A tranquilizer? That’s it. You’re sure?
We’re still running tests, but so far the lab results are showing only the tranquilizer in her blood stream. And you can see she’s already coming to.
Am I? I recognize Mason and Seagrave’s voices, but I’m still a little fuzzy on their meaning. Somebody knocked me out. That much seems clear enough. And—
The Face. And the groceries. And—
Why the hell did he knock her out in the first place? So that she couldn’t watch when he killed himself? And what the fuck with the phone?
I blink, the world flashing in and out like someone opening and shutting blinds. What do they mean by killed himself? And what phone?
I open my mouth, then whisper, “Mason.”
Or maybe I don’t say anything at all, because no one seems to hear me.
Mason, please. We’re working on it.
I want the SSA working on this, too. They’re her team now. They deserve to be in the loop.
I’ve already talked with Mr. Stark and Mr. Hunter. An SSA team is being fully briefed.
Relief warms me. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m glad my friends are working on it, too.
Look.
That’s Mason’s voice, and he’s close. So close.
“Denny? Denny, it’s me. Can you wake up?”
I want to tell him that I am awake. Before, it felt like I was dreaming, but I’m awake now. I just feel so heavy. Even my eyelids are so, so heavy.
“Give her a moment,” Seagrave says. “It’ll take her some time to swim up out of it.”
He’s right, and it’s a good metaphor. It’s as if I’m kicking toward the surface, and I actually gasp as I break through into reality, my eyes fluttering open to find Mason’s eyes fixed on me, first full of worry and then shifting to relief.
“Thank God,” he says, clutching my hand.
“The Face. He hit me with a tranquilizer?”
“He did.” Seagrave rolls his chair beside Mason. “Welcome back.”
“Just a tranquilizer. Is it safe?” I think of the baby. Please, please, don’t let anything hurt the baby.
“Just a tranquilizer,” Seagrave says.
I nod, reassured. I know enough about weapons to not be too worried about a tranquilizer dart. “But why? Did he just want to make a clean getaway after he left the message?”
Mason and Seagrave look at each other. “What message?” Mason asks.
“Same as before,” I tell them. “That you have to remember. You have to give back what you took.”
Again, they share a look.
“Don’t keep me in the dark,” I say. My strength is flowing back, the grogginess leaving me. I push myself up until I’m sitting in the hospital bed. Then I look around, for the first time noticing that I’m in Mason’s old quarters.
Seagrave nods his head. Just a tiny tilt, but it’s enough. Mason focuses on me and says, “There are two things you should know. First, the Face is dead.”
“What? Was he trying to escape? Because we needed to talk—”
“Suicide,” Mason says. “He injected himself with cyanide.”
My mouth drops open, and for a moment I’m dumbstruck. “Why would he do that?”
“One of many questions,” Seagrave says, and I look between him and Mason, waiting for him to tell me the rest of the questions. And the answers.
After a moment, Mason lifts a shoulder, looking positively helpless. “He left you a phone. Right in your hand. A smart phone with absolutely nothing on it.”
“Oh.” I try to process that but it makes no sense. “You tried re-dial? You checked the emails?”
The both just stare at me. Of course they did.
“It’s here?” I ask.
Mason points to the side table where what looks like a burner smart phone sits next to a pink plastic jug filled with ice water.
“Can I look?”
He raises a brow, but doesn’t protest. I understand I’m being ridiculous; I won’t see a thing they didn’t. But that knowledge doesn’t curtail the urge, and as soon as he puts the phone in my hand, I sigh.
Then I yelp, because the device chirps in my hand.
“What did you do?” Mason says, and I shake my head.
“Nothing. I—look. It’s a text message.”
They gather close and we read the message together.
The first part is a string of chemical symbols that my poor science can’t decipher. I don’t need to, though. It’s clear enough from the words that follow:
It’s in her blood.
72h incubation period.
Give us the encryption key.
We’ll make her the antidote.
Reply when you have the key.
My blood.
My blood, my baby. Oh, dear God.
I tell myself it’s okay. Maybe this is just a threat. A scare tactic. The SOC team said there was only tranquilizer in my blood, after all.
But I know that’s not true. Whatever the toxin is, it’s there. The medtechs just weren’t looking for it.
Still, so long as I get the antidote in time, the baby and I will be fine.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
But I don’t really know if that’s true.
And with the location of the encryption key buried in Mason’s head, I don’t think I’ll ever find out.
* * *
“He shouldn’t be doing this,” I say, looking into the conference room through the one-way glass window. Fear burns through me—for myself, for my baby, for Mason.
“He doesn’t have a choice,” Quince says, putting a hand on my shoulder to stop me from pacing.
“There’s always a choice.”
“And he’s made his,” Liam says.
I turn, looking at my friends through tear-filled eyes. “What if it breaks him?”
Neither man answers. They don’t have too. Mason loves me. And if the only way to pull the location of this encryption key out of his head is by forcing his memories, then that’s what he’s going to do. Even though the risk is high. Even though he may forget everything. Or worse.
I think about what Mason has told me. About the videos of other agents who’d been forced to face their hidden memories too early. Men who’d snapped completely.
Please, please don’t let that happen to Mason.
On the other side of the conference room, Mason sits in one of the rolling chairs. He’s wearing a T-shirt, and a variety of monitoring bands surround his chest and head, all hooked to an array of monitors and a computer that sits in front of Dr. Tam.
Mason’s arms are strapped down, and he looks like a prisoner. Someone in for interrogation. And that illusion is bolstered by the two IV drips going into his veins. One drip contains a fast-acting sedative so the doctor can knock him out if he starts to tip over into the danger zone. The other contains a serotonin-like compound that is supposed to keep him calm as he moves through the memory stimulation process.
“Happy thoughts,” Dr. Tam had said, with an ironic half-smile. “Think of it as forced happy thoughts.”
Not exactly a high-level medical explanation, but I understood what she meant. The amnesia had been induced by some sort of horrific trauma. To pull out the buried memories, Mason had to find his way around that trauma. And that meant not sliding back into the mental state that had surrounded the trauma and instead creating a “happy” back door.
All good in theory. In practice, it sounded pretty damn dicey.
“I can’t lose him all over again,” I say.
Liam moves to stand beside me at the window. “That’s why he’s doing it. Because he can’t live without you, either. And that’s going to happen if we don’t get the antidote.”
I wipe away a tear and nod. Seventy-two hours. That’s the window to get me the antidote. After that, there’s no cure, and I’ll be dead within a week.
That’s what the medical team tells me, anyway. All things considered, I don’t have any reason to doubt them.
It’s more than just me, of course. The toxin in my blood is something never seen before. It’s a national security threat. And even if I were completely healthy, I know that Mason would still be sitting in that chair, ready to sacrifice himself to save the world.
Inside the room, Dr. Tam starts to talk to Mason, her voice calm and level. Since she doesn’t actually know what he experienced, she’s hypnotized him in the hopes of pulling out those hidden memories more easily. I just hope the memories don’t turn out to be dangerous.
She’s been fully briefed by Colonel Seagrave, and she starts to describe the mission, the details of which I’ve never known. Nor have Quince or Liam or any of the Stark team, and I’m grateful to Seagrave for giving everyone clearance. I need my friends’ support. And their help.
The job was to infiltrate an international mercenary group known as La Guerre Rouge in order to relay back information about its various activities, especially arms and drug trafficking. The insertion was a success, and Mason was able to gain the trust of one of the group’s high-ranking commanders who eventually tasked Mason with a secret project that was deep in development.
All of that, the SOC knew from Mason’s infrequent reports and dead drops. And as Dr. Tam talks Mason through all of that, his vitals stay normal.
I look at Liam and Quince, trying to hold back my optimism. Because surely this means it’s going to be okay. Surely it will turn out that we could have done this straightaway, and that Mason had been left in the dark out of an overabundance of caution.
As I watch, Dr. Tam leads him down the path of memory, and Mason describes the day to day of his job. The horrific things he witnessed, even participated in, in order to establish his cover. I understand the work and what it entails, so I’m not shocked. But I also know that too much living in the underworld can taint a man’s blood, and I don’t want Mason to go back. Not after this.
I look at Quince, wanting to ask him if he thinks Ryan would recruit Mason into the SSA. But I stop myself from asking. Right now, we just need to get through today.
Finally, Dr. Tam leads Mason up to his last communication. He’d discovered something truly horrific in the works, and he’d signaled that he’d be sending more details. But the details never came. Instead, Jack Sawyer woke up in Victorville.
“Let’s start with the truck and work backwards. You remember being thrown out of the truck?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember being put in the truck?”
“No.”
The electronic lines on the monitors behind Mason begin to spike. I reach for Quince’s hand and hold tight.
“Let’s talk about that. Let your mind go back. Who were you with?”
The lines spike more. Mason goes pale.
“Did they say anything before putting you in the truck?”
His body starts to shake, and I hold my breath.
Another question, then another and another, but no answers, and with every question his reaction becomes erratic, his body more strained, until finally Dr. Tam asks him to recall the face of the cell leader with whom he’d become close.
A wild, gut-wrenching scream rips from Mason’s throat and he stands up, clutching his head, his face screwed up in pain, as wires and IV tubes flail about, until he drops to the floor, curls up in a ball on the tile, and rocks and whimpers and rocks.
His scream, however, continues to echo—or at least I think it does. After a moment, I realize it’s me.
“It’s no use,” Dr. Tam says into the intercom after she’s given him more sedative and helped him back into the chair. “Not right now. I see no signs of permanent damage or regression, but he needs time to recover before we try again.”
“She can’t try again,” I tell Seagrave, who’s joined us in the viewing area. “You’re not going to get anything and it’s going to destroy him.”
“That period of time is key,” Seagrave says, musing. “Right before they dumped him in Victorville. He learned something. Something dangerous and important. We need to know what that is.” He meets my eyes. “And not just because we need to save you. There’s more riding on this than the life of one woman, even a woman I trust and admire. And since the toxin in your blood stream is an agent we haven’t seen before, we have to assume it’s at the heart of a biological weapons attack. We need to know what they’re planning, when, and how.”
I know all that. Of course I know it.
“We have to try again,” Seagrave says flatly. “And we have to keep trying until we get answers. Or we can’t try anymore.”