Page 141 of To Die For

Jackson glanced around as they walked down the street. “Shewas my mentor at CIA. A legendary ops officer in her own right. She’s on my hit list, by the way.”

“What about a Will Chambers?”

“I’ve heard the name but never knew him. He’s in town, too?”

Devine nodded. “They know you’re alive. And they claim they had nothing to do with your being left behind. They were told that you were dead.”

“They were in the loop, count on it.”

“And you know that how?”

She gave him a stern look. “Are you really second-guessing me, Devine?”

“I just had a come-to-Jesus with the FBI. Before that I had a come-to-Jesus with CIA. Before that I had a come-to-Jesus withyou!” He stopped and looked down at her. “You’ve never been wrong? Never had an instinct that turned out to be bad? You’re perfect?”

“I never said that. And you know for a fact I’m not perfect. Remember, the train?”

“So tell me why you think they were in the loop. Spell it out for me. All the players and angles.”

She led him over to the mouth of an alleyway and well out of earshot of anyone. Then Jackson turned and faced him.

“I was inserted into a particular region, in a country that I am not going to name. It is a hellhole of terrorist activity.”

“Middle East?”

“No. It would be difficult to drop someone who looks like me into that area and be able to do anything productive. And the desert is not the only place where terrorists are present.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

“I infiltrated the group and communicated the intel out. Action was taken and our agency goals were achieved. On the night I was supposed to leave, I was abducted. I could hear the men speaking in a language that I’m passable in. I was betrayed, Devine. I was set up by my own people because I knew about the murder I told you about. I could take people down.”

“Davenport said the people responsible for that murder are in prison and CIA was not involved.”

Jackson looked shaken by this and didn’t respond.

“Let’s drill down into that some more. What people in particular do you think were involved in your abduction?”

“The ones I talked to about the murder, including Davenport,” she said.

“How about Anne Cassidy, the woman calling herself Mercedes King, the mayor of Ricketts? The one you stabbed in the throat before she could stab you? Was she involved?”

“Cassidy was a fellow field agent. But she wasn’t involved in my abduction.”

“How do you know she wasn’t? Maybe she was responsible for it all by herself.”

“Why would Cassidy have done that on her own?”

“Why exactly was she trying to kill you? Just over professional differences like you said? I highly doubt that.”

Jackson wouldn’t look at him. She studied the brick wall over his shoulder.

“If we’re going to help each other, Ms. Jackson, the truth would be nice.”

She finally looked at him. “It’s just Pru. Okay, Cassidy was a piggybacker. She let others do the work and she rode them till they died, literally. Only in my case, I wasn’t going to stand for it. I finished my mission and she was trying to take all the credit. I went to her apartment. I put my foot down. She grabbed a knife and tried to take my life. I got the knife and did what I did. Two days later, I was taken.”

“Two days later? Cause and effect? I mean, she had a great motive to take you out. You’d left her for dead after she tried to kill you. Maybe her revenge was years of torture in prison for you rather than a bullet to the head. Was she that kind of person?”

“Yes,” conceded Jackson.

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