Page 19 of Sherwood
It was why Rafe was the best in the world at his job. He understood people and their motivations better than any algorithm or data filter ever would. He knew the difference between information and intelligence.
Unfortunately for him, so did I.
“I would never have implicated her by telling her anything of importance,” I said, coming closer to the bed. “You must have known that.”
“I know that you loved her.” He looked up at me. Only Rafe de Lacy could make lookingupat someone feel dangerous. Predatory. “I know you’ve never stopped thinking of her, and that kind of love leads to mistakes. Lapses in judgement.”
“You would know,” I bit out. Still quietly.
“I would know,” he agreed. His voice was tinged with bitterness, and I weirdly hated to hear it. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but he’d made any other outcome impossible when he’d chosen his country over his soul.
“But really, Lox,” he said, “why are you here? If you know I’m looking for you, then you must know that Lackland wants you. Badly.”
He didn’t sound concerned for my future so much as he sounded curious. Like he wanted to know what he might have missed in his own calculations and plans. We used to calculate together, him and me. Partners, him CIA, me NSA, working together in some of the most dangerous places in the world.
And now we were on opposite sides of the chessboard, moving pieces in anticipation of each other, weighing pawns and studying squares.
“Badly enough that arrest isn’t on the table anymore,” I added with a sharp smile. “Isn’t that right, Rafe?”
His pale gaze was unwavering. “So you know then.”
“I know.” I’d helped build many of the NSA encryptions they now relied on to send information about me back and forth; I’d long ago planted a little electronic ear in Lackland’s office. Only Rafe, with his old-fashioned HUMINT ways, evaded my surveillance. “I know that if you get a hold of me, I won’t have the luxury of an arrest.”
Nor the luxuries of formal charges, or even of a public trial. I was past that point.
“And so I’ll ask you again,” he said with that invisible chessboard between us, “why show yourself tonight? I could grab you right now and cuff you to that bench until backup arrived. I could have you in the back of a black SUV heading for the airport before Marian even woke up.”
I leaned against the bottom poster of the bed. It was made for kink—sturdy and studded with hooks and rings. “You could, but you won’t. Because Lackland wants my machines as much as he wants me. And you know that I’ll have put contingencies in place regarding them in the case of my capture. And more importantly, contingencies regarding the data they store.”
“Very good,” Rafe said. His fingers had moved from massaging Marian’s scalp to stroking her hair now. Something not for her, but purely for him. I didn’t think I was imagining the possessiveness in his touch when he did it.
“So I have to assume that you’d like to persuade me into cooperating.”
“An odd tack to take, given how our last conversation went,” he conceded.
“It wasn’t much of conversation, if you’ll recall,” I said dryly. “You tried to kill me.”
“In fairness, you tried to kill me first.”
I shrugged.
It had been a bad night.
“You know I won’t cooperate, Rafe.”
“And you know I won’t stop.” With a final smoothing of Marian’s hair, he slid off the bed and stood to face me. “This is treason, Lox. The kind of thing you wouldn’t have thought twice about stopping only a year ago. The secrets you’re stealing…”
“Needed to be stolen. Corruption isn’t private property.”
Rafe ran a hand through his hair. Too long, it was always a little bit too long, and when he tousled it enough that it tumbled every which way and fell just so over his forehead, I could almost see the boy he must have been, transplanted by his American mother from his childhood in England, restless and bored and absolutely disdainful of what anyone might call an ordinary life.
“You should have gone public,” he said, dropping his hand. “I still can’t understand why you didn’t. There’s a reason Assange and Snowden put themselves in front of every camera they could find, put their names into every paper that would print them. So that if they were caught, they’d be arrested and given a trial, and notdisappeared. I know you know this, so there must be something I’m missing.”
“Stop trying to reconnoiter me,” I said irritably. “I’m not going to explain my motivations to you. I tried hard enough the last time.”
We stared at each other, and I remembered, I remembered how vast the gulf had been between us the night I’d fled my assignment, the night I’d tried to convince him that what the NSA was doing waswrong. And not wrong in the “some decisions require difficult moral calculus that not everyone will agree with” sense. I’d been a deployed Ranger in the 75thand a covert paramilitary officer over the course of my career—I was no stranger to difficult moral calculus. No, this had been wrong in a whole new way.Everyonewas being lied to—even the President—about the goals the NSA and CIA were really working toward.
And about whom those agencies were really working for.
