JACK WAS surprised to find the folder in his tablet marked Jack Elliot was empty. Instructor Colson explained that information would be uploaded as it became available and ordered him to study the contents in the folder on Alex Sutherland instead.
She upheld what Jack was beginning to believe was the Center’s unofficial motto, and everything else about the mission at this point seemed to be “need to know.”
Sean wasn’t giving anything away either, despite Jack’s persistent questions.
“What do you mean, I’m the target?” he asked.
He followed Sean to the kitchen in the basement and watched as he pulled ingredients from one of the tall refrigerators and put together a couple of sandwiches. When they were ready, Jack filled two glasses with milk, and he and Sean perched on stools beside the gleaming granite counter, Sean’s expression becoming increasingly irritated.
“Just do the work you were assigned,” he said impatiently. “You’ll find out the rest at the appropriate time.”
Jack had to consciously stop himself from snapping his response. “Am I supposed to be Jack Elliot or Alex Sutherland?”
“Yes,” Sean said.
“Jesus! Could you be any more cryptic?” Jack muttered.
Sean pointed to Jack’s plate, and Jack finally gave up the pointless interrogation and turned his attention to his food. He kept half an eye on the staff, who had all wordlessly drifted to the opposite end of the kitchen when Jack and Sean walked in, and who were now studiously avoiding eye contact.
Jack wondered for the hundredth time what they thought when they saw him, whether they knew what he did and why. But this time he also wondered if any of them had been here when he first arrived at the Center at the age of three, a child whose parents had died in a plane crash, who was destined to be locked up here for the next thirteen years and trained like a soldier.
Sean reached out and tapped the side of Jack’s plate sharply, and it was only then he realized he had raised his eyes and was staring at the small group as they milled about preparing the evening meal. He turned his head and dropped his gaze back to his food.
When he first arrived, and for many years after that, he had only ever come into contact with Judith and Guy, two of the Center’s operatives assigned to watch over and instruct him, and with the man he knew only as his guardian. Later he crossed paths with the anonymous employees who staffed the Center, but only when he was old enough to understand one simple rule: never speak to them. They had obviously been drilled in the same way, because in all the years Jack had lived here, he had never had a conversation with a single one of them.
“Finish up, Jack.”
Sean’s voice pulled Jack’s attention back to the present, and he gulped the last of his milk and stood up.
“I have a meeting,” Sean said. “I want you to go to your guardian’s office and spend an hour reviewing your files.”
Jack groaned. “I can’t just go back to my own quarters?”
Sean raised an eyebrow. “You’ve forgotten how punishment works? Do we need a review?”
“Not necessary. It’s all coming back to me,” Jack said glumly. He turned and trudged down the hallway, then climbed four flights of stairs until he reached the floor that housed his guardian’s office. The door was open, but Jack knocked anyway, waiting until his guardian looked up and beckoned him, then pointed to a table set up underneath one of the tall windows.
“I would have thought you were beyond this kind of juvenile discipline,” his guardian said sternly.
Jack slid onto the bench seat behind the table, deciding it wasn’t the kind of statement that required a response.
“Sean has assigned your work, I presume?”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said.
His guardian nodded curtly and returned his attention to the paperwork spread across his desk. Jack flipped the cover on his tablet and clicked into the file marked Alex Sutherland.
The first thing he saw was a photograph of Alex, standing with his smiling parents in front of a huge house. His father’s arm was slung casually around his shoulder, and his mother had slipped her arm around his waist. They all looked relaxed and happy, without a care in the world.
According to the file, Alex Sutherland was seventeen years old and a senior at the exclusive Montgomery High School in Fairfield, Connecticut. He played on the school’s football and tennis teams, was a member of the drama and debate clubs, and was an honors student with offers from several respected universities. His mother was a doctor with a thriving local practice, and his father was the senior partner at a well-regarded accounting firm.
Every photograph in the file showed him surrounded by adoring family and friends in places that were clearly for the elite and moneyed class. Alex Sutherland was rich, popular, athletic, and smart—Jack wondered what could possibly have happened to put him on the Center’s radar.
He spent another few minutes flicking through the contents of the file until he felt he knew enough to bluff his way through if Sean decided to test him, and then he surreptitiously slid his gaze toward his guardian.
Although he had been a fixture in Jack’s life for as long as he remembered, Jack knew practically nothing about the man who had arranged to have him brought to the Center nearly thirteen years ago. He had never heard him called by his name and didn’t know how long he had worked here or what his role was. But he had never seemed more mysterious than now, when Jack had finally been given a clue to his guardian’s past.
It seemed impossible to believe that this man, who had always been so stern and strict and never cut Jack any slack, could have once been married to Jack’s mother. Jack remembered nothing about her outside of a vague sense of happiness and an indistinct mental image of sandy-colored hair, warm brown eyes, and a wide smile.
His guardian shifted in his chair, and Jack quickly dropped his eyes back to his tablet. His gaze landed on a picture of Alex Sutherland’s mother, laughing in the background as her son and husband tossed a football on the beautifully manicured lawn outside their house. Jack wondered if his own mother had ever looked at him with such fond pride or imagined what kind of life he would have when he grew up.
“Has Sean discussed the particulars of this case with you?”
Jack jumped as his guardian’s voice broke the silence. He glanced up to find the man standing over him, his eyes flickering to the photograph on the tablet. Jack thought he saw a fleeting frown cross his face, but it was gone in an instant.
“No, sir. I believe I begin prep tomorrow.”
His guardian reached out and spun the tablet around until it faced him. “You’ll find this a little different from your usual assignments,” he said, his eyes settling on the photograph of Mrs. Sutherland. “I’ll let your instructors go over the details with you.”
He double-tapped the photograph to enlarge it, and Mrs. Sutherland’s smiling face filled the screen. His guardian stared at the photograph for a full thirty seconds without saying a word, and then he seemed to snap out of his reverie.
“I know you had concerns about your last operation,” he said. “And I know the outcome was… problematic. You won’t be put in that position again.”
Jack didn’t exactly know what his guardian was referring to. So much had gone wrong on his last assignment, including a spectacularly fucked-up ending that had landed him in the hospital. He didn’t have much room to bitch, though; he’d created some of his own problems when he hadn’t trusted his team enough to let them know the senior agent was running a parallel operation.
His guardian pushed the tablet back across the table, and his expression suddenly became stern.
“You need to remember that every action has consequences. I promise you won’t like the outcome if your work doesn’t improve.”
Jack had a lot more at stake now that Leo was in his life; it was easy to recognize the underlying threat behind his guardian’s words.
“He’ll do just fine, won’t you, Jack?”
Jack felt a rush of relief at the sound of Sean’s voice, and he looked over his guardian’s shoulder as Sean walked through the door and approached the table. He nodded, afraid words would fail him if he tried to speak.
“Good. Now, let’s not keep Evan waiting. I don’t think your score sheet can stand another black mark.”
Jack hastily picked up his tablet and stood. His guardian stepped aside to let him pass, though Jack was sure he felt the heavy weight of the man’s stare long after he left the room.
HE HAD learned to play tennis for a previous assignment, so it wasn’t difficult to recall the basics. Evan drilled him on the correct holds and tested him on the rules, none of which were much of a challenge. They knocked a few balls between them until Evan was satisfied Jack knew what he was doing, and then he called a halt and beckoned Jack over.
Jack trotted forward dutifully, and it was only years of conditioning that allowed him to notice the way Evan’s weight shifted as his muscles tensed and bunched. He jumped aside, and the edge of the tennis racket stopped the knife Evan threw from embedding itself in Jack’s shoulder.
“Good reflexes,” Evan said coolly. He stooped and picked the knife off the floor, then slashed at Jack’s knee with the blade.
Jack had anticipated the move and was stepping backward before Evan straightened from his crouch. Evan used the momentum of movement to lunge forward and try to bury his knife in Jack’s upper arm, but Jack kicked out, and his foot connected with Evan’s wrist. Evan dropped the knife, and as it clattered to the floor, Jack fell to his knees and skidded across the wooden floorboards. He palmed the knife and sprung to his feet, whirling to face Evan, the blade clutched firmly in his hand.
He kept his eyes fixed on Evan’s face, even when he heard a voice over his right shoulder.
“There’s hope for you yet, Jack.”
Jack kept Evan in his sights as he made a half-turn to look into Leo’s eyes.
But the welcoming smile dropped off his face when he saw that Leo was holding a gun, and that it was aimed unerringly at Jack’s head.