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 even suggested MI6 couldn’t be trusted, he was going to pull the team back and cancel the joint operation for good.
For some reason, that thought terrified Harley more than she wanted to admit. Because that would mean never seeing Sawyer again.
“How hard would it be for someone to get their hands on Sarah’s and Cedric’s new identities and the location of the mission Silas was on?” she asked, changing the subject before her mind could go too far down that particular path. “Who would have access to info like that?”
Sawyer scanned the monitors. “Anyone with a high enough clearance would be able to get details on an active mission like Silas was on—supervisors, branch chiefs, senior support personnel. But Sarah’s and Cedric’s identities would be more difficult to dig up. Few people, even at the highest levels, would have access to that information.”
Harley thought that was what he’d say. “What if someone had access to the MI6 records repository? Would they be able to find everything there?”
Sawyer swiveled his chair toward her with a sigh. “I know you’re trying to find a connection between their murders and the guy we followed to Mexico City, but like I said before, it’s a huge leap to think someone who has a grudge against my old team just happens to work for Boc.”
“Maybe,” she replied. “But coincidence or not, we can’t ignore the fact that a man associated with Boc broke into the MI6 records repository where all kinds of personnel and agency records are kept, then a couple weeks later, your old teammates start showing up dead.”
Harley thought Sawyer would argue that point, but after a long silent pause, he nodded. “Okay, I’ll admit you might be onto something, but there isn’t a lot we can do to prove your theory. Even if we trusted our support teams, what would we have them look for? The guy who broke into the records repository died in Mexico City and we don’t know enough about Boc to connect the two of them. The best I can do is tell Weatherford our suspicions and see what he can dig up.”
Harley appreciated Sawyer said our suspicions, instead of hanging her out to dry on her own. It was a little thing, but it still meant a lot to her.
They both fell quiet as they turned their attention back to the monitor. The silence should have been uncomfortable, but sitting there with him watching the construction team working on the mountain was relaxing.
“You hungry?” Sawyer asked a little while later. “It’s been hours since we had dinner at the hotel restaurant.”
“I could eat,” she said.
Getting up, he walked into the kitchen and turned on the small lights underneath the upper cabinets, bathing yellow walls and a colorful tile backsplash in a soft glow. Opening the fridge, he took out two bottles of orange-flavored soda, then set them on the counter so he could rummage through the paper grocery bags there. Without the support people to set everything up, Caleb had volunteered to stock the villa with food. Knowing her teammate as well as she did, Harley wasn’t holding out much hope for quality snacks.
“We have bags of something called Drakulinia, which look like cheese puffs,” he said, holding it up so she could see before reaching in for another. “Next we have Tsakiris Chips with oregano flavoring.” He grimaced. “I was good until I saw that. I am definitely not a fan of oregano.”
She didn’t mind oregano but wasn’t sure she wanted potato chips doused in it. “Anything chocolate in there?”
He dug around in another paper bag and pulled out a small red cylinder. “Chocolate wafers filled with chocolate cream. That work for you?”
Her mouth was already watering. “Definitely.”
Coming back into the living room, he handed her the cardboard canister of cookies and a bottle of soda. Harley eagerly pulled the plastic lid off the canister, then popped the metal lid underneath. The delightful scent of chocolate immediately reached her nose, along with something that smelled a little like a waffle cone. She couldn’t resist holding the container up close to her face to take an extra deep sniff.