“At least he isn’t Hewett?” he muttered softly.
“I guess,” was my wry retort, trying not to think about the bugs. “Although we’d have better tax breaks if he were.”
His nose crinkled. “True.”
“I shouldn’t tell you. Just telling you feels like a fucking betrayal but...”
The president had a juicy secret he needed to hide, all while trying to take down the New World Sparrows… It didn’t take a genius or a Quantico analyst to tell me that it wouldn’t end well.
That had been gnawing at me since Christmas.
“But?”
“But the fact that Aoife is Davidson’s puts her in a set of crosshairs that I can’t get her out of.” As he nodded his understanding, I prodded, “Your turn now. What’s your secret?”
“Not as impressive as yours.”
“No BS. Hit me with it.”
“Not that it is your secret, of course,” he carried on, ignoring me. “It’s Aoife’s.”
I flipped him the bird.
He just smirked, but slowly, it died. "She needs extra guards."
“No. Got an extra two on her that she knows about."
"How many doesn't she know about?"
"There are four more."
He pursed his lips. "That should be enough. Eight total now with three on a constant rotation?"
At my nod, his gaze flickered away.
Eoghan was our security man, so when he pronounced, "I'll juggle shit around. Get another few men on her," gratitude filled me.
"Thanks, Eoghan."
"My pleasure."
"Your turn for confession," I drawled when he kept flicking glances between the TV and Aoife. Like that wasn't suspicious.
“I got a call yesterday.”
Frowning, I asked, “So? Pretty sure you get a lot of fucking calls, Eoghan.”
“Not like this. Someone heard I was going to Ireland… You know what dormant means?”
“I speak English, bud. I know what it means.” I scowled. “Who'd care about where you're going on honeymoon?”
He cleared his throat. “Okay, you know what it means, but in relation to the MI6, do you?”
I stared at him.
Then I stared some more.
And then, as he looked back at me, I got what he was saying.
“Eoghan?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you trying to tell me and Kid that you’re MI6?” I rasped.
Twelve
Eoghan
Ireland
To say I was pissed at having my old employers crash my honeymoon was an understatement, but geopolitics being what they were, I knew that MI6 had to be desperate to call me in.
And they were also fucking insane if they thought I could get away with this in a place like Ballymena. A town where the highest vantage point was on the roof of a multi-story parking garage that had a total of three stories to its name.
Ballymena had seen recent riots because of an uptick in the Troubles that had plagued this country for centuries. I had to assume the Troubles—the war between people who wanted a unified Ireland and those who didn't—were why I’d been sent here.
“Johnathan and Siobhan Lenister, what the fuck have you been doing to find yourself in my crosshairs?” I murmured to myself as I set up my kit.
It wasn’t my job to question my orders, neither was it my job to care about whoever was on the end of my scope, but sometimes, I was curious.
Especially when this married couple had done something bad enough for MI6 to call in The Whistler and for them to go to the effort of sourcing me a rifle.
As I put the weapon together, I pulled a face. “Well, you’re no Amber, are you?”
I should have brought her with me, but fuck, that would have keyed Inessa into the fact that I was working on our honeymoon. Wasn’t like a sniper rifle would blend in with all her Fleur du Mal lingerie.
I didn’t think I’d survive with my balls if she knew what I was really doing today.
Although, that she could see me spending the day playing golf told me we still had a lot to learn about each other.
Squinting through the scope, I scanned the campsite to find the marker I’d placed there earlier this morning.
“Who are you, hmm?” I asked myself.
The fountain of information had run dry on this couple. As far as I could see, they were just regular folks.
But therein lay the rub.
The Whistler didn’t kill regular folks.
He was sent in to defuse political crises in the making, to assassinate troublesome generals who were looking to overthrow governments.
A couple who lived out of a camper van?
No, that wasn’t The Whistler’s usual target.
The top story of the parking garage was empty right now, and with two lower levels barely full and covered, I doubted I’d be disturbed, but I didn’t work with doubt. I needed to know the variables, and I’d calculated that I needed to clamber up onto the small shelter that housed the door to the staircase. Which meant I’d used my Range Rover as a fucking stepladder to get up there.
As I lay flat out on the roof of the covered stairwell, I stared around the small town through my scope and found my target—a park just beyond the Braid riverbank where the couple was staying.
I’d lived in some fucked up places in my time, but I’d never understood camper vans.
Pissing and eating in the same space didn’t sit right with me, and I didn’t have high standards—Afghanistan burned those out of you pretty fucking fast.
The couple had small lawn chairs set out on the grass as if it weren’t ten degrees out here, a wind chime fluttered in the stiff breeze, and there were some towels hanging over a makeshift drying rack.
I found the husband and saw that he was filling a canteen of water from the river.
I’d have taken him out right then and there, but the woman was nowhere to be seen. Killing her man would clue Siobhan into what was happening. The last thing I needed was for her to drive off before I could get her in my sights.
While it was about to become a crime scene, it was an oddly idyllic setup. For all that they had to be either pissing in bottles and shitting in holes in the forest, it looked simple.
Simple was good.
I tried to imagine Inessa, my Bratva princess, dropping a squat in the forest and laughed to myself at the thought. She wasn’t exactly high maintenance but I figured that hit the upper echelons of her tolerance.
Grinning to myself at the thought, and curious enough that I determined to take her glamping one day, I found my markers—the little slither of fabric I’d tied around a lower tree branch…
That was when I saw it.
There was another piece on the same tree, just a few feet away.
I stilled at the sight.
Nothing unusual there, stillness was required in my job.
But that was a marker.
It was too high up for Johnathan or Siobhan to have caught their jacket on the branch, so it wasn’t a scrap of torn fabric.
Someone had placed it there.
Someone being another sniper.
MI6 had sent someone else in?
Ego definitely pricked, my brow furrowed, and though I should have focused on the target, instead, I scanned the area.