argue now that he’s pointed out he’s in as much danger as I am.

Ladd is putting his son where he’ll be safe, and it’s going to be up to the two of us to end this nightmare.

?

Regardless of whether Ladd is going to be involved in my current predicament, it was absolutely the right decision to come to Pittsburgh and hire Jameson. Hire might be a loose word, though. As soon as Ladd brought me back to their headquarters, we had a brief meeting with Kynan. He told me in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t take my money. “Ladd is family, and we protect our own.”

So it seems I have all the might of Jameson behind me as well as Ladd beside me.

We’re currently sitting in a large conference room. Present at this meeting are Kynan’s assistant Anna, who seems to be the administrative glue for this company, a woman named Bebe, who looks wicked smart, and two other men, Dozer and Cruce. Ladd sits across the table from me.

We work to formulate a game plan, focusing first on the suspected original source of our present danger.

“Why don’t we just go to the director of the CIA?” Dozer suggests as he leans back in his chair.

Cruce, I’ve learned, is the one married to the president’s niece. He chimes in. “Or better yet, let’s go to the president. We can have her in custody by the end of the day.”

Ladd shakes his head, and I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing I am. “We need proof first. All we have is our instinct that she’s behind this, and that’s not going to be enough to take her down.”

Cruce drums his fingers on the table thoughtfully. “We could at least get an investigation started.”

Given that I am the foremost authority sitting at this table on today’s modern CIA, I shake my head. “An internal investigation like that would likely last months. And it would have to be done covertly so as not to alert her. She’d stay in power the entire time. It’s better if we can be stealthy about it.”

The woman who was introduced as Bebe Grimshaw leans forward in her chair, crossing her forearms on the table. “I’ll find a backdoor and see if there’s any digital trail between Newman and Mejia. But given that she’s CIA, she has to know how good the current technology is and that it’s difficult to obliterate traces of calls, texts, and email. Even on encrypted servers. So if she was communicating with Mejia, it was most likely via a third party or done face-to-face.”

I like this woman. There’s something special about her, and I wonder what her background is. It’s clear she knows her way around cyberspace backdoors, and I have a feeling she’s got a good story.

Kynan, who’s the only one not sitting but rather standing at the head of the table, looks to Cruce. “What else do you have other than the president?”

I want to laugh, because it’s ridiculous he’s asking what else Cruce has to offer when having a direct line to the president is about as good as anything anybody could have.

Tipping back further in his seat, Cruce replies, “There are some former CIA folks in the Secret Service that I still keep in contact with. I’m talking about people I implicitly trust. I’ll do some very low-key poking around and see what the inside word is on Gayla Newman.”

Kynan crosses his arms over his chest, expression thoughtful. “Not much we can do about Newman at this point. The real question is what we do about Mejia. Until he’s taken down, both Ladd and Greer are in danger.”

“We take Mejia out. Eliminate him,” says Ladd with a tone I’ve never heard from him before.

Ice-cold and hard.

His meaning is clear, and I’m slightly shocked. “You can’t mean that. It’s murder, Ladd.”

He swivels his head my way. “You would have killed him in El Salvador.”

I shake my head, frowning. “Only if there was no other way. I wasn’t there to kill him, only gather intel.”