Smoked (The Invincibles 5)

“Do you believe her memory has returned?”

“It’s the only thing that ma

kes sense.”

“I think it’s time I contact Director Hughes.”

I had to agree. If we were wrong, we’d need IMI’s help. If we were right, there was a good chance he’d know her twenty.

“Got her,” said Decker.

“Hang on, Rile. Ashford says he has a hit.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, looking at the image on the screen of Siren walking into IMI’s secret headquarters, looking straight at one of the security cameras with her middle finger in the air.

II

18

Siren

“I refuse to jeopardize our relationship with MI6, the CIA, or the Invincibles by turning this into an international incident, Siren,” said my boss, Director Rory Hughes, slamming his fist on his desk. He leaned back in his chair. “It seems to me that Smoke was trying to help you. Not informing IMI of your condition is an issue I’ll take up with Rile DeLéon, but you know as well as I do that faced with the same dilemma, both of us would have done the same thing for him or any other agent as he did for you.”

I stood and walked over to his office window. I knew he was right; my pride was the only thing refusing to accept it.

“How are you now, Siren?” Hughes asked, his voice taking on a fatherly tone.

To begin, I was humiliated and heartbroken, but Rory wasn’t asking about my feelings. He wanted to know my medical condition. A few years ago, before I’d officially come on board at the Irish Military Intelligence and long before Rory Hughes was named director, he and I had a brief affair. There was no bad blood between us; the flame had just fizzled. When he became my boss, there was nothing untoward about our working relationship. It was as any other I had—except for Smoke and me. It still didn’t mean Rory would want to hear the sordid details.

I tossed the copy of my medical records Dr. Mansfield had included in what he gave me before I left his office, but he handed it back to me.

“Tell me how you are, Siobhan.”

“The mobility in my left arm is ninety-five percent.”

“And your memory?”

That was harder to answer, given on the flight from DC to Dublin, I’d read every word in Mansfield’s file. While I’d been furious he hadn’t shared my own life with me, now I understood why. I couldn’t differentiate between what I actually remembered and the images I conjured based on what I’d read.

I couldn’t remember anything about my relationship with Smoke other than what I’d dreamed and then overheard him tell Decker. When I tried to recall anything about him outside of my dreams, it was a blank screen.

“I don’t know how to quantify my amnesia.”

Rory nodded. “Best to have you thoroughly checked out here in Dublin.”

I groaned. That meant more fecking scans to sit through.

“Until you’re cleared medically, you’re on paid administrative leave.” He folded his hands on the desk, signaling our conversation was at an end. “Go home and get some rest, Siren.”

No one knew it, save Hughes and me, but he was the one who’d given me my code name. It was after he and I’d spent the day out on the water. We were headed back in, and he ran aground on a shallow reef at the same time I happened to be humming.

“You’ll lead a sailor to his death, sweet Siren,” he’d said that day.

I looked up at him with wide eyes.

“What?”

“A memory.”